Pulling the plug on green dream

Having purchased the largest possible corporate jet and become anchor sponsor of the storied Williams Formula One motor racing team, billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes is reportedly having difficulty finding backers for his $40bn SunCable project to send solar power from the Northern Territory to Singapore. Quelle surprise.

Apart from being an intellectual showcase and plaything for Mr Cannon-Brookes and equally extravagant Western Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, the business case for the SunCable project has always been difficult to comprehend.

There are issues of technological capability as well as sovereign risk involved in pumping solar power thousands of kilometres underwater past Indonesia to Singapore when other options are available to Singapore closer to home. Similar initiatives to send energy under the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe have been equally challenged. The 4200km SunCable link would be more than five times bigger than the longest submarine link yet proposed – the 767km Viking link between Britain and Denmark. But there has been no shortage of ambition. According to SunCable, the project would “power new green industries and cities, drive new economies and support communities across the footprint of the project”.

Like the hydrogen revolution that was going to transform northern Australia into a non-fossil fuel energy superpower, the SunCable brochure always looked better than the fact.

Given it is largely Mr Cannon-Brookes’s money, some might argue the SunCable folly is of little practical importance to Australia. But what it shows is that the renewable energy enthusiasms of the ultra rich are not always sensible or achievable.

SunCable’s struggles are a warning for politicians of all stripes who are too easily sucked into the green-tinged zeitgeist. Getting energy right is high stakes and hard work. Mr Cannon-Brookes can afford to walk away from SunCable largely unscathed. The same cannot be said for power users badly let down by governments chasing rainbows because it seemed like a good idea at the time.