Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumShale mining under Great Barrier Reef 'likely to be banned'
Shale mining under Great Barrier Reef 'likely to be banned'
Australia's coastline mining industry undergoing a boom as rules relaxed, but Unesco site to be protected under heritage rules
Lenore Taylor
The Guardian, Wednesday 24 April 2013
Mining shale oil under the Great Barrier Reef is likely to be banned by Australia's federal Labor government as tensions rise over the environmental impact of the booming oil and gas industry on the coastline beside the reef.
In February, the conservative Queensland state government lifted a moratorium on the shale oil industry in most places along the coast to allow companies to assess whether the US shale oil boom could be replicated in Australia.
Power firm Queensland Energy Resources is now proceeding with an onshore open-cut shale rock mine and a commercial-scale demonstration processing plant near Gladstone, before deciding on the development of huge areas where it has mining rights, and which contain up to 8bn of the 22bn barrels of recoverable shale oil estimated to exist under Queensland.
The Australian Greens attacked the state decision to allow the high-emitting industry as "environmental vandalism". State premier Campbell Newman said a new industry would be "a win" for the state, bringing jobs and income from royalties. "I do accept the criticism about... energy intensiveness, but at the end of the day we are running out of oil," he said at the time.
More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/25/great-barrier-reef-shale-gas-coal-mining-protests-in-australia
msongs
(67,199 posts)night. sheesh, run out of oil already
Swagman
(1,934 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama, why do it in Australia too?
pscot
(21,023 posts)stymies progress.