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The ABC has a look at the coal seam gas industry - Water, salt and carbon in the coal seam gas future.

An ABC investigative report into coal seam gas extraction, suggests the industry will bring about a massive redirection of the water system in Australia.

The ABC has launched Coal Seam Gas: By the Numbers, a website that maps the coal seam gas industry and explores its impact on water resources into the future.

The project calculates the amount of water which will be drawn from the ground as a result of gas extraction from the coal seam, considers waste materials collected and approaches to managing that waste.

ABC investigative reporters have used data and information from many sources, including environmental impact studies commissioned by mining companies at the request of Governments.

Investigative reporter Wendy Carlisle says "the research shows a large number of coal seam gas leases coincide with major underground water supplies used by farmers."

"What it shows is in broad terms coal seam gas will engineer a massive redirection of the water system in Australia.

"Landholders and governments dont yet know the impact this will have. It is the great coal seam gas experiment."

There will be as many as 40,000 gas wells in Australia in less than 20 years.

The article refers to this background piece -Coal Seam Gas - By The Numbers.

Coal seam gas has emerged as a major industry in Australia in little more than a decade.

The scale and speed of its growth has been nothing short of astonishing: billions of dollars have poured into regional areas; new jobs have been created; state and national coffers have swelled; export contracts have been signed and sealed; massive liquefied natural gas facilities have been approved for construction at regional ports.

Farmers fear they are losing control of their land. Miners and some politicians say coal seam gas offers a much greener energy choice. Environmentalists and other politicians have cast doubt on those claims.

The ABCs data journalism project has pulled together information from dozens of sources to provide an insight into the promise and the dangers inherent in the coal seam gas rush.

Did you know:

- it is estimated there will be at least 40,000 coal seam gas wells in Australia by 2030?
- conservative estimates suggest coal seam gas wells could draw 300 gigalitres of water from the ground each year?
- the industry could produce as much greenhouse gas as all the cars on the road in Australia?
- modelling suggests the industry could produce 31 million tonnes of waste salt over the next 30 years? ...

Over the next 20 years coal seam gas operations are expected to continue expanding.

The Queensland Government has approved up to 40,000 wells, and as more gas is discovered it is likely that number will rise. ...



How much water will the CSG industry use?

Australias Great Artesian Basin and its underground aquifers are a vital source of water; farmers and other bore users are given allocations for their use.

By 2014, the Commonwealth will have spent nearly $150 million under the Great Artesian Basin Sustainability Initiative, capping bores and fixing pipes to conserve water.

The coal seam gas industry is entitled to remove massive amounts of water from groundwater systems.

The Queensland Government says that if CSG mining causes groundwater levels to drop below specified "trigger" points then companies must "make good" to affected water users. The trigger points are:

- a five-metre drop in the level of agriculture bores; and
- a 0.2 of a metre drop in the water table surrounding naturally occurring springs, creeks and rivers.

The make-good arrangements have not yet been fully spelt out by government.

In addition to these provisions, the forthcoming Murray Basin Plan will set limits on groundwater extraction, including by the CSG industry. The states must enact these limits by 2019.

There is a fierce debate about the amount of water the coal seam gas industry will extract from underground, and what impact it may have on the sustainability of the Great Artesian Basin.

The industry suggests it will pull out somewhere between 126 gigalitres and 280 gigalitres a year, while the National Water Commission puts the figure above 300 gigalitres a year. Others, including the Water Group advising the Federal Government, suggest it is higher still.

The ABC has a report on a proposed UCG (underground coal gasification) / coal to liquids project being promoted by Central Petroleum (whose pronouncements I tend to regard with a large degree of skepticism) - Company plans to tap worlds biggest coal field.

An Australian company says a coal field discovered in the Simpson Desert could be the biggest in the world.

Central Petroleum Limited says it recently discovered the field in the south-east of the Northern Territory, about 300 kilometres from Alice Springs. It says the coal seam stretches across 400 kilometres.

The company has signed an agreement with Allied Resource Partners (ARP) to work towards setting up a coal production plant in the Great Artesian Basin area. ARP says the plan is to make liquid fuel without mining, by heating the coal underground, turning it into a gas, and then turning that gas into a liquid.

ARP spokesman David Shearwood says operations could last for 100 years because the field is so big. "It is an enormous quantity of coal," he said. "In our analysis, we cant find a bigger coal field on the planet."

He says the project would involve building a pipeline to Darwin and possibly one to South Australia.

The joint venture partners say they are seeking $300 million from investors to pay for a feasibility study that would include extensive exploration.

The Australian has an article on speculation about possible coal seam gas developments in South Australia that are eyeing the Chinese export market - Coal-seam gas exports to China in pipeline.

PLANS are proceeding for a new export-oriented coal-seam gas area on the Queensland-South Australia border, with processing plants at South Australias Port Bonython.

Gold Coast-based Icon Energy has a memorandum of understanding with Chinese gas company Shantou SinoEnergy to buy 40 million tonnes of liquid natural gas (LNG) converted from coal- seam gas (CSG), over 20 years.

Icon, along with South Australia-based Beach Energy, is drilling for CSG in the Nappamerri trough of the Cooper Basin.

Icons plan is to take CSG from this field and pipe it to Port Bonython near Whyalla in South Australia and then export it to Shantou in China, where it will be re-gased and used commercially.

This is similar to the model being adopted in Queensland, where three projects now have state and federal government approval to take coal-seam gas from southern and western Queensland and liquefier it at Gladstone before exporting it to Asia.

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Many of the Gladstone projects plan for eventual capacity of up to 9 million tonnes a year, but the Icon/South Australian project is only aiming for 2 million tonnes a year.

Beach already exports liquefied petroleum gas through the Port Bonython terminal operated by Santos, and Icon plans to build up this terminal.

While the Queensland CSG project is the most advanced at the moment, a similar opportunity is being pursued in the Gunnedah Basin in NSW with processing at Newcastle.

Icon managing director Ray James told the Coal Seam Methane world conference in Brisbane yesterday that while the big projects in Gladstone and southern Queensland were attracting most attention, there was plenty of activity among smaller operators such as Icon. "The first challenge for the medium-sized operators is to get a market, and thats what weve done both through micro-LNG and signing an MOU with Shantou," he said.

"Our next challenge is to upgrade that MOU into something far more tangible, and thats something that well be working on in the next couple of months.

"But in the meantime, for us smaller companies, theres still a big market in Australia in micro-LNG. Diesel fuel is one, but anywhere in Australia that currently uses LPG, theres an opportunity there for LNG."

The obvious problem for the Cooper Basin is that its remote location makes development more difficult, an issue exacerbated at the moment because much of the area is flooded.

Even though roads are cut off at the moment, Mr James sees the isolation of the Cooper Basin as a plus.

"All of the sorts of problems theyre having now around Dalby you just wouldnt get out in the Cooper Basin, because so few people live out there," he said.

RAdio National has a segment featuring Matthew Wright of Beyond Zero Emissions, who is accusing Worley Parsons of suppressing a report into greenhouse emissions from coal seam gas - Radio National: Coal Seam Gas Report Suppressed.

Fran Kelly- It’s been hailed as the low carbon fuel to help us transition to a clean energy future, but in recent months, some have started to question the climate credentials of the so called ‘unconventional gas’; coal seam gas and shale gas.

Greens leader, Bob Brown says ‘the jury is out’ on whether gas will actually deliver greenhouse gas emission savings.

So back in June, a renewable energy think tank called Beyond Zero Emissions, tried to get to the bottom of the matter, commissioning a report designed to compare whole of life cycle emissions from coal seam gas and shale gas, with other energy sources - resources including shale, coal, and renewables.

Now Beyond Zero Emissions claims that consultants Worley Parsons are refusing to hand over that report, as our environment editor Gregg Borschmann reports, Worley Parsons rejects that claim.

Gregg Borschmann- In the Australian policy response to climate change, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of gas. Gas is going to helpcut Australia’s greenhouse emissions.

Martin Ferguson- This is a major long-term benefit to Australia. Gas is clean energy, it is about the transition to a lower emissions economy.

Gregg Borschmann - That was Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson speaking on Breakfast two weeks ago. But as the new coal seam gas industry booms, and shale gas looms, what if these unconventional sources of gas, turn out to be little better then digging up and burning coal.

Matthew Wright- The upper management or the board has actually stopped us from receiving the report and we believe that’s on the basis that the report has some pretty explosive detail.

Gregg Borschmann - That was Matthew Wright, Executive Director of the climate research and advocacy group Beyond Zero Emissions. The report he’s talking about was commissioned in June this year. It was contracted to be a major new report on the climate credentials of both conventional gas and unconventional sources like coal seam and shale gas.

These were to be compared with other forms of energy, from coal to renewables. And most significantly it was to carry the brand of Worley Parsons, one of the world’s biggest engineering companies consulting to the resources sector. Curiously, earlier this year, Worley Parsons had completed a similar report for APPEA, The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association. So why two reports?

Matthew Wright again:

Matthew Wright- The first one was basically being misrepresented, so we went to Worley and said ‘(you’ll) will you be able to do the same sort of thing for us’, and we even increased the scope beyond that to capture a whole lot of other emissions and other displacement scenarios that APPEA has obviously, deliberately, left out of their scope.