we don't get all the story from the board

From the senate paper from last night, What is going on??

Senate
Environment
Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania?Leader of the
Australian Greens) (6.01 pm)?After Senator Mason?s
contribution, I think this may be somewhat of an anticlimax. I refer to an Australian Stock Exchange announcement of 31 January entitled ?Bloodwood Creek
Environment Update?. It comes from the company
Carbon Energy. It begins:
Carbon Energy Limited ? advises that it has received a notice from the Queensland Department of Environment and
Resource Management (DERM) extending the date for a
final decision on the Company?s amended Environmental
Authorities to 11 February 2011.
This statement goes on to refer to the underground coal
gasification program that this company is involved in
on the Darling Downs. I draw the Senate?s attention to
the last couple of paragraphs of the statement:
The Company also notes recent media commentary referencing unsubstantiated accusations by a former employee of
Carbon Energy, Mr John Wedgwood, regarding environmental compliance at the Company?s site.
It goes on to note that Mr Wedgwood is no longer
working with the company, although throughout his
employment he was responsible for the company?s environmental compliance. It is not the matter of the dispute between Mr Wedgwood and the company Carbon
Energy that has motivated me to speak tonight, but
rather the program for underground coal gasification
that the company is involved in, which involves both
of those parties.
Underground coal gasification involves burning the
coal seam underground in the presence of steam and
oxygen. The resulting chemical reaction produces
?syngas?, which is a mixture of methane, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. This gas is usually used for
running a gas-fired power station, which would be built
nearby. The Carbon Energy plant at Kogan was part of
a three-plant trial of underground coal gasification allowed by the Queensland government. The other two
were Cougar at Kingaroy and Linc Energy at Chinchilla. Cougar has been shut down by the state government because of pollution issues.
The Carbon Energy plant at Kogan hit problems on
2 December 2008, according to information I have
been given. This is the order of the events of those
problems, which is effectively similar to what is outlined in a Carbon Energy interim board report which I
have circulated to the whips of the government and
opposition and which I seek leave to table.
Leave not granted.
Senator BOB BROWN?I should say to the chamber what is obvious: we are way ahead of schedule
here tonight and I was expecting to be speaking in an
hour or two?s time. I circulated this 100-plus page
document only a short while ago, and Senator Abetz,
on behalf of the opposition, has asked for more time to
look at it. Under those circumstances, I hope that it will
be considered for tabling when the Senate next resumes.
Senator Abetz?Senator Brown, if you will allow
me to interject for the Hansard, yes, that is what we
will be doing.
Senator BOB BROWN?Thank you.
The PRESIDENT?Interjections are normally disorderly, but I will allow it on this occasion.
Senator Abetz?You are most gracious, Mr President. Thank you.
Senator BOB BROWN?There was a blockage in
the vertical injection well that carried air onto the coalface, which made it difficult to maintain ignition in this
project. The company decided to drill down a second
injection well to connect up with the first injection well
in order to bypass the blockage and get air to the ?reactor??that is, the ignition site?of the project, which
effectively burns coal underground. Instead of connecting with this pipe, the second injection well hit gasification and a ?huff and puff? explosion occurred. Hydrogen and steam blew back up the pipe. By inference,
the reactor had moved from its original position, which
it definitely is not supposed to do. I repeat that a reactor is an underground conflagration. That situation is
called a ?nightmare scenario? in underground coal gasification circles, because it means it is out of control.
During this time, bubbles of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide were observed on water at the surface 100
metres from the plant. This gas had probably made its
way to the surface through cracks and fissures that
were probably created by that explosive process called
?huff and puff?.
The second reactor also began to die?that is, to
cease to burn?and so the company drilled a third injection well. They pressurised this to 3,600 kPa, nearly
twice the hydrostatic pressure. The pressure inside the
chamber should be just slightly below that of the outside hydrostatic pressure. Otherwise, if the inside pressure is too low, underground water will flow in. It will
flow out if the inside pressure is too high. Water flowing through and out of the chamber means the contaminants created by the chemical reactions?and these
include benzene, toluene, xylene and phenolic compounds?will get into the local aquifers. In this case, I
am told, the reactor continued to die and was finally
shut down in about April 2009. The five-megawatt
power station built to run on the gas produced by the
plant did not work because there was no gas. The Department of Environment and Resource Management
was not told about most of this?that is, the explosive
event and the over-pressurisation. I understand it was
also not told that much of the underground water monitoring system did not work.
These are allegations which I have not personally
been able to attend to, but I am sufficiently concerned
about the matter to draw it to public notice. From Mr
Wedgwood?s allegations, but also from the company
work, I am concerned that there were possible specific
breaches of the environmental management plan. The
plan called for two key items?firstly, operating the
gasification face below local hydrostatic pressure. This
is the principle, as I have already said, that the pressure
fed into the reactor at the face of the panel should not
exceed the hydrostatic pressure of the groundwater
surrounding the gasification process. The theory was
that no contaminants would be driven out into the water table, as water was always coming into the chamber
as a result of the pressure difference.
However, in reality, the pressure could go anywhere
because the reactor was not across the panel face, having followed several unpredicted paths, including back
up the horizontal injection well where it was struck
during the drilling of the second vertical well. The hydrostatic pressure was not known. The water report
submitted to the government was tendered without a
definite baseline, permitting flexibility as to authorised
levels. Even estimations of hydrostatic pressure levels
were exceeded, especially when trial results were
needed for Australian Stock Exchange announcements
in regard to targeted gas production rates. It was also
consistently exceeded when the failing vertical injection wells?the first and especially the last one?would
not establish an air path to connect with the reactor.
The result of these activities would be the driving of
contaminants into the water table, and that is a matter
of considerable concern.
Secondly, there is the reactor shutdown process,
which required that the panel would be shut down by a
process that flushed steam across the panel reactor face
and steadily lowered the chamber pressure until the gas
coming up the product well proved that there was no
more production or remaining contaminants in the
chamber. In reality, a number of unstructured reactor
chambers linked by a number of unknown paths simply
died by ceasing to produce gas. When the production
air was turned off, groundwater would have entered
and exited in an uncontrolled manner via multiple
points along the faces of the chambers and any associated linking fissures.
The problem here is that, if these assertions are true,
contamination of the groundwater is indeed possible.
There is possible continuing contamination underground which has not been removed. The reactor that
was supposed to produce energy got out of control.
These are matters of considerable concern, and many
people on the Darling Downs have a great deal of concern about the rapid spread of the coal extraction process that this involves. It is a matter that should be under
public investigation and I hope the Queensland authorities are well acquainted with these facts in the ongoing
investigation.