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.

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.

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.

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.

>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

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.

>No, it is the coal they burn in Australia

Yeah ok that too then :)

It's all correct in theory. Yet we're approving new coal mines and expansions to existing ones. It doesn't make sense, but it happens.

As long as a politician brings a lump of coal to the Parliament with a straight face to argue we should not be afraid of it, it definitely will be a concern. The decisions being made are just not rational.

Don’t let stupid get in the way of progress. Keep pushing forward regardless of decisions that are going to leave trillions of dollars in assets stranded (oil and gas extraction and generation).

Lots of wind and solar potential left to capture.

That's great!

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.

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.

Thanks for explaining, learned something new.

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

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

>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?

I'd rather not the take political risks that come with that. Most of Europe and the countries Sahara is part of don't exactly have shared values.

>Most of Europe and the countries Sahara is part of don't exactly have shared values.

They have at least one, it's called money. If you work with someone on a win-win situation the political risk goes usually down, you know the whole less poverty, more education.

Wouldn't a HVDC cable be much more efficient? The distance isn't that big, definitely shorter than Australia to Singapore.

Maybe, but storing hydrogen is much easier so you can produce the power for night-life Europe, over the day Europe can produce its own solar/wind/water/thermal generated power.