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

<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?

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.

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

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)

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.