NSW Veggie Farm to Tap CSG as Energy Source for New Production Facility

The Maria's Farm Vegetables in New South Wales will use coal seam gas (CSG) to power a $65-million glasshouse it would build near Fullerton Cover.

The farm tapped CSG miner Dart Energy to provide it with the gas through a memorandum of understanding the two companies signed. The glasshouse will be used for raising tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers and other veggies.

Maria's timetable is to complete the project in early 2013. Dart will source the CSG from gas wells in the region to provide heat and electricity to the glasshouse. The water that will be produced by Dart in its CSG operations will be used through a reverse osmosis plant and will be re-used in the glasshouse.

Besides the 16-hectare glasshouse which is expected to generate 125 to 200 jobs, the farm includes a 4,000 square metre-propagation facility, water storage and treatment facilities and provisions for carbon dioxide sequestration by the vegetable crops.

The use of CSG by the farm is a proof that CSG and agriculture could co-exist. It was the same message that Arrow Energy Chief Executive Andrew Faulkner told the International Gas Symposium in Brisbane on Wednesday.

"I don't think it is an either-or.... Over the past decade, and in many cases even longer, there is demonstrable evidence of the success of coexistence," The Australian quoted Mr Faulkner.

About $45 billion is being invested in the booming CSG industry in Australia, mainly in Queensland in a bid to address the expected 40 per cent hike in global demand for unconventional gas by 2035. About one third of the demand is expected to come from China and another third from Europe.