
Solar farm in Australia could power Singapore via 4,500km undersea cable - femto
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-30/nt-sun-cables-australia-project-awarded-major-project-status/12506516
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morsch
I'm sure it could, but maybe before building a 4500km undersea cable, we could
try and decarbonise the energy grid of Australia itself, currently the number
two per capita emitter of CO2 in the world.

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toomuchtodo
Australia has 150GW of renewables projects in their development pipeline,
versus the 15GW of fossil generation on the continent. You can work on
transmission and generation in parallel.

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viraptor
I agree with the general point, but I'm still anxious about it. The mining
lobby/industry is huge. If extra demand could justify opening a new mine or
prevent closing one, I fully expect that to be abused.

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toomuchtodo
I assure you, it’s not a concern. South Australia has so much rooftop solar
coming online, the grid operator has real concerns they’ll see net zero demand
on the grid for substantial periods of time. Renewables deployment is in full
swing, and still accelerating.

I don’t see coal ever being cost competitive enough to keep digging out of the
ground ever again once we make more headway.

The words “tipping point” are bandied about, but it looks like we’re there.
That doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods, but it does mean it’ll be harder and
harder to justify non renewables continued use. We just need to push the
throttle down on more renewables.

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nix23
>I assure you, it’s not a concern.

Its not the coal you burn in Australia...it's the Coal you export, remember we
live under one Atmosphere:

In 2016, Australia was the biggest net exporter of coal, with 32% of global
exports

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia)

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morsch
No, it _is_ the coal they burn in Australia -- currently >2/3 of electricity
generation --, it's just _also_ the coal other people burn elsewhere.

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nix23
>No, it is the coal they burn in Australia

Yeah ok that too then :)

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badrabbit
Sharks love biting cable with electricity flowing in it. Even with redundancy,
submarine cable cuts cause big outages on the internet, I am sure they know
this but I wonder why they think the risk is not a deal breaker?

You know what would be cool? Robots/Drones that dig trenches in the ocean
floor and bury the cables! But even to lay them down like it is done now, it
is very expensive with only about a dozen or so cable ships in the world I
believe.

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toomuchtodo
It’s not a deal breaker because there are many underwater HVDC cables in
operation across the world that have been reliability operating for years or
decades.

If sharks (or other active water hazards) are a concern, you bury the cable
with water jets below the sea floor.

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badrabbit
Thanks for explaining, learned something new.

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nix23
Solar farm in the Sahara desert could power Europe with a hydrogen pipeline.

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morsch
Or, you know, just build more solar and wind in Europe. Plenty of low hanging
fruits, no need for intercontinental mega projects.

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nix23
>Plenty of low hanging fruits, no need for intercontinental mega projects.

As if that's something bad, maybe Solar in the Sahara, Wind/Water and thermo
in europe?

