Comments by "shazmosushi" (@shazmosushi) on "How Singapore Plans To Pipe Electricity From Australia" video.

lol even just playing the song "Thunderstruck" over drone footage flying over that gigantic NT solar farm would be a great promo video! The proposed solar farm allotment shown at timestamp 2:03 is 12 MILES long and 6 MILES wide (or 20 kilometres by 10 kilometres). Bigger than Manhattan Island! I want to see the drone footage!
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If anybody is interested, Singapore is supposedly not well-suited to wind power, with low-to-intermittent wind speeds (2 meters per second) where commercial turbines supposedly operate at 4.5 meters per second. Also the waters around Singapore are busy shipping lanes, so there supposedly aren't actually that many places to put the wind turbines.
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For those interested, that project is called "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" and was originally another submarine power cable project (from Pilbara, Western Australia not central Northern Territory)
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@aave865 Good choice too! Links for the lazy: AC/DC - Thunderstruck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM Men At Work - Down Under: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s
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Singapore has reportedly passed a law that no single source can provide more than 25% of Singapore's electricity. That spread your risk approach seems to be how they approach international relations. They try to make sure their economy and security is not overly dependent on either the United States or China. Whether they are getting the balance right can be debated, but that's their strategy.
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@markedwards4879 Good call!
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Singapore gets its water from Malaysia right now and 81% of its natural gas (and thus its electricity supply) from Malaysia and Indonesia. See Asianometry's video "Singapore's 50 Year March Towards Water Independence" for more information on the water side of things... That reliance is already should be a *massive* national security concern. Given Singapore is a small city-state it realistically can't do everything within its borders. Even continent sized countries follow the economic principle of "competitive advantage" (not every country needs to make its own clothing, or cars, assemble its own electronics). So it comes down to diversification: never be overly reliant on the United States, China, Australia or the Middle East (for oil). Also Singapore has also passed a law saying no one source can provide more than 25% of Singapore's energy, and Sun Cable suggest they will only power about 20%
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14:02 The video states Australia's *Nothern Territory* has 250,000 people (compared to the similar sized Egypt's 103 million people). It's not saying the whole of Australia has 250,000 people. For those interested, the Northern Territory (or "the NT" as people here call it) is an administrative district in Australia known as a "territory". This is actually a distinct administrative jurisdiction to an Australian "state", like Queensland or Victoria. And as such there are some limitations on the power of the politicians in that region. The only other territory of the same status Australia has is the Australian Capital Territory (or "the ACT" as people here call it), which contains Australia's capital, Canberra. There's been talk of the NT becoming a full-fledged Australian state, but nothing has come of it yet. I fully expect one day it will become a state, especially as its population and importance to the Australian economy grows. The Territorians grow some mighty fine mangoes up there!
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The Sun Cable project discussed here is a completely different to the "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" proposal you refer to. Their proposal was for a wind and solar farm in the Pilbara region of the state of Western Australia, with submarine cables to Indonesia or Singapore, and like you say, has now switched to use the energy to produce ammonia. The Sun Cable company appear to be continuing with their HVDC submarine cable plan.
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Like it or not, Singapore will be reliant on Malaysia for water resources for some time (side note: I recommend watching the previous Asianometry video titled "Singapore's 50 Year March Towards Water Independence"). As a tiny, extremely wealthy city-state in the middle of the world's busiest archipelago Singapore needs to think outside the box to thrive. Like it or not, Singapore also needs to work with Malaysia (and the US, Australia and China), even though all of these countries cannot always be relied upon. Diversify where it makes sense!
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I'm surprised one of Australia's retirement funds (the "superannuation" system) hasn't invested in it, with trillions under management hungry for long-term infrastructure projects. But I guess the project might be too high risk right now. I'm sure they'll invest eventually.
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The Asian Renewable Energy Hub (a different proposal to the Sun Cable) is suggesting something similar after they changing from their original submarine cable approach. Solar + wind farm in the Pilbara region of Western Australia to produce ammonia and ship that over for "green hydrogen". The Sun Cable company is pursuing the (much cooler in my opinion) HVDC approach. Right now it's all private investors betting on these renewable energy megaprojects, so it doesn't hurt you if their investments fail. I'm glad there are people with the capital and risk tolerance to invest in these really exciting solar farm and HVDC submarine cable approach! For the sake of our carbon dioxide levels I hope they succeed :)
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Why isn't Western Australia connected to the Australia's National Energy Market (NEM)? I thought it was because Western Australia was like Texas: wanting to be independent and secede from Australia at any moment. Then again the Northern Territory isn't connected to the NEM either.
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13:51 Platypuses
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Yes, the video thumbnail has been updated with the correct map but the video itself shows Darwin in the wrong place, and does not show the cable starting point correctly either
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Yes, the line going through Darwin was in the wrong place, and so is the starting point (near the town of Elliot, NT). I have helped get this corrected for this video's thumbnail but unfortunately the video itself is already released and can't be changed. Side note: there is/was another similar project called the "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" that wanted to build a submarine cable from a solar farm in the Pilbara, Western Australia. But they've switched to a plan involving using solar power to produce hydrogen/ammonia fuel and transporting the energy by cargo ships not electrical cables.
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@Asianometry I read 81% of Singapore's natural gas comes from Malaysia and Indonesia but I didn't look into the fraction that was "LNG". My understanding is LNG and natural gas are equivalent with the large and expensive liquefaction systems being the only way to convert gas to be transportable long distances. My impression is Singapore's natural gas powered power plants are dependent on Malaysia and Indonesia natural gas not "Qatar, Equatorial Guinea, and Australia". But I am happy to be proved wrong.
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Yes, the video thumbnail has been updated but the video content is fixed.
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Singapore's strategy is to diversify, diversify, diversify. Spreads the risks. Rely on the United States for security (including free and open sea lanes and at least currently, dollar-denominated clearance system), Middle East for petroleum, Malaysia for water, China as an economic partner. Spreading risk to Australia for electricity doesn't sound too bad!
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Watch the Sun Cable video by EEVBlog2. Dave is an electrical engineer, and he ran the loss numbers and seemed relatively impressed. This is not to say the economics of the cable and the other engineering challenges (like tectonic activity) are easily solved problems, but it seems at least from an electrical engineering perspective the project passes a sanity check.
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Yes, the line going through Darwin was in the wrong place, and so is the starting point (near the town of Elliot, NT). I have helped get this corrected for this video's thumbnail but unfortunately the video itself is already released and can't be changed. Side note: there is/was another similar project called the "Asian Renewable Energy Hub" that wanted to build a submarine cable from a solar farm in the Pilbara, Western Australia. But they've switched to a plan involving using solar power to produce hydrogen/ammonia fuel and transporting the energy by cargo ships not electrical cables.
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