Queensland’s multibillion-dollar plunge into the gas industry could be based on a major flaw in the science, with doubts raised in the US this week over its greenhouse gas emissions.
Reports from Cornell University and the US Government’s Environmental Protection Agency said there had been a dramatic underestimate of emissions and gas could be similar to coal as a greenhouse polluter.
The apparent environmental benefits from gas have been a major selling point for the coal seam gas industry and the $30 billion it is ploughing into the state over the next four years to build export facilities in Gladstone.
Gas has long been considered to have about half the greenhouse gas emissions of coal and therefore an ideal stopgap as the world attempts to make renewable energy, such as solar and wind, more viable.
But the EPA said previous estimates of gas emissions had not included a significant number of issues, had left out the effect of methane and that emissions were about double what they were considered in 2006.
The Australian gas industry said it stood by a number of reports, including those by the CSIRO and Worley, that backed gas as a low-polluting alternative and said the US EPA report did not relate to the local industry.
The EPA’s analysis said worn and loose fittings on equipment meant about double the previous estimates of methane gas leaks into the atmosphere. But even with the new analysis, gas remains a better alternative to coal.
In a second report, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at America’s Cornell University, David Aktinson, said the combustion emissions were only part of the story and the favourable comparison to coal was “quite misleading”.
“A complete consideration of all emissions from using natural gas seems likely to make natural gas far less attractive than other fossil fuels,” he said.
“Until better estimates are generated and rigorously reviewed, society should be wary of claims that natural gas is a desirable fuel in terms of the consequences on global warming.
“Far better would be to rapidly move towards an economy based on renewable fuels.”
