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The Forum > Article Comments > An Olympic dream > Comments

An Olympic dream : Comments

By Everald Compton, published 2/4/2012

Augmenting Australia's Murray Darling with water from the north offers the prospect of expansion and wealth west of the Divide.

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Somehow Olympic Dam mine has morphed into the spirit of the Olympic Games. I wouldn't compare the mine to Galilee Basin coal; one will save billions of tonnes of CO2 through nuclear power the other will create billions.

I don't have at my fingertips the necessary data on evaporation rates and land gradients but the idea of flooding Lake Eyre has been around since the late 1800s. The idea is daft. As more water is pumped in it would become a giant booger of salt under merciless evaporation and seepage. That river water that flows to the Queensland coast is no doubt helping the local ecology. Turning it inland would harm that as we see with the NSW Snowy River. Presumably more coal would be burned to power the pumps along the long straight stretches of canal.

My suggestion is this; go ahead with Olympic Dam mine expansion perhaps using a small nuclear power station on the nearest coastline to power desalination. Meanwhile leave Galilee Basin coal in the ground as already sequestered carbon. If Clive Palmer wants to help the human race he will have his casino instead.
Posted by Taswegian, Monday, 2 April 2012 7:47:32 AM
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Yes leave the coal in the ground.
Posted by sarnian, Monday, 2 April 2012 8:51:34 AM
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Instead of all this enormous pie-in-the-sky expansionism, why don’t we do the opposite: Reduce immigration to net zero and stabilise our population, develop renewable energy sources and concentrate on improving energy and resource-use efficiency across the board, and develop a sustainable society!

Huge new water schemes, food bowls, mines, blah, blah, blah, is all just taking us down the same old track – ever more people, ever more resource consumption, ever more environmental problems and NOT a better quality of life or a more secure future!

OK, so these two philosophies need not be entirely mutually exclusive. Some large-scale projects could be in order, but ONLY if they are implemented within a genuine sustainability paradigm.
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 2 April 2012 9:51:28 AM
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Mr Compton makes two glaring omissions in order to boost his case for raping AUSTRALIA'S MINERAL WEALTH while Governments are still soft on the issue of mineral sustainability for future generations.

The essence of Mr Compton's efforts is, to my mind, "get Australia's finite mineral wealth NOW while the gettin's good".

1. Olympic dam will use a significant amount of Aquifer waters as the desal option is not planned to supply all the mine's needs. In fact there are concerns the desal plant is just an inflated PR sweetener to get the mine started without public opposition. If I were a Sth Aussie I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for my share of that desal water. In the next big looming drought Sth Australia will suffer because of the loss of aquifer waters & BHP will not sacrifice profits to divert desal water to non-investors like Sth Australians. That's business!

2. Australia's interior is a siltation basin. That means every channel secured and every canal engineered in proposed projects will be filled with sand after every flood event. The cost to clean up the mess each time will exceed the original infrastructure investments.

The only way to rejuvinate Lake Eyre is to channel salt water from Port Augusta via a 3 metre tunnel bore down a 15m slope to Lake Eyre.

BHP's desal plant must be a combined salt, rare earth & fresh water production unit that can supply the Mine's full water needs plus fresh water for several small freshwater lakes within the deepest parts of the Eyre basin. If BHP cannot see a way to profitably do this then they should be told to come back when they can!

Continuing,
Posted by KAEP, Monday, 2 April 2012 9:56:20 AM
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Continued..

The additional benefit of a BHP salt water flooding & processing at Lake Eyre is that any amount of increasing evaporation in central Australia will promote an entropy gradient from the Great Australian Bight toward the Eastern states. Its modest, sure but its tangible and can be built on. That's the National perspective that Mr Compton tries to allude to. There is no silver bullet except in corporate con-artists dreams.

We can gradually improve Australia's Hydrology, we can have Uranium mining, we can have profitable salt and rare Earth industries so why can't we have miners with a real national conscience and NOT a crude & ruthless obligation to fatten overseas investors while wrapping that evil in the Australian flag?
Posted by KAEP, Monday, 2 April 2012 10:00:24 AM
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Certainly gives a new meaning to the word "pipe dreams" - at least in the Australian context.
Such a scheme would probably result in a huge increase in the duck population in Australia.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Monday, 2 April 2012 10:08:15 AM
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In a world of decreasing energy such huge infrastructure dreams have no future. The funding does not exist for them. Olympic Dam will in all likelihood never go ahead as it is defeated by high oil prices and fuel insecurity. They propose years of overburden removal requiring massive imports of diesel fuel before they even get to the ore body! So much of this water proposal is moot.

The important issue as KAEP reminds us is the ecological impacts - both on Lake Eyre and where the water is taken from. Ever more screwing with Australia's ecology on a massive scale will not make our nation a better place.
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Monday, 2 April 2012 10:11:07 AM
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Hehehehe!

Daff, you’re a funny man…er, duck.

As much as I love ducks, this is what I think of Mr Compton’s proposal:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=that's%20despicable&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCkQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dy3Z2MP8vMWU&ei=W_R4T-OWFcaZiQewmuzkBA&usg=AFQjCNG6_bJwqHxqbqTfcdqtdQt79Cf87w
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 2 April 2012 10:38:38 AM
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Another important issue. I cannot understand an Australian Government that will not subsidise a program that will see 10 volunteers from EVERY school in the nation spending one week visiting, inspecting, living at and assiting revegetation programs at EVERY Major Australian mine. There is an urgency to bring average Austrlaians into touch with the realities of this land and how to love, best-serve and sustainably proper from it.

I reiterate: why can't we have miners with a real national conscience and NOT a crude & ruthless obligation to fatten overseas investors while wrapping that evil in the Australian flag and their Sunday-best Kloppbber?? And why can't we have politicians who aren't prone to thinking think the world and its privileges revolve only around THEM!
Posted by KAEP, Monday, 2 April 2012 10:43:54 AM
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Every additional drop of water delivered to South Australian and/or the Murray Darling is likely to eventually end up keeping the artificial Lower Lakes full of freshwater as an efficient water storage for Adelaide and/or delivered to the Southern Ocean.

There is a place for more infrastructure development in Queensland and the water should be used in Queensland.
Posted by Jennifer, Monday, 2 April 2012 11:10:24 AM
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This sort of constructive proposal is worth evaluating with a detailed engineering and feasibility study. It is interesting that most of the commenters here can dismiss Everald's plan based on superficial, largely green, opinions.
Posted by Herbert Stencil, Monday, 2 April 2012 11:37:49 AM
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HS,

There is NOTHING superficial in understanding Australia's interior from a second law of Thermodynamics standpoint. If there are "interesting" weak links, they are the profit-first engineering and feasibility studies that overlook siltation, evaporation and cost overruns to come up with quick-grab mineral solutions to fatten overseas investors at the expense of Australian citizens.

Australians' KNOW what's goin' on and if miners aren't prepared to jump through more hoops to mine here they can go to Africa and get shot in their mines or to Canada and freeze their butts off.

Wake up!

We have.
Posted by KAEP, Monday, 2 April 2012 11:56:19 AM
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What KAEP said...
Piping or channelling water from the top to the bottom of Australia has certain engineering challenges that cannot be overcome with wishful thinking: silt, evaporation and energy being the toughest ones. I think all detailed analysis has come to the "way, way too expensive" conclusion...though maybe not for this specific version: (devil is in the details!)
I'd love to see an analysis of the ocean pipe to Lake Eyre...an inland sea would change things quite a bit! I wonder if tidal flows could be used to "ream" the pipe/tunnel until it became a channel.
How deep and large would the inland sea be? (will check Sea Level contour for interest.)
Terra-forming dreams are such fun!
Posted by Ozandy, Monday, 2 April 2012 12:06:02 PM
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Hi Ozandy, yes - don’t believe the knockers or the advocates; just a few checks will suffice to bring you onto one side or the other.
Sea-level contour is indeed a good place to start. Some other essentials are:
what area does that cover for the lake; what annual evaporation rate holds sway for that area; what annual rainfall for it; what is the concentration of salt in sea water; what volume of sea water is needed annually to maintain the lake. And give a thought to rate of increasing salinity.

Having done those checks, and come to a decision after just a modicum of thought and simple calculation - consider that it has been put forward as a practical component of the whole scheme.
Posted by colinsett, Monday, 2 April 2012 1:33:47 PM
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I was expecting one or 2 posts from knockers, who would site some 5mm long invertebrate in the bed of these rivers that might be harmed.

Hell, I was way off. We've got knockers coming out of the woodwork, with even less real reason.

I reckon those who brought the idea of the Snowy project to us would probably lynched, if they were around today. We really can't stand anyone with a real vision, rather than a yen for a trip back to the caveman society.

I won't be around to see it, but I wonder what the Chinese will do with the place, after the take over. I reckon with a bit of intelligent engineering, they will get the place to support 100 million quite quickly, then export enough food for another 100 or so million soon after that.
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 2 April 2012 2:37:35 PM
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Hi colinsett. Do you know of any such proposals that have had that sort of analysis done?
Filling Lake Eyre using tropical rainwater *appears* to be non-viable due to details, but what about KAEP's ocean pipe from Port Augusta?
An inland sea seems to be more viable than a "fresh" Lake Eyre...but I'd like to see the models and the numbers.
All evaporation losses will be replaced provided the flow rate from the ocean is sufficient (evaporation powered hydro?)...but would it clog, would the inland sea salt up and become a dead foul smelling bog? Would it foul the aquifers...or improve them. An inland sea would certainly change local weather, but how?
Smart to be pretty careful messing with nature on this scale!
Posted by Ozandy, Monday, 2 April 2012 2:40:23 PM
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Ozandy, I had hoped that you and others would have done the checks independently - I have no expertise. However, there are a few items which are hard to sidestep:
what is regarded as the shoreline of Lake Eyre is about 9 metres below sea-level. That has been estimated to cover 6,500 square kilometers.
Average annual evaporation there is 3.2 metres; annual rainfall less than 0.2metres.
As a result, average annual evaporation would take 6,500X3 divided by 1000; i.e., roughly 20 cubic kilometers of (desalinated) water.
Salt concentration in seawater is very roughly 3 per cent. As a result, somewhere near 20X3 divided by 1000 cubic kilometers of salt (at approx. 2 tonnes/cubic metre) would be added, on average, annually to the lake.
That is for a lake at contour level minus-nine. Drainage pipes are considered to be in danger of silting up if the gradient is less than 1:100. For a Lake Eyre seawater pipe, the gradient (to -9 contour over a 400 km distance) would be 9:400 (about 1:450). I will leave it to the advocacy experts to estimate what size pipe, and circumstances, would be needed to supply the 20 cubic kilometers of water needed each year
Posted by colinsett, Monday, 2 April 2012 3:39:59 PM
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Sorry colinset...limited time at work. Debugging makes my brain soggy.
Nice preliminary model, but why assume -9M level when it could go all the way to 0? Vastly more evaporation, but also more depth/volume and constantly renewed from the ocean pipe which is (presumably) less likely to silt than a river/canal. I assumed it would fill until "full" at sea level.
With salt going in and not going out it could end up very salty...but then again the local precipitation would change so all bets are off.
The real questions: Why? Who pays for it? What if it goes bad?
Nature does experimental stuff all the time, but engineers can be sued!
Posted by Ozandy, Monday, 2 April 2012 3:50:20 PM
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I'm surprised the author even bothered posting on this forum. I'd just go straight to Tony Abbott so we can hit the ground running in 18 months. I wish him all the best.
Posted by dozer, Tuesday, 3 April 2012 1:24:10 AM
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How is it that by being cautious of a the Bradfield Scheme makes me a “negative Nellie”? There is no strong evidence for its viability, and a great amount of scientific and economic opinion to suggest it wont work.

Spending billions on a project with a very uncertain outcome makes little sense when there are many tens of billions that could be spent on viable infrastructure projects. With the insulation and solar schemes, the education revolution, the carbon tax and the NBN, I think the economic consequences of recklessly pursuing idiotic projects are all too apparent. Look further afield and you realise that reckless spending on low or negative returning projects such as that of the Irish property boom will quickly be followed by a prolonged bust.

http://epress.anu.edu.au/anzsog/auc/mobile_devices/ch06s04.html

“Quayle’s theories were derived from those that had underpinned the nineteenth century proposals to flood the Sahara and Lake Eyre, which I have already discussed. Such ideas were also put forward in relation to the plan to lock and weir the Barwon and Darling Rivers in the 1890s, when they were debunked by the esteemed NSW Government Astronomer, Henry Chamberlaine Russell, who observed that — as the upper atmosphere shifts at the rate of hundreds of miles a day — any water evaporating from inland lakes and pools is over the Pacific Ocean by the time it might develop into rainfall. Quayle’s theories, as they were re-presented by Bradfield, were comprehensively dismissed by other prominent meteorologists in the 1940s. A recent study looking specifically at Lake Eyre has suggested that its permanent filling may slightly raise the average level of precipitation directly above the lake itself, but would have little or no effect on rainfall levels across the surrounding region.”
Posted by Fester, Tuesday, 3 April 2012 10:44:48 AM
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Fester,

You're comprehension is appalling.

1. Compton's proposal is a bad con job. When you are about to steal a kid's lolly you have to offer a dream in return. Compton's con job dream is : "give us all yer Uranium and we will give youse a green interior" con job.
Generally speaking the world regards Australia, because of its give the furniture away "immigration scheme", as a bunch of morons who would easily fall for a hastily conceived con job. This country is a laughing stock & internationally regarded as a soft touch. For example, miners won't go elsewhere if we make them pay more and do more responsible planning because they FEAR AFRICA and CANADA and all the other dangerous mining areas. We need better leaders who KNOW. We need better leaders who will protect our future and not sell us out for peanuts.

2. My proposal is based on the fact that BHP will mine Uranium and will spend $billions on the water component of the project only to place it in radioactive tailing ponds. Some of that capital must create a series of small, hi-tech vegetated Lakes in the deepest part of nearby Lake Eyre as a part of its existing Water Plan.

3. The Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that a finite Entropy Gradient from the GAB to the Eastern States will exist as long as those small lakes are kept full. Quale was wrong. He knew some of the atmospheric dynamics but NOTHING of the 2LT for this region.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 3 April 2012 2:09:45 PM
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It's all a bit too Jack and the Beanstalky for me, Kaep. Maybe the SA gov should conduct an ocean fertilising experiment instead. It would cost millions to test and would have measurable results within a few years. With fertilizer so vital for agricultural production, I cant see why it shouldn't be beneficial for fisheries also. And if it doesn't work the SA Gov is only a few million out of pocket.

http://everything2.com/title/dimethyl+sulfide
Posted by Fester, Wednesday, 4 April 2012 11:28:31 PM
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It is easy for the “negative nellies who abound in every generation” to air their personal objections to such a visionary plan based on a singular favoured issue or “hobby horse”. In doing so, they risk ignoring the broader needs of and benefits to the nation, such a plan might offer.

This article presents a long overdue, nationally beneficial water strategy relating to inland Australia, clearly dependent on the conduct of preliminary feasibility studies.

Governing legislation relating to major projects, the advancement in scientific and other high level expertise suggests the intelligence and capacity to conduct such a study today is already in place and critical issues are very unlikely to go unaddressed. Nothing should be presumed to be an insurmountable barrier to the project until proven otherwise, by experts of the day.

We have Murray-Darling issues which have been languishing politically far too long, a food bowl and industries under severe pressure, flood mitigation needs of extreme importance to thousands of lives in regional communities. Healthy inland rivers and associated wildlife corridors depend foremost on flowing water.

The plan presented is clearly born in sustainability, not only of rivers and the environment but food security, the future of inland communities and regions, resource industries delivering broad economic benefits, nature-based species and corridors, and the liveability of towns and farmlands in the face of extreme weather events, particularly floods.

The future rests with a balanced and considered approach through expert studies.
Opportunity exists for major mining companies seeking water, project approvals and responsible positioning in communities, to contribute to the whole, not only in the delivery of construction but also to the resolution of impacts and solutions identified in any studies.

The fact that water channel construction has been minimised in the plan with an estimated 4000 kms of natural waterways utilised for the transporting of water, is a positive starting point. With much of the construction and water sourcing confined to Queensland, here is a wonderful opportunity for that State to take a lead offering benefit to the nation and for other States to adopt a co-operative position
Posted by Have a Go, Monday, 9 April 2012 1:02:33 PM
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Interesting post, Have a Go.

You write:

<< The plan presented is clearly born in sustainability >>

Well, I’m pleased that you are considering this enormously important factor, but I can’t see any indication of this huge scheme being set in a paradigm of national (or state) sustainability in Mr Compton’s article. Rather, it is just another part of the massive continuous growth ‘antisustainability’ mindset.

If our illustrious political leaders were to set the country on a path to genuine sustainability, with the fundamental requirements of a stable population, maximised renewable energy sources and a wind-down of our dependence on once-off primary resources and on to value-added and renewable industries, then this scheme might have some merit.

I’d be willing to condone the enormous environmental impacts and the various other inevitable problems that it would engender if…and only if, it is set within this genuine sustainability paradigm.

Otherwise, it will work against us!

All it will achieve is to support an ever-bigger population and ever-more coal mining, and ultimately not improve food security, per-capita export income or the average quality of life for Australian citizens. And it will make it that much harder for us to make the vital switch to a sustainable society.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 8:19:47 AM
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It's hard to believe the small-minded negativity of some of these deep-green, leave-it-in-the-ground, anti-uranium, anti-immigration commenters. They don't realise what lies ahead of them: well-deserved oblivion for their backwater notions and probably for themselves, as the demands of the wider world leave their inner-city undergraduate provincialisms in the dust.

It's as plain as day that Compton's concept will be evaluated. One day, those elements that are both economic and ecologically feasible will be implemented, which in my opinion is the way it should go.

Compton's plan is characterised by:

1. Recognition of the need for cost-benefit analysis;
2. Minimal construction of channels & maximal use of existing watercourses;
3. Economic benefits in the form of minerals, coal, cotton and other crops;
4. Intelligent opening suggestions for who should pay.

It makes nothing but good sense. The sooner the feasibility studies begin, the better.

Ham
Posted by Ham, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 5:29:47 PM
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<1. Recognition of the need for cost-benefit analysis;>

And that is where it stops, because boring old things like ports, roads and railways will win hands down.

And if you dream of making the deserts bloom, remember that it is far easier and cheaper to fertilise a nutrient poor ocean than it is to channel water to a desert. The ocean off Western Australia could be turned into a productive fishery, with the possible benefit of dimethyl sulphide produced by the plankton acting as a cloud seeding agent and increasing rainfall over parts of the country. Why is it that the Queensland coast adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef is so lush, whereas along the corresponding WA coast it is so barren?
Posted by Fester, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 6:07:50 PM
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Ham, it makes all the difference in the world whether this enormous project is implemented within the current continuous-expansion antisustainable mindset or within a genuine sustainability paradigm, as per my last post.

Could I solicit your views on this? Thanks.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 7:10:15 PM
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Ludwig, if you're fixated on the notion that things should be 'sustainable', then define the term rigorously. It's opposite - 'unsustainable' - is something anyone can understand. But 'sustainable'? If you can define it in a way that's more than a feel-good lefty slogan lacking form and substance, I'll raise my hat to you. Widely-used as it may be, the concept of 'sustainability' seems to be no more than an adolescent enthusiasm espoused by inner-city grown-ups who should think more clearly.

You want an end to continuing expansion, which means an end to economic growth; but every community in every country wants a better living standard, which can only come from economic growth, and every government everywhere strives to deliver it. If you want an end to it, you'll be waiting until you're run over by it.

There's no way the voice of some small group in a small rich country will be listened to by a world of 7 billion people, 5 billion of whom are poor. Get real.

The only source of capability to clean up the environment is wealth, which is why we live in a clean country and 1.3 billion Chinese don't - but they'll get there eventually.

Compton's plan to deliver permanent water to western Qld, western NSW and northeast SA would also go a long way to drought-proofing the Murray-Darling Basin, so central to our food supply and indeed to our very idea of what we are as a nation. If it can be shown to make economic sense and can be done in an ecologically sound manner, it should be done - unless of course it's 'unsustainable', in which case the project wouldn't even begin.

Ham
Posted by Ham, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 9:21:01 PM
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Ham

I had a look at EC's mud map. Each of the channels would be moving the water about 200 metres uphill. I dont recall any discussion of pumping stations. How much cost would that add? Perhaps EC could do it more easily with this apparatus?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_(M._C._Escher)
Posted by Fester, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 11:30:41 PM
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Its hard to tell the fools from the con-artists here.

let me reiterate:

1.The concept proposed by the author is a con-job, the recipients being the survey experts and the losers being the Australian taxpayers.
Hell , the NSW and Victorian Labor Governments perfected this sort of "expert opinion fraud" on the public purse. $Millions in fees for advice that was obvious to blind freddy and kick backs all over the parliament and public service.

2. Australia is a siltation basin and there is NO silver bullet to change this. There is no "GO' to have-a-go with and if any survey came up with a real plan, the AUstralian taxpayers would have to be more foolish than even I believe to accept it given that the cost could be as high as 1 $Trillion given the distance involved and that every 7 years or so, floods would silt up all the channels and incur startup costs all over.

3. But it won't get that far. It is a Con job to benefit the surveying experts and its likey BHP is behind it for the additional publicity and promotion of Uranium mining with unlimited access to SA aquifers to fill up square kilometer radioactive tailing ponds that will leave the australian public entangled because of their stupid complicity in these prelude expert advice projects that essentially are expensive exercises in how to do the impossible - ie. subvert the second law of thermodynamics.

4. There are ways to get maximum benefit for taxpayers. It involves MODEST High tech vegitation improvements to the deepest parts of lake Eyre backed by a desal plant and pipeline from Port Augusta. And it requires BHP to do ALLL the spending in recognition of the fact that their tailing ponds will be a legacy for this nation for thousands of years. If we last that long with all the numb-nuts that are running the joint.
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 11 April 2012 2:13:31 AM
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The biggest problem for truth, fairness and transparency is the notion that foreign owned companies bearing Australian brand names like BHP or Quantas should get EXCLUSIVE rights with NO competition to Australian Assets.

My advice is to change the laws so we can put mining out to Tender for the companies that will deliver the best profits for Australian taxpayers with all bets off as far as filial privileges are concerned.

At the end of the day the Autralian taxpayer takes all the risks associated with mining through taxation rebates so whay do the miners get exclusivity based on high risks?

I'm telling you we are being CONNED.

I know some chinese and Canadian companies that could treble Autralian mining profits and still make a healthy profit themselves.

Is this a DEMOCRACY or NOT? Or are we just a DOG nation with foreign mining PARASITES sucking our lifeblood and telling us its GOOD FOR US!

Mongrels!
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 11 April 2012 2:32:13 AM
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Ham, you can clearly understand what ‘unsustainable’ means but you need a precise definition of ‘sustainable’! I don’t get that.

Anyway, I outlined it two posts back. I wrote:

< … the fundamental requirements of a stable population, maximised renewable energy sources and a wind-down of our dependence on once-off primary resources and on to value-added and renewable industries … >

Obviously sustainability means a balance between the demand for energy and resources and the supply capability, as opposed to a society that is dependent on non-renewable fossil fuels and minerals and which keeps increasing the demand on these things.

You wrote:

<<You want an end to continuing expansion, which means an end to economic growth >>

No it doesn’t. Not at all. That’s just silly and indicates the most fundamental misunderstanding of sustainability.

<< If it can be shown to make economic sense and can be done in an ecologically sound manner, it should be done - unless of course it's 'unsustainable', in which case the project wouldn't even begin. >>

YES!!

So, why are you poo-pooing the concept of sustainability then??

May I suggest that you start listening to the likes of Bob Carr, Dick Smith, Ian Low, Tim Flannery, David Attenborough and an ever-increasing number of learned people so that you may gain an appreciation of the absolutely vital importance of us developing sustainable societies, on all levels from local to global.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 11 April 2012 7:02:46 AM
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It is interesting, last week former PM Paul Keating was quoted as saying “Creativity is central to our progress as it is to all human endeavour, the ability to divine the bigger picture and the commitment to drive towards it. The great leaps of humankind do not come solely from rational deduction. Intuition and passion provide the real points of progress so we must have a mix of passion and reason and wherever the two lie together, invariably the outcome is of an altogether higher form”

Rational deduction suggests we must deal with Murray-Darling issues, river health, future food supply in the face of population growth, the devastation of floods and sustainability of inland communities. In this context, Compton’s proposals are not "pie-in-the-sky expansionism" but a response to national need. Since time immemorial mankind has had to survive, progress and deal with challenges of the day. The way forward is to engage the best experts of the day to deal with the challenges and Compton opens our minds and way to this.

Our nation has moved on, even from Snowy River Scheme days with a new level of awareness and expertise covering issues from cost benefit analysis to environment and ecological challenges, evaporation, siltation, social impact and more.

There is no way the nation will or should ignore quality of life geared to economic growth, or to completely shut down mining on various fronts, resource exploration, scientific and energy research. We are an intelligent and adaptable nation able to apply the vision, passion and reason as Paul Keating suggests.

There is positive opportunity to harness the mining industry support for the benefit of all and I don’t see any suggestion in Compton’s proposal that public funds will surely be wasted on feasibility studies. Dealing with critical national challenges is not a waste of time or investment – public or private.

I agree in part with Ludwig’s posting that “if it can be shown to make economic sense and can be done in an ecological sound manner, it should be done” and I add, the mindset of “rational sustainability” should apply
Posted by Have a Go, Monday, 16 April 2012 8:14:34 AM
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Now we know!

Have-a-go works for the survey companies. They will charge Australians $100 million to give us an answer to IF Compton's dream is viable.

Then - we'll never hear any more about it while BHP fills acres of tailing ponds to overflowing with precious Aquifer waters laced with a million years worth of radioactive wastes.

Taxpayers will be held responsible, because they weremade accomplices by the fact of a connected Compton survey. Meanwhile all the profits, and the surveyor people will go offshore. Foreign investors will be laughing. With some of the intellect displayed here they probably are laughing now!

Lake Eyre can be sustainably ameliorated with HIGH TECH vegetation around a chain link of ENGINEERED WETLANDS. at its deepest points only. When dealing with something as vast as the interior of this DESERT land it is imperative to show some MODESTY and RESPECT.
Posted by KAEP, Monday, 16 April 2012 10:12:45 AM
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Have a Go, you wrote:

<< I agree in part with Ludwig’s posting that “if it can be shown to make economic sense and can be done in an ecological sound manner, it should be done” and I add, the mindset of “rational sustainability” should apply >>

You are actually quoting Ham here.

But yes, we do have some agreement in that economic sense, ecological considerations and rational sustainability are all-important prerequisites. It COULD be done under these circumstances. But if and only if it is really needed.

Sure, we’ve got the ability to undertake projects like this much more economically and environmentally sensibly than we’ve done in the past.

Trouble is, we are still a million miles from that third prerequisite of rational sustainability.

Everald Compton’s article doesn’t even consider this. And Ham’s expression pertaining to sustainability is confused and appears to be a disingenuous expression of support for it while at the same time lambasting those who desire a sustainable society!

They are really good at promotion and presumably pretty good at working out all the details and costings in order to get the maximum short-term benefit. But without the longer term considerations, it simply doesn’t make sense…and as I’ve said before; it has huge potential for actually making it a whole lot worse for the country, come the time that we are forced to embrace sustainability…which can’t be far off.

Sorry, but with these sort of people in charge or with strong influence or indicative of the prevailing mindset, this project has just got to be a complete NO-GOER!
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 16 April 2012 11:20:03 AM
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