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The Forum > Article Comments > Be like the beaver: build more dams > Comments

Be like the beaver: build more dams : Comments

By Viv Forbes, published 2/3/2016

Luckily, our sun is a powerful nuclear-powered desalinisation plant. Every day, solar energy evaporates huge quantities of fresh water from the oceans.

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The author is getting his wish fulfilled...CO2 keeps on increasing. There must be some reason why those pesky temperature records keep getting broken. I blame the greenies. And the solution is so simple; just put twice as many dams on the same river and get twice as much water.
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 2 March 2016 7:47:33 AM
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The more dams the better!
Posted by ttbn, Wednesday, 2 March 2016 9:08:53 AM
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Victoria had a perfect place for a dam on the Mitchell but after putting all the infrastructure in place, pulled all the men and machinery out, built the dam on the Thompson so that the city could get the water and the farmers of East Gippsland missed out. Gippsland also missed out when the Snowy Mountains scheme diverted all the water from the Snowy to the north.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Wednesday, 2 March 2016 9:50:17 AM
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Given recent advances in solar thermal power and desalination (operational data, not theory) that even includes reliable peak demand applications, and for no less than the rollout of comparative coal fired power.

Produce cheap power that will be eminently suitable for equally large scale low cost desalination projects!

Some of which could be sited alongside a new two lane inland canal?

And given huge forty foot northern tides, use selectively and alternatively opened flood gates and two lanes to move massive quantities of ultra reliable reuseable water to our parched inland, perhaps all the way to, below sea level, Lake eyre?

And given much of the chosen route would be just above or even below sea level, not the huge engineering project some folks might believe, and able to be accomplished mainly with live aboard nuclear powered ocean going dredges using cutter bars and pumps.

Nuclear power, meaning around 25 years before they need to be refueled, and most of the maintenance limited to easily refurbished pumps and or patched or replaced pipes?

Dredging the very cheapest, quickest method to accomplish large scale earthworks and or land reclamation.

Small bund walls around selected level areas, would allow the pumped material to settle and dry out, before being used as a source of material to build any necessary levees alongside the lower parts of any proposed route! And not too dissimilar from reclaiming sea salt?

Except, the water is allowed to escape from the other end of the artificial man made lake and then channelled back to where any dredge might be operating.

This simple technique prevents turbidity from becoming much of a problem and then produces sun dried material that can be laid and compacted as when and where needed, even if that then involves moving it with towed barges?

And yes, we need to get busy beavering away at projects that just don't drown habitat and trees, but rather, allow more of both.

Or agriculture projects that doesn't also include the destruction of either and required as adaptation to the worst aspects for us, of climate change!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Wednesday, 2 March 2016 10:13:15 AM
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Yes, building dams is necessary to provide water for our growing nation.
But kicking people off their lands to build such dams is the one issue the author didn't mention.
My relatives graves apparently sit on the bottom of the Warragamba Dam.
They had to make a sacrifice so that people in Sydney have water to drink.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Wednesday, 2 March 2016 10:53:11 AM
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This article is a silly as something you would find in the more loopy Greenies sites... that the author seems to read, in order to get worked up about something.

As with all things there needs to be a balance.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Wednesday, 2 March 2016 12:20:33 PM
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Hi AC,

One of the bays of the Warragamba Dam, now under water, was named after one of my gr-gr-gr-grandfathers, Bob Higgins, a burglar-convict-turned-constable.

Dam-sites are very hard to find these days. On the other hand, there are now quite a few desalination plants sitting idle. Why can't they all be turned on again (it's probably just a couple of switches and bingo! it would only take a couple of minutes) and any excess water pumped back upstream for more irrigated farmland ?

You know it would work.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 3 March 2016 8:06:32 AM
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Although it would work, the cost of desalinated water exceeds the value of the crops it would produce.
Posted by Aidan, Thursday, 3 March 2016 9:10:55 AM
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Thanks Aidan,

Then perhaps we should ask Tim Flannery why they were built in the first place.

Or perhaps, if what you say is accurate, we should all be prepared to pay higher prices for agricultural products ? After all, the cost of food now takes a far smaller part of our weekly incomes than it did fifty years ago ?

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 3 March 2016 9:17:43 AM
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Joe, Pumping water anywhere requires energy and pumping copious quantities requires copious energy.

The Radfield plan that would see abundant northern rainfall, redirected south, was shelved because of the prohibitive cost of the necessary infrastructure.

However, we have a thing called a great artesian basin, which I'm reliably informed, stretches from inland northern queensland to northern S.A.

And given we have successfully injected water into other aquifers, to in effect replenish or store water? We could do the same with northern water(rainfall measured in annual metres) caught in relatively modest upland dams.

And then using gravity alone and weight of water technology, created in said dams, inject massive quantities every wet season into the northernmost regions of the super sized aquifer, which would in effect, transfer copious northern water many hundreds of kilometres, to some of the driest most arid regions of Australia.

And without ever overtaxing or depressurising the annually replenished aquifer? This would reduce the required length of the otherwise prohibitively costly pipeline!?

Imagine, farmers operating in some of our driest most arid deserts, able to simply turn taps and have GROUND WARMING WATER delivered underground to root feeding tape system irrigation, [which literally halves the needed water and doubles production outcomes] on the stored inherent power of the water alone, without ever needing diesel or pumps! Warm ground eliminates late season crop destroying frost!

The finest wine, the best cotton and the highest protein grain comes from some of the driest regions on earth!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 3 March 2016 9:21:21 AM
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Aidan, your information is as almost always, hopelessly out of date and wrong.

Recent advances in desalination using a revolutionary dutch technology, has quite massively increased the available recovered potable water, all while massively reducing the cost, so much so that in texas or California, where this technology, [more than halved cost and doubled available water,] was trialled.

Made broad acre irrigation using this water, actually economically viable!
And in the news with screaming headlines!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 3 March 2016 9:32:10 AM
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Thanks Rhosty, very informative and constructive.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 3 March 2016 9:58:38 AM
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Joe, up until now I've assumed that you know as well as Tim Flannery does that the desalination plants were built to give us a reliable supply of water that will not be vulnerable to droughts.

Was my assumption wrong?

If and when supply of agricultural products becomes the limiting factor, we should all be prepared to pay higher prices for them. But the demand isn't there yet. There's not much point building expensive infrastructure just to grow unprofitable food.

There's surprisingly little difference between the cost of building and operating a desalination plant and a new reservoir with water treatment plant. But cheaper untreated river water is suitable for most irrigation applications.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Rhosty, AIUI solar desalination can be viable for growing crops in greenhouses, but is not viable for irrigation of broadacre farmland. I expect it will be eventually, but I don't think we're at that stage yet. If you have information to the contrary you're welcome to post it, but I suspect you're again confusing what's being promised (like your "cheaper than coal" thorium power) and what's actually being delivered.

The Great Artesian Basin is actually a system of three linked artesian basins, each with immense variations in pressure between different parts. We should do a lot more to recharge it in flood years. But it is not suitable for transporting water from northern Australia to southern Australia.

Frost isn't a big problem in most of Australia. But where frost occurs, you can't adequately protect the leaves of vulnerable plants simply by warming the ground, though turning on misting sprinklers is likely to give good protection.
Posted by Aidan, Thursday, 3 March 2016 10:11:33 PM
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Hi Aidan,

They are already built, and standing idle. My point was that, since they are there, and costing every day, why not turn them back on, fill up the dams, and pump the rest back upstream for more irrigated farming ? Easy-peasy !

See ? A fool can ask questions that .......

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 4 March 2016 8:45:09 AM
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