The purpose of drilling gas wells is to collect and use the methane, rather than allow it to escape into the atmosphere.
Half of the carbon produced by coal-fired power, is due to transmissions losses.
We apparently could produce 70% less carbon, simply by converting coal-fired power stations over to coal seam gas?
Yes sure, it's not a cheap process, but considerably less than building a brand new gas fired plant.
Methane works nearly as well as hydrogen in modern fuel cells, and produce mostly water vapour, and endlessly available free hot water.
Piping this gas directly into the home to power on demand ceramic fuel cells, would eliminate the carbon component created by transmission losses; or, result in comparitive carbon reductions of at least 85%!
[Is the intent to save the planet or alternative energy suppliers?]
Moreover, we wouldn't have the cost of poles and transmission infrastructure to replace, repair or pay for.
The very same ceramic fuel cell will work just as well on biogas, another source of endlessly sustainable methane, much of which is simply allowed to escape from landfill etc.
We need a govt able to buck the power of centralised power producers and simply roll out a publicly supplied gas grid, accompanied by very low interest loans to enable all households to convert to much lower cost and vastly more reliable, much lower emission energy!
Blasphemy, that would require the govt to get back into the energy business!
That would certainly make a pleasant change from duck-shoving their core responsibilities, on to the profit demanding, debt-laden, debt and shareholder servicing, tax avoiding private sector.
The only reason Queensland is now making significant budget cuts, I believe, is due in part to incompetent investment strategies; and or, the sale of previously govt owned profit making entities!
Bank, insurance company, power and gas suppliers.
A rail company that simply needed essential upgrading, rather than privatisation.
It's extremely short-sighted to simply sell off income earning entities, and then have to reduce services etc, that then become no longer affordable, due to the reduction in total income!
Rhrosty.

Most of the vehicles plying our highways and byways will perform almost as well on CNG, as petrol or diesel, and reduce the carbon output by at least 40% as the first consequence; and particulates by around 99.95%, depending on the engine's age and general wear and tear!
A cubic metre of methane produces the same calorific energy output as a litre of petrol, and will power all conventional engines, petrol or diesel, with a little tweaking.
Local gas suppliers are on the public record as claiming, even with a fuel excise component, they can supply NG for around 40 cents a cubic metre!
While NG can power conventional vehicles, it produces almost no carbon in modern fuel cells, just mostly water vapour!
Modern fuel cells with few or no moving parts to wear out, will power most of the transport options of the future?
What we need to guarantee our total independence from an increasingly volatile Middle East, is the ASAP roll-out of a national gas grid.
The sale of self terminating thirty year bonds would finance that and considerably more, and would be deemed very desirable by intentional investors, particularly at this time and even more particularly, if they were earmarked for energy development, energy independence proposals!
We also would be well advised to explore for and then exploit an abundance of lower cost, lower carbon producing, local energy supplies.
If that means a govt needing to get into business, with experienced contractors, then that clearly is the very pragmatic first step.
Yes, we do need to convert to a virtual carbon free future; but, that will need to be paid for.
Simply following the very short term mindless examples of shooting yourselves in your own economic foot, a la the Bettie/Bligh bureaucracy building, privatising govt, is not the answer, any more than mindless clear-felling whole forests is!
Rhrosty.

<< Luddy just what is it that you have against plants? The poor things were responsible for converting our atmosphere into something we could breath. Surely it is not too much to ask that we return the favour by generating a little CO2 plant food for them. >>

Hasbeen, you’re weird!! ( :>)

The key words of course are: ‘a little’.

I would like to correct my interchangeable misuse use of shale gas and coal seam gas in my article.

I appreciate that coal seam gas is different from shale gas in terms of its geology and the methods by which it is extracted.

I simply meant to argue that if the environmental impacts of shale gas extraction can be easily managed through existing policy instruments and improved regulatory frameworks in the United States, then certainly similar regulatory frameworks could be introduced in Australia to minimise the environmental impacts of coal seam gas extraction.

Despite this, my argument that we must not allow Australia’s coal seam gas industry to grow at the expense of our renewable energy industry still stands.

EthanB
Pointed noted on shale/CSG but this point: "Despite this, my argument that we must not allow Australia’s coal seam gas industry to grow at the expense of our renewable energy industry still stands."

What I don't understand is how do the two interact? One is a market the other is a legislative requirements.. As far as I know, gas projects won't generate RECs or have I missed something?

In the 1870s the first bore was put down into the Great Artesian Basin. Rate of extraction peaked somewhere about 1914, irrespective of the number of extra bores drilled since.
Decline in availability of water from this resource has been of increasing agricultural concern since that time. As a result, in 2004 The Great Artesian Basin Coordinating Committee was set up, and has been fostering the capping of bores.
Tthe Coal Seam Gas extraction industry subsequently geared up to peppering the various aquifers of the Basin as never before.

Long-term agriculture vs short-term mining? - It’s a race where the handicappers are loading lead into the saddlebags of the former.