Lauren Dillon has missed out on a lot over the past 18 months.
School retreats, study for exams, the opportunity to make lifelong memories.
That's because the 17-year-old high school student has been making every effort to attend protests, write letters, and educate her peers about the risks she sees in a proposal to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Corio Bay in Geelong's north.
It's not something she enjoys.
"I think it's utterly devastating that we even have to come out and protest this," Lauren said.
"It's so disappointing as a young person because I'm putting my future on the line so I can come to these things. I have to give up so many of those small moments to make sure my voice is heard."
Through tears, she explained how her fight for the environment led to her decision to never have children.
But with a looming gas shortage hanging over Australia's south-east, and looking particularly dark for Victoria, the terminal may be the only option available to secure energy.
Project could ease Victoria's 'tricky situation' on gas supply
The LNG terminal was proposed by Viva Energy in 2020. The company owns Shell and Liberty petrol stations and has operated an oil refinery in Corio Bay for almost 70 years.
It would see LNG transported to Corio Bay by sea and transferred to a floating storage unit permanently docked at the refinery that would turn it back into a gas.
The $250 million project would involve building the floating terminal, extending the existing refinery pier by 570 metres, building a 7km pipeline and dredging part of the bay.
The project would be just over a kilometre from internationally recognised Ramsar wetlands.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has warned Australia's south-eastern states could face a gas shortage during peak-demand winter days as early as 2023 as offshore reserves in the Gippsland basin start to run out.
A Viva spokesman said moving towards a low-carbon economy was "a transition, not a switch" and the terminal was essential to ensuring energy security in Australia's south-east — particularly for Victorians who are the largest consumers of gas in Australia — but reiterated the company would not pursue a permit for the project unless it could prove the terminal could operate safely.
Energy program director at the Grattan Institute, Tony Wood, said a gas shortage was not certain but likely, and a floating terminal was the best opportunity for Victoria to "find its way through what could be quite a tricky situation".
Community push to draw a line in the sand on non-renewable energy
But it's a solution many Geelong high school students see as unacceptable.
"They are saying to us this is a temporary gas terminal, it's temporary, temporary, temporary. A million temporary things become one, long-term permanent thing," Geelong Grammar student Millie Forwood said.
"If we're constantly just saying 'it's just for now, it's just for now', when will we stop saying that?
Millie is one of more than 2,000 people and organisations to make submissions to the proposal after Viva released its environmental effects statement.
"You get to a point when the limit has been reached and we need to turn around and say it's time to start going renewable because this is what the future relies on," Millie said.
Others included Doctors for the Environment Victoria, the Victorian branch of the Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Geelong Port, Ports Victoria, and numerous residents who have cited safety concerns, environmental damage to the bay's flora and fauna and the project's incompatibility with the goal of reaching net-zero as main concerns.
Geelong Port, which owns some of the infrastructure Viva would need to use for the terminal and will soon welcome visitors from the Spirit of Tasmania to the port, said in its 16-page submission the environmental effects statement was "materially deficient".
Safety concerns include fears the pipeline could leak or an accident could occur at the terminal, causing an explosion.
Viva's spokesman said LNG had a long track record of being safely transported around the world and the company was working alongside federal and state regulators to ensure all regulatory and licensing requirements, including for WorkSafe, Energy Safe Victoria, and Ports Victoria, were met.
In its environmental effects statement, Viva said the Ramsar wetlands site "would not be directly impacted by the project" because no infrastructure would be located in or near the wetland and noise and light were "found to have no adverse impacts on Ramsar values".
Project is 'betting against Victoria achieving' climate goals
Earlier this year, Viva was also accused of using an accounting trick to reduce its estimated emissions associated with the project.
Viva put the number at almost 48,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year if it used seawater to heat the LNG to turn it back into a gas.
But Environment Victoria chief executive Jono La Nauze said energy company AGL's failed bid for a gas import terminal at Westernport, used similar technology and estimated its emissions would be almost 450,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.
Mr La Nauze said the difference came from Viva not including the emissions from ships when the LNG was transported to Victoria.
"This project assumes that Victoria will keep burning gas at very high rates all the way through to 2040, they're essentially betting against Victoria achieving its ambitious climate goals," he said.
In response, a Viva Energy spokesperson said transportation emissions were "outside the scope" of the environmental effects statement, but it had been transparent about the fact that transportation emissions could range from 165,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent to 553,400 tonnes, depending on whether the gas was sourced from Australia or Qatar.
The spokesperson also said the project was different to Crib Point as a terminal user, not Viva Energy, would ultimately choose where the gas imported to the hub came from.
"The Viva Energy business model is similar to that of the Port Kembla proposal and it should be noted that the environmental assessment (EIS) for Port Kembla excluded all Scope 3 emissions from its assessment," they said.
For now, 17-year-old Lauren Dillon is watching and waiting as an expert panel spends the next few months combing through the thousands of submissions and listens to anyone and everyone who wants to present their case of the proposal.
"I want to make sure we aren't being swept under the rug, because we're not just another number, we're people and we are all going to be impacted by this," she said.
Victoria's Planning Minister Richard Wynne is expected to make a decision on the terminal later this year.
