IvanM

The question is whether the cost is too high to pay when there are alternatives such as recycling and desal?

Dumping Adelaide is probably more viable.

fish.01

No. Though your point about economies of scale promoting competition seems valid. I was talking about the current competitive federalism that we run which does have benefits.

IvanM

Like?

hevs

How on earth is desal not expensive? 18 billion...is a lot of pipes!
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news...007-168td.html

IvanM

I am not a massive desalt fan. I would like to see the pricing of the North South pipes proposed. I suspect desal would seem a bargain.

hevs

Hmmmm, do you reckon? I'm not a desal fan because of the electricity and the worry about what on earth is going to happent to the salt? And also will it have any effect....wayyy down the line to the sea and its in inhabitants? I just wonder about these things...I do a lot of that...wondering..

moneypenny20

It has it's place. It was the desal plant here that was 'feeding' fresh clean water up to Brissie after the flooding. That bit of info zipped the mouth of a woman I work with who has constantly whittered on about how we don't need it as the drought is over I can understand the 'environment' argument but not hers.

Vegemite Kids

One of the projects I'm currently working on is prepping the Desal2 plant just north of Bunbury for the operations phase.

Yes, Desal is expensive in terms of electricity, but one of our Key Performance Indicators at Desal2 is total energy expenditure and when we go live later this year we will be energy neutral cos WaterCorp have invested in enough renewable energy sources (mainly the wind farm up at Emu Downs) to offset the energy we need to operate the plant.

We will be a 50GL plant when we go live later this year. (small by Melbourne standards I know but the process is essentially the same)

55% of the water we take in will be returned to the ocean as brine.

The outfall diffuser system is 10.3 m below mean sea level and extends 923m offshore. Its in a low ecological protection area and the mixing field is 200m. The centre of the brine outfall pipeline runs across the middle of this zone and takes into account prevailing ocean currents to assist the plume dispersion (and the intake location to prevent recirculation). The outfall diffuser is optimised to meet the Environmental Protection Authority Commitments and the boundary of the near field mixing zone has a salinity of less than 1ppt from the background seawater for 95% of the time.


Sorry, got a bit technical there, but believe me the wee fishies will be fine




ETA: 1ppt = 1 part per trillion = 1 : 1,000,000,000,000 (i.e 1 million million)

ozzieeagle

What happens to the other 45pct of salt ?

Be great if it could be used.

Vegemite Kids

Not sure what you mean?

100% of the salt goes back into the ocean as part of the brine concentrate. (the outfall brine is, by volume, 55% of the intake volume)

The other 45% of the intake water (after processing) is potable and goes into the Integrated Water Supply System, so later this year when you turn on a tap in Perth 17% of the water coming out of it will be desalinated water from either the desal1 or desal2 plant.

Deutschmaster

mmmm, that's a lot of fish and chips...

ABCDiamond

We need more salt from somewhere...

hevs

Technical, but writen in a great way so even I could understand it. Thats put my mind at rest a bit...however my power bills are increasing just as quickly as my water bills....WE the consumers are paying for this at the end of the day...

IvanM

Indeed hence transparency is needed but state governments are not instinctively open. Water is scarce and some way of rationalizing use is needed.

hevs

I agree, but we have the tick for two peoples use on our water bill, have a rain water tank flushing 2 toilets and a washing machine, but still the bill is getting stupid! Dont get me started on my electricity!!