Adjournment Debate

SPRAGG BAG WATERBAG

Mrs PENFOLD (Flinders) (16:19): Mr Terry Spragg, an American inventor and proponent of waterbag technology, and his Australian associate Mr Robert Tulip, with some input from me, have recently put a submission, entitled 'Spragg Bag Water Transportation and Storage Technology for Climate Adaption', to the Garnaut climate review. Today I draw the attention of the house to this submission and urge those interested to seek more information on www.waterbag.com where a YouTube video of Terry Spragg walking on water can also be accessed.

The submission, 'Flexible water supplies for when and where you need them', provides the following information: The Spragg Bag waterbag is a new technology developed in the USA for towing large volumes of fresh water through the ocean in trains of connected fabric bags. A patented zipper bag connection technology enables robust seaworthy operation for water shipments of large size and economic fuel efficiency. Tests show each trip can transport up to one gigalitre of drinking water in 60 connected waterbags with each bag holding 17 megalitres.

Waterbags will be a major contribution to Australia's adaption to climate change. They provide a flexible and modular technology to ensure water security for consumers in times of erratic or changing rainfall. Waterbags are a low-energy method to secure urban water supply. There are potential future waterbag uses for carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation.

Waterbags are a better value, faster and more greenhouse-friendly method for expanding urban water supplies than desalination, dams and pipelines. Waterbags have significantly lower capital and operating costs, greater ease of implementation, minimal environmental impacts and much lower energy use than other options. Waterbags will be a new commercial water supply industry that will address drought contingency risks, create jobs, revenues and economic growth, and be good for the environment.

Wastewater treatment and transport for factories, stormwater and sewerage outfalls is a potential major future application with strong environmental benefits. Waterbags float in the ocean because fresh water floats on salt water. This principle has numerous potential innovative applications relating to climate change adaption and mitigation. Waterbag technology will have broad positive environmental impacts, strongly supporting Australia's adaption to a likely warmer and drier climate.

Because of the flexibility of waterbag technology, the wastewater system can be shut down and moved elsewhere if water levels at a selected waterbag loading source fall below designated environmental flows. Wastewater treatment applications, climate adaption and mitigation potential provide further environmental benefits. An example of potential wastewater treatment is in response to the problems identified by the Adelaide Coastal Waters Study. Technical reports have identified a loss of more than 5,000 hectares of seagrass mainly caused by poor water quality, especially high nutrient levels in the near shore waters.

These losses are due to the discharge of treated waste water from industry and metropolitan wastewater treatment plants. High levels of suspended solids in stormwater flows are also implicated. Waterbag transport and storage could make an innovative and cost effective contribution to the management of these liquid wastes. An article by Ian Edmonds, Northern River Water for Australian Cities, published in the September 2007 edition of Water, the Journal of Australian Water Association, discusses the feasibility of long distance waterbag transport. The article cites the Spragg Bag as a precedent and concludes:

The East Australian Current that flows 2,000 kilometres from the northern tropics to Sydney carries with it the outflow of the northern rivers. Enclosing only a small percentage of this river water in large membrane containers and allowing the filled containers to float with the current provides an almost free method of delivering drinking water to the major east coast cities. Preliminary cost estimates for the supply of 120 ML per day to the Gold Coast indicate this method of water supply may be 30 times less expensive to implement than an equivalent supply by desalination plant and that the method may emit 60 times less greenhouse gas. These figures suggest that the proposal would be much less expensive than a pipeline from the Burdekin River to Brisbane.

Droughts are cyclical and rain can return for many years. Once built, desalination plants continue to depreciate and the capital costs continue to require payment whether or not the plant is in operation. In 1992, the city of Santa Barbara, California spent $35 million to build a 3.2 MGD desalination plant. The plant ran for one month. The rains came and the reservoirs filled, and the plant never operated again and later was sold for scrap. The flexibility offered by waterbag technology can avoid these technical and financial problems. A desalination plant costing $1.5 billion for Adelaide is highly risky when other options, including waterbags, could cover drought situations at much less cost to the taxpayer who needs other infrastructure and better health services much more.

The Spragg Bag waterbag technology will enable the commercial sale of fresh water from places of abundance; supply large volumes of competitively priced new water for municipal and industrial use in all coastal areas of Australia; and reduce the need for water restrictions enabling increased economic activity (for example, tourist, housing, watering of urban parks, industrial use high value agriculture in destination centres). Improved efficiency and market orientation in the Australian water industry provide an efficient wastewater management option in suitable locations of potentially major contributions to CO₂ emission reduction, climate adaption and climate change mitigation.

An extensive economic analysis of specific waterbag proposals has been commissioned by Spragg & Associates, and an initial Australian desk study was prepared for indicative water supply over distances of 900 kilometres and 2,150 kilometres. This analysis indicates that waterbag technology can supply commercially competitive water for municipal and industrial purposes to mainland Australian cities and that waterbag technology has the potential to create a major new water transport industry for Australia. Tasmania is ideally placed to take a global lead in the introduction of waterbag technology in view of Australia's ongoing water shortages and strong technical, physical and political capacity to introduce waterbag technology quickly.

Experience with how to manage and sell bulk resources through the mining industry provides a platform for the introduction of waterbags. Waterbags will prove highly competitive and energy efficient against other technologies—such as desalination canals; parklands; dams; ocean tankers and recycling—and will act as a useful addition to the overall Australian water supply system. Waterbags will prove suited to a wide range of new and innovative uses. I have suggested other ideas that could make the waterbag technology take off as a way to help clean up our environment and provide more water. For example, waterbags can be used to collect stormwater, factory wastewater, grey water and sewerage for treatment, clean disposal and reuse.

These approaches could provide new sources of water for a range of purposes, from irrigation to human consumption. These sources would use water that is already available and causing environmental issues. Even the saline water from desalination plants, where these plants are still economical, could be collected in waterbags and towed out to sea for release in deeper, more turbulent waters to dissipate. The Spragg & Associates' patented zipper technology can be used for efficient and environmentally safe deep sea waste disposal. Waterbags are an ideal strategy for climate adaption in the water sector.

They can be put in place quickly to meet demand and drought contingency; are entirely modular and can be scaled up from a small initial operation; can be relocated and used elsewhere; can be made on demand without high upfront capital costs; can act as their own offshore reservoir at source or destination; require much less energy than desalination per volume of water produced and delivered; so might be eligible for carbon offset financing; do not require large land purchases; reduce the need for other expensive water supply solutions; and may in the future be powered by renewable wave, solar and wind energy. If water supplies at one source are less than the designated level earmarked for environmental flows, it is simply a matter of disconnecting the offshore portion of the water delivery system and moving it to a different water source location. The water bags are easily moved to any offshore loading location. Water technology allows for an open-ended perpetual agreement with multiple water sources, depending on water availability and transport price from any potential water sources.

Mr Spragg requests that the Garnaut review conduct a technical and economic evaluation of the Spragg water bag proposal to assess our claims of significant potential contribution to climate adaption and significant economic and environmental superiority to other water technologies now under consideration.