eskom has the vision & integrity qld lacks, page-4

Hi eieio

CSG and what happened at Kingaroy are not unrelated imo.

I intend to do what I can to to make Kingaroy and CSG election issues in Qld. Consider the following.

There is no reason why UCG had to be sidelined to allow Gladstone to proceed. CSG Gladstone is an export industry, whereas UCG is almost certainly suited to supplying only a domestic market. On this level there is essentially a "no compete" between CSG Gladstone and UCG, so why all the fuss?

Gladstone is reported to require up to 40,000 gas wells throughout central and south-east Qld over the next 30 years. Groundwater has to be drained from coal seams around and beneath every single one of those wells for the gas to flow. A simple vertical well might have a 15-20 hectare area of influence. A multi lateral well might have a 100 to 200 hectare area of influence.

The total area of coal seams to be drained could range from 10,000 km2 to 30,000 km2 depending on the mix of vertical and lateral wells. This is equivalent to a 7-20 km wide strip extending 1500 km from the NSW/Qld boarder to say Townsville.

In reality the strip wont be continuous, so it could be that there will be significant pockets of Qld from the NSW boarder to Townsville up to 20-60km wide that have groundwater pumped out of all gas producing coal seams beneath.

Most of this huge tract of land is inland and much of it is prime agricultural land. How does mostly saline groundwater from depth beneath 10,000 to 30,000 km2 of land get disposed of without any surface environmental affects? Or without anywhere not impacting on overlying productive groundwater aquifers? Or without anywhere not impacting on recharge to the Great Artesian Basin?

Simplistically, where CSG will impact visibly on 10,000 to 30,000 km2 of Qld to supply Gladstone LNG, UCG to LNG could theoretically do it with just 670 to 2000 km2 of Qld and without removing groundwater from the coal seams. In reality this is unlikely to happen in such scale as there are specific siting requirements for UCG.

UCG is still at trial, evaluation, feasibility stage and any clever, innovative, visionary government would foster trials into the technology, not try to kill it during infancy.

With its recent targeted actions on UCG, the Qld Govt is effectively saying to Australia and the rest of the world that Qld is just not interested in innovation and developing greener energy options.

How could the Qld Govt NOT be aware of the essential differences, pros and cons of CSG and UCG?

Why does it appear the Qld Govt was so prepared to assist the CSG industry to the obvious detriment of the UCG industry?

Why does it appear the CSG lobby in Qld is so hell bent on crippling a nascent UCG industry?


Dex