ARTICLES
Solar Energy to battle the severe water shortage in regional NSW?
By George Pinniger
In the second edition of ‘Science Education News’ in 2018, the
Science Teachers’ Association of NSW was thrilled to report the
stunning success of the Australian Young Scientist team at the
ISEF Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Oliver Nicholls
won several awards including the major Gordon E. Moore Award
for US$75,000 in recognition of his autonomous robotic window
cleaner being the most outstanding and innovative project
at the fair, and possessing the greatest potential impact for
revolutionising its particular field of work.
and even medical-grade sterile water for developing countries
and for emergency relief. Their project, ‘The SAS System’
(Sanitation and Sterilisation System), was a self-sustaining,
portable unit consisting of three integrated systems, to provide
both clean drinking water and sterile water for medical use, for
developing communities and emergency relief.
I am convinced that this second remarkable scientific project
identifies a means of providing water for the increasing number
of regional towns in NSW and elsewhere that are currently
running out of drinking water. Unfortunately, I have been unable
to establish contact with either of the two young women who
developed this scheme, because the work they put into this
remarkable project deserves far greater recognition, quite apart
from the great potential it may offer in the current rural situation.
Jade and Macinley with their Award-winning project, "The SAS
System" (Sanitation and Sterilisation System), a self-sustaining
portable unit consisting of three integrated systems.
Field in drought - when will we get a decent rainfall!
Of course, in order to provide the required clean water there
needs to be a source of impure water, but there certainly
is water available everywhere in The Great Artesian Basin,
which covers 23% of the continent and contains 64,900 cubic
kilometres of water. In 2013 palaeontologist Dr Elizabeth Smith,
living at Lightning Ridge, NSW, wrote a remarkable article for
SEN explaining the history of how this artesian basin formed,
along with some of the animals that lived in the area. I intend
to republish Elizabeth’s article in the first edition of “Science
Education News” in 2020, as it deserves another examination,
both by Science teachers (especially when Geology and Biology
are being discussed), and by those politicians currently bereft of
Furthermore, the team of Jade Moxey from Sapphire Coast
Anglican School and Macinley Butson from the Illawarra
Grammar School won a US$1,000 award from Qatar’s Foundation
for Education, Science and Community Development and a
US$20,000 Scholarship for Sustainable Initiatives with Water
Technology from the King Abdul-Aziz and His Companions
Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity. In the Grand Awards
Ceremony they also won a US$1,000 3rd place Grand Award
in the category of Environmental Engineering. As described in
the article, the aim of Macinley and Jade was to develop a self-
sustaining sanitation and sterilising device to produce drinkable,
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 4