2,000 km pipeline/canal link north Australia to south 1

[4miler]

Most of the agricultural heartlands of Australia face diminishing water resources. The mighty River Murray, that supplies irrigation water, has essentially dried up in many parts. The Snowy River scheme is also drying up.

Currently Australia is in a decade-long drought, and the predictions are that this is no longer just a drought, but rather a long term shift in climate.

Melbourne, the second largest city in Australia, has only enough water for a few more years with its reservoirs at record lows. It is frightening to think that a major city, with a population similar to Los Angeles, could literally run out of water in a few short years if the drought continues.

The point is, in far North Queensland, near the northern tip, 2,200 km away, there is abundance of water, even regular flooding. We're talking about a distance from New York City to Miami, Florida.

The previous Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie, once proposed a massive, visionary engineering project to construct a aystem for moving water from the far north, down the parched southern states. It could be a pipeline or canal.

This would be a long-term solution to Australia's southern bread-basket states that face long-term drought conditions. It would guarantee Australia's agricultural viability in the face of uncertainty of water resources from rainfall and rivers.

But the pundits dismissed Peter Beattie's idea as totally unrealistic.

I'd like to hear from civil engineers as to what they think about such a pipeline to link the tropical water sources of far North Queensland to the southern states.

 

[cvg]

large diversion projects have been done in the past, look at the California Aqueduct (440 miles long), All American Canal (80 miles long) and the Central Arizona Project (340 miles). However, these are all a fraction of the size of what Beattie was proposing. And these projects nearly started civil wars during the planning and initial construction phases. The agreements for water use have been negotiated, argued and debated for nearly a 100-years. Read Cadillac Desert for a good history of these projects. I think you may find that de-salinization plants or other technology may actually be cheaper and quicker to implement than a 1,400 mile aquaduct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Water_Project

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-American_Canal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project

 

[bimr]

Not familiar with the issue in Australia, but would have to suspect that Peter Beattie was trying to sell the water, not buy the water. Nobody with a rational state of mind would propose to purchase water in such a scheme.

Transporting water is incredibly expensive because of the high mass density.

Moving water with a canal is the cheapest way to move the water. However, the water loss through evaporation would be enough to kill the project.

Desalination would be less expensive than transporting water for that distance.

Maybe you can pursue the project that involved towing an iceberg from Antartica to obtain fresh water?

 

[bimr]

As a rough estimate, the pumping cost using a 3 meter diameter pipeline would be approximately $0.50 US/ cubic meter of water transported. To that, you would add the amortized cost of the pipeline. That would add another 1-2/cubic meter in cost. You would also have to add the cost of the water, land aquisition, etc.

That would compare to desalination of seawater that currently costs approximately $0.50 US/ cubic meter.

Municipal consumers typically pay approximately $1.00 US/ cubic meter for water.

 

[stanier]

We have coal and uranium aplenty to for power stations to power desalination plants in Australia.

What we dont have is capital for infrastructure development and an anal retentive socialist government who only spend short term for votes. The state governments have no vision. They build four lane higways that choke in a cuple of years, hold onto power stations because their union mates are afraid of doing a decent days work and stop mines because their greenie mates dont like them.

 

[yella]

Have a read of this report by GHD. They looked at a pipeline from the Kimberley to Perth and estimated the cost at AU$6/kL. Hence why we've gone for desal over here in WA, at approx AU$1/kL.

http://www.water.com.au/_files/PublicationsRegister/12/Kimberley_Pipeline_Project_Review.pdf

 

[Artisi]

Anyone interested in early pipe lines and great ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfields_Water_Supply_Scheme