Comment Re:its not cheap compared to molten salt (Score 1, Interesting) 84
I mean how could it not be winner? Australia's endlessly abundant hard flowing rivers and mega-miles of irrigation canals could easily, if well sited turbines are placed, charge a phone, maybe two, in possibly less than a year. Something about the driest continent and all that?
As for tidal waters there are some places with big tides. The east Coast around Mackay has 8 metre tides but there is a Great Barrier Reef thingy that stops dead any project that gets wet on even the highest tide and somewhat inland of that. Look at the "Save the Reef, Stop Adani" protests and that mine is 350km inland.
Given that only 20 houses can be run from each turbine, there would be a need for maybe 5000 of them just to keep the northern house lights on and that of course is just a small percentage of the power used in any community. The industrials will be burning coal to stay in business at the metal refineries and smelters.
Darwin has big tides but they just invested a metric shit-tonne of money on a gas plant to burn some of the world's biggest deposits to their North West.
The last place with the needed flows, and the best ones for sure, are the massive tidal runs in the Wyndham area of Western Australia. Of course having a population of several hundred people, that area probably could be sustainably and reliably supplied by a solar farm and a moderate diesel genset backup.
Get around and down to Shark Bay and it's the Great Barrier Reef all over again.
There are already turbines installed in any dam of any note. Have to fall back to those irrigation channels I guess.