Chief executive officer of the National Centre of Excellence in Desalination, Neil Palmer, has criticised York plumber Mario Ameduri’s Ord River Dam water pipeline plan.
Last week, Mr Ameduri revealed his idea for Perth to source gravity-fed water from the Ord River Dam through an ocean floor pipeline to Perth with few running costs.
Mr Palmer said while it would be possible to shift large amounts of water through a pipeline to Perth, it was simply not financially feasible.
“Yes it is technically feasible to gravitate 360 megalitres a day of water through a pipeline 3000km long and 3m in diameter with around 90m head,” he said.
“But I do not know if it is technically feasible to lay a three metre pipeline 3000km along the ocean floor. While it would be possible to build it, it’s just a whole lot cheaper to desalinate seawater.”
The Water Corporation estimates the total running cost including interest, operations and maintenance for the new Southern Seawater Desalination Plant is $2.75 per kilolitre.
Multiply that by the plant’s estimated daily production figure of 150 megalitres, and the centre will cost over $400,000 a day to operate.
“Piping water from the Ord Dam makes a lot of sense – the natural resource is there, why not use it?” Mr Ameduri said.
Mr Palmer said it was time for people to put the idea of sourcing water from the Kimberley to bed.
“If you have a very large diameter pipe with low elevation, it means the high capital cost of pipe construction will make the scheme much more expensive than if you had a smaller pipe with pumps,” he said.
“So unless nobody cares how much it will cost, any scheme to bring water to Perth from the Kimberley will require pumping which means ongoing energy and maintenance costs.”
