One of the problems with the energy debate in NSW is that it is currently dominated by over emotional exaggerated arguments delivered by groups that want to inhibit any development.
Anyway you cut it, NSW has a problem with future gas supplies and unless it does something, it will not have the gas at the price it needs to sustain its economic development. There is all sorts of bluff and bluster, but there is no expert in the area who disputes this. There is a whole lot of semantic argument at the fringes, but the reality of the problem is clear.
Every rational economic argument says that if you increase the supply of gas the price will not rise as much as if you restrict the supply. And if you produce enough gas the price will go down.
Despite all the ranting here and in the US, there is just no evidence of wholesale environmental damage from CSG development. The US has one oil or gas well for every 130 people. If the doomsday predictions of the opponents here were correct, the US would be a wasteland. It is clearly not. The states with the highest gas production are coincidentally the states with the highest agriculture output.
10,000 to 20,000 wells in the northern rivers!!! Metgasco would love to believe that they could have so many producing wells. But not in anybody's wildest dreams have these sorts of numbers been discussed. But based on the US experience, this number of wells would not impact a population of 2.6 million.
Bulldoze a corridor through the World Heritage Border Ranges - nonsense. There is already a road through there and the pipeline was to be buried in the road. Plus there is a train line as well. To suggest that the pipeline will have anything like the effect of originally building the road or the railway is plainly absurd.
Every study points to the economic benefits that accrue to those areas with strong gas developments. Infrastructure, health and education all improve along with higher wages and improved employment rates for locals.
