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

Although it would work, the cost of desalinated water exceeds the value of the crops it would produce.

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

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.

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.

Thanks Rhosty, very informative and constructive.

Cheers,

Joe