New technology harnessing wave energy could be the "holy grail" for providing electricity and drinking water to Australia's major cities, Industry Minister Ian MacFarlane said yesterday.
The technology, developed with the help of more than A$770 million (US$636 million) in seed funding from the government, works through fields of submerged buoys tethered to seabed pumps.
The buoys move in harmony with the motion of the passing waves, pumping pressurized seawater to shore to run turbines and pass through a desalination plant.
"The constancy of the waves even when the surface is dead calm means that you can build a base load renewable energy power station and that is really the holy grail for us, if you can produce renewable energy 24/7," Macfarlane told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Drought-ravaged Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth and the desalination of seawater is seen as one way of ensuring long-term water supplies for the big cities, which are all on the coast.
With the process requiring large amounts of energy, however, and the country also trying to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for global warming, the technology is seen as providing a double benefit.
The Perth-based Carnegie Corporation, which developed the seabed technology, informed the Australian stock exchange yesterday of its "proposal for a world-first base-load renewable energy power station and zero emission desalination plant."
After successful trials, the CETO system was on track to begin full scale deployment off southern capital cities in 2009, Carnegie managing director Michael Ottaviano said.
Australia was uniquely positioned to take advantage of the technology for both its power and water needs, he said.
All of Australia's southern mainland cities' current water needs could be satisfied by CETO units covering an area of 155 hectares of sea floor at around 75 percent of the price of current desalination projects, the statement said.
In addition, the "Wave Farms" would generate approximately 300 megawatts of zero-emission power, which would be enough to support approximately 300,000 households.
"If the project gets the go ahead this year, then we will be able to start construction in 2009, with full capacity achieved in 2012," Ottaviano said.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
China executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” of telecom scam operations, state media reported yesterday, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry. Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar. Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world. Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work. In the past few years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation
RSS