APPEA Boss Must Retract Misleading Statements on Coal Seam Gas

Independent energy think tank Beyond Zero Emissions condemns misleading statements made by the fossil fuel industry in the wake of the APPEA's (Australian Production Petroleum Exploration Association) belated release of the report it commissioned into the climate change impact of Coal Seam Gas.

Matthew Wright, executive director of Beyond Zero Emissions says:

'The report's conclusions are contrary to claims made by APPEA boss Rick Wilkinson in The Australian, where he claims that "activists have a blind spot when it comes to the gas industry's greenhouse benefit." The APPEA report clearly shows that Coal Seam Gas is more greenhouse gas intensive than coal when used for electricity generation whether it's in Australia or China.'

'Rick Wilkinson's claim that "Gas is widely accepted as a cleaner energy source than coal on all counts," is wrong and a greenwash myth that has been generated in the communications departments gas industry majors, Origin, Santos, AGL, QGC and by APPEA itself.

'APPEA should be called out for spinning its analysis to support the unsubstantiated conclusion that CSG is cleaner than coal. Mr Wilkinson should immediately retract the inaccurate public statements made today or risk damaging the credibility of the organisation he represents.'
APPEA's public statements on the Coal Seam Gas report are inconsistent with the report findings.

The APPEA report shows that when gas is burnt in old outdated gas peaking plants like most of those in use in Australia today, the emissions from burning coal seam gas instead of coal are upto 44 percent higher than by burning coal in the latest coal plant to be built in Australia and China such as Queensland's 700MW Kogan Creek supercritical plant.

Page 26 of the report states Australian gas will not be replacing coal in China. In addition China does not even have a significant contribution of gas in their energy mix. Out of 1050GW of capacity in China just 20GW is CCGT gas and those gas plants have a much lower capacity factor than all the lower emitting supercritical and ultrasupercritical coal plants that China has been building.

What the industry and APPEA are really proposing is to build a huge amount of gas capacity, damaging Australian farmland to delay and displace renewable energy which is a true climate solution and zero emissions.

The scenarios, where burning gas is more carbon polluting than burning coal are the rule and not the exception:

'Whether we're talking about displacing new coal generation in China or Australia the emissions are greater when burning gas and we need to go down in emissions not up' says Wright.

'A shift to gas is a diversion, not a shortcut for solving climate change.'

'Gas is dirty and dangerous. Not only will it increase emissions both here and in China if this unsustainble boom continues but it will delay the inevitable switch to renewable energy sources such as wind power, rooftop solar photovoltaic and baseload solar thermal with storage.'

Beyond Zero Emissions is calling on a complete moratorium on the exploration and extraction of coal seam gas.  Including a cessation of the drilling of exploration wells and laying of pipelines. The industry needs to come up with in-country proof that they are substantially less emitting than coal. This research should be forced by the government and should include real field tests in Australia using laser technology that will capture gas migrating to the surface as a consequence of fracking and pumping of aquifers to enable extraction.