The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

Last year I took a look at the question "Should Natural Gas Be Used To Power New Zealand ?", after reading an article from NZ PEPA executive John Pfahlert arguing that New Zealand should be building new gas fired power stations instead of trying to become carbon neutral, and concluded that this seemed a rather risky strategy - depending on continuing offshore exploration success.

The view of the Australian government and gas industry seems to be that our gas supplies are essentially unlimited, with the phrase "more than a century of supplies left" bandied about at every opportunity. Ex-Prime Minister John Howard used to dream of Australia becoming an "energy superpower", with a vastly expanded gas (LNG) export industry being a cornerstone of this vision, based on Western Australian LNG exports from offshore gas fields.

In this post I'll have a look at how much gas Australia has and how long it will last under a variety of scenarios - from an indefinite continuation of the current rate of production to a pell-mell conversion to use gas for all our energy needs combined with a rapid expansion of LNG exports.

The ABC's "7:30 Report" last night had a look at the large amount of optimism that many people have regarding Australia's natural gas reserves - "As world oil prices skyrocket, experts warn Australia must find an alternative source of fuel. Some argue a cheaper, greener solution is right under the nation's nose: natural gas."

Both the APPEA and new Energy Minister Martin Ferguson have been arguing this for some time - though its far from clear how long we can continue to expand LNG exports, expand gas fired power generation (as part of the APPEA's "transition to lower carbon emissions" strategy), contemplate building GTL plants and use CNG for most or all of our transport as suggested in this report (not to mention supplying the usual industrial and domestic uses of gas) especially when one major potential source of supply (from PNG via the now abandoned pipeline project) has been removed from the equation.

One of the general conclusions that most people come to after serious study of peak oil and how we can adapt to it is that there is no one-shot solution. Rather a wide variety of niche solutions will fill many of the puzzle pieces and together can help maintain a certain level of societal complexity.

One possible niche that seems almost too perfect would be to fuel garbage collection trucks with CNG, preferably converted from methane gas from anaerobic digestion that would have otherwise have been released into the atmosphere . A nationwide fleet of more than 126,000 Garbage trucks operate daily in almost exclusively residential areas including the most dense urban areas of the country. They are a major contributor of ground level pollution and unhealthy air. At the same time, 450-650 billion cubic feet per year of methane waste leeches out of landfills each year which is a significant contributor to greenhouse gases.

A recent article in the Providence Journal caught my attention:

Another fuel to power your car arrives in R.I.

Some excerpts from the article:

May 24--WARWICK -- Hate the gas-guzzling SUV? Worried about greenhouse effects and smog? Fearful that we'll someday run out of oil? Rhode Island's eco-conscious, your day has come.

Environmentalists have long offered the benefits of compressed natural gas vehicles as a solution to all of these problems. The engines burn immaculately clean. Vehicles powered by CNG produce only 10 percent of the carbon monoxide and particle discharge of gasoline-powered engines, and half the nitrogen oxides. Carbon dioxide discharge is reduced by 30 to 40 percent.

The fuel, which is primarily methane, is cheaper than gasoline -- at T.F. Green, the natural gas will retail for $2.69 for the equivalent of one gallon -- and natural gas-powered cars get better mileage.