Stewart, you should be running the country!
Extremely well argued and cogent case.
Back in the seventies, as Bass straight oil was coming on line, we built a refinery at Altona.
Now, Australian sweet light crude, traditionally leaves the ground as a very nearly ready to use, naturally occurring sulphur free diesel, needing only a little insitu chill filtering, to produce a superior than refined diesel product; meaning, it was worth considerably more as an exported product.
The oil companies shipped it out and returned with sulphur laden sludge; or the sulphur laden waste of Middle East refineries.
The then state of the art Altona refinery turned it into diesel and petrol etc.
The name of the game for an industry turning over in excess of four trillions annually, is maximised profits.
They earned a very handsome return shipping it out and shipping it in, in their tankers, and added exponentially to the price, we gullible fools, pay at the bowsers.
LNG is just another example of oil companies maximising their returns, at our expense, and to hell with the environmental consequences. And all approved, it would seem, by the current/former minister?
Could it be that we are witnessing the end result of the most inept, incompetent, gullible, obtuse management model, or is there something else at play here; given the result?
It is possible to pass NG through a catalyst, which knocks off a few collectable hydrogen atoms, to produce liquid methanol. A very useful substitute for petrol, avgas etc.
And shipping methanol, is no more difficult or costly or high tech, than shipping petrol; albeit, slightly less dangerous.
Moreover, the economic benefit accruing to us from offshore LNG sales, pale into insignificance, when compared to what we could achieve, if we simply used this resource as lower carbon, lower cost to us, revitalisation of our manufacturing base.
Surprisingly, we might even find, with the help of some innovative high tech solutions, we could more than compete with places like China, which is currently experiencing a 20% per, wages inflation!
Rhrosty.

I question whether foreigners should have first dibs on our gas. We've seen Japan consume a third of world LNG post Fukushima. They even have a Norwegian LNG tanker sailing the now navigable Arctic shortcut. I'm surprised they allowed a nuclear powered Russian icebreaker to lead the way; perhaps the gas will be radioactive by the time it arrives.

If I recall gas burned in Australia to power compressors for LNG export is 65% exempt from carbon tax. The architect of that idea is now in the entertainment industry. I'm not sure if this exemption will apply to floating plants like the supership proposed by Shell.

In the Whitlam era Rex Connor wanted a pipeline from west to east, an idea that ended in disaster. In 20 years or so I can picture Adelaide, Melbourne and Hobart getting LNG shipments from WA, having depleted their local piped gas. First of all why don't we work out how much gas we really have? Will fracking be a bubble? That's gas for power stations, chemical feedstock, heating and perhaps future transport fuel. Then work out how much we can export. By 2030 or so I guess not much.

I have no comment to make about the author's main argument. If carbon pricing makes LNG more expensive than coal (actually, I thought it was more expensive to begin with) then that it was the policy was designed to do.

However, I did not see a reference to the high Aussie dollar, which is causing real problems throughout the economy at the mo. Although there could be less duplication in green tape, and more flexible labor regulations, the high dollar is a lot of the local expense of collecting and shipping the stuff.

Unfortunately the author spoils his analysis by then making an absurd comment that renewables will take over from fossil fuels. They will not. At the moment they account for 3 per cent of electricity generation on the Eastern grid (albeit much higher levels in SA), and a tiny proportion of fuel consumption and there are REAL problems in expanding that share, even to meet government regulations. There is also the question of whether they make any difference at all on an isolated grid.

If the author wants to be taken seriously then he should climb down our of his green cloud, or ivory tower or where ever he is engaged in these total fantasies and see the world for what it is.

Stewart is adept at promoting his self-interest as Australia's interest, but his arguments don't stand scrutiny. He says:

“LNG requires compressing feedstock natural gas 600 times so it can be shipped to in special, single-purpose tankers for decompression and pipeline delivery at the far end. All this is energy intensive. This creates greenhouse gases -- lots of them”

LNG is not “compressed 600 times”. The reduction in volume is achieved mainly by cooling. Gas is stored and transported at atmospheric pressure. A small amount of gas is used to achieve liquefaction, a small amount of boil off gas is used to power the ships that take LNG to market (or reinjected), and regasification may or may not use a bit more, depending on the method used (most commonly sea water is pumped over the pipes to raise the temperature). The proportions of total LNG used, and the emissions it generates, are likewise small.

Which US researchers find that lifetime emissions are higher that coal? This seems unlikely to me. As coal emits about twice as much CO2-e as LNG to generate the same amount of energy, this argument implies that either half of LNG is lost in the liquefaction/regasification process (it’s way less than this) or LNG infrastructure and energy generation infrastructure is more emission-intensive to produce by many orders of magnitude. High levels of fugitive emissions might account for relatively high emissions in the USA, where much gas production is unconventional and gas is piped, but there’s no reason to expect the same in Australia. And Gorgon, Australia’s biggest LNG project, is geo-sequestering its CO2.

@ Rhian:
I cry BS.
LNG is indeed stored and transported under pressure.
Where did you ever get the idea that natural gas is at atmospheric pressure from? You are wrong.

Taswegian is an optimist.

Proven and probable resources of gas in Australia's south east (Vic and SA) are equal to about ten years' production at current rates. There is no chance that Bass Strait gas will still be around in 20 years' time.