Please, we have plundered the earth's resources quite enough. Let's look at renewable sources more. Why is Australia, full of solar rays, wind and waves, so far behind the rest of the world in R & D into these technologies?
I have an issue with some of the figures you put forward. Could you say where they have come from? They don't quite sound kosher to me.

Who knows how long this gas will last or whether some of it will be harder to access than we think? Certainly Arnie doesn't want the Aussie LNG terminal off Malibu but I'm sure other customers will take up the slack. Some of those customers could be in southeastern Australia as their reserves deplete. The fact that several large trucking companies are moving to compressed natural gas (CNG) in lieu of diesel could start a rush.

I find it odd that coal seam methane is said to be a good thing since it will escape anyway and burning it has less greenhouse effect. Yet we are assured that CO2 scrubbed from natural gas wells will most assuredly stay underground if re-injected. I don't think it is a bad thing if much of this natural gas is conserved for the long term. It's almost too good to burn just for electrical generation.

Kelvin

I too am incredulous as to why the blooming obvious is being studiously ignored by policy makers. However I am pretty confident that industry will not be so blinded. The moment a carbon trading scheme gets the go ahead you can bet that investors in new generation will favour the substantially lower investment risk profile offered by combined cycle gas compared to either gen IV nuclear or coal with carbon capture.

Who is going to take the risk on investing in unproven technologies until there have been dozens of working examples internationally to rely upon?

But don't think you are a lone voice on this issues. Try these reports on methods of achieving the required emissions cuts for Australia. Both see a substantial role for gas:
"Options for moving towards a lower emission future" by AGL, Frontier Economics and WWF-Australia; or
"A Clean Energy Future for Australia" by Saddler, Diesendorf & Dennis

They are both available from:

http://wwf.org.au/ourwork/climatechange/publications

Yes we do have large natural gas reserves.
However we should not be exporting it at all.
It is not really suitable as a vehicle fuel.
This was a surprise to me as my son's father in law explained;
He was on a UK government committee that was appointed to study suitable
alternaive transport fuels. Who said governments do not know of peak oil ?
Natural gas has the big disadvantage that the tank has to be totally
empty before refuelling takes place. It appears that if this is not done
one of the constituants of natural gas increasing in concentration
and can destroy the engine.
This applies to all the tanks and pipes in the system.

Natural gas should be kept for the manufacturee of fertiliser which is
one of its current products. It is used to produce LPG and plastics.
It really is too valuable to burn. Will the grandchildren say;
"You burned all that stuff ?"

I dunno Bazz. It seems pretty effective.

It's not like Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) cars are anything new. My family drove one in New Zealand about sixteen years ago, before they were phased out.

Worked fine. I don't see why we can't go back to them.

T R/L;
Sure it wasn't LPG ?

Quite certain.

CNG cars were popular in NZ for quite some time. Now that I think about it, it was probably more like 18 years but it was most definitely a CNG car.

Kelvin Thompson correctly aserts that gas would be a useful transitional fuel. He then seems to go onto promote gas as the be all and end all.

To begin, he seems to say that gas is left on the outer. This may be partially true for Australia, although we are rapidly increasing our gas capacity, the US is bringing on more kilo-watts from gas than any other source. The consumption of gas world wide is expected to increase at 2.4% a year. In Australia, gas accounts for 17% of energy (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/ausenv.html), with capacity growing. To suggest we've been deaf to the gas industry (which by the way is pretty much industry as the oil industry) is wide of the mark.

There are some major problems with gas. Primarily, like oil, a gas peak could occur in the not to distant future. Gas has peaked in the North Sea, and may have peaked in North America in 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak#Natural_gas). As the big users, like the US, reserves dwindle, it is likely they'll look elsewhere for their gas. Australia, Russia and OPEC nations are likely to pick up the slack.

With increasing demand and production, it is possible that a peak in gas could occur as early as 2030, with a possible exhuastion of gas in 2085.
http://www.peakoil.net/JL/JeanL.html
although the Internation Energy Outlook gives a more optimisitc figure
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/nat_gas.html
it puts a peak past 2030.

If gas is a transitional fuel, fine, it's definatly cleaner than coal. But I have issues with dramatically increasing infastructure for gas when a peak may occur within 25 years. It's a finite resource.

We need to begin moving beyond finite resources, and I'm yet to see any evidence that the ALP is planning to do so. (Yay! Two rants on peak production in one night!)

My problem with Gas, at least in Sydney, it is not available. We have GAS at the top of the street, and bottom, but the GAS Company wants $5000 to run the line down the street!

Consequently, our house uses electricity for Hot water, heating and cooking and so does the 4 new houses built in the street.

In our case the house produces more co2 emissions than our cars. We could reduce our dependency on coal fuelled electricity, so it would seem ideal that GAS could be offered, as we would be polluting less right now!

I am in total agreement, Mr Thomson.

Whilst I am somewhat concerned about exploiting all our resources, the use of gas as a transitionary fuel is the only way to go. With 50% reductions in CO2, greenhouse gases could be drastically reduced until renewables are sufficiently robust to keep the lights on.

Converting to gas could eliminate the necessity for carbon sequestration. The mind boggles when one imagines that billions of kilograms of this gas would be contained "indefinitely." Too many "what ifs" for my liking.

It's predicted that Western Australia has sufficient gas reserves to last until the end of the century, with the prospect of unexplored additional reserves.

Any government, sincere about reducing CO2, should seriously consider the prospect of utilising our gas reserves immediately and in conjunction with renewable energies.

Though one wonders which party would have the guts to take on the coal industry and the myriad of denialists from the big end of town. Mmmmm.....I won't hold my breath waiting!

Dicky said;
It's predicted that Western Australia has sufficient gas reserves to last until the end of the century,
with the prospect of unexplored additional reserves.
unquote
However if your suggestion was taken up, ie coal fired power stations
converted to gas or gas turbine power stations built, how long would
the gas last then ? I wish I had the sources to work it out but I
would make a guess and say the gas would be finished by 2050 at the
latest, and not the end of the century.

The gas is too valuable to burn, we should keep it for fertiliser
and plastics etc.

As someone's grandchildren will say tomorrow night on ABC TV 8-30pm;

"You burned all that stuff ?".

Bazz, I was not suggesting we burn gas indefinitely. As Mr Thomson pointed out, gas should be used in a transitional period - perhaps for the next 20 years whilst we are seriously developing renewable energies, particularly solar.

I have no faith at all in the "carbon trading" scheme. That's simply a cop-out to maintain profits at all costs and to delay any remedial action.

We have yet to see a government in this country who is sufficiently courageous to mandate for capping of chemicals from all stack emissions, therefore, excessive CO2 and other harmful pollutants will continue.

The EPA Acts are being breached in this country, 24/7 and at this very moment, I am witnessing a massive, uncontrolled, unmitigated plume of SO2 from a gold roaster, sweeping across the skies and blotting out everything else where it will eventually dump on unsuspecting residents.

Producers of pollution have repeatedly used their influence to delay preventive action, arguing that the immediate expense of redesign to achieve pollution prevention is unwarranted in the face of any uncertainty about harmful environmental and health effects.

And our industry aligned, scyophantic state and federal governments, in collusion with polluters, continue to rub their hands in glee!

Some additional questions regarding NG as a transitional fuel;

Where are the CNG passenger cars?
What about the supporting infrastructure?
How much to transport the gas?
How much to changeover the fleet and infrastructure?
Over what timeframe?
What is the new rate of NG depletion as demand ramps up?
What is it that we are “transitioning” to?
What happens to these plans after oil production peaks?

Mercury - to asnwer your question as to 'where are the CNG passenger cars' as I mentioned earlier, New Zealand has used CNG passenger cars.

Throughout the late 80s and early 90s this was the case, with CNG proving a viable alternative to the expensive petrol at the time. When the price of petrol fell, CNG was phased out.

CNG cars are not a new innovation. There is no reason why they can't be phased back in again.

"CNG cars are not a new innovation. There is no reason why they can't be phased back in again."

Not talking about innovation. Asking where are the CNG passenger vehicles rolling off the production lines in this country?

What about my other questions? When discussing transitioning from oil to NG other factors apart from just the existence of the technology have to be taken into account, otherwise the exercise is futile.

Mercury,
At present as I understand it natural gas is only used in a
limited way for transport. I notice Sydney busses have a number of
natural gas powered busses.

However the refineries here produce LPG from natural gas or crude oil.
That is widely used of course and the government gives a $2000 subsidy
to convert your car.

As I said earlier my son's father in law was managing director of the
major British bus manufacturer and he was on a UK government committee
studying other fuels. He answer to this is that with natural gas you
just cannot top up the tank, it has to be empty. The reason is that
a component of the gas increases in the proportion of gas in the tank
if you just keep topping it up.

Now our New Zealand correspondant says that NG was widely used in New Zealand
and without this problem.
Perhaps the gas in New Zealand was of a naturally different mix.
I will contact my son's father in law and ask him about it.
I will get back when I get an answer.

Bazz - it was indeed widely used in New Zealand. I don't know what problems were faced or how they were solved, but whatever the case, they must have been surmounted. (As for NZ correspondent, it's been some time since I lived there).

Mercury -

Of course there aren't many CNG passenger cars rolling off production lines now in this country.
The fact of the matter is however, CNG passenger technology exists - it's not a pipe dream.
To be fair, electrically powered vehicles such as the Tesla are showing great promise, however that technology is going to be expensive for some time yet.

But, I suppose it represents one possibility for what we are 'transitioning to.'

As for the logistics - of course these things are still being calculated. Obviously, we're not there yet, but if your plans are always based on whatever exists, I don't see how you can plan for the future.

If you've any other suggestions for a transitional fuel that's already proven capable of use, I'd like to hear it. As it stands, it's not a matter of having it 'already rolling off production lines' but getting to that stage. What's the alternative when we hit peak oil, if the electrical technology isn't yet affordable?

Gas is proven, it works. We don't have the infrastructure but we can work toward that on a limited scale, as gas isn't intended to be a permanent solution. The fact remains however - that switching to gas would be easier than the other options, and if this is something we need to do in a limited timeframe, as far as I can tell, it's our best option.

There is a small company in Sydney (Blade Electric Vehicle) who
convert Toyota and one other make to electric drive and supply the
converted car for about $20,000.

I saw one of his cars and very neatly done too.
He had a small trailer with a petrol generator and additional batteries
for interstate trips.

Toyota is reported as intending to release an electric version of
the Prius with a small petrol engine for backup purposes only.
Release ws aimed 2010 I think it was.

Here is the answer from my son's father in law as promised.
You can take this as gospel and not some internet story as John is
very experienced in this field and is an engineer.

Good to hear from you. Natural gas has been quite widely used on vehicles,especially buses, and especially in US and Canada for about the the last 20 years. When I was with (Company name removed, Bazz) we built quite a number but they were never very popular with the operators because of high maintenance costs and poor reliability. We used purpose-built Cummins natural gas engines powered by compressed natural gas (CNG). This is simple but the tanks take up a lot of volume and weight. You can use liquid natural gas (LNG) but it requires low temperatures, thermos flask type tanks and tends to distill off the methane ( the main constituent) leaving behind the lower liquifying temp gases e.g. propane ;butane etc. These tend to accumulate in liquid form at the bottom of the tank and if not purged off from time to time get into the engine and damage it.

This is less of a problem with the CNG but everything depends really on the purity of the natural gas. The higher the the methane content ie >90% the more reliable the engine and hence the vehicle. In UK it can be as low as 81%. At these sort of concentrations the engine will run but the various sensors in the system become bunged up or fail altogether after a time. Also there are 2 other practical problems


1. Methane is lighter than air. So if you keep vehicles in an enclosed spaces you have to have a specially designed roof that automatically vents any natural gas to atmosphere otherwise methane concentrations build up in roof spaces and form explosive mixtures. Can be exciting!
2. Filling the vehicle tank can be slow. If you pump too fast the liquified gas becomes hot and vapourises so that it becomes difficult to fill the tank completely full or indeed half full.