Australia’s coal seam gas (CSG) industry could face carbon price liabilities of up to $4 billion a year if levels of “fugitive” emissions of methane gas turn out to be substantially higher than current projections.
According to reports in Fairfax Media newspapers, the federal Labor government currently calculates carbon price liabilities for unconventional gas production based on estimates that 0.12 per cent of produced gas escapes to the atmosphere.
This estimate sits below the results of a recent United States and Australia study that suggest emissions from unconventional gas fields could be four per cent or higher.
According to the reports, the potential for the cost blowout is linked to think tank Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) calculations that show fugitive gas emissions of up to four per cent would produce a $3.8 billion carbon price liability for the CSG industry.
BZE executive director Matthew Wright said the calculations showed ”massive unaccounted-for liabilities” and called for an independent study of fugitive emissions from coal seam gas.
A spokesman for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said the BZE data was ”purely speculative and as such will be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism”.
However, APPEA supported consideration of independent rigorous research and data gathering methods with respect to emissions reporting from all Australian natural-gas production techniques.
The fugitive emissions were highlighted in a new study into methane levels around coal seam gas mining in Queensland.
Environmental campaigners say the study shows the industry in a “whole new light”, suggesting it’s not as clean as it claims.
In an attempt to measure the effects of CSG mining on air and water, Dr Isaac Santos and Dr Damien Maher from the Southern Cross University travelled to Tara in southern Queensland and the Richmond River catchment in Northern New South Wales.
While there they sampled the level of methane in the atmosphere and creeks in order to determine the amount of emissions.
Anti-CSG campaigner and Lock the Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton said the findings, presented at a lecture in Lismore last week, recorded methane levels in CSG areas as high as 6.89 parts per million.
This, he said, compared to other non-CSG areas that recorded levels around two parts per million.
“This throws the industry into a whole new light,” Mr Hutton said.
Mr Hutton said the fugitive methane emissions escaped through cracks in the soil, pipelines or wellheads after an aquifer was depressurised to release gas in the coal seam.
“The federal government currently works on the assumption that fugitive methane emissions from coal seam gas are 0.12 per cent of all gas produced,” he said.
However, he said, if methane levels are “many times higher”, as the study suggests, than the industry could face higher penalties under the carbon price.
Nature Conservation Council of NSW CEO Pepe Clarke said the study raised questions as to whether the industry was a cleaner alternative to coal.
“If fugitive emissions of methane from CSG gas fields occur on the same scale as was detected around Tara Estate, this industry is potentially much more dangerous in terms of its contribution to climate change than traditional fossil fuels,” he said.
However, Rick Wilkinson from APPEA said the research was incomplete and “lacks the basics of scientific rigour”.
“What is presented as research is in reality a funding submission,” he said in a statement.
“The research is notable through omission rather than content and seems squarely aimed at natural gas production rather than all sources of actual and potential greenhouse gas emissions.”
