Unconventional Gas and Social Licence: Locking the Gate?

Abstract

The gas industry worldwide is flourishing, with gas shaping up as the new century’s energy gold rush. Viewed as less emissions-intensive than coal — although this is vigorously contested — gas is staking its claim as the cleaner transition fuel of choice. The International Energy Agency (IEA, 2012, 2013) reports that we are in the midst of a ‘golden age of gas’, with gas predicted to overtake coal to provide a 25 per cent share of the global energy mix by 2035. This would make it second only to oil (IEA, 2012: 10). Conventional gas resources such as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) have been stepped up to meet the rapidly increasing energy demands of nations and consumers across the globe, particularly the markets of China and India. But it is the newly emergent unconventional gas industry that is experiencing some of the most stellar growth. This is particularly so in the United States, but many other countries are also undergoing unprecedented expansion of their unconventional gas resources. With recent technological innovations such as horizontal drilling facilitating access, the IEA estimates that technically recoverable unconventional gas reserves worldwide are approaching size equivalence to available conventional ones. In the United States, the shale gas boom is expected to provide over half of its domestic supplies of gas in 20 years. Australia too is experiencing its own unconventional gas boom, especially in the states of Queensland (QLD) and New South Wales (NSW). While not of the scale of its counterpart in the United States, the unconventional gas industry in Australia has gone from relative obscurity just a few years ago to assume a burgeoning status today.