abc.net.au/news/sun-cable-demise-shows-green-mega-projects-really-hard/101873700The collapse of plans by two of Australia's richest people to export solar power from the country's sun-drenched north to Singapore highlights the extreme difficulty of developing mega renewable energy projects, according to experts.
Under the company's existing plans, Sun Cable wants to build a giant 20-gigawatt solar farm in the Northern Territory before sending the power to Singapore via a 4,200km subsea cable through Indonesian waters.The farm, which would be backed by the world's biggest network of batteries and cover an area equivalent to 12,000 rugby pitches, would supply up to 15 per cent of Singapore's power needs.
"The trouble with the cable manufacturer is he can see he's got heaps of orders coming up from all over the place.The Australia-Asia Power Link would involve laying more than 4,000km of subsea cable. Mr Leitch said projects such as Sun Cable almost invariably had to overcome a "tyranny of distance" as many of the world's sunniest and windiest places were far from major population centres.
For his part, Mr Cannon-Brookes is believed to be sticking by the plan for a subsea interconnector and has indirectly taken aim at Mr Forrest's unwillingness to do likewise.In the wake of Sun Cable's demise, Mr Cannon-Brookes hit out at Mr Forrest, effectively accusing him of being the only shareholder who refused to take part in a $60 million fund raising required to keep the company afloat.
It was a silly project in first place. People with too much money got hooked by the hype of some clever snake oil merchant. Now reality has caught up.
Maybe we could just plant some trees while we wait for 'green technology' to catch up?
We could convert all the oil supertankers into super batteries. They could pull into Darwin Harbour, charge up and sail off to whatever country orders them where they would plug-in to their grid then return under battery power for another recharge. Solves the cable problem.
12000 hectares lot of food producing land going to be covered over and an area that size wil be abondoned as it will be too expensive to remove and replace . The world has already many abandoned sites left for the next generation to sort out .
It’s an absolute false economy borne form the back of scaremongering simply for those rich elite to make even more money. It’s got sfa to do with the environment. It’s all about $$ and perpetuated by minions like alp and green flogs to appease their city centric voters.
Modernizing outdated and inefficient energy infrastructure is fine, but not with expensive inefficient energy sources, which are little more than feelgood projects, same as the whole recycling industry.
Yeah, no shit.
The project was expected to cost $35 Billion to supply 25% of Singapore's power. Their installed power generation capacity is about 12,000MW. So $35 Billion to replace/compliment about 3,000MW of generation capacity in Singapore. Is that right dylanjmcconnell? Thks.
How many Nuke Stations could you have built for the price of this lemon?
Build HELE coal and gas fired power stations and start the transition to nuclear now! That's if you want high capacity 24/7 base load energy for homes, industry, commerce, farming, hospital, schools, infrastructure i.e. sought of important things. energycrisis energy
On the day with Perfect conditions, for limited time, we can produce 80% of power needs for a small part of Australia. This is the reality. If you Want to save the planet, we Need Nuclear Today. 100% wind & solar is fiction. 100% power from Solar, Wind & Nuclear is Reality.
When reality smacks you in the face.
Australian taxpayers wasting $14 million on this harebrained vanity project is not newsworthy. Apparently.
Yes, unfortunately the price of smoke and mirrors is still to high at this stage.
Sun Cable’s demise suggests large scale solar projects cannot succeed without massive and continuous governments’ subsidies in spite of ABC saying for many years that solar is the cheapest form of energy.
Here is what the experts in Singapore say. Likely to be too expensive and impractical. Singapore was much more likely to partner with one of its South East Asian neighbours such as Thailand or Indonesia.
The inability to efficiently recycle ‘green’ technology such as solar panels must be resolved.
Just another rich men's folly. A comment(criticism call it what you like) why always these stupid comparisons umpty seven Sydney Harbours or in this case '12,000 rugby fields' it may surprise the writer to know that we can understand hectares square kilometres etc.
According to our ultra green Energy Minister….renewables are CHEAP! Two of the richest men in Australia couldn’t stop it from collapsing! 😂😂😂😂