YouTube - Senator Brown visits James Price Point

LNG will cause massive expansion in greenhouse gas emissions

Media Release | Spokesperson Scott Ludlam

Wednesday 27th October 2010, 4:10pm

The Australian Greens say that all new highly polluting liquefied natural gas projects must be forced to sequester their greenhouse gas emissions, as new figures reveal a massive expansion in Australian greenhouse gas emissions within six years if all proposed new LNG projects go ahead.

After raising the issue in Senate Question Time today (WED 27/10), Western Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam dismissed the Government’s vague acknowledgement of the massive blowout.

“Most people would be horrified if they knew that rather than curbing our greenhouse gas emissions, new projects being promoted by the WA and Federal governments will cause Western Australia’s total emissions to double – and add significantly to our national emissions profile,” Greens Senator for WA Scott Ludlam said.

“WA’s annual greenhouse gas emissions are around 80mtpa now; if all the new gas and coal projects proposed in WA go ahead, by 2016, WA will emit more than double that each year.

“About 60mtpa extra emissions will come from major new gas developments targeting the liquefied natural gas export market, including Browse Basin, proposed to be processed at James Price Point in the Kimberley.

YouTube - Senator Brown visits James Price Point

The proposed James Price Point hub, to process Browse gas, will alone emit an extraordinary 32 million tonnes a year of greenhouse gases – equivalent to five per cent of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions now, or all of New Zealand’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions,” Senator Ludlam said.

“The companies behind these gas projects claim that gas is a clean energy, but they don’t talk about the massive emissions that are caused when gas from high-CO2 gas fields is processed and that CO2 is stripped out and vented to the atmosphere,” Senator Ludlam continued.

“Much attention has been given to plans to geo-sequester CO2 from the Gorgon venture into the rock beneath Barrow Island – yet less than 40 per cent of Gorgon’s annual greenhouse gas emissions is proposed to be sequestered.

“Worse, under an appalling arrangement quietly signed off by the Federal Government and Premier Barnett in August 2009, Federal and State and taxpayers have been made liable for the potential multi-billion dollar cost if the CO2 leaks out.

“Geo-sequestration has not been proven to be achievable, safe or cost-effective.

“The Greens say that all new polluting coal and gas projects must not go ahead until carbon capture and storage is proven to be effective and safe and can therefore be made a binding condition on projects going ahead. In addition, the owners of these projects, not taxpayers, must be made legally liable for any future pollution costs should the CO2 leak.”