Thread: Climate change? what climate change?

Originally Posted by rangietragic

Here's a thought.Instead of jamming heaps of people into places where theres no water,why not put people into places where there is?No,thats too much like common sense.

Nice thought, but where is this magical place?

The south west of WA and parts of Tasmania both have the most reliable (consistent) rainfall in Australia, but most of that is in winter.

The rest of Australia is either arid or semi-arid or gets heaps of rain at times and then suffers through droughts in between.

Originally Posted by rangietragic

Here's a thought.Instead of jamming heaps of people into places where theres no water,why not put people into places where there is?No,thats too much like common sense.

I'm genuinely curious as to where all that water is that you want to put millions of people in. The ocean?

How about, if your really concerned

STOP BREEDING

bound to work eventually

well for starters 3 dams I know of are very big and during the dry season the water only drops 25mm below spillway height before onset of the next wet.

I'm talking about Darwin River Dam , Manton Dam and the Ord River Dam. All not far from each other in practical terms.

All surrounded by country mostly grazing cattle.

Developers could have a field day if a government was prepared to back it.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Building dams assumes you have reliable rainfall to capture, whereas for desal all you need is an ocean nearby which is not going anywhere soon.

I think cost is less important than having a reliable supply year round.

The Mitchell has proven so far to be reliable flow wise( aren't parts of Vic flooded again). Also this thread was about climate change, now in reality with a limited budget what makes more sense?
3-6 billion(depending on source for cost) on a desal plant and a MINIMUM 2 billion dollars a year regardless of whether you actually use a drop! Or 1.4 billion on a dam and the 24 billion. Over the dam cost you where going to burn on the desal plant put into renewable energy sources over the same period? Ditto for NSW and QLD.

Whilst in the RAN, I served on the US built Charles F Adams destroyers, they had two " aqua chem" flash type evaporators, producing 2 ton of fresh water, per hour. They were capable of boiler quality feed water production. Each about the size of a small family car, all they needed was;


150 PSI steam [ as supplied by hospital boilers.]to create the vacuum thru a venturi
salt water intake, via a pump.
brine discharge, via another pump.
fresh water outlet.


I have always thought either a shore set up, with as many needed to supply water needed, [ the only drawback would be the disposal of the brine, but thinking outside the square, salt pans for harvesting of the salt would be extra income] or a mobile set up, with a large tanker, with the appropriate amount of units to keep the tanks supplied constantly, and the resultant water pumped ashore, into the local system.
Both setups would cost a hell of a lot less than the white elephant down the Gold Coast, with the tanker concept capable of being used wherever a water shortage occurs [ cyclone, natural disaster, here or overseas. ] A simple , cheaper solution. Obviously , there is some reason to not do it, that I don't understand. Bob

Originally Posted by frantic

( aren't parts of Vic flooded again).

Yep. Coastal areas. That's what happens when you have a high tide and strong winds blowing the water back upstream. Unfortunately it doesn't fill dams.
Oh, over the last few days, Melbourne has had a total of about 10mm. My backyard has had two. Hardly drought breaking flooding falls.

Originally Posted by bee utey

I'm genuinely curious as to where all that water is that you want to put millions of people in. The ocean?

Lake Argyle was built for a purpose to hold water. Hang on, it's been sold to the Chinese Well done the ozzy government. Again.