Researchers at Southern Cross University have used a specialised measuring device and recorded elevated levels of methane in the air above the Tara gasfield in Queensland.
The scale and distribution of methane levels in the gasfield suggests that the gas is probably migrating up from the coal seam via cracks and fissures in the ground.
Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (at least 21 times more powerful then carbon dioxide) but current accounting of emissions under the carbon price ignores these types of uncontrolled emissions from the ground.
Fugitive emissions on the scale foreshadowed in this study would dramatically increase the climate change impacts of CSG, potentially making it far more polluting than coal.
If properly measured and accounted, the carbon price liabilities of these emissions may make the CSG industry in Australia economically unviable.
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