4 ms·

Wouldn't you be killed in this distribution part of the solar power for the world story? What form would you be shipping the energy in?

namibj 6y ago
Submarine HVDC should work.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
I always liked Buckminster Fuller's idea of superconducting cables distributing electricity around the world. waves hands distribution is a different problem. Someone else will solve that. I've seen more expensive plans started with bigger holes ;)
shoo 6y ago
> What form would you be shipping the energy in? One option is hydrogen. There's some amount of government & think-tank produced research arguing for australia to pursue a "hydrogen economy". E.g. https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-11/australias-national-hydrogen-strategy.pdf https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-11/aust... From skimming through the report, there are also applications to use directly use hydrogen as an input to produce ammonia, and also an argument that existing means of shipping ammonia could be used to ship hydrogen, conditional on research that can extract hydrogen out of ammonia with low energy input. I don't have a handle on what kind of policies would be needed to encourage private investment in hydrogen vs coal, gas, oil (assuming it is even a good idea). There's a graph of estimated prices of hydrogen vs alternatives in various uses in the report (search for "breakeven"). It does not look price competitive in many applications, but I assume the comparison does not include price adjustment that account for the externalised environmental costs of one energy source versus another. Regardless of hydrogen or solar or batteries or whatever, a carbon tax with a price set to help internalise the externalised costs of greenhouse gas emissions would be a great way to push activity in a better direction, regardless of if that is hydrogen or anything else that strikes a good combination of efficiency & low greenhouse gas impact. Perhaps the carbon tax could be rolled out nationally with tariffs put in place to penalise the import of goods & services produced in other countries that did not yet have an comparable carbon tax installed.

namibj 6y ago

Submarine HVDC should work.

marcus_holmes 6y ago

I always liked Buckminster Fuller's idea of superconducting cables distributing electricity around the world. waves hands distribution is a different problem. Someone else will solve that. I've seen more expensive plans started with bigger holes ;)

shoo 6y ago

> What form would you be shipping the energy in? One option is hydrogen. There's some amount of government & think-tank produced research arguing for australia to pursue a "hydrogen economy". E.g. https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-11/australias-national-hydrogen-strategy.pdf https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-11/aust... From skimming through the report, there are also applications to use directly use hydrogen as an input to produce ammonia, and also an argument that existing means of shipping ammonia could be used to ship hydrogen, conditional on research that can extract hydrogen out of ammonia with low energy input. I don't have a handle on what kind of policies would be needed to encourage private investment in hydrogen vs coal, gas, oil (assuming it is even a good idea). There's a graph of estimated prices of hydrogen vs alternatives in various uses in the report (search for "breakeven"). It does not look price competitive in many applications, but I assume the comparison does not include price adjustment that account for the externalised environmental costs of one energy source versus another. Regardless of hydrogen or solar or batteries or whatever, a carbon tax with a price set to help internalise the externalised costs of greenhouse gas emissions would be a great way to push activity in a better direction, regardless of if that is hydrogen or anything else that strikes a good combination of efficiency & low greenhouse gas impact. Perhaps the carbon tax could be rolled out nationally with tariffs put in place to penalise the import of goods & services produced in other countries that did not yet have an comparable carbon tax installed.