@Sean

Peter may even have a point.. maybe

This your professional expert opinion John or a hunch from a layman?

Dear Peter,

Just a hunch from a layman who has, I hope a bit of an understanding of what might happen physically if you drill a hole in the ground which might be 300 metres deep and still 1000 metres from the event and is lined with tubing. If you haven't done anything yet as claimed at least by Origin, it is unlikely it will do anything at all I would respectifully suggest. I have also discussed this with a relative who is both a farmer and a mining engineer.

I make no claims to be correct in the face of superior knowledge, but have seen similar bubbles in other creeks before a long way from any coal and a long time before CSG was even thought of.

My other point is more practical and refers to the manner in which problems with drilling actually exists. It is certainly is more difficult in other places, where one does need to argue strongly, to maintain an argument if complaints are made on everything that happens whether or not the mining or drilling process is to blame. As someone here, with knowledge, pointed out for instance, there was an error on pressures in the article.

My main suggestion was to let's just wait and see, before going off half cocked.

Peter, you might now tell me what is your expertise in this?
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

Dear Peter,

Thanks very much for your very full statement of your involvement in the industry. I do respect your understanding and experience and am happy to acknowledge that you have far superior understanding to my own.

Back to the bore holes, IFF Origin has simply bored holes and NOT made any use of then can that have an effect on the acquifers which lead into the Comdamine River? Or is it that you do not believe that they have done nothing more than drill holes as they claim?

I am very ignorant I know, but am very interested to learn about this issue which is an important one for farmers from the point of view of interference with their production simply because of the infrastructure "requied" by the gas companies and the future of the underground water supplies, including the Artesian basin upon which our family has relied personally for over 100 years.

My own disccussions with farmers and with at least one person in the Coal Seam Gas area, a major, if not the major, problem arises because because a lot of the CSG people just ride rough shod over everyone who appears to get in their way, when consultation and a bit of planning could well provide a comfortable outcome for both.

It is with this in mind that I said that I do not think an aggressive approach to the companies from people outside the farming or mining industries does anything to improve the likely outcome for the farm sector. I also have trouble in understanding why, with modern drilling technology, a gas well has to start drilling in the middle of a padock and not at the side where it would be unlikely to cause a farmer much if any grief.

How successful can you be in fully remediating contaminated sites and does this also refer to the successful replacement of overburden from open cut mining to return farmland to its (almost) original condition?

Thanks again for your comment. John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com
P.S. I will probably enjoy sparring with you again on climate change issues, will I not?

Thanks Peter. We'll talk again soon. Cheers, John

David Boxall,

You will be aware I guess that most of the larger flowing bores from The Great rtesian basin have now been capped and water is restricted to flow in agricultural pipes to float controlled troughs. Latest reports appear to indicate that the basin is recovering which is not surprising when one considers the huge reduction in flows achieved by the controlled flow programme..

A geological survery in the 1950s indicated that the recharge of the GAB was via the Gulf of Carpentaria nd relied to some extent on the flows in the Gulf rivers. Prior to that it seemed to be unknown as to whether there was any replacement mechanism and that there was a possibility that the resource was toally exhaustible. Some bores had huge flows of up to 3,000,000 gallons per day! or about 12 ML per day I know of two in the Richmond area of Queensland which had such flows and of one there which flowed a constant 437,000 Gallons per day (~1.6 ML per day) from 1915 when it was put down till it was capped - actually the old bore was sealed off and a new one drilled because of the obvious risk of rotted casing in the old one. I believe that this analysis suggesting replenishment from the Gulf is no longer fully accepted but the fact that continuing increased pressure in bores, and higher flows from those still uncapped, has followed the capping programme, suggests that there is a reasonable replenishment supply which now exceeds the demand.

Ian,

If the CSG gas harvesting is done carefully there may be benefits in that even the small reduction of green house gas which is being attempted for the world, not just Australia, would help as mauch say, as Australia's own proposed reduction.

You seem to suggest that by shipping it overseas it is not assisting us in reducing our "carbon footprint" - but that does not seem to me to be an issue since carbon dioxide goes all over the earth - so reducing India''s or Japan's output of CO2 aids us and the GBR etc just as much as would our own reductions by whatever means..

However, the fact is that if Austrlaia stopped producing ALL Green House gases tomorrow, by the IPCC's worst cases scenario, this would help reduce the global temperature in 2100 or (3000 if one takes Tim Flannery's word for it by 0.02 C which would not be measurable outside the errors. Thus we need to help the rest of the world to reduce their much larger contributions. So rather tahn sending coal to China we could be sending CSG.

With good will and provided farm land and water resources are protected by appropriate limitations and techniques, the benefits from CSG could be spent in lifting living stabndards in Africa and India, and enabling us to better afford to install the quite expensive alternative energy equipment you suggest. I must say that the total cost of each person having their own backyard system, would seem to be more expensive than if each town or city put in a single large co-operative system.

Could you possibly post some more details of your home supply system of renewables which does sound fascinating. Perhaps you could also refer us to some pictures of it andits various components on the web. I would be particularly interested in learning more about your bio-converter with an illustration of how it fits into your back yard and what power you find you are able to obtain from it. Was it very expensive to build and who made it for you? If need be you could email the pictures and details to me at jonicool18@bigpond.com. John Nicol

John Nicol: "If the CSG gas harvesting is done carefully there may be benefits ..."
Given sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. It seems to me that there's a lot pushing CSG and extractive industries generally.

David Baxall,

Sure david, there are a lot of caveats in any undertaking which have to be considered.

My main argument on this page is that the discussions from both sides must be based on sound data and real situations. This applies to both the gas companies and to the farmers, both of whom are working I believe towards a solution which will be satisfactroy to all. Most importantly, I don't think it will be helpful to farmers and the environment or the economy, to have people jumping into the fray because of some philosophical objection to the production from gas companies or coal miners. As I understand the situation, there are many areas which are risky prospects for fracking and CSG retrieval, but there are also many which are in geologically suitable areas where ther is no real risk. While there are some new debates in the US along the same lines as here, they do have a lot of experience with similar projects over there which have been caried out for about 60 years.

So one has to be careful in this debate that people don't make it harder to obtain a satisfactory set of safeguards for the environment and for farmland and farmers by picking arguments which are based on politics and not on science and understanding. Tye Drew Huttons of this world should pull back and leave the arguments to those at the forefront of the battel.

We are able to live the life we have today, to communicate as many are doing here by sitting at a computer, because some one has gone out and actually taken a risk to produce something. If we did not have any mines in Australia as the Greens in their unrealistic way would hope, where would any of us be.

Frankly, it wouldn't particularly worry me as an individual, as I was brought up to sleep under the stars in a swag, in the gulf country of Queennsland, to suffer a bit of cold in the early morning dark while I milked the cows or brought up the horses for a days work, which often lasted till nine o'clock or later at night. We collected wood for the fire, used Coolgardiie safes - no frig - and lit our evenings with Hurricane (kerosene) and carbide gas lanterns.

Needless to say I don't live like that any more, but when I do have an opportunity to go bush, I enjoy living the old life over and sometimes wish that I still had to.

I somehow doubt that many of the other people arguing vigorously against the coal industry and denouncing anyone who doesn't agree with them as being in the "pay of big coal", would take to that life.

However, I am happy to admit that I am wrong and am waiting to hear from Ian Lowe as to how he manages with his bio-energy system with solar powere support and other very innovative ideas which he has very briefly described for us here. This may be not dissimilar to the style we had as kids which I have just mentioned.
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

John,

We have to get over this idea that digging stuff up is producing something. They are not actually making anything they are removing something they find. We do that a lot in this country. More and more actually.

Now I have a problem with drilling holes into sediment beds where there is an alleged history of methane bubbling up in a river. Not stable at all. And if one is going to do it then you do baseline studies and you monitor the heck out of the thing. That should have happened right at the start.

It didn't. So now we're told - after a quick look - that it's natural... happens often. But we don't know. We have no data. We have - well someone has, hopefully - anecdotal reports of bubbling in the river.

But the drilling has not been stopped. The reassurances have been given and life goes on. Hopefully.

I think there is an issue here regarding the precautionary principle - that, particularly where there is even anecdotal evidence of mobile methane, that the onus is on the company to demonstrate safety and monitor its operations. And I don't think they can. They certainly haven't yet. They've just made a rather silly assurance based on being a whole kilometer away.

And who will be compensating the farmers and water users if they guess wrong? Who will pay for a poisoned river in its own right? What's it worth? Do explorers have the assets to cover any claims against them? Does the State?

The CSIRO/BHP tests linked above show how it's done... chemical analysis of the leaks and comparative data. Meanwhile stop whatever you're doing till the data is in.

But at the moment John we're shooting blind. With a lot of scope for collateral damage. But like wandering around in a schoolyard with an AK47.
Not my idea of science or its role spruiking for commercial interests like this.

PS re biogas... here's a discussion group I'm a member of ... australian-biogas-group@googlegroups.com ...potentially very interesting depending on scale... excellent for small towns or piggeries, even dairy farms. Beats kero lamps. Cheap to build too.

John Nicol: "... geologically suitable areas where ther is no real risk."
Where might those areas be? Do you know, or is your comment based on faith?
I live in the Hunter Valley; a coal mining area for more than 170 years, with CSG prospects. All around me are consequences of past (and present) rapacity and faith in our right to do as we please.
From what I see, there are always risks. The question is whether the benefits justify them.
The coal industry is phenomenally valuable, but that value does not justify the harm I see. Land that was productive, but is now a sterile waste. Watercourses with cracked beds; water goes down and gas comes up: they've been known to catch fire. Industry makes much of remediation, but the land is never what it was (or could have been). Pollution of water; surface and subsurface, from mines and exploratory bores.
As I said, there's a lot of thrust behind extractive industries. The principle (if it can be called that) seems to be; if you see a potential profit, then go for it. Private enterprise reaps the rewards and the community pays the costs. In brief: privatise the profits and socialise the costs.

David,

I am not sure if it worth my trying to reply since you very obviously know a lot more about the CSG situation than I ever will. In stating that there is, I believe, a difference between different geological ares, I am simply quoting from a report which I read which was very critical of the approach to drilling in what might be very sensitive areas but did concede that some areas did provide little or no risk. If that is not the case, then that is obviously that, and I can say no more.

I guess that any benefits which the community has received from the value of mining which finds its way to you, has long since been sent off to some charity some where, which is very noble of you and I congratulate you for that.

Having a continuing interst in farming which my family has persued and continues to pursue since the middle of the 19th century, I do have a concern for the effect on farm land byf mining or any other pursuit. I find also a lot of unnecessary devastation to land around the larger towns and cities which is often of no apparent economic value yet we hear no objections what so ever from the greens or environmental lobby.

However, the debate by the farmers and their representatives is not helped by people like Drew Huton joining the call for constraint. No one needs a professional agitator to muddy the water, even if he appears to be on your own side. His statement that the bubbles in the Condimine were definitely the result of drilling in the area - not likely, not possible, not probable, but definitely - is not helpful.

One needs to have a fully professional investigation before either side makes such positive statements. If it is true that Origin, as they claim, have simply drilled a hole which is properly lined with piping and that they have done no other work in the area, it is hard to see that it is likely to be the cause of the bubbles which have been seen in many wesern creeks ans apparently in the Condamine for 30 years. Howevwer, no one can that tese latest bubles are NOT caused by drilling, but to be rational, everyone has to wait and see.

On another of your commnts regarding the Artesian Basin, sure it is unfortunate that some of the small natural surface waters have dried up but over time there is nothing to asay they won't return. I do not have an "attitude" to this as you suggest, and one can hardly blame someone with little or no education in 1915, who came out and tackled the huge problems of establishing industries such as wool cattle and farming which kept and contributes to help keep, like mining now in recent years, everyone in Australia in the level of comfport to which they have become so accustomed - a level of luxury not enjoyed I might add, by those who established and carried on that industry, nor those who are now doing something similar in the mining industry.

Most of the surface springs were not necessarily understood in those early days to be part of the system and even if they had, I don't think it is reasonable now, with 20/20 hindisght, to claim that the use of the water in what appeared then to be appropriate way was drilling bores, was because of an "attitude"..

In any case, it is quie obvious that the water flowing from the bores whhich were distributed fairly uniformly over vastly greater areas for the wild life to live than was ever available from the springs, many of which were partly seasonal anyway and only provided water consistently during the wet and for some time after wards. Come droughts and many at least did not provide water above ground as you might be implying, but the bores continued to do so.

With regard to the regeneration, my comment on the gulf Rivers came from a report from a team of University Geologists, one of whom at least was a Professor from the University of Queensland, one Prof Freddie Whitehouse.

You may also be surprised to know that the Gulf rivers rise in quite high plateaux in Basalt country well above the height of the highest bores. In many cases the Artesian water is not flowing either, but is pumped up sometimes from considerable depth, once upon a time by windmills, so the analysis suggesting that replenishment was from the Gulf Rivers, was not as silly as you seem to imply you believe it was. .
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

John Nicol: "... the recharge of the GAB was via the Gulf of Carpentaria ..."
https://theconversation.edu.au/bubbling-to-the-surface-csg-impacts-and-the-condamine-7384#comment_42892
John Nicol: "... my comment on the gulf Rivers ..."
https://theconversation.edu.au/bubbling-to-the-surface-csg-impacts-and-the-condamine-7384#comment_42947
The gulf, then the rivers. A bit of a disconnect there, John.
See also http://www.environment.gov.au/water/publications/environmental/rivers/pubs/recharge-gab.pdf
John Nicol: "... there is, I believe, a difference between different geological ares ..."
No doubt, but assertions that there is any area where extractive industry is risk-free are propaganda.

David...

and the notion that an area with a (convenient) 30 history of bubbling rivers and bores is somehow stable and risk free beggars belief.

Peter, No one is saying THIS area is stable and risk free.

If you had read my comments, you would see that I agree with you that it should be very carefully investigated and if no other suitable expert can be found, then they should give you a contract to do that.

My point is that until such investigation takes place it is difficult to make a positive statement about what is actually happening in the Condamine.

My second point is that taking an adversarial stnce which may turn out to be quite wrong makes it harder for future discussions on an issue which may be significant.

If Origin have drilled holes which are appropriately lined with plastic or steel, have not done anything else, could you explain how this could lead to bubbles in the creek which are more likely to be caused by these holes than to be of a similar nature to previous episodes of bubbling which happened before the holes were bored.

UI accept your thesis that what Origin is saying may not be correct, but for the moment if what they do say, as rep[orted, is correct then how would this cause gass to flow over to the creek?
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

David,

I can't claim to follow your latest comments regarding my statement on recharge via the gulf rivers. and do not understand what you mean by a "disconnect".

I was intersted to read in the link you gave me about the measurment of recharge, that it is estimated that there is a continuous frlow through the basin leading to a naturla outflow of about 4.5 x 10^8 (somethings!) which is equal to the outflow through bores, another 4.5 x 10^8 (somethings!) . I had never been aware that thre was such a large natural out flow which is probably why the water lasted so long before the capping programme began - the more bores were sunk, the less water escaped naturally from the basin. So thank you for that.
Cheers,
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com

John,

I am not adopting an adversarial approach - certainly not with you at least - but I cannot accept glib and self-serving assurances from either government or drilling operators that this bubbling is unrelated to their activity.

Firstly I am amazed that a government would permit drilling anywhere near an area that had a (albeit anecdotal) history of mobile methane bubbling through creeks - certainly not without substantial precautions and monitoring.

Secondly I am even more amazed - and angry - that no stop-work order was issued once this problem had been identified.

As I explained earlier, the distance between drilling and the eventual site of degassing can be quite substantial - it all depends on the underlying rock strata - their permeability and the angles and directions of these beds. That bores are lined makes no difference when water is either being added or removed- what is significant is the pressure that holds the gas inside the seam is altered a decrease in pressure from water spewing our a bore can have just as much impact as pumping water in.

Lots of variables to play with John - and none of them are known without testing and data.

Not adversarial John - just highly suspicious and precautionary... one doesn't play around with this stuff unless one can cover the full costs to innocent bystanders of guessing wrong. Hubris is darned expensive.

John Nicol: "I can't claim to follow your latest comments regarding my statement on recharge via the gulf rivers. and do not understand what you mean by a "disconnect"."
Your first statement: "... the recharge of the GAB was via the Gulf of Carpentaria ..." (https://theconversation.edu.au/bubbling-to-the-surface-csg-impacts-and-the-condamine-7384#comment_42892), implies recharge from the gulf. The second: "... my comment on the gulf Rivers ..." (https://theconversation.edu.au/bubbling-to-the-surface-csg-impacts-and-the-condamine-7384#comment_42947) from rivers in the gulf country. You confuse the gulf itself, which is an arm of the sea and therefore at sea level, with the gulf country.
This carelessness is not unique in your posts. Whether the resulting confusion is accidental or tactical is difficult to tell.
John Nicol: "I had never been aware that thre was such a large natural out flow ...". Given the meaning of the term "artesian", it should come as no surprise.

David,
This will have to be my last comment on this topic as I don't have time to continue.

However, I must point out that my comments have never suggested that the entry point for water from the gulf rivers into the Artesian basin was in the geographically defined "gulf" which everyone knows is at sea level.

I believe I have always referred to the 1950s geological groups findings as claiming that the water came from the gulf rivers. If I inadvertantly referred to it just as "the gulf" it is because I lived there and the area between approximately a line from Hughenden to Mt Isa and on to the Territory boarder, and the shore line where are found Burketown, Normanton and Kurumba etc, is known as the Gulf Country of just the "gulf".

Also, you may be surprised to learn that the term Artesian has NOTHING to do with flowing water underground or anywhwere else, it comes from the region of F rance, "Artois", where such underground water as first found by drilling.
John Nicol jonicol18@bigpond.com