Coal Seam Gas - SBS "Insight" Programme tonight, page-16

With respec to Hydraulic fracking, my view on it is as follows;

- Too much disinformation around about Hydraulic fracking
- People fail to understand that in some situations fracking is used when water bores are drilled.
- Fracking, the process employed and the engineering applied is specialised. It needs to be designed for the actual local geology and conditions.
- Thus any Fracking should be regulated through an approval process to ensure the solutions are tailored to the local environment to protect the environment.
- I seem to be proven time and again that I can't trust the government to manage or regulate anything, let alone act in a fair and reasonable manner without predudice to favouring the larger corporations.

Under these circumstances I would prefer to have no fracking and utilise our conventional reserves until we come up with a process of design, Independant review and regulation can be developed and put into play.

At the end of the day we only have one planet ant it's protection needs to be taken into account to ensure we apply sustainable solutions.

I believe that gas as a fuel is a part of our journey to renewable energy, however we seem to b living in a world of extreme views where people want all or nothing.

While I love the idea of renewable energy, I do have a question for our government re solar panels, given these panels have a 10 to 20 year life, what is the plan for recycling all of these panels from the solar farms and houses all over the country?

My point us that we need a government that is looking to the future beyond the next election, we need visionary leaders that are able to set future goals and not be unduly influenced by large corporations or special interest groups. In short we need long term goals with associated plans and leaders with the intestinal fortitude to hold the course. Unfortunately we live in a world that is sadly lacking all of the above.

Given the above I prefer to have a conservative approach to fracking.

Hope this diatribe explains my point of view, beyond this let's hope that conventional gas exploration gets the Go ahead and that Lakes oil can provide sustainable gas in the short to mid term while we get our crap together for the greater goals of the future!

Cheers

Bartag