ArticlesReader.com Menu
Newest Articles
Most Viewed Articles
ArticlesReader.com RSS
Submit Article
Login
Signup
Search the articles

Articles Main Categories
Advice
Animals
Automobiles
Business
Career
Communications
Computer Programming
Computers
Entertainment
Environment
Family
Fashion
Finance
Food
Health & Medical
Home & Garden
Humor
Internet Business
Internet Marketing
Legal
Leisure & Recreation
Marketing
Other
Politics
Reference & Education
Religion
Self Improvement
Sports
Technology & Science
Travel
Writing
Subscribe
Receive alert message from us when new articles submitted to our site for free.

Enter your name

Enter your email

Syndicate

















Related Products
Home::Technology & Science

Desalination of Sea Water in Australia

Author : Tobi Nagy
DESALINATION OF SEA WATER IN AUSTRALIA
A new Life-Line or an Expensive Pipedream?

Desalination has been touted as the saviour for Australia’s current water shortage. Will it solve our long term water supply problems in Australia or will it become an expensive pipe dream?

Desalination is the conversion of sea water into fresh drinking water through a process called reverse osmosis.

Saudi Arabia has long been using desalination plants for nearly all their drinking water. They have invested billions of dollars into their system.

Australia with its current water shortage is now starting to research it, but is it a case of “too-little, too-late?” Has the horse bolted, before we shut the gate?

Currently in West Australia (W.A) there is a proposal underway to build a $360 million desalination plant in Kwinana in Perth. A $4 million research project has been completed which has given the green light to build the plant in Kwinana, an industrial suburb of Perth.

Victoria has a similar proposal and is currently conducting a research and feasibility study with N.S.W to follow suit.
•Sydney is believed to have only 2 ˝ to 3 years of water left, at the current rate.
•The N.S.W government is expected to start building a $2 billion desalination plant at Kurnell (near Port Botany), early next year. This has lead to protests by locals, who fear major environmental damage.

In this article we take a brief look at the Desalination plant that is about to be built in Perth Western Australia, where it will be able to convert sea water to fresh water.
How do we convert sea water into fresh water?
There are a couple of ways to convert sea water to fresh.
1.Boil sea water and collect and condense the steam. This requires a lot of energy.
2.An improved technique is to pump sea water through membranes, which trap the salt molecules and produces clean fresh water. This is known as reverse osmosis.
How do we know its going to work?
On Rottnest Island just off the West Australian coast a small scale version has been running over the past few years.
•Filtered sea water is pumped using a high pressure (to an equivalent of 600m below sea level) pump
•As its being pumped, 6 membranes within the pipe, block larger salt molecules.
•An equivalent of two standard salt sachets (like the ones used to salt your food in takeaway restaurants) removed per glass of water.
•The removed salt brine is then pumped back to sea.

The desalination plant meets 70% of the island’s needs, and is powered by a 100kw source which provides 500 kilolitres of fresh water per day (18.3 Megalitres per annum).

A 600kw wind generator on Rottnest Island provides power for rest of the island and also the desalination plant.

Kwinana Plant
•The Kwinana plant will be 25 Megawatt which is 250 times the size of the Rottnest Island plant and will provide 50 Gigalitres per annum.
•The plant will also contribute 100,000 tonnes per year of greenhouse gases.

To combat the contribution of greenhouse gases, 20,000 cars will have to be removed from the road or an extra 8,000 hectares of trees (or an equivalent of 9 sq kms) will have to be planted, which the W.A Government is currently examining.

To get the equivalent power source for this desalination plant, the W.A Government will have to set-up over 40 wind generators, the size of Rottnest’s islands, just to meet the power demands of the plant.
Cost per glass
The cost per glass of desalinated water will be 0.004c, which compares well with the current price of 0.003c per glass using the current system of water supply.
•However the cost to the environment does not reflect this price.
Conclusion
The new desalination plant for Kwinana is planned to be completed by October 2006. But who will build it? The W.A Government still hasn’t secured a tendered contract partner to build it.
•The 50 Gigalitre per annum capacity falls way short of Perth’s current water demand of 1300 Gigalitres per annum.
•There will be a huge impact on the environment, at a time when we need to consider cutting Greenhouse gas emissions not increasing them, for the sake of everyone on the planet.

Considering that agriculture, industry, evaporation and wastage contribute to 88% of our water usage [See Table 1], shouldn’t we focus on the causes of water shortage rather than just providing an expensive cure?

Market SectorPercentage
Agriculture70%
Domestic12%
Industry9%
Other (eg. evaporation, wastage etc.)<10%

Table 1: Water usage in Australia in 2004 [Source: ABC TV: Landline Program]

Will this become a futile exercise in our struggle for life in Australia or the sign of a new horizon and a brighter future?


About the Author

Tobi Nagy is a small business develoment consultant and a specialist on developing sustainable systems. His website can be found at http://www.sustainable-development.net

Spam emails More free articles

Related articles


  1. Lighter Than Air Tubular Flight
  2. Tunneling Concepts for Advanced Warfare
  3. Laser Attack, EA, Scalar Attack on Composite Manufactured Vehicles
  4. How to Build a Mechanical Bullet Which Turns
  5. Shamans and Their Documented Abilities
  6. Weather Control and Creation to Use as a Screen for Troop Advancement
  7. Building a Single Unit CO2 Laser Grid
  8. Military Convoy Artificial Tubes for Safe Travel
  9. Organic Decoy Devices for Warfare (ODDW)
  10. Down Scrolling Text to Find Patterns
  11. Human Motion, Walking, Running and Gait for Identification
  12. Aluminum Oxide to Disrupt Laser Weapons
  13. Preventing Death in a Bio Threat
  14. Re-Designing the ICBM With The Latest and Greatest Technology
  15. Bio-Rhythm Disruption Frequency Identifier for Human Intentions
  16. 747 Onboard Laser Might Cause Mistake and Identity
  17. Active Aerial Minefields
  18. Free Energy from Space
  19. Micro Blimps Cleaning the Air in Buildings to Eliminate Anthrax spores
  20. Surround Panoramic Night Vision is Possible
  21. Confusing MAV Optic Flow Sensors In flight Using Mobiles
  22. MAV Propulsion and Testing
  23. UAV - Terrain Following Technologies
  24. MAVs, UAVs, and Insect Flight Characteristics
  25. Para Trooper Gliders With Angle of Attack Motor or Crank
More related feeds
JTP Mech: Desalination Plants in Australia
However, in 2006, the first major seawater desalination plant was commissioned in Perth. By 2013, it is expected no fewer than 8 major desalination plants will be operating in Australia with a combined capacity of over 1600 ML/d. ...

Dramatic Shrinkage of the Free World
People have no money. Civil servants have gone unpaid, but now I believe are paid by Australia. There is insufficient water. Fresh water is imported for overseas staff to drink, or provided by desalination plants that often fail. ...

One-Third of Austrailia’s Energy Needs Can Be Met By Wave Power
By delivering high pressure seawater ashore, the technology allows either zero-emission electricity to be produced (similar to hydroelectricity) or zero-emission freshwater (utilising standard reverse osmosis desalination technology). ...

California Desalination Report with More than a Grain of ...
The PI report claims that impingement and entrainment of marine organisms are among the most significant environmental threats associated with seawater desalination. This claim, however, is not supported by any data nor by any ...

Repura | Services: Sea Water Desalination
Repura Water Desalination Services Repura is a company that helps medium and large businesses to acheive significant savings through water treatment and reuse technologies - Preview '...his enquiry Alternatively you can send us an e ...

IDE to Build Desalination Plant in Australia
Globes reports that the facility will use the same reverse osmosis technology used at IDE's Ashkelon seawater desalination facility, as well as at facilities in Hadera, Eilat, and Cyprus. The Australian facility will produce 140000 ...

IDE to build $150m desalination plant in Australia
Established in 1965, IDE specializes in commercial applications of thermal and membrane technologies for desalinating and converting sea and brackish water for drinking and process water. The company has supplied more than 385 plants of ...

Water plant to guzzle energy
The warnings in a soon-to-be released report by the Water Services Association of Australia come after seawater desalination was likened to a petrol-guzzling "six cylinder" family car by one of Australia's top water bureaucrats at a ...

IDE to build desalination plant in Australia
IDE Technologies Ltd. will build a 50 million cubic meter a year desalination facility for a company in Australia for €100 million. The facility will use the same reverse osmosis technology used at IDE's Ashkelon seawater desalination ...

Into The Red
Excess water is pumped out to sea as its apparently cheaper to run desalination plants in the south to draw water than to pump down supplies from the top-end. It just seems a bit incongruous to me that part of the country is in drought ...

 

 

© 2007 articlesreader.com - All Rights Reserved