PLEA Network

6 November 2015, Renew Economy, Praying for rain – Tasmania. On the back of four years of dry and the shadow of El Niño looming large, recent rains across parts of inland Queensland must come as great relief. While plenty of follow up will be needed to restore surface water stores and recharge aquifers, we should be thankful for such mercies. As I sat down on Thursday morning (November 5) to start this piece, it began raining proverbial “cats and dogs” in Melbourne, bringing relief to parts of Victoria, including my garden (the 2-3 cm of rain that fell across Melbourne was twice as much as fell in all of October). However, the news is not so positive in Tasmania, which seems to have largely missed out on rain again, after several near record dry months. And that is compromising the health of Tasmanian hydro storages. By the end of October, Tasmanian hydro capacity was already below 30% capacity, and falling calamitously, despite a dramatic reduction in Tasmanian hydro power output. Read More here