Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Coal Seam Gas Recovery in Australia:
Economic, Environmental and Policy
Issues
ALAN RANDALL
ABSTRACT
Australia is experiencing a massive expansion of coal seam gas (CSG)
extraction in response to buoyant international demand for liquefied
natural gas and encouraged by accommodative mineral rights and
taxation policies. The industry is capital-intensive and, while wages are
high, employment of Australian workers is modest. The economic
benefits accrue in the first few decades while the environmental costs
may continue for a very long time.
The CSG and shale gas extraction processes are commonly quite
different: for CSG, dewatering is the main method of releasing the gas,
and fracking is at present used in only a minority of wells. In an arid
land, dewatering raises major concerns of cumulative impact on
groundwater systems, which can only be allayed by disconcertingly
expensive wastewater treatment and recycling. Environmental impacts
also include methane leakage into the atmosphere (which undercuts
CSG's cleaner-burning advantage relative to coal), disturbance of sub-
surface aquifers and geological structure, fragmentation of landscape,
and disruption of ecosystems and agricultural production. Regulation
of CSG extraction remains a work in progress, but is becoming more
substantive in response to public concerns.
This chapter elaborates on the promises and challenges of massive
CSG development, and discusses the relevant regulatory and taxation
issues. Given that major Australian CSG developments lie beneath
