Victorian desalination plant: Difference between revisions

Plans to build a desalination plant at Wonthaggi in Victoria, Australia, were announced by the Bracks Labor government^[1]

Information about the plant

• Household water bills are expected to double over the next five years to pay for a $4.9 billion water strategy to secure Melbourne's water supplies
• Estimated water production is 150 billion litres (150 gigalitres) of fresh water per year, approximately a third of metropolitan Melbourne's needs based on 2007 consumption levels.
• The plant is planned to be operations by the end of 2011
• It is intended that the plant will provide additional water to Melbourne, Geelong, Western Port and South Gippsland.
• The plant is estimated to use about 90 mega watts (MW) of power per day. While a commitment was made to use renewable energy to power the plant in an attempt to make it greenhouse neutral, it is likely the plant will be powered by a co-located gas fired power station, which will produce signficant greenhouse gas emissions.
• The plant is expected to emit 200 million tonnes of brine to the ocean.
• The plant will be constructed using a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and could end up being foreign owned.
• The Bracks government opposed the construction of a desalination plant during the 2006 Victorian State election, but reversed its position after the election and committed to building it.
• There was no proper public consultation process that provided input to inform the Government decision to build the plant.
• Significant energy (with associated greenhouse gas emissions) will be required to pump desalinated water from Wonthaggi to Melbourne.
• More than 1.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gas will be pumped out during the construction of Victoria's proposed desalination plant, and another 1.2 million tonnes emitted each year once it starts boosting Melbourne's water supply.^[2]
• Greenhouse emissions during the construction of the plant, and about 70,000 tonnes from waste decomposition and transport during its operation, will not be offset.

Controversy about the location

<googlemap lat="-38.535813" lon="145.520096" zoom="11" controls="small"> -38.573938, 145.513916, Site of proposed desalination plant </googlemap>

Floodwater has again threatened the South Gippsland site of proposed desalination plant. Flooding of the site in 2007 was called a "one-in-100-year" event by the State Government, but water from the Powlett River has flowed again over land set aside near Wonthaggi.^[3]

Costs

• The construction cost is estimated to be $3 billion
• Operating costs (most likely charged by a private firm) over a 25 year period could reach $1.5 billion^[4]
• Melbourne Water estimates the cost of production of desal water to be $3000 a megalitre

Alternatives

• The capital cost of the plant would could equip about 600,000 households with tank systems and pumps (at $5000 per house) that could provide more water than the plant's estimated production. Combined with recycling sewerage water and protecting our catchments, we may not even need desalination.
• Stopping logging in Melbourne's water catchments would provide and extra 30 gigalitres of water, which would be much cheaper than paying for the same amount of water to be provided by desalination. This water would also not require pumping to Melbourne.

• A 2007 study of using rainwater tanks as a viable urban water solution concluded that:

"Rainwater tanks are five times more energy efficient than desalination plants and twice as energy efficient as the proposed Traveston dam, per megalitre of water produced.

"If governments deployed rainwater tanks to 5 per cent of households each year in Sydney and South-East Queensland, dams and desalination plants planned for 2010 could be delayed past 2026 (Sydney) and 2019 (SEQ).

"Most Australian houses are suitable for a rainwater tank. In Sydney 65 per cent (or 1.1 million houses), in SEQ 73 per cent (or 900 000 houses) and in Melbourne 72 per cent of existing houses have potential for a rainwater tank.

"While 38 per cent of households in Adelaide have rainwater tanks, fewer than 6 per cent of the houses in Melbourne, Sydney, South-East Queensland and Perth do,” said ACF’s urban water campaigner Kate Noble.

"Rainwater tanks collect and store water far more efficiently than dams, especially in times of drought. As the climate changes we should be installing tanks to take advantage of the rain that does fall on our rooftops.

"If governments systematically installed rainwater tanks in Australia’s major cities, we would secure as much water as the planned Kurnell desalination plant in Sydney, the Tugan desalination plant on the Gold Coast and the stage one of the unpopular Traveston Dam proposed for Queensland’s Mary River,” Ms Noble said.

See also

• Melbourne water usage
• North South pipeline

External links

• Wonthaggi Desalination project, Victorian Government
• Your Water Your Say -- Action group of families and individuals concerned that the future water provision in Victoria is achieved through environmentally sustanible means. We have all been working relentlessly to establish the groundwork for our anti-desalination campaign.
• Minister 'relaxed' about scrutiny of desal plant, The Age, December 1, 2007
• Rare parrot is back ... on desal site, The Australian, June 29, 2007

• Is desalination the solution? , The Age, May 16, 2008

"We are staring down the barrel of running out of water," says Priestley. Rainwater tanks, groundwater, stormwater, desalination, recycling, new dams, more efficiencies all need to be on the table - "each city has to look at all options, not put a red line through any of them, including recycling."

References