 | DrumBeat: January 6, 2008 | The Oil Drum | Oil Price Touches $100 a Barrel; Signal of Pending Oil Shortages Ignored |  |
| Global Warming & Peak Oil Negate Conventional Wisdom | TOD: Australia/New Zealand | The Bullroarer - Monday January 7 2008 | |
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Big Gav, IMO investment in desalination plants is just more investment in complexity. It requires a huge capital investment, lots of maintenance (replacement of RO membranes) and a steady feed of electricity.
There is already talk of desalination plants to provide the huge amount of water that will be required if Olympic Dam goes to open pit. It goes something like this: increased nuclear power plants require increased fuel which requires more uranium which requires Olymic Dam to go to open pit which requires more water which requires deslination which requires more electricity which requires more muclear power plants. This is a towering edifice of interdependency which seems, IMHO, to be just begging for something to go wrong somewhere.
PLAN, PLANt, PLANet
Errol in Miami
I agree here - complexity is the enemy. Anything we can't build right now is likely not going to ever be finished at the rate things are going. We have to go hard and go at what we already know we can do. Its mindsets and vested interests that constrain us, not the technology necessary to remediate.
There is no gurantee that ODX will happen. They are still doing feasibility which is a four year project due 2009. I wonder how much diesel it takes to remove 350m rock cap? And what price the copper/gold and uranium need to be to make that investment stack up. The ore won't be reached for about four years after they start the thing which by my estimates means 2014 at the earliest.
Gold and uranium might be still looking good by then, but copper could be in the hole if the Mother of All Recessions/Depressions has kicked in by then.