Chapter 13 : The Funding

Farmers could be given low-interest loans to set up their portable solar arrays or wind turbines. I believe old solar panels which still work well are thrown out by the truck load. So much so that it's a real headache to try to recycle them. Rather than throwing out old solar panels that still work, the Local Regional Governments could provide recycled solar panel depots where farmers can pick up old solar panels for free and repurpose them for their farms. Local country electricians could be paid to repurpose these old solar panels at the request of interested farmers. The electricians would be paid by the Local Government with Federal Government grants. Any extra training necessary could also be covered by these grants. Until farmers are convinced of the worth of the project, this might prove to be a cheap alternative for farmers who want to "test the waters". 

Once the water or “water credits” starts flowing to their farms, the farmers can invest more heavily in more efficient solar panels to obtain more water for their farms. To the farmers, this is a once-off investment lasting up to 25 years because whilst the solar panels keep producing electricity for the coastal corporations, farmers will keep getting water for the farms. So it just depends on how much land and how many panels the farmer can hook up at any one time. And the efficiency of those solar panels will improve, encouraging farmers to invest in upgrades. Remember, that land was just lying fallow before or arid. Now it is producing water for farmers. 

If a farmer has no water and no pipes reaching his or her farm yet, then the Coastal Corporations or Coastal Townships will provide tankers of water from the nearest pipe to the farm. The farmer takes the water and refuels the tanker with green hydrogen to reduce to cost of the water being delivered. The tanker is powered by hydrogen. Hydrogen electrolyzers can be big or small. If the farmer has an electrolyzer on his or her farm, she or he can make green hydrogen. The water still costs more than if a pipe delivered desalinated water directly to the farm. But at least some extra water would be coming to the farm until the pipes reached that location. 

The Coastal Corporation can lease the hydrogen electrolyzer to the farmer. The farmer can even convert all his or her existing equipment to run on green hydrogen to reduce running costs on the farm. Again, local mechanics can be paid through a Government grant scheme to help with this.

Imagine a flying vehicle which is part drone, part blimp (hopefully mass-produced in Australia) lifting a small sized container full to the brim with the farmer’s crop.  The blimp/drone is remotely controlled by a computer program, and for lift, the blimp is full of green hydrogen produced on the farm. The hydrogen provides the lift necessary for the cargo. The heavier the cargo, the more hydrogen-filled attachments are secured to the blimp for lift. This is the same principle as with the Falcon 9 rocket. To get a larger cargo into space, more and more rockets were attached. 

Initially, the crops are sent to an Australian port and unloaded. Enough of the gas is unloaded at the port, leaving some buoyancy for the bimp/drone to return to the farm. Hopefully, the unloaded hydrogen powers the cargo ship's engines. As this technology evolves, the crop is sent directly from the farm to its end market in Korea, Japan, or China. It doesn’t need to be loaded and unloaded onto ships and trains. No port facilities or rail lines are needed. No ships or trains are needed. 

If a sea lane gets shut, we can negotiate other routes because shipping chokepoints no longer apply. Present, huge navies need to exist to protect valuable shipping lanes. We can't afford that. So let's just go over the top and by pass any choke points.

As the crop is being unloaded, so too is the green hydrogen. So the blimp doesn’t shoot up into the sky as the cargo is unloaded. The farmer is selling his crop and green hydrogen at the same time. Enough hydrogen is left in the blimp for the return journey. Now the farmer is not just in the agriculture business, he or she is also in the energy business. 

At present, Korea is trying to work out how to economically liquify green hydrogen and ship it from Australia to Korea. Japan is thinking the same thing. Why bother! Just make it a by-product of us selling our agricultural products to them. It doesn’t need to be compressed or liquified. They just need enough of it to get their economies to net zero by a certain date.  Just pump it straight from the farmer’s blimp. 

With Federal legislation, AGL or some other coastal corporation or township will not be allowed to directly sell energy into the market. It must be sourced by pumping clean water inland and buying green energy from farmers in return for the water. So the legislation forces the coastal corporations to buy green electricity or green hydrogen by providing farmers with clean, fresh water. That’s how it works. Otherwise, they can’t sell energy into the marketplace.  

So what's the benefit to Australia? We get an electrical grid that stretches across the length and breadth of Australia. Australia also gets a grid of inland flowing pipes full of fresh water, the size of large rivers, which can be diverted and redirected according to the most need. Apart from a certain amount of start-up funding, the Australian taxpayers get this for free. Farmers and private energy corporations pay for it once they see it's doable. And they pay for it with sunlight and wind, which at present is just being wasted.  

If we got this grid up and running in a serious way then tech giants would swarm the states showing the most progress. They need large amounts of water to cool CPUs, cheap electricity to power their data centres and cheap land to build large centres. And they need an advanced economy and an educated workforce. Also because AI is politically sensitive, they need a politically favourable country to set up shop in. That's us if we do this. And those tech companies have the money to help pay for all this stuff!