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You missed a zero. 5 million people by 50 gallons/day is 250 million gallons/day. So they only missed by ~25%. Australia uses a estimated ~16T liters of water

by Veserv 3y ago

You missed a zero. 5 million people by 50 gallons/day is 250 million gallons/day. So they only missed by ~25%. Australia uses a estimated ~16T liters of water per year [1] for all uses including personal and agricultural. That is 16M ML * 600 AUD/ML for a total of ~10B AUD. Australia has a population of ~25M. So that is ~400 AUD/person to completely replace all water usage in Australia. As Australia is a island, I assume they do most of their own agriculture, so for additional 400 AUD on their food bill a year they never need to worry about a drought ever again. The Australian government appears to have a budget of ~500B/year which is around 25% of GDP [2]. So, for ~2% of the government budget or ~0.5% of GDP the economics are completely managed. [1] https://www.worldometers.info/water/ https://www.worldometers.info/water/ [2] https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview202021/AustralianGovernmentRevenue https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...

nwiswell 3y ago
You're right, that was sloppy of me. It sounded right, but I think Melbourne Water statistics probably truly are dominated by domestic use, since it's a city. You can see the numbers don't match up; you're using a figure of 16T liters annually, whereas 25 million people * 50 gallons / day-person * 365 days * 3.785 liters/gallon is 1.727T trillion liters annually. Anyway, I am suspicious of the 600 AUD/ML figure, or else a lot more Gulf states would be food independent.
- Veserv 3y ago
  Yes. Domestic use is a tiny fraction of all water usage. However, as you point out it is necessary to incorporate the food water to determine actual water independence. 600 AUD/ML is ~400 USD/ML. The Sorek B plant in Israel is profitably contracted at ~0.40 USD/m^3 [1] which is comparable. That is one of the largest plants with cutting edge technology and one of the cheapest prices I have seen in my research. A quote of 600 AUD/ML for desalinated water right now in Australia seems a tad questionable, but not outside of what is possible. 2-3x that number is almost certainly believable (though they almost certainly do not have bulk scale) and would only increase the costs to 1.5% of GDP. [1] https://ildesal.org.il/sorek-b-desalination-plant/ https://ildesal.org.il/sorek-b-desalination-plant/

by Veserv 3y ago

nwiswell 3y ago

You're right, that was sloppy of me. It sounded right, but I think Melbourne Water statistics probably truly are dominated by domestic use, since it's a city. You can see the numbers don't match up; you're using a figure of 16T liters annually, whereas 25 million people * 50 gallons / day-person * 365 days * 3.785 liters/gallon is 1.727T trillion liters annually. Anyway, I am suspicious of the 600 AUD/ML figure, or else a lot more Gulf states would be food independent.

Veserv 3y ago
Yes. Domestic use is a tiny fraction of all water usage. However, as you point out it is necessary to incorporate the food water to determine actual water independence. 600 AUD/ML is ~400 USD/ML. The Sorek B plant in Israel is profitably contracted at ~0.40 USD/m^3 [1] which is comparable. That is one of the largest plants with cutting edge technology and one of the cheapest prices I have seen in my research. A quote of 600 AUD/ML for desalinated water right now in Australia seems a tad questionable, but not outside of what is possible. 2-3x that number is almost certainly believable (though they almost certainly do not have bulk scale) and would only increase the costs to 1.5% of GDP. [1] https://ildesal.org.il/sorek-b-desalination-plant/ https://ildesal.org.il/sorek-b-desalination-plant/