Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity for first time

Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by nelox on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:36AM (#28274058)

Sun Cable is trying

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by robbiep on Monday August 23, 2021 @08:45AM (#28274910)

A good mate of mine runs 5B, the company that may end up deploying all the panels if it goes ahead. He’s a legend and if it happens throughly deserves the success. Would totally change australia!

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by philipri on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:52AM (#28274145)

Hydrogen is a possibility. Some serious investigation are underway.

https://www.aemc.gov.au/hydrogen-new-australian-manufacturin...

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by SideburnsOfDoom on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:31AM (#28274040)

Just a thought, what if Australia had ways to use excess power and export the result. e.g. refining ores and exporting metals instead of exporting ores. You don't need to literally "export electricity" in order to leverage a surplus of energy, for export.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by marcus_holmes on Monday August 23, 2021 @08:02AM (#28274563)

I've had this discussion around why we export iron ore and coal rather than steel. Which seems ridiculous to me. Why are we building huge port facilities for vast shipments of coal and iron ore, and not smelters with much smaller port facilities for shipping steel?

The answer I got was that smelters are hugely expensive and last longer than the mines, and so it makes sense to build the smelter near the factories, and ship the raw materials to the smelter from wherever they are being mined currently, rather than building the smelter near the mines and then having to ship raw materials there anyway once the mines run out. I've always thought this was a bit dubious (why is commercially viable to build smelters in Korea but not Aus?), but it does kinda make sense.

So the problem isn't "not enough excess power" but "insufficient infrastructure" coupled with "insufficient government willpower to build a decent manufacturing base here".

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by chii on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:48AM (#28274113)

export aluminium - often called solidified electricity.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by ginko on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:53AM (#28274149)

Seems obvious considering Australia is the world's largest producer of bauxite.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by jeeeb on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:19AM (#28274276)

Yup. Australia is one of the world’s largest Aluminium exporters currently, although I doubt that has much to do with using excess solar energy.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by ginko on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:23AM (#28274295)

They aren't though. They're only number 6, despite producing the most bauxite by far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_primary_a...

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by jeeeb on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:39AM (#28274392)

Australia is the 6th largest producer and 5th largest exporter of aluminium. To me that fits well within the statement “one of the world’s largest”

Of course Australia also sells a lot of bauxite to China.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by htneak on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:50AM (#28274132)

crypto-mining comes to mind

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by SideburnsOfDoom on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:01AM (#28274184)

True. In the same way that car-crashes and other pointless disasters come to mind.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by hutzlibu on Monday August 23, 2021 @06:54AM (#28274159)

It would be a good start, if australia would not burn so much coal anymore. Apart from that ... build energy intensive industry, anything with metal. And then if you still have a surpluss (very possible) export hydrogen or biofuel. Or build high voltage direct current power lines to asia.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by belorn on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:59AM (#28274546)

Australia biggest export is iron ore, followed by coal.

If you have a lot of energy and iron, a great way to combine the two is steel. Sweden is currently experimenting with the idea of green steel, using hydrogen as an replacement for coal.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by jl6 on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:38AM (#28274385)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-09/future-of...

Ultra high voltage DC ultra long distance submarine cables.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by legulere on Monday August 23, 2021 @07:13AM (#28274247)

You could use the electricity to make hydrogen, ammonia or aluminium and export that.

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Re:Solar power in Australia outstrips coal-fired electricity... by throwawaysea on Monday August 23, 2021 @10:21AM (#28276143)

It’s like any other exchange of electricity between grids, which already takes place within larger countries. You just need to run a cable to create an export grid. Offshore wind farms have to run high voltage marine cables to the shore, for example. It is laid using the same techniques as underwater communication cables - with specialized ships.

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