The Queensland government has not carried out its own analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by coal seam gas, despite claiming the fuel is significantly less polluting than coal, internal briefing papers reveal.
The documents reveal that as of February this year, no full life cycle emissions analysis of Australian CSG power had been completed.
Last night, the Greens seized on the news to step up their attack on what Queensland Senator Larissa Waters described as “a short-term fossil fuel industry which may be just as bad for the climate as coal”.
Queensland is in the middle of a coal seam gas boom, with more than $40 billion of investment committed by the industry since October last year.
Alongside major economic benefits, ministers have argued that coal seam gas will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions because it burns more cleanly than coal in power plants.
But an internal government briefing document released after a Right to Information request reveals that in February, energy advisors in the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation admitted there was no comprehensive analysis of coal seam gas emissions available.
The briefing was sent to the department’s director-general Ian Fletcher, from his deputy Dan Hunt.
“A full life cycle emissions analysis for Australian coal seam gas to electricity generation (including production, pipeline transport, liquefaction, shipping, regasification, transportation and generation) has yet to be completed,” it read.
The briefing also suggests the government was relying on industry-funded research to back claims that gas from coal seams was significantly less damaging to the climate than coal.
The internal briefing says research into greenhouse gas emissions from liquified natural gas from conventional gas fields “indicate that emissions associated with electricity from LNG are around 40 per cent lower than the coal over the lifecycle”.
Under the heading Next Steps, the document says a further brief would be prepared “when the APPEA (Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association) report on coal seam gas LNG used for electricity generation is finalised at the end of March 2011”.
APPEA published their report in early April, describing it as an “independent comparison” of the greenhouse gases emitted from black coal and coal seam gas, when the full emissions associated with extracting, processing, transporting and burning the fuels were taken into account.
APPEA published the executive summary of the report on its website but has refused to disclose the full study. A spokesperson said this was due to commercial sensitivity.
The report studied the emissions from burning coal seam gas in various types of power plants in China, and included the emissions from extracting and processing the gas from coal seams in Australia before export.
Compared to coal seam gas, the report claimed that coal exported from Australia and burned in Chinese power plants would emit between five and 87 per cent more emissions per MWh of electricity produced, depending on the type of power plant used.
The APPEA research was carried out by consultants WorleyParsons, which in late 2010 won a $580 million contract to work on Queensland Gas Company’s current $15 billion coal seam gas project.
The government internal briefing was prepared after media reports of a study, carried out by US-based researcher Professor Robert Howarth at Cornell University, which claimed gas was dirtier than coal.
Professor Howarth’s research concluded that gas was at least as dirty as coal when methane leaks from drilling and pipelines were properly counted.
However, that study looked at gas extracted from drilling into shale rocks, rather than coal seams.
Senator Waters said last night independent testing was needed.
“It is outrageous that both the state and federal governments are relying on industry claims that coal seam gas is cleaner than coal, but will not – or cannot – point to any independent studies assessing the life cycle greenhouse gas intensity of Australia’s domestic and exported coal seam gas,” she said.
“Queenslanders deserve to know why our scarce food producing land and precious groundwater resources are being sacrificed for royalties from a short-term fossil fuel industry which may be just as bad for the climate as coal.”
A spokesperson for DEEDI said: “The Queensland Government did not undertake its own lifecycle analysis as there are a number of national and international studies from which the government has drawn its analysis. There was no need to duplicate this work.
“The APPEA report is only one report into the lifecycle analysis of gas that the Queensland government has examined as an input. Reports by CSIRO and PACE form significant national studies of lifecycle analysis which the Queensland government has accessed. The reports quoted are supported by a broad range of other national and international data. These reports are only an input into the Queensland government’s consideration of the emissions advantages of gas-fired generation over coal.”
The spokesperson added the government stood by its statements that gas-fired generation in Queensland has significantly lower emissions intensity than coal.
“The emissions intensity of gas-fired generation compared with coal in Australia is well established and confirmed by a range of consultants in their modeling in relation to the Commonwealth government’s Clean Energy Future Package.”
The February briefing paper argues that the Australian gas industry has reduced methane leaks in recent years “largely through improved production and transportation processes”.
In May, Premier Anna Bligh told one radio journalist in a segment about coal seam gas that “gas fired electricity is significantly lower in emissions, anywhere from 50 to 70 per cent lower in emissions than coal fired power so it is a very important transition fuel”.
Both Greens leader Bob Brown and his deputy Christine Milne have this week questioned whether coal seam gas was indeed better for the environment than coal. They are instead pushing for a transition straight to renewable energy sources.
