I haven't yet watched the video, and whilst I haven't cycle-toured in the area, I have travelled up there extensively. Disclosure: I'm a (currently) retired geologist and mining consultant, mostly in the coal industry, although I have never worked in the coal seam gas (coal bed methane) industry.
This is a complex topic that has been made toxic by emotive protests and media for many years. Beware of the manipulative nature of many of these films. They are not prepared to present a balanced perspective of the topic.
Having said that, I know enough about CSG to know:
1) It is highly intrusive on the surface. The large networks of wells required in a commercial field, including roads, pipelines (for water and gas), powerlines, massive evaporation ponds, etc. changes life for farmers and stockmen, and makes traditional land uses harder to undertake. (It also can increase their wealth dramatically, and gives jobs in communities which were collapsing previously.)
2) It CAN be produced with minimal pollution. The technology to do so is developed and quite robust. However, the impacts of getting it wrong can be quite harmful to the local environment, and occasionally have a wider effect. My concern has always been with the scale of these commercial projects. When you're drilling 60,000 wells over SE Queensland in the coming years, plus many km of roads, pipes, cables, etc., you WILL get some things wrong. These mistakes are almost always remediable, but at a cost in dollars and time.
3) CSG (CBM) needs very specific geological conditions to be successful, so there's a limit to where it will be attempted.
I can't address the topic in sufficient detail in this forum, but suffice to say that this debate itself has become toxic here in NSW especially, and has sent the pollies running for cover (essentially ruining the chances of any large scale CSG venture being approved. This is precisely what the provocateurs are trying to achieve!)
Say what you like about the burning of fossil fuels (whole 'nother conversation), but I have mined millions of tonnes of coal from under the feet of farmers and suburbanites who never even knew I was there. CSG is very different.
