Buying an Eco House at Lake Torrens

The following is dialogue between a salesman, Bill, who works for Land of Lakes Developments located at Lake Torrens and a potential customer, John. It is based on assuming the infrastructure project, "The Development of Inland Australia", has proceded.

Bill: Hi John, what can the Land of Lake Developments do for you today?

John: G'day Bill, I am interested in selling up my house located in Paramatta, Sydney and purchasing an eco house in your Land of Lakes development.

Bill: A very good idea John, given the uncontrolled urban sprawl and high cost of living in Sydney these days Our standard one acre lake front lot with 3 bedroom/ 2 bathroom eco house start at around $180K. How does that sound?

John: Fantastic! After I sell up my mortgage laden Sydney house, I will have ample money to purchase a standard package outright. But how can you afford to sell houses at this amount?

Bill: It all comes back to the Federal and South Australian governments. Before they put in the salt water pipe line down to Lake Eyre and various other infrastructure, the land was virtually worthless, so the money you are spending on the house/land package only involves paying for the eco house and siting it on you block. Also, we work in strict accordance with the South Australian government who have tight control on the sale price of house/packages. They are kept at a stable price to encourage people like you to relocate. The final outcome is sustainable development of inland Australia along with a reduction in the strain on the east coasts infrastructure.

John: Can you tell give me some more more infomation about the house land/package?

Bill: Sure can. The houses are made in a new eco house manufacturing plant located right here at Lake Torrens in accordance with strict environmental guide lines and are as energy independent as possible,.infact, because of the built in solar cells in the roof, you will find that if you go on holiday, you will build up energy credits courtsey of the two way power meter. Surplus energy is directed back to the new electrical power power grid that is collecting energy from the new solar/thermal electricity plants located both here and down at Lake Eyre. Other features include solar hot water, double glazed windows, insulated floors, walls and roofs. Lastly, the houses are located on poles just in case flooding does accur. The storage beneath the house can be used for water recreational craft and caravans, etc. Also in event of flooding, the priming pump down at Spencers Gulf can be reversed, empting excess water back into the gulf.

John: Can you explain how you can give every house salt water for free as stated in your brochure?

Bill: Pressurised salt water is made available for the many beautiful man made lakes located here in Lake Torrens and smaller pipes also supply salt water at pressure for all house/land packages It comes from the main pipeline which is cyphoning salt water from Spencers Gulf down to Lake Eyre. As Lake Eyre is approximately 40 feet below sea level, once the two priming pumps have have started the cyphoning action both Lake Torrens and Lake Eyre have unlimited salt water at pressure. This fresh salt water is also made available to the solar thermal power plants, the solar thermal desalination plants and the salt water fisheries. I am sure you will be able to find a new job in one of these new businesses. Your fresh water will come from solar thermal desalination either by pipe or by tanker. Sewerage is reprocessed at a recycling plant and emptied back into the dessert.

John: Can you tell me more about the man made lakes?

Bill : Sure. The lakes are excavated to about a meter deep and the excess material is used to create the water front land and connecting roads. We are experimenting with using old car tyres to cover the roads with to make them water proof. The lakes them selves are very safe for all manor water activities. We have lakes designated for swimming and non power craft, other lakes designated for watersking, other lakes for power boat racing. There is also a huge fishing lake at the south end of Lake Torrens that has continual salt water feed in to it and at the same time being drained back to the Gulf. This allows artifical currents to be set up. Different parts of this lake are set up to encourage different types of fish to occur. There are even deep holes with grooper. It's the biggest man made salt water fishing lake in the world and attracts tens of thousands of tourists every year to the hundreds of campsites and hotels that are available. Naturally, there are numerous jobs available at this lake.

John: Sounds great. Is there anything more you can tell me about the Land of Lakes development.

Bill: The three meter pipe that take the water down to Lake Eyre generates about 10 megawatts of electricity. Some of this power is used to power a free fully automated airconditioned light rail system that allows you to go to any part of the Land of Lake development. You may be interested in tennis or golf. We now have the Greg Normandy tennis and golf resort which is easily the biggest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

John: Boy that sure sound different to the Sydney rail system. How big is Land of Lakes?

Bill: So far we have only developed about one thousand square kilometers of Lake Torrens, leaving about 3800 square kilometers to go. As Lake Eyre is 9500 square kilometers, they have many years of sustainable development to go down there too. Just in passing, they have noticed local rain occuring upto sixty kilometers from Lake Eyre which may explain the appearance of some new fresh water lakes. This was predicted in CSIRO modeling, "The rainfall response to permanent inland water in Australia" by K Hope and Neville Nichols . You should drive down to lake Eyre via the new road which was cut through a 60 kilometer ridge when they installed the salt water pipe and power grid. The new power grid terminates at the national power grid in Port Augusta which is where the new geothermal energy from Coopers Basin is also terminated.. Anyway, I recommend you think very hard about settling here and investing your money in the shares that are now on offer for the new electrical generation power grid as all this free energy will only get cheaper as time goes on and the profits greater it is sold back to a power hungry east coast at ever increasing prices.

John: You have convinced me. Put me down for a standard house land package while I go back to Sydney and sell up.

Bill: Your in luck. All new buyers get 50 free power grid shares, courtsey of the government.

The obvious questions continually asked by the rest of Australia are:
Why are we not protecting the established forests that play a vital role in the water cycle, desalination and as carbon sinks?
Why is Government allowing the pollution of our water systems through approving globally frowned upon mining techniques?
Why can our stock not drink from the creeks up near Mt Isa?
Why is the Government not coming up with solutions to ensure ongoing employment as well as environmental protection?
If you move water from the Gulf into the Murray- what do you then do to the ecosystem in the Gulf?
Where are the funds for re-structuring unsustainable mining and agricultural practices through education and provision of viable alternatives?

Saving the Water that flows into Lake Eyre

The waters from Warburton Creek and Coopers Creek are presently being lost due to evaporation.

Warberton Greek

When it floods in the north of Australia, Warberton Creek eventually becomes a long shallow creek that looses its water quickly due to evaporation. The creek empties into Lake Eyre but may not contain enough water to flood into it.

This water can be saved as follows.

By constructing control channels off Warberton Creek that led to deep reservoirs with small evaporation areas, water could be saved all along Warberton Creek. Foliage could be planted around the reservoirs to minimize evaporation. The control channels could be opened when Warberton Creek was full to save its water. When Warberton creek is dry, solar pumps could supply water at oasis type water holes constructed at the Creek to assist with local fauna and flora and also to keep the Creek running.

Where Warberton Creek enters Lake Eyre, a series of deep reservoirs linked by pipes and solar pumps, would also be constructed to catch water that is normally lost rapidly in the big evaporation area of Lake Eyre. More of these reservoirs could be built down the east side of Lake Eyre as required over the next 100 years.

A similar project could also be used to save water down Coopers Creek and at Lake Eyre.

The excess land fill from the reservoirs could be use to help seperate these fresh water reservoirs and the many thousands of man made salt water lakes which would result from the Lake Eyre pipe line.

The Development of Inland Australia Executive summary

Introduction

The overcrowding of our major cities is resulting in the failure of their infrastructure. This problem stems from the fact that the large cities and their accompanying suburbs are being developed as urban sprawl, with little consideration being given to future infrastructure developments such as roads, transport, sewerage, water, power and socal services. The cities just continue to expand unchecked and the cracks are begining to show.

What is needed

We need self sustaining developments that will entice people to leave the big cities and hence alleviate the ever increasing strain on infrastructure.

The main enticements to leave the cities would be jobs not based around unsustainable farming practices, abundant power and fresh water and cheap one acre water front house/land packages. With the baby boomers coming, this will be an ideal retirement alternative to the east coast.

The Development of Lake Eyre and Lake Torrens

If a salt water supply pipe from Spencer Gulf to Lake Eyre was constructed, Lake Eyre, which is a 9500 square kilometer salt lake, could be flooded permanently using gravity, as it lies 11 meters below sea level. The salt water could be also used to develop Lake Torrens This will create many thousands of kilometers of water front real estate and also allow the continual expansion of thermal/solar electrical and desalination plants to occur for many years.

New eco house manufacturing plants could be built at both at Lake Torrens and Lake Eyre, which would build relocatable houses that would strive to be energy independence. These houses would be of guaranteed quality and mounted on poles to avoid possible flooding. They would include as standard such things as solar cells plus an energy storage and conversion system, two way electrical power meter, all wiring as well as salt and fresh water plumbing, skylights, solar hot water system, extra insulation in walls, floor and roof, double glazed tinted windows, fresh water tank, ducted reverse cycle air conditioning and radio internet dish. A land/house package, offered at $180K, would ensure a lot of people would sell up in Sydney and relocate to a one acre lake side block.

As stated, future energy and fresh water generation will come from Thermal/Solar plants and from fresh water capture at Coopers and Warberton Creeks There are already 80 Megawatt power plants available, and by having multiple plants, the achievable power output could be far in excess of this. Liquid salt now enables them to operate 24 hour a day. The plant(s) would be connected back to the national power grid at Port Augusta via a new Lake Torrens/Lake Eyre electrical grid

Conclusions

A new salt water pipe line would ensure Lake Eyre and Lake Torrens will have a plentiful supply of pressurized salt water, allowing future expansion of thermal/solar plants. This, along with the completion of a new electrical grid through Lake Torren to Lake Eyre, will make South Australia a major supplier of electrical power.

With cheap water front properties and new jobs in thermal/solar and eco house manufacturing plants, hydroponics and fisheries, South Australia would also be a major growth area for new sustainable housing development which would allow Australia to responsibly increase its population.

Aboriginal people could be assisted in seeking employment in new eco businesses. The eco house would also be an alternative to present aboriginal housing.

Higher education through out Australia should be involved in all phases of design and construction.

Additional benefits would also include the cooling of these high temperature areas which would attract rain bearing low pressures and the supply of water to fight bush fires. It may also generate local rain upto 60 Kilometers from the edge of the lakes due to evaporation. See the CSIRO modelling report, "The rainfall response to permanent inland water in Australia" by K Hope and Neville Nichols

Links for Solar/Thermal Desalination, Energy storage and Energy Generation

http://www.solardesalination.com.au/content/Parabolic-Trough-Solar-Power-History.html
http://www.enersalt.com.au/index.html
http://www.sandia.gov/Renewable_Energy/solarthermal/NSTTF/salt.htm


Copyright William Joiner 2008

Sounds great Bill! Where do I send my deposit? You know, if we don't do something to develop inland Australia, the Chinese will, now that they've got their hands on it.

And Barnaby, for God's sake, please stop thinking about COAL!!! It's dirty it's finite and it will soon be just another redundant energy source. Get your head around SOLAR for Heaven's sake and get with the programme!

Isreal and Saudi Arabia are building enormous solar farms already in preparation for the end of the oil industry as we know it. Oil has peaked. It's all down hill from now on. Likewise for coal. Why are we still pursuing it with such ardent fervour?

Have a read of this article and you might just get a clue as to what an enormous potential industry we are missing out on in a country with vast desert areas and loads of sunlight.

Article: http://snipurl.com/fmbkt

Why would you bother with coal??? Just perfect solar technology and become world leaders and energy providers as the Arabs did in the 70s / 80s / 90s with oil. Even they're smart enough to recognise when the game is up.

The Distributed Electrical System
The advantages of transforming the electrical supply from a few high powered coal fired plants over to hundreds of smaller gas fired power plants (decentralised system) which are located close to where the power is required is the way to go. The English are going over to this system.
1. It is a substantially cleaner method of generating electricity as Methane does not contain much carbon.
2. With a carbon trading scheme coming, the cost of electricity produced from coal is only going to increase.
3. With a huge supply of natural gas available, a deal could be worked out through governments for natural gas bought locally at a cheap price allowing this cost saving to be passed on to customers and hence lowering the cost of living in Australia. After all, if China and Japan can buy our natural gas for cheap, why not us?
4. A decentralised system is inherently more reliable as supply is not dependent on a few generators suppling power through a few lines, eg, like the NSW power outages. Local manufacting plants, hospitals etc, would also benefit from having their own gas fired power plant as supply is not interupted with main line outages.
5. Lines stay balanced with this method.
6. Mains power can be used if plant maintenance is required.
7. Many, many more career jobs will be created for Australians as the plants come on line.
8. Minimizes long line power losses as the power is created locally.
9. Operating costs are lower, as passing gas through a pipe is cheaper than transporting coal.
10. It take the strain of an aging electrical grid.
11. Natural gas is already available in most big cities.