The very first thing that the 'lazy' and 'complacent' Australian politicians need to do is rip back all water supplies from private hands. It is absurd that such a scarce and essential commodity should have ever been treated as a way for private enterprise to make a profit while it is rationed to primary producers who represent one of the few industries left to us by rampant globalisation.

Waffling about 'harvesting' water is a waste of time while we have politicians too gutless to stand up to Greens, a ratbag minority that does not have to take responsibility for the continuing downward slide of this country.

With all the blather and no action, there is little chance that anyone alive today will see change.

This article was, I believe, written by an ideologue driven by a clearly annunciated ideological imperative? And predicated on desalination that uses dated reverse osmosis and price gouged antiquated coal-fired power!?

When instead it could and should be deionisation dialysis desalination which delivers four times the volume of water for the same energy input and as 95% potable water.

And field trialled some years ago in Texas, as cost-effective irrigation! Albeit, to give the Author his due, cotton could also be grown with nutrient-rich, recycled affluent And most tree crops!

Moreover, if the energy source were MSR thorium that energy could be 8 times cheaper than current delivery!

And the cost-cutting possibilities don't end there, given were we intelligently led we would by now be accepting other nations nuclear waste for storage here! And for the annual billions, we'd earn for providing such service.

Albeit, only burying he stuff after we'd extracted the remaining available95- 98% unspent energy from this energy-dense material by burning it and burning it again and again in MSR's and as we did so reduce the half-life from thousands of years to just 300!

And then use this, virtually free to us, energy, from MSR's, other folk funds have paid for. To power, the new space age desal plants, we could and would build, but for the rubbish of activists, with the ear of government?

Furthermore, the final waste product from this process is eminently suitable as long life space batteries that then burn up with reentry!

The abundantly obvious alternative as advocated? Is the status quo and the unprecedented bush fires continuing as far ahead as we can foresee!

Clearly, the Author is conflicted by a not too well-disguised, vested interest that would be harmed with cheap desalinated water? And fights with misinformation and dated info no longer applicable!
Alan B.

Hi Alan B.

Like simply pushing Thorium as THE energy answer your suggestion of "deionisation dialysis desalination" also lacks a proven producer-consumer economic record.

"deionisation dialysis desalination" more often termed Capacitive dionization (CD) "is still under development. Knowledge about treatment efficiencies of larger-scale installations, economics, and short- and long-term fouling/scaling issues of CD systems has not been established." see http://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_anyone_know_of_Capacitive_Deionization_in_water_treatment

To partly agree with Alan B nuclear powered desalination on the coastline could kill two birds with one stone... increase water supply and generate low carbon electricity. The technology could be a hybrid of reverse osmosis using electricity and flash distillation using waste heat. The public would have to accept the plants within say 50km of the city coastline.

The other thing is perhaps that Australia already has enough people. Our economic gurus tell us indefinite population growth is the answer to what ails us. It's now looking like the cause. Some of the problems can be mitigated but we need to be hard headed, not belief driven.

Meanwhile the very important topic of a water supply crisis needs to be considered in both and Australia wide and global context too.
See for instance the essay by David Shearman featured on the Pearls & Irritations website: it is titled Doctors urged to engage water policy concerns and a timely review.
Plus in the case of the USA an essay on Counterpunch by Andreea Sterea titled Looming US Water Crisis.
And of course most countries and regions face a similar crisis.

Just remember what some sleazy crooked politician has given to one of his mates can be easily re-taken. Find the corruption, dissolve the deal, jail the pollie and the CEO and seize the asset back.
The IBAC in Victoria is showing how easy it is to discover corruption!

plantagenet,
You're conflating two different electrodesalination technologies.

CDI is a newer technology that has great potential once the technical problems are overcome.
ED is an older technology that works well for desalinating brackish water but is not cost effective for desalinating seawater.

Australia is a very dry continent with erratic rainfall and a limited carrying capacity. Instead of living within that capacity, we've flogged off rural and urban water to market interests, continue with reckless high population growth, and trust to "drought-proofing" schemes. You can't drink GDP.

There seems to be a mental blockage in all politicians and also some
on this site.
There is an unrecognised problem.
Politicians are increasing our population without realising one fact;
Our population has to be small enough to survive a 10 year drought.
A drought such as we are having now !
No rain, little food, no money for electricity for desal plants.
No water will stop coal mining also.

I suspect that our population has already peaked and we should be
encouraging emigration.

Flood Lake Eyre permanently & the problems will be history !

We can do a great deal to help personally.

I am dependent on tank water for all domestic water, & for car washing. My dam water has too much silt in it to get cars clean, but is fine for stock to drink.

Despite this year being the 3Rd driest year on record around here since 1889, my tank supply has not run out. My home is reasonably large, but not exceptionally so, thus anyone in South East Queensland should have been able to supply their own domestic water for the average family, with suitable tankage, & a little care in their usage.

Yes some neighbors are buying a 3000 gallon tanker load of water a month. They are mostly tree change folk, with city water use habits. Some will learn, some may find city life more to their liking. Some who have had dams & bores go dry are having to buy in potable water to supply their stock, which must be expensive.

However if most city folk lived on the water off their roof as we do, our water supply would go a lot further.

nuclear powered desalination on the coastline could kill two birds with one stone.
plantagenet,
Not quite that simple I'm afraid. We must not overlook the massive chemical outfall of massive desalination.
We might kill the two birds but we'd still be creating a third problem.

Hasbeen, if you pump your dam water into a suitable size tank, say 2000 gallons. Chuck in some lime and epsom salts, the gunk will all settle to the bottom. Use a floating offtake. At Tennant Creek in the 60s our dam water was literally thin mud and this technique produced clear potable water.
David

Deionisation dialysis desalination is hardly under development! But already commercialized. In fact, one can buy several off the shelf models now from systems to treat around 400 gallons a day to 4,000 gals.

This is the usual misinformation tactic of green activists who want the human race gone and the enviroment saved as the consequence?

Because for them, trees are far more important than the human race or their fellow man?

Maybe they have a point, given the way the most powerful and wealthy clearly have replaced Jehovah with Mannon as their God?

And will do anything at all in order to serve it?

So maybe our species isn't worth saving?

But back to the topic. Deionisation dialysis desalination is already commercialized and able to be purchased as off-shelf models and will remove more than just salt ions but many others as well including some of those used in fire fighting foam for example?

All the dangers claimed for CARBON FREE nuclear power by these same anti-development nut jobs have been well and truly dealt with!

All that's missing here is the courage of conviction in educated and erudite leaders who just need to forge ahead and ignore the mountains of BS by the anti-nuclear brigade!

How many more lives and homes need to be destroyed or burnt to the ground before our gutless leader will grow a spine and just embrace the only viable affordable solution on the table!

As for the timetable. history shows the shortest build time for a nuclear reactor was just six months! Albeit using a known and field trailed and proven design and all we need do here with nuclear waste or thorium burning MSR!
Alan B.

Yes, there is a salt-rich liqueur from desalination but it can be pumped back to the sea from whence it came or treated with electrolysis to separate out the sodium and chlorine ions both of which have commercial value!

Again the solution would seem to be almost free power, which would be ours if we became an income-earning repository for the world's mountainous nuclear waste stockpile! And given we do just that earn annual billions for supplying said service.

However, before burying it we can burn it in MSR technology to utilize the 95%+ energy quotient still available as yet unspent energy in MSR"s! And we should probably buy a few off the shelf reactors designed to use molten salt and adapt them to use fluoride.

My pick would be the FUJI 350 MW. Adapt it as a prototype and then mass production of that advanced model as a nuclear waste or thorium burner.

Thorium would need to be treated in the blanket of a conventional reactor first to convert it to U233, And use that to make power and miracle cancer cure alpha particle, bismuth 213!

As for all the development and build costs?

Well, we could use the annual billions we'd earn as the world's safest repository for its current nuclear waste stockpile! And use that as mostly ready to use, unspent fuel for that's what it is in MSR technology!

A conventional 350 MW nuclear reactor will require during a thirty-year operational cycle, some 2551 tons of enriched uranium fuel from which it will produce as much as 2550 tons of nuclear waste.

Albeit some of the new breeder reactors may reduce that number to 2545 tons of nuclear waste?

This then is just unspent fuel in MSR! Where just one ton of this material we have already been paid annual billion to store, will fire our MSR for around 25 years! And produce as little as 1% as waste, which is eminently suitable as long life space batteries, that burn up with reentry.
Alan B.

Flooding Lake Erie is a worthy idea! And a fairly simple engineering project utilising nuclear powered ocean-going dredges! And a few explosives, regenerative electric shovels and dump trucks.

Any other power source would mean it'd be entirely unaffordable due to the fuel bill!

Simple tidal operated flood gates and a dual canal system would allow enormous high northern tides to completely fill the lake and several in between as well as continually flush the system with water

Also able to generate some hydropower?

And transport shipping into our current dead centre which could become an income-earning transport hub?

Several desalination plants built alongside would enable new development and arid desert turned into virtual gardens that take full advantage of the next boom, the food boom!

And indeed allow our indigenous populations to become completely independent and self-sustaining economically independent communities! As the first consequence! And include everything from broad acre cotton, fruit tree plantations, to dairy and everything in between!

The cost entirely recovered in due course with the income able to be earned both here and abroad and via the annual billions, we'd still be earning even then as the worlds safest repository for nuclear waste!
Alan B.

Bazz,

How about giving all of those parasites from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc their marching orders?

Thanks for the advice VK3AUU, most of my domestic irrigation & stock watering water is pumped 3 times, which does have a moderate settling effect on the silt.

It is pumped from the river to the dam, for which I have both irrigation & harvesting licences, then again up to a large tank at the house. I add flocculants when I have to use it in the pool, but as my soil PH is about ideal, don’t use chemicals in irrigation water.

The river has been dry for about 10 weeks this year, so a lot of wildlife is using my dam. They stir up the silt making the water much dirtier than usual. A recent couple of inch storm has just a trickle in the river, but a lot of farmers & wild life are going to be in real trouble if we don’t get some decent rain in the near future.

One horse & about 15 kangaroos have eaten out about 14 acres of my place, & between them are drinking a bath tub full of water every 2 days.

Having lived through a few cyclones I never thought I would ever say it, but we need a cyclone right about now.

How about giving all of those parasites from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc their marching orders?
Mr Opinion,
Arent you several thousand km too far East when referring to the non-contributors ?

Hasbeen recommends us city folk live of roof tank water.
He obviously has no idea of the carcinogens and toxins on our rooftops, deposited there courtesy of fossil fuels and oil combustion in our cars. Nice, but I'll stick with mains water for drinking!

Max Green, your attitude encapsulates the ignorance of "you city types'. I have actually analysed the water chemistry of rainwater and what you say is nonsense. Properly maintained rainwater tanks in urban or rural areas are perfectly safe. At the moment, such tanks are only recommended for gardens, clothes washing, toilet flushing dishwashing etc. But if you apply a triple filter plus UV disinfection, ANY city dweller can safe the planet by using such treated water to surpass current drinking water standards. Give it a go. What is the Green phase think global act local" ?

Hi Alison,
got any links showing that? I'm not that worried about various bugs in my water, it's more the lead and dioxins and oil particulates that float about in our air. How do these filters cope with those?

But hey, amazing timing with the recommendation! My brother in law has an ENORMOUS water tank for Sydney. It really belongs on a farm, but he's like that, and has a hobby farm up north (but that's another story.) It ran dry. That's what climate change has done to us - even our city folk with FARM sized tanks are running dry. How's that save the world?

And what if we don't have the LAND space for tanks that can store seasons of water? What does all this cost? Desal is coming down in price and if coupled to nuclear power can solve climate change AND Sydney water problems AND maybe let us pump some of that Warragamba dam water out to western towns where it might be needed more. How does that grab ya?

Max Green,
So, what are you people doing right now in readiness for the next deluge ? Are you working on catching more water for storage ? Or, are you just sitting there waiting for the Govt to do "something "?

I'd love a bit of a tank down the side of my house, but the way we have our garden set up I'll NEVER own one like my brother in law.

And remember, HIS tank ran dry!

So what am I doing about water? Nothing at the moment because I cannot afford it. I've got a bunch of other things to think about before then.

But I'm (slowly) reading about it and trying to understand what options Sydney has. Israel get over half their water from desal. Why can't we?

Hypothetical for you if the drought this year becomes the new normal? what if Sydney were ALL desal and Warragamba dam were pumped west towards agricultural areas that need it more?

Hmmm, how much power would be needed to produce ALL of Sydney's water
demand ? Could it be supplied without building a dedicated nuclear
power station ?
There are too many unknowns to be even able to have a casual discussion.
What is the desals litres per Kw/hr ? Don't know ?

Bazz,

20 seconds googling.
_______________________________________

"Nuclear desalination is generally very cost-competitive with using fossil fuels. "Only nuclear reactors are capable of delivering the copious quantities of energy required for large-scale desalination projects" in the future (IAEA 2015).
As well as desalination of brackish or sea water, treatment of urban waste water is increasingly undertaken....

....A 2006 IAEA report based on country case studies showed that costs would be in the range ($US) 50 to 94 cents/m3 for RO, 60 to 96 c/m3 for MED"
http://world-nuclear.org/information-library/non-power-nuclear-applications/industry/nuclear-desalination.aspx

A cubic meter is 1000 litres. The average bathtub if FULL is about 170 litres, but most people only fill their bath to about the 100 litre mark so a cubic meter is about 10 bath-times. A 10 minute shower uses about the same as the height of the average bath-time, so a cubic meter is 100 minutes or 1 hour 40 minutes: for say $1 US, or $1.42 in today's exchange rate.

So, making a guess from the price, about 2 Kwhr per M3.
Seems manageable per domestic residence but what are the implications
for the power system ?
How many M3 per day are consumed in say Sydney ?
That should be accessible from Sydney water

I make it out to be 162,000 M3 per day.
162000 x 2Kw/hr = 324 Mwatt/hrs per day.
Looks manageable if I got my sums right.
Easy to drop a 0.

It is more than having a big tank Max Green, it is having a country attitude to water, & valuing it highly.

You don't water gardens with drinking water.
You would never think or hosing off a path.
You don't rinse things, [dishes etc], under running water.
You don't bath, but have short showers.
You use 6 liter/minute shower heads.
There are many non city ways to be careful with water.

As for pollutants, city fall out is nothing to crop dusting residues.
If my lady ever thought of the toilet habits of all the country birds that often perch on our roof, she would die of dehydration.

Of course we seriously filter our drinking water & have filters on our tank outlets, just like city folk could.

I have lost about 10 trees & twice as many shrubs from my 1.4 acre house paddock. I anticipated it might be a bit dry, so consigned some areas to survive on what nature provided. What was once lawn/grass is now mostly bare dirt, but will probably come back.

I read somewhere that there is more lawn than agriculture irrigated in California, & think the same might apply to South East Queensland too.

Its fascinating watching how a article like this one sends people of on tangents, from Alan B with his much loved topic of Thorium to Max Greens' love of desal, but dismissive scepticism of rainwater. The common link of course is cheap, reliable energy to clean up the water to drinking standards. We could never get Sceptic Max to value rainwater, so its pointless trying to convince him, particularly as he demands desal as the only solution. However, given his comments on the value and quality of rainwater, his ascertains need sorting out. First, there are numerous papers of rainwater quality, so use Dr Google. Raw water quality is not ideal for drinking but can be used for every other use in the house (we only drink 5% of the drinking water we use). Secondly, his lack of concern for "bugs" is foolish, while his fear of toxins is ill founded. Bugs are the issue and they do exist in rainwater tanks (thanks to birds and animals) and if you want to drink the rainwater, it needs filtering. …. continued next post

continuation of preceding post...Thirdly, the toxins he fear, are already in the air we breath, and as we breath more air than drink water, he better start using an oxygen mask or spray painters mask! If you want to using rainwater for drinking, a simple filters and uv disinfection setup will do the job. Fourthly, re storage capacity. Congratulations (and commiserations) to his long suffering brother in law. No one expects rainwater harvesting to be the only source, and as all water customers pay their access charges for drinking water, they expect to use top ups. Its all a matter of space, tank size and demand. The value in rainwater harvesting, is that it complements other supplies and extends their security for those who don't have tanks (eg flats and tower blocks residents). Sydney for example has 1200mm rain per year, while Warragamba has 800mm. Hence the city's non-absorbent surfaces (roofs) not only have greater more to catch, but also deliver water more efficiently.

The disappointing side of the comments is that no one is willing to consider/discuss potable water recycling (40% of Singapore drinking water is created this way). Water recycling uses the same technology as desal, but with 1/3rd the energy AND also removes waste pollutants from our waterways and oceans, which currently pollute the environment (eg. plastic micropollutants). If people are sceptical about rainwater harvesting, no wonder the pollies use our "Yukfactor" reaction to encourage desalination of waste water recycling.

Allison Jane,
I am of the opinion that Australia has not come anywhere near requiring large scale desalination.
The amount of water provided by such desalination is already available a thousand times over. The problem is that the authorities acting on "experts' " advise are perpetually failing to use available water resources & so, the perpetual waste continues.
There is no need for desalination apart from island communities.
Dams, aquifers replenishing, soakage & storage of run-off etc cost a fraction & are a thousand times less polluting than desalination.
Govt should rid themselves of all the hangers-on "experts" & let people who know be in charge of such projects. We have had "experts" at the wheel for decades now & the proof is in the bag that they are the wrong people to make decisions !

Hi all,
HASBEEN - I love seeing a climate denier so used to saying "Don't tell me what I have to do with energy!" suddenly get up on his high horse and yell, "Let me tell you what YOU have to do for YOUR water supply!"

ALLISON - I understand there can be some bugs, but that I'm not that concerned about then precisely because of the fact that a/ we generally leave the bottom inch in a tank to create biota that clean up many of these bugs b/ we use water filters. I didn't think those water filters could deal with the various toxins, but if you have a scientific link that can show otherwise, I'm happy. I agree that breathing in nations that use fossil fuels isn't safe, and have often quoted how coal isn't cheap electricity because you pay for it again in the nation's health bill.

Also, if the WHOLE of Sydney is suffering the SAME drought (imagine that? Winks), then the WHOLE of Sydney's water tanks would be pretty much as empty as my brother in law's large round water tank. It's a drought. It means the water has stopped falling from the sky for everyone, not just me. Where's the water coming from?

Note: I'm not against water tanks but just don't have the money or space for large ones here. Maybe a smaller one in a few years.

INDIVIDUAL - Sydney's desal is running flat out yet our dam continues to go down. We have probably 500,000 to a million more people since the 1998 El Nino year drought. The VERY REAL climate science indicates it will start to become the new normal in just 20 years? Maybe you need to start hanging around some of these 'experts' you hate to learn just what a bad case of Dunning-Kruger's you already have.

Max Green,
I don't see any merit in arguing with someone who has an obvious financial interest in exploiting emergency situations. Desalination plants are quite a money maker because insipid bureaucrats invariably fall for wasteful industry rather than ensure value for money !
Build dams, not Desals ! Massive desals only add to the acidification of the oceans.
Use them only in REAL emergencies. I have long proposed for any new home to have its base built as its water supply. Sort of building atop a reservoir. Farms need to build more storage dams & soakage trenches. The main principle being to harness the run-off. Much can be done if only the "experts" are kept away because all they do is sacrifice efficiency for money.

Max Green... for the benefit of others who might fall for your bombastic commentary, here are the 7 stages used in producing good drinking water quality that exceeds drinking water standards.
1. first flush removal of heavy particles
2. course fiter of debris
3. sedimentation to bottom tank ( dead zone above offtake
4. Course 5 micron filter
5. Fine 2 micron filter
6. Activated carbon fiter to remove toxins
7. Disinfaection by UV lamp.

And if that's not good enough for you, then just buy bottled water... They uses RO filters just like a desal plant... that probably suites your taste more, despite costing 100's of times more than tap water and treated rainwater.. Even better the bottled water waste can generate even more plastic pollution and microplastic pollutants, unless you buy boutique glass bottled water imported from around the worlds virgin springs!

All right Allison,
I should have known better than try to ask for scientific evidence on OLO. I'm not saying it can't be done, but because YOU were being so bombastic and seemed to have so much evidence to hand, I thought YOU would be able to quickly link to an authority that would not only provide a quick summary of the science but the costs of various methods, etc.

There's a lot we could say about water efficiency in Israel, gradually adapting our city scape to store more water rather than watch it disappear down storm drains, capturing storm drain water, filtering river water for plastic before it goes out to sea, building more dams vs desal, etc. But the bottom line is while the average Israeli uses about a third less water than the average Sydneysider, they're approaching half desal and have goals of moving higher. And now they're EXPORTING WATER to surrounding desert nations!

If desal is so bad, why are they using it so much?

If Sydney ends up in a drought scenario like this more regularly, and this becomes the new norm with more years like this than less, maybe we need to adopt Israel's model and learn to "export" Warragamba dam over the mountains to the west where it can do some rural areas some good and have Sydney go 100% desal!

What is it with useful idiots & 20 year time spans.

Here we have another one telling us how bad the "new normal", another Catchphrase, will be in 20 years.

Guess they expect to be forgiven or forgotten for getting it completely wrong, as usual, after 20 years.

HASBEEN has been spanked for this 20 year myth of his before.

He started a whole thread on his 20 year schtick here.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9037#297596

Steele Redux had the patience to find Hasbeen's (non-linked to, why is that we wonder? Wink wink!) 'study' from 20 years ago, and it was OBVIOUSLY exploring the implications of the EXTREME edges of possibility, not the majority middle opinion.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9037#297677

EG: “The purpose of this report is to imagine the unthinkable – to push the boundaries of current research on climate change so we may better understand the potential implications on United States national security. We have interviewed leading climate change scientists, conducted additional research, and reviewed several iterations of the scenario with these experts. The scientists support this project, but caution that the scenario depicted is extreme in two fundamental ways. First, they suggest the occurrences we outline would most likely happen in a few regions, rather than on globally. Second, they say the magnitude of the event may be considerably smaller.”
http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a469325.pdf

Hasbeen's memory has been impacted by some traumatic event, otherwise he might remember SteeleRedux comprehensively CLOBBERING his claims. But Deniers — such short memories, hey? Such Hasbeens?

Allison, I spent the first 15 years of my life on tank water and several years since without any filters or bug killers despite the odd bird droppings on the roof or dead possum actually in the tank. It just helped to improve my immune system.
David

Good on you. I have also lived on tank water both hear and the UK. Unfortunately, when you have gentle sensitive luvies who live in cities, you have to cater for their purist demands, after all only expensive desalinated (and character-less) water is good enough for their sensitive palates.

ps, to paraphrase that old saying goes "You can lead them to water(recycled or rainwater)… but you can't force them to drink"!

Still can't link to the science Allison? Got it!

Science is rarely using common sense & logic unless they're stumped for saving face !
Most everyday-ers rely on tried & tested & proven without the need for Govt funding.
This method tells us that people are using too much of everything & it is now unsustainable even with the insipid 'Growth' mentality.
The insanity of manipulating Nature rather than work with it & enhance it is just that, Insanity !
It's all down to the excesses of people rich or poor ! We need to agree to settle on sustainability & work like hell to achieve it. A good first step to achieve the mentality is a National Service unless someone has a better & proven idea ! Birth control can be achieved by the removal of baby bonuses & maternal leave & pay schemes.

INDIVIDUAL,
what's your problem with science? It can deliver vast amounts of cheap water via desal, and I don't even have to spend $10,000 dollars on huge tanks and water filters. We work from home and for various reasons to do with our garden choice etc use a fair bit of water.

I'm happy to pay a stepped water rate much like income tax rate, with higher users paying more to subsidise the water bills of the poor or extremely efficient.

Then everyone here with tanks would pay even less for mains.

Happy?

what's your problem with science?
Max Green,
Who said I had a problem with Science, I love it ! It's the many pointless & useless & incompetent & taxpayer money wasting Academics placing themselves under the umbrella of Science.
You know those Arts Degree holders who couldn't make themselves a sandwich, they're the ones I have a problem with & the moron bureaucrats who dish out funds to them !

So you don't have a problem with science, but then you define science as those arts degrees types that can't make a sandwich.

Riiiiight.

Riiiiight.
Max Green,
You know what I mean, admit it !

Hey Indiv, they CAN make a sandwich !

I've got no idea what you mean Individual, as you contradicted your own statement. You were incoherent.

In smaller words so you'll understand.

You said one thing, then you said another thing that didn't match the first thing.

In a shorter sentence to make sure you understand.

It was dumb.

Am I the only one who thinks it is time to nationalise Australia's water resources?

My area of research is the environmental sociology of water and I would be interested in discussing issues with like minded people. Ratbag wannabes need not respond (if you do respond I will call you out - so don't! You know who I mean - the usual suspects.)

Start digging channels now to harness the next flood waters to pool instead of letting it all out to sea & choke the coral reefs with silt AGAIN !
Get a move on ! The run-off this season will be enormous after the fires & must directed inland asap. Let's get some Chinese in charge of that as it would get done unlike with the standard usual practice of getting Australian "experts" to ensure failure yet again !

individual,

That sounds great! But we need to know where to dig your channels.

Can you tell us where it will rain, when it will rain, how much it will rain?

If you can't then you're just pissing in the wind, which is a sort of rain I suppose.

NSW Minister for Water (Melinda Pavey) just announced the doubling of the desalination plants capacity for Sydney. Great news for the Canadian Teachers Super fund who has invested in the contract to run the plant for 25 years. Bad news for water consumers and energy use in Sydney. Guess the author was correct, Desalination is Kind in global water, and increasingly so in Australia.

If our energy system was clean zero carbon nuclear, we wouldn't care about any extra energy. In fact, mass produced assembly line nuclear is perfect for desal plants. There are new methods for ejecting the brine back into the ocean at a certain speed and angle that disperses it effectively without local salt build up.

Desal. It's a thing.

YeaH, but there is enough renewal bale energy being generated to meet those who claim they are using it! answer that!

No, there isn't. Or if there is roughly the right amount of money being paid for the same amount of renewable energy, it doesn't matter, as the electrons coming down our lines are a mix of mainly coal with a smattering of renewables and people are using mostly coal electrons with a few renewables slapped on top but at weird times when they're probably not relying on them that much.

In fact, it's exactly the sort of (perceptive, so I'll give you that) question that Dr James Hansen asks. He is *the* climatologist that diagnosed our climate problem — but no one believes him on the solution! He says believing in 100% renewables is like believing in the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. http://tinyurl.com/yclaf2sn Instead he says the world should build 115 reactors a year! http://tinyurl.com/zp3552t

There! I answered you THAT! Happy?

But Online Opinion doesn't care about climate change.
I do. But it's not the sort of thing OLO's known for.

But here's a thing, we can address more than one problem at a time.

Get EV's happening here as that's a transport 'gateway drug' towards getting off oil. But the power's coal? Yup, but the emissions are at the coal stacks not in our cities, meaning at least there's less pollution in our cities. Also, as we green up the electricity system the transport system gets cleaner as well. So go EV's and hydrogen and whatever, because that at least prepares us for peak oil and having clean transport systems.

But ideally, WHILE we are doing that we should ALSO be fast-building reliable baseload safe modern nukes like the CAP1400. We should aim for around 2 a year on a production line basis, which would see us done in a few decades.

Oh, and desal? If your city is dying of thirst, you just build the thing ASAP, whatever the energy source. You fix that later.

Take a deep breath and think about what you wrote. All the claims of renewable energy desal plant energy offsets might not be delivered renewable energy, so it must come form coal, gas, oil... and that's the problem. every one claims to be Green carbon free and no one checks their claims.

Why don't you take a DEEPER breath and think about what I wrote.

I agree with you on renewables.

That's the problem with renewables, but not with nukes.

And not with desal, just the powering of desal.

Max green, glad you agree with renewables comment.

AND, I remain bemused at how Australia got hoodwinked into hating nuclear power to the extreme case where we are paying billion to have the French convert a Nuclear sub design to diesel!,

Thank goodness they didn't insist on a wind powered submarine! Think of it, they might have made is buy an oil tanker from Korea, ripped out the diesel engines, painted it stealthy black and created the world's first expensive sailing submarine.

Nuclear power and desal ( and potable recycled water go well together, and both need water for cooling and as a dirty water source.

Nuc power is fine, and ain't it ironic that we supply much of the world's uranium "don't ya tink"?

As I said, the world's most famous climatologist is pro nuclear.

Forgive my 7 point rave, but it takes 7 points to show how different Molten Salt reactors are.
+ It *cannot* melt down because the fuel is already a liquid.
+ It requires power to keep the fuel up in the core and reacting. In a power failure the hot liquid salt pours down to the drain tank and the moment it cools to 400 C the salt crystalises into a solid block that's not going anywhere.
+ The Molten Chloride Salt Fast Reactor eats uranium and thorium and nuclear waste and nuclear warheads!
+ It burns all the longer-lived 'waste' out of it, getting 90 times the energy out of the waste, turning a 100,000 year storage problem into today's energy solution.
+ The final wastes are fission products that you melt into ceramic blocks and bury under the reactor carpark for 300 years. Then they're safe! Your whole life would only result in 1 golf ball of waste. That volume for Australia would only come to 1.4 Sydney Olympic pools of nuclear waste after 70 years of abundant, reliable, carbon free electricity!
+ Uranium from seawater can run the world for billions of years. It's essentiall 'renewable' because geological activity and erosion tops up the oceans.
+ Dr James Hansen, the world's most famous climatologist, says we need nuclear power and we should look to the history of the French. They built out a mostly nuclear grid in just 15 years. It can be done, fast and cheap. The French electricity bill is about half Germany's, and Germany is only a third done with their unreliable wind and solar plan. According to Hansen the choice is nuclear power or climate change.

Max, what form is the fuel in the molten salt ?

Bazz,
you owe me about 2 dozen answers to 2 dozen unanswered questions in other threads, so you can go google all that mate. Short answer, a frigging huge variety because the stuff keeps transmuting. But the MCSFR starts off with a trigger source like enough fissioning uranium, and then like Dory in finding Nemo, "Just keeps on fissioning, keeps on fissioning."

Unlike the LFTR, it eats a wide variety of fissionable materials and will hit the fertile stuff with enough neutrons over time to turn them into more fuel to burn as well.

More here
http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/07/elysium-molten-chloride-salt-fast-reactor-will-use-existing-technology-for-rapid-approval.html

QUESTION TO ALL... So if we used traditional or alternate nuclear power (eg MSR), you would accept potable water recycling? and not continue the illogical "yuk factor" tradition.