The huge solar array in Oz with the "power cord" to Singapore was at least something that could have been done,
Highly unlikely. Look at the predicament in Europe over gas supplies.
I did say it wasn't an impractical idea---the technology exists to do it, at least as far as the Solar generation & storage are concerned, & Dave pretty much showed the cable could work.
We are unlikely to stupidly decide to attack a neighbour & then get boycotted like dear old Mother Russia, so the situations are very different.
if the very long underwater cable route didn't turn out to be impractical.
If they forgot Singapore & ran the cable down to the Eastern States who are always whingeing about running out of power, after being so dumb as to export all their LNG, it could have worked.
Queensland is a net exporter pretty much most of the time. They have the youngest fleet of coal fired power stations. Wait and see unless there is some major technological breakthrough in the ability to store energy in a readily usable form and things stay the same politicialy and soocially as they do now, they will be operating for decades to come. Australia is not going to go down the nuclear path despite operating a nuclear reactor in the country for 60+ years.
Yeah, about the same length of time that Fusion has been "just around the corner".
It has always been the cheaper option to export uranium, burn coal & gas for generation of power, & import petrol & diesel fuel from overseas for road vehicles, with the latter also used also for some power generation, farm machines, & trains, etc.
All whilst waiting for someone to perfect Fusion.
You need to be aware of "greenwashing" people. You know I mentioned the villians that cloak themselves in the good deeds of others. Look at all the solar panels on the roof of premises. All these people who claim they are "caring for the environment" were not rushing out to install these when there was zero money in it.
I have never encountered anyone who says they were "doing it for the environment".
They said it was to save on power bills.
They needed to be subsidised by the taxpayer. Then also subsidised as they never paid for the network upgrades that the grid owners had to fork out as now there are all these micro generators everywhere in random places causing headaches.
The people who could afford to do this were all taxpayers as well.
There are a lot of things which are subsidised---you can "cherry pick" to your heart's content, but other taxpayers may well have different priorities to you.
In most States where the Private sector are the "grid owners", they have had a "pretty good run", & have hardly performed any upgrades at all.
I was reading some time back in WA (that is Western Australia (not Austria) for overseas people) the electricity providers are building these generating facilities on rural outback stations, so they do not have to maintain the SWER lines. A big heap of panels and storage and back up diesel generator and a $150 000 cost + maintenance. Not cheap to provide mains quality electricity to a couple of houses.
Most "outback stations" in WA provide their own power, as they have for many decades.
In the past, they used diesels.
They don't require a very large installation as their power requirements are about the same as a very small town.
Stations
do use power for other things beside domestic use.
You may be thinking of remote towns, where the power was, again for decades, supplied by local diesels, usually run by the local Council.
Western Power may well have taken over responsibility for these communities.
Once you get up North, or to some of the remote places in the Eastern part of the State, it isn't so much a matter of "maintaining SWER lines" as having to build them, as they aren't there now!
Alternative methods of power supply become very much the cheaper option.
Even the "Roadhouses" on the side of the Great Northern Highway & the NorthWest Coastal Highway supply their own power, unless they are very close to, or actually
in a town.
These used to be Diesel generators but for a decade or more, they have been Solar with Diesel backup for nighttime, or for the rare failure of the Solar system.
Such installations are either owned by the operators, or by the fuel company itself.
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"Law, & Mental Health" are hardly "soft options".
I consider them emotional based things. I think you know what I am getting at. It may not be 100% true all the time, but I think you understand the vibe of what I said.
They seem to be ignorant of the other billions of people in the world who are in real poverty, not the Australian definition of poverty which is when you can not afford a new iphone and a 72" TV in the same year (yes I know it is slightly exaggerated but I am sure you get the vibe again)
No iphones for me, I hate the bloody things----not fond of any "smart phones" for that matter!
The people in real poverty are more worried about their next meal then emissions. And fossil fuels are low technology things to extract usable energy from. Just add a low technology activation energy and the energy starts coming out. There is not even enough mined copper in the world for everyone to have the same amount of copper usage that the average westerner has. Yes aluminium is abundant but has issues, and requires lots of energy to go from bauxite to the metal.
Fossil fuels aren't "low tech" to extract from the ground though---all the "low hanging fruit" has long gone, then if it is oil, it requires "high tech" refining even to get it to the level of kerosene, which is what we used for lighting when I was a kid.
Really impoverished people in some countries are lucky if they can find some dried camel dung for a fire!
If Australia was really smart then they would be gearing towards huge amounts of research towards storage technologies with all government's doing their part. But talking to some representatives of a new wind farm development, you can see that will never happen. They said 100% of all items for their massive wind farm are made in China. Australian's big contribution is getting big rocks and turning them into small rocks and mix concrete like the Romans did thousands of years ago.
The Romans are purported to have made superior concrete to that which we make today---they also crucified people, though.
Oh well,------ I guess you "have to take the rough with the smooth"!
. Oh and get a spanner and put it on a nut and tighten it. You know the super high technology stuff.
Like solar panels, not a single manufacturer in Australia when there used to be one in Sydney decades ago. (and before anyone mentions Tindall solar they assemble panels from imported components) AFAIK and I am probably wrong and someone will correct me, but anyway there is one small semiconductor component manufacturer in Sydney that makes their in house semiconductors.
Go the smart country that built the fifth stored programmable computer in the world and the seventh country in the world to launch their own satellite. How far we have come.
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