Australian towns among hottest spots in world as heatwave continues

 He claims that he's going to invest in Australian solar farms. If that works, it could a silver lining

Australia has some of the best solar areas in the world, huge amounts of empty wide open spaces where the sun shines hot for the majority of the year, Australia could easily be the solar capital of the world if they can get the investment.

elon musk said that with the vast amount of space and scorching heat if OZ started solar farms they could provide most of Asia's energy. He claims that he's going to invest in Australian solar farms. If that works, it could a silver lining

Andrew it's not just warm it's crispy hot. But as I trust Mr Trump, it has nothing to do with global warming, just too many tanning beds switched on at once...that's all.

These kinds of temps in Australia are not unusual

Erm, 'record-breaking' would seem to indicate some degree of unusualness.

There is nothing to say this has anything to do with global climate change.

If it were only this one heatwave, I'd agree with you. But put together with the record-breaking high summer temperatures, drought, storms and flooding in many parts of the world recently, it's pretty obvious that the global climate is changing.

There is a lot of desert there too - I am sure they are praying for rain.

Not so sure about how effective praying is, but definitely many are hoping for moist at least. Drought or not moist is probably most welcome.

I wonder what's causing the severe weather. If only we could get the scientists to come to a consensus on this.

And a few important leaps in technology that haven't occurred yet, even before the implementation of such technology, with the inherent costs and practical difficulties, could even be considered.

how do you know?

Musk's a hype artist, and the idea that Australia could supply "most of Asia's energy" is standard-issue Musk hype.

I'll take his opinion over yours ANYDAY

That may be, but you sure don't make those leaps in solar power technology (e.g. battery storage, scale, reliability) by standing still, or by failing to support those who are trying to achieve those improvements.

agree.

The International Energy Agency projected in 2014 that under its "high renewables" scenario, by 2050, solar photovoltaics and concentrated solar power would contribute about 16 and 11 percent, respectively, of the worldwide electricity consumption, and solar would be the world's largest source of electricity

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

Well if it's power for the daily needs of billions of people, plus the industry in those countries, we're not talking about batteries.

we dont have to talk about batteries. we are talking about panels.

At present the longest power transmission line is in Brazil (2400 km), with others around or below 2000 km (in China, India, and Congo). So while those are DC lines, and probably suited to transmitting from a solar source, the first leap technologically is the considerably longer distances required to bring the power from Australia to Asia.

The issue is not processing the power. Its getting it to and from A and B. But that is easily solved with a little bit of R&D.

Solar power would presumably be in the form of PV or concentrated solar power, or a combination of the two; PV is less suited to actual desert environments than concentrated solar.

Worldwide growth of photovoltaics has averaged 40% per year from 2000 to 2013[35] and total installed capacity reached 303 GW at the end of 2016

Much of Asia is not deficient in sunlight. If you consider the claim that was made, that Australia could provide "most of Asia's energy", you need to consider, why Australia? Its nearest neighbour is Indonesia, which has a high population but only a fraction of the 2+ billion in China, the Indian subcontinent, and East and Southeast Asia.

because Australia has land. It is empty and that is what you need for solar energy.

Those places are far further away from Australia than Indonesia (which isn't that close to start with), well beyond the distances of the longest transmission routes in use today. In addition, they have much lower labour costs, and most of them (and certainly China and India) have desert regions of their own if they want to develop concentrated solar power. They are also well capable technologically of doing it themselves. China is already very heavily invested in solar power and the largest producer of photovoltaic panels.

China also has a HUGE population and tremendous need for energy, so while I agree with your above statement, I still think that China lacks the space to get all its solar power.

What would Australia be doing for them that they can't do themselves? And how could it be competitive if it has to transmit an extra few thousand kilometres to even reach the countries with the highest demand?

They have more land than these other countries and that alone puts it at a HUGE advantage. OZ is actually larger than the continental 48 states of the US

Probably more than a little bit, if you permitted yourself to flirt with reality for a moment or so.

Stupid comment. I’m not going to dignify that with an answer

You sound as if you believe that China lacks adequate land for power generation. Four regions (Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia) make up more than half of China's total land area. The combined population is low, 55 million people, in an area of 4,796,000 square kilometres, which is well over half the size of Australia. (Don't take heart in the fact that it's less - there isn't a plan to fill every inch of Australian land. The point is, China has vast amounts of barely or non-arable land that can be used for renewable power generation)

I’m well aware of the fact that China is one of the lead nations when it comes to renewable energy. However the sheer size of China’s economy and the continuous growth means that they will continue to seek outside sources of energy

Additionally, other more populous provinces have large areas of arid or semidesert land that is sparsely inhabited. When it comes to the kind of land that can be used for large PV arrays, concentated solar, and wind power, China is absolutely not suffering from a shortage.

But yet it’s still not enough for them to supply over 1,000,000,000 1/2 people with energy.

There is a massive windpower installation in Gansu province, which is planned to reach 20GW in a few more years. However, it's seriously underutilized at the moment because coal power is cheaper. Even so, it is priced at only 0.54 yuan per kWh, equivalent to A$0.11. Does Australia's dirtiest, cheapest source of power come anywhere near as cheap as that?

I can see my above comment.

China has the technological capability, the money to invest, the land, lower labour and production costs, and a strategic incentive; these are all reasons why it needn't bother with Australia-sourced power. In addition, Australia isn't even able to provide that power at the moment, while China is adding capacity year after year at an unprecedented rate.

That is exactly what I’ve been saying. What I’m saying is the possibility for Australia to provide 栄治 with energy is there. Like I said before all day needed a little bit of research and development and there you have it

In effect, you are talking about Australia possibly doing for China what China is already doing for itself.

No because there are also other countries in Asia besides China in case you didn’t know

Yes, well back in reality, there is no "little bit of research and development", just research and development.

The term covers crucial details, like "Is the technology possible at all?", "How long is it going to take to develop?", "How much is this technology likely to cost?", and "How efficient can we make it?".

The technology actually already exists. We do have the ability to harness solar power. I don’t know what books you’ve been reading but this is reality. We have the technology to use solar energy. The problems we are having is with special interest groups who will try to make us believe that the technology is so far in the future We might as well give up. The fact of the matter is in the last 10 years we’ve made huge gains in solar energy.

People who don't have the understanding or the patience to acknowledge these barriers are irresistibly drawn to Musk.

I’ll take mask opinion over yours any day. Like I said. Are you a multi millionaire? Have you been approached by NASA to build anything? Just who are you to criticize Elon musk anyway?

In R&D, at least one of the questions above, and generally a combination of them, are the difference between red LED, available in the 60s, and blue LED, not available until the 90s (by which time most companies involved had abandoned their efforts as both futile and too costly); the difference between subsonic and supersonic airliners, even though supersonic airliners are clearly technically possible; between conventional high-speed rail and maglev; and between an HPV vaccine and a malaria or an HIV vaccine. If just one of those questions becomes effectively insurmountable, it can mean that a technology never reaches production in the first place, or (like Concorde) languishes for years, becomes obsolete, and disappears.

The problem of transmitting electrical power over long distances is one of the greatest and rong contender for pointless, as well as pointlessly complex.

But yet it’s still not enough [land] for them to supply over 1,000,000,000 1/2 people with energy.

You'd have to explain why China doesn't actually have far more than it needs.

Because Of its population. I would’ve thought that would’ve been obvious.

It's a hell of a lot of land.

It has a hell of a lot of people

What you're consistently ignoring is that China has the sun, wind, land, technological ability, and low labour costs to generate its own renewable electricity, which gives it extremely low incentive to buy it from Australia instead.

What you are constantly ignoring is that A. China is also the biggest immature of carbon having surpassed the United States. B. My original post did nothing with China. It talked about Asia in general. But you seem to be fixated on China.

No because there are also other countries in Asia besides China in case you didn’t know

And when it comes to credulously reported Musk overstatements, it's always worth kicking them a bit to watch them crumble. Australia can provide "most of Asia's energy" does not stand up at all well to scrutiny. Before long, it's going to be ratcheted back to "well I mainly meant Indonesia because it's next door" and "I didn't literally mean most" and eventually you end up with something much less impressive, like the current state of Hyperloop, the very modest and hardly numerous achievements of the Boring Company, the untried and now abandoned rescue "sub".

Again, I’ll take the words of a multimillionaire who has been approached by NASA and has met world leaders over some JT poster.

The other point you seem to be missing is this: when I quoted Elon musk, I was quoting the fact that he said Australia had the potential to provide energy to all of Asia. Neither he nor I said that Australia will or should, nor that China is incapable nor isn’t doing it itself. The original statement Was lamenting the lack of incentive to harness Australia’s potential. Musk was only saying that Australia has the potential and could do so much more. And he is right: with their size they could harness enough energy for Asia’s needs. Not that they have to. And not that anyone is saying that they should do that nor that China isn’t doing that.

That's the problem with Musk and his uncritical worshippers though, isn't it? They just retreat into the hypothetical whenever reality threatens

So he’s not dealing with reality but managed to make hundreds of millions of dollars, Get commissioned by NASA to build things, and meet world leaders?

But yet hey, a Japan today anonymous poster with the name wipeout knows more about reality than he does.

ooookkaaaayyyy

None of that makes the impossible or impractical a physical reality.

Saying he'd put a man on Mars in 10 years was always crazy (unsurprisingly, and in the real world, that claim was made 8 years ago, so the clock's ticking), as is suggesting that 80,000 people could be living there by 2040. He did the same with Hyperloop, and if he had delivered what he said he would do, there would be an actual prototype of a passenger vehicle and he'd have carried his first passengers. As expected, there is neither a test vehicle nor a test tunnel suitable for such purposes, and what little has been done so far is much further back in the chain than that. He hasn't come even close to delivering Hyperloop, unless you count the airbrushed pictures, which are very nice.

No one forces him to come out with this stupid babble, and it's not inspiring for anyone who accepts the realities. In the real world there are transport engineers with a lifetime of knowledge and experience who fully understand the difficulties they are dealing with, and who know that technology alone, even if they can provide it, cannot just sweep away political, financial, and social considerations. 

Musk invites scepticism because he frequently claims the unlikely, when he isn't claiming the outright impossible. People should be looking closely at what he's doing with the Boring Company, and also asking why he can (supposedly) build tunnels better than people who build tunnels. What's the breakthrough? 

Is he doing better, is he doing the same, or is he doing worse? If he's not actually doing better, then he deserves no more attention or credit than all the tunnel companies you can't put a name or face to. Which is all of them. Because they're doing real work, not establishing a cu

All that doesn’t matter. Like I said, the man is a self made multimillionaire and has worked with(not for) nasa. Heck if YOU just got a job with them I’d be impressed much less have them approach you for work. If he was all that you said above would the lead organization of space travel and exploration approach him? The organization that put men on the moon? Would world leaders embrace him? Again I ask you for the upteenth time: who are you to criticize him?

Like I said, rant all you want, but at the end of the day, NASA and world leaders listen to him and what he has to say. They don’t listen to you. And your idea that are more grounded in reality than a multimillionaire who has built several companies just evaporates ANY credibility you may have had

I hope Australia is taking seriously the environmental initiatives, such as green building measures, renewable resources, and conservation, . . . just as many other nations are doing -- As global warming is now a world wide concern.

Don't like the cold because of the Northern Winter, Australia's the place to be if you like to be warm.

These kinds of temps in Australia are not unusual. They unpleasant, but not unusual. Some places have recorded record high temps, but records only go back a hundred years or so. There is nothing to say this has anything to do with global climate change.