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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

#81

Post by eru »

tdrz wrote: post #31

This sounds good! I don't know much about electricity, can anyone tell me if such an undersea power cable could be technically feasible between Europe and North America? Possibly taking a detour through Iceland which has significant geothermal resources. I understand that it would take much more than just the cable between the two continents to make this work - right now there are issue on the continents themselves t…

If you just want to move energy between day and night, batteries can also do that job.

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

#82

Post by eru »

Djdjur7373bb wrote: post #5

Does it actually make economic sense to run a cable large enough for that kind of power from Australia to Singapore? I would have guessed there must be enough domestic customers or in Indonesia that would make more sense.

> I would have guessed there must be enough domestic customers or in Indonesia that would make more sense.

Australia is a big place. The northern tip of Australia, where this project is based, isn't really that much further from Singapore than from the Australian population centres in the South East of the continent.

Indonesia is much poorer than Singapore, and has awfully inefficient bureaucracy and regulatory environment.

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

#83

Post by eru »

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.

The South East of the country has some decent sized metro areas that aren't too far away from each other.

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

#84

Post by csomar »

topherhunt wrote: post #33
tdrz wrote: post #31

This sounds good! I don't know much about electricity, can anyone tell me if such an undersea power cable could be technically feasible between Europe and North America? Possibly taking a detour through Iceland which has significant geothermal resources. I understand that it would take much more than just the cable between the two continents to make this work - right now there are issue on the continents themselves t…

This is totally unresearched, but my gut says it would be much higher ROI for Europe + North America to independently source solar from their respective nearby deserts, paired with batteries?

> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELMED_interconnector#:~:text....

This is already in the works and secured financing recently. It’s a smaller link but it’s a start. Also Tunisia trade electricity with Libya and Algeria; so technically they could be selling electricity to Europe through that link.

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

#85

Post by eru »

pas wrote: post #75
preisschild wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear power plants, which have been successfully used for decades, are “unrealistic” now?

there has been an unfortunate "phase shift" since 1970 in the nuclear energy industry/ecosystem, mostly because the risk engineering principle/mandate called ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable), and of course reasonable does not mean profitable. (which makes sense, we want safe reactors not just "there was a safety budget, and we spent all of it" >>safe https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flo…

Nuclear is held to a much higher safety standard (eg in terms of deaths per Joule) than any other form of electricity production. And that includes photovoltaic!

Nuclear is so safe--even fully factoring in the accident at Chernobyl--that people very occasionally falling off rooftops when installing solar panels is a bigger health hazard per Joule produced.

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

#86

Post by eru »

gonzo41 wrote: post #19
rv3392 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure about Indonesia, but domestic customers in that region would be pretty limited. The closest major power users would be in Queensland (>1000km) away.

Data Centers, Green Steel production. Power == Opportunities. This is such a massive win for the environment.

For that, you'd need to make massive investments in a part of that world that has mostly untouched nature.

It might or might not be a good idea. But you need to then compare those massive investments to the relatively modest investment of the power cable to bring the electricity to a part of that world that already has all the other infrastructure needed, and also already has lots of water.

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

#87

Post by mschuster91 »

eru wrote: post #78
stavros wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? When will it be cheaper to deploy in space than in some remote area somewhere?

> Why? When will it be cheaper to deploy in space than in some remote area somewhere? When land becomes the limiting factor on earth.

Land will never become the limiting factor on earth, at least not for solar power.

Assuming the worst-case predictions of climate change come true, there will be more than enough desert capacity along the equatorial areas to provide power for the rest.

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

#88

Post by csomar »

m2f2 wrote: post #32

Significant turning tables moment when big bully China aims at being the sole APAC superpower. That might explain why Singapore are interested and why 4200km of cable aren't such a big issue.

Not sure how a 4200km cable is more secure than a few gas tanks. I am actually surprised they’d go with this as it’s impossible to monitor the whole range of the cable.

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

#89

Post by Aachen »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #71
stavros wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? When will it be cheaper to deploy in space than in some remote area somewhere?

I'm pretty sure someone will figure out how to make a working solar sail that captures energy and beams it to earth via microwaves. Please enough of them far away from Earth and you get pretty much unlimited energy all year round.

Inventing the Dyson Sphere one step at a time

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

#90

Post by eru »

roenxi wrote: post #69
christophilus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My very first thought was: that cable gets snipped in wartime. Not a big deal, if your grid can handle the loss, but this certainly can’t be the gameplan for the bulk of your power.

While Singapore is a surprisingly martial country, if they get into a war with anyone in SEA they're running a very real risk of being destroyed. Indonesia alone has 5x their GDP and 20x their population. There isn't much difficulty choosing which city to target first when going up against Singapore either. In Singapore's situation, they can probably invest assuming that they are not in a military conflict with anyon…

> While Singapore is a surprisingly martial country, if they get into a war with anyone in SEA they're running a very real risk of being destroyed. Indonesia alone has 5x their GDP and 20x their population.

Wikipedia gives an estimate of $1.47 trillion for Indonesia's GDP in 2024. The estimate for Singapore is $525.228 billion. The factor seems to be less than 3x. Where do you get 5x from? Are you going by PPP or so?

> In Singapore's situation, they can probably invest assuming that they are not in a military conflict with anyone. If they get into a war with anyone who can cut that cable they will be returning to the stone age anyway. If Indonesia objects to them they will go, if someone with the power to coerce Indonesia objects to them they're in deep trouble.

You can't make those assumptions, if you don't want to be bullied. Singapore doesn't have that cable right now and we ain't in the stone age. That situation ain't no different from having a cable, but it being cut.

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