This is great news for our farmers and the often much maligned CSG industry. And indeed, for the driest inhabited continent in the world!

Around 50% of our inland aquifers are, sorry, were too salt to use!
Rhrosty.

this is wonderful good news, for Australia as well as Texas.
Water will be crucial in the 21st century, and with this new green technology will ensure food and life security, and will be the most important driver to any economy.

As usual we find another really important breakthrough coming from private enterprise, in answer to an industrial need.

It really is time to make government stop wasting our taxes on the basically useless CSIRO & university research, & do more to encourage private company research.

Only then will we get to send the failures off to sweep streets, & support only the useful.

Sorry Has, but CSRIO, has a long and proud history of innovation and is responsible for some of our most notable inventions.

And so called private research is largely dependent on prior research done in Universities/the public purse.

All the private operators seems to do is commercialize these new ideas and innovation. And you only need money for that! Not new ideas or innovation!

But as with most of our good ideas and better people, need to head overseas to get a hearing or a backer. [Too many Hasbeens here.]

Our investors seem to be limited to land or bricks and mortar, or a great big hole in the ground/simply bagging those with the best ideas/research.

Instead of (like Nazis burning the books/what use are they if you can't read them) closing these things down, we should develop a brand new venture capital bank and crack of with commercializing our better ideas.

We earn bugger all from them, once they're offshored!

Incidentally, the reported idea is a Dutch one, and dare one suggest, started like some of the better things coming out of Holland, (algae based jet fuel) inside a Dutch university?

It's a good thing you not there Has, else you'd be wanting to close them down as well!? [You vill be happy about zis Proffessor, ve have vays of making you enchoy yourself. Tiddly vinks anyvun?]
Rhrosty.

Yep you're right there Rhrosty, the CSIRO has a proud history, unfortunately it is now largely history. We no longer even have extension officers, disseminating the information, & enabling anything they do find to be put to use.

They are such a hasbeen they make me look like a new chum.

My dentist is an ex medical researcher. He is proud of some of the work he & associates did. It was also a great & interesting lifestyle.

The finish for him was when he became involved with funding. He could see many good projects left unfunded, while the money went to established organisations & projects no matter how tired or actually exhausted the projects were.

He says it cost a lot of time, income & effort to retrain, & standing all day digging in peoples mouths is not as much fun, but then he doesn't have to watch aging incompetents protecting their turf. The new level of income causes no pain either.

A lot of taxpayer funded research, while very interesting, has no pay off for those paying for it. Such hobby research should be just that, undertaken privately after hours.

Disappointingly uninformative article. Doesn't say what what kind of technology it uses. And the cost (which is quoted in obscure units) translates as just over a dollar (US) per kilolitre, which is good but hardly revolutionary.

Desalination undoubtedly has a big future, but this development doesn't appear to be very significant.