All these misgivings may be valid but they are up against a probable gas panic on the eastern seaboard. NT fracking around Daly Waters could inject gas into the new pipeline to Mt Isa. There's talk of extending the Alice Springs pipeline to SA. The southern gas fields like Bass Strait and Cooper Basin are contributing gas to Gladstone LNG export yet they have been worked from the 1960s.

The various substitutes for gas are more expensive. Critics of renewable energy suggest it is a facade for gas generation behind the scenes. It is expected that Finkel's energy intensity scheme will boost gas demand regardless of price. That won't change unless we get energy storage on a massive scale which may not happen. As the $$ signs flash before the NT government plus appeals to help out I think they will relent. If not in 2017 by the early 2020s.

"How do we best respond to such profound threats to our health and land from fracking?" Indeed. Let's start by defining the profound health threats. The article was written by a GP so it should provide a good start and some case histories. Cancer? Poisoning? Infections? Blindness? Nausea? Dementia? Convulsions? General malaise? Keep searching because there's nothing there but fear-mongering. And I bet she doesn't like nuclear energy either.

The author was brought up in a household where she was taught that the end of the world is at hand, in spite of overwhelming evidence that the world is actually doing very well, thank you very much. This article is nothing more than a bland repetition of all the extreme, worst case expectations of the green movement's anti-everything attitude to any form of development which might improve the well being of people.

I wonder what her reaction is to those Aboriginal groups that want fracking to occur on their land?

A health issue eh? So also is poverty, drought and the flow on effects of millions of displaced people! Yes the north and the world needs affordable energy! If not fracked gas, tight oil and or mined coal, what then? Nuclear?

As always these sun worshiping simpletons know what we can't have but rarely if ever identify an affordable alternative! Other than, unreliable wind and solar? [Chanted all day long, every day, as some kind of mind altering mantra?]

Or batteries, all of which may well come with their own environment issues, such as the mountains of toxic waste created by the solar panel factories in China? Similarly, batteries can create environmental problems during manufacture or in land fill etc/etc.

Suggest you go to google tech talks and thorium, where you'll find a short, very informative and interesting talk on green energy, as Super Fuel!

As an irrevocable case for thorium.

Or if you like just type in the case for thorium and then scroll down to a downloadable PDF, but only if you like science, complete factual, fact checked data that includes diagrams and comparative charts, irrefutable evidence etc. The whose who of science bibliography at the bottom is quite impressive!

If reading that causes a strange burning smell to emanate with smoke from ears? Try not to worry too much, given it may well be an overload problem for previously unused cerebral circuits? A feature, it would seem, common to some (around half) green ideologues?

Let's hope it's not contagious? We've quite enough pea brains rattling in their protective thimbles?
Alan B.

How can people who are smart enough to get a medical degree be as dumb as this lady, & all the others who obviously can't understand the mechanics of fracking, or the garbage that a bit more CO2 can cause global warming?

There is a much better argument that CO2 can reduce global temperature, if you actually take the time, & put in the effort to understand how radiation works, rather than follow group consensus.

I wonder if she still believes the old consensus that stomach ulcers are caused by stress? Even more than 97% of doctors believed in that one.

OK, Hasbeen, I'll bite:
What is this argument that you imagine the world's climate scientists are all ignorant of?

And why do you think it hasn't resulted in global cooling?

BTW although stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, most people with the bacteria that cause them don't have them. Stress does appear to be the highest risk factor for actually developing stomach ulcers (in those whom that bacteria's already present).

The author is quite right - fracking is a health and environmental hazard. Conventional gas, on the other hand, is only a hazard in terms of its greenhouse gas emissions. We don't need fracked gas because, despite east coast shortages, there's actually plenty of gas around. The problem was the $80 billion LNG terminal in Gladstone and now, with others the total costis $200 million, which meant gas had to be exported to pay for the capital expenditure. The Prime Minister was right to request that some of the gas be reserved for domestic use, though it was long after the horse had bolted. But the solar revolution has begun and is about to be followed by the battery revolution (along with pumped hydro) which will deal with the intermittency problem. Apparently, batteries suitable for grid storage have already arrived on Australian shores. Forget nuclear, even thorium, since the costs (not least decommissioning costs) do not make it economically competitive.

Taswegian you are completely wrong when you say "The various substitutes for gas are more expensive." Don't take my word for it, listen to the Australian Gas Light company (AGL no less! http://reneweconomy.com.au/agl-kills-idea-of-gas-as-transition-fuel-wind-solar-storage-cheaper-63013/

“The energy transition we have all been anticipating will skip ‘big baseload gas’ as a major component of the NEM’s base-load generation and instead largely be a case of moving from ‘big coal’ to ‘big renewables’,” AGL CFO Brett Redman says in a presentation to the Macquarie Australia Conference in Sydney on Tuesday.

The cost of wind, solar and storage is already cheaper than both baseload and peaking gas for new generation. Way cheaper for peaking. Add to that the fact that wind, solar and chemical battery storage are getting cheaper by the year and gas is rising as pricing is indexed to export prices since Gladstone LNG hub was opened (as Govts were warned it would at the time of approval).

Tombee, perhaps you'd like to start with this film the Human Cost of Power produced by the Public Health Association (!) and CAHA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5DIDUB_RyA

There's a large body of evidence which supports every single effect detailed in this film, in fact PHA made sure of it.

Hey Adian, Hasbeen might be on to something?

All we need is around a thousand nuclear powered vessels from every (finally cooperating) nation on earth sailing in ever widening circles around both poles and using inboard surplus nuclear power coupled to fractional distillation to make dry ice. Then pile mountains of the material on the ice. why even the polar bears will have chattering teeth/fangs!

Dry ice being far colder than ice, will enable the ice formed by lower polar temps to remain all summer long? And as it piles, atmospheric Co2 will drop down dramatically!?

Especially if the dual purpose vessels keep spraying their dry ice during all the daylight hours?

Thus, the wisest man posting here may have offered a planet and species saving solution, and here you were castigating him as a demented old fool, rather than a genius in disguise. And boy, what a disguise.
Alan B.

We will continue to have price increases on power until the average punter understands that the Greens aim is to impoverish and ruin Australia. Then those punters will just vote in politicians who will establish coal fired power stations. this may come a lot sooner than you think as we can pay the Germans or Chinese to build new coal fired units that are already operating in those countries.
The madness of the current crop astounds me. Our power prices going through the roof and our industry being decimated for a ball of nonsense. Roll on Trump knocking it over in the US and then watch us all scramble to follow.

Alistair if wind and solar are so cheap why don't they shut down all the coal and gas plants immediately? Why is SA power more expensive and less reliable than the other states? You have forgotten that wind and large solar get an 8.5c per kwh subsidy on top of whatever price the get on the NEM. In 2015 brown coal power was wholesaling for 3.2c per kwh a fraction of that. There is also an implicit subsidy since the RET (a penalty backed quota) forces backup generators into stop-start operation rather than more efficient continuous operation.

That's cost then there's emissions. Compare the emissions of renewables heavy Germany to France, Sweden and the UK on this site
https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&region=europe&page=map
I see little chance of batteries replacing much gas backup for intermittent generation. In heatwaves when wind fails we want many hours of high output, not a couple of hours of low output from batteries.

With the gangreens trying to stop all form of coal or gas exploration or extraction and closing coal fired power stations, it is no wonder there are gas and electricity shortages.

Break out the candles.