May 2018: Narrabri is the proposed location of a highly controversial coal seam gas proposal by Santos, but research reveals that in comparison to Santos’ gasfield, renewable energy could deliver more numerous and more lasting jobs.

This groundbreaking research was undertaken by the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney.

May 2018: Proposed legislative reforms governing mine rehabilitation in Queensland have the potential to stimulate billions of dollars in additional economic activity in Central Queensland and beyond.

A new report shows that forcing mining companies to rehabilitate their mine sites could create at least 4,000 new jobs in north and central Queensland.

Read and download the full report here.

New coal plans for NSW are larger than Adani's monstrous Queensland mine.

There are now 11 contested new coal projects proposed in New South Wales. These developments will mine more coal and take up more land and water than Adani’s controversial coal mine in Central Queensland.

Read more about the combined impact of the 11 coal mines proposed for NSW here.

The main chemical component of coal seam gas (CSG) is methane. Methane is also a powerful greenhouse gas. As a chemical, methane is odourless, colourless, and invisible to the naked eye.

These characteristics mean that methane released during industry gasfield operations can be readily overlooked, ignored, or hidden. This report describes video recording methane emissions in the Queensland CSG fields using a FLIR GF-­‐320 infrared video camera.

Download the Report Here.

A new report released today by the Australian-German Climate and Energy College debunks the myth of a gas shortage in Australia and reveals that renewable energy and storage is cheaper than gas.

This research finds that although a although a “gas-price crisis” exists in eastern-Australia, a gas-supply shortfall is very unlikely to occur. It also finds that the former gas “buyer’s market” that prevailed in eastern-Australia has shifted to become a “seller’s market”. 

Download the full report here.

Will the Adani Carmichael Coal mine meet mining industry rehabilitation standards?

The Carmichael coal mine will have a disturbance footprint of 28,000 hectares, permanently altering the landscape, leaving behind extensive waste dumps that are at risk of failing in the long term alongside final voids that are predicted to drain adjoining groundwater permanently.

This research note assesses the proposed rehabilitation strategies for the Adani mine.

Toxic Time-Bomb or Employment Opportunity?

Queensland has 15,300 abandoned mines. 317 of these are classified as giant, very large or large, and many are having serious environmental and human health impacts locally. The number of abandoned mines continues to grow.

This report looks at the issue of abandoned mines in Queensland and recommends ways to deal with this issue.

Mine Rehabilitation and Closure Cost: A Hidden Business Risk

The accuracy of mine closure and rehabilitation liabilities can have a material impact on the valuation of a mining company. Closing the current generation of very large open pit operations across various commodities will certainly be in the order of hundreds of millions and in many cases be in excess of a billion dollars for a single asset.

Read the full report here.

Lock the Gate Alliance has released a report which calculates that NSW taxpayers are losing out on $14M each year because the coal mining industry is allowed to pollute for free.

The report – titled ‘Freeloaders: Air and Water Pollution from Coal Mines in NSW’ - is the first ever to compare the total pollution discharged by coal miners for free with the costs borne by other industries who are forced to pay under the NSW load-based licensing scheme.

A new report by the University of Queensland has found the koala population of the Ipswich region is a significant population for the conservation of this species in Australia.

The report found that the Ipswich region is home to an estimated population of up to 4,368 koalas.

The report was launched with the support of Taz, the koala detection dog who was part of a community koala survey in the area late last year.

Taz is an English springer spaniel, who was specially-trained to detect koala scat that were later analysed by scientists to determine the age, gender, health and genetic diversity of koalas.