Carbon footprint management of unconventional natural gas development in the export scenario

Abstract

In Australia, exploitation of shale gas is at an early stage. Western Australia has estimated its technically recoverable gas resources at 235 trillion cubic feet (tcf). It is viewed as an exciting economic prospect and decarbonising option for transition to climate change mitigation. The central focus of this paper is to estimate the climate impacts of Australian shale gas fracking and compare with other energy sources. Electricity generation has been considered as end use of gas in export scenarios to Japan and China. Analysis has been done for resource development periods of 20 and 40 years. Carbon footprints of shale gas range from 604MtCO2e to 543 MtCO2e per annum for China and Japan export cases, respectively, for 20 years field lifetime, if 66 tcf of shale gas is exploited and used. This result is roughly equivalent to 115% of Australia's total national emissions for the year 2014. If all technically recoverable shale gas (235tcf) from the Canning Basin in the Kimberley is exploited and exported to China and Japan over 40 years, the annual emissions are double the total Australian national emissions. The result suggests that shale gas has low carbon intensity compared to coal and oil but solar PV and wind are much cleaner energy options for GHG mitigation. The solar PV and wind electricity would produce 8% and 5% of the shale gas electricity emissions, respectively. Unless accompanied by stringent regulation and compliance on the upstream resource development, stage shale gas cannot be an appropriate energy source for sustainable development as opposed to renewable energy sources.