Murray Darling Basin Problems Increase - Bring in the Legal Teams

Court fight looms over river | theage.com.au via kwout

Just when communication, cooperation and cohesion are required to address the Murray-Darling Basin [MDB] crisis, we see effort, costs and focus elsewhere.

SA Needs Help - VIC Could Help With Portland Desalination

South Australia calls for help with water crisis from the other States:

SA alone can't save lower Murray, Coorong: minister - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) via kwout

The Portland Desalination proposal not only offers a water solution to benefit South Australians and Victorians. This idea can also be duplicated within South Australia to produce even more water:

• As suggested to management staff at the Port Pirie lead smelter
  
• As suggested to the management team at Whyalla steelworks

Nyrstar Lead Smelter at Port Pirie notified

Senior staff of the Nyrstar Lead Smelter in Port Pirie given copies of the Thermal Desalination proposal in early March 2008.
Port Pirie is close to the Mining Operations at Roxby Downs and Olympic Dam -- they may require additional water to further develop their mining resources, given the current boom in the mining sector.

Onesteel Whyalla sent papers on Thermal Desalination

Contacted Onesteel Whyalla management -- passed on the Desal proposal to them. Their blast furnace process generates temperatures of 2,000 deg C - they already capture part of this heat for use in other parts of the steelmaking process. Hopefully they can also use some for thermal desalination.

Water for South Australia

Visited Adelaide - many gardens dead - very dusty - high level of water restrictions in place - La Nina event produced floods in QLD, no respite for SA.

Adelaide also just experienced a 1 in 3,000 year event of continuous hot days [15 days over 38 deg C].
Now there is more stress on the Murray River and Groundwater resources - as per the fourfold increase of salinity levels in the Coorong, extremely low water levels in Lake Alexandrina etc. Some of the groundwater resources failed on a couple of occasions in the past.

Action: Desalination Proposal sent to:
* SA Members of Parliament -- including the Premier, Mike Rann; MP, Andrew Evans; Federal Senator-Elect, Nick Xenophon.
* Private industry - staff members at the Nyrstar Lead Smelter at Port Pirie.
The concept may also be used by the Onesteel Facility at Whyalla.

Rationale: Original paper with Heat Capture/Heat Exchanger process focusses on the Aluminium Smelter at Portland VIC, but it can be used in any Heavy Industry process producing large amounts of heat as a byproduct.

With the Federal Govt have still not able to reach agreement over a comprehensive Murray River Strategy [VIC are still holding out] it looks like the Murray Basin will not get any new water recharge action anytime soon.

Conclusion: By sending this material directly to the South Australians, they may be able to go ahead themselves in a joint venture with SA Heavy Industry to build 2 small [20 M/litre day] Low Temperature Distillation Desal Plants at Port Pirie and Whyalla.
If successful, the plants may be extended/expanded to make South Australia more drought-proof.

Wannon Water, Hamilton, express interest

Graham phoned me this evening with the latest news:

Wannon Water rang this afternoon, asking for a copy of the concept paper because they are very interested in seeing my perspective on the desalination project and its prospects for water crisis solutions in country Victoria.

Overview of Portland desalination plant concept

Graham recently sent me a copy of the overview he provided to Malcolm Turnbull and ABC:

Many in Govt have been shying away/ruling out Desalination as just too costly - meanwhile the nation is dying of thirst!!

I am a Health Scientist (Medical Imaging) and a former Analyst with the Dept of Defence (with a special interest in Infrastructure) living in Portland VIC.

In the Health Service, when we deal with dehydrated patients we don't worry about the cost - we stick an IV (Intravenous Therapy) drip into their arm and get them back onto the road to recovery -- the same principle applies here!!

Our Dehydrated Nation needs Urgent IV Therapy!!

I have been working on two scientific papers concerning the current long term and worsening drought situation since winter 2006 - construction of a Thermal Desalination Plant at Portland VIC.

Whilst I realise that there are efforts under way to build the Goldfields/Superpipe as a solution for the Bendigo and Ballarat communities, I cannot identify any substantial Murray/Goulburn water storages that will be available to achieve this objective.

In any case, the Goldfields pipe will still be relevant, as any Portland Pipe can join up at Ballarat, and therefore pump water northwards -- hopefully the Engineers have included contingency plans for a South to North pumping capability!

Unless there is substantial rain, we are really facing a catastrophic situation for these rural cities and communities - and the outlook for regular, soaking rains that will alleviate this situation are nowhere in sight.

The attached article the News.Com newsfeed clearly indicates the dire situation.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21583156-2,00.html

The plan that I am proposing provides a constant, consistent and guaranteed source of freshwater.

Whilst Desalination Plants do have fairly significant construction costs, we have 2 special elements at Portland that will provide dramatic savings for the operating costs in Thermal Desalting.

1. An aluminium Smelter that draws down a full 10% of the entire Victorian Electrical Generation capacity - heats molten Aluminium to 960 deg C and then lets the ingots cool off to Ambient temperature, without any process to capture and then use this heat for any other industrial purpose!

2. A proven Geothermal resource 1,300 metres under Portland that provides water at 62 Deg C.

3. The Low Temperature (LT) Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) process only requires the seawater feed to be heated to 65 deg C before fresh water is produced!!

The first document to read is entitled "Recycling - Hot Topic or Just Hot Air?"

The second one is entitled "The Clever Country - Dying of Thirst"

Whilst I have specifically dealt with construction of a Thermal Desal Plant in Portland VIC, it is really a template for the whole nation --- the principles of cogeneration etc will apply anywhere on the Australian Seaboard that has Power Stations and/or Heavy Industry co-located. If they have Geothermal resources nearby, then the operating costs become even cheaper.

In Queensland, the Aluminium Smelter at Gladstone would be ideally suited for a cogeneration project of this nature, given that Brisbane is on level 4+ restrictions.

Input welcome...

Kind regards

Graham Bates