Wind is the key: expert

Geelong Advertiser
Friday 9/2/2007 Page: 5

WATER and wind - the two staples of Geelong's coastline could be married in a bid to solve the region's drought woes, according to experts.

As the Surf Coast shapes as a likely home to Victoria's potential desalination plant, engineers have warned a new energy source would need to power the project, prompting renewed discussion about wind technology.

Engineer Brian Radford said wind farm power would be an ideal source for the desalination plant as there would be little point building a plant which used environmentally unfriendly power to drive it.

"(Desalination) is horses for courses essentially and it has issues associated with getting rid of brine - concentrated salt - now that has to be done in an environmentally sustainable way," said Mr Radford, Earth Tech engineering and consulting general manager.

"My personal opinion on wind farms is anything that helps reduce greenhouse emissions is a good thing." He said any such development would need to pass a triple bottom line test to ensure it was socially, economically and environmentally viable.

To indicate how power hungry desalination plants are, a recently commissioned plant for Western Australia will use enough energy to power 30,000 household. The $378 million desalination plant at Kwinana- will supply Perth with 17 per cent of its water needs and while it draws on the state's power grid for energy, the state's water authority has argued a new wind farm 200 kilometres away puts enough power into the grid to power the project.

Mr Radford said the Surf Coast would have the room for a wind farm without necessarily impacting on residential areas. He said it would come down to a debate but "there is no point in not having the debate".

Another water expert, Geelong-based GHD senior civil engineer Brian Ashworth, agreed a desalination plant would have to generate a new power source to prevent additional carbon discharge. But he said the community's objection to wind farms may be a problem in pursuing the concept.

"For a desalination plant, you're talking a lot of wind (turbines) not just one or two scattered over a few kilometres of the countryside," Mr Ashworth said. He said the wind farm would still need to be backed up by an alternative power source.