A new report by Australia’s major scientific research body, CSIRO, has revealed fugitive emissions from coal seam gas (CSG) facilities are ‘significantly lower’ than previously estimated.
The study recorded measurements from 43 CSG wells, six in New South Wales and 37 in Queensland, out of more than 5000 wells currently operating in Australia.
Of the sample size, 37 wells produced methane emissions of less than three grams a minute, a rate ‘much lower than those that have been reported for United States unconventional gas productions’.
CSIRO unconventional gas research director, Professor Damian Barrett, said the findings would allow researchers to further investigate the use of natural gases as a viable energy source.
“There’s a desire as we move forward and require more energy to use methane as a fuel to generate electricity, and there are greenhouse gas benefits for doing so.
“Using methane rather than coal to generate electricity can yield up to a 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.”
In six of the CSG facilities investigated, emission levels were 15 times higher than the study average, reaching 44 grams a minute.
Professor Barrett said the results could be attributed to ‘faulty seals or valves’ that were found to be discharging methane.
He said controlling the leaks would be an area of future focus.
“In all infrastructure, all equipment, emissions are leaked into the atmosphere, so the questions is not whether it leaks or not, it’s how much it’s going to leak.
“It’s a matter of undertaking the requisite engineering in order to reduce those emissions to as minimum as possible.
“If we don’t correct those fugitive emissions, those leaks to the atmosphere, then the greenhouse benefits of using methane over coal disappear.”
Anti CSG campaigner and Lock the Gate protest movement president Drew Hutton said no level of leakage should be considered ‘acceptable’.
“If they’re leaking now, what’s the situation going to be like in ten years?
“It’s not just well integrity that’s an issue either; there are thousands of these vents (emitting methane) across the region.
“Methane comes off the entire CSG infrastructure.”
He said although the report ‘needed to be done’, researchers should ‘be cautious’ of extrapolating the results to the industry as a whole.
“This is a preliminary study of 43 wells, when there are something like 5,000 wells out there in the western Darling Downs and the Maranoa.
“It’s less than one per cent of all the wells in Australia,” Mr Hutton added.
