Slashdot Mirror
The Mining Town Where People Live Under the Earth (cnet.com)
Claire Reilly, writing for CNET: After spending a night in an underground rock cave in the middle of the Australian desert, I learned three things: The silence is deafening. Your eyes never adjust to the darkness. And if nobody brushes the ceiling before you arrive, that clump of dirt is going to scare the living hell out of you when it drops on your face at 2 a.m. I've flown 1,200 miles for the privilege of sleeping in a hole in Coober Pedy. There's no Wi-Fi down here. The glare of my MacBook feels obnoxious in the subterranean stillness. The TV plays ads for a "local" cleaning service from the next town over, but that just happens to be 400 miles away. Australia is a country defined by "the tyranny of distance," but traveling to the underground opal mining town of Coober Pedy feels like taking a holiday on Mars.
In the middle of the South Australian desert and an eight hour drive in either direction from the nearest capital city (Adelaide to the south or Alice Springs to the north), Coober Pedy is off the grid and mostly hidden underground. More than half the residents live buried in the bedrock in cavelike homes called "dugouts" in order to escape freezing winters, scorching summers and the occasional cyclone. Often, the only sign you're walking on someone's roof is the air vent that's sprouted up next to your boots. While first nation peoples have lived in the central Australian desert for thousands of years, the Coober Pedy we know today wouldn't exist without opals. Miners rushed here in the 1920s, enduring extreme conditions to hunt for the multicolored gems, digging, bulldozing and eventually blasting out earth in a bid to find the elusive seam that would make them rich. Living in Coober Pedy is not just about surviving. It's about carving out a way of life in one of the harshest environments on the planet.
[...] "It's not like we're living thousands of kilometers under the ground," he tells me. "It's pretty similar to living in a normal house." Sam's family, who live in a dugout close to Crocodile Harry's, have solar panels for power -- but those generate only enough electricity for a few hours a day. Diesel handles the rest, he says. "We have to rely on tourists to pay for our fuel," he says. "Gasoline is valuable out here. Fuel is really expensive." That means no fridge running all day and night -- they keep nonperishable food and get the rest from town every day. Otherwise, life is pretty similar to what other 18-year-olds in the city experience. Sam says he can still charge his phone and use the TV "for a bit." "We have internet when the generator's on. Dad's got an Xbox but we don't even try to use the solar for that."
In the middle of the South Australian desert and an eight hour drive in either direction from the nearest capital city (Adelaide to the south or Alice Springs to the north), Coober Pedy is off the grid and mostly hidden underground. More than half the residents live buried in the bedrock in cavelike homes called "dugouts" in order to escape freezing winters, scorching summers and the occasional cyclone. Often, the only sign you're walking on someone's roof is the air vent that's sprouted up next to your boots. While first nation peoples have lived in the central Australian desert for thousands of years, the Coober Pedy we know today wouldn't exist without opals. Miners rushed here in the 1920s, enduring extreme conditions to hunt for the multicolored gems, digging, bulldozing and eventually blasting out earth in a bid to find the elusive seam that would make them rich. Living in Coober Pedy is not just about surviving. It's about carving out a way of life in one of the harshest environments on the planet.
[...] "It's not like we're living thousands of kilometers under the ground," he tells me. "It's pretty similar to living in a normal house." Sam's family, who live in a dugout close to Crocodile Harry's, have solar panels for power -- but those generate only enough electricity for a few hours a day. Diesel handles the rest, he says. "We have to rely on tourists to pay for our fuel," he says. "Gasoline is valuable out here. Fuel is really expensive." That means no fridge running all day and night -- they keep nonperishable food and get the rest from town every day. Otherwise, life is pretty similar to what other 18-year-olds in the city experience. Sam says he can still charge his phone and use the TV "for a bit." "We have internet when the generator's on. Dad's got an Xbox but we don't even try to use the solar for that."
That means no fridge running all day and night.
The average energy drain of modern refrigerator is 25-40 watts. Actual power drain while the compressor is running is 100-150 watts. If they have any power at all on a 24 hour basis they should be able to run a refrigerator, though perhaps not open the door for part of the day to keep the compressor from kicking on. Since they do have power part of the day for sure, a 0.5 kWh battery should cover the refrigerator nicely.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Otherwise, life is pretty similar to what other 18-year-olds in the city experience.
Ummm, no it isn't. It isn't much like life in any city. Not saying it's better or worse but it definitely isn't what I'd call similar. For one thing I'm pretty confident the dating scene isn't exactly a target rich environment. And 24/7 access to electricity and places to go use it is not a trivial difference.
Mike Rowe did a Dirty Jobs episode featuring Coober Pedy as well. Was a pretty interesting episode, and shows just how desolate a lot of Australia really is.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
From de article: "have solar panels for power -- but those generate only enough electricity for a few hours a day"
Come on! Solar panels today are cheap enough to supply almost all the power you need. I have just 8 in my house and that's already enough to use power lavishly.
I guess they sort of enjoy to live like that. That's the only possible explanation.
Given that one has to run lights 24 hours a day underground and solar panels are day time only power, isn't it going to take some batteries to supply one's electric needs? I think so. Also, there is the question of wiring lengths. 24V DC needs some pretty large conductors to get very far carrying usable current levels. Not to mention the toxic nature of battery chemistry, marking the need to keep them away from living spaces and providing adequate ventilation. One doesn't need lead acid batteries underground, nor are LiIon options necessarily safe.
Having solar panels while on the grid is one thing, having solar panels as one's sole source of power is quite another, being underground adds additional challanges.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
12ga cable can carry 20amps or 480W at 24VDC.
Ah, but the ISSUE is voltage drop over the length of the cable. @ 20 amps, 100 ft of 12ga cable is going to drop more than 25% of the voltage, turning that 24 V into about 17. You lose 6.35 V over that 12ga run. The problem with low voltage systems is voltage drop over distances. To keep 100ft of cable to within 10% voltage loss, you are going to spend a pile on wire, running 8ga, which will get you right at 10% loss @ 24 volts in. Most equipment is OK with about 10% of rated input voltage.
So that 480W in will turn into about 380W at the load using 100 ft of 12ga wire (you will lose about 100W) 12 ga may be SAFE at 20A for fire reasons, but it doesn't mean it's usable in a low voltage system.
This is what killed Edison's DC power business and brought Westinghouse's AC power into common use. With AC you can step the voltage up and down at will using transformers, lowering the current for the same power and lose less power/voltage over the smaller cables. BTW, If you go to a 12 V (13.8 actually) system things get even worse for you, with the loss of over half of your input power and half your voltage trying to push 20 Amps over 12Ga.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Clearly the author of the story possesses neither a map nor any knowledge of Australia. A few corrections to the story: Coober Pedy is not in the "middle of the South Australian desert", it's near the border between two deserts. Failure to understand such things has resulted in others losing their lives due after making poor decisions. Alice Springs is not a capital city, not even close, it's a regional centre. Those "holes in the ground" provide very comfortable living indeed. It seems the author is just another foreign winger that doesn't know shit from desert dirt but want to express ill formed opinions for anyone who is prepared to read them. We have a number of words for people like that and I personally think 'moron' is fitting in this case. By the way fucktard, the light level of the Macbook is actually adjustable, just for such situations.
Much of it is very very un-inhabitable. Doesn't change our government(s) pushing for incredibly crazy high immigration rates AND not spending money on infrastructure.
They get paper based GDP growth and 'the numbers go higher' for many things but the actual standard of living quality, job quantity and wage growth is going bad bad bad for people.
They don't care, this is a huge country, shovel em all in! What could go wrong?
(Golly, why are more and more people homeless, unemployed or working 3 separate part time jobs?)
Which is important there. They also have plenty of mining equipment on hand to dig the holes. They still cost more than an above ground house. But in the heat, you want to be down. Most are dug into the side of a hill.
Cooper Pedy is a wild, unruly place. Lots of people living on the edge trying to strike it rich by finding that one rich seam of opal. Many small mines owner operated. Everybody secretive about what they find. You do not want to be too curious wondering around the mine sites or you might end up joining the many bodies thought to be buried under various shafts.
Worth a visit.