From sophisticated electronic company back to energy business ?
www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/02/apple-just-spent-an-incredible-amount-of-money-on-solar-power/
One may say that for smart investor , copycat of the most successful company couldn't go wrong here, in Australia.
1 billion pale insignificant in comparison to our wasted investment.
Lets scrap submarines and build solar farms instead.
To make this deal even better we could possibly trade our coal directly on Chinese solar panels.
Keep our best partners happy and provide thousand of jobs in installing and maintenance this panel here.
I could imagine already all our big ships going one way full of coal then returning back packed with solar panels.
Solar is great in cities (rooftops) or the middle of nowhere. Anywhere else it is a a waste of land as the land then can't be used for anything else, so that pic of solar in green fields is unrealistic. Also the power / fuel etc used to dig up the rare earth elements to make the panels has to be considered.
So soalr in Oz desert - yes. But only if we can justify the cost of 3000km of cables.
I think australia has better options, being geothermal and also storage of old nuclear fuel as it is the only geologically stable place that has a spot thousands of km from civilisation.
I do like the idea of sending dirty coal to China in return for clean solar though! 
Mark is there anything that leads you to believe we're short of space in Australia?
If it's economically viable in California, we should be all over it.
The problem with solar, and the main reason it hasn't been pursued with greater vigour historically, is the necessity of base load power. At night, no power. So store the power from the day? Sounds good in theory, but in practice it is exceedingly difficult to store and release that much power. There have been improvements and new ideas recently but it is still a fair way off. A combination of renewables appears the best bet. And geothermal looms as the best option for base load power.
Select to expand quotemick14 said..
Mark is there anything that leads you to believe we're short of space in Australia?
If it's economically viable in California, we should be all over it.
It needs to be placed on useless land, else the opportunity cost is too high. IE you would not put solar panels all over our prime farming land and halve our food production, would you?
That useless land is a long way away in Oz. Therefore transmission distance is a cost that other countries don't have to bear, but we do.
Speaking of geologically stable, can we talk about nuclear power again yet?
Saw this on a TED talk the other day, sounds a whole lot better than enriched U-235 light water fission reactors:
www.terrapower.com/technology-innovation-and-clean-energy/
50x power from the same fuel, 7x less waste, and 40 year burn times will reduce the opportunity for human error enormously (think fuel rod changes etc.)
much of the 400kms of "farmland" i drive past on the way to Perth would be better off as a solar farm. . massive paddocks that havent seen a crop in 5 or more years. massive power lines over the top,going BACK to Muja. we often send excess power the other way. massive windfarm 80 kms away next to the same transmission line.
raise the panels up and create shade perhaps they could start growing some fodder and put sheep back on. this part of the world used to support massive sheep herds and regular crops but has long since been useless. its just that the farmers cant see it
Select to expand quotethedrip said..
The problem with solar, and the main reason it hasn't been pursued with greater vigour historically, is the necessity of base load power. At night, no power. So store the power from the day? Sounds good in theory, but in practice it is exceedingly difficult to store and release that much power. There have been improvements and new ideas recently but it is still a fair way off. A combination of renewables appears the best bet. And geothermal looms as the best option for base load power.
Yes we need more Day light saving to cover the base load problem !
Seriously it's not that hard to store solar energy (thermal with liquid salt storage towers or Hydrogen).
On the east coast is fairly easy to store excess power generated at off peak times. Water is pumped uphill in the Snowy Mountain Hydro using cheap of peak power. The water is then released to spin the turbines at peak times.
Problem with load could be partly solved without even storage but simple pricing.
If solar is available in abundance during the day then make this energy cheaper and business and people adjust their usage.
If energy during the day will be half price then many users just run their energy hungry machinery during the day - which makes common sense as well.
That will bring even more benefits to industry if during day hours energy will be at half price - will stimulate production in all sectors.
Select to expand quotelandyacht said..
much of the 400kms of "farmland" i drive past on the way to Perth would be better off as a solar farm. . massive paddocks that havent seen a crop in 5 or more years. massive power lines over the top,going BACK to Muja. we often send excess power the other way. massive windfarm 80 kms away next to the same transmission line.
raise the panels up and create shade perhaps they could start growing some fodder and put sheep back on. this part of the world used to support massive sheep herds and regular crops but has long since been useless. its just that the farmers cant see it
This is what I've been saying for years. Solar farm is actually a dual use facility.
I used to notice how much better the grass grew on the footpath beside where my truck was parked, which I put down to extra shade in the morning provided by the truck. With the extra shade the dew lasts longer on the ground and a bit of evaporation is reduced. The soil is a bit cooler and the grass grows better. With a solar farm that effect would only be magnified because all those panels tilted at the appropriate angle are also cutting down the wind and further reducing evaporation. On top of that, the panels form a hard surface for rain to run off and be collected in dams for use at some future time.
Against that, I imagine it would be pretty hard to muster sheep in among all those panels. Or maybe it would be very easy to chase them along a straight line between 2 rows of panels.
