Melbourne running out of water: What to do?

[Buckeroo]

Treating waste water would be the best idea - apart from the stigma it creates...I recall seeing that they can make it safer than regular tap water these days...

Should ask the Brisbaners about this - They spent milliions on a system to drink their own piss, then it rained - the reaction by the people, hell we're not going to drink our own piss now!!

Anyway, luckily the Melbourners are close to the sea. All they have to do is fill up their jug with sea water, boil it and capture the steam - plenty of water then.

Cheers

 

[Ghetto23]

Should ask the Brisbaners about this - They spent milliions on a system to drink their own piss, then it rained - the reaction by the people, hell we're not going to drink our own piss now!!

Anyway, luckily the Melbourners are close to the sea. All they have to do is fill up their jug with sea water, boil it and capture the steam - plenty of water then.

Cheers

De-sal plants are a lot more of an environmental risk than recycling plants.

 

[queenslander55]

Stock up on Jim Beam Purple Label and cheap cubes of coke from Woolies...

 

[gooner]

A 747 full of new immigrants arrives in Australia every day. Good for the economy especially as a lot of them do the crap jobs we don't want to do.

But it comes at the expense of water supplies and quality of living. Whole areas of Sydney are being designated "high density living" so you get apartments going up next to your freestanding house.

There's the solution and it's a cheap one

 

[Surly]

Now all we need is a Bass Strait pipeline. We already have a gas pipe, power cable and 3 fibre optic links across it, now we just need a water pipeline.

Smurf,

You seem to have sensible answers to these sorts of questions.

Cant water and gas be sent thru the same pipelines and then separated again?

Could the existing gas pipeline be used in this manner or is it too small or gas flows in opposite direction or some other technical difficulty?

cheers
Surly

 

[Buckeroo]

Kenneth Davidson (I think) made the observation that the rain band had moved 200 km to the south,which adversely affected Melbourne's rainfall (Age newspaper a few months ago)
Only time will tell but seems to right so far.
Where I live in SA we have had 208 mm so far for July,more than for the whole year in Melbourne.
What to do-pray for rain!

Aha, so the sneaky plan to change the weather & dump all Melbourne's rain on South Australia has worked!!

 

[Buckeroo]

Not really an option in the available timeframe for a lot of reasons (I'll explain if anyone really does want to know...).

But we could shift a significant amount of generation away from Vic in favour of NSW and Qld coal-fired plant very quickly. We could have it done tonight (literally tonight) quite easily from a technical perspective.

Look on the positive side though, at least things are becoming consistent in Victoria. Trains don't work when it's hot. Power doesn't work when it's hot. Now there will be no water either. At least it's consistent, predictable failure to plan rather than a one-off...

There's a power station in Queensland Millmerran, which uses banks of giant air heat exchangers. The cooling water is a closed circuit system with minimal overall loss.

Maybe it would take time to build these (and copious amounts of money), but why not? - for a dry continent like Australia, why would you throw all your water into the air?

Cheers

 

[Datsun Disguise]

Nope, no votes.

My preferred solution is the World Bank tap the mouth of the amazon and run pipes around the world. 25% of the world's fresh water runs out to sea, lets just take 1% of that to hydrate the planet. It wouldn't be hard, the fresh water from the Amazon runs out hundreds of kilometers. There's oil pipelines running the same distances about the place. There's probably a little problem with diverting some of that, but the poles supposedly melting might make up for it.

Hmm Amazon huh - how about some super tankers - anyone know how many litres the big ones hold? Might be something in pulling up at the mouth, dropping in the pipe, fill 'er up and cruise over to the highest bidder. Hell , maybe bottle it - Amazon river water! have to worth a motza.

 

[Datsun Disguise]

I did get around to considering some of the drastic short term measures we could implement to save of skins. Any thoughts ?

Distributed water catchment and recycling. So it works like this, every new home in Melbourne is required to have 5000 litres of water storage. A grey water filtration system treats the washing machine and shower/bath water and stores it along with any rain water. Ideally all storm water pipes suppliy the storage solution. This stored water is supplied to toilets and washing machines, maybe garden, but perahps we have to accept that we'll be living in a dust bowl at some stage.....

On a large scale the cost to build these systems in would be around $4-5,000 - make it mandatory now.

A focussed gumint would provide significant rebates to existing home owners along the lines of the now dead in the water solar power scheme (overheard in industry / gumnint halls -"**** this solar thing is popular, this might actually impact our revenue !!! shut it down quick!!!) Same thing for water, private companies own the supply rights, if we catch and recycle our own how to they make any money?

Short sighted privatisation. Some things do belong to the people, basic services is one of them.

 

[johenmo]

Living in regional VIC where the restrictions are nearly at the stage of not being allowed to drink water (ok sight exaggeration), I don't have much sympathy as Melbourne authorities have yet to get to the tightest level of restriction. Thank goodness for those who are being frugal or it'd be worse.

Gardens etc look a lot better in Melbourne that outside Melbourne.

But I have concern because if it gets right down to it I think Melbourne will rate before country towns in the lineup for water because of numbers. And that will see water limitations per day for country people & not for the city. It's been done overseas, and they turn the water off for a while if you use too much.

Overall, we aren't as good with water conversation as a country as we think.

 

[Aussiejeff]

Living in regional VIC where the restrictions are nearly at the stage of not being allowed to drink water (ok sight exaggeration), I don't have much sympathy as Melbourne authorities have yet to get to the tightest level of restriction. Thank goodness for those who are being frugal or it'd be worse.

Gardens etc look a lot better in Melbourne that outside Melbourne.

But I have concern because if it gets right down to it I think Melbourne will rate before country towns in the lineup for water because of numbers. And that will see water limitations per day for country people & not for the city. It's been done overseas, and they turn the water off for a while if you use too much.

Overall, we aren't as good with water conversation as a country as we think.

Ohhh.... I dunno, johenmo - this watery thread is a pretty good conversation piece!

 

[johenmo]

Ohhh.... I dunno, johenmo - this watery thread is a pretty good conversation piece!

Ooops - typo. But love yr comment!!!

 

[Smurf1976]

Smurf,

You seem to have sensible answers to these sorts of questions.

Cant water and gas be sent thru the same pipelines and then separated again?

Could the existing gas pipeline be used in this manner or is it too small or gas flows in opposite direction or some other technical difficulty?

cheers
Surly

Gas flow is from Victoria to Tasmania with the pipeline coming ashore near Bell Bay (near the mouth of the Tamar River north of Launceston). 100% of all natural gas used in Tas comes via this pipe, there being no local gas production and no other pipeline.

Cost of the pipeline was $430 million (from memory) and it was completed in late 2002. This cost included onshore pipelines from Bell Bay to Hobart (250km) and across the north coast of the state to Port Latta (where an iron ore processing plant is located).

So pipelines can certainly be built across Bass Strait that's for sure. How much it would cost for an adequate water pipe I really don't know.

But consider this: Tasmania, with 0.5 million people, has put in the gas pipe and electricity cables in recent years at a combined cost of $1.2 billion. Whilst that was all privately funded, it is ultimately underwritten largely by state government entities.

Now, Victoria has roughly 10 times the popluation that Tas has. So I think Vic ought to be able to find a way of financing such a pipe even if it ends up costing a few $ billion. Maybe it would take the next 10 years to pay for it, but surely that's got to beat having no water in Melbourne.

 

[Smurf1976]

There's a power station in Queensland Millmerran, which uses banks of giant air heat exchangers. The cooling water is a closed circuit system with minimal overall loss.

Maybe it would take time to build these (and copious amounts of money), but why not? - for a dry continent like Australia, why would you throw all your water into the air?

Cheers

It cuts water use around 90% I think. Certainly it could be done everywhere, and to some extent it should be practical to convert existing plants. It would take quite some time however...

 

[Riddick]

Ok enough of the rubbish.
Melbourne and indeed australia does not have a water supply problem. The issue is a total lack of perspective and strong enough legislation aimed at monitoring and managing water resource use. I work in sustainablility and it is evident, when looking at settlement patterns and resource usage in melbourne and Australia as a whole (I live in regional victoria), that almost no thought, no enforcement, no forward planning has been invested in the concept of sustainability, proper allocation of water resources and the pattern of future development. melbourne does not have a water problem, it has a water usage problem. Melbourne recieves plenty of water each year but uses it so incredibly poorly. I live and work on a sustainable community and our average power and water usage per person is around 0.3-0.5kwh and less than 100L. this includes all household chores. We have a usage and planning problem and the solutions are very simple, though our current political system will always fail to deliver the appropriate outcome: No more urban expansion - utilise many of the japanese ideals of high density urban housing, cut down the size of private yards and discourage grass and other non native plants that are essentialy useless and consume large quantities and even easier, install rain tanks for grey water usage and halve shower times and laundry loads. change the behaviour, solve the problem. There is no water shortage just poor management.

 

[Smurf1976]

Ok enough of the rubbish.
Melbourne and indeed australia does not have a water supply problem. The issue is a total lack of perspective and strong enough legislation aimed at monitoring and managing water resource use.

Sounds awfully like socialism to me.

Melbourne recieves plenty of water each year but uses it so incredibly poorly. I live and work on a sustainable community and our average power and water usage per person is around 0.3-0.5kwh and less than 100L. this includes all household chores.

Plausible but I'd be very interested in hearing how those figures have been achieved without some "hidden" energy source masking the true level of consumption and whilst maintaining typical lifestyles.

Average TV viewing alone would use all of the power in your example whilst turning on the oven would blow the power budget big time. If the figures don't include TV, cooking etc then they're possible for individuals but not realistically scalable to the population as a whole.

I'm not saying it can't be done if you've got proof otherwise. But as someone who has spent his entire working life with things electrical, I just can't make those numbers add up for a typical lifestyle where people watch TV, vacuum floors, roast meat in the oven and so on.

Anyway, to the original question about water in a city (Melbourne) it's worth noting that cities use very little of the stuff anyway. Most water in this country is simply discharged straight into the ocean to become salt water. And most of the rest is dumped on farms where it evaporates.

Very little ends up in showers, toilets, car washing, power stations and all the other things people seem to focus on.

 

[Romano]

We sure do have a water management problem.
How many houses have large spa baths in their homes? Lots I reckon.
How many people have to do an unnecessary load of washing every day? Lots I reckon.
How many people spend way too long under the shower? Lots I reckon.

That said, it is still industry that uses the great majority of the water.

John Faine interviewed Tim Holding (water minister) this morning, and the comment was that if all Melbourne households stopped using water tomorrow, we would still have a water crisis.

 

[Smurf1976]

We sure do have a water management problem.
How many houses have large spa baths in their homes? Lots I reckon.
How many people have to do an unnecessary load of washing every day? Lots I reckon.
How many people spend way too long under the shower? Lots I reckon.

That said, it is still industry that uses the great majority of the water.

Agreed BUT:

How many people unnecessarily buy newspapers or magazines? Very few could argue they actually need them. How many people throw out or stop wearing perfectly good clothes? How many people take unnecessary interstate or overseas holidays? How many people watch unnecessary TV programs?

And so on. Probably 99% of all the resources we use are ultimately not "necessary", water is but just one example.

The notion of constant GDP growth on a finite planet is the real problem environmentally. It works for a while but ultimately exponential growth of anything fails - a financial pyramid scheme is a classic example of this.

 

[basilio]

Gas flow is from Victoria to Tasmania with the pipeline coming ashore near Bell Bay (near the mouth of the Tamar River north of Launceston). 100% of all natural gas used in Tas comes via this pipe, there being no local gas production and no other pipeline.

Cost of the pipeline was $430 million (from memory) and it was completed in late 2002. This cost included onshore pipelines from Bell Bay to Hobart (250km) and across the north coast of the state to Port Latta (where an iron ore processing plant is located).

So pipelines can certainly be built across Bass Strait that's for sure. How much it would cost for an adequate water pipe I really don't know.

But consider this: Tasmania, with 0.5 million people, has put in the gas pipe and electricity cables in recent years at a combined cost of $1.2 billion. Whilst that was all privately funded, it is ultimately underwritten largely by state government entities.

Now, Victoria has roughly 10 times the popluation that Tas has. So I think Vic ought to be able to find a way of financing such a pipe even if it ends up costing a few $ billion. Maybe it would take the next 10 years to pay for it, but surely that's got to beat having no water in Melbourne.

The water pipeline from Tassie to Victoria has been canvassed and championed by Ken Davidson for at least a couple of years. It seems to make very good engineering and financial sense. But somehow it didn't fit the present Governments ideas for a desal plant.

In the short term the tanker proposition seems the most practical. But I'm sure it would need planning and engineering works that wouldn't happen in a few weeks.

Which is why I am pointing out just how close melbourne is to a real catastrophe.

At the same time of course we need to find every way to reduce and reuse our current water.

I can't believe the "good news" story in the papers saying that July was a good month for the dams because we increased supply by around .7% . Stream flows are still are record lows. The catchments are not wet enough to allow good run off. El Niño is on the cards. And at least 2/3rds of the water in our biggest dam can never be pumped

Boost to Melbourne's water supplies
Natalie Marshall
July 31, 2009 - 3:36PM

Above-average rainfall over the past month has boosted Melbourne's water supplies.

For the first time in six months, the total amount of water going into Melbourne's storages is higher than the amount of water coming out.

The manager of Water Supply for Melbourne Water, John Woodland, said July was normally the time of year when the storages recovered due to heavier rainfall and a decline in water use.

"We would have liked to have seen a bigger increase from the rain we had in July, but run-off into storages was 40% below average because the catchment were so dry," he said.

 

[Smurf1976]

The water pipeline from Tassie to Victoria has been canvassed and championed by Ken Davidson for at least a couple of years. It seems to make very good engineering and financial sense. But somehow it didn't fit the present Governments ideas for a desal plant.

In the short term the tanker proposition seems the most practical. But I'm sure it would need planning and engineering works that wouldn't happen in a few weeks.
[/B]

Agreed it would take a while.

My "wartime" plan would be:

1. Get some tankers from somewhere, anywhere on Earth. Should be possible but I've no idea of the cost.

2. Storage tanks (so the water can flow into pipes 24/7) and necessary pipelines at the Vic end. Might need to dig up a few streets but I'm sure there are people and machines in Vic that could be used for this.

3. At the Tas end, Pipeline from Paloona dam to Devonport and/or Trevallyn Dam to Bell Bay. The pipes would be partly above ground to facilitate quick and easy construction. Storage tanks at both locations to facilitate quick loading of the tankers. It might be possible to re-use the old fuel oil tanks and wharf at Bell Bay power station for this (?) - they hold about 50 million litres and are no longer in use now that gas is available. They have already been cleaned internally, and are sitting empty.

Still take a while but I'm sure it could be done fairly quickly under a genuine emergency situation if goverments get on with the job. Sooner rather than later would be the way to go - it's going to be a lot easier to ship in 20% of Melbourne's water for an extended period (maybe years) than to let the dams run dry and then try shipping in 100%.

Lost power generation in Tas due to taking water from those dams would be manageable. Would need to use a bit more gas to offset it, but it's doable. Only issue would be if there was a gas supply shortage, in which case Bell Bay power station (Tas) would need priority. That's an unlikely problem however unless a gas works blows up etc.