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Coal Seam Gas Mining

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Gnostic

Gnostic

Mark Ella (57)
If nothing else previously posted proves how irresponsible the government has been in allowing CSG to push forward with little or no long term feasibility/impact studies this report on the lack of processes to deal with the salt output illustrates it nicely.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/coal-seam-gas-industry-faces-salt-overload-20131204-2yqx8.html

I firmly believe that most of the problems the CSG companies will produce will be so long term that they will outlast the shelf companies created by behemoths like BHP, Santos et al and they will all end up as "legacy" issues for the tax payer.

As I posted earlier have a look at the reports surrounding legacy mining issues in the NSW Hunter region regarding high sulphide coal deposits abandoned by various companies. Now consider the revenue that those mines generated for the state and what the tax payer now has to find to remediate those sites.

That of course is assuming that a poisoned aquifer or salt laden land can be remediated.
 
Gnostic

Gnostic

Mark Ella (57)
What I don't understand is why with the Gas resources in Australia our government hasn't put in place the same policy seen in the US. That is for our energy security impose a domestic Gas/Fuel/Energy reserve. All domestic supplies are then supplied at a domestic market rate from that reserve.

We now have a situation where a majority of the gas currently produced in NSW is contracted for export only and not available to the domestic consumer. So we have an artificial domestic shortage, and have to import gas using more energy to transport it.

In this as in nearly everything they do our politicians and bureaucrats are just incompetent and in some cases corrupt as is now being seen.
 
boyo

boyo

Mark Ella (57)
Coal seam gas debate has no place for scare campaigns

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/coal-seam-gas-debate-has-no-place-for-scare-campaigns-20140224-33cw3.html#ixzz2uIXx8Ev2

"Peter, there is a gold rush mentality behind the desire by gas companies to create and export the newly discovered gas at locked-in high prices, before there is a severe market correction, and the profits fall.
There is the potential to contaminate underground water storage areas, and once that happens,, farmers will become dependant upon above ground water supplies, and all their unreliability.
Put simply, leave the gas in the ground, and let the rest of the world destroy their farming areas, for some short term profits."

Gold rush mentality - how apt.
 
boyo

boyo

Mark Ella (57)
The bottom line is "You can't eat gas"

It seems as though the mining companies want to make their money, then fuck off, and leave others to clean up their mess.

The mining companies seem to have a goldrush mentality.
 
fatprop

fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member
boyo said:
Santos coal seam gas project contaminates aquifer
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/s...ject-contaminates-aquifer-20140307-34csb.html

It's not "game over for CSG" when interested parties are involved.
Click to expand...

On Friday, EPA chief environmental regulator Mark Gifford confirmed the contamination was caused by water leaking from the pond and that lead, aluminium, arsenic, barium, boron, nickel and uranium had been detected in an aquifer at levels ''elevated when compared to livestock, irrigation and health guidelines''.
Mr Gifford said the metals are ''not additives'' and occur naturally in the surrounding soil and water.
''However, the leaking pond has mobilised the elements and moved them into the aquifer, increasing their concentrations,'' he said. ''Importantly this water is not used for livestock, irrigation or human consumption.''
The $1500 fine ''reflects the level of environmental impact, which was small'', he said.
Click to expand...

not exactly turning out babies with two heads now is it
 
fatprop

fatprop

George Gregan (70)
Staff member
So what do we do, never do anything that may have a down side or some risk?

It wasn't any chemical used in the process of CSG, just "the leaking pond has mobilised the elements" ie the natural sediment.

We get all concerned about this and seem to ignore the rest of mining and manufacturing which usually far more concerning like the arsenic used in gold mining and micro particles from coal mining etc etc.
 
I like to watch

I like to watch

David Codey (61)
The difference for me,is that you fly in to the gold fields,and there is nothing around them.they conduct their activities within their boundary.
If CSG industry has it's way,they will be drilling all over the Hunter Valley and the Liverpool Plains.
They will be drilling in literally thousands of locations.
The more times they drill,the more chance of something fucking up IMO.
 
Ruggo

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
We don't scientifically know enough about ground water recharge hydrology to be screwing with water supply.

Maybe when we know more we can develop a comprehensive industry best practice standard but until then just leave it alone.
 
Gnostic

Gnostic

Mark Ella (57)
fatprop said:
So what do we do, never do anything that may have a down side or some risk?

It wasn't any chemical used in the process of CSG, just "the leaking pond has mobilised the elements" ie the natural sediment.

We get all concerned about this and seem to ignore the rest of mining and manufacturing which usually far more concerning like the arsenic used in gold mining and micro particles from coal mining etc etc.
Click to expand...


Go back a page or two on this thread and I commented about legacy issues from high sulphide coal mining in the Hunter. As geology has been a life long hobby of mine I could give you dozens of examples in NSW alone of legacy issues from mining of a wide spectrum of resource types. 90% of people have no idea they are living near an old mine site, because in most (certainly not all) cases the damage and the impacts are isolated due to the very small scale of the old mines.

The big difference with CSG is the impacts will not be isolated, they cannot be as the mining technique is designed to capture the resource from a large area, that is the whole point of fracking. With the increase in size the increase in risk goes up a lot, as does the problems of remediation.
 
suckerforred

suckerforred

Chilla Wilson (44)
fatprop said:
So what do we do, never do anything that may have a down side or some risk?

It wasn't any chemical used in the process of CSG, just "the leaking pond has mobilised the elements" ie the natural sediment.
.
Click to expand...

So how were these elements 'mobilised' from a usually stable state in the environment?

Yes, they occur naturally but something must have happened to 'mobilise' them and allow them to enter the water supply.

fatprop said:
We get all concerned about this and seem to ignore the rest of mining and manufacturing which usually far more concerning like the arsenic used in gold mining and micro particles from coal mining etc etc.
Click to expand...

I would recomend that you go talk to some of the graziers in NW Queensland. Some of them are still fighting to get compensation for comtamination that resulted from poorly built tailings dams that failed in the 2010 & 2011 floods. Oh, and they still can't use the land.

You might also want to talk to those who have lost underground water supplies up there because mines have 'de-watered' aquifers. You may have, probably not, heard that Cloncurry was close to being evacuated a month or so ago because they were quite literatly out of water. We just don't hear about it because it is not within 2 kms of the CBD of Sydney.

The effects of CSG are going to be much wider than the effects of local mine because the operations actually cover a wider area once you look under the ground and see what is happening.
 
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