DESERTEC-AUSTRALIA ROADMAP:
-Australia 2050: 'Clean Energy Superpower '

INTRODUCTION
-Concentrating Solar Power (CSP)

AUSTRALIA
-Australia's CSP Potential
-CSP's Cost-Effectiveness
-Australia's HDR Potential

DESERTEC-AUSTRALIA STATE ROADMAPS
-South Australia
-Queensland
-New South Wales
-Victoria
-Western Australia

DEEPER DESERTEC:
-Phasing Out Coal
-The Natural Gas 'Bridge'
-HVDC Power
-Electric Cars
-Nuclear Outback
-The "Dream of GENI"
-Asia's Renewables
-Indonesia's Potential
-What Others Say
-CSP And Desalination
-Big Projects
-Renewable ASEAN
-DESERTEC Commentaries
-Google Earth CSP
Plant .kmz

COMPARE DESERTEC
-DESERTEC/Garnaut
-DESERTEC/Repower America
-DESERTEC/Trans-CSP

DESERTEC-Australia
-About DESERTEC-Australia
-Become a member
-Contact Us

DESERTEC-Elsewhere
DESERTEC-Foundation
DESERTEC-Asia
DESERTEC-USA
DESERTEC-Australia
DESERTEC-UK
DESERTEC-Mediterranean
DESERTEC-Algeria
DESERTEC-India

News:
Australia Moves to Deport DESERTEC-Australia Founder

"We don't have an energy problem. We have an energy conversion and distribution problem."
Hans Müller-Steinhagen,
German Aerospace Center

"I want to see an energy freeway between Australia and East-Asia where we are supplying needs that a growing East-Asia will have, principally China but not just China – Japan, Korea."
Peter Costello
Treasurer,
Australia (1996-2007)

"A global energy network makes enormous sense if we are to meet global energy needs with a minimal impact on the world's environment."
Al Gore,
Vice President
United States (1992-2000)

"There is no physical restriction limiting the distance or power level for HVDC underground or submarine cables."
ABB

"Key areas for international collaboration in CSP include developing efficient interconnection via high-voltage, direct-current lines to feed important consuming areas from neighbouring sunny regions."
"Energy Technology Perspectives: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050,"
International Energy Agency, 2008

"One of the most important infrastructure projects that we need is a whole new electricity grid. Because if we're going to be serious about renewable energy, I want to be able to get wind power from North Dakota to population centers, like Chicago. And we're going to have to have a smart grid if we want to use plug-in hybrids then we want to be able to have ordinary consumers sell back the electricity that's generated from those car batteries, back into the grid. That can create 5 million new jobs, just in new energy."
Barak Obama,
President-elect
United States

"We do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need electricity. Our national grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks."
Al Gore
Vice President
United States (1992-2000)

"Steel transmission towers carrying high voltage cables was considered to provide adequate robustness to cope with climate change impacts but it was agreed that underground cables would reduce their vulnerability to bushfires."
" Assessment of Impacts of Climate Change on Australia's Physical Infrastructure,"
Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering,
2008

High Voltage Direct Current Power Lines

High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power lines have been around a long time.

Already they carry huge amounts of power. If you've ever visited the Big Apple (New York City), most of the power you consumed there came from Quebec hydrodams and brought south to the city over HVDC power lines. Every year HVDC technology improves.

Some of the earliest HVDC cables were laid in the 1950s. Since then, the cables just keep getting bigger and bigger.


HVDC has been around for decades..	..and projects keep getting bigger and bigger
Source: International Energy Agency	Source: ABB

This has led to a 50-year record of annually-compounded 9% capacity increases in the carrying capacity of HVDC. If continued into the future, this will be enough to ensure large enough cables are available by 2020-2030 to carry large scale electricity transfers within and between regions.


Since 1951, HVDC MW capacity has been rising 9% per year.	..well enough to meet the needs of tomorrow
Source: DESERTEC-Australia

Land-based cables, of course, are much cheaper than subsea cables. According to Swiss-Swedish cable maker ABB, a 4,000 MW HVDC cable currently costs about US$1.2 million per kilometer. These costs, however, are falling as ever larger HVDC projects, particularly in China, are developed and push the limits of the technology.


HVDC prices amount to roughly US$300 per kilometer per MW	With demand from China helping drop prices
Source: ABB

As part of its study into developing North Africa's solar resources and transmitting that power to Northern Europe, the German Aerospace Center has estimated the cost of carriage for HVDC power lines will amount to roughly 1.4 Euro cents per kwh. As carbon prices rise, this cost for clean power will seem increasingly insignificant.



Source: "Trans-CSP Full Report," German Aerospace Center

The Idea of SuperGrids is Becoming Increasing Popular

Al Gore has called for construction of a supergrid in the United States and American President Elect Banrack Obama has indicated that infrastructure of all kinds -- including an upgrading electricity infrastructure -- are a priority of his incoming administration.