National Water Reform needs to focus on rural areas

The National Water Commission needs to focus on rural areas and the way water is managed in those areas, says Managing Director of Yarra Valley Water and Chairman of WaterAid Australia, Tony Kelly.

Mr Kelly will be addressing the 7th Annual Australian Water Summit on June 4 and 5 in Brisbane.

He says the National Water Commission has been successful in its performance reporting in urban water as there are now national comparisons which assist with further improvements.

However, Mr Kelly says the imbalance between rural and urban areas needs to be addressed.

“On the national level… urban [areas] are only using 10 per cent of Australia’s fresh water and a majority of the balance is used in rural areas,” he said. “The emphasis now needs to be on rural areas and particularly on irrigation usage.”

Older irrigation systems needed to be upgraded as they could not longer meet the needs of modern farming.

Mr Kelly says the biggest national water issue in the next year and a half is the way water is managed in rural areas.

“Improving the efficiency of rural irrigation systems has been a major element in Victoria’s Reform Agenda but much less so in other states,” he says. “What’s happened in Victoria is that we have had the urban water users funding improvement in irrigation infrastructure in exchange for a share of the water savings.

The Victorian experience will provide cheap water for urban areas, increased security for farmers and will benefit the environment.

In his address, Mr Kelly will touch on the progress of water reform in Victoria and the establishment of a state wide water grid which will link various regions together.

This would allow Victoria to optimise their supplies across the state for the benefit of farmers, urban consumers and the environment. In the past this has been compromised by a lack of coordination across utility boundaries and a lack of a state wide perspective experiencing the same water restrictions, he said.

“When the Grid is fully operational, we’ll also have access to cheaper whole-sale water. That’s got to be good for urban users and farmers because it’s going to keep pressure off the prices.”

Other speakers attending the conference include Ken Matthews, Chairman and CEO of the National Water Commission; Joe Flynn, Chief Executive of Water Industry Alliance; Andrew Gregson, Chief Executive Officer of NSW Irrigator’s Council; Rob Freeman, CEO of the Murray Darling Basin Authority; and Elaine Prior, Director of Citi Investment Research.

NT a world-class place to explore for minerals

Geological studies reveal the Northern Territory as a world-class place to explore for a large range of commodities, especially uranium-based metals, phosphate, gold and rare earth elements, says Dr Ian Scrimgeour, Director of the Northern Territory Geological Survey.

However the real challenge is extending knowledge in undercover areas, areas covered by thick sedimentary cover, he says.

Dr Scrimgeour, opening speaker at the Mining the Territory conference on 14-15 October at the Darwin Convention Centre, says in an interview he will focus on the NT Government’s $14.4 million Bringing Forward Discovery exploration initiative that aims to assist industry explore remote, under-explored parts of the territory.

“In particular I’ll be focusing on the newly announced successful applications for the first round of our geophysics and drilling collaborations, going through what exploration programs the government will be co-funding and giving tips to companies on how to successfully apply for funding in future rounds,” he says.

“I’ll also be touching on some of the new exciting geoscience data coming out of the initiative including the results of our first major regional gravity survey in central Australia.”

Dr Scrimgeour says Bringing Forward Discovery is all about bringing forward the next major mineral and petroleum discoveries in the territory and also working hard to raise the Territory’s profile as an exploration destination both nationally and internationally.

“We want to lower exploration risks through the provision of high quality geo-science data and prospectivity assessments. We also want to increase the intensity of high risk innovative greenfield exploration by co-funding selected industry exploration programs through a newly announced geo-physics and drilling collaborations program.

“In the geological survey we use a varied and multi-disciplinary approach to assist companies in identifying new exploration opportunities.

“We certainly have a focus in getting our geologists out on the ground in under-explored areas and doing geological mapping and collecting new data such as geochemical analyses, and getting the information out to industry as soon as we can.

“We combine all that data together to compile a framework of the stratigraphy, the tectonics of an area that form the basis of regional prospectivity assessments of an area for the industry.

“We also back this field-based work up with the acquisition of regional geophysics such as magnetics, radiometrics and gravity to allow interpretation of the under-covered geology.

“And we’re moving towards an increased focus on using that geophysical data to produce 3D visualisations of under-covered geology to assist exploration targeting.”

www.iir.com.au/territory

To arrange a media pass, request more information or arrange speaker interviews contact:

Nigel Dique
Informa-IIR 02 9080 4108; 0423 024 819;
ndique@iir.com.au

Expert optimistic on carbon capture

Carbon capture and storage has been demonstrated around the world for 10 years and can be ‘scaled up’ to meet Australia’s requirements, according to Frank van Schagen, Managing Director of Australian Black Coal Utilisation Research Ltd.

However, as a prerequisite, the technologies need to be improved and made more economic, large storage sites need to be identified and characterized, and transport corridors established, he says.

“Most importantly, we need the regulatory or legislative ‘wrapper’ to allow business to take up the opportunity.”

He says implementing the technology is costly, but “moving to an emissions trading system and putting a price on carbon provides some opportunity to offset that cost”.

Mr van Schagen is Day 2 Chairman of the Coal Tech 2008 conference in Brisbane on 29-30 September, when energy industry participants will gather to debate and respond to the Federal Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green paper.

The green paper proposes a limited amount of direct assistance to existing coal-fired electricity generators, and points to the potential benefits from developing clean coal technology, particularly viable carbon capture and storage.

The work done by the CRC for Greenhouse Technologies who’ll be presenting at Coal Tech 2008 shows significant potential for storage, Mr van Schagen says.

Professor Victor Rudolph from the University of Queensland is to provide an update on current CO2 storage projects in Australia, while other speakers will go into detail on individual projects.

Among other speakers are Gordon Couch, from the International Energy Agency Clean Coal Centre, UK, who will provide an international update on coal to liquids and implications for transport fuels, and Barry Ford, CEO of Hybrid Energy, who will review the FuturGas project involving coal to liquids gasification and integrated electricity generation.

Much interest will centre on advances in coal gasification, coal-to-liquids, coal drying and other technologies, especially with predictions by Goldman Sachs that the year-end price for crude oil could reach $149 a barrel.

www.iir.com.au/coaltech/blog