Murray Darling Basin

The Surat basin west of the Darling Downs in Queensland is proving to be a valuable source of petroleum gas.

One small problem associated with production of this gas is that there is a considerable quantity of water that comes out of the well with the gas. And in many cases because of sulphur and other contamination in the water, it is necessary for environmental reasons to pond and evaporate this water at the site.

What a waste - in one of the driest countries on earth.

Why not use a solar desalinator to recover the fresh water?

The remaining effluent could be ponded as before, so there are no new environmental problems to deal with as a result of this proposal.

This low cost fresh water is a bit too far from town to be worth piping it anywhere, so why not use it near the well site to grow irrigated lucerne?

This is a high value crop which will grow well on the western downs, and some of the heat from the desalinator could be used to dry the leaf to a high quality suitable for the chaff market or for export to Asia as pellets.

Both of these markets would justify the transport costs to the coast and should be very profitable because the low cost solar energy used to produce the water and to dry the crop.