Desalination Plant threatens to double My Water Bills

The flight from reason means precious little to those who rarely approach it in the first place.

Sydney water bills could more than double if the State Government proceeds with a proposed desalination plant ... The city's residents would have to pay between $2.13 and $2.44 for every kilolitre of water they used, compared with just over $1 now. That could rise to as much as $3 if the Government honoured its commitment to offset the greenhouse gas emissions associated with an energy-intensive desalination plant...

The Australia Institute's report says. "With [the tribunal's] shift towards pricing water at its marginal cost price, the desalination plant would result in water being priced to high-volume household users at around $3 per kilolitre, or double the post-October price (and treble the current price)."

Desalination is an energy-intensive process and the proposed plant - which could supply Sydney with a third of its daily water needs - would increase the State's electricity use by 1.5 per cent and Sydney's electricity use by more than 2 per cent, according to the report. If supplied with electricity from the State's existing coal-fired power stations, emissions from the plant would be equal to putting another 220,000 cars on the road, the report said, or burning two litres of petrol for every 1000 litres of water produced.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for increasing the cost of water, the price we pay now is risible and if it doesn't rise, when we start saving water in earnest, it will undermine the financial viability of the water company, which is also daft.

But does it ever occur to any of these folks that
Putting another 220,000 cars on the road would aggravate the global warming that is in part the cause of the water crisis?
Raising the price of water to its marginal VALUE instead of its marginal COST would rapidly start to put a crimp on the wastage and head towards eliminating the need for the plant in the first place.

Meanwhile, those with a little experience with these boondoggles offer a lesson in basic economics, the real kind, not just the ones that involve money

Arizona's experience with desalination is a salutary tale for Sydney. Completed in 1992, the $US250 million desalination plant in Yuma, near the Colorado River, was designed to clean up farm runoff that was otherwise too polluted and salty. The plant operated for nine months before heavy rains, followed by a series of wet years, turned it into a white elephant.

Fifteen years later, Arizona wants to restart the plant to help drought-proof the region. However, it could cost as much as $US30 million ($40 million) to bring it back on line and between $US24 million and $US30 million a year to operate. Funding aside, there is still division between state officials and green groups about whether producing water at such a high cost should be considered a failure on both economic and environmental grounds. With Arizona suffering from drought in 2003, the state government said the cities of Phoenix and Tucson needed a new water source.

But environmentalists were worried that if the plant again started drawing water from the Colorado it would damage Mexican wetlands downstream and dozens of bird species. A new plan is now being worked out between the warring parties that could see groundwater pumped from waterlogged areas near Yuma to provide an alternative supply to the delta, while the plant supplies desalinated water to cities on both sides of the border.

Bingo. Desalination is only useful if the drought lasts forever. But as soon as it rains the plant becomes worthless. But conservation works all the time, and the more rain you get, the more effective conservation becomes; so what are we going to choose? A sort term fix that sucks expensive energy and falls into disuse as soon as rainfall exceeds demand, or a system with increasing marginal returns?
OK, which one gets the biggest payoff for the energy and construction industries? Yup, that one.

Comments

[shazza]

God this is stupid. get a life!!!!!!!!!!

[shazza]

im so so sorry

[YOU SUCK]

YOU SUCK

[Earl Mardle]

Hmm.

Dear YOU SUCK.

What kept you? Shazza has already been there 3 years ago.