Research and analyse the topic
• The group must analyse the topic from a systemic perspective drawing out what they believe to be the interconnections, the feedback and feedforward loops, and where different forms of rationality lie (that is, economic, social, environmental).
• The groups will need to outline what they believe the problem is and explain why they believe that to be the problem.
• They will then need to apply a mix of either metaphors or strategy frameworks to the issue to identify which ‘master concept’ they believe will realise the most sustainable solution.
5 Key Metrics
• To measure the sustainability of the solution the groups will need to rate their solution against five key metrics (from Gladwin et al (1995) Shifting Paradigms for Sustainable Development: Implications for Management Theory and Research):
1. Inclusiveness
2. Connectivity
3. Equity
4. Prudence
5. Security
Can Australia decouple economic growth from environmental harm?
Look at the food-energy-water nexus
Explore Mekong River case study. (Decided to focus on Australia’s Murray Darling Basin instead as it has a similar story, will bring in comparison if we need to).
Cover social, economic, political and environmental angles
What are the policies?
How will we meet our Paris 2030 goals?
What solutions will get us there? What needs to happen?
Incorporate the following:
Triple bottom line
Systems thinking and ecological footprint
Paradigm schemes of technocentrism, ecocentrism, and sustaincentrism
Natural capitalism, eco-efficiency
Future normal and borderless thinking
Water, the source of all creation. Will it also be the saviour of creation?
“Water is the driving force of all nature.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
• We conduct a comprehensive case study of a major Australian water resource and review the lessons learned
• Critically assess water as a power source
• Investigate water solutions to address water scarcity in arid areas
Life may have begun inside warm, gentle springs on the sea floor, which bubbled billions of years ago but we know that fresh water is vital to our continued existence. So what happens when it starts to run out? Could seawater be the answer to all our freshwater challenges and at what cost?
• Of all the water on Earth, only 1% is available for consumption
• By 2030, the annual requirements of water globally will exceed current sustainable water supplies by 40%
• Right now, 663 million people are without clean and safe water
In June 2015 NASA announced the global water table is dropping. The water in underground aquifers are very old and can take 500 to 1,300 years to replenish.More water is being used than is being replaced. Of the 37 largest underground aquifers, 21 have already passed their sustainability tipping point.
Demand will surpass supply if we do not find sustainable solutions. Our call to action must address water security to sustain our livelihood, well-being and socio-economic development and to preserve ecosystems for current and future generations.
In this presentation, we focus on Australia’s story. Australia is a water stressed nation. We built dams to capture and store water, installed systems to recycle wastewater and collect rainwater. We built desalination plants to supply our larger cities.
We also made policy changes to the legal system of water allocation, finding the delicate balance between the needs of agriculture, industry and growing cities and towns. We are considered a world leader in water management, but is it enough?With climate change the future problems are compounded.
Under Australia’s constitution, water resources are the responsibility of state and territory governments, but the Australian Government is involved through national competition policy, national and international environment policy, and the management of water resources that cross state borders (mainly the Murray–Darling Basin, Great Artesian Basin, and Lake Eyre Basin), and associated funding programs.
Let’s take a look at a well-known case study – The Murray Darling Basin as we examine our past and lessons learned.
2 min 20 seconds
CASE STUDY: Murray River/Goulburn Valley
The Murray Darling Basin (MDB) is made up of many rivers in particular the Upper Darling, Darling and Murray rivers.It crosses over four states, supports and provides resource to many townships and regional centres with approximately 2 million people. Creating a natural border between NSW and Victoria. The 2,520 kmriver is fed by the Australian Alps (snowy mountains NSW) and flows through SA leading to the southern ocean.
Indigenous populations lived and sustained the rivers for 1000’s of years until European settlement occurred in 1824. Over the next 150 years, the MDB landscape was changed, to the point where traditional sustainability is lost.
Controversial from the beginning, due to loss of red gum trees, environmental degradation, bushlands cleared, introduction of non-native grasses, loss of wildlife through destruction of natural habitats, introduction of cows, sheep and rabbits. Macquarie marshes lost from over extraction of water, eutrophication occurred due to pollution of rivers from nitrates and phosphate by farmers.
Commission formed in 1918.
To manage water supply, coordinate building of storage dams and levelled rivers by building locks and weirs. SA connected water supply to Murray River, in drought 90% of SA water needs are met this way. Controlled effects of floods and droughts but it changed the seasonal flow of rivers. Diminished water levels in low lying lakes of South Australia and high levels of salinity due to river not flowing to southern ocean.
Drought 1967 – should have been a wakeup call but it wasn’t. Instead they built another dam, Dartmouth in Victoria. Increased water entitlements to farmers for irrigation to assist with drought. Major driver for change came from the 1970 study on salinity and the 1980’s resulted in Murray Darling Basin Commission. That was the first time federal and state governments looked at MDB as a whole rather than individual rivers.
1981, river mouth closed in SA, it took a flood and man’s intervention of sand dredging to make it re open. From 1996 to 2010, drought occurred resulting in MDB closing off its flow to the river for nine years in total; water cycle no longer intact. Dredging occurred for seven years to help minimise salt levels. Water levels of rivers were the lowest on record. In 1996, govt decision to cap MDB water use, recognised current irrigation and use was not sustainable in the long term. At that point in time the Murray River was not living, it had lost its flow, there were no wet lands, flood plains and salinity was increasing.
Without significant change future of the MDB is in jeopardy. Unless MDB natural flow restored by reconnecting river systems to include flood plains and wetlands which cleanse the river and allow its flow to southern ocean in SA, the MDB will be eliminated in next 100 years.
The water cycle is vital for sustainability of the Murray darling basin. When intact it ensures water and food for wildlife, food produce for its population, human use, plants, forests are fed, grounds are soaked and importantly the rivers flow.
The MDB supports many industries such as agricultural, wine and food regions, tourism including heritage, sports and recreation.
3 mins 55 seconds
?? When they released water down the Colorado River to restore the connection to the sea, the moment the water touched the Delta, it completely revived. We need a whole bunch of things that we will struggle to deliver if we don’t regain the balance between ecological needs and human needs. Having healthy ecosystems is a precondition of supplying sustainable services. http://www.circleofblue.org/2015/world/qa-giulio-boccaletti-on-the-sustainable-development-goal-for-restoring-water-ecosystems/
WATER AS A POWER SOURCE
Ocean energy uses a variety of technologies such as tidal, wave, thermal and currents to harness the power of the ocean to generate electricity. It has greater predictability than other renewable sources and availability in Australia is relatively high.
Waves are generated by the wind as it blows across the sea surface. Energy is transferred from the wind to the waves and energy is captured for electricity generation or water desalination.
Preliminary estimates from the CSIRO suggest that Australia has an abundant and attractive wave energy resource that could contribute 11 per cent of Australia’s energy needs by 2050 (enough to power a city the size of Melbourne) by 2050, making it a strong contender in Australia’s renewable energy mix.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-worlds-first-grid-connected-wave-energy-plant-in-western-australia-this-is-how-it-works-2015-2
Ocean currents off the East coast of Australia offer a potential large energy resource, but the extraction of ocean current energy is in the very early stages of development and still face a number of technological and oceanographic challenges.
Tidal power is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of the tides into electricity. Tidal streams are caused due to the gravitational pull of the moon and sun, and consequently entirely predictable. These technologies do not restrict the flow of water, which reduces the environmental impact. Preliminary assessments suggest energy availability is less wide-spread than Australia’s wave resource.
Thermal
Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) operates by using warm sea water to vaporise a working fluid, so that the relatively high pressure vapour can turn a turbine. It is also possible to use warm sea water as the working fluid, and this is known as an open cycle system. A fraction of the warm sea water is evaporated by passing it through jets into a chamber with lower pressure than the saturation pressure for the sea water temperature.
Australia’s OTEC resource is limited to the coast of Far North Queensland. Given the limited resource for Australia, and unproven nature of this technology, further assessments of OTEC viability for Australia are of lower priority.
OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION
Oceans cover 71% of the earth and can soak up large quantities of solar energy estimated to be the equivalent of 250 billion barrels of oil per day. OTEC was first discovered in 1881 and involves extracting useful energy from the heat of the ocean. The ocean provides humankind with a large and renewable energy source with no greenhouse gas emissions, so why is it that we aren’t seeing more of this technology used?
OTEC uses warm water from the ocean’s surface that gets pumped through a heat exchange to create vapour that turns the turbine and generates electricity. After this the vapour is cooled by cold sea water it is turned back into a liquid. The technology uses open cycle systems with a bi-product being desalinated water, closed cycles systems re-using the water continuously and there are other hybrid versions of the two. Sites for OTEC vary between Land based, shelf based and floating. **
One major issue with OTEC technologyis not technological rather the projects are very capital intensive and often have large maintenance cost associated with them. To be cost effective in relation to the cost of oil OTEC requires large 100MWe capacity plants only be considered however, consideration can be given to OTEC in remote locations that have high energy production costs where the benefit of OTEC in such locations provides a more economical solution to fossil fuels. The estimated costs to build a 100mw site is around $215m with an estimated profit per year being $100M per year (selling power, water and seafood). Presently this does not provide anywhere near the return provided by energy produced from fossil fuels and the technology has only been tested on a small scale. Other issues faced with OTEC technology is location as the plant requires the warm surface temperature to hold around 25 degrees Celsius and a difference of 20 degrees Celsius from surface to cold water.
OTEC is a source for a future alternative to nuclear power and fossil fuels, however while the technology remains more expensive with smaller returns it may be some time before anyone invests in large plants, however the potential for this type of technology will always exist.
WATER GENERATION: Water Desalination
The Gold Coast Desalination Plant, located at Tugun, uses reverse osmosis to produce drinking water for the Gold Coast, Logan and Brisbane.
Australian cities rushed to build expensive facilities to remove the salt from sea water. Cooley said that coastal cities built six desalination plants at a cost of $US 10 billion, even as water conservation programs produced significant water savings. Residents are still paying for these desalination facilities, though only two are currently operating. The rains returned and once-empty reservoirs refilled.http://www.circleofblue.org/2014/world/transformational-water-reforms-though-wrenching-helped-australia-endure-historic-drought-experts-say/
WATER GENERATION: Water Vapour
Over the years, numerous systems for extracting water from air have been developed. Some are passive natural systems for dew and humidity collection, some are small scale to produce a few litres and others are large enough to produce thousands of gallons per day. The devices are usually condenser systems much like a dehumidifier, and some utilize a brine solution to absorb the water vapour so that it can be evaporated and condensed in a later step.
POWER GENERATION: Feedforward Loop
Power generation is a small cog in the water wheel, but a huge, interconnected problem facing humanity and therefore on the water sustainability feedforward loop. Hydro electricity requires the most water, and a mountainous terrain to create water freefall to drive the turbines that generate power. Alternatively, heated water to form steam that drives turbines, that generates electricity, is created with either nuclear reactions, coal burned, or solar panels. The Queensland Kogan Creek Coal Power Station reduces water consumption by 90% with dry cooling technology and requires 42% less coal than conventional stations (a double dividend) to produce 750MW for QLD& NSW. The coal collected from 4km away, creates a power input that is converted to a 40% efficiency output, with “supercritical steam” pressure to 250 bar at 560oC.
But the curse of coal power stations is CO2, a political hot potato. The government invested $35million at Kogan Creek, to half complete construction of Solar Boost Panels to heat the steam that would generate 44MW but due to commercial reasons, it has been scrapped. It would have reduced carbon emissions by 35000 tonnes/year or 0.8% of current emissions. A way to reduce dangerous atmospheric, climate changing CO2, is sequestration, or pumping liquid CO2 back into the ground where it is absorbed by porous sandstone to become rock itself, adding around 3c of cost per kilowatt hour, or nearly doubling power cost, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
POWER GENERATION: Political Landscape
The energy industry says it does not make commercial sense for them to make ‘clean coal’ plants, despite the Government offering financial incentives.
Is this a knee jerk reaction by Turnbull in response to the Adelaide power outages?
Nobody wants coal, clean or otherwise. This is difficult one. We don’t want to waste billions reinvesting in outdated tech that will set us back from a SD perspective.
https://theconversation.com/new-coal-plants-wouldnt-be-clean-and-would-cost-billions-in-taxpayer-subsidies-72362
ARID SOLUTIONS
FRESHWATER GENERATION USING NO POWER – WATER FROM AIR
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-tower-pulls-drinking-water-out-of-thin-air-180950399/
Warka Water, an inexpensive, easily-assembled structure that extracts gallons of fresh water from the air. Internal field tests have shown that one Warka Water tower can supply more than 25 gallons of water throughout the course of a day, Vittori claims. He says because the most important factor in collecting condensation is the difference in temperature between nightfall and daybreak, the towers are proving successful even in the desert, where temperatures, in that time, can differ as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
FRESHWATER GENERATION USING NO POWER – DESALINATION FILTER
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/graphene-sieve-turns-seawater-into-drinking-water
AGRICULTURE – A SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO SUSTAINABILITY WITH TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE SUCCESS
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2016/s4547781.htm
Sundrop commercial success, the future of agriculture?
Uses a closed loop water system (is there desalination run off – where does it go?)
NEW INVENTION – SOLAR BATTERY STORAGE
http://www.rmit.edu.au/news/newsroom/media-releases-and-expert-comments/2017/mar/bio-inspired-energy-storage–a-new-light-for-solar-power
Solar storage – 3000 x current storage capacity using bioinspired fractal electrodes
Researchers at the John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University say they have developed a long-lasting flow battery capable of storing renewable power that¬ could operate for up to 10 years, with minimum maintenance required.
Summation
The Murray Darling Basin’s historical learnings need to be factored into identifying solutions and strategic planning going forward. The valuable lessons learnt need to be carefully considered.
History reveals unsustainable practices of
• farm lands were established 150 years ago in harsh, dry desert conditions, areas that were not designed by nature to be farming
• Implementation of irrigation to maintain farms (without would not have survived)
• flooding of rivers to build storage dams (strategy to minimise impact of drought in farming and residential areas)
• Building of lock and weir systems designed to change natural levels and flow of rivers
As a result floodplains and wetlands disappear for extended periods of time, wildlife and plant life no longer supported levels of salt increases and salinity presents as a new problem. Like the murray darling basin the river no longer reaches its mouth to the ocean, which is nature’s way of cleansing and ensuring the river stays alive and ecosystems remain balanced.
Australia has unique challenges which may not be seen elsewhere. Innovation and new technology need to factor these in.
Great geographical distances versus small population per capita
population density only in coastal areas of country
Majority of land is desert
Seasons and weather patterns unpredictable and extremes (flood and drought)
Rural australia, not cost effective to build infrastructure (power, water, industries?)
Without natural water systems in rural australia, Is agricultural industry sustainable?
Controversial statement?? Does sustainability in next 100 yrs find australiangovt investing /prioritising investment, research in identifying innovative solutions to meet needs of population density in coastal areas and industries that are sustainable in these areas?????
What’s the master concept we believe will realise the most sustainable solution?
How will we meet our Paris agreement 2030 goals?
National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) $15 million has been invested in groundwater infrastructure, to establish long-term groundwater monitoring sites across Australia with a particular emphasis on groundwater change in response to climate variability.
Factors need to be considered for solutions:
a. Development of regional areas
b. Employment
c. Economic factors
d. Political
e. Double dividends – the balance between need for volume and profit vs. eco-efficiency
As yet unknown if these (list solutions, OTEC, Kogan Creek………..) are long term sustainable solutions? Future research and further investment will determine whether sustainable or not and whether they deliver the double dividend, balance of the following:
• Financially cost effective
• Environmentally efficient
• Socially inclusive
• Politically supported
• Culturally acceptable
• Offers security into the future
• Which population needs will they meet (i.e. high pop density vs rural low density?)
Distributed strategies can be seen to have a number of characteristic advantages for planning towards sustainable urban water infrastructures.
• Greater understanding of freshwater supply from aquifers will help us to better manage current use and set appropriate policies to ensure our sustainability goals are met
• Monitor precipitation from satellites will aid us in planning for droughts and floods
• Use technology to capture, monitor and predict best water management practices across the board – with AI analytics we can better plan and optimise water management for personal, community, industry and agricultural use, develop new and improved optimisation
• Engage in better agricultural practices – through better planning we can maximise the productivity of farmland and water use. Invest in new environmental farms such as Sundrop using a closed loop desalination and power generation plant.
• Invest in research to counter the environmental impact of desalination plants and OTEC, wave energy.
• Desalination plants to coastal cities
• Consultation with First Australians, community groups, cultural sensitivities
While the debate on natural resource management for values like biodiversity, threatened species and water quality is often cast in terms of trade-offs with economic development, the Australian Climate Change Authority is keen to explore whether carefully crafted policies can deliver on a triple bottom line of environmental, economic and social benefits.
References
New Study Outlines ‘Water World’ Theory of Life’s Origins. (2017). NASA/JPL. Retrieved 4 April 2017, from https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4109
Zielinski, S. (2017). A World of Water Woes. Smithsonian. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/world-water-woes-180950225/
Graphene sieve turns seawater into drinking water. (2017). Graphene sieve turns seawater into drinking water. Retrieved 4 April 2017, from http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/graphene-sieve-turns-seawater-into-drinking-water
Nguyen, T. (2017). This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air. Smithsonian. Retrieved 4 April 2017, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-tower-pulls-drinking-water-out-of-thin-air-180950399/
Xie, Z., Huete, A., Restrepo-Coupe, N., Ma, X., Devadas, R., &Caprarelli, G. (2016). Spatial partitioning and temporal evolution of Australia’s total water storage under extreme hydroclimatic impacts. Remote Sensing Of Environment, 183, 43-52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2016.05.017
DeMonte, A. (2017). Gigaom | The Cost of Carbon Capture. Gigaom.com. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from https://gigaom.com/2007/07/30/the-cost-of-carbon-capture/
Jotzo, F. (2017). New coal plants wouldn’t be clean, and would cost billions in taxpayer subsidies. The Conversation. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from https://theconversation.com/new-coal-plants-wouldnt-be-clean-and-would-cost-billions-in-taxpayer-subsidies-72362
NCRIS Groundwater Database | Super Science Groundwater Data Portal. (2017). Groundwater.anu.edu.au. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from http://groundwater.anu.edu.au/
Amelinckx, A. (2017). This Farm Uses Only Sun and Seawater to Grow Food – Modern Farmer. Modern Farmer. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from http://modernfarmer.com/2016/10/sundrop-farms/
Fane, S. (2017). Planning for sustainable urban water: Systems-approaches and distributed strategies (Ph.D). University of Technology, Sydney.
Cooke, K. (2017). Battery power boost to renewables – Climate News Network. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from http://climatenewsnetwork.net/battery-power-boost-renewables/