John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

notes the renewed interest being taken in the potential for cloud seeding to enhance precipitation across Australia;

(2)

acknowledges that Snowy Hydro has rolled out an extensive cloud seeding operation over the past two winters for snow fall enhancement and that Hydro Tasmania has been undertaking cloud seeding precipitation enhancement operations for several decades;

(3)

notes that many countries around the world continue to invest heavily in cloud seeding research, whilst in Australia it has not been enthusiastically embraced by the scientific community; and

(4)

calls for the establishment of an Australian Cooperative Research Centre for weather modification to follow similar models in other countries.

Cloud seeding is a subject which I have followed and pursued quite vigorously for a decade now. I am pleased to see that there are at least some initiatives to recognise cloud seeding as an area that is deserving of legitimate scientific research. Cloud seeding is not obscure science, as many are hasty to assert. I have had that assertion put to me regularly. Cloud physicists all agree that it is possible to modify the microphysics of clouds by seeding them with silver iodine and that you can have an immediate influence on the precipitation outcome for that particular cloud—they all agree. The science is not new; it has been the subject of investigative science for 50 years. Indeed, postwar Australia led the world in the research of this area of science: we invented the equipment that is now being used around the world, and we wrote the textbooks on which many of the cloud-seeding operations around the world base their work.

Time does not permit me to explain how cloud seeding works. It is sufficient to note that the introduction of the crystalline structure of silver iodine, which is very similar to ice, encourages the cloud to form raindrops; it causes them to coalesce. It is quite simple and it is not a hypothesis anymore: it is recognised science.

At the end of a demonstration, there is a discussion about statistics or arithmetic. In Australia we have a short period of rainfall record—notionally 100 years—with all of the variability that appears in weather, because the statistical variables are just so immense. The debate is about proving the science beyond the influence of statistical significance. Because of the problem with the variability of weather, to be deemed efficacious it must at least show that cloud seeding is 20 per cent more likely to result in precipitation than the statistical expectation. There is no other scientific endeavour that I am aware of that is asked to get through an efficacy hurdle as significant as that. That is what the discussion is about. It is not about the science but about the arithmetic, or the statistics, at the end of it.

Considerable effort is being expended around the world on this subject. I had the benefit of a visit to Texas in 2002, after which I tabled a report in this chamber urging the Australian scientific community to show a renewed interest in cloud seeding. The next year I went to Israel. It was interesting last week to meet with Eli Ronen, the chairman of Mekorot, the Israeli water authority. Mekorot have an extensive cloud-seeding operation, with a demonstrable benefit to Israel beyond the statistical expectation. The Israelis are using Australian invented technology, but they have extended it.

Here in Australia we have two significant cloud-seeding operations: Hydro Tasmania, which for decades has continued the development of this technology; and, more recently, Snowy Hydro. For the past three winter seasons, Snowy Hydro has been making snow using the same techniques.

The world has moved on and is using technology that we have never used in Australia—for example, the use of pyrotechnic flares to distribute the silver iodine in a more accurate and precise way, and the advent of accurate radar with an interpretive capacity so that particular clouds can be targeted. What I learnt from the Texans was that a precise dose in a precise location is the key to getting good outcomes.

I am greatly encouraged by the renewed interest in Queensland, with the Premier last year announcing $7½ million to further cloud-seeding research in south-east Queensland. My motion asks for consideration for the establishment of a research facility, which many other countries—including the United States, Israel, China and South Africa—already have. I believe the cooperative research centre model is the way to go, where you can get interested players in and those who are participating in cloud-seeding activity. I commend this motion to the chamber, and I ask all members to support it. (Time expired)

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