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Desalination plants should follow five-point plan and keep an eye on climate change coastal consequences, says WWF

As a very energy intensive process whose product was once famously labelled “bottled electricity”, desalination needed to be powered in such a way that it did not become a significant major new contributer to increasing emissions and climate change risk, according to the WWF’s Phil Dickie

Some golden rules:. Accordingly, plant promoters and approval agencies needed to ensure that:

• plants used the most energy efficient technologies;

• plants were developed in stages to take advantage of improving energy efficiency;

• plants needed to be sited with due regard to protecting sensitive areas;

• plants were sited to minimise the energy required to pump water to consumers; and

• plants were powered through renewable energy, purchased green energy or used “Gold Standard” offsets for all their emissions.

Coastal desalination plants particularly needed to consider the implications of climate change, which was predicted to lead to sea level rises, more severe extreme coastal weather events and increased risks of saline intrusion into coastal aquifers.

Reference: Phil Dickie, WWF for a living planet, ‘Making Water – Desalination option or distraction for a thirsty world?’, June 2007.

Erisk Net, 23/9/2007

Opposition result of misunderstanding: "The other users of the lower aquifer are industrial or township users," said Hanna. "There are not many industrial users in the area, but there are one or two townships that use it. This just makes it all the more important that we get this bit right, because we do not want that underground aquifer to be diminished unduly when communities actually rely on it for their drinking and household water.

Grape growers and irrigators fearful: A lot of concern was expressed by farmers and other water users in the Penola region about the significant water allocation to the mill. Some of that concern was based on a misunderstanding that the allocation of water was from the top aquifer, which is where the grape growers and irrigators generally get their water.

Top already overallocated: "In respect of the top aquifer, there are a number of areas around Penola where the water is already overallocated (in other words, there is an unsustainable drawing of water), and there are also a lot of bores where the trigger levels have been reached.

Bores have tried out: "These trigger levels are simply measurement points where the sustainability of the bore is threatened. There are many bores in the region not far from the mill where those trigger points have been exceeded. In other words, for some water users around Penola, and around the area where the mill will be situated, there are real problems in drawing sufficient water for their crops, their orchards, etc".

Problem of possible aquifer interconnection: "The problem really arises if, indeed, there is some sort of interconnectivity between the upper and lower aquifers," Hanna said. "If there is heavy additional use of the lower aquifer, and if there is a connection or a leakage between the two, there will be additional pressure on the upper aquifer. There was some evidence of such interconnectivity. Mr Glen Harrington, a long-time public servant and now independently an expert consultant in relation to water resources, acknowledged some interconnectivity. However, our science is simply not at the level where we can determine what or even where it is. But there is probably some sort of leakage between the upper and lower aquifers in the region not far from where the mill will be and where Kalangadoo, for example, draws its water.

Scientific basis for caution: So there is a scientific basis for some real concern about additional large allocations of water from the underground aquifer. Water has only been cautiously allocated from that aquifer. I set out all that information because of the real concerns of a number of existing water users, particularly of the upper aquifer. If we find out in future that there is substantial leakage from the upper to lower aquifer, we will have to revise the allocation policy for the lower aquifer, including that for industrial users such as the mill, in future. These are the concerns that led the committee to recommend that the government have the ability to reduce water allocation to the mill but not increase it."

Reference: Kris Hanna, Member for Mitchell, Political Party, Independent, House of Assembly, South Australia, 11 September 2007.

Erisk Net, 16/9/2007

Committee scrutiny not good enough: Allison said: "Typically that committee does not undertake a thorough examination of the sorts of issues that have already been raised by Senator Milne and which I will raise as well. It is doubtful that that could be in any way a thorough going over of this agreement, so why not refer it to a committee for proper examination?"

Why now? "I would also ask why it is that we have to have this deal with Russia right now. This is a major departure from the previously cautious approach that Australia has taken to who gets to have its uranium. At the end of an electoral cycle why is it that suddenly this agreement needs to be renegotiated and signed? I think that is something of a mystery. It is also questionable whether, with an election looming, even the treaty process which is being promised will have any effect at all".

Russia has enough of its own uranium: The first point I want to make is that we are being sold something of a pup, because it is not clear to me how the government can justify Russia needing our uranium. Russia has its own uranium. Even if Russia were to install 30 reactors over the next 30 years, there would be no need for us to rush into an agreement with Russia to hand over our uranium to it. It does not need it at this point in time. In fact, Russia has 700 tonnes of highly enriched uranium which was extracted from the nuclear weapons that it dismantled in the 1990s. That highly enriched uranium is required to be mixed with uranium in order to make a substance which is then exported to other countries, notably the United States".

What’s really going on: "The real issue here seems to be not so much that Russia needs our uranium but that Russia needs our uranium so that it can pass a product off to the United States. At least half of the United States’ supply of reactor fuel has been sourced from Russia over recent years. But there is, as I said, 700 tonnes of highly enriched uranium still sitting there. Not only that but there are 10,000 weapons. It has been said that Russia needs to be congratulated for reducing its armaments, its nuclear weapons arsenal. It did; it got rid of mostly obsolete weapons, and that presumably did not pose a problem, but it still holds 10,000 nuclear warheads—probably enough to blow up the planet as we know it. Why Australia has not taken the opportunity to leverage out of Russia an agreement to a time frame within which it will dismantle the remainder of its weapons is anyone’s guess".

Reference: Lyn Allison, Senator for Victoria, Leader of the Australian Democrats, Commonwealth Senate, 17 September 2007 (on Committees: Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee Reference)

No observers from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) were on hand, so the flight may not officially break the previous record of 30 hours, 24 minutes, 1 second set by Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4A "Global Hawk" on March 21, 2001.

But the FAI is currently reviewing a second test flight of the Zephyr that lasted 33 hours, 43 minutes.

The Zephyr is an ultralight aircraft made of carbon fiber. Though it has a 60-foot (18-meter) wingspan, it weighs just 66 pounds (30 kilograms) and is launched by hand.

During the day, the plane draws on power supplied by paper-thin solar arrays mounted on its wings, while simultaneously charging batteries used for night operations.

With further improvements, it’s hoped that not everything that goes up has to come down. The solar-powered aircraft could stay in the sky indefinitely, acting as a permanent surveillance source or temporary communications relay during an emergency.

"Both flights were achieved in the face of thunderstorms and debilitating heat in the hostile environment of the New Mexico high desert in the summertime," Paul Davey, Zephyr business development director at QinetiQ, said in a press release.

"They have proved that an autonomous UAV can be operated on solar-electric power for the duration required to support persistent military operations."