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Australian government approves AAPowerLink project to export solar to Singapore

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

#261

Post by lazide »

onethought wrote: post #239
eru wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Don’t bet on that plutonium toxicity thing. For one, most reactors aren’t going to have any plutonium (or any other radioisotope) where anyone can touch it or interact with it in any way.

Concentrated Hydroflouric acid, and even pure fluorine gas however? That can be an easy turn of a tap away at most semiconductor plants. And much worse. And if you know anything about Florine, ‘much worse’ should be pretty chilling.

I’m honestly not sure if radiation poisoning (actually quite hard and rare to die from) is worse than dying from fluorine exposure (I’m sure it’s killed a lot more people than radiation), but fluorine is certainly going to be faster.

Most fire departments are going to be a lot more concerned about a semiconductor plant than a nuclear one.

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

#262

Post by lazide »

lolc wrote: post #246
lazide wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Stuff in space is very vulnerable due to the high cost of shielding. How would an energy weapon in space fare against its hardened counterparts on the ground? How would it defend against clouds of shrapnel?

First you have to get the shrapnel off the ground, and into orbit.

A non trivial problem if whatever is on the ground trying to launch is being heated white hot by a maser, no?

And getting there has non trivial flight time too, plenty of time for it to be melted on its way.

Orbit is the ‘high ground’.

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

#263

Post by jaidan »

I am curious about a couple of things to do with this project. Given the solar panels will cover about 30,000 acres of land [0], and a factory is being built to manufacture the panels (because there are so many), how will decommissioning of the solar farm be done at end of life? How does one process that many panels in an environmentally friendly way? It sounds like another factory will need to be built to process the waste.

I hope that the decommissioning of this kind of solar farm is better managed thant the likes of the Northern Endeavour FPSO, where Woodside offloaded it to a small company to dodge the decommissioning costs of the field, leaving the taxpayer to foot the bill[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link [1] https://www.industry.gov.au/mining-oil-and-gas/oil-and-gas/o...

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

#264

Post by thehappypm »

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…

People have been stringing cables across the ocean for centuries now. What makes this so much harder?

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

#265

Post by ben_w »

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…

China could absolutely do this if they want to, but they may well have better things to do with all the aluminium their rapidly expanding factories are producing.

At this scale it's not even mainly financial, it's opportunity cost and geopolitical considerations, on both the pro- and con- side.

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

#266

Post by thehappypm »

gdiamos wrote: post #257
Tade0 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this length aluminium would have been used instead most likely. With a typical HVDC line not exceeding 1200mm2 conductor cross section it's about 13k tonnes, so 0,025% of global aluminium production.

At $1.127/lb of aluminum that only comes out to a bit less than $30,000 for the raw materials. That's astounding.

I think you forgot to multiply pounds / 2000 = tons

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

#267

Post by eru »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #260
eru wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually, the limiting factor will be how to get rid of the waste heat. Even if you can turn 100% of the energy you received from space into electricity, in the end it'll all turn to heat.

Waste heat from microwave energy? Am I missing something?

I'm talking about waste heat from when you use the electricity.

Almost no matter what machine you are powering, be it a a toaster or a computer or an electric car or a washing machine, eventually turns all of the electric energy into heat.

(You can contrive some counter-examples. Eg if you point a sufficiently strong laser pointer at the sky, some of the energy will escape earth before turning into heat here.)

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

#268

Post by eru »

bigiain wrote: post #199
nsonha wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the country has a big housing affordability issue.

Heh. Australia is _huge_, and we still have that problem.

Yes, in the case of Australia, that's mostly self-inflicted.

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

#269

Post by eru »

onethought wrote: post #239
eru wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

So?

You have to look at the amount of chemicals required to produce 1 Joule (or perhaps to install one 1 Watt of capacity).

For example, 1 kg of coal is much less dangerous than 1 kg of uranium. But you need much, much more than 1kg of coal to replace 1 kg of uranium.

Similar for solar power: you need to normalise the amount (and 'badness') of waste by the amount of energy produced. Semi-conductor manufacturing isn't exactly like organic farming, you know?

The best example is perhaps hydro-power: 1 kg of fresh water is basically the most harmless substance you can think of. But you need enormous amounts of water to produce reasonable amounts of electricity. And in these huge quantities water can become dangerous.

> > 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?

Huh? Fukushima was not a normally operating nuclear power plant. Yes, accidents happen. That's why I'm suggesting to look at the impact of accidents per Joule produced (or per Watt of installed capacity, depending on context).

Nuclear power has had only a handful of accidents and lots and lots of Joule produced.

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

#270

Post by Affric »

Aachen wrote: post #258
Affric wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has the per capita highest rooftop solar capacity on Earth and it's generously subsidised.

Is that why grid power is so expensive then: the couple kWh that someone still draws from the grid needs to pay for the big infrastructure and plants?

Power is expensive for a few reasons.

1. Aging base load generation

2. Housing stock from cheap fuel times facing globalised energy prices.

3. Network assets being corporatised and partially privatised and there having been incentives for these monopolies to invest in unproductive assets for which they are permitted to recover their costs.

4. Costs of competition in the retail sector.

5. Government policy creating uncertainty in investment decisions for renewable assets.

6. The vast majority of consumption is early evening, so not much Sun.

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