Water Idea - would this work?

One huge issue here is that we must realise there is no such thing as 'waste water' in a country that is water and nutrient poor. We tip it in general in the only place that doesn't need it, the sea, and then import nutrients from overseas for our soils. One ASX listed company AJL has been talking for a while about 'sewerage mining', I think that's their term to gather this product and use it as a resource. We have a few shares in this company, they are also involved in desalination plants and pipelines all which will be part of future water management in Austraia. Australias future water needs will be met in many ways, how 'way out' those ways are will depend upon the situation.

Mofra said:

Cheers alston, I had never heard of this until you posted. Just on the company website, sounds rather interesting and the devlopment appears to be fairly advanced according to the timeline (asusming the company is meeting timeframes).

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CNM is the ASX code, method seems to work well enough for WA, SA and VIC governments to support it , probably because their coastlines have the 2 metre wave swells that work best.

Mofra said:

Melbourne is officially the dryest Capital city in Australia (according to news reports), taking the mantle off Adelaide. Adelaide would still have it on longer term trends.

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Long term rainfall data in order from driest to wettest:

Adelaide 552mm
Hobart 626mm
Canberra 629mm
Melbourne 659mm
Perth 870mm
Brisbane 1150mm
Sydney 1226mm
Darwin 1814mm

Data is a few years old however but for a long term average it shouldn't change too much.

Apparently this idea of towing floating water bags is a reality.

I saw a TV report about the idea and they showed vision that this is common practice in the Mediterranean Sea.

No ocean currents or high seas to worry about in the Med Sea, but still successful none the less.

Krusty the Klown said:

I saw a TV report about the idea and they showed vision that this is common practice in the Mediterranean Sea.

No ocean currents or high seas to worry about in the Med Sea, but still successful none the less.

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That sounds more promising, proven technology. Now, where's the infrastructure dollars K Rudd? Surely some of that Telstra selldown is worth protecting the viability of the nation's foodbowl.

Krusty the Klown said:

Apparently this idea of towing floating water bags is a reality.

I saw a TV report about the idea and they showed vision that this is common practice in the Mediterranean Sea.

No ocean currents or high seas to worry about in the Med Sea, but still successful none the less.

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None of this water stuff is radical in an engineering sense. It's just a matter of moving a liquid from one place to another and water doesn't have the problems that oil does (flammable, damages some plastics etc). Desal, dams, pipelines, pumps, flumes, canals etc - it's all conventional technology already in use either in Australia or overseas but for some reason Australians seem to think it's pie in the sky stuff when it certainly isn't.

It's just a matter of physically building and operating things and the cost associated with doing so.

springhill said:

Heard this old chestnut a few years back when Barnett was talking of piping water down from Nth WA to Perth. Just waiting for someone to mention towing an iceberg......

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Colin Barnett's idea was for a covered canal from the Fitzroy River in the Kimberley along the coast to Perth. Apart from bringing water to Perth it would have aided the development of coastal communities along the way. A big problem (apart from the cost) was that much of the coastal route is subject to regular impact from severe tropical cyclones and the low level coastal areas over which the canal would pass to flooding and storm surge from those tropical cyclones.

A more direct pipeline across the inland of the state would have required pumping from near sea level to ~2000 feet elevation as much of the inland of Western Australia is a plateau.

A lot of you fellas are forgetting something here. The enormous amount of water needed for agriculture verses the pitance that food is worth. I'm sure you could make the figures stack up for residential and industrial water use, but it'd be unlikely to add up for agriculture. Agriculture uses most of the worlds water supply. The amount needed for residential is tiny in comparison.



It takes a tonne of water to grow a kilo of wheat, or 1,000 litres for a kilo of wheat. That kilo of wheat is worth 20c to the farmer. Thats gross. But the farmer has to make a profit. His profit might only be 5c. So out of that 5c profit he has to be able to buy the 1,000 litres of water plus make a living. So the water has to be worth a few cents.

It gets much much worse for meat. It might be 10,000 litres of water to grow a kilo of beef.

These figures can be from either simply rainfall, or irrigation. There's not much difference.

A 1,000 hectare grain farm that receives 500 mills of rain per year receives,
1,000 times 10,000 square metres rain times 500 mills

Equals 5 million tonnes of water.
Equals 5 billion litres of water.

That 1000 hectare farm if it averaged 5 tonnes per hectare of wheat
grew 5000 tonnes of grain.

5 billion litres of water to grow 5 thousand tonnes of grain

equals a million litres per tonne.
or a thousand litres per kilo.



It doesn't make much difference if it's rain or irrigation. Delete the rain and substitute with irrigation, and the figures would be similar. it would still be about 1000 litres to grow a kilo of wheat, worth 20c.



There's no way known you can pump water, float water for thousands of ks, or whatever you propose and make it work for agriculture. As to providing enough to save the Murray river and feed the nation, it's all crazy.

It has to make economic sense. Just because it can be done doesn't mean it's economic to do. The Saudi's were growing wheat in the desert, and still are. It costs $1,000 of dollars per tonne and is highly subsidised, when it could be purchased off an Australian wheat grower for $200 a tonne. It's ridiculous, but Saudi Arabia gets a warm and fuzzy feeling out of growing their own food. Saudi Arabia's water is rapidly falling. It's an underground non-replenising fossil water aquifer. It's crazy, so Saudi Arabia will soon stop this ridiculous farm practice.

If doing all this stuff was easy and made economic sense it would have been done decades ago. It's not easy, and it's not economic for agriculture currently without subsidies.

According to this wiki article,...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_water


the production of 1 kg wheat costs 1,300 L water
the production of 1 kg eggs costs 3,300 L water
the production of 1 kg broken rice costs 3,400 L water
the production of 1 kg beef costs 15,500 L water
the production of 1 cotton shirt (medium sized, 500 gram) costs 4,100 L water


Those figures seem about right I'd reckon. So it takes even more water than I suggested.

Won't be long before all homes in Australia will be fitted with a "grey water" recycling feature. Should cost about $1000 to have one installed. KRuddy should have spent the "stimulus package" on this idea and not the pink batt insulation money grab.

Greywater is wastewater from non-toilet plumbing systems such as hand basins, washing machines, showers and baths. When handled properly, greywater can be safely reused for the garden.

Our use of water in the household:

Bathroom – 50 per cent
Laundry – 22 per cent
Garden – 20 per cent
Kitchen – 8 per cent.

Showers use the most water followed by washing machines.

trainspotter said:

Won't be long before all homes in Australia will be fitted with a "grey water" recycling feature. Should cost about $1000 to have one installed. KRuddy should have spent the "stimulus package" on this idea and not the pink batt insulation money grab.

Greywater is wastewater from non-toilet plumbing systems such as hand basins, washing machines, showers and baths. When handled properly, greywater can be safely reused for the garden.

Our use of water in the household:

Bathroom – 50 per cent
Laundry – 22 per cent
Garden – 20 per cent
Kitchen – 8 per cent.

Showers use the most water followed by washing machines.

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I used to have an acreage before I realized what a s**t load of work that was, but did have a grey water system with a grease trap fitted for the kitchen - stops things clogging up down stream.

Anyway, the worst job in the world has to be cleaning out the grease trap. The first time I did this, I puked and dry reached the whole time. After that it was just the odd dry reaching - best to do on an empty stomach.

Cheers