Solving South Australia's Water Shortage with Plastic Bladders?
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 07. 9.07
As far as unconventional ideas to resolve droughts go, this one by Queensland physicist Ian Edmonds is a winner. What he suggests doing is float large volumes of fresh water in plastic "bladders" down the East Australian current from the north of Australia (where water is plentiful) to the south, a scheme he argues would be much cheaper and more eco-friendly than relying on pipelines or desalination plants.
The fresh water would come primarily from northern rivers like the Tully River and be wrapped in large membrane-like "bladders," or bags, before being towed 90 km off shore and left to ride the current, which reaches speeds of up to 6 km per hour, down the Australian east coast. The costs would be minimal: the bags, made from 1 mm thick fabric reinforced plastic, and the tugs to tow them. According to his calculations, they would be roughly 30 times less than the costs to build an equivalent desalination plant (around $3-4 million).
"I think it's always good to look at new options, and it does at first count, of course, using the sea, the buoyancy of the sea to transfer water and therefore save energy in that transport is good idea, sending water long-distance by pipeline or worse, in an emergency trucking, that is, a very energy-intensive and very expensive business and this could actually have some cost advantages over that. The real question is whether it's needed and whether it's very sensitive to the operating costs and capital costs and could actually be more expensive than being suggested," said Stuart White, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures, who deemed the proposal promising.
Other scientists, including Martina Doblin of the Institute for Water and the Environment and David Griffin of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), have expressed reservations about the plan, citing concerns that the bladders could burst or get stranded along the way on the Great Barrier Reef. Edmonds, who concedes these points, still believes his scheme is valid and plans on applying for support from the Queensland government.
As far-fetched as it may sound, it would be great to see this type of DIY, out-of-the-box project succeed where many others have failed (green schemes don't have to be expensive or overwrought). While it remains to be seen whether it can work given all the countervailing factors, we'll be eager to see what the outcome is.
Via ::ABC Local Radio PM: Fresh water bladders may hold crisis solution (news website)
See also: ::World Water Day, ::Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop To Drink, ::How to Green Your Water
Isn't there worry that the full bladders would sink? I guess you'd have to pump in some pressurized air to make them buoyant.
I thought a sustainability meant that we should be able to live on the resources near to us... not across the continent from us.
Sweet water is lighter than salt water, so it will float without help
no,
sustainabilty means using ingenious ideas like this energysaver to solve the problems caused by global warming.
Australia is in bad shape with drought like we in the Western US are going to be. Too bad we don't have an East/West waterway to do the same. We'll need freshwater West of the Colorado river when our glaciers melt too.
Someone needs to install some of those vaporators that the military is working on for iraq.
This is an interesting proposal and to my knowledge has only been proven to work once before. A gentleman by the name of Terry Spragg has invented both a water transport bladder and zipper/coupling system that has proven itself to be strong enough for the open water. Please take a gander at their homegrown website at www.waterbag.com (click on "History and Technology"). As you will see, they transported water across the bay outside of Seattle, WA.
Or they could just stop farming in southern australia... Oh wait, they can't because it might harm their national identity... You're right, let's build the world's biggest ziplock bag. Maybe they could even get sponsored.
China is sending water from three rivers in the south to the dry north district by canals. I don't know the topography of Australia but if the water could be raised up, this method might work there as well.
adrianakau2aol.com
We've got pretty extensive canal systems in parts of SE Australia, but they loose to much water to evaporation so they are all being replaced with pipelines.