MP pleads for the UCG experiment to end
25th of Aug, 2010
In the Parliament last week, Independent member for Nanango Dorothy Pratt spoke passionately about the impact that the Queensland Government's experiments with underground coal gasification and coal seam gas is having on her constituents. We were so moved by this speech, we thought we'd share it with you.
Tuesday 17th August, 2010
Mrs PRATT (Nanango) (9.42 pm):
Over the last 12 years I have been involved in many incidents where people's properties have been taken over by mining companies, roads, possible rail corridors, transmission lines et cetera. I have been involved with those people who have felt the angst in these kinds of situations.
Some members in this place have possibly smiled or even laughed at the fact that people are going through this and say that they understand what those people are going through. The majority of people in this House cannot understand what it is like to have someone come onto your property and virtually shut your activity down--something that you, your father, your grandfather and everybody else have worked for all their lives. It is a very difficult situation and everybody in this House should try to recognise that.
Geothermal or hot rock energy could very well be the way to go, and it is admirable that any government is looking for better, cleaner and greener types of energy. We hear the phrase 'cleaner and greener' types of energy being bandied around as if to say that because we put a green and a clean on it it automatically is clean and green. I bring to the parliament's attention once again that they said that UCG was clean and green and they sold it to our community of Kingaroy on the basis that it was clean and it was green. In the last few months it has been proven that it is far from clean and green. Regardless of whether someone believes one part per billion or 100 parts per billion is acceptable, we do not. It is contamination. There is contamination where there was no contamination before. Regardless of whether it is still within the Australian drinking standards, it is still contamination. It is not acceptable, and UCG is not one of those technologies that should be pursued.
I am going to oppose this bill not because it is full of bad things, because it is not, but because it does not curb UCG. That is why I will be opposing this bill. The Kingaroy and the South Burnett area have dodged a bullet--literally. It could have been a heck of a lot worse. I know that the minister has visited the area, and it was good that he came to the area when invited to talk to people. Like most government bodies, all of the right things were said. The minister said that he would look into it and there will be an investigation. The Minister for Sustainability did the same thing, and I also commend her for her interest. But the people in my community do not want this to be a whitewash. We do not want this technology in its current form to go ahead anywhere else in Queensland, because no community should be subjected to this kind of concern.
If one reads all of the documentation dealing with UCG it is well known--all the experts agree--that contamination will occur. It is recommended that UCG be conducted away from populations, away from watercourse and underground water, and away from good arable land, yet here it is smack bang in the South Burnett on some of the most prime agricultural land in the state on top of a hill which can lead to the main water supply of Kingaroy. Luckily it has not this time, and we will be fighting to ensure that there is no next time. I believe that the minister is aware of the concerns that the potential is there and I hope that when the expert panel comes to Kingaroy on 25 August it will know and understand that this UCG industry was in the wrong place.
Hot rock or geothermal might very well be the perfect energy in the right place, but UCG is not. I would like to know if anybody here in this room is a mining engineer, a geophysicist or a chemist? Do members know terms such as coal pyrolysis in UCG or what it is? Do members know and understand the very complicated heterogeneous chemical kinetic reaction processes that occur when you burn the coal? I will bet you 10 to a dozen that there is not one person in here who knows that, but by God I am learning these terminologies and I am understanding them. The more I learn the more concerns I have. This government needs to recognise these terms. Do the people on the expert panel know these things? Do the people who back all of these new technologies understand them? It is a difficult task for anyone in this House to grasp the concept of all the technologies that will be involved in the future, whether they be for energy or any other form. It is a big game of Russian roulette that we play with our communities and I hope my community will not get the bullet.
So let us go geothermal if it is the right way to go, if it is going to be the one that works and achieves the goal that we want of not harming the earth in any possible way. If that is the way to go, let us pursue it. I hear the LNP members stand up one after the other and say how they have a policy that will protect agricultural land and that they will be supporting this bill. They, too, have also talked about UCG and its possible effects in the future. But I have not yet heard one of them say that they will oppose it until all the kinks are ironed out. I have not heard one say, 'We will put it way out where there is no population, where there is no underground water and there is no good-quality land.' They have not said that yet. They can say one thing and they can talk to farmers out the front of parliament when they are protesting and say, 'We will do this and we will do that' but they do almost the total opposite when they are in this House. That is something the people are seeing more and more of. They cannot just talk the talk and not walk the walk. They will get found out in the long run.
I know that this bill will pass and I have to agree that it is probably the better way to go. But it is also a way for me to express the concerns of my community. I know all the members smile and shake their heads, but people live in my community. There are so many questions that have to be asked when it comes to mining. As I said, I am not opposed to mining. I am not opposed to new technologies. Not very long ago I fought very hard to keep 400-plus jobs in my area when it was reported that the Meandu mine was about to close. I know the value of mining and I know the value of it to communities and governments. I know we cannot turn back the clock. I would like to see all open-cut mines disappear in the future. But I do not want the technology that we are investigating to be detrimental to any community in Queensland. It is just not worth it.
Everyone has heard about Acland and the mine that has swallowed that particular town. That will forever be a disgrace.
Mr Beutel is out there now all by himself. He has been fighting to protect the memorial park there and the things that his mother has done. Whether it was set up as a mining town in the first place, it is still sad to see a community just disappear off the face of the earth.
I have seen how mining companies work. I have seen how they pick off what they would deem the easy pickings and buy properties one by one. They will take one particular gentleman who has the worst possible country and pay him an excellent price. He had 13 acres. He now has roughly 150 acres. That is what mining companies do. They pick them off. They give this fellow a really good deal and hold out on the ones who have prime-quality country. They pay this man a very bad price and this man right next door a top price. There is no fairness in it and I do not know how you legislate for that type of fairness. I would imagine that it is one of the most difficult things to do.
I have had people crying in my office. I have heard people accuse the state government and mining interests of killing their father because the stress was too much. I have seen it all.
I know that they are all emotive things and we should not base things on emotive issues but on facts. But the fact is that there are places in Queensland where mining should not be conducted. This new technology is not proven in Queensland. It is not actually proven anywhere in the world yet.
If one person can tell me of one UCG project in the world that is successful, by all means tell me, because the group of people who is fighting UCG have not yet found it. I have asked and I have asked and I have asked for months for an example. Not one has come forward. When you look up the pilot plants that are starting in America and China, what do they refer to? They refer to a successful operation in Chinchilla. That is their example. How can we claim that this is a successful project in Queensland? Yes, we are dabbling with it and they are pilot programs, but they all appear to have problems.
But what is even worse is that, when they do have problems, there is such a long delay in reporting it.
I have mentioned before that when Cougar Energy did their burn Len Walker, their CEO - I think that is his title - said at the meeting at Kingaroy, and the minister was there, that he expects that the crack and the blockage occurred on 20 March, in that time period. It was nearly 3 months before we got anything into the public arena.
So is geothermal the way to go? Perhaps. However, UCG is not. But geothermal has everybody's hopes. We have seen it around the world. We have seen it in New Zealand.
I am not a mathematician but I know that I pay a flipping lot now for electricity and so does everybody else. It has gone up sky high. The truth is that we can explore other technologies but not in areas where there are people. We can explore where it is recommended by CSIRO, not where there are people, not where there is underground water and watercourses and not where there is good arable land.
We all know that Australia has so much unusable land and so little arable land, or usable land, and that land is mainly on the coastal fringes. It is negligent of us to waste one acre of that land. It is negligent of us not to utilise it to its best use, which is to feed the people of this country and perhaps other countries of the world as their populations grow and their demand becomes greater and greater.
I know that this is probably not the way to go, but I would get down on my knees and beg that the minister not set up these plants anywhere near communities if I had to.
If he would put on hold any future exploration with UCG--until its safety can be guaranteed, and that is not something that anyone is prepared to do--I would be grateful. We have spoken to Len Walker and many people around the world and every single person has said that contamination will occur.
It is true that with any mining there will be contamination, but we cannot afford to have contamination in our watercourses.
When we asked the people who spoke to us how they would deal with contamination they said the likelihood of it is so minuscule that they had not actually thought about it. That is not a good answer. That is a fail in anyone's book. How does one clean up a watertable? How does one clean up the cavity that is left behind? We say: show us. People are willing to look at the information, but we cannot find anything that says UCG is effective or that the mess can be cleaned up. They tell me that hot rock therapy is good. Maybe it will be the best way to go for our country, but I beg all members not to play Russian roulette with the people of any community because not one of them deserves to have their life, their livelihood or their children's future gambled with.
Find out more about the Underground Coal Gasification contamination event in Kingaroy here.
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