The intensity of CSG mining would be much less if we were catering for
our own usage. Because, without thinking it through, governments have
approved the construction of LNG export plants at Gladstone, we have to
drill to an intensity to cope with other countries energy shortages.

The demand of these plants at Gladstone will cause shortages in Eastern
Australia. There has already been reported at least one refusal to
supply gas to one Australian company.
Even the proposed reservation of a quantity for Australian use does
not really solve the problem as our production will decline much
earlier if we are supplying the rest of the world.
We ill also be paying a higher price.
It is not a case of not sharing, watch the short shrift we will get
now that we are importing 90% of our fuel.

This also will reduce the time we will have to transition to a new energy regime.

Yes Bazz...there is NOTHING in it for Australia....NOTHING.....and our politicians are falling over themselves to give it away. Politicians do not represent us.....they represent foreign capital first...themselves second ...and there is no third.

Yes, Sonofgloin, there is nothing in it for us.
The sad part is there is no political party that we can vote for with
a policy that recognises reality.

I notice Martin Ferguson, who knows what the situation is in reality,
even now that he is no longer in parliament will not say it out loud.
They are so stubborn that the only time that they will recognise our
risk will be in the statement setting out their petrol rationing system.

Guys, to say there is nothing in it for us is simply not true, because there are literally tens of thousands of jobs, both directly and ndirectly that simply would not exist if the CSG industry wasn't there.

Having said that, I am also filthy tha we export so much of this finite resource, while business and individuals struggle to cope with the cost of enegy we pa in this resource ric nation. IN fac, I started a thread about that very same subject, but it didn't really grow legs. I still don't understand why because or cost of energy is of major concern, especially if we see increases for the next ten years, like we have seen over the past.

We should be worried, very worried in fact.

Rehctub,
I have given just a few talks on peak oil and its effects.
I notice an effect that many people, indeed a large majority, just
cannot accept the implications of much higher prices or alternatively
much lower use of liquid fuels.
When I suggest that airline fares will be so high that air travel will
be restricted to rich businessmen and politicians and that most will go
out of business, they find it incredible and ridiculous.

There is always the suggestion that "THEY" will come up with something
and anyway it is all an oil company plot to raise prices.

They also find any risk to food production to be unlikely.
Then I give the example of the tanker driver strike in the UK when
after three days women were fighting in the supermarket aisles for the
last tinned food, I notice a silence and then a few questions.
I find an effective way to put it is to ask how much a litre of
petrol costs and how much would you have to pay five men to push your car 12 Kms ?
I then point out that is what any alternative fuel has to achieve.

Our problem with gas is that it will be our transition fuel to whatever
comes next, but our politicians like the people I have I have spoken
cannot accept the problem especially as it is hopefully after the next election.
However, if the government wins the next election they may well run
straight into a liquid fuels crisis just as we become a 100% importer.