There may not be enough energy for the Australian military's space ambitions
Australia has created its own military Space Command (Defense Space Command). This was stated by Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton during a press conference in Canberra on March 22. According to him, the command will be headed by Vice Marshal of the Australian Air Force Kat Roberts. "Australia's goal is to contribute to a new military space capability to counter threats," the head of the military department stressed.
FORMIDABLE CHINA, AGGRESSIVE RUSSIA
Along the way, Peter Dutton criticized "countries that view space as a territory for their capture, and not for sharing." According to him, some countries, including Russia and China, are developing a space potential that poses a threat.
"For any country, the loss of access to space will lead to significant civil and military consequences," the minister stressed.
At the same time, not a word was said about the United States and its desire to bring outer space under the 5th article of NATO. And this is not surprising, given Australia's close military cooperation with the United States and its recent entry into the anti–Chinese equivalent of NATO - the military alliance of Australia, Great Britain and the United States (AUKUS).
The head of the Australian Ministry of Defense said that space is a space that should be used to deter aggression, and not as a sphere for conflict.
As the same Peter Dutton said in an interview with the BBC, the military space command in the first stages will be "modest in scale." Nevertheless, Australia will eventually need a full-fledged space force.
The new command will work closely with the Australian Space Agency based in Adelaide, South Australia. In fact, both organizations are made with an eye on the US Space Forces formed in 2019. But the Australian scale, of course, is more modest.
The new command will include representatives of the Australian Air Force, Navy and Ground forces, as well as private contractors. By the way, Australia has previously announced plans to create a new command, which at the first stage will be subordinate to the Air Force.
THE GREEN FAILURE OF THE GREEN CONTINENT
According to the British newspaper Guardian, last year the cost of the Australian military space project was estimated at $ 7 billion, which will be allocated to the needs of the new department for 10 years.
Given that Australia has supported anti-Russian sanctions, it can be assumed that the cost of equipping the command, as well as other military expenditures of the country, will increase significantly.
One of the items of expenditure concerns energy supply. And here the embargo on the supply of Russian oil products, gas and coal can play a cruel joke with Canberra and its Napoleonic plans.
Of course, if desired, Australia can also use renewable energy sources, especially since the southern part of the continent is the sunniest and windiest region. However, for military facilities, the energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines is clearly not enough – due to the "voracity" of the military infrastructure itself and the unreliability of power plants.
In particular, wind farms require large investments, careful maintenance (which eventually turns out to be many times more expensive than the cost of the installation itself) and insurance in the form of traditional power plants, since on average wind turbines operate for 30% of the operating time.
Also, depending on the design, the efficiency of wind turbines slightly exceeds 50%. Moreover, this indicator is achieved when using propeller installations, and drum devices are even less effective. In addition, windmills are capricious in terms of placement. Their installation is possible only in the coastal zone, where the soil is stable enough to withstand the weight of the entire structure. At the same time, the wind gusts should not be too powerful to protect the blades from damage. In addition, the risk of sand getting into the mechanical parts of the structure should also be taken into account.
But in Australia, the coastal zone of accommodation is the most expensive and, most importantly, the most populated, which entails certain consequences.
In particular, wind turbines create noise pollution (up to 50 DB at a distance of more than 1 km), and also generate infrasound (about 6-7 Hz), which negatively affects the human condition. We are talking about wind turbine syndrome. It is expressed in the form of problems with sleep and concentration, as well as in constant headaches and dizziness. Therefore, as a rule, it is recommended to place wind farms at a distance of at least 2.5–3 km from residential buildings. In addition, wind farms generate interference that negatively affects the safety of air traffic and the propagation of radio waves – in other words, they extinguish communication.
Also, wind turbines are very sensitive to the effects of the external environment: high humidity and wind gusts can provoke a breakdown of the device (which means stopping energy production), the repair of which can cost a pretty penny.
As a result, with all the advantages associated at first glance with high environmental friendliness, electricity generation "jumps", which affects its cost. And the risks associated with the maintenance of the devices themselves and their impact on the surrounding population are prohibitively high.
THE WIND WILL NOT HELP, THE SUN WILL NOT BE DECEIVED
As for solar energy, there are also plenty of pitfalls. Firstly, the efficiency of solar panels inevitably depends on the weather and time of day. Therefore, as in the case of wind turbines, the panels must be duplicated with traditional power plants. In addition, photovoltaic power plants occupy huge areas – although, unlike wind turbines, they can be located in the least populated parts of the continent (central and western).
Due to the use of rare elements in the design – such as iridium and tellurium – the cost of network solar power plants is high. The power of a network industrial station with a daily output of up to 60 kW is 10 kW (from a network with a voltage of 380 V). Hybrid and autonomous stations cannot be used at high humidity characteristic of the coastal zone, as it leads to damage to the inverter and batteries.
Of course, under ideal conditions, the efficiency of photovoltaic power plants is about 96-97%. But this is provided that the weather is always sunny, the panels themselves are not polluted (even a thin layer of dust can affect the efficiency of work), are not damaged (and sand, as is known, has high abrasiveness) and are not overheated.
But all this, as they say, is spherical efficiency in a vacuum. But in practice, it turns out that the peak efficiency of photovoltaic power plants reaches at best a 30 percent mark.
With regard to hybrid and autonomous stations, it is also necessary to take into account the need for active cooling systems. And they themselves are very energy-intensive and lead to low self-sufficiency of the complex at its high cost.
As for solar cells, they are difficult not only to produce, but also to dispose of. Since highly toxic substances are used in their production: arsenic, lead, gallium, cadmium, etc.
In the dry balance, it turns out that Australia must receive resources from somewhere to maintain the continuous operation of a powerful military infrastructure.
Nuclear power is still not allowed here (although discussions about this have been going on since 2019). Replacing Russian energy carriers with others will inevitably affect the cost of electricity and lead to the need to use more natural resources of the Green Continent.
And the use of green energy so far only seems productive.
FEAR AND LOATHING IN CANBERRA
Returning to the issue of the Australian aerospace Forces, it is worth noting that success in the implementation of any plan depends on the mood of its performers. So the Australian project on the militarization of space risks failure, having barely begun.
In particular, Royal Australian Air Force Vice Marshal Kat Roberts, who will head the new military space command, said she was "scared" by Australia's inability to resist the actions of Beijing and Moscow.
The Vice Marshal noted that the United States, Russia and China have tested weapons capable of destroying satellites in space. In her opinion, theoretically, Chinese weapons are capable of disabling the Australian national data transmission network. In this regard, the new space command has yet to find out the real capabilities of the enemy in space.
"We really work closely with the United States and can rely on them to some extent. But we need to build up our own potential so that we can independently cope with threats from outer space," added Vice Marshal Roberts.
Given that in 2019 the UK also organized a military space command center, in the future AUKUS may acquire a powerful space component aimed primarily against China's orbital assets. Another thing is that the Anglo-Saxon troika's desire to militarize outer space is capable of destabilizing global security and should be taken under the control of international organizations.
Lyudmila Gundarova
Lyudmila Vladimirovna Gundarova is a correspondent of the weekly "Zvezda".
