Coal vs Natural Gas Vs Coal Seam Gas

Coal seam gas is being marketed as a “transition fuel” to ween us off fossil fuels as we move to renewable energy.

There is a problem.  Although coal seam gas and natural gas are both methane, the environmental impacts of extracting the coal seam gas and also of converting coal to gas is damaging.

And the biggest impact is on food security because it is found under some of the most valuable agricultural land in the world.  Plus it drains into the Murray darling system and the Great Artesian Basin.

Land owners have no ability to prevent serious and permanent damage to the land they own.  The rights to mine are dominant.

Cash Strapped governments and especially Queensland after all the natural disasters would love the royalties because in our crazy system they only need to plan for the short term.

Australia is a major exporter of grain, shipping out enough to feed around 60 million people. Much production occurs on land that is also good for CSG extraction.

The Darling Downs and Liverpool plains with their heavy clay soils, reliable rainfall and extensive underground water resources are among the most productive agricultural lands in the world.  And these soils store enough water to tide crops over in times of low rainfall.  They have built in soil fertility and soil organic matter that underpins their exceptional and reliable productivity.

Farmers who actually own the land in the Surat Basin and Liverpool Plains have signed up to quite severe underground water use restrictions to enable sustainable supply.

However the coal seam gas industry both uses and produces water and is not subject to the same compulsory rules on sustainable water extraction as farmers and they directly compete with farmers and towns.

And added to that, the large amounts of water that must be pumped through the coal seams is often too salty for use in agriculture.

• So what to do with salt water?
• And what to do about existing aquifers being contaminated with coal seam gas water.
• Plus some mixtures of coal seam gas with air can be quite explosive and there are times when people need to leave their households while such an event is managed.
• There is no requirement for coal seam gas companies to explain in advance how they might deal with the contamination of aquifers.

Coal seam gas wells take up about two hectares of land, and require access roads and underground pipes for the gas collection alongside them. The roads are a major problem because they disturb the flood erosion control that the farmers have developed and signed up to with government.

Some of the best food producing land in Australia and the livelihoods of some of the best farmers in the world and their considerable food production are at stake: surely, this land should be reserved for food production unless better safeguards can be put in place.  This is simply not sustainable management of Australia’s resources.

Why would any sane person or government agree to put our soils and future food supply at risk for an industry that will only last around 30-40 years?  For some reason we are selling a large proportion of our natural gas overseas then destroying our own future food supply to produce what we are happily selling off.

There is a sanity issue here in my opinion.

I am not in any way opposed to mining when i tis managed sustainably BUT I am seriously opposed to rape of a vital resource for a relatively short term gain.

Jean Cannon

Jean is an award winning small business management expert. She gives you the almost paperless ISO Quality, Safety and Environment certification that protects your business and saves you time and money. For more information go to
http://www.integratedisosystems.com

You can register your interest in the next risk management workshop at
http://www.riskmanagementinbusiness.com

This entry was posted on Monday, May 30th, 2011 at 2:44 am and is filed under Sustainable Business and Integrated ISO Systems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.