Alan Jones discusses corruption in politics, dredging Gladstone Harbour, and the coal seam gas industry. Then he talks to Senator Bill Heffernan about the govt. documents he has found, where the government was advised of the risks of this CSG industry in 2006.
Protecting the water wealth of the Great Artesian Basin is the latest challenge for the coal seam gas industry, writes Ben Cubby.
The basin has existed in its current form for millions of years, but one of the biggest tests to its existence will come in the next decade. Beneath the layers of water lie some of the world’s most extensive coal seams. Just as the sandstone aquifers contain water, so the coal seams contain methane.
A lack of information about recent exploration for gas has landowners in the Mid West worried, and wanting answers.
The root of the problem, he says, is that politicians pay little attention to the long-term effects of decisions, especially the impact of mining on water resources.
“One thing people must have is food and water, but we are destroying that for one-off payments from mining,” he says.
“No one has a clue of the geology of aquifers. Once fractured, there’s no possibility for them to be fixed. You can’t mine without fracturing the aquifer.”
“The single most important thing you can have is water,” Mr Ball said.
Coal seam gas is a massive undertaking. It’s estimated there are now close to 4,000 wells in Queensland. That number will grow tenfold over the next 20 years. The plan is to take a lot of that gas to Curtis Island, off Gladstone in the World Heritage Area, where it will be processed and exported.
To service the huge liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers and expand its coal loading capacity, Gladstone Ports Corporation is now undertaking the biggest dredging operation ever attempted inshore from the Great Barrier Reef.
Alan Jones talks to Gundi Royle, an energy analyst who is attacking CSG industry and regulators for failing to conduct independent regional modelling of the groundwater impacts of up to $80 billion in planned coal seam gas (CSG) development.
Senior energy analyst Gundi Royle has broken ranks with her colleagues, attacking industry and regulators for failing to conduct independent regional modelling of the groundwater impacts of up to $80 billion in planned coal seam gas (CSG) development.
She said that State governments were so enamoured with projected revenue “they cannot regulate efficiently. They have failed from the outset. They are trying to run behind the ambulance but they will not be able to catch it”.
Mining companies have bought prime agricultural land near Sutton Forest south of Sydney to access key parcels of land without having to worry about landowners.
With opponents to coal seam gas fighting the industry on many fronts the news that gas producers pay nothing for five years has been met with disbelief.
Those opposed to the industry have been questioning its impact on the environment in particular ground water – but now they want to know how a multinational run industry can receive such a significant financial boost from the state government.
There’s a new mining boom in New South Wales and a new state government too. So what now for coal mining and coal seam gas extraction, the environment and agricultural lands around Sydney,
the Hunter Valley, the Illawarra and beyond?
Quest for coal