Great comments everybody!

Here's responses:
Rhosty:
yes, I agree there might be some 'upselling' going on in the infrastructure arena that may not be in the long-term best interest of users.
This piece is aimed at challenging this default logic we're fed about LNG being the 'only' way to export gas.

Taswegian:
it's not about 'foreigners' having first dibs on Australia's gas,
it's about progressively INTERCONNECTING regional networks to enable the price mechanism to better arbitrate markets and prices and hence supply and demand and thus lead the 'discovery' process toward the most efficient energy sources.
Yes, interconnected markets would mean that foreigners probably will be willing to pay more for Australia's gas that Austrailans would. If/when this occurred, Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' coupled with David Richardo's theory of 'comparable advantage' would mean Australia is best off exporting its gas to higher paying foreigners and using those remittances to build up other industries -- like knowledge industries.

Curmudgeon:
You should like a troll. You're parroting spoon fed attack lines distributed by the fossil fuel industry. I won't spend much time on you apart from saying that BECAUSE you're right AND renewables will NEVER be competitive against fossil fuels, you should support an integrated network. REASON: it will merely prove the overwhelming price and GHG attractiveness of fossil fuels through the price and trading mechanism. Therefore, because your argument is correct, such a network will MORE DEEPLY entrench fossil fuels. So, thanks for making my argument in favour of a network.

Rhian,
About the 600 times. It looks like Russia's Gazprom, one of the world's largest natural companies, has its facts wrong - see http://www.gazprominfo.com/terms/liquefied-gas/
I'd refer you to them in order to correct their statements. I'll monitor the page above for corrections.
Lifecycle LNG emissions are in research by Jaramillo et at the US Carnegie Mellon University. "Comparative Life Cycle Carbon Emissions of LNG Versus Coal and Gas for
Electricity Generation," Paulina Jaramillo, W. Michael Griffin, H. Scott Matthews
I look forward to reading your challenges to her methodology and conclusions.

Looked as if it might be an interesting article, until the author went off into la la land, with his chatter about wind solar & biofuel. I wonder if he actually believes that rubbish, or puts it in to please the chattering class.

I then see a typical attempt at put down of Curmudgeon's post, when the author had no answer to the logic.

So sorry Stewart, you had better polish up your arguments, such appeals to authority just don't cut it any more. Try to do better next time.

JohnBennets

Yep, I admit the document was by WorleyParsons, not GHD.

If you look again you’ll see it examines the whole production process. I agree a document published by APPEA is only going to reach one conclusion about the relative merits of coal and gas, but its data on emissions at various stages of the LNG production process should be fairly reliable. My point was that, if 12% of emissions occur during liquefaction, transportation and regasification, then the GHG benefits of piping gas rather than shipping it cannot be very large.

We agree boil-off gas is often used to power the ships.

We disagree that LNG is “stored as a liquid, typically under ambient temperature and high pressure”. This is not true.

This is from Chevron’s LNG primer:
"LNG is a cryogenic liquid. The term “cryogenic” means low temperature, generally below -100°F. LNG is clear liquid, with a density of about 45 percent the density of water. The LNG is stored in double-walled tanks at atmospheric pressure. The storage tank is really a tank within a tank that is filled with insulation."
http://www.chevronaustralia.com/Libraries/Chevron_Documents/Factsheet_What_is_LNG_pdf.pdf.sflb.ashx

this is from Wikipedia:
“[LNG] is … condensed into a liquid at close to atmospheric pressure (maximum transport pressure set at around 25 kPa/3.6 psi)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas

This is from the international group of gas importers:
“LPG is stored as a liquid under pressure, whereas LNG is stored as a liquid only at very low temperatures and ambient pressure.”
http://www.giignl.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/LNG_Safety/1-NG_Basics_8.28.09_Final_HQ.pdf

I could go on.

Refrigerant gases are compressed during the refrigeration process, but the LNG itself typically is not in Australian LNG production. The heat exchange process is similar to your refrigerator at home. The contents of your fridge are not under pressure, the gases that cool it are.
http://www.meoaustralia.com.au/content/Document/What%20is%20LNG.pdf

I agree this is quite energy intensive, but nowhere near enough to make LNG lifetime emissions equivalent to coal, as the article implies. And shipping gas several thousand km by subsea pipe is also pretty energy intensive, so Stewart's preferred option yields far less GHG gains than he claims.

Stewart
Gazprom doesn’t have its facts wrong, it’s just that you are interpreting them incorrectly. LNG is indeed 1/600th the volume of gas. But the reduction in volume and liquefaction are achieved primarily by cooling, not by pressurisation. As JohnBennetts and I have debated, LNG is generally produced and stored at about atmospheric pressure.

The paper you cite does not say that LNG and coal have equivalent lifetime emissions. It says that “In the future, as newer generation technologies and CCS are installed, overall emissions from electricity generated with coal and electricity generated with natural gas could be surprisingly similar”. Of course CCS would improve the comparative emissions intensity of coal, but we don’t have it yet on an economical scale for coal-fired electricity generation.

If you look at the actual data in the paper, it supports my position. Comparing the average additional LNG emissions (liquefaction, transport, regasification) in table 4 with the total emissions from piped natural gas in figure 4 yields net additional emissions of about 13% - very close to the WorleyParsons estimate. This is based on the US market. Your preferred option of piping gas to Asia entails much longer transportation distances and the challenges of subsea pipelines in deep waters, so transportation emissions are likely to be far higher than the comparatively short distances, established infrastructure networks and accessible pipelines of the US gas industry.

@ Rhian:

Thank you for those references.

If you are saying that LNG can be stored and transported at -161 degrees C (NB NOT -100 degrees: that is simply the defining characteristic of a cryogenic liquid.) and neglible pressure, then I agree with you. A am surprised that the pressures are as low as cited by Chevron. If storage is at -100 degrees C, as you state, then it will be at very substantial pressure.

The Gorgon project's bumf all but ignores the existence of CO2 in the gas at the well head. I have read that the fraction is of the order of 30% by mass, so the mass of CO2 needing to be dumped or pumped back underground is equal to about half of the mass which is exported by sea. 1 tonne back down the hole for every 2 tonnes shipped.

If the same applies for CSG, for which sequestration is not at all simple, then that is a further argument against this horrible energy source, extraction of which is wrecking property values, lives and towns in the valley in which I live.

Rhian and Stewart

The sea floor between Australia and Asia isn't exactly stable. There are frequent earthquakes throughout the region. I'd imagine that movement between continental plates isn't going to stop any time soon, so the threat of catastrophic damage to undersea pipelines is ever present.

I much prefer a nuclear powered future than to be reliant upon fossil carbon (methane) which is transported at -161 degrees C or piped for thousands of miles. Isn't there enough carbon dioxide in the air already?