Australia's Radical Idea to
Send Sunshine to Asia
Through a Giant Cable
Popular Mechanics,
by
Caroline Delbert
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
2/29/2020 2:21:27 PM
Entrepreneurs in Australia have an ambitious new plan they claim could provide enough electricity to replace 20 percent of the existing grid of Singapore. The idea is to pipe renewable solar energy through an undersea cable from Australia’s largely empty Northern Territory.
If this sounds wild, it’s modeled after existing technology that’s already in use in similar contexts. The high voltage direct current (HVDC) cable, in its extra-long format, is in use in China and in Europe as part of those countries’ existing power grids. Europe’s system carries wind power among other sources, and combining as much capacity as possible into as few low-loss cables
Reply 1 - Posted by:
JL80863 2/29/2020 2:49:35 PM (No. 333046)
At night they can pipe moonbeams and starlight.
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Vesicant 2/29/2020 4:20:57 PM (No. 333092)
Knee jerk reactions aside, HVDC is a well-proven technology that has been around since 1882 and is used in a number of successful projects. The only thing that's moonbeamery here is the solar array. It's ironic that right below this article on the Popular Mechanics page is a link to an article about Crescent Dunes titled "The $1 Billion Solar Plant Is an Expensive Flop."
3 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Corndoggies 2/29/2020 5:25:10 PM (No. 333115)
I read a few years ago that Australia’s electricity rates were sky high due to their reliance on green methods. Not sure they’d have extra to export.
3 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
DVC 2/29/2020 6:32:47 PM (No. 333150)
Seriously stupid idea. Technically feasible but economically a total disaster, only something that central planning political idiots would think makes sense, because they have access to too much OPM.
4 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
TLCary 2/29/2020 6:57:40 PM (No. 333177)
Thomas Edison would love this. He made a film of killing Topsy the elephant with A/C electricity to convince people it was unsafe so he could sell his DC products. All mechanical electrical generators produce A/C, the frequency is proportional to the RPM. Conversion to D/C requires expensive equipment and they have to be losing at least 30% to efficiency losses in conversion, probably much more.
3 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Catherine 2/29/2020 7:09:23 PM (No. 333186)
Okay, this is just hilarious. Can't wait to see it!
2 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
DVC 2/29/2020 7:17:40 PM (No. 333195)
Actually, #6, generators produce DC and alternators produce AC. Mechanically different machines. You are correct for the large scale of central power plants, that they only use AC alternators, because they WANT AC power for long distance transmission.
On problem with transmitting DC is that you need a wire out and a wire back. With AC you need one wire out, and the ground supplies a free "return path".
Twice as much wire needed for DC transmission.
2 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Terry_tr6 2/29/2020 10:13:06 PM (No. 333259)
#8, AC is even more about low loss transmission compared to DC. you can step AC up to really high voltage (and low amperage) for transmission then step back down near the point of use. Edison's DC system required generation plants very local to the user to keep losses reasonable.
2 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 2/29/2020 10:31:13 PM (No. 333263)
Absolutely correct, #9, the ease of increasing or decreasing the voltage of AC with transformers makes it far more practical than with DC for dental power stations.
This is a pipe dream by envirowhackos with an eye on too much of Other People's Money.
1 person likes this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
DVC 2/29/2020 11:48:59 PM (No. 333293)
Central power station, darned phone.
1 person likes this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
jacksin5 3/1/2020 10:39:42 AM (No. 333577)
So who is right, Environmentalists or Nicola Tesla?
0 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 3/1/2020 4:03:18 PM (No. 333785)
Horrible choice, #12.
Tesla had a lot of interesting ideas, but his biggest dream "transmitting power through the air without wires" was completely bogus for a number of really fundamental reasons, which I won't go into. The ruling equations, called the Maxwell Equations, were published in the 1860s, just ten years before Tesla began studying physics. He HAD to be aware of these equations, but somehow he discounted them, apparently imaging that he could "find a way around them".
These four partial differential equations describe the laws of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, and electric circuits. They were a MAJOR technical breakthrough.
The Maxwell equations clearly prove that wireless transmission of electricity for power purposes, which was Tesla's last big dream, and endless money and time sink, was hopeless impractical from the start. Yes, low power, short distances, it works. Increase the distance to anything useful and it is shockingly inefficient and has absolutely unacceptable side effects.
So, IMO, even though Tesla had good ideas, his "biggest" was totally impractical from the beginning and a brief look at the controlling equations would show that to any good engineer, mathematician or physicist. Why Tesla persisted, I have no idea, but it beclowned him, as far as I am concerned. A sad, failed end for an otherwise bright career.
And this explains the oft asked, typically on various cable channel TV shows about Tesla, why nobody ever bothered to pick up his research and carry it on. It's obviously hopelessly impractical.
0 people like this.
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