Are there enough applied scientists in this group to advance the following idea into a feasible project?

It's been proposed before with variations, but the main idea is to use natural forces and some clever engineering to provide abundant quantities of fresh water to inland Australia... hopefully producing a small inland sea in the Lake Eyre area that would, over sufficient time, produce a local climate change over the region and make it attractive for human development.

Apparently Lake Eyre is below sea level, so if a  pipeline could be run from somewhere in Spencer's Gulf through to Lake Eyre, costs of pumping water through it should be minimal. We need fresh water at Lake Eyre, not more salt, so at a suitable place along the length of pipeline a big desalination plant will be needed. Hopefully the salt it produces can be sold to offset the costs of this plant and it's continual operation.

Careful thought needs to be given to the matter of how big to make the project initially. It's possible to imagine an enormous scale producing the maximum benefits (for humans),  but that is likely to destroy the habitat of numerous species adapted to the desert that exist in the region at present.  Better I think, would be to start at the opposite end of the scale, with a demonstration  or pilot project no bigger than the minimum that can be expected to produce observable benefits.   A project of that size will no doubt show up problems that need overcoming before considering expansion of the scheme.  Furthermore, if the demonstration size project  is successful it will commence generating income from which future expansion can be financed.

Anyone interested in discussing this scheme further?i

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costs of pumping water through it should be minimal

Any idea how 'minimal'? Are we talking billions or trillions?

fawkes - This is an idea I have looked at also.

my preference would be some of the monsoonal rainfall waters.
So it'ld be seasonal rainwater.
Whatever we can use by use of dredging to make one continuous riverbed as far as we can go.

pumping water is a LOT of energy.

The centre is lower than where the rain falls, help gravity.

freediver wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 10:02pm:

Quote: costs of pumping water through it should be minimal Any idea how 'minimal'? Are we talking billions or trillions?

If you would like to help progress this project freediver, perhaps you could calculate the approximate amount, and tell us.  I have not done it, but expect the cost would be low because with the outlet lower than the inlet the water would flow through a suitable pipe due to gravity alone (a syphon) although slowly. The pumping should only be needed to speed the flow up somewhat.

Well we obviously should be bringing it from the gulf of carpentaria, not spencer gulf, because it is uphill that way.

If enough chinese piss north-east of the center it would do it.

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If you would like to help progress this project freediver, perhaps you could calculate the approximate amount, and tell us.

I'm not into reinventing the wheel.


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I have not done it, but expect the cost would be low because with the outlet lower than the inlet the water would flow through a suitable pipe due to gravity alone (a syphon) although slowly.

Note true. If the pipe goes over approximately 7m above the level of the water it is sucking from, gravity can't do it. Even if it could, you would end up with a trillion dollar pipeline that delivers a trickle.

freediver wrote on Mar 30^th, 2010 at 9:27pm:

If the pipe goes over approximately 7m above the level of the water it is sucking from, gravity can't do it.

I believe that between Spencer's Gulf and Lake Eyre there are some ranges higher than that. At this place pumping might be required to pump the water up if boring through or diversion around are not feasible. But imagine how much faster it will then run down the other side!

i'ld opt for diverting or boring through.

it's so isolated, any pumping would give problems

I note your derision/sarcasm Mozz...  yet we once had an Inland Sea.
It is not as fanciful as you may think it seems.
It certainly would be good for the country.

Thanks for noticing Grendel.
It is a bit of a fanciful notion though, and not something I think we need to consider as likely to happen in any of our lifetimes.

I think that Gough's scheme for twin pipelines from the North West Cape, for water and gas to be piped to the whole eastern seaboard of australia was a more worthy scheme, and proposing that got him kicked out of office.

So making Desalination plants to provide water for cities is one thing, and something I am not a fan of either, but desal plants to make an inland lake, is pretty unjustifiable in my opinion.

I don't think I mentioned desal plants and I'm almost sure they weren't there to MAKE an inland sea or lake.  They were there to create freshwater.

I'd think the composition of an Inland Sea would be up for discussion.

Surely something that occurs when we have a lot of water like now, and was in place many years ago naturally is not beyond todays technologies.

I think cost is the barrier, not technology.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 10:30am:

i'ld opt for diverting or boring through. it's so isolated, any pumping would give problems

Where is water there is life so it may be that when water comes isolation goes.

freediver wrote on Mar 31^st, 2010 at 9:11pm:

I think cost is the barrier, not technology.

I agree. Some artificial irrigation canals were build thousands of years ago like in ancient Mesopotamia and they did not have much technology then.

Lol...  it is so far just a suggestion for discussion  not a government plan.  
Cost... gee how many hundreds of billions is the government wasting or has wasted now.

"Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong"  :)

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg230/GATCAATG/lago/bilabong.jpg

Cool...  Lake Ayer

Goodness me lets do it.   A grand public works scheme, with 100% backing from the private sector.  I would love to ask Gina to fund a big fat canal, the Rinehart Canal, to envy Panama and Suez.  I want so badly to open up an inland sea and terraform this great country of ours.   This is one of my enduring dreams.   

I can't link being new to the forum  ... but I found terraform Australia at hassell studio. com.    Just imagine what we could do for the planet and for Australia.

why pump seawater?

they have more fresh flowing water below lake ayer and the desert area than the rest of the country combined. Wouldn't a few thousand well placed wind powered bores do the trick?

Once we've done that, maybe we should introduce cane toads there too. They could come in handy for the cane beetles. 

muso wrote on Nov 17^th, 2013 at 9:11pm:

Once we've done that, maybe we should introduce cane toads there too. They could come in handy for the cane beetles.

i hate the little fvckers ... allways jumping up at me out of no where when I'm walking through the grounds at night ... one day one of the little fvckers will give me a heart attack

It is something that we should give consideration to.

The Burdekin River at times floods 14m over the 800m dam—just colossal quantities of water. Some works to turn it west, to run down the Cooper etc will give some water to Lake Eyre.

Filling L Eyre from Spencers Gulf will require prohibitively expensive earthworks.

As well as Eyre there are lakes Torrens and Gairdner.

I did contact the BuMet about this, got told some BS about a high being centred over the lakes. Never seen that yet on any weather chart.

Could be a goer.

There was an idea a long time ago to flood the inland with seawater.

To desalinate that much water would require a dollar number with an almost infinite number of zeros after it.

The lake constantly full of seawater would change the climate, but there would be ecosystems that would be lost forever.

Then the high evaporation rate of the sea water would cause a gradual increase in the salinity of the inland lake.

Sea water is 35,000ppm salt, within a short time it would be double that, not much use for anything, perhaps extracting salts and some minerals.

But whatever could be done there could be done cheaper elsewhere

If global warming continues and all the world's ice melts, the sea level will rise by over 200 feet and Australia will have a new inland sea.

http://i.imgur.com/sPsU5xT.jpg

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map

John Smith wrote on Nov 17^th, 2013 at 9:13pm:

muso wrote on Nov 17th, 2013 at 9:11pm: Once we've done that, maybe we should introduce cane toads there too. They could come in handy for the cane beetles.  i hate the little fvckers ... allways jumping up at me out of no where when I'm walking through the grounds at night ... one day one of the little fvckers will give me a heart attack

That was sarcasm on my behalf. I guess a huge inland sea might be a good thing, but what would the consequences be in terms of climate for points East?

muso wrote on Nov 19^th, 2013 at 12:28pm:

John Smith wrote on Nov 17th, 2013 at 9:13pm: muso wrote on Nov 17th, 2013 at 9:11pm: Once we've done that, maybe we should introduce cane toads there too. They could come in handy for the cane beetles.  i hate the little fvckers ... allways jumping up at me out of no where when I'm walking through the grounds at night ... one day one of the little fvckers will give me a heart attack That was sarcasm on my behalf. I guess a huge inland sea might be a good thing, but what would the consequences be in terms of climate for points East?

I can only guess that westerly winds won't be as dry for all parts east, the same for easterly winds on the parts west of the inland sea, perhaps a little more rain as there is more moisture being evaporated, ... it has to come down somewhere ...

trying to figure out how it may change the climate is out of my league ..

fawkes wrote on Mar 29^th, 2010 at 6:36pm:

Are there enough applied scientists in this group to advance the following idea into a feasible project? It's been proposed before with variations, but the main idea is to use natural forces and some clever engineering to provide abundant quantities of fresh water to inland Australia... hopefully producing a small inland sea in the Lake Eyre area that would, over sufficient time, produce a local climate change over the region and make it attractive for human development. Apparently Lake Eyre is below sea level, so if a  pipeline could be run from somewhere in Spencer's Gulf through to Lake Eyre, costs of pumping water through it should be minimal. We need fresh water at Lake Eyre, not more salt, so at a suitable place along the length of pipeline a big desalination plant will be needed. Hopefully the salt it produces can be sold to offset the costs of this plant and it's continual operation. Careful thought needs to be given to the matter of how big to make the project initially. It's possible to imagine an enormous scale producing the maximum benefits (for humans),  but that is likely to destroy the habitat of numerous species adapted to the desert that exist in the region at present.  Better I think, would be to start at the opposite end of the scale, with a demonstration  or pilot project no bigger than the minimum that can be expected to produce observable benefits.   A project of that size will no doubt show up problems that need overcoming before considering expansion of the scheme.  Furthermore, if the demonstration size project  is successful it will commence generating income from which future expansion can be financed. Anyone interested in discussing this scheme further?

As you pointed out, the Lake Eyre is a salt lake, incapable of sustaining any life. The likelihood of seeing that lake being filled to capacity, but then drained in a desalinisation plant is remote. You would have to have a desalinisation plant working during the rain season, and then leave the desalinisation plant off when the season is dry, as well as the lake.

I don't know how desalinisation plants work, but to be effective in reverse osmosis with salt and water, it would take decades to draw enough salt water to make the salinity of the area low enough for habitation. To in fact dilute the salt content enough for habitation through constant replenishment of rain.

St George of the Garden wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 3:33pm:

I did contact the BuMet about this, got told some BS about a high being centred over the lakes. Never seen that yet on any weather chart.

The BOM is correct. High pressure systems march across the globe at 30 degrees latitude (north and south) and that is why areas with this latitude are often deserts.

There is no justification to pump water into lake Eire only to watch it evaporate. The evaporation rate in that part of Australia is huge, that is why so many of the "lakes" there are just salt pans.

Lake Argyle in the North of Western Australia is the closest we have to an inland sea. There are places on it where if you are sailing on it the water stretches to the horizon in all directions. It is fresh water too. Unfortunately only a fraction of it's potential has been used

http://www.lakeargyle.com/

The_Barnacle wrote on Nov 24^th, 2013 at 11:17am:

St George of the Garden wrote on Nov 18th, 2013 at 3:33pm: I did contact the BuMet about this, got told some BS about a high being centred over the lakes. Never seen that yet on any weather chart. The BOM is correct. High pressure systems march across the globe at 30 degrees latitude (north and south) and that is why areas with this latitude are often deserts.

I think you will find that Australia's desert is like that because rain doesn't make it's way into the vast interior and combine with onshore winds to create rain bands strong enough to water the desert.


Quote:

There is no justification to pump water into lake Eire only to watch it evaporate. The evaporation rate in that part of Australia is huge, that is why so many of the "lakes" there are just salt pans.

I think the idea is to pump water out of Lake Eyre into desalinisation plants to separate salt and water (and other non-essentials), thereby sopping the salt out of the ground, to allow the soil to regenerate.

But I agree with you that there is no justification. It would be like painting a house with a feather as a paintbrush, the amount of time it would take to sopping the salt out of the ground. As you said, the water would just evaporate really fast before any effective results could be attained.