The Desalination Plant (3 Viewers)

[loquasagacious]

Yes the sea is endless just like the fish and the wales and oil......

 

[mr_shittles]

It's actually cheaper to build a desalination plant than to use stormwater. The reason is that a desalination plant would require very little new piping/infrastructure to be built to supplement the existing pipelines. Even water recycling for that matter would require extra piping.

Another advantage of desalination plant would be that it would allow for private investment. The owner of the plant will not only get a government handout to build the plant, but it will charge Sydney Water 10 times the current price of water for its prescious commodity.

In the short-term, the desalination plant is probably the cheapest quick fix to the problem ($2b is apparently a bargain right?).

 

[nanashi]

it might be a cheap option, but the water they are using doesnt seem too clean. some have said that the water wont be good to drink and could cause health problems.

 

[neo o]

I don't care what anyone says. Water that has come from the ocean has a better chance of being clean than water that has just had s**t sitting in it.

Actually there are concerns that water from a desalination plant will cause liver damage, amongst other problems. As far as I know recycled water is relatively clean, though about 6 months ago there were reports of trace amounts of Prozac and Valium being found in London's water supply, since it couldn't entirely be removed.

All in all I favour a combination of subsidies to home owners for installing green technology and increased water recycling. In the end of the day, recycled water will be cheaper to the consumer. Also solar panels for heating, water tanks and waterless toilets should all be subsidised by the State government (subsidies increase supply, decrease prices, make technology more competitive and nearly as cheap as traditional units) and measures should be put in place to control water usage by large industrial companies (a sliding price increase for overly excessive consumption to prevent hoarding).

I've always favoured a near complete laissez faire system but the environment is one thing that the government should always legislate heavily to protect (externalities etc).

 

[loquasagacious]

Dont worry their not irreconcilable so long as the legislation is designed to make the market do the work eg to shift private marginal benfit and marginal cost to social marginal benefit and marginal cost.

Recycled water is already done on site by several companies as its cheaper than buying water, what more proof do you need?

I would bet that pipes from STPs to mains water would cost significantly less than 2billion, eg even if we assumed each link cost a generous $10K that enough for 200 000 such links. Most importantly desalinization incurs heavy ongoing costs recycling doesnt.

 

[theone123]

if you all bring the information together there are pro's and con's for both solutions to the problem. you see one solution has to come up and resolve the crisis at hand.

 

[neo o]

if you all bring the information together there are pro's and con's for both solutions to the problem. you see one solution has to come up and resolve the crisis at hand.

I see no cons for recycling.

Desalination

- Expensive to construct
- Expensive to maintain (power, staff etc)
- Pollutes the sea (with brine) the atmosphere (greenhouse gas emissions from the energy required to run it).
- Doesn't take advantage of a current resource (water run off) but taps in to a new one (the sea)
- Since it's so expensive, it raises the cost of water to the consumer
- Water produced in a desalination plant may be harmful

Recycling

- Cheaper than desalination
- Takes advantage of a current resource
- Cheaper to maintain and won't raise the price of water too much
- Some people don't like the idea of drinking recycled water.

Subsidies

- Can be expensive if uptake is high
- Will create a new "environmentally friendly home goods" industry which would have the potential to create quite a few jobs. Subsidies to support these industries for a decade are acceptable to protect the environment. After a decade subsidies can be lowered since competition would be higher and prices should stay lower.

Taxes for industrial firms

- Will cause industrial firms to use their water more efficiently
- May cause a few jobs to be shed
- May cause the price of a few inputs to rise (but since the market for most products in Australia is so competitive, it shouldn't hurt consumers).

 

[Generator]

I WANT A WEBSITE
what i want to see is a website which has all the information on current dam levels.

Next time, I suggest that you look before you try and put forth a 'crazy' new idea that would revolutionise water-management and awareness in Sydney, because Sydney Water and the Sydney Catchment Authority make such figures public on a weekly basis.

Another article or three.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15910811^28737,00.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...on-carrs-parade/2005/07/12/1120934245292.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...nd-one-is-money/2005/07/12/1120934245295.html

 

[malkin86]

The Sutherland Shire and St George Leader had it as front page news today.. they reckon that it will damage Towra Point Nature Reserve, a wetland of international significance - through the Japan-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement (JAMBA), the China-Australia Migratory Bird Agreement (CAMBA) and the Ramsar Convention.

What JAMBA and CAMBA do is to make sure that migratory birds have a space for them to be in Australia and Japan or China. Many endangered birds breed at Towra Point.

Ramsar is "an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of wetlands, i.e. to stem the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands now and in the future, recognising the fundamental ecological functions of wetlands and their economic, cultural, scientific, and recreational value." (Wikipedia).

 

[supercharged]

Water recycling would be a great idea for all the storm water that currently gets wasted down the drains everytime it rains, however hardly anyone would want to drink recycled sewage water for fear of drinking leftovers from someones ass

 

[neo o]

It's already been pointed out that they do it in Europe and in other first world countries. It's also been shown (and linked in this thread) that recycled water is BETTER FOR YOU than water from a desalination plant. The "NOBODY WANTS TO DRINK ARSEWATER" arguments don't carry much weight.

 

[loquasagacious]

This appeals to knee-jerk readers of the Tele like mathmite though....

 

[theone123]

Drinking water from sewage... Yuckkkkkk!!!!! .. Nooo .. yuckkk!

Most atoms around us have probably been places that we would find disgusting, but still... Recycling water! Yuckkkkkkk!!! It's had s**t sitting in it!

*squirming*

hard to settle with the facts indeed.

 

[supercharged]

Recycling water! Yuckkkkkkk!!! It's had s**t sitting in it!

*squirming*

Not just sitting in it, but dissolved into solution after weeks of festering quietly, before being recycled into yummy drinking water

 

[malkin86]

Yanno, if you really want to be technical about it, all water on Earth is recycled - it's more or less a closed system. Even the sparkliest Perrier was once l'eau de chatte..

 

[loquasagacious]

You guys must have serious issues going to the toilet..... Other people's arses sit there other people 'shitty' hands touch the toilet paper (not to mention cleaners who probably don't ever wassh their hands), the taps are covered in germs, etc etc.

Can anyone say scaremongering?

Large portions of Europe and New York havn't died because of recycled water, neither will you. You are the victims of a scare campaign and aid it by perpetuating it.

You are the same kind of people who in my old area whilst in the RFS refussed to use recycled water to fight fires which raised costs for the brigades and likely resulted in houses burning down in the fires a ciuple of years back.

 

[malkin86]

There's going to be a protest this weekend at Kurnell, against the desalination plant.

 

[loquasagacious]

As far as I'm concerned you are free to drink desalinated water which is more expensive to get, and bad for you containing heavy metals and higher levels of feaces. In fact I beg you to, it may case you irreperable damage which may mean you stop posting.

I on the other hand would much rather drink recycled water as it is cheaper and cleaner than 'normal water'.

 

[Olsen]

Recycling water! Yuckkkkkkk!!! It's had s**t sitting in it!
*squirming*

You won't care whether there has been s**t sitting in it when there is no water left in the dams. Lol you would probably be gulping as much of this s**t water as you can and saving extra for later.

 

[loquasagacious]

Do you have any idea A) how clean recycled water is and B) How polluted Botany Bay is?

Botany Bay has the highest feacal count of any body of water in NSW and is pretty polluted in other ways as well, I daresay that there are heavy metals and chemicals from the heavy industry that (used) to be in the area....