Developing themes: water security and the Environment, the Australian experience

On Day 1 of the IDA World Congress, Perth, three keynote speakers addressed desalination through the lens of water scarcity, water security and the environment and the Australian experience. Speakers included: Sue Murphy (SM), Chief Executive Officer, Water Corporation; David Furukawa (DM), National Centre of Excellence in Desalination, Australia, and; Albert Goller (AG), Managing Director, Siemens Australia.

They discussed the motivations for desalination development in Australia, reflect on the experiences to date and the challenges for the future.

AG states that, “Water security is the base for a sustainable future” and notes:

Paradox 1: floods and droughts can occur at the same time*

Paradox 2: [with respect to energy needs to desalt water] reliable sources of energy are not clean and clean sources are not reliable.

Developments in Australian desalination have sought to address these issues by offering low carbon, climate independent water security.

Large scale desalination for domestic water production is relatively new in Australia, starting with the first Perth facility in 2006 and included in the ‘big six’ today. With the planned completion of the Melbourne plant anticipated by 2012, all major Australian cities will be served by desalination.

Recent rains have promoted the public perception that the building of these facilities may be folly, but cited rainfall statistics for recent years demonstrate a trend of decreasing rainfall. The desalination facilities may be considered an insurance, water security against future drought

‘It makes no sense to solve water problems by creating more greenhouse gas emissions’ (SM). All of Australia’s big six plants are said to operate at around 4kWh per cubic metre of water produced, a value generally accepted as the industry norm for larger facilities. Energy is purchased from wind and a wind-solar combination in the case of Adelaide and the Southern Perth plant (SM).

For Melbourne, the visual impact of the plant is minimised with green roofing (DF) and the building of a berm around the facility. Outfall diffusers are designed such that salinity is within 1% of background levels within 50m of injection.

Desalination is integrated with other water management interventions. These include water savings from demand management initiatives that, in the case of Perth are claimed (SM) to have reduced the city’s water consumption by 25%**. This has been driven by regulations that only allowing homes to water at night and watering restricted to two days in any given week.

Water is charged at between $1-2 per cubic metre. AG compares the cost of this commodity to $3 customers are likely to pay for a bottle of water and a significant proportion of Australians have no clue what their water bill costs.

Challenges remain and are identified (DF): increasing efficiency, lowering energy consumption, overcoming negative public perception, reducing the carbon footprint, enhancing renewable energy and further reduction in the cost of desalination. DF states that this all combines to reduce the cost of water.

Sustainable development is inherent with all of these challenges. The have been identified in a ‘gap analysis’ and are specifically addressed in the Australian Desalination Road Map where the fifth (of five) areas for R&D targets social, environmental and economic issues.

Environmental concerns include the disposal of waste materials. To illustrate, DF notes that if, unchecked, by 2015 the disposal to landfill of membrane cartridges alone could exceed 800 tonnes per year. (see SkyJuice examples from Portofino in earlier entries to the blog).

Education and public perception (a mental reconnection to the water environment) is an important element of building confidence and acceptance in desalination. DF describes Australia’s National Centre for Excellence in Desalination (see www.desalination.edu.au).

* AG was referring to the Australian case where one State may be experiencing drought while another is flooded, but if we consider structural drought then these conditions can occur in the same place at the same time.

**links to stats to support this claim? Domestic consumption? Price incentives?