Hawke urges water tankers for Sydney

Andrea Mayes | The Australian
June 24, 2005

SYDNEY'S water crisis could be solved using the same environmentally friendly aquatankers being touted as the solution to Perth's water needs, former prime minister Bob Hawke said yesterday.

Mr Hawke, chairman of Solar Sailor, a Sydney-based sustainable technology firm, said the company's proposal to build a sea fleet of solar-powered tankers could deliver water from the Kimberley to Perth for less than $1 a kilolitre.

This compares favourably with the Water Corporation's estimate of $1.11 a kilolitre for water from its proposed desalination plant.

Talking up the innovative proposal, the former prime minister said the supertankers were environmentally friendly and economically viable. And the concept could work equally well on the east coast.

"Theoretically there's no reason why this could not be used in Sydney - the conept of bringing the water is very straightforward," Mr Hawke said.

"There are abundant supplies in the northern coastal parts of NSW, so there's no reason why they couldn't be used."

The company said it could transport up to 200 gigalitres of 200 billion litres of water to Perth a year in giant solar powered supertankers, which would make constant return voyages from the Kimberley.

"The main thing about it is that it's environmentally friendly," Mr Hawke told The Australian.

"Digging canals and pipelines involves enormous environmental considerations, whereas the whole environmental issue disappears with supertankers."

CEO Robert Dane said the company's $710 million proposal – submitted to a government committee examining ways of bringing water from the Kimberley – would not cost the Government anything in infrastructure or start-up costs.

"The beauty of it is that it is entirely user-pays," he said.

"We can deliver 50 gigalitres of water to Perth for the next 20 years – or more if required – and there are no capital costs for the WA Government at all."

He said the proposal was based on building a fleet of three supertankers, which would use giant solar wing-like sails to harness 50 per cent of their energy needs from the wind and sun.

Without the solar attachments, transporting the water would cost an estimated $1.50 a kilolitre, but with solar power costs were as little as 90c, Mr Dane said.

The tankers each capable of carrying up 500, 000 kilolitres of water, would take less than five days to complete the journey south travelling a minimum of 1900 km from Derby to Perth.

Water would be drawn from the Kimberley's extensive network of rivers and estuaries and pumped via a short pipeline to a pontoon-like platform about 20 nautical miles offshore.

From there it would be pumped onboard the tankers and transported to a second platform located the same distance off the Perth coastline and pumped to shore.

Mr Dane said that whle Derby was used as a base in the proposal, other sites such as Broome or the Cambridge Gulf could also be used.

END

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