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Comment by aaron695 | Hacker News Reader

This makes no sense, with Atlassian being involved I'd double down on that statement.

But it's actually very cool. Like sending a person to the moon it pushes science forward. It's not another dumb shove more solar panels on houses idea.

It allows Australia a lot of power over Singapore and the region which is good for them.

I guess the question is what's the side ways difference between NT and Singapore? It's a one and half hour time zone difference. How much peak/off peak/day time advantage do they get with the the different sun times.

Why this over Perth? (I'd guess it's a simple power lines in the ocean is cheaper)

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> Why this over Perth?

1. Darwin is thousands of kilometres closer.

2. Laying submarine cables from Darwin to Singapore has been done more than once, it's a known route.

Sorry, I was in-specific, I meant if this is a good idea why not install the infrastructure in country from Darwin east or west to Perth or Cairns over Singapore.

Out of potential markets in South East Asia or on the rim of the Indian Ocean, Singapore is the wealthiest and easiest to do business with.

Politics I would suspect would prohibit this sort of investment in infrastructure for Australian markets.

Interesting point - laying cables along a circle of latitude with a 4 hour time difference would mean the peak solar power at one location would power the other locations peak usage (6pm - 9pm). However, a 4 hour time difference is pretty substantial in terms of length of cables. I wonder if Australia could do this between Perth and the South East (Melbourne, Sydney).

This project is further, the distance between Darwin and Singapore is more than Perth and Melbourne. This project wastes distance going north.

Laying cables overland would be an order of magnitude more unless you could do fibre at the same time to make it cheaper or something.

But the route by sea is still shorter between Perth and Melbourne.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+darwin+singap...

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=perth+to+melbourne+dis...

There is already interconnects between South Australia and Victoria as part of the NEM [1] that covers the grid along the south and east coasts, along with BassLink to/from Tasmania.

So an overland or sea route from Perth to Adelaide, potentially following the existing rail lines would get you the advantages of the time zone differences as well as integrating Perth into the NEM.

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