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 »  Home  »  Blogs  »  Adelaide desalination plant
Adelaide desalination plant
By Green Living Tips | Published  04/4/2008

It's a sign of the times I guess. South Australia is historically a very dry state and it's certainly not getting any wetter.

Whether it's global warming related climate change, a natural cycle or whatever; it doesn't matter - we simply don't have enough water here and we place far too much pressure on what few water resources we have.

Adelaide's first desalination plant is currently being constructed at Port Stanvac - ironically the same site as the old oil refinery that shut down operations a few years back - which was one of the ugliest things I've ever seen; a real blight on the landscape and coastline.


Port Stanvac Refinery - Adelaide

The $1.1 billion pilot project will deliver up to 50 billion litres (around 13 billion gallons) of water annually - which is around 25% of Adelaide’s water supply needs. The plant will be expandable up to 100 billion litres a year. Given the dire situation with water supplies, the desalination plant has been fast tracked and will be functioning six months ahead of schedule, at the end of 2011.

How does desalination work?

The process of desalination removes salts and impurities in seawater which will then become potable (fit for human consumption)

The technology to be used at Port Stanvac is reverse osmosis. High pressure is used to force the sea water through a membrane which acts like a sieve, removing salt and other nasties. After further treatment, it will then be piped directly and also into reservoirs.

Desalination is not a panacea

It's awesome technology, but from what I understand it's very, very energy intensive, so I hope our state's commitment to renewable energy has factored in the amount of juice this plant is going to use. I also hope this doesn't lull the people of Adelaide into a false sense of water security. There will be an impact from this (energy, resources and all that salt will have to go somewhere) and we need to continue to be water wise. If the government can spend 1.1 billion on this, I can't see why they couldn't have invested that money into rainwater catchment to be attached to every roof possible in the city.

.. but then, they wouldn't have control over that water :). Control water, control life. However, taking the tin foil hat off for a moment; anything that takes the pressure off the Murray River with minimal impact on other areas is a step in the right direction.

Related:

Simple water saving tips




Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com
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Archived/old comments

  • Comment #1 (Posted by Jono)

    I agree Allan not enough is done with our storm water, and with us living on a gulf we could capture our stormwater and pipe it to York Peninsula. But i do feel that the Desal plant going ahead, is the big issue at the moment and unless people are made aware of the implications of haveing a Desal plant, it will be forced on us, and sure we will have a water supply, but the cost of our water will be huge.Not to mention that the marine life in the gulf will suffer, as a result of the hypersaline discharge into the gulf from the desal plant.I feel that the speed that the government and the opersition are approaching this is incredible.Let me rephrase that, "not credible".

    This week Carleen Maywal was on 891ABC radio when asked how are you going to power the Desal plant, no answer was forth comeing, plenty of talk, but the question was not answered.

    My greatest fear is that, the government has cut a deal with Exon Mobil. Exon Mobil will put up the money to build the Desal plant/Power Station, and reep the rewards of selling the water/power that it produces.You may have noticed that Kevin Foley has not been in the media lately, blowing off, about "Exon Mobil will clean up that site". It's now clean enough to draw a water supply from? Work that one out.

    My final word is, we should start with useing the water from the treatment works at Christies Beach, that should be our starting point.Less power hungry,and will help the Gulf of St Vincent.And the end product is household water, and for anyone out there who thinks that the water from the Murray River is not recycled."Your Dreaming".

     
  • Comment #2 (Posted by Allan)

    Christies Beach is a good point, I think personally when you look at the massive brown smudge discharged from the Pat at Glenelg after every rain there has to be a better way. Surely re cycling all the water that flows out to sea is more environmentally 'in tune' with the way it was before we plonked roads, rooves and pavers everywhere ? I have it on no good authority whatsoever, that enough water flows out to sea during every winter to more than satisfy our water needs for the year, and with Barcoo outlet designed for 6000 ltrs per second and then they realised it was too small, I don't doubt it. I would have thought all the water from there could be pumped to dams and stored / cleaned and settled for use .. oh well, I put salt on my fish anyways I guess, so this just means I'll use a little less :)
     
  • Comment #3 (Posted by Michael - Green Living Tips)

    Hi Jonathon, thanks for that info - I had no idea that diesel generators were used locally to supplement supply - that's rather disturbing. Sounds like what you're suggesting could certainly take the place of the construction of this plant. I remember seeing a study somewhere of another desalination plant in the state being proposed and part of the aquatic impact of the additional salinity would be that it would affect squid feeding and breeding.
     
  • Comment #4 (Posted by Jonathon Humphrys)

    I feel that recycling the water from the Christies Beach treatment works is a far better opion than desal. Desal consumes huge amounts of power not to mention the effect the hypersaline water discharged into the Gulf of St Vincent will have. The Christies treatment works recycles 3giglitres at the moment and discharges 44gigalitres into the gulf. The Desal plant is anticipated to produce 50gigalitres of water.The desal plants fall out of hypersaline water will effect the ecology of the Gulf of St Vincent, as is the discharge of water from the treatment works.By useing the water from the treatment work for our water supply it will help the ecology of the Gulf not distroy it.Finally desal needs large amounts of power to drive,Lonsdale/Port Stanvac is that short on power that it uses diesel generators to supplament its power supply in times of extreme load.My theory is that if the Desal plant goes ahead a new power station will need to be built to help power it, and the reason why they are rushing it throu and not doing a comparison is because it will be a Nuclear Power Station. Mic Rann standing up for the Environment.
     
  • Comment #5 (Posted by Bill Chernabaeff)

    I would like to know WHY a Pilot Desal Plant has to be built when there are already Desal Plants constructed-eg Tugan on the Gold Coast and others to where if information was needed could have been sourced from these projects.I think it is a total waste of funds.Who is the contractor for the pilot plant?
     
  • Comment #6 (Posted by Mark Thomason)

    A comment on capturing storm water to be reused for drinking water. Eventually, it will come to that, but of all the waters to be recycled, including secondary sewerage, stormwater is the most unreliable and difficult to clean. And that's because of the oils from cars, the rubber from tires, the dead rats and cockroaches in the streets. I am all for capturing stormwater. All sports fields and parks in low areas, especially near the ocean, could be on top of enormous storage tanks, and the water pump to higher ground for filtering, cleaning, and distribution.
     
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