Hi Mumso,
I don't want to cut in but I think what Azzag was referring to was the subterranean water bodies that often co-occur with the ore deposits eg coal seams. In order to mine the ore body and access the mineral deposit they (the Miner) need to pump the water out. This water is often pumped into tailings dams or discharged directly to environment. The quality of this water can also be low for a number of reasons such as its parent geology and impacts from the mine operation. You may be aware in particular how an underground coal mine may continually need to dewater because of high recharge rates in underground aquifer systems, by the way this also constitutes one of the risks for the underground miner - where men have drowned before from heavy rain events that have filled the mining pit or tunnel.

To provide some local context, I live in CQ where the Fitzroy River forms the basis of our water supply. A complexity of river systems drain into the Fitzroy basin namely the Mackenzie, Isaac, Connors, Nogoa, Theresa ck, Dawson...and many other smaller creek systems. Many of these river systems have suffered direct impacts from Mining - for example the Nogoa River has been completely 'undermined' so to speak and natural drainage has been altered. Most of the mines if not all of them in CQ are discharging into our streams - into our water supply. This is and has been standard accepted practice for centuries - because its the easiest shortcut for the miner to take. Instead of working towards zero water balance/discharge to environment and developing on-site mechanisms for dealing with this 'waste water' mines are being handed permits to contaminate the water supply. In times of high flow one will barely notice an impact on water quality as a result of this practice (due to the dilution effect) but come the drought and once the water levels get low - the silt sitting on the bottom of the river could become a bit of a threat to the water quality. But 'derm' has eminent scientists like Dr Barry Hart and a whole swathe of other yes men sitting on its round table to assure us that the water supply is safe. Sorry if i am being cyncial or sarcastic - it just really annoys me that in 60 years we have not progressed any closer to the benchmark for best environmental practice and governments are collectively sacrificing environmental/ecological integrity for a fistful of profits. So apparently our region benefits from profits in the short-term nevermind the problems we can expect in the long-run!

Mumso,

Firstly thanks Chunky for covering the water side, I could not have put it better, the only thing I will add to that is: Mining Companies de-water every aquifer between the surface and the coal seam, they have enormous de-watering pumps, and I am aware of such pumps especially around the Isaac Plains and Old Broadlea mines close to Moranbah that are constantly bringing 120,000+ gallons an hour to the surface, day in, day out (and my friend that is huge amounts of water considering your average property bore is about 2,000 - 15,000 gl/h)... CSG companies however are only removing water from the coal seam itself, and we do not have to move large amounts of water, though it does vary from well to well... Each production well is cemented and steel cased from top to bottom to cut off other aquifers in between, however it is not cased inside the coal itself to allow gas to flow into the well... Gas is held in the coal seam via water pressure, so release the pressure and the gas will naturally find it's way up the well... I have covered more about water in my previous comments Mumso if you would like to read back...

The part about "biting the hand that feeds" is not correct, anything involved with Environmental and Cultural clearances for Mining or CSG companies must come from a 3rd Party company and not direct employee's of the Holder Company... I can assure you we have had many sites moved by these 3rd party companies because they were in sensitive area's and places of significance... They do not care about the CSG or mining company they are actioned by, only the company they are working for... I organise a lot of land access for these companies, and escort many of there employee's around, so I should know how the system works...

Chemicals... I will re-iterate a point I have made in previous comments in this thread, I can only comment on what chemicals Arrow Energy use and not other companies, as I would only be assuming and not stating facts... The chemicals Arrow Energy use are as follows: food grade Acetic Acid (it is the basis of vinegar), Gutaraldehyde (used to dis-infect hospital and dental equipment), Surfactants (found in toothpaste and soap), Cellulose (found in wallpaper/paste), Bacteriacide (used to stop corrosion of the steel casing), Guar Gum (found in ice-cream, also fed to cattle)... I will state Arrow Energy have never used anything containing the BTEX group of chemicals ever, and I am not aware of any company in Australia that has...

Any more questions, let me know... Or read back over some of my old posts as well...

Thank you Chunky (you're definitely not butting in!) and AzzaG for your explanations and also for answering my questions about the chemicals used by your company.

As you are probably aware I'm not an expert. However, I've always been a questioner. I'm extremely unhappy with the way that governments are permitting the CSG exploration. The more I read the worse it gets.

Regarding your point about 3rd party company employees, I may not be making myself clear. Do you remember the Enron scandal, when Arthur Anderson, the biggest independent firm of accountants on the planet, was writing reports assuring shareholders and the US Government that the company was solvent when they knew it wasn't?

If you were accused of a crime would you employ an independent solicitor and barrister to tell the Court you ought to have pleaded guilty? No, you would want them to state your case. People and companies employ independent experts who will say what they want them to say. If you wanted real independence, the mining companies' reports would be written by experts selected by the local community or the local government and paid for by the company.

I expect you think I'm being argumentative but with something as important as CSG mining's effect on our water, I think that all decisions should be made in as transparent a way as possible. Thanks again for your explanations.

Know worries Mumso only to happy to help... I like people who question like yourself (which is a good thing trust me haha), I definitely prefer people to question my knowledge, rather than sit in silence and doubt my knowledge... The biggest problem I am facing at the moment is people not asking questions, and assuming they know exactly what happens by what they see on T.V.. For example, every animation you see on how fracing is done on TV goes as follow: single well drilled into the ground and before intersecting the coal seam the drill rig bends the rods and follows the coal seam laterally along, which then creates vertically running fractures once the well is fraced, this definitely increases the chances on a fracture blowing out of the coal seam... The technique is widely used in the U.S, but not in Australia at all that I am aware of, the only company that may is QGC, but I am only basing that on the types of rigs they use, and not actual fact, the rigs I have seen them use are the only ones I have seen capable of using this technique... In Australia the fracing is done by a single vertical well running into the coal seam, then fracced by using perforated tubing to more directionalize the "horizontal" running fractures, thus extremely lowering the chances of it blowing out...

Mumso I wasn't aware of the Enron scandal but I have read up on it a bit now, and I definitely see your point... I agree with you about the government nominating there independents to undertake these studies, but the way they are strapped for cash at the moment if they did find something wrong, they would probably just sweep it under the carpet anyway to let CSG and Mining companies keep going...

If you have more questions don't be afraid to ask... Cheers

We could go on and on debating how we get the energy for our extravangant lifestyle. But strip mining the planet to feed a few generations, and leave a big mess including unknown yet consequences for many future generations to deal with, don't sound healthy for life generally on planet earth.

AzzaG. After reading through this Topic it is still not clear to me how much Fraccing is done in Australia for coal seam gas extraction.
Is it done as a normal part of developing a well?
How much water is required for the process and where does this come from?
How much water is extracted from a well over its life compared to that injected?
What is the life of a coal seam gas well?

Phil

Phil,

Believe it or not Phil less than a quarter of the gas wells in Australia are actually fracced... I don't know the actual percentage for a fact, but my rough estimate would be 15-20%, but its definitely less than 25%... Put it this way, the company I work for Arrow Energy have roughly 600 production wells combined in the both the Bowen and Surat Basin, and of those 600 odd wells only 10 wells are are actually fracced and all those wells are up here in the Bowen Basin... Having said that we do have another 18 Appraisal Frac wells that are being tested for gas flows but are not in production... Arrow do not undertake any fraccing activities in the Surat Basin, nor do we have plans to...

It is definitely not part of normal well development, there are many factors that need to be taken into account before the well is even drilled... 1. Coal geology, does the coal seam warrant fracturing?? The way they do this is via permeabilty tests on core samples and exploration wells (how fast water moves in the coal seam, if the water is very slow moving, the gas flow will be the same, so some type of stimulation is need to allow water to move faster)... 2. Well design, including larger and thicker casing structure as the well needs to be bigger, and also be able to handle the 2000-3000psi that it will take to fracture the coal seam... 3. Cost, fraccing is expensive, so the company needs to weigh up cost of fraccing against expected gas flow, if you are going to frac it needs to be worth it, so you need to be able to get a better gas flow out of the well if you chose to frac, companies can expect little change out 1 million dollars per well... You can't just drill a well and if the gas flow is crape, come back later and frac it, a completly new hole needs to be drilled if the well was never set-up for fraccing...

The water it takes to frac a well varies significantly, but the best way to look at it is about 1mg/L per well... Intially 50-75% of that water is recovered during the fraccing process it varies a little depending on coal geology, after that the rest of that water will be recovered during the first few days of the well been brought online, as the well will lower the water level in the coal seam to start the gas flow... Companies vary on what water they use, Arrow mostly use raw water off pipelines, or water from landholder dams if they are willing to sell water to us, other times we may use a combination of raw water and produced water from our current dams, the water needs to be fairly clean for the fraccing process so the sand does not clump together badly, thus we do not use 100% produced water (however that will change here in Moranbah once our Reverse Osmosis Plant is installed, it should be up and running by mid year that we can keep recycling the water in which we use)...

The life of a well varies quite a bit, each well is planned for a 15-20year life span... There are wells that are shut down after 5 or 6 years and there will certainly be others that will last over 20 years, you cannot really tell how long a well will last... Good gas is anything over 500,000 cubic feet per day, we have wells that were drilled 11 years ago putting out 1.5million cubic feet of gas per day originally, and now are still putting out 800,000+ cubic feet per day which is great gas... On average a well should produce about 100,000-300,000 cubic feet per day... That said we have had wells putting out in excess of a million cubes a day, and 3 or 4 years later are now only putting out around 100,000 cubic feet, its luck of the draw really...

The water side varies significantly as well... Intially upon being brought online a well will produce about 500,000L per day, after about a month it will slow to about 250,000L per day and after about 3 months a well should slow to about 100,000L or less... From about 6 months onwards a well should slow down to about 10,000-30,000L per day of water give or take, like i said it varies... So if my sums are correct a well will produce about 42mg/L in its first year... after that it should only be about 7mg/L usually less, but sometimes a bit higher...

Hope this helps Phil...

Just in regards to how much water a well produces I am fairly confident those sums are correct, however our wells are measured in water barrel's per day, and as far as I am aware our water barrell calculations are 186 gallons per barrel... So i did the maths to calculate it... Just waiting on confirmation that our water barrel's are still measured at 186 gallons per barrel...

Sorry if I have confused you haha... apologies... but I am confident those are the correct sums...

Toxic Contamination From Natural Gas Wells
The New York Times collected data from more than 200 natural gas wells in Pennsylvania. Many of them are tapping into the Marcellus Shale, a vast underground rock formation. But a method being used to stimulate wells, called hydraulic fracturing, produces wastewater containing corrosive salts and radioactive and carcinogenic materials. In Pennsylvania, this wastewater has been sent through sewage treatment plants that cannot remove some of the contaminants before the water is discharged into rivers and streams that provide drinking water. The Times was able to map 149 of the wells.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-map.html?ref=us

@AzzaG Once the wells are capped, how long do they have to be monitored? And what happens to the well before plugging when the harvest is over?

Very interesting and thanks for the info but you have some very big barrels there AzzaG.

One USA "petroleum" barrel = 42 US gallons = 34.97 Imp Gals = 158.987 ltrs

ROM,

Yes its extremely weird how we measure our barrel's... Not to sure where the method came from (who ever came up with the idea should be shot in my opinion haha, but anyway)... However that is how they are measured by our wellfield tech's and production engineer's I am assured by them...

Loopy,

Some interesting facts you point out about the American industry, most people are not aware that the American industry are not extracting coal seam gas, rather they extracting natural gas from shale at far greater depths than the CSG industry... Yes produced water can be quite salty, its salt content is about 1 third of sea water, and yes salt is corrosive but so is sea water and we are able to treat and drink that (I am by no means suggesting we drink produced CSG water)... Coal itself does not produce radiation, however when burned certain types of coal can emit low levels of ionizing radiation... Yes companies have found small traces of the BTEX group of chemicals, including the company I work for Arrow Energy, the traces we picked up in 3 of our wells were between 2 and 5 parts per billion... Benzene can and does occur naturally in the coal seam and these traces were minute considering the world drinking standard is 10 parts per billion, most countries have a drinking standard of 5-6 parts per billion and Australia is the only country that I am aware of that have a standard of zero, but that only changed that last year after Cougar Energy picked up traces in there Underground Gasification Project (very different from CSG), prior to that it was 2 parts per billion... All the information that we have is pointing to it being naturally in the coal in certain areas up here, we have tested all water bores within a 5km radius of each well and you will be happy to know they are all clear...

What happens when the wells are plugged and abandoned, before plug and abandonment each well is cleaned out, then a 50m long cement plug is put in place on the bottom of the well, then it is pressure tested to 1500psi, if it passes the well is then completely cemented to the surface, following that it is surveyed for exact positioning, then the well is cut off 1.5m below the surface with a cap welded on top of it, and it has to have certain information written on it, including who drilled the well, Total Depth and date of Abandonment... So to answer your question its very hard to monitor a well after it is capped as it is by law to be cut off 1.5m below the surface... Currently many companies are going through a full audit to make sure every well they have ever drilled is completely abandoned, and this information is then going to be submitted to the government...

Hope this helps again...

Australia's rising liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports may make for bluer skies over Chinese power plants, but back home LNG producers will pump out more carbon emissions than the coal sector.

Natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels when it is burned, so energy-hungry Asian nations are snapping up stakes in LNG projects as they look to guarantee fuel supplies to meet fast-growing energy needs while weaning economies off coal and cutting emissions.

But pumping, processing and chilling the gas for transport sends more CO2 per tonne into the atmosphere in Australia than the country's coal production.

If LNG project operators are forced to pay for the full cost of those emissions under Australia's proposed carbon pricing scheme, they could face a CO2 bill equivalent to about 3 per cent of LNG sales revenues. That would eat into their profit margins.

"LNG is cleaner but it's not clean," said John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute, an independent climate change think tank in Australia.

"It's got a role to play in the transition to cleaner fuels. But the champions of LNG are kidding themselves if they think they can wash their hands of any responsibility for emissions."

For LNG to be chilled and piped onto ships, all but a fraction of the CO2 must be stripped out and is usually vented into the atmosphere.

Australia is the world's fastest-growing LNG producer and has nearly A$200 billion ($216 billion) of projects under construction or in the pipeline, with global energy giants Chevron, Shell, Inpex and Woodside Petroleum keen to cash in on the growing appetite for energy in Asia, led by China. Australia is already China's biggest LNG supplier.

Just nine of those projects would add around 50 million tonnes per year (tpy) of emissions to the 8.4 million tpy the sector already produces, according to Reuters calculations based on data in the reports of operating companies and stakeholders.

The total is equivalent to more than ten percent of Australia's estimated total 2010 greenhouse emissions of 543 million tonnes. Total LNG emissions would be twice the 27 million tpy produced by the coal sector – and Australia is the world's largest coal exporter. The jump in emissions could undermine government efforts to cut the nation's carbon pollution by 2020.

The latest government projections show that Australia's booming economy is on track to pump 24 per cent more emissions in 2020 than it did in 2000, well above the target 5 per cent cut.

For policy makers in Canberra, LNG emissions pose an additional headache as the government tries to introduce a controversial carbon pricing scheme.

Australia's projects are already among the world's most expensive per tonne of LNG produced and costs are soaring as more projects go ahead.

Developers fear a carbon cost would make their LNG exports less competitive than gas from producers paying no carbon cost.

Canberra is expected to unveil an interim carbon price of between $15 and $30 per tonne of emissions in the next few months for a scheme that would start in July next year.

If producers have to pay the full carbon price per tonne of LNG, the two projects already in production emitting 8.4 million tpy of CO2 per year could face an additional cost of about $125 million to $250 million.

Deutsche Bank estimates that Australia's annual LNG exports are currently worth around $8.5 billion, so the $250 million cost would be 2.9 per cent of LNG sales revenue.

But Australia's boom in LNG projects is helping fire economic growth, so Canberra is unlikely to risk that through imposing the full carbon cost.

Under the planned scheme, some polluting firms that export their products would likely be compensated for any loss of competitiveness by receiving free permits, cutting CO2 costs.

A previous scheme which the government failed to pass envisaged LNG paying only 50 per cent of CO2 costs, and gave the industry other sweeteners.

Even a carbon price of $35 a tonne would have only a marginal impact on the sector's profitability if firms were given 60 percent of pollution permits for free, Macquarie Research said in a note written in March.

EXEMPTION?

The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) says LNG projects should be exempt from any carbon price because it would penalize production of a fuel cleaner than coal.

The association, the industry's main body, says it is an irony that LNG's emission-intensive production in Australia should be taxed, when the wider global benefits of displacing dirtier coal in Chinese or Indian power plants should be lauded.

LNG is cleaner than coal over its full life cycle – counting emissions from producing, processing, transporting and burning.

Studies by Carnegie Mellon University, Australia's state-backed research body the CSIRO, consultancy WorleyParsons and others, show that LNG releases about 40 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than black coal.

Under a global carbon pricing scheme, its lower lifecycle emissions would give LNG a competitive edge over coal.

"Aggressive global action on climate change will clearly be good for LNG," said Tim Jordan, a carbon analyst for Deutsche Bank in Sydney. "If it's a cleaner fuel than coal over its life cycle, then a carbon price applied globally, whether direct or implicit, will be a positive for it."

But Australia's quandary in how to price carbon emissions under a domestic rather than global scheme is illustrative of how difficult it is for governments to exact a fair cost on national soil for cross-border energy flows.

"The global climate policy framework makes countries responsible for emissions within their borders," said Jordan. "If an LNG project emits carbon in Australia, then Australia is responsible for that carbon – end of story."

http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/australias-lng-carbon-conundrum

A powerful response about energy

12th May 2011

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Let's temporarily suspend disbelief and take Metgasco's Peter Henderson at his word...

Let’s temporarily suspend disbelief and take Metgasco’s Peter Henderson at his word when he says the coal seam gas footprint is a 110m square well pad for every 1km square collecting area (Echo, May 5). Correcting his arithmetic, this is 1.21% of the total area for the well pads.

Now back to reality and compare this with the collecting area for a solar thermal system operating in our Northern Rivers area that provides the total energy used by an Australian each year – that is electricity (whenever you want it via thermal storage), transport (via solar hydrogen), manufactures, food etc. It turns out to be a solar collecting area of 49m2 (a 7m x 7m square) per person for the solar direct insolation in our area. At the average population density of 23.5 people per km2 in the Richmond-Tweed, the solar thermal collecting area takes up only 0.115% of our area. Or conversely, were the gas well pads to be installed they would take up more than 10 times the area needed to supply all our energy requirements via solar thermal. That solar collecting area can be on your roof so that it takes up no extra land area but you can’t live on a gas well – even nearby houses have blown up from the ubiquitous methane leaks in gas fields.

This illustration shows the scale of the nonsense that the fossil industry continually peddles, and Peter Henderson repeats in The Echo article, about the solar potential. The solar potential is about 10,000 times more than the current profligate human requirement for energy and it lasts for another five billion years, not the three weeks of gas supply for Australia in the Clarence-Moreton. As a physicist, I’ve worked on solar parabolic dish systems and I can back up, provide data and demonstrate all of my claims about solar thermal systems.

Now to the actual area taken by gas wells above ground. I’ve been to the Tara gas fields twice and the area taken up by the gas wells and their gathering lines is astounding. For starters take the five wells being connected after the Terror Squad busted our blockade on Bryce Keating’s property. There’s 16.5km of 40m wide pipe way from the well heads back to the evaporation ponds and processing plant. That is dozed bare of the now scarce Brigalow, stick raked, rolled to compact the mineral earth and four pipes laid. Including the well pad area, that’s 14.2ha per well. For seconds take British Gas’s own Tara EIS that documents the clearing of 17000 acres (must be Americans) for 200 wells – that is 34.4ha per well. So don’t be fooled by the 1.21ha per well pad nonsense.

Metgasco’s Mick O’Brien still hasn’t come to terms with the life cycle analysis of global heating emissions from coal seam gas. Including the methane leaks, burning coal seam gas contributes between 70% and up to double the emissions from coal – that’s only close to Mick’s claim if you take the absolute lowest leak rate and lowest global warming potential for methane – and there are good arguments for not taking the lowest estimates. The Queensland Government Department of Industry inspected the Tara gas wells after locals measured leaks and a detailed report is available, documenting 45% of the well heads leaking, some at an explosive level. Mick may technically claim an advantage in lower CO² emissions but not lower global warming emissions due to the considerable methane leaks.

Next I’ll go to Mick’s furphy about if you’re not producing wind power, you’re burning coal. Coal is very poor at balancing out grid variations – it takes 24 to 48 hours to bring a coal power station on line from cold, less so when the power station is just sitting spinning the steam turbine with no load – not ideal. Across a large grid, wind can be averaged out as it blows over a wide area. Anywhere suitable on that grid excess wind energy can be converted to pumped hydro, which can then come back on line in about two minutes. Also solar thermal with thermal storage can come on line quickly.

The last estimate I saw for the price of wind power was seven cents/kWh – is Metgasco only charging 1/3 of that for gas-fired electricity?

We can have sustainable solar thermal and wind turbines with heaps of fulfilling jobs for our friends, or we can have temporary fossil coal seam gas mining in some of the best agricultural land in Australia, which will almost certainly: inject toxins into our water supplies; produce global heating up to double that of coal (or if it’s LNG up to four times the coal emissions); disrupt our peace by importing foreign Gestapo-like security personnel to trash people’s common law rights (British Gas security weren’t shy about mentioning their Iraq war experience on their way here); and Metgasco has already engaged Halliburton – a corporation I rate as the most evil in the world, without asking us. Two starkly different futures – the first benefits people and planet, the second makes a select few temporarily financially rich but leaves a poor wrecked planet for everyone’s future.

Let’s leave fossil gas in the ground.

Alan Roberts

Secretary

Nimbin Environment Centre
http://www.echonews.com.au/story/2011/05/12/a-powerful-response-about-energy/

Nobody will convince me that doing this to the landscape over vast areas of agriculture is ok. This issue is set to become the biggest environmental protest in Australias history

I forgot to add the link. This desecration of the landscape is from just 400 wells. What will it look like with 40000?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4gGERobicw&feature=related

Truth Comes out on 'Fracking' Toxins

Who finally tells us the nasty chemicals used for shale gas drilling in Western Canada? The US Congress.

By Andrew Nikiforuk, 20 Apr 2011, TheTyee.ca

In one blunt 30-page report the U.S. Congress has now spilled the beans on an extreme Canadian energy sport.

Believe it or not, the U.S. Committee On Energy and Commerce disclosed what our very own energy regulators won't: it listed the contents of hydraulic fracking fluids for shale gas and oil production.

Judging by the lengthy toxic menu, it's easy to see why Canadian regulators have left poor water drinkers in Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan in the dark.

According to the U.S. Congress, the majority of 750 fracking chemicals, which include a bunch of kitchen sink stuff too, are hazardous if not tumor-guaranteed cancer makers.

The amazing list includes coffee grinds, salt, ceramic balls, walnut hulls, lead, petroleum distillates, methanol, (a dirty air pollutant) benzene, toluene, xylene and millions of gallons of diesel. Benzene will curdle the brain and the liver, while just a cup of diesel can make an Olympic-sized pool of water undrinkable.

And here's the problem: in the absence of a minimum U.S. national baseline for disclosure of fracking fluids combined with a special industry exemption from U.S. water safety standards, it's nearly impossible to "assess any impact the use of these fluids may have on the environment or public health." In Canada it's frackin' impossible.

Hunger for energy, thirst for water

To no one's surprise, the technology has produced a public uproar in New Brunswick, flammable tap water in rural Alberta, a moratorium in Quebec and rural outrage throughout the North American mountain west.

At the end of the petroleum age, extreme forms of energy like shale gas and bitumen inexorably generate extreme debates especially when oil patch regulators drink Prozac instead of water.

Yet shale gas is a true sensation. After running out of conventional gas reserves, energy firms targeted deep shale deposits with industrial force about a decade ago. They discovered that that they could release small pockets of methane or oil trapped in concrete-tight rock (and radioactive stuff too) by fracturing the formation with millions of gallons of high-pressured water, tonnes of sand and gallons of undisclosed chemicals.

The technique (or what critics call "Earth [censored]") not only increased natural gas reserves on the continent but also launched "a shale gale" that has changed energy equations around the world. B.C.'s heavily subsidized shale boom both industrialized Peace River country and turned the province into a careless petro state.

But the fracking process is a shameless water and energy hog. It requires hundreds of trucks to transport all the H2O and scores of vehicles to generate enormous amounts of horsepower to inject the sand and fluids.

(The industry's demand for energy has grown from 2-million horsepower to 10-million since 2002: that's 10 Daiichi nuclear reactors at 746 MW a unit.)

A polluting 'shale gale'

Not surprisingly, rural communities have complained loudly about the noise, traffic, air pollution and fracked water supplies.

Fracking remains a chaotic activity and a wild science experiment. Even B.C.'s Oil and Gas Commission recently sent out an alert that says that frackers can accidentally fracture other frackers' drilling operations with, as the saying goes, bad frickin' results.

"Fracture propagation via large scale hydraulic fracturing operations has proven difficult to predict. Existing planes of weakness in target formations may result in fracture lengths that exceed initial design expectations."

Fracking fluids, too, can foul groundwater. Pro Publica, an investigative journalism outfit, has documented 1,000 cases of water contamination in the U.S. alone as a result of the shale gale.

Given that 100 million Americans depend on groundwater, citizens are now asking companies to disclose what they are pumping under their watersheds or near their aquifers. (Frackers leave behind anywhere between 20 to 80 per cent of the chemicals they inject underground.)

more...
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/04/20/FrackingToxins/

Seems there was a bit of a Blow-out out at Arrow Energy wells at a property in Dalby more recently!

Yes Chunky we did have a blow-out beginning yesterday afternoon at our field down in Dalby... The details I have a pretty sketchy at the moment as I was out and about here in Moranbah all day today...

From what I can gather it begun as the guys were installing a down-hole submersible stator pump into a new well that was to be brought into production, from what I have heard (don't hold me to this, I will update if I hear differently) the pump became stuck on the bottom of the well in drilling muds as it was lowered to far, they decided to give the mud a blast of compressed air to release the pump and as the air bubbled back to above the water level it was able to release enough pressure on the coal to start a syphone effect gas flow... Which in turn gives you the water spout you see on the news, not a very good looking incident at this point in time... It has now been brought under control as off lunch time...

By the way this was not a frac well, and it happened at the well head, not a pipeline blow-out like most nightly news shows are reporting...

Any questions let me know...

Alan Jones gets fired up over both coal and CSG. "It is unbelievable" in his own words. Definitely worth a listen!
http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=8995