The Juice Media Take On Woodside, Er, WA Government

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The Juice Media team are back, this time with a video tackling the controversial Burrup Hub oil/gas project in Western Australia. Funny, disturbing, brutal and definitely NSFW.

What Is The Burrup Hub?

According to Energy Information Australia, which claims to provide “factual, evidence-based information about Australia’s oil and gas exploration and production industry”¹, Burrup Hub is a group of projects to extend the life of existing Woodside-operated facilities on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, and will create new energy sources.

The “fact sheet” is pretty light on information. It mentions bringing gas from the Scarborough and Browse fields to facilities on the mainland, expansion of Pluto LNG and a couple of other elements.

The document claims Burrup Hub will provide an average of 4,000 jobs per year over a 40-year period, and of course there’s effective consultation with community, Traditional Owners and other stakeholders claimed to be happening.

Australia’s Most Polluting Project Ever?

The document also mentions the use of “efficient solutions and renewable technologies to limit emissions.”

Just on those emissions – in 2020, the Conservation Council of Western Australia released a report claiming Burrup Hub would have a total carbon equivalent footprint of around 6 *billion* tonnes over its 50-year life.

In that report, the CCWA also claimed Burrup Hub would:

• Be the most polluting project ever to be developed in Australia.
• Be in direct breach of Australia’s commitments on climate change.
• See more than 50 wells drilled to extract oil and gas from beneath the pristine Scott Reef off the Kimberley coast.
• Risk health impacts for local communities and workers.
• Cause permanent damage to the world’s most extensive collection of Aboriginal rock art.
• Open up Western Australia to a large scale fracking and onshore gas industry.
• Deliver few benefits, while transferring billions of dollars of costs to West Australians.

The full CCWA report can be accessed here.

Burrup Hub Status

If you haven’t heard much about Burrup Hub recently, that’s probably by design. Use of the term “Burrup Hub” was reportedly dropped by Woodside last year. 

“Since then, Woodside has preferred to break up the larger project into chunks when speaking to the public, without making clear that these pieces are interlinked,” says climate justice activist Gerard Mazza. “It’s attempted to avoid scrutiny of its plans which, when considered together, would make Australia’s meagre climate targets difficult to meet and threaten the Murujuga rock art through chemical emissions.”

Back in July, the WA EPA approved an extension of Woodside’s interconnected North West Shelf / Karratha Gas Plant, including the Browse Basin gas fields, until 2070. Construction commenced in September on Woodside’s Pluto/Scarborough project and the adjoining Perdaman fertiliser plant to be fed by Scarborough gas, both of which are key developments of the project.

But also in September, a full cultural heritage assessment of industrial impacts from the ‘Burrup Hub’ on sacred Murujuga rock art was announced. That investigation will report to Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.

Over the last 6 years, The Juice Media has released a bunch of “Honest Government Ads”, all of which can be found here.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/woodside-burrup-hub-video-mb2706/