As reported in last week’s ILN sister publication EnergyNewsPremium, ACIL Tasman released the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association-commissioned report which outlined a potential $516 billion benefit to the Australian economy if 10 LNG trains were to go ahead in Queensland.

It also found development could net the Queensland government $32 billion in taxes and royalties while Queensland real incomes could rise by $28,300 per person.

“While the environmental benefit associated with gas being a cleaner energy source is driving the industry’s rapid growth, this report clearly shows the industry will also bring enormous economic benefit in the form of more jobs, higher wages and downward pressure on electricity prices,” APPEA eastern chief Rick Wilkinson proudly proclaimed.

Of course, he then went on to have a dig at New South Wales legislators who had placed a ban on the issuing of new production licences until “more is known” about the impacts of CSG.

“The report also highlights the great economic divide now developing between Queensland and

NSW, a state facing a looming natural gas shortage despite its very significant gas resources,” Wilkinson said.

“CSG has the potential to be an economic game changer in NSW but that state’s gas industry risks being left to stagnate while others are powering ahead.”

It was just one in a slew of reports commissioned both by the wider industry and by individual companies seeking to curry favour with lawmakers and communities.

In fact, ACIL Tasman was the go-to consultancy for the industry, with Santos also commissioning it to outline the dire consequences if the CSG industry were to be stifled in NSW.

It predicted a shortfall of up to 50 petajoules per year by 2030 if CSG exploration and development were not encouraged.

However, the forecaster said the shortfall could be even higher if gas from the Bass Strait and Cooper Basin, which is being diverted to NSW, was piped elsewhere.

Metgasco also got in on the act by commissioning yet another report on the economic benefits of its operations should it be allowed to develop.

It says it may spend up to $1.4 billion on its operations in the Northern Rivers region of NSW.

Expenditure forecast data provided by Metgasco to Lawrence Consulting suggested if Metgasco was allowed to push ahead with its projects, $8.3 billion could be spent directly within the Australian economy over the next 20 years.

While nobody could dispute those were good figures, they would have to question whether it had any impact whatsoever on people already swayed towards anti-CSG sentiments.

Those sentiments are driven by emotive arguments of a toxic industry being made to look like a pantomime villain.

The facts and figures may be completely accurate but completely impotent.

This is simply because the anti-CSG argument is playing out on an emotive level rather than a logical one. It is about fear rather than numbers.

Those in the industry say the arguments against CSG are completely irrational and they may just be right but they’re going about diffusing irrationality in completely the wrong way.

The negative CSG industry reputation was a point made by FutureEye managing director Katherine Teh-White in May at the latest APPEA conference in Adelaide.

“In the last month we’ve seen a 30-point drop in regional New South Wales and Queensland so we’d say it’s actually going down and in some places it’s lower than nuclear, which is extraordinary,” she told a session on obtaining social licence to operate.

So while the industry continues to play up the economic benefit of the CSG to LNG industry, it continues to become demonised.

Surely people are fans of money and unfettered economic prosperity though?

Well they may be but a positive message coming out of a mouth perceived to be villainous is immediately rejected no matter how solid the analysis.

Teh-White explained when the two sides of an argument did not attempt to address the other side’s concerns, the audience tended to be confused and more inclined to lean towards the negative.

“This kind of conundrum happens when, as we’ve seen with the activist groups who are saying ‘our water is at risk, our land and property rights are at risk’… all of those things are the emotional triggers for why they get concerned,” she said.

“The industry focus is on the economic value, the jobs, the taxes and all of those important and positive things.”

While the positive messages being put forward by the likes of APPEA and Santos may have undeniable economics and logic behind them, it becomes irrelevant in trying to win social licence.

“In this context, if you take a set of negative concerns, an agitated audience and add a positive message, you end up with a more agitated audience,” Teh-White said.

She said the deciders of the anti and pro-CSG debate were not independent sages but people who sat in judgement based on alarmist principles and did not have science degrees.

The key message here is the industry must clearly address the concerns surrounding aquifer contamination, landholders’ concerns about access and water extraction in a way people being swayed by anti-CSG sentiment can understand.

That is very different from simply addressing the concern in a way a geoscientist or Canberra bureaucrat can understand.

If the key message from the industry is: “this industry is harmless and will create lots of economic benefit. Trust us, we’ve been doing it for years” – it won’t wash.

A person who has been swayed by emotive arguments will hear an inherently evil industry asking people to ignore the potential destruction of the environment for the sake of cold, hard cash.

Any argument about a history of safe operation can therefore be easily countered by vision of a lake bubbling away.

Until the industry is able to demonstrate there is no risk to groundwater aquifers, crops or way of life then it will not gain total social licence to operate.

It may be ridiculous but that is the way it is.

Those people being swayed by arguments about food production in peril because of CSG are the people the industry needs to convince.

After all, they are the ones providing great pictures for media by locking the gate, marching through Sydney’s CBD and shouting through a megaphone.

While it would be great to ignore these people and shift the conversation to the economic benefits of the CSG and LNG industries, they are not going away. They are going to continue to preach their message to landholders and voters.

Perhaps it was best summed up amid a cacophony of “unconventional is the future” noise at the latest World Gas Conference by Total chief Christophe de Margerie who said all the promise could disappear without getting people on board.

“Unconventional gases will definitely be the key to our future but we need to keep explaining the nature of the risk regarding all aspects of our work,” he said.

“We need to improve how we operate and how to explain any impact on the environment, which is not nil but is limited.

“We have to be acceptable. We feel we are right because we know what we are doing but for the future of the industry we have to be careful.”

This article first appeared in ILN's sister publication EnergyNewsBulletin.net.