Stop The Southern Blast Paddle Out
Tomorrow at midday there'll be a public paddle out to oppose the coming seismic blasting in the Southern Ocean.
As the government softens up the public, reporting 'gas shortages' that necessitate more exploration and drilling, a different picture tells the real story.
Any gas shortage felt by Australia is artificially induced, foisted upon Australians by politicians who signed the greater share of it for export. See below: domestic consumption in blue, exports in orange.
Australians aren't short of gas, we have an excess of it. There is no existential need to further blast and drill the Southern Ocean.
From Surfrider Foundation:
Seismic blasts displace, injure, and kill marine life. The blasts kill zooplankton over a kilometre away, and damage the sensory organs of marine animals, especially whales and dolphins who rely on hearing for survival. TGS wants to blast critical habitat for whales, including protected sanctuaries for blue whales, southern right whales, and their calves.
The proposal blasting area threatens both the offshore and coastal environment and includes two Commonwealth Marine Parks, containing globally significant values, and rare and unique species.
The following is also from Surfrider Foundation:
Lets make some noise that Canberra can hear! Tomorrow Saturday 23rd at Cosy Corner / Front Beach Torquay opposite Price Street, arrive 11.30 for 12 Noon start.
Bring your board or anything that floats or take part on the beach in the whale tail sand art and human outline to be seen from the air. All welcome, this is for swimmers, divers, fishers, surfers, anyone that loves our oceans and beaches! It will be a spectacular event that will be amazing to be a part of!
It may be difficult to get a park so consider carpooling and allow time for a bit of a walk.
Also please register for free
Comments
For us that can't make it is there a petition to sign?
Thanks for posting this up Swellnet
should be huge !!
Good stuff.
SN might be worth popping a date next to the headline of the story.
Thank you Swellnet for this article. Great!
This is such a serious issue!
Power to the demonstrators and caring souls who STAND UP! for the environment and all its inhabitants!
Saying No! to the the Govt’ reps, vested institutional bodies and for them to back off from this destruction that inflicts harm and kills a beautiful intact and pristine environment.
If possible, get there people if you can, sign the petition, write letters, state your disgust on this obscene and opportunistic practice which has implications and will cost an innocent ecosystem dearly!
The whales hearing can be damaged to an unbearable level that leaves them without natural directional sense, dolphins too, fish, rays, turtles, lobsters, sea grasses poisoned, the whole f..king lot will be compromised!
This madness, this stupidity must be stopped!
There are all sorts of rules for recreational boats around whales turtles and dolphins ...But its acceptable to seismic blast ! What a pack of hippocritical money hungry mthrfkrs we have become ...The lonely little family run fishing buisness is getting bueracrated blamed and run out of town while we import seafood from over fished un managed countrys the governments encourage seafood farming , minning , and coastal development ruining water quality as long as they get a slap back ...Even the huge increase in shipping threw the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has a huge acoustic impact thats never discussed . But seismic blasting has to be one of the most horrible things you could do ..We have created an economy thats dependent on minning the governments are fkd with out the royalties and particually the income tax they rake out of it ...As the article says we have plenty of gas the government just sold the shit out from under us ..In Gladstone gas development the dredging to get the Gas boats in fkd the joint fish with sores all over them couldnt eat any seafood caught in the area .The commercial Saucer Scollop fishery of Gladstone has been shut down under the pretense of over fishing even thow there is very little fishing effort so we lose a viable sustainable industry to sell gas to overseas companies for fkall gain !
But its all good as long we can do 2 weeks on and 2 weeks of to pay for the new bar crusher in the drive way ..
hell yeah, stand up and fight vicco
abc news
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-07/oil-and-gas-survey-permit-moves-t...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-03-23/protestors-opposed-to-seismic-tes...
https://www.marineconservation.org.au/slbseismic/
With all due respect, but the gas domestic situation in Australia is a lot more complicated than what that graph above shows. The "gas for export" part of the chart is from the Curtis Island LNG operations that started in 2015. This project was so big that it propelled Australia to the number LNG exporter globally so it came with a big price tag of USD$70 billion. There is no chance in hell you can get financing for a project of that scale unless you get super long supply agreements (10+ years). Because Australia barely has any industry, only export nations can offer contracts for that duration. Therefore, the LNG operations were funded by export nations.
That being said, Curtis Island gas is still connected with the domestic gas pipeline and can transfer gas to and from its terminals. However, these flows are quite low and are not causing the domestic gas shortages. The domestic gas shortage is due to the the Gippsland gas production falling which has been expected for years. The Gippsland Basin has been providing gas to most of Eastern Australia for over 50 years and so it's predictably passed it's plateau stage and production is now waning.
It was actually the increased flow from Queensland last year that helped out NSW, VIC and SA during winter when gas demand was highest. But something is eventually going to give because there's only limited gas pipeline capacity from Queensland going south.
Now add to the fact that we have nothing in the gas development pipeline. There are resources out there ready to be developed but they get delayed year after year due to activist legal warfare tactics (look into Santos' Narrabri project).
Make of what I said as you will. Maybe you don't care about the export agreements that foreign nations have with the Curtis Island LNG operators. But it should be noted that the only reason Curtis Island gas was developed was because of those nations. Furthermore, breaking those contracts significantly increases Australia's sovereign risk which is something rarely mentioned for developed nations. Lastly, we don't even have the pipeline capacity to deal with the expected East Coast gas shortfall if you wanted to divert as much Curtis Island gas as you wanted.
That is a croc of shit. We will now be importing gas from those countries that purchase Curtis Island LNG. The Eastern Gas Pipeline carries gas to the east coast from South Australia. There is no excuse for Australia having to import gas or rely on coal seam gas except of course of that of our duplicitous elected officials. Australia a democracy? Horseshit.
No one wanted to be the in the position where we have to import LNG. We're here because domestic gas supplies are not being opened up because of government intervention (Vic amending their state constitution to enshrine a permanent ban on fracking and coal seam gas exploration) or activist legal warfare (Santos' Narrabri).
In other words, the shortfall in domestic gas supplies is not because of Curtis Island LNG operations. Queensland has actually been a net exporter of gas to the southern states. Therefore, it isn't correct to look at the graph above and to think that all this gas is being taken from Aussies and sent overseas.
Just so you know, LNG importing is being seriously considered because a maritime route is cheaper than a pipeline when you have to cover huge distances (Curtis Island to Melbourne). We wouldn't be in this position if we opened up more gas reserves in the southern states. They exist and the gas industry has been vocal for years that the Gippsland Basin supply is going to drop hard.
Also, the Eastern Gas Pipeline sends gas from Vic to NSW - not what you stated.
As there IS so much Gas north , of the Southern Ocean , we can ban it .
Wind Turbines were just banned from most of the area , a few months ago .
But , we are also Banning Gas exploration in our Northern Waters and On Australian Land .
Gosh , the Chinese and Japanese were smart 2 fund Gladstone .
It took them Years 2 get approval , as the Gas is Fracked from shallow , Coal Beds .
It's really Clean Gas and is in High Demand in Asia .
Its now , Pumping out the gas ( as agreed in the Off Take Agreements ) and the Great Barrier Reef was recorded last year , as being in its Best Ever condition .
Funny that .
I will sign a Petition to Ban Seismic EXPLOSIONS ( lol, more like a sonic pulse :) in ONLY , our Southern Ocean .
I wish there was a petition , 2 start exploring for Gas , in our North .
Otherwise , We won't have any gas 4 ourselves and will have to buy it from Overseas , or use Diesel as a replacement .
While its right underneath us , really crazy eh !
Or , just have Electricity prices , keep rising .
There is no such thing as clean gas
Er Hydrogen zero emissions.
Search up all the different hydrogen colours.
Gas produced above ground.
Most of the developing world is living of bio gas from their animals.
If carbon dioxide is so dangerous, maybe we can all practice holding our breath.
Australia exports more gas than is supplied domestically, yet we are being duped into believing there exists a gas shortage. In response, coal seam gas and would you believe it importing gas (Fortescue Metals is currently constructing a gas import terminal at Port Kembla), and now east coast offshore drilling are the answer. A gas reservation policy as in WA has been shouted down. We are a foolish silent nation allowing control of public resources to be handed to the gas oligarchs and 'their elected' plutarchs in both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party.
You have got it right. If the Gas titans were taxed correctly we would be one of the richest nations on earth, then the average Australian, would not have to bee hunted down to pay tax burden---Look at Norway and Qatar how citizens are taxed.
The lack of author on the first part of this article is glaring. Who's opinion are we meant be accepting here? Or is it, "just trust us bro, its bad, you'd better support it or you're part of the problem".
Yep let's turn up wearing fossil fuel suits, on boards made from fossil fuel foam, wrapped in fossil fuel resin with a, you guessed it, fossil fuel leggy keeping it all together. Then, afterwards when we've rinsed our wetsuits off with our gas-powered portable showers in our fossil fuel flexi-tubs, over beer we can bitch about how expensive Patagonia's Yulex wetsuits are.
And certainly don't travel to the event in your fossil fuel cars! Leave your bike at home also. Unless you can ride without tyres and a seat. Perhaps walk to the event. But not in your fossil fuel thongs. Geez we are very depended on this. Good luck regardless at the protest!!
I got my popcorn and settled in for the standard swellnet environmental opinion fireworks and so far a little underwhelming. All we have is a reasonable explanation of the east coast gas market, a question about who wrote it and a plea to save the whales hearing. TBB hasn’t even weighed in.
I work as Hydrographic Surveyor in the offshore oil and gas industry for the past 20 years in all facets of field development, except seismic surveys. I work in seabed mapping and subsea construction using high freq low power sonar tech mainly, so don't have alot of direct experience in seismic. Although every bit of hydrocarbon that has been extracted out of the ground has used seismic surveys (high power low frequency sound blasts/pulses), (and including what everyone uses day to day in the lifestyle they've been accustomed to) there is little known about the effects this has on the marine environment.
Proponents against the seismic surveying taking place say alot to how bad it is without the data to support the claims. I'm not for or against it at this point because I don't have the info to hand yet. I get asked this question alot about how bad is it, but I have no access to scientific data to support claims either way whether it's harmful or not. To be honest I haven't dug deep into this issue so if anyone has some scientific publications at the ready I'd be interested to cover them.
I'll put up here what I find as I'll start seeing what the Australian Marine Conservation Society has on their website and take it from there. Good discussion point and an important one, because it's not just Australian ecosystems at risk but global.
Heres a start https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2907.2007.00104.x
Responses of cetaceans to anthropogenic noise
DOUGLAS P. NOWACEK, LESLEY H. THORNE, DAVID W. JOHNSTON, PETER L. TYACK
First published: 12 June 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2907.2007.00104.xCitations: 402
Plus there is...I don't know but a fu$%ken lot of studies (402 I just read) in the references at the bottom of the page...keep hitting the 'see more' button and then another 100 studies appear. This happens about 4 times. Will take time to go thru them all but it's something.
And saying that, this is a one time, short term activity so it needs to be a risk benefit analysis and see if the damage is worth the pay off. I mean the marine life might be impacted for a short term but then recover shortly thereafter back to back ground levels...we don't know this and how to measure it would be crucial in settling this debate.