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10 comments on A new geothermal power station for Birdsville
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10 comments on A new geothermal power station for Birdsville
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GAIA Host Collective
What happens to the water drawn from the bore? Probably let run to waste in a bore drain.
This sort of abuse of the Great Artesian Basin resource has been going on for well over 100 years.
There has been a government subsidized bore capping program operating for some time and long overdue.
Artesian water is a finite resource.The recharge rate is far below the current draw down rate even now.
I have a lot of time for people who live in the West.They deserve better treatment from the QLD government than this.Solar thermal would be much more appropriate for a place the size of Birdsville.Yet again the myopia of Bligh&Co stands proud.
I am almost certain that the water does drain away and is not reinjected. It uses about 30 litres per second. From memory of photos I have seen (and I have never been there to see it for myself) it runs away into a small surface trench to a drain and is cooled down and used as drinking water for stock.
I sort of agree with you that it is somewhat wasteful of water but what is the alternative. Solar thermal, or concentraing PV like in other outback places, would be a good complement for this station and not an alternative. Interestingly there was a power station in Thargominda (sp?) that was powered by the pressure of the water issuing from the bore which was fed through a hydro electric turbine.
Talk about wasteful of water, my family drew all our water from a hot spring in the place where I was born. The house burned down over a half-century ago and there is Mother Nature still pouring water through the pipe to the ashes of what was once a house that will never grow back again.
Somebody ought to do something about Mother Nature, wasteful old biddy that she is.
We have a spring on our property in New York now that once supplied the house but the FHA didn't cotton to that. A well was drilled. Mother is still pouring water out of that spring after all these years.
I tell you that woman is a menace to the environment. Can't Father Sun smack her down somehow?
Best, Terry
Nobody's talking about natural springs here, we're talking about man-drilled bores down into the Great Artesian Basin.