The government intends developing 20 per cent of Australia's energy needs from alternative pollution-free sources by 2020. There are various options involved in this plan including wind, hydro, solar, geothermal, tidal and biomass energy from methane gas. Recently citizens of Yass had an opportunity to hear about another energy alternative - coal seam gas.
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To obviate some of the myths that accompanied the installation of wind turbines (where one anti-wind owner swore the turbines were actually advancing on his property, fearing they'd soon be in his backyard!) the National Party invited Geoffrey King, an international legal consultant with a very considerable knowledge of coal seam gas, to speak.
While coal seam gas production and commercialisation has developed over more than 30 years, legislative control has only occurred since its first commercial production and controversies (particularly in Queensland) demonstrate that it is risky for governments not to have an effective and detailed regulatory regime for its control.
International legal research has attempted to resolve questions arising from these controversies in Queensland, where coal resources have been targeted by developers to provide for a number of LNG projects. Queensland LNG development began in advance of an efficient legislative system to avoid conflict between the coal seam gas developers, landowners and conventional coal miners and it is possible that some of the developments were insufficiently overseen to avoid insensitively planned projects.
Some Queensland landowners are vigorously opposed to coal seam gas developments using multiple vertical wells because of the surface impact of the wellheads and connecting pipelines on rural pursuits. The number of vertical wells required to produce low pressure gas may seriously interfere with the rural activities of landowners because hundreds (perhaps thousands) of vertical well sites may be necessary to produce sufficient gas flows. Similar developments in the US have needed as many as 30,000 vertical wells before being brought into production.
The Queensland experiences have caused generally negative reactions from landowners throughout Australia to all coal seam gas developments, even those not relying on so many vertical wells. Vertical wells, ‘fracking’ and pollution have been made the signature spectres of coal seam gas developments in Australia.
There are other environmental issues of great concern regarding coal seam gas development:
* The disposal of formation water from the coal seam to allow gas to flow;
* The drilling, penetration and potential pollution of aquifers.
* The fracking of vertical wells to allow them to produce gas more efficiently, possibly contaminating ground water with toxic chemicals used in that process.
It is important that landowners in Yass should be made aware of the whole truth about fracking and all the implications of coal seam developments before it is allowed to happen here.