There's a stunning moment in the Academy Award-nominated documentary Gasland, where a man touches a match to his running faucet—to have it explode in a ball of fire. This is what hydraulic fracturing, a process of drilling for natural gas known as "fracking," is doing to many drinking water supplies across the country. But the other side of fracking—what it might do to the food eaten by people living hundreds of miles from the nearest gas well—has received little attention.

http://www.gilttaste.com/stories/327

POLITICIANS have rushed to defend the coal seam gas industry despite more controversy surrounding it this week.

In a show of support for an industry whose image was dented by another gas leak near Dalby on Monday, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, travelled to Gladstone yesterday to launch construction on Santos's Curtis Island LNG processing plant.

CATARINA, Tex. — Until last year, the 17-mile stretch of road between this forsaken South Texas village and the county seat of Carrizo Springs was a patchwork of derelict gasoline stations and rusting warehouses.

Now the region is in the hottest new oil play in the country, with giant oil terminals and sprawling RV parks replacing fields of mesquite. More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months.

The Texas field, known as the Eagle Ford, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation’s oil output by 25 percent within a decade — without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska.

There is only one catch: the oil from the Eagle Ford and similar fields of tightly packed rock can be extracted only by using hydraulic fracturing, a method that uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and hazardous chemicals to blast through the rocks to release the oil inside.

The technique, also called fracking, has been widely used in the last decade to unlock vast new fields of natural gas, but drillers only recently figured out how to release large quantities of oil, which flows less easily through rock than gas. As evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies, the federal government and regulators in various states are considering tighter regulations on it.

The oil industry says any environmental concerns are far outweighed by the economic benefits of pumping previously inaccessible oil from fields that could collectively hold two or three times as much oil as Prudhoe Bay, the Alaskan field that was the last great onshore discovery. The companies estimate that the boom will create more than two million new jobs, directly or indirectly, and bring tens of billions of dollars to the states where the fields are located, which include traditional oil sites like Texas and Oklahoma, industrial stalwarts like Ohio and Michigan and even farm states like Kansas.

“It’s the one thing we have seen in our adult lives that could take us away from imported oil,” said Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, one of the most aggressive drillers. “What if we have found three of the world’s biggest oil fields in the last three years right here in the U.S.? How transformative could that be for the U.S. economy?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/28/business/energy-environment/28shale.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Organisers of two beachside protests in New South Wales say they have sent a clear message against the coal seam gas mining industry.

They say more than 2,000 people gathered for a vocal protest to spell out "No CSG" on Byron Bay's main beach.

Around 1,500 people held a separate but similar protest on Austinmer Beach, north of Wollongong, to spell out "Stop Coal Seam Gas".

Apex Energy has been given permission to drill 15 wells in the region.

A spokeswoman for Stop Coal Seam Gas Illawarra, Jess Moore, says even coal miners have raised concerns about the industry.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/29/3229970.htm

Natural gas companies have been placing enormous bets on the wells they are drilling, saying they will deliver big profits and provide a vast new source of energy for the United States.

But the gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry e-mails and internal documents and an analysis of data from thousands of wells.

In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. Many of these e-mails also suggest a view that is in stark contrast to more bullish public comments made by the industry, in much the same way that insiders have raised doubts about previous financial bubbles.

“Money is pouring in” from investors even though shale gas is “inherently unprofitable,” an analyst from PNC Wealth Management, an investment company, wrote to a contractor in a February e-mail. “Reminds you of dot-coms.”

“The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work,” an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in an e-mail on Aug. 28, 2009.

Company data for more than 10,000 wells in three major shale gas formations raise further questions about the industry’s prospects. There is undoubtedly a vast amount of gas in the formations. The question remains how affordably it can be extracted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

RESIDENTS against a proposed coal seam gas mine at St Peters are hoping to hold a series of community meetings with the mine developer next month.

They also set up a petition in collaboration with the national campaign against coal seam gas Lock the Gate.

Pressure group No Gas Mining in Sydney representative Moira Williams claimed that DART Energy representatives had agreed to attend a public meeting to answer questions about the mine.

“We are pushing for dates in mid to late July,” she said.

“The only strange thing is that they keep asking what sort of community consultation is appropriate.

“They seem to be concerned that too many people will turn up but obviously that is what we should be aiming for.”

Members from No Gas Mining in Sydney will also seek a meeting with State Labor Member for Marrickville Carmel Tebbutt and City of Sydney Council representatives in coming weeks.

http://sydney-central.whereilive.com.au/news/story/st-peters-mine-meeting-set-up/

Yes, this proposed drilling site for gas is in a light industrial area of Sydney very close to residential suburbs.  About 6 kilometres south from the CBD and 3 kilometres north-west of the airport. In the past the area had a couple of huge brick-pits and firing kilns, the remnants of which can be seen as the heritage listed St Peters Chimneys... Heavily populated residential area of St Peters and Newtown start less than 1000 metres away.

St Peters heritage listed Chimneys (picture by Gus)

More than 200 Broome residents attended a candlelight vigil outside Woodside's Broome office last night, in a protest against the company's proposed LNG hub north of the town.

Some of the 25 people arrested at the James Price Point blockade earlier this week held a separate event near the proposed gas plant site, as their bail conditions prevents them going within 50 metres of Woodside's office.

The bail conditions also prevent them returning to the site where Woodside yesterday started clearing vegetation in preparation for the $30 billion project in the Kimberley.

The company is allowed to clear 25 hectares of vegetation until final approval for the project is given or withheld.

Yesterday protester Jael Johnson said while the protest has wound down for the time being, a contingent remains at the site.

"They're definitely being present and observing what's happening," he said.

"We'd love to stop the work but the police are there in huge numbers and walking alongside it as the bulldozers are moving through the bush so it is logistically very hard to stop that, so people are standing there and bearing witness."

Five people, including protest leader Joseph Roe, were forced to leave the area after being issued with move on notices.

So far more than 25 people have been arrested, including a 16-year-old girl and an Aboriginal elder.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/07/3263363.htm?section=justin

The gas hub near Broome is not necessary. A floating processing plant off the coast would do the job far more efficiently. But the Liberal (conservative) government of Western Australia is determined  to destroy one of the greatest wilderness left on earth: The Kimberleys. This area about the size of England is an amazing place. I have already posted some pictures of this great place on this site.

The Queensland Government has dropped a controversial gas project in the state's south.

The underground coal gasification pilot in the South Burnett region has been shut down permanently after an investigation found it posed an unacceptable risk to underground water near the site.

Locals are relieved and are warning communities near other pilot projects to be vigilant.

Cougar Energy's underground coal gasification project is based at Kingaroy - a rich agricultural region in southern Queensland.

Terry Wall from Queensland's Department of Environment and Resource Management says the project was temporarily closed last year when traces of cancer-causing chemicals were found in water bores at the site.

"We found readings of chemicals, of benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene and xylene, known as BTEX chemicals. The most one of concern there was benzene," he said.

The Kingaroy project is one of three underground coal gasification testing plants in Queensland.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/08/3264415.htm?section=justin

A decade or two ago, Grieve's lament might have been dismissed as nimbyism meets pastoral romanticism. But two emerging factors give Grieve's complaints new traction with broader public opinion.

One is the ubiquity of coal and coal seam gas exploration and exploitation, and the seemingly unquenchable appetite for these abundant, cheap and accessible energy sources, notwithstanding public and political pressure to lessen carbon pollution. It's dirty and noisy and a fabulous export earner.

The other is the rise of a new global shortage - food, the very commodity the coal rush stands accused (fairly or roughly) of impeding. It's at least in the realm of possibility that the next global conflagration is over food shortages rather than energy supplies. After all, riots spilt across 33 countries in 2008 when food prices skyrocketed and shortages are said to have contributed to the wave of public rebellion that swept over northern Africa this year, when food prices again escalated.

With global population expected to exceed 9 billion by 2050, an estimated 6 million extra hectares of farmland will be needed annually for the next two decades just to keep pace. Australia will be asked to do its bit with its 26 million virgin hectares available for cultivation - equivalent to about half our existing farmland. But how is this to happen if mining is eating up some of the best existing farmland?

OLIVIA Newton-John is the latest celebrity to take on the powerful mining industry over environmental issues.

Newton-John, the United Nation's Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment, risks a ''Carbon Cate'' backlash over her public opposition - outlined today in The Sunday Age - to a controversial method of extracting natural gas from coal seams.

Newton-John is concerned about the use of hydraulic fracturing - known as ''fracking'' or ''fraccing'' - which injects huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals deep into shale rock to release gas for commercial use.

A boom in fracking over the past decade has fuelled an unlikely alliance between environmentalists and farmers, who claim the method contaminates ground water and soil, is linked to earthquakes and may even cause diseases such as leukaemia.

The campaign by Newton-John against coal seam gas has infuriated the influential mining lobby, which recently pilloried actress Cate Blanchett over her support of the carbon tax, dubbing her ''Carbon Cate''.

...

With government and opposition simultaneously facing off and agreeing it is all a matter for the states, independent Tony Windsor rode on to the scene. He has a private member's bill, for which he will give notice tomorrow, to include concerns about water as a trigger for Commonwealth scrutiny of proposed mining projects. At present, intervention hinges on issues such as threatened species and World Heritage properties.

Windsor's idea seems to make sense. Clearly it is vital to safeguard water systems. The argument being advanced by some around the government against having two levels of approval ignores the fact that current legislation already involves this.

The government isn't commenting until it has seen the Windsor bill; the opposition points to the Senate inquiry reporting later in the year on coal seam gas (and indeed it would be logical to wait for that).

This may be an unrealistic proposition in the hung parliament - where life is lived in the campaign fast lane - but could we just hope that on the Senate committee there will be a search for some consensus? It should not be beyond the government and opposition to put aside all that blustering and think constructively for a minute.

Mining magnate Clive Palmer has launched a scathing attack on Australia's coal seam gas industry, saying the technology is unproven and could have a devastating environmental impact.

Concerns have been raised about the impact of the industry on water sources and its inability to find a permanent solution for waste disposal.

There is also a community outcry over the inability of landholders to say no to gas companies wanting to search for gas on their properties.

A Senate inquiry is examining the economic, social and environmental impacts of coal seam gas.

Speaking to the National Party's Federal Council in Canberra, Mr Palmer said a leading Chinese firm had raised issues with him about the Australian industry, saying extraction techniques they abandoned 20 years ago are still being used here.

The Queensland mining billionaire told the crowd that his Chinese counterparts had delivered a stern warning.

"Coal seam gas technology currently used in Australia is lethal and will kill Australians, poison our water table and destroy the land," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-08-27/clive-palmer-blasts-csg-industry/2858458

...the fact that technological advances had enabled the U.S. and many other countries to tap vast new reserves of shale natural gas should be good news, at least for the climate. As a fuel natural gas is cleaner and significantly less carbon-intensive than coal, while much cheaper than most renewables, at least at this point. While some studies have tried to argue that the manufacturing process for shale gas—which includes controversial hydrofracking—means that the fuel might be dirtier over the long term than coal, the general consensus is that natural gas emits about half as much carbon over its lifecycle as coal. Therefore, cheaper shale gas than enables utilities to switch from coal generation to natural gas should slow the warming of the climate—right?

Maybe not so much. In a new study that will appear soon in the journal Climatic Change Letters, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) researcher Tom Wigley crunches the numbers and finds that switching from coal to natural gas will do little to cool the climate—in fact, depending on production methods, it might actually speed up warming. Here's why: it's true that coal contains far more carbon than natural gas, and when coal is burned to produce electricity, that carbon ends up in the atmosphere, intensifying the greenhouse effect. But there's more than just carbon in coal—an average lump also contains large amounts of sulfur, ash other pollutants. When the coal is burned, those sulfates and other particles are also emitted into the atmosphere, and the smog and pollution they produce actually helps block incoming sunlight—cooling the Earth, and offsetting some of the warming effect of the carbon.

But natural gas contains far fewer such pollutants. Using complex climate modelling, Wigley found that a 50% reduction in coal and a corresponding increase in natural gas would lead to a slight increase in global warming over the next 40 years of about 0.1 F because of the reduction in the sulfates and other sunlight-blocking pollutants contained in coal. The amount of warming changed depending on how much methane might leak on average from natural gas drilling. (Natural gas is essentially methane, which is itself a powerful greenhouse gas—during the natural gas production process, small amounts of methane can escape into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect.) If the amount of methane leakage is about 2%—fairly optimistic—the switch to natural gas will keep adding to warming until the end of the 21st century, and the more methane that leaks, the longer that warming trend continues.

Thousands of people have joined rallies around the nation to express concerns about the impact of the billion-dollar coal seam gas (CSG) mining industry.

Protesters gathered in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia in what is believed to be the largest demonstrations held in opposition to the controversial extraction technique.

Speakers at the rallies called on governments to stop granting mining licences for extracting coal seam gas because of the damage they say it causes.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters says urban and rural communities across Australia want governments to listen to their concerns about CSG industries.

She says politicians should not be blinded by the royalties and inflated jobs predictions.

"The royalties they get are not actually that great when it comes to a proportion of GDP and yet they're risking our highly profitable agricultural and tourism industries," she said.

"It's about time they took the dollar signs out of their eyes and looked to the long term about what's going to be good for this nation in 20, 30, 50, 100 years' time."

In NSW alone there were 20 rallies, including one at Sydney's Martin Place where about 400 people heard claims that CSG mining could damage major water sources.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-16/csg-protests-around-the-nation/3573792

see toon at top...

A British seismologist said Friday that two minor earthquakes in northwestern England “appeared to correlate closely” with the use of hydraulic fracturing, a method of extracting natural gas from wells that has raised concerns about environmental and seismological risks in the United States.

The scientist, Brian Baptie, seismic project team leader with the British Geological Survey, said data from the two quakes near Blackpool — one of magnitude 2.3 on April 1, the other of magnitude 1.5 on May 27 — suggested the temblors arose from the same source. Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, was conducting hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations at a well nearby when the quakes occurred.

In fracking, water, sand and chemicals are injected into a well at high pressure to split shale rock and release trapped gas.

The company suspended its fracking operations shortly after the second earthquake, which, like the first, was barely felt and caused no damage. Paul Kelly, a Cuadrilla spokesman, said a report by several academic scientists on the quakes, commissioned by the company, should be released in a few weeks.

“We’re waiting for the independent report,” he said.

One possibility is that the British government, through the Department of Energy and Climate Change, might require modification to the fracking process.

Mr. Kelly said Cuadrilla Resources had drilled three wells — the only shale-gas wells so far in Britain — and had conducted fracking operations at only one.

Fracking is now widespread in the United States, and has been blamed by some landowners, environmentalists and public officials for contaminating waterways and drinking water supplies. Some critics have also said that the technology could cause significant earthquakes.

But Stephen Horton, a seismologist at the University of Memphis, said, “Generally speaking, fracking doesn’t create earthquakes that are large enough to be felt.” Even so, Mr. Horton said that after looking at the British Geological Survey’s analysis of the Blackpool earthquakes, “the conclusions are reasonable.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/science/earth/22fracking.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

Fifty separate earth tremors have been caused in the Blackpool area by "fracking", the drilling method used to extract shale gas, The Independent has learnt.

The huge number of seismic movements was admitted yesterday by one of the authors of a report into two very noticeable earth tremors likely to have been caused by the fracking operations of Cuadrilla Resources, which says it has discovered enormous supplies of shale gas in the Blackpool area.

The report, which the energy firm commissioned, concluded it is "highly probable" that Cuadrilla's operations were responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire. The first, of magnitude 2.3 on the Richter scale, hit the Fylde Coast on 1 April followed by a second of magnitude 1.4 on 27 May. The report, which is being sent to the Government, has intensified the controversy around "fracking", or hydraulic fracturing, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into shale rock, to release the gas it holds.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/exclusive-fracking-company--we-caused-50-tremors-in-blackpool--but-were-not-going-to-stop-6256397.html

The Greens have demanded an explanation from the New South Wales Government about claims that trees are dying near a coal seam gas (CSG) project in the state's north.

Narrabri resident Tony Pickard contacted the ABC, saying coal seam water has leaked from a dam at a project run by mining company Santos.

Santos has denied there is a leak but Mr Pickard says he believes a leak is killing trees in the Pilliga State Forest.

"I've even got photos which I took myself to prove it's happened," he said.

"They show dead trees and grass and pools of black water."

Mr Pickard says he first flagged problems at the Santos project early last year 2011.

"Twelve months ago I let the Department of Primary Industries know there were holes in the dam's liner but I was ignored," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-02/greens-claim-csg-mine-poisoning-trees/3755362

CSG mine leaks toxic chemicals into environment

Dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals have been uncovered in water and soil around coal seam gas wells in the Pilliga State Forest in north-western NSW.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-08/csg-mine-leaks-toxic-chemicals-into-water/3819060?WT.svl=news2

In a blow to the US oil and gas industry, a judge has ruled small towns in New York have the authority to ban drilling, including the controversial method known as fracking, within their borders.

In a ruling released late on Tuesday, State Supreme Court justice Phillip Rumsey held that the Ithaca suburb of Dryden's recent ban on gas drilling falls within the authority of local governments to regulate local land use.

Anschutz Exploration Corporation, which owns leases on more than 8,900 hectares in the town and has invested $5.1 million in drilling operations there, argued the ban violated a state law designed to create uniform regulations for oil and gas drilling and encourage the extraction of those resources.

But Justice Rumsey disagreed, holding the law was not written to favour the industry, but to regulate it in such a way that "prevents waste ... and protects the rights of all persons".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-22/us-judge-upholds-fracking-ban/3844984

The Queensland Government has put a stop to work on an underground pipeline after the release of drilling fluid into the Condamine River on the Western Darling Downs.

Contractors for leading Australian coal seam gas explorer QGC notified the Environment Department of the incident earlier this week.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell says initial reports suggest it has had no significant impact on water quality as contractors took steps to contain the spill and pump it out of the river, downstream of the Chinchilla Weir.

He says work will not resume until the department is satisfied the operation can be undertaken without further impact.

But Lock the Gate Alliance spokesman Drew Hutton says that is not the point, and the incident is of great concern.

"Too few of the people involved in the drilling operations just simply aren't trained adequately for the job, so we'll continue to be having these many small incidents which together will create a cumulative impact which is unacceptable," he said.