The upstream industry’s peak lobby group said that, by its own admission, the research was “inconclusive”
APPEA pulled this quote from the ironically-named SCU researcher Professor Isaac Santos to debunk LTG’s claim: “From our data we cannot conclusively say that the elevated concentrations are due to CSG mining activities as we have no information about the area before the commencement of CSG mining.”
Thus, APPEA said, any suggestion natural gas causes health problems in areas where it is produced, known to seep naturally or is not a cleaner-burning energy source than coal, was “clearly wrong and not supported by evidence”
APPEA chief technical officer Rick Wilkinson said that “hyperventilating by anti-gas organisations who draw their own conclusions from the university’s nine-page report add little to the discussion about how we produce vital energy resources”
Since the SCU’s preliminary research was released two years ago the CSIRO has also released a report Field measurements of fugitive emissions from equipment and well casings in Australian coal seam gas production facilities.
It found greenhouse gas emissions from CSG production wells to be very low especially when compared to the volume of natural gas produced from the wells.
The CSIRO report found the median methane emission rate from all sources for the 43 wells examined was around 0.5 grams per minute, while the mean emission rate was about 3.2 g/min.
Put another way, the median emission rate is about the same as daily methane emissions from four cows, APPEA said.
“The CSIRO report is an important and technically rigorous study that notes while there are a number of other areas requiring further investigation, it is significant that these initial findings based on actual direct measurements show fugitive emissions are a small fraction (less than 0.02%) of CSG production,” Wilkinson said.
But LTG is not giving up.
Last year GasFields Commission Queensland’s historical data search identified the existence of natural gas seeps from the landscape in some of that state’s major coal basins prior to the CSG boom.
LTG said the study “debunked the myth that coal seam gas fields are any cleaner than coal mines in terms of the greenhouse gases they produce”
The alliance said the study revealed scientists found massively elevated levels of methane and carbon dioxide emissions across CSG fields around Tara, with the levels up to three times that of background readings.
LTG’s national coordinator for Phil Laird said the study backed up similar results coming out of the US and raised new concerns at the impact on human health of living in a gas field.
“This study takes a landscape approach to fugitive emissions,” Laird said.
“It suggests that, not only do wells, pipes and other infrastructure leak, but the ground may also be leaking through cracks and fissures after the coal seams are depressurised and the gas is mobilised.
“It is devastating for human health and the environment.
“Fugitive methane emissions are strong indicators of the presence of toxic gasses such as sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds – gases that likely contributed to health impacts to the residents of Tara, which forced buyouts by QGC [Queensland Gas Company] back in August 2014.
“This study shows that people and gas fields should not mix.”
“The data points to a greenhouse gas hotspot centered on the Tara gas field whose emissions are not correctly accounted for in GHG [greenhouse gas]emissions tallies.
Natural gas produces much lower greenhouse gas emissions than coal – generally about 50-70% lower, Wilkinson said, adding that increased use of natural gas over coal to generate power in the US has led to some of the lowest greenhouse reduction recordings in 20 years.
