13/04/2021

(AU) Gas Consortium Seeks Approval To Drill 7,700 Wells In Queensland, Including Near National Parks

The Guardian - 

Australia Pacific LNG wants environmental approval to drill across nearly half a million hectares of central and south-west Queensland

Carnarvon national park, one of two parks bordering the area where Australia’s largest east coast gas producer wants to drill up to 7,700 new wells. Photograph: Auscape/UIG via Getty Images

Australia’s largest east coast gas producer has sought federal environmental approval to drill up to 7,700 new gas wells in Queensland, prompting concern from environmentalists due to the project’s sheer size and its proximity to two national parks.

Australia Pacific LNG – a joint venture between Origin, ConocoPhillips and Sinopec – has lodged a referral under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to expand its “Gas Supply Security Project” and drill across an additional 476,492ha of central and south-west Queensland.

The relevant tenements include land bordering both Carnarvon national park and Expedition national park. Referral documents show the proposal would potentially impact 26 plant and animal species and six threatened ecological communities.

Two environmental groups, Lock the Gate Alliance and Don’t Frack the Outback, say the plan would “transform rural localities and communities into industrial gasfields”.

Origin seeks fossil fuel leases in 'incredibly fragile' Queensland channel country.  Read more
“I could not believe it when I heard about this application,” Leanne Brummell, spokeswoman for Don’t Frack the Outback, said.

“This expansion demonstrates the insidious nature of unconventional gas – once a company starts pockmarking the landscape with gas wells, it doesn’t stop.

“Landowners in this region have spent years battling drought, and they will now be forced to negotiate with gas companies over access to water.”

In its referral documents, APLNG says a justification for the expansion includes predictions by the Australian Energy Market Operator of a gas supply shortfall from 2024. Aemo’s most recent “gas statement of opportunities” provided an improved outlook for gas supply, based on the impact of a new import terminal at Port Kembla.

Lock the Gate Queensland spokeswoman Ellie Smith said the most recent Aemo report showed there was “absolutely no justification for new fracking gasfields that destroy water and farmland”.

APLNG’s referral documents also propose using horizontal or directional drilling to allow pipelines to go “under threatened ecological communities, threatened flora, threatened fauna habitat and migratory fauna habitat”. Pipelines would not be allowed under national parks.

“While [APLNG] may not technically be able to drill within Carnarvon Gorge national park, it will be permitted to destroy many thousands of hectares of surrounding land that currently supports threatened animals like the koala,” Smith said.

The referral seeks permission for a “maximum development scenario” that would involve 7,700 wells, each requiring a construction footprint of about 1.5ha, gas and water pipelines, gas processing facilities, water management facilities and supporting infrastructure.

In a statement, Origin Energy, the “upstream” operator of APLNG’s gasfields in Queensland, said the documents outlined maximum well numbers.

A company spokesman said that decisions about the eventual scope of the project – including about the requirement for hydraulic fracturing – would be made “during final development planning” and would comply with state and federal approvals.

“Our natural gas production delivers secure domestic supply, where APLNG provides about 30% of annual east coast demand, and plays an important role in supporting Australia’s transition to renewable energy,” the Origin spokesman said.

Origin said Queensland communities gained significant economic benefits from its gas projects.

“From 2017-18 to 2019-20, the value of Origin’s expenditure with local businesses across Banana Shire, Central Highlands, Maranoa and Western Downs was approximately $187m.”

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Scientists Warn 4°C World Would Unleash 'Unimaginable Amounts of Water' As Ice Shelves Collapse

Common Dreams - Jessica Corbett

"Limiting warming will not just be good for Antarctica—preserving ice shelves means less global sea level rise, and that's good for us all."

Icebergs Weddell Sea are seen near Snow Hill Island, Antarctica. (Photo: David Tipling/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A new study is shedding light on just how much ice could be lost around Antarctica if the international community fails to urgently rein in planet-heating emissions, bolstering arguments for bolder climate policies.

 "The findings highlight the
importance of limiting
global temperature
increases."
—Ella Gilbert, University of
Reading
The study, published Thursday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that over a third of the area of all Antarctic ice shelves — including 67% of area on the Antarctic Peninsula — could be at risk of collapsing if global temperatures soar to 4°C above pre-industrial levels.

An ice shelf, as NASA explains, "is a thick, floating slab of ice that forms where a glacier or ice flows down a coastline." They are found only in Antarctica, Greenland, Canada, and the Russian Arctic—and play a key role in limiting sea level rise.

"Ice shelves are important buffers preventing glaciers on land from flowing freely into the ocean and contributing to sea level rise," explained Ella Gilbert, the study's lead author, in a statement. "When they collapse, it's like a giant cork being removed from a bottle, allowing unimaginable amounts of water from glaciers to pour into the sea."

"We know that when melted ice accumulates on the surface of ice shelves, it can make them fracture and collapse spectacularly," added Gilbert, a research scientist at the University of Reading. "Previous research has given us the bigger picture in terms of predicting Antarctic ice shelf decline, but our new study uses the latest modelling techniques to fill in the finer detail and provide more precise projections." Gilbert and co-author Christoph Kittel of Belgium's University of Liège conclude that limiting global temperature rise to 2°C rather than 4°C would cut the area at risk in half.

"At 1.5°C, just 14% of Antarctica's ice shelf area would be at risk," Gilbert noted in The Conversation.

While the 2015 Paris climate agreement aims to keep temperature rise "well below" 2°C, with a more ambitious 1.5°C target, current emissions reduction plans are dramatically out of line with both goals, according to a United Nations analysis.

Gilbert said Thursday that the findings of their new study "highlight the importance of limiting global temperature increases as set out in the Paris agreement if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, including sea level rise."

"If temperatures continue to rise at current rates," she said, "we may lose more Antarctic ice shelves in the coming decades."

The researchers warn that Larsen C—the largest remaining ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula—as well as the Shackleton, Pine Island, and Wilkins ice shelves are most at risk under 4°C of warming because of their geography and runoff predictions.

"Limiting warming will not just be good for Antarctica—preserving ice shelves means less global sea level rise, and that's good for us all," Gilbert added. Low-lying coastal areas such as small island nations of Vanuatu and Tuvalu in the South Pacific Ocean face the greatest risk from sea level rise, Gilbert told CNN.

"However, coastal areas all over the world would be vulnerable," she warned, "and countries with fewer resources available to mitigate and adapt to sea level rise will see worse consequences."

Research published in February examining projections from the Fifth Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as the body's Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate found that sea level rise forecasts for this century "are on the money when tested against satellite and tide-gauge observations."

A co-author of that study, John Church of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, said at the time that "if we continue with large ongoing emissions as we are at present, we will commit the world to meters of sea level rise over coming centuries."

Parties to the Paris agreement are in the process of updating their emissions reduction commitments—called nationally determined contributions—ahead of November's United Nations climate summit, known as COP26.

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(AU) Cyclone Seroja Has Demolished Parts Of WA – And Our Warming World Will Bring More Of The Same

The Conversation - 

Bureau of Meteorology
Author
 is Professor of Physical Geography, James Cook University.     
Tropical Cyclone Seroja battered parts of Western Australia’s coast on Sunday night, badly damaging buildings and leaving thousands of people without power.

While the full extent of the damage caused by the Category 3 system is not yet known, the event was unusual.

I specialise in reconstructing long-term natural records of extreme events, and my historic and prehistoric data show cyclones of this intensity rarely travel as far south as this one did. In fact, it has happened only 26 times in the past 5,000 years.

Severe wind gusts hit the towns of Geraldton and Kalbarri – towns not built to withstand such conditions.

Unfortunately, climate change is likely to mean disasters such as Cyclone Seroja will become more intense, and will be seen further south in Australia more often. In this regard, Seroja may be a timely wake-up call. Seroja: bucking the cyclone trend

Cyclone Seroja initially piqued interest because as it developed off WA, it interacted with another tropical low, Cyclone Odette. This rare phenomenon is known as the Fujiwhara Effect.

Cyclone Seroja hit the WA coast between the towns of Kalbarri and Gregory at about 8pm local time on Sunday. According to the Bureau of Meteorology it produced wind gusts up to 170 km/hour.

Seroja then moved inland north of Geraldton, weakening to a category 2 system with wind gusts up to 120 km/hour. It then tracked further east and has since been downgraded to a tropical low.

The cyclone’s southward track was historically unusual. For Geraldton, it was the first Category 2 cyclone impact since 1956. Cyclones that make landfall so far south on the WA coast are usually less intense, for several reasons.

First, intense cyclones draw their energy from warm sea surface temperatures. These temperatures typically become cooler the further south of the tropics you go, depleting a cyclone of its power. Second, cyclones need relatively low speed winds in the middle to upper troposphere – the part of the atmosphere closest to Earth, where the weather occurs. Higher-speed winds there cause the cyclone to tilt and weaken. In the Australian region, these higher wind speeds are more likely the further south a cyclone travels.

Third, most cyclones make landfall in the northern half of WA where the coast protrudes far into the Indian Ocean. Cyclones here typically form in the Timor Sea and move southward or south-west away from WA before curving southeast, towards the landmass.

For a cyclone to cross the coast south of about Carnarvon, it must travel a considerable distance towards the south-west into the Indian Ocean. This was the case with Seroja – winds steered it away from the WA coast before they weakened, allowing the cyclone to curve back towards land. Reading the ridges

My colleagues and I have devised a method to estimate how often and where cyclones make landfall in Australia.

As cyclones approach the coast, they generate storm surge – abnormal sea level rise – and large waves. The surge and waves pick up sand and shells from the beaches and transport them inland, sometimes for several hundred metres.

These materials are deposited into ridges which stand many metres above sea level. By examining these ridges and geologically dating the materials within them, we can determine how often and intense the cyclones have been over thousands of years.

At Shark Bay, just north of where Seroja hit the coast, a series of 26 ridges form a “ridge plain” made entirely of one species of a marine cockle shell (Fragum eragatum). The sand at beaches near the plain are also made entirely of this shell.

The ridge record shows over the past 5,000 years, cyclones of Seroja’s intensity, or higher, have crossed the coast in this region about every 190 years – so about 26 times. Some 14 of these cyclones were more intense than Seroja.

The record shows no Category 5 cyclones have made landfall here over this time. The ridge record prevents us from knowing the frequency of less intense storms. But Bureau of Meteorology cyclone records since the early 1970s shows only a few crossed the coast in this region, and all appear weaker than Seroja.

Emergency services crews in the WA town of Geraldton, preparing ahead of the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Seroja - an event rarely seen this far south. Department of Fire and Emergency Services WA
Cyclones under climate change

So why does all this matter? Cyclones can kill and injure people, damage homes and infrastructure, cause power and communication outages, contaminate water supplies and more. Often, the most disadvantaged populations are worst affected. It’s important to understand past and future cyclone behaviour, so communities can prepare.

Climate change is expected to alter cyclone patterns. The overall number of tropical cyclones in the Australian region is expected to decrease. But their intensity will likely increase, bringing stronger wind and heavier rain. And they may form further south as the Earth warms and the tropical zone expands poleward.

This may mean cyclones of Seroja’s intensity are likely to become frequent, and communities further south on the WA coast may become more prone to cyclone damage. This has big implications for coastal planning, engineering and disaster management planning.

In particular, it may mean homes further south must be built to cope with stronger winds. Storm surge may also worsen, inundating low-lying coastal land.

Global climate models are developing all the time. As they improve, we will gain a more certain picture of how tropical cyclones will change as the planet warms. But for now, Seroja may be a sign of things to come.



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