Fraccing Onshore Australia

Abstract

Recent history has seen major inquiries in the Senate and under the control of several State and Territory Governments where one aspect involved the oil exploration technique of fraccing. Each and every inquiry has concluded that the technique is safe for the purposes of petroleum extraction, subject to appropriate scientific and technical regulation over the activity. The paper covers the more significant negative submissions made to those inquiries by a range of providers and then explains why those submissions lack scientific and technical support. Our conclusion can only be that it is time for political intervention with science to be abandoned for the long term benefit of Australia and its energy requirements, not only on the east coast. Each of these inquiries has focused its attention to onshore petroleum activities, but the technique is also commonly used offshore in tight sands and shales. The paper will include a brief section to define what fraccing is and how the activity has been applied onshore Australia, rather than as applied to the massive fraccs in the major shale basins in the USA. Submissions have been made by groups such as Lock the Gate, elements of the green movement in Australia, doctors and farmers. Few of these submissions have been founded on sound scientific principles, but that does not make them any less interesting or politically powerful.