Four Corners investigates the CSG industry, and its cost to farmers, the GAB and the environment. Matthew Carney finds leaking gas wells, falling borewater pressure levels, toxic chemicals that have never been assessed by by the national regulator, and fears that the Great Artesian Basin will be contaminated and depleted.
As expansion in the coal seam gas industry continues to boom, fears grow that the groundwater of Great Artesian Basin will be poisoned.
“So you can basically say of the 23 major chemicals used in this process, they have not been assessed by any national regulator,” Dr Lloyd-Smith said.
“It will take a long time before the oil and gas industries restore the loss of global trust that followed the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster, where executives simply did not work out what they had to do and did not understand the risks.
In Australia we have not encountered a BP-style disaster but the management style seems similar – they have not worked out what they have to do and the risks they face.”
“Listening to Julia Gillard’s meaningless pledge to deliver a “clean-energy economy”, it appears that the Prime Minister is deliberately ignoring a key energy report published by the government just last year.
Does Gillard appreciate that, with respect to greenhouse gases, every 2,000 MW of gas-fired baseload generation provided is equal to the construction of another Kogan Creek power station, the latest and most efficient coal-burning plant in Australia, commissioned in 2007? And that building about 20,000 MW of new baseload gas-fired generation to meet projected 2030 requirement is the equivalent, in emissions terms, of constructing 10 more Kogan Creeks?”
This excellent article by Orchison, explains about the govt’s total lack of commitment to renewable energy. http://www.businessspectator.com.au:80/bs.nsf/Article/Julia-Gillard-clean-energy-CEDA-pd20110202-DP67F?OpenDocument&src=kgb
THE Planning Minister, Tony Kelly, has given the strongest sign yet that the state government would ban the use of a group of chemicals in the controversial technique known as fracking to extract coal seam gas.
The vice president of the NSW Farmers Association, Fiona Simson, said the scoping paper was ”too little, too late” and was designed to assist the coal industry, not other industries.
Olympic Dam EIS: Impact of the world’s biggest mine
Land use fury takes another steep turn