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Water

Port Augusta is the ideal location for an environmentally-friendly power and water production plant. The area around the city has sunshine, land, and power and water delivery infrastructure. Port Augusta also has a municipal government committed to being the "greenest" city in Australia.

But the potential for environmentally-friendly power and water production isn't just limited to the Upper Spencer Gulf. Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia all have locations suitable for similar clean energy and water production solutions. So do China and India, both huge offshore markets.

The world needs clean energy and water. With desalination now less expensive than water recycling in some cases, desalination needs to be part of Australia's -- and the world's -- water solution.

Solar energy -- along with all renewables -- similarly must enjoy a more central place in energy planning. As the world's current coal-fired capacity progressively undergoes replacement, huge qualitative changes will occur in the global energy industry. The International Energy Agency has estimated that 30 trillion US dollars must be spending building out new and replacement energy generating capacity in the next 25 years. A large amount of that should be spent on renewables.

Rainfall in Australia is expected to decrease 4-8% between now and 2025
In 2025, North America, Europe and Russia may the only regions with adequate water supplies
Source: International Water Management Institute

Exports to China, India and Elsewhere

By positioning herself in this sunrise industry of concentrating solar power and water production, Australia can become a "first mover" in a technology set to spread dramatically in coming years, particularly in emerging economies such as India and China. In a recent study on energy choices facing China, Greenpeace estimated that concentrating solar power would become as cheap as coal fired power in China sometime around 2015. China, which is rapidly replacing the United States as the world's largest pollutor, has committed itself to dramatically increasing the amount of renewable energy it uses to power it emergence as a major global economic force.

Concentrating solar power is expected to become cheaper than coal-fired power
in China somewhere around 2015
Source: Energy Revolution, Greenpeace, 2007

 

 

Water has emerged as the single most important issue facing Australia. The prolonged drought has exposed, perhaps for the first time, the possibility of entire cities, including Adelaide, running out of domestic water.
Adelaide Advertiser, April 24, 2007
  
Critical measures, including curbs on the over-use of Murray resources, the need for more reliable, long-term storage and the introduction of desalination plants, cannot be left to future generations.
Adelaide Advertiser, April 24, 2007