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Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

pv-tech.org

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Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#231

Post by lazide »

lolc wrote: post #151
lazide wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space based solar (lens or microwave) is a non starter for one simple reason - it would be an ideal supervillain weapon to anyone who could steer it.

The station couldn't be used as a threat. And its use would be very limited in time. Taking out the rogue orbital power station would be a competition between very trigger happy militaries. Who wouldn't want to demonstrate their satellite killers on a legitimate target?

Anything which could transmit meaningful power to the ground is going to have no issue destroying anything approaching it from below.

And why wouldn’t one of those powers be the ones installing such an installation in the first place?

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#232

Post by lazide »

onethought wrote: post #215
lazide wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First you’re going to need reliable worker safety data and population cancer rate data out of China (which makes almost all panels), which…. Good luck.

Is there a link between Solar production and Cancer? I mean there is a super obvious one with Nuclear.

Silicon Valley is full of cancer causing superfund sites due to improper disposal of chemicals used to produce semiconductors back in the 70’s and 80’s.

Solar panels are semiconductor based (the actual power generating parts are diodes, specifically).

If the chemicals are disposed of properly and workers wear the correct PPE, there are no measurable increases in cancer.

It’s a whole grab bag of chemicals, from TCE, Chromic Acid, Crystalline Silica, etc. etc. 130+ common ones with significant carcinogenic potential.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209379112...]

It’s similar to Nuclear. If proper precautions are followed? No increased risk.

If not, well - I’m unaware of any of the actinides that are good for anyone to be around. For starters.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#233

Post by coryrc »

londons_explore wrote: post #161
coryrc wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The expensive part used to be the voltage conversion stations at the ends, but with mass production of MOSFETs for EV's these have now become far cheaper than the JFET's and other exotic silicon that used to be used. Why do you believe these things are related? HVDC lines operate in the hundreds-of-kilovolts range. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink operates at 400kV. There are no MOSFETs or JFETs…

Semiconductors are stackable to get higher voltage. They're parallelizable for more current. Cost scales linearly with voltage and current, and is therefore constant WRT to system power.

I've never heard of MOSFETs being used in extra-high voltage systems, but I have not been following the industry for a while. Do you have any links? I've only seen IGBTs or older technology used.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#234

Post by mikrotikker »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #188
fidotron wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is nothing. Try Chile to China: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export...

A great example of bullshit megaprojects that governments announce with no real intention of ever implementing. I searched and tried to find something recent about this project. Pretty much everything I found was around the announcement in Nov 2021 - the latest article I found was this one from Jan 2022, https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/50155-chile-underwater-cabl... , which states the project "does not yet have feas…

If they spend $100m on a feasibility study or planning work before getting shit canned for "cost blowouts" someone still got paid.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#235

Post by mikrotikker »

anitil wrote: post #212
vlasky wrote: post #139

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government. The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built! I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses. Back in December 2015,…

Perhaps it's similar to the high speed rail projects that get announced and quietly shelved every election season?

Are you a fan of the show Utopia?

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#236

Post by mikrotikker »

7952 wrote: post #189
boringg wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a great sound byte for the politicains. Politicians aren't known for the economic and business acumen. Sound bytes and promise of jobs get them elected. Don't know the details of this project but if the cable is subsidized by the government it doesn't matter if it scales super or sublinearly, taxpayers are on the hook.

These kind of projects are getting proposed because the business case is painfully simple. Buy electricity cheap and sell it high. Its arbitrage. The price difference needs to be just enough to pay for the debt that funded construction.

Just wait for one of Aussies famous dust storms to blow thru and scratch all the PV to shit....

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#237

Post by TimJRobinson »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #54
chii wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proposing unrealistic nuclear solutions to seriously focus on renewables. they're doing unrealistic nuclear proposals, because they know it takes a long time to ramp up, and in the mean time, their buddies' investments in the coal industry gets time to exit and profit properly. It's designed to prevent losses in fossil fuel investments. Not to mention that australian nuclear cannot be profitable imho - not when sol…

Last time I visited this it felt to me that Australia's metro's are small and spread far apart so that a typical sized nuke plant is overkill.

50% of Australia lives in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Having a nuclear power plant for each would make sense. Melbourne would make the most sense first as it gets a lot less sun than the others.

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#238

Post by mikrotikker »

femto wrote: post #226
threeseed wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this really applies to Australia. a) Politicians are typically more educated than say in the US. b) They rely heavily on the public service who are experienced to do the heavy lifting. c) The jobs aren't in the areas that matter for Federal elections.

> a) Politicians are typically more educated than say in the US. As exhibit 'A' for the counterargument, I offer Kate Worden: NT's Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water Security. Did you see her interview in Monday's "Water Grab" report by 4 Corners [1]? One example of her logic: Farmers are planting circular fields, which is what you do for a central pivot water irrigation system, and Woden is saying wi…

I think you may have missed the qualifier "typically"

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#239

Post by onethought »

eru wrote: post #222
onethought wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a link between Solar production and Cancer? I mean there is a super obvious one with Nuclear.

What is that 'super obvious' link of cancer with nuclear power? There's lots of dangerous chemicals involved in both the production of solar panels (and semiconductor technology in general) and also in the production of nuclear fuel. And those have to be handled carefully and responsibly, to avoid causing problems like cancer. Note: I'm deliberately not talking about radiation, because it's basically not a factor. Yo…

Radiation destroys DNA and directly causes cancer. That's the super obvious link. Your deliberate avoidance doesn't change that fact.

Because of this are a bunch of safety protocols in the extraction, transportation, storage and use of radio active materials and their waste products.

100% sure that all of the chemicals involved in Solar manufacture are less toxic to the human body than handling Plutonium. So, we can probably design enough protocols to make it safe to manufacture given we did it for far more toxic materials.

> You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.

So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?

Re: Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

#240

Post by onethought »

roenxi wrote: post #225
onethought wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not fair to point out very real impacts of Nuclear failures. But it's fair to compare to hypothetical-yet-to-occur "Mass Solar failures". Solar relies on Light, just like life does. So you are kind of referring to mass extinction events. no?

People can point it out, no worries. Disasters happen. But it isn't fair to claim that the risks of a nuclear disaster are worse than solar one. We haven't seen what a big solar disaster looks like yet because it has been a serious contender for ~5-10 years and it takes a few decades to figure out what a disaster looks like for any given form of power generation. For solar it could easily be quite bad and impossible…

But there was only evidence of a reduction in temperature in your link. Which would actually increase the effectiveness of Solar.

The idea of a global darkness for a significant period of time, would be extinction level.

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