Queensland Conservation's position on desalination

QCC remains very concerned by seawater desalination as a water supply option due to the following issues:

• High energy requirements, and resultant GHG emissions
• Impacts on marine environments from hyper saline wastewater discharge
• High environmental risks
• Encouragement of unsustainable population levels

For seawater desalination to be acceptable certain criteria must be met, including:

• Water conservation, demand management and recycling measures have been fully implemented and applied
• Operation of desalination plants must ensure marine environmental
degradation does not occur from discharge of hyper saline [brine] wastewater
• All greenhouse gas emissions from the energy required to operate desalination plants must be 100% mitigated by direct or indirect renewable power generation
• Desalination plants must not be located in or near sensitive marine ecosystems

To read the full position paper click here  QCC_desal_position_final.pdf 27.21 Kb