Arid Australia is already dammed (damned). All the low-hanging fruit for dams has been used up for yonks. Yet politicians grow the population like a mad science experiment. 19m at 2000, 27m now, race on for 40m.

The poster-child for woke water-stupidity is Perth. Rainfall has shrunk, runoff to Perth dams is down nearly 90%. So, the plan is, double the population, chuck another (Alkimos) "net zero" desal-plant on the barbie, pimp yourself as a "world leader in climate resilience".

Yeah ... well. Nothing is going to be done about. We have idiots in charge, and idiots still voting for them. Australia is rooted.

Those who think Australia's population can grow 0.5m every year have short memories of dry times. Think water rationing and expensive food along with unaffordable housing.

There are glaring examples of water wastage in Australia. For example the Lower Murray Lakes evaporate 1000 GL in dry years yet they are essentially just underused boating lakes not a crucial asset. Recently they began pumping lake water to the adjoining hypersaline Coorong. That water could be used upstream to help feed Australia's booming population.

Sorry, I disagree. one can hang the biggest bucket in the world and if it doesn't rain. All you've got is a big useless bucket. And wasted billions. Dams evaporate 50% or more of their storage capacity.

One of the things management teaches, is, there is always a better way. Injecting water into aquifers might be one of those ways, and that eliminates waste via evaporation.

Moreover, if that aquifer is the great artesian basin, then increased water becomes available from northern Queensland to S.A. Northern Australia measures rainfall in metres. Some of that might be pumped as suggested.

But better yet is deionisation dialysis desalination that produces 4 times the volume of Memtech. And enough volume to make irrigation on broad scale agriculture, cost effective.

The key is ultracheap electricity for both the above. And my friends that electricity is MSR thorium or better yet, MSR nuclear waste burners, burning mostly unspent fuel we are paid millions to take. The latter producing PKWH for less than a cent.

The surplus heat from walk away safe MSR technology, could be used to evaporate seawater or effluent, to make safe thoroughly sanitised drinking water. Finally, we now can use seawater for electrolysis and green hydrogen production.

Ultracheap power makes pumping city effluent hundreds of miles inland a cost-effective irrigation proposal on the driest inhabited continent on earth!

Thinking within a fixed circle of (fifties time warp) ideas limits the questions. And if the questions are limited, so also are the possible answers.
Alan B.

Dams evaporate 50% or more of their storage capacity.
Alan B,
Yes, however, doesn't evaporation directly translate into eventual precipitation ? Right now is the time to realise the Bradfield scheme & flood Lake Ayre. Australians need to stop looking at such projects as investment schemes for profits next month. Make an easy start now & as the project starts to pick up so will the economics & social aspects that come with a project designed for the future. Keep private investors away from it & it will be a success beyond present realisation !

The Bradfield scheme is un-fundable. The business case analysis and possible returns does not stack up. The pipeline could cost up to a trillion.

Farmers as a collective pay SFA tax, yet expect the taxpayer to fork over annual billions in drought/flood mitigation relief and for this or that, water infrastructure, country roads and rail, etc.

That said, pumping northern water into the Great Artisian basin does about the same thing as the Bradfield scheme, given the sheer size and length of that aquifer.

If the goal is to transport volumetric water south? Then the G.A.B does that. Moreover, the suggestion repressurises the basin.
Alan B.

If one wants to flood Lake Ayre, then there's an almost ready-made canal from the west.

All that's required is some modest earth works and some tidal flood gates that take advantage of northern 40 feet flood tides and allow that water to fill a number of salt lakes, flow on into lake Ayre, then out the southern end and out through S.A. All the way to the Southern Ocean. In a twice daily flush that could be used to power shipping. That makes the lake a transport hub/harbour for all the south. S.A, Melb., W.A.

Any number of MSR thorium/nuclear waste burners could be sited alongside this new waterway to power multiple desal plants. The waste heat could be utilized for the same purpose and quality drinking water.

Our newest migrants could be put to work in tent cities to build the thing and the new towns that would spring up as dependable water makes that very outcome almost guaranteed. And transforms our arid inland into a green oasis.
Alan B.

Another opportunity for the Coalition: promise to build dams and don't break the promise like Albanese Labor does.

The Bradfield scheme is un-fundable.
Alan b,
I just discussed this with friends who spent many years in that area & they all agreed that funding would be less a problem than getting people & politicians in particular to see the benefits from the start.
A tiny canal from the sea would not require any pumping & the sea water would lift & dam any freshwater. Then, real estate along the canal & around the eventual lake would literally pay for the whole project & still leave plenty of change. Recreational benefits that could not even be dreamed of at this stage would eventuate. The first thing would need to be getting people to realise that this would not be a private investor project. It needs to be a generational Govt. project. No looking for a completion date & other such nonsense, just start it & go as it comes along. Stop looking at things that are good for society as something to make money from ! Creating a local economy is far more desirable than some soul-less greed mongers making a profit !
One of my friends suggested giving the area to the Israelis & in six months all would be in place.

Rule 1 if you are going to have a whinge at least get your facts right.

Claiming "So while our water storages are stagnant or declining" and that "only two dams have been built in Queensland in the last 20 years", yet totally ignore the increase in capacity of the Hinze dam by 150,000ML in 2011 is either wilful or ignorant. Neither reflect well on the author, though he has had form in this regard.

http://www.seqwater.com.au/sites/default/files/2019-09/Seqwater%20-%20Hinze%20Dam%20fact%20sheet.pdf

Its increase in volume outstripped the mentioned Wyaralong dam at just 102,000ML, and was close to the capacity of the Paradise Dam at 170,000ML.

Therefore the author is full of it.

And to say the water is wasted is utter ignorance.

Dams do have impacts, some quite serious. The Wentworth group of scientists calculated that Australian rivers can sacrifice up to 30% of their flows before their ability to support the many species which rely on them is seriously degraded. Some of our rivers have nearly 90% of their flows lost to consumptive use. The ability of a river to provide triggering flows for fish spawning and for migratory species to move to estuarine breeding grounds is often completely lost in these systems.

Yet we are still intent in squeezing every last bloody drop of 'wasted' water from them.

The claim "our politicians support dangerously high levels of immigration" is the primary cause of an uncertain water future is risible rubbish too.

"The NT Supreme Court has rejected a case brought by traditional owners and environmental groups over a controversial groundwater licence. The licence will eventually see 40,000 megalitres of groundwater extracted each year from an arid property north of Alice Springs." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-31/nt-supreme-court-dismisses-singleton-station-water-licence-case/103408138

So one single cattle station is being granted a licence almost equal to the water consumption of the city of Darwin.

The almond industry alone on the Murray consumes as much as the cities of Geelong and Ballarat put together.

We need to take a far harder look at the water intensive industries we allow to flourish on cheap water while the rest of us are forced into expensive desalinated solutions.

Indy, mostly agree with your last post. And you are right, the new development alongside would pay for the whole thing. Correct, less dense freshwater floats on saline water.

The dredges could all be nuclear powered, be virtually floating workshops/dorms/diners. MSR thorium providing the dirt-cheap electricity for the draglines cutting though a very modest low hill range that is near the coast and the only high country along the entire route.

And MSR thorium will keep the fuel bill to all-time lows for all the earthworks. Anything not powered electrically can use green hydrogen extracted from seawater. MSR thorium would make the latter cost effective and far less costly than diesel.

I agree that this, just like the snowy mountains scheme, ought to be government funded and managed, to keep the racketeers and professional shonks/tax avoiding, price gouging, profit repatriating foreign investors out.

Rezoned real estate development alongside a new rapid rail would also pay for it.

The snowy mountains scheme put most of our new migrants to work and ushered in a period of unprecedented prosperity and economic growth.

No reason why an inland canal as proposed wouldn't do the same again and put all the foreign newbies to productive work.
Alan B.

The snowy mountains scheme put most of our new migrants to work and ushered in a period of unprecedented prosperity and economic growth.
Alan B,
Yes but they were migrants from different backgrounds, people who were looking for a new life.
The was no outfit to tell them how to get funding in return for doing nothing apart from bleating discrimination & racism.
Australians need to look within for people to work for the future not import more of those we already have too many of. Fancy, meaningless certificates don't build infrastructure, competent & practical people do ! We need people who work & plan for their children not for a profit tomorrow arvo !

Watching 'Building the Snowy' on SBS right now makes me think that in comparison, flooding Lake Eyre would be a mere weekend project but with the most massive benefits for Australia's future at a fraction of the cost.
Why it still hasn't eventuated is down to mentality rather than logistic !

As the saying goes "Build it & they will come !
We just need to filter who goes there !