Vox pop: Basic physics ignored in Vic desal idea; needs 300MW base-load power plant to get water to Melbourne

To desalinate 150 gigalitres of salt water and pump 150 million tonnes of fresh water from Wonthaggi to the Cardinia Reservoir was going to require a 300-megawatt base-load power plant, wrote Geoff Croker of Ashwood in a letter to The Age (26/9/2007, p.B4). Why water’s cheap: “That’s equivalent to using all of Australia’s current wind farms. To pump this water to Ballarat, Bendigo, Traralgon and Geelong would require wind turbines over an area equivalent to metropolitan Melbourne. Our existing nine reservoirs work mostly by gravity. That’s why water in Melbourne is cheap. Now I know John Brumby and Ted Baillieu seem to be ignorant of year 11 physics (and by implication cast aspersions on Melbourne Grammar’s ability to teach physics).

Silly Grammar boys: “You would think their engineers would have advised them about the foolishness of the proposition of a desalination plant to supply drinking water for Melbourne. But perhaps the proposed financier went to Melbourne Grammar and physics is irrelevant,” Croker added.

The Age, 26/9/2007, p. B14

Benefits of improved technology for seawater desalination wiped out by swift rise of energy costs

Great complexities bedevilled the task of getting comparable cost figures for water produced by desalination compared to other water production or savings methods, according to the WWF’s Phil Dickie.

Vict Govt opts for PPP model to design, build and operate new desal plant by 2011

The Victorian Government opted for a public private partnership (PPP) model to design, build and operate the new desalination plant by 2011, reported The Australian (22/9/2007, p.41).

Adelaide’s Mt Lofty dam storage-capacity for only a year’s worth of water; SA Govt should stop dragging its heels on desal, says Turnbull

The Federal Government had set the example on water provision for the future, and the South Australian Government should get on with it, said Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, in Federal Parliament (12/9/2007).

Seawater desalination costs over three Australian cities could vary from AUD $1.15 to $3.00 a cubic metre of product water (USD $0.95- 2.50)

Consultants to the Australian Prime Minister on water supply options for Australian cities noted that low cost water supply options depended on “favourable locations and situations” for the options, wrote the WWF’s Phil Dickie.

Melbourne’s desalination: environmental vandalism and economic madness: cheaper to pipe water 350k from Tasmania Lake Margaret, across Bass Strait

Brumby has inherited one of the most extraordinary decisions of the Bracks government – to invest about $3 billion in a desalination plant in Wonthaggi and another $1 billion to pipe water over the Great Divide into the Melbourne reticulation system, reported The Age, (2/8/2007, p.15). The desalination plant is designed to produce 250 gigalitres a year and the pipe to have a capacity of 90 gigalitres a year. Melbourne’s water consumption is about 450 gigalitres a year, so the pipeline option alone would add 20 per cent to Melbourne’s water supply and the desalination plant would add another 50 per cent to Melbourne’s water supply.

Desal emissions; 0.08kg to 5.2kg of CO2/m3: low, if the process was 100 percent driven by waste heat; if NSW coal, then 5.2kg of CO2 per m3

The analysis of emissions’ intensity of various desalination technologies showed that MSF distillation emissions could be as low as 1.98kg of CO2/m3 if the process was 100 percent driven by waste heat, according to the WWF’s Phil Dickie.

Victoria’s desal a public-private partnership; five firms line-up for $1.6b bonanza of guaranteed cash-flow

According to Duncan Hughes, at least half of Victoria’s $3.1 billion desalination plant, the country’s largest, would be delivered as a public-private partnership, Victorian Premier John Brumby said on 19 September, reported The Australian Financial Review (20/9/2007, p.3).