So, what's all the fracking fuss about anyway?  

Western Australia has one of the world's largest reserves of gas trapped in rock deep below ground. The problem is, over 100,000 individual fracking wells would be required to extract this gas.

Hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking', is a new onshore gas extraction technique that involves drilling pipes beneath the earth, then pumping vast volumes of chemicals, sand, and water at high-pressure to crack them to release the trapped gas.

The term 'fracking', whether for shale, tight, or coal seam gas (CSG), has become synonymous with land degradation, air pollution, climate change, chronic health problems, social agitation, and contaminated and depleted water resources. 

Public opposition has been fuelled by a growing awareness of both the scientific case against the industry, and of the impacts on communities when the gas companies move in. Though little more than a dozen sites have been fracked so far in WA, we’ve already seen serious leaks and other mishaps in the Kimberley, Mid West, and South West.

News continues to spread of the appalling impact the industry has had in the eastern states and overseas. As a result, a growing number of governments have banned unconventional gas extraction and fracking because of the risks and impacts on public health, the economy, and the environment. 

Western Australians now have a huge decision to make. Will we allow this industry to tear apart our beautiful country, or will we say, "Frack Off!" to this industry and demand a Frack Free Future for Western Australia?

EXPOSED: Oil and Gas Veteran Reveals the Dirty Tricks That Made Him Quit the Industry

Posted by Katherine Neaves · March 09, 2017 11:01 PM

Where do they stand on fracking?

Posted by Katherine Neaves · March 07, 2017 3:42 PM

Alinta, AWE and The West Australian

Posted by brett glossop · November 10, 2016 4:56 PM

Good news friends – our campaign asking Alinta Energy to ditch its contract with fracking company AWE has been picked up by The West – you can read the article here.

The article’s not short on bloopers, not least confusing Frack Free Future (that’s us) with ‘Frack Free WA’ (another group’s Facebook page, not even the name of an actual organisation!), but it’s great to get that widespread coverage. Especially given The West is somewhat reluctant to publish stories on fracking lately.

Alinta is quoted in the article, and has also been responding to people on Facebook. Unsurprisingly, WA’s main gas supplier is being a little cute with the truth.

Here’s two misleading things Alinta is saying in response to our campaign:

Labor leader Mark McGowan has announced plans to ban fracking in the South West of WA if his party wins the State election in March next year. 

Concerned citizens and members of the Frack Free Future alliance gathered outside the Hyatt Hotel in Perth to protest against the WA Government’s support for the unconventional gas and fracking industry.

So the State of Victoria has just banned fracking and other forms of onshore unconventional gas extraction [1].

Oh wow. How great is that? Answer: very, very great indeed. I’m stoked. If you care about food and farming, safe water supplies, human physical and mental health, the environment, climate change, this whole beautiful world of ours…. you’ll be stoked too.

Seriously, this is great. Well done to the farmers, the wine-makers, the unions and faith groups, the environmentalists and business owners, academics, politicians, traditional owners and everyone who’s worked so hard for a frack free future in Victoria.

It’s people power that’s delivered the ban in Victoria, just as it made the fight against the fracking such a key determinative issue in the Northern Territory election.

NT Labor stomped home on a commitment to a moratorium on fracking in the territory, ahead of a potential ban there too. There were other factors too for sure, but Adam Giles’s outgoing CLP party paid heavily for its unremitting support for the gas industry [2].

Yep, it’s people power, backed up by a growing body of evidence, especially from the US where fracking’s been going on longer, that shows the real impacts this dangerous and accident prone industry has on health, water quality and the environment.

Just last week health researchers in Pennsylvania, US, released further evidence of a link between shale gas fracking and human health impacts, including birth defects, asthma and migraines [3]. Shale fracking in Pennsylvania is similar to what we could see across much of WA. 

So now it’s all eyes on WA – just six months to go to the March 2017 State Election. 

It’s never long before fans of fracking point to climate change and claim it can only be tackled by replacing dirty old coal with new gas. They say they’re in favour of renewable energy but it’s growing too slowly to help us now, so gas is a 'necessary' stopgap. 

This is the argument that gas is a ‘transition fuel’ en route to the low carbon economy of renewables and energy efficiency. Predictably enough it’s a line the gas industry just loves. To be fair, it’s also what plenty of reasonable people, including a lot of greenies, spent the past decade or two repeating. If you thought that too you were in good company. But times change eh? We live, we learn. 

Here are three reasons why the ‘transition fuel’ argument for new gas is well past retirement age.

First up, the age of renewables and energy efficiency has arrived. We’re in it. Now.

Portugal recently went 4 days powering its grid entirely on renewables, Germany very nearly achieving the same [1]. The G20 club of richest economies sourced 70 per cent more power from Renewables in 2015 than 2010 [2]. Of those, Germany’s secured more than a third while the UK, France, Italy and the EU as a whole provided for a fifth of their electricity from green sources. 

As the Renewables industry takes off the cost of solar power and wind energy has plummeted, and continues to tumble, all over the world. Meanwhile we’re getting more and more efficient with how we use energy, the most obvious example being the roll-out of ultra-low energy LED lighting. The greening of the global grid is happening at such a pace that it’s destroying what was once seen as an insatiable and ever-growing global market for gas and coal. 

The penny appears to be dropping for Liberal and National MPs on the serious risks posed by fracking in Western Australia.

A rancher from Wyoming in the United States whose life and livelihood have been severely disrupted by fracking for tight gas has spoken at a series of public meetings in Perth and the Mid-West between April 20 to 24.