Wow $7 a kL as the real cost of desalinated water. I've seen $5 for some outback desert towns (eg Coober Pedy), delivered by truck not by pipe. Melbourne will also draw water from the Goulburn River, part of the MDB. I guess new suburbs are more important than food.

The windpower 'offset' is an outrageous porky. The capacity adjusted output of the wind farm does not neutralise the CO2 from the brown coal stations because the wind won't blow much during heatwaves when the desal will work hardest. When the wind does blow some gas plants may be throttled back a touch but not much. As pointed out under some strange logic the wind power will counted twice. This criticism also applies to Sydney's Kurnell desal and the Bungendore NSW windfarm which was famously becalmed when opened by PM Rudd.

The sad thing is that Federal and State governments are supposed to solve this kind of problem. The reality is they are part of it.

And the greens were fobbed off, when it was they who pushed so hard for these types of over the top solutions and ignored the normal long range weather cycles to suite their own agendas. Who are the real culprits.

I think the Tasweigan should stik to his own state.

The unbelievable, but nevertheless seemingly rational, alternative of the mothballing of the plant proposed in the article is an alternative that would be politically disastrous for the government that approved its construction if ever once publicly recognised.

It is interesting to re-read this article in the light of the just-released Murray-Darling Basin Report's foreshadowing of water allocation cuts of from 25% to 37% from existing allocations for many MDB water users. What proportion of Melbourne's water is supplied from the MDB (ie. the Goulburn River system), and what proportion of total MDB usage does this comprise?




What is the Victorian government's way out of this seeming quandary? Why, accept a massive cut in Melbourne's MDB water allocation!




Such foreshadowed offer of acceptance of a cut could allow the Federal government to selectively alleviate the extent of the presently proposed MDB Commission's allocation cuts to agricultural users who are really in the MDB, not just drawing from it from outside, like Melbourne does. Such magnanimous co-operation by the Victorian government in the national interest would surely attract offsetting concessions from the Federal government, and perhaps even other States like NSW and SA, would it not?

Such magnanimously offerred acceptance of MDB allocation cuts would, of course, necessitate substitution of that water from other sources. The Wonthaggi desalinator is presently capable of supplying 40% of Melbourne's requirements, and acceptance of MDB allocation cuts would justify its operation at maximum capacity, wouldn't it? Surely the idea always was to run the plant to maximum capacity, even (and perhaps especially) if using $125/MWH electricity?

The author says:

"..... the blacked-out bits in the government contract
with AquaSure must be made public before the election.
There is nothing confidential in a contract for 30 years
that has already been signed."

Could it be that there exist secret provisions in that contract as to expansion of Aquasure's desalination capacity and supply to a captive Melbourne market?

Could it be that many politicians or political organisations are investors in the needed wind power supply?