[vlasky]

I'm Aussie and I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government.

The longest submarine power cable in the world - the Viking Link - is a mere 756 km long and cost US$2.2bn to build. Sun Cable calls for a 4,200km submarine cable to be built!

I do not expect the construction cost to scale linearly and I shudder to imagine the maintenance difficulties and expenses.

Back in December 2015, Australia's 290km long undersea Basslink cable broke causing the 2016 Tasmanian energy crisis. It took 6 months to get it working again. Basslink eventually went into receivership on 12 November 2021.

Something to ponder.

[gonzo41]

Tasmanian energy crisis was because of a drought, not because the cable was cut. Tassie exports energy and the power company had lowered the dam levels selling power to Victoria that year expecting regular winter rain. That rain didn't happen. That, then combined with the line fault caused the issue. In fact, the suspected cause of the line issue was that the power company Tassie Hydro zapped the export line with too much current trying to make money from Victoria. That combined with the lowering of dams, perfect storm of greed and bad luck.

In addition, the boats that service these cables are mostly in the northern hemisphere, where most of the undersea cables exist. So there was a ~5 month wait on the repair. I'd expect a 4000Km cable to have it's own fleet of boats for servicing.

[jbsimpson]

When Tassie dams get low, they import power from the mainland. It’s a common seasonal thing. Drought + Basslink outage had the gov buying and running diesel gen at huge cost to keep the grid running. The Basslink outage made a problem a crisis.

[cjbgkagh]

Why would it be superlinear instead of sublinear?

I can understand that the combined probability of breakage along the line could be a maintenance problem but the construction cost should have many amortizable components that deliver some sort of economics of scale.

I haven’t done the math so I have no idea on actual viability or if it’s a good idea or not.

[rmbeard]

It's a bad idea.

[qbxk]

They just began running a team of barges down Lake Champlain to lay 546km of cable from Quebec to NYC for $4.5B

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

[fidotron]

That is nothing. Try Chile to China:

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/11/15/chile-wants-to-export...

[jfoster]

How could that even work? In some areas, surely the Pacific Ocean is deeper than any humans or deep ocean vehicles have ever been to? So would the cable be hanging across undersea chasms, or do they need to find a depth where it can be placed?

Also, is it just so heavy that it doesn't need to be secured?

[hn_throwaway_99]

A great example of bullshit megaprojects that governments announce with no real intention of ever implementing. I searched and tried to find something recent about this project. Pretty much everything I found was around the announcement in Nov 2021 - the latest article I found was this one from Jan 2022, https://dialogue.earth/en/energy/50155-chile-underwater-cabl... , which states the project "does not yet have feasibility studies or a form of financing".

I also would like a magic pony.

[Retric]

You misunderstand the costs involved. The cable is cheap per km, the cost is largely HVDC equipment at either end.

This is why they aren’t breaking things up into several shorter hops to various islands on the way.

[viewtransform]

DW did a good summary of the Sun Cable Australia-Singapore project https://youtu.be/42b6xJFUSss?t=206

20GW solar farm, 42GWh battery, 3 cables totalling 12,900km of HVDC cable, $23 billion cost.

[aryehof]

> … I can't believe this Sun Cable project is being taken seriously by our government.

It passed government environmental requirements, a milestone for the (private sector) project’s promoters. Articles should be read a touch more carefully and cynically before jumping to outrage surely?

[boringg]

Its a great sound byte for the politicains. Politicians aren't known for the economic and business acumen. Sound bytes and promise of jobs get them elected.

Don't know the details of this project but if the cable is subsidized by the government it doesn't matter if it scales super or sublinearly, taxpayers are on the hook.

[7952]

These kind of projects are getting proposed because the business case is painfully simple. Buy electricity cheap and sell it high. Its arbitrage. The price difference needs to be just enough to pay for the debt that funded construction.

[threeseed]

None of this really applies to Australia.

a) Politicians are typically more educated than say in the US.

b) They rely heavily on the public service who are experienced to do the heavy lifting.

c) The jobs aren't in the areas that matter for Federal elections.

[kinj28]

Curious if like internet cable - can there be redundancy built?

Also the way data packets go - they can go literally from any of the lines and get assembled together somewhere in the network layer. But same doesn’t hold true for 3 phase power. So same that works for internet wouldn’t be applicable for power distribution.

[EnigmaFlare]

The DC Cook Straight cable in New Zealand has 3 cables with one spare and one redundant. It can use the earth as a return path though, not sure if you could do that all the way to Singapore. DC doesn't have phases so it's not 3-phase, same with the Sun Cable.

[energy123]

It's not up to the government to determine cost feasibility of a private project.

[anitil]

Perhaps it's similar to the high speed rail projects that get announced and quietly shelved every election season?

[mikrotikker]

Are you a fan of the show Utopia?