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Singapore OKs 4,300km subsea cable for importing electricity from Australia
- nusl 2y agoThat's a monster of a cable. Wow
- justinclift 2y agoImagine the size of the (underwater?) rat that nature will need to evolve to chew on that. ;)
- cheaprentalyeti 2y agoThe matter of the Giant Rat of Sumatra is something for which the world is not yet prepared.
- cubefox 2y agoNature already evolved this type of rat! > Were you aware of the fact that sharks chew through undersea cables that are an integral part of the internet's physical infrastructure? Scientists are unsure why they do it, though they suspect that the electromagnetic fields emitted by high-volume fibre-optic cables may make them look like live prey. https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/can-sharks-eat-the-internet/ https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/can-sharks-eat-the-internet/
- LM358 2y agoElectromagnetic fields? Emitted by fibre-optic cables?
- justinclift 2y agoCool. Learn something new every day eh? :)
- 55555 2y agoIs this good for the shark?
- cubefox 2y agoOf course.
- worstspotgain 2y ago[flagged]
- smcleod 2y agoMeanwhile in Australia we suffer frequent brown outs year round and rolling outages in the summer because the majority of the power generated and made available to people is from coal and other unclean sources. https://www.iea.org/countries/australia/energy-mix https://www.iea.org/countries/australia/energy-mix
- justinclift 2y agoWhich part of Australia are you actually in where that's happening? Doesn't seem like a thing in at least the capital cities.
- smcleod 2y agoIt's been a problem here in Melbourne for at least the last 8-10~ years.
- justinclift 2y agoThat's weird. When I was living in Melbourne (inner western and eastern suburbs) from roughly 2019 through to 2022 it wasn't.
- viraptor 2y agoThe large issues (not the local failure) are listed at https://www.aemo.com.au/market-notices?marketNoticeQuery=&fromdate=&todate=&marketNoticeFacets=POWER+SYSTEM+EVENTS%2cLOAD+SHED&MarketNoticeList=2 https://www.aemo.com.au/market-notices?marketNoticeQuery=&fr... It's very rare to see the load shedding applied/recommended. Are you sure it's not just the local part of the grid being crap?
- davidbanham 2y agoIn Sydney there’s so much rooftop solar generation that feed-in tariffs for grid connections frequently go negative. Ie: you have to pay the grid to have it take your excess power. From memory South Australia has had multiple occasions of being 100% powered by renewables with all their fossil generators shut down. Yeah we definitely have work to do in completing the shift away from coal. The natural gas export contract situation is a shambles which makes it difficult to use for the transition as planned. It’s certainly not doom and gloom, though, and apart from lines getting aced by trees falling during storms, the wall holes are always full of electrons at my place.
- kashunstva 2y agoOddly, considering the massive scale of this project, there’s no mention of projected costs in TFA.
- Tade0 2y agoA kilometre of undersea HVDC line costs $4mln, or less than half the price of the same length of highway in the EU on average. It's expensive, but an economy such as Singapore has the means to pull it off.
- dreamcompiler 2y agoHere's another article that says it's US$24 billion. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/s-pore-gives-conditional-nod-to-import-solar-power-from-australia-via-4200km-of-subsea-cables https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/s-pore-gives-conditio...
- pjc50 2y agoI do wonder what the politics is that makes this a better deal than, say, Malaysia or Indonesia. Singapore itself is quite close to the equator, and Indonesia spans it.
- unmole 2y agoMalaysia has a history of signing agreements with Singapore and then stalling or trying renegotiate the terms after the fact.
- notauser 2y agoAny dispute which has a Wikipedia page (like the Malaysia/Singapore water dispute) is: - Too complicated to assign blame to one party - Futile to rehash in HN comments
- margalabargala 2y agoIt's futile to try to objectively analyze the dispute, sure, but it's both doable and reasonable to describe how one side feels when discussing their motivations.
- krisoft 2y agoIt doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong (or even if anyone is right or wrong). What matters is that that experience disincentivises Singapore from signing contracts with Malaysia if they don't have to.
- kristianp 2y agoI'm no expert on the project, but I think the argument for Australia is the large tracts of land available for solar panels.
- gandalfian 2y agoPerhaps Australia has less clouds?
- 2y ago
- PetitPrince 2y agoI realize I have next to no understanding on how long distance energy transport works. How does one transport energy over such a long distance ? Wouldn't there be massive loss in form of heat due to the fact that cables are not perfect conductor ? I kinda understand that normal cables goes around this by having high-voltage (and needing a transformer to step down the volage for home usage - much safer!), but I assume this is only good for 100s of km. Does that scale up to thousands of km ? Or do they assume that Australia is so energy rich that it doesn't matter if there are big losses ? Can we do the same in Europe and put massive solar panels in the desert of North Africa and import the energy northwards ? (I realize this is a super naive approach, and the main problem is energy storage rather than generation)
- porridgeraisin 2y ago[flagged]
- tux2bsd 2y ago[dead]
- throwup238 2y ago> Can we do the same in Europe and put massive solar panels in the desert of North Africa and import the energy northwards ? Yes, they’re actively working on it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medgrid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medgrid
- bell-cot 2y agoGiven how many undersea gas pipelines, fiber-optic cables, etc. have been damaged in recent years, this seems too risky. Even if Singapore had a huge navy (it doesn't) keeping all the "accidental" anchor-draggers and sabotage submarines away from 4,300km of cable would be an impossible task.
- Temporary_31337 2y agoSingle point of failure
- ooterness 2y agoNot really. Article indicates this cable will provide about 9% of their total demand.
- korantu 2y agoAt $4M per km, a 4,300 km HVDC cable would cost a staggering $17.2 billion to import 1.75 GW of energy. Interestingly, building a Shin-Kori equivalent nuclear plant [1],[2] on a nearby island [3] would be significantly cheaper. If they can afford such a cable, it raises the question of whether it's even the best solution in the first place. [4] [1] Aerial view of the plant: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kori+Nuclear+Power+Plant/@35.3215847,129.2913255,930m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x356880d77ae3bc29:0x1131ba41efec1672!8m2!3d35.3211251!4d129.290671!16s%2Fm%2F02v_18h?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kori+Nuclear+Power+Plant/@... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kori_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kori_Nuclear_Power_Plant [3] Possible location, suitable by size: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lazarus+Island/@1.2057214,103.716372,931m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x31da1ee8b3f07ab9:0x734f010b626b98ce!8m2!3d1.2229878!4d103.8542344!16s%2Fg%2F11cl_599h5?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lazarus+Island/@1.2057214,... [4] Singapore is not denying such possibility https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/nuclear-energy-fusion-fission-experts-deployment-timeline-tan-see-leng-parliament-4239546 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/nuclear-energy-fus...
- JimDabell 2y agoLazarus would be a horrible place for that kind of thing. It would destroy a nice, relatively untouched spot of nature that’s got a lot of biodiversity. Singapore does use islands for this kind of thing, but this would be better placed on Jurong Island (which is already entirely industrial) or perhaps Pulau Tekong (which is currently for military use only). Alternatively, land reclamation is not unknown to Singapore, and there’s already big land reclamation plans underway in the coming years.
- pyrale 2y agoNot sure how this project makes sense economically. Does Singapore have poor relation with all the countries closer to them?
- fakedang 2y agoPretty much. Guess it would have been as viable getting electricity from Thailand (one nearby country that could supply it electricity) as it is getting cheaper electricity from Australia + laying the cable.
- burkaman 2y agoI think they are anticipating importing extremely cheap solar power from Australia.
- bell-cot 2y agoYep. Zero of those "closer" neighbors have umpteen thousand square miles of nearly-uninhabited desert handy, to easily build solar at scale. Plus - if it worked well enough, Singapore might do a major expansion. And sell start selling solar power to their closer neighbors.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoIm not sure the project makes economic sense even if the power were free. Typical wholesale contract prices for solar production in the US are on the order of $0.04-0.05/kwh. If this $17B cable delivers the full 1.75 gigawatts for 12 hours a day for 20 years, the transmission cost alone is $0.055/kwh. This doesnt even take into account the time value of money, which would radically increase the cost. The line would have to charge $0.30/kwh for transmission to break even with a 5% interest rate. [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1.75+GW%2F2*20+years%2F+%2817Bn+USD+*%281.05%5E20%29+%29+in+USD%2FkWh https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1.75+GW%2F2*20+years%2F...
- infecto 2y agoSeems complicated, land neighbor would be only Malaysia right? By water, Indonesia? Vietnam is close but already under heavy growth, not sure they have any reasonable landmass or supply of electricity. Not as familiar with Thailand but would be surprised. All of those above players could be wild cards. Australia is massive and I am making this up but like 95% of it is empty. Perhaps solar could be so incredible cheap that the transmission cost is bearable.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- gacklecackle 2y ago[dead]
- sschueller 2y agoWith all these ships illegally dragging their anchors and damaging under sea communications, I wonder what would happen if they drag over this.
- GianFabien 2y agoIt could be an enlightening experience for the crew! From Singapore's perspective it will be just like some truck veering off the road and taking out a power pole and the lines with it.
- jfoster 2y agoWhich route would such a cable take to Australia? The shortest routes between Singapore & Australia seem to go through Indonesia's territorial waters, but there seems to be about 2000 - 3000 km extra involved in order to avoid that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters_of_Indonesia#/media/File:ID_TW_EEZ.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters_of_Indonesi...
- autoexecbat 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link#/media/File:Australia-Asia_Power_Link_map.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-Asia_Power_Link#/med...
- ridgitdigit 2y agoThat is giving a lot of geopolitical leverage to Australia. Singapore will soon become hostage to the aussies every whim.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoOr to the countries who go and cut these cables with their submarines
- kkfx 2y agoA very big attack surface for a simple sub-marine op...