If you have ever visited Gloucester, you will know it as a delightful farming community in the foothills of the Barrington Tops world heritage area. It is an area best known for rich dairy herds, fine produce, and the dramatic Gloucester Tops range that rises abruptly from the valley floor. But now it is increasingly known as a coal mine – and a gas field.
The residents of this idyllic valley are facing the same questions facing so many other communities that are on the frontline of the fossil fuel boom – “How can we stop our most beautiful and productive farmlands becoming an industrial wasteland at the hands of the mining industry?”
The answer depends on whether you want to play by the rules or not. Playing by the rules, when it comes to trying to stop a coal mine or a coal seam gas development, means losing. The rules exist to encourage mining – not to stop it. Some rural communities know this so well that they don’t even bother fighting. But an increasing number are saying to hell with the rules – with surprising results.
In little more than a year, the term ‘lock the gate’ has become the catch cry of a movement that has taken politicians and energy companies by storm. It is both conservative and radical at its core. Conservative because it speaks to the defense of private property in order to protect the status quo. Radical because it actively promotes civil disobedience.
When Santos moved to begin drilling for coal seam gas at Spring Ridge on the Liverpool Plains a few weeks ago, farmers there decided to lock the gate to protect their groundwater. After a week-long blockade, Santos agreed to suspend drilling until a water study had been completed. Of course, Santos could have just called in the police, had the farmers removed and drilled their wells anyhow. But while they had the legal authority, they lacked the moral authority. Indeed the entire coal seam gas industry lacks a social license to operate. That is why Santos, even without a retail brand to speak of, backed down.
What is playing out today in Gloucester is the next battleground in the people’s movement against the destruction of the Australian landscape and water resources by mining. In the middle of the afternoon yesterday, landowners from the Gloucester valley began peacefully blockading AGL and their plans to drill four more coal seam gas wells just south of the township.
AGL plan to drill over a hundred wells in the valley that would, along with the coal mine expansions, transform the Gloucester valley into an industrial zone. Many residents and landowners have just had enough. “AGL – Go to Hell” no doubt isn’t a refrain that AGL senior managers want broadcast across the airwaves any more than it already has been – but they are facing that risk.
So far, most of community heat over coal seam gas has been felt by companies that don’t have a retail presence but it is AGL and Origin who have the most to lose as the campaign escalates. These big energy retailers sell regulated commodities – gas and electricity – so their main way of differentiating themselves from their competitors is through their brand – hence the millions spent on green advertising. But this brand sensitivity makes them vulnerable to the kind of community backlash that AGL’s Gloucester project has provoked. Depending on how things play out, AGL could very easily find themselves becoming the whipping boy for the entire coal seam gas industry.
20 Comments
Just Lock the Gate and put a sign up saying Trespassers will be shot on sight .
If you read the MAGNA CARTA, the KEYSTONE of british LAW which is what governs Australia, you will find that NO ONE is allowed on YOUR PROPERTY whith out YOUR PERMISSION
“How can we stop our most beautiful and productive farmlands becoming an industrial wasteland at the hands of the mining industry?”
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. This sudden sympathy for rural residents blighted by CSG…climate millenarians like Hepburn have no qualms about ramming the industrial nightmare of wind turbines down the throats of rural people. And for what? A piddling amount of expensive, heavily subsidised, grid-destabilising, intermittent wid power…
I’d have a wind turnbine in my back yard anyday compared to drinking carcinogenous ‘fire water’ and being stuck with a property that is worthless because some greedy CSG company doesn’t want to compensate my health or my property properly (not that any amount of money can compensate in these circumstances). SMASH CSG exploration, now! – tell these malignant companies to ‘get fracked’. They do not have a right to a commercial existence!!!
No you wouldn’t Karen. If you had a 140 m wind turbine in your backyard your house would be unsaleable and the noise would drive you Crikey.
Then there’s all the birds and bats you’d have to clean up…
What is unreported is that the bulk of CSG is exported.
We dont actually need it.
This is in contradiction to the spin and tv advertisments from companies involved that say it is to secure our energy future. Its just twaddle. Profit is the real reason.
From the beginning and in their rush to get the wells in, the companies involved have behaved appallingly. Both to land holders and in the quality of their work.
‘Now’ they say they want to “engage with the communities” . . well its too late.
Too many people have seen the mess they make first hand.
Frank, you may have a point about wind turbines if they were plonked in a small suburban backyard.
From my understanding, however, wind turbines are usually installed in less congested areas (usually on windy hillocks in the countryside). People who have been paid to have wind turbines on their farming property (or in their ‘backyard’, so to speak) haven’t complained (its usually their neighbors who complain of noise, head ache or low level dysmthia or depression and the like).
I’m all for further research being done to assess potential health impacts of wind turbines, however, there is no question, on the available evidence, that if it came to a choice between wind power versus CSG, the former would wind hands down for the vast majority of people and landowners (indeed, as we have seen to date).
I recommend you see the documentary ‘Gasland’ which is about the unregulated CSG industry over in the US. I can assure you its a horror story.
Personally, I favour the solar thermal plant option. We have a flat sunny land that can take up this option beautifully. It requires money (that can be removed from the coal industry subsidies) and political will. If Gillard pursued this energy option, this would be her greatest achievement, in my opinion.
Neither are CSG wells “plonked in small suburban backyards”, Karen.
Of course the tiny number of large (and therefore asset-rich) landowners who get turbine rent don’t complain. They are all contractually gagged. Nonetheless, some are shocked by the continual intrusion into their properties by wind company workers. Others simply move and live elsewhere, usually on the coast, leaving their neighbours to suffer. Some years ago the primary owner of the Challicum Hills wind turbine land broke ranks: she, like everyone, was misled about turbine impacts. “The Age” weekend magazine ran a story by John van Tiggelen in which she deeply regretted taking the turbines.
Another factor is that big landowners (we’re talking thousands of acres) usually make damned sure the turbines are sited well away from their houses. But they pay no heed to how close they are to neighbours.
One thing usually overlooked is that big “windfarms” with massed turbines create a wide range of noise- especially low frequency noise. Today’s bigger turbines create a lot more low-frequency noise. Wind fraudsters know this and are dead scared of research which would confirm this. I’ve seen acoustic tests for Waubra in which the spike is around 3 Herz: over 90 decibels. Extremely low frequency and inaudible, but which appears to have significant effects on the nervous system, affecting the heart, adrenalin etc.
As for baseload solar, it remains horrendously expensive and of dubious technical merit. Everyone wishes it were otherwise. But forcing vast expenditure on unready technology merely condemns us to massive investment in soon-to-be-obsolete (and abandoned) infrastructure.
I’ve seen Gasland. The sleazy corporate behaviour is very similar to the wind scammers. The results are also similar: industrialisation of rural land in flagrant contempt for the most elementary planning laws, not to mention basic human rights.
Excellent comments Karen.
Finding a system of funding at least one decent sized solar thermal operation would be an excellent outcome of the carbon price… but ST (even at a relatively small scale) also has some nice engineering advantages for isolated communities too including free refrigeration as a by product.
I don’t know why Australian researchers are so pre-occupied with PV… hopefully this will change. But the numbers for solar thermal are actually pretty good Frank. I’ll dig you some up if you’re interested. Not so for rooftop PV or land-based windfarms in the absence of tax and other incentives.
Anyway good luck to the farmers up at Gloucester. They’re up against one of our great and noble traditions – finding stuff, digging it up and flogging it. Been doing it ever since we got here. Stealing by finding it’s called. Who do these miners think we are, just pale Abos?
Frank, you might like to read the Beyond Zero Emissions (an Australian not for profit climate change solutions organisation) website that addresses concerns about renewable energy cost and technology. BZE has submitted reports to the Australian Government. There is a write-up about BZE on Wikipedia if you want to know more about this organisation.
I’m willing to concede that the jury may still be out on the health impacts of low level turbine noise, however, the evidence that supports adverse health outcomes appears to be anecdotal at this point in time ie arises from self-reporting where there also appear to be variations in human experience and not controlled experiments. There is no peer review study at this time that supports such a conclusion.
As for CSG and suburban backyards, I can tell you I have been monitoring this development very closely due to a proposed exploration well site at St Peters in Sydney, which is just a few suburbs away from where I live on the city fringe! Keneally let that one through without community consultation, however, it appears to be blocked now until 2013. This is due, in no small part to the activist efforts of Sydney Residents against Coal Seam Gas (of which I am a supporter) and other organisations to stop this.
Thankyou for your comments Peter. I’d be interested to know some of the sources you have read about ST. I really believe this to be the future. I hope that it will happen in our life time.
Karen: the idea of CSG extracted from suburbia is truly repugnant. Almost beyond belief. Tells us much about the essential savagery of capitalism- and the real cause of the ALP’s malaise. The ALP is now a self-perpetuating clique representing corporatism. Their residual Meliorism is so weak these days they can’t even create a dental health scheme. Living in one of the poorest rural regions of the country, it’s patently obvious people just give up on their teeth: they could never afford to pay the fees demanded by rapacious dental specialists.
The tragedy of my party, the Greens, which took over the mantle of social reform (incoherently and spasmodically) is that everything is seen through the prism of climate extremism. This subordinates all policies to AGW and drives the intense hypocrisy which we see in Green behaviour in the CSG vs industrial wind contrast.
The penetration of CSG is far greater than industrial wind. The wind scam has sputtered to a virtual stop for a variety of reasons, mainly because the ripoff just isn’t delivering the cash. But most of the “renewables” revenue from the carbon tax will inevitably go to wind. If this happens there will be blood on the backroads. Instead of a few hundred severely affected people, there will be thousands. There have already been brutal attacks with injuries on protestors in Waubra- attacks by beneficiaries. Death and arson threats are common. This is reported in local but rarely in urban media.
Also, ask yourself why there has been no research into the health effects of wind turbines. The scammers are in denial. On 13th Aug 2010, a certain Seigfried Angerer, turbine shill, told Virginia Trioli on ABCTV 24 that wind turbines were “silent”. She looked at him in disbelief and terminated the interview. Trioli wouldn’t have a clue about wind turbines, but she knew a brazen lie when she heard it.
It’s patronising of you to describe symptoms as mere “self-reporting”. The pattern is worldwide. Local GPs have sounded warnings and done prelim. studies. I have no opinion one way or the other on physiological effects. Makes no difference: destroying people’s sleep, peace of mind, savings and environment is enough for me.
As for BZE, this is the worst example of climate fanaticism I’ve seen. No connection with reality.
Frank,
I really don’t like these fan things as you know – especially on rolling paddocks with vertical trees. But it’s the technology and the location that is the problem – not the very idea of wind energy. It’s been around a long time.
There are actually some really spiffy gadgets about now – or at least in the late stages of development – especially in China that should solve the reported health problems and the environmental impacts (which I suspect are related). I’m particularly drawn to vertical axis magnetic levitation things that are seriously huge and extremely efficient, being essentially friction free.
Get the good stuff and stick it offshore where the wind is and we would be talking about something half helpful. The fish quite like ‘em too.
Karen:
There’s heaps about on ST … one of the most interesting is a little mob of techy boffins at MIT. They are building prototype Solar Thermal plants in Lesotho (that’s in Africa folks!) The neat thing about these is that they are actually quite high tech and efficient but they are build using spare parts from cars and trucks… that is stuff you can actually get in places like Lesotho. Haven’t got their address here – google up MIT/Lesotho/Solar Thermal and you’ll get them. I’ll send some decent reading once I’ve finished the housework.
Frank: I’m glad we, at least, agree on CSG. I advocate that there should be a controlled study done on the potential impact of wind turbines on health, as at the moment we only have complaint evidence (which was my point in my last post, without meaning to sound patronising). I am strongly of the view that the complaint evidence needs to be corroborated – sorry, my prosecuting legal background is coming to the fore here. If there is, in fact, a causal link (and I’m not suggesting there isn’t), the technology can be changed, tweaked, or, re-located, whether on terra firma or off the mainland as Peter says. Those people who live to close too close to a whole scale farms might need to be compensated properly if they have to be moved away. Which is another bug bear of mine re the CSG industry – its compensation to landowners are completely inadequate. Which brings me to ask of you, as a greens supporter who appears to be unhappy with both solar and wind energy, what energy sources do you support for this country?
Peter: thanks for the tips! I will be look at the info re Lesotho and any other links you may have the time to throw my way.
Sorry, for the delay in getting back to both posts but I was in Tasmania over the weekend enjoying the countryside (away from computer technology). There, I saw one quaint looking dutch windmill, its large blades turning gently, nestled between two houses. These structures looked to have been built in the 19th century. The windmill is not the same as a modern wind turbine, I know, however, I couldn’t help thinking that if there were all these problems with wind turbines, as have been reported, could these problems not be remedied, somehow?
Offshore wind is twice as expensive as onshore wind, Karen. Onshore wind is 3 times more expensive than fossil fuel power. Wind is useless because it is lucky to generate power 20% of the time, usually when it is least needed. No fossil fuel power station has ever been made redundant by wind. On the contrary, fossil fuel must expand to cope with wind’s intermittency. Wind turbines are symbolic gestures. An indulgence of urban progressives at the expense of rural residents. There is zero compensation.
must play hardball! as to defeat the mining companies is essential if Oz has a real future as the current madness has gone too far for quick easy profit! at expense of Agriculture and the Long term
Not actually correct Frank… Currently offshore power installation runs to about 40% more initial up front capital cost – most of that to do with the costs of cabling actually. The costs vary significantly of course depending where, how far offshore, how far from the grid, and how deep and into what sort of bedrock – if any … I’m actually a bit of a fan of barge/pontoon based systems myself… can move ‘em about easier.
The critical point though Frank is that while it is 40% more expensive it is more than twice as productive in terms of the power generated.
Longer term investors would see the value of supplying power in the most efficient way possible – that is how they will make their money – by selling power. Sadly the investors we seem to attract are carpetbaggers with a very short term agenda who farm subsidies and market incentives rather than efficient energy production from the wind. And they are doing this on the cheap – on shore. And we need to have 10,000 of them to meet future targets they reckon.
There has not even been a serious study of offshore wind production nor the incentives needed to encourage it. It was dismissed out of hand as too expensive and has barely been considered by government.
But the overseas performance from offshore turbines suggests this is quite a viable option over time and solves several issues connected with variable weather and wind we find in this country. And taxpayers would be much better off as a result.
As for the intermittency issues and the need for back-up generation, these technical and limitations remain – but are more than halved by offshore turbines.
Frank, I think Peter has given you the remedy. I also think there’s a role for land wind farms provided people who are sensitive to noise and vibration (understandably) live well away from the turbines (state governments are moving in that regulator direction). This does not obviate the need to conduct a controlled study to establish a positive nexus between reported ill-effects and noise and vibration, however.
My own “home state” South Australia is moving towards wind providing 20% of its energy. Denmark has already moved in that direction, successfully. Although it may not be the silver bullet to cover all energy needs, solar energy is the other contributor, provided investments are made in the appropriate technology (yes, I’m going to say it, even though my words risk you throwing up in the gutter – your sentiments) to generate “base-load”. We already have that technology and the money to support it. There’s your 100% wrap up.
I’ve noticed that while you omitted to answer my last post about the energy source you support, it is clear from other recent posts you have made on Crikey that you, in fact, support gas mining, even though you have conceded to me the clear, damage and destruction gas extraction (at least coal seam gas) has and can cause to human, animal health and the environment. You are well aware there is no remedy to this sort of damage and I also think you believe, deep down, that this cost isn’t worth it. Please appreciate that my comments are most closely connected to the coal seam gas industry.
Finally, you have acknowledged in your other posts that most of the gas will be exported, thereby, confirming that this cancerous activity (in every sense of the word) is nothing but a foreign, short-term, money-making operation. This adds insult to injury. I’m disappointed that for all of your protestations about wind-farming and its alleged ill-effects, you would still publicly support gas mining.
Karen:
The chairman of Denmark’s parliamentary energy committee described wind as ” a very expesnive mistake”. They have the highest power costs in Europe, and hatred of turbines (and the waste) by Danes should bring an end to expansion of the blight- at least onshore.
I don’t know why you assume gas has to be coal seam gas. The vast reserves of offshore gas are what I specifically referred to. If you’re serious about rapid reduction of CO2 there is no alternative at present. Certainly not the ragbag of half-baked Unreliables on offer. Politically and economically, the game is already over: Australia is committed to fossil fuels. Marginal waste (wind etc) has been tolerated up to now as a sop to climate extremists- but that very hysteria has all but guaranteed the Right will rule here for years. It already does in Canada.
Frank, I qualified my remarks to CSG (see my last post). Plus you were going on about the hypocrisy of those people who criticise CSG and yet support wind, so I have primarily directed my comments to CSG. Again, there is no comparison. I think Peter and I have demonstrated that wind is far preferable to CSG on any criteria by which you care to measure it, which was the point of my very first post! If an industry like CSG is serious about mining in urban areas (and a mendicant government is seriously contemplating letting it), then, sorry it’s time to mobilise and think about alternatives. So, yeah, renewables come to mind.
I don’t have a huge issue with offshore gas processing at the moment, unless there are health risks, of which I am unaware.
As for the remarks you attribute to this chairman of Denmark’s parliamentary committee concerning “expensive” wind energy, I suggest that they are controversial at the very least, if not discredited. Such allegations were first raised in a commissioned report from a think tank called CEPOS (Centre for Political Studies) by the American oil and coal lobby in 2009 (“the usual suspects”). The report then went to the Danish government. The report was heavily criticised by Danish researchers and professors from a number of Technical Universities in Denmark who pointed out a multitude of errors. Finally, the Minister for Climate and Energy discredited the work done by CEPOS and the report.
If you’re really worried hypocrisy, Frank, then focus on the billions that are spent on government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and the hypocritical arguments concerning “expense” directed by these same flogs towards the renewable energy sector. Is that why fossil fuels are cheaper? Because these companies rely on government subsidies to make it so? What a joke! Well, if we start making it more expensive to rely on fossil fuels, think carbon price, then renewables are going to start looking a whole lot more attractive. And it doesn’t mean that we have to adopt the cynical, ‘horse has bolted’ view in choosing to support a fossil fuel industry that has no long-term future. As I’ve said, all it requires is political will by a decent, progressive government, which is what I believe this present government is trying to show, at least on this subject.
And now, it stands to pass that we are about to lose a prime minister who stood up to those flogs and decide to put a carbon price to, inter alia, kick-start the renewable industry with a view to reducing carbon emissions over time. To think that every single, step of the way, we have had the fossil fuel industry try to stymie the renewable energy sector – through misinformation to the media, lobbying, BS reports etc. The only thing it hasn’t done, as far as I am aware, is buy up the solar and wind technology patents and throw them in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet – although, I’ve heard some people argue to the contrary on this matter as well.
And as for the Canadian government? Are you serious? The Harper government bunkers itself down and shepherds its legislation through the use of secret committees that are not open to scrutiny. Just shocking! Like, anti-democratic comes to mind. And the tar-sand mining this Harper has unleashed over there! OMG! That form of mining is every bit as gruesome, in my opinion, as CSG! Don’t get me started on that. In fact, I won’t. Its Christmas, and I intend to sign off until the New Year.
So, in the spirit of goodwill, I hope you have fun over the festive season, Frank. PS. Don’t do a Christopher Hitchens and allow your disillusionment with progressive politics (so, it would appear) to allow you to discover a new-found respect for the Right. It didn’t get him anywhere – on the contrary, it made him look like a misanthrope. Shame, really.
It’s a pity that Arrow Energy don’t have the same commonsense, community minded approach taken by Santos in this blockade at Gloucester. The locals at Kerry in the Scenic Rim want some serious testing of their ground water completed prior to Arrow energy drilling their explorations wells and fracking the hell out of the coal seam bed. 9 locals were arrested the morning as they attempting to blockade the site.
Nice work Arrow Energy (now proudly owned by Shell and Petro-China) good caring for your country companies.