Antinuclear

Australia’s controversial coal seam gas industry faces a deeply uncertain future. Environment editor Sandi Keane provides the full picture.

RISING GAS PRICES, the pitched battle over CSG between farmers and miners, the US threat to LNG’s $13.2 billionexport bonanza – are all set to spill over into the Federal election campaign. The Greens and Bob Katter are looking to capitalise.

The CSG industry’s hope of rivalling Qatar as the world’s biggest exporter of LNG could be snookered on a couple of fronts — the twin threat to Australia’s competitiveness in the face of a glut of natural gas from the US and the failure to overcome bitter resistance from farmers in key CSG tenements.

Thanks to world-leading extraction technology, oil and gas from the US’s massive shale reserves may see it regain its former “energy super power” title according to…