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Canadians Plan Robot Sub Missions To Aid Claim For Arctic
jbpisio writes with a link to this blog-post summary that the Canadian government has commissioned a pair of unmanned subs to explore the geology of two underwater Arctic mountain ranges; the subs' mission will be to provide evidence supporting Canada's claim to huge swaths of potentially petroleum-rich seabed areas. According to the linked article, "The submersibles, scheduled to be launched in 2010, would be sent on a series of 400-kilometer missions north and west of Ellesmere Island, Canada's northernmost land mass and the country's gateway to the open Arctic Ocean — the scene of an international power struggle over undersea territory and petroleum resources believed to be worth trillions of dollars." At least five countries (besides Canada, these are the US, Russia, Denmark and Norway) would like a slice of those trillions.
The idea is that once the ice has melted it will be cheaper to get to the fuel/resources there.
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I understand your bitterness over countries fighting to take control of an ever-shrinking reserve of energy that has no future and damages the environment, but consider this also :
Successful nuclear fusion reactors (that put out more energy that they consume), at the current rate of scientific research, will appear in the 2040's at the earliest. In the meantime, fossil fuel prices are going to go up and up, and millions with low incomes are going to find it hard to heat their homes, buy food and travel to work. Do you really want them to struggle to survive until the magic energy bullet is found?
This said, I agree that now would be the time to form international consortiums to manage whatever is left of oil reserves worldwide intelligently (fat chance, too much money involved of course) and diverts the money spent in pointless wars over said oil to research, so the aforementioned magic bullet might be found earlier.
Sooner or later it will be worth it, and so it makes sense to stake the claims now.
You rag on John Diefenbaker (Progressive Conservative) for cancelling a very expensive program and you whine that Stephen Harper (Conservative) is not spending enough on exploring the arctic.
You're either a troll or a disgruntled liberal will find any excuse to bash the conservatives. Frankly, I don't know how you got moderated up.
As far as building oil rigs, I doubt any one is going to make any money off it while oil is under $100 a barrel, unless, of course, governments pays for the projects outright with little hope of return. About the only country with that kind of cash and that kind of political system is Russia. The US, or course, is broke, and the US oil companies are clearly not interested in difficult projects, as they hardly explore the oil fields they have. In any case the future is renewable energy, and investing in oil is throwing good money after bad, as is shown with multitrillions of dollars thrown away in Iraq while Afghanistan is left to harbor enemies.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
As for UN-sanctioned borders and conflict mediation, if there is enough oil for this to become a conflict, I suspect the UN will not be able to cope.
Two articles, 50 posts, and nary a mention of the total gibbering insanity of this move.
Our species is burning oil at such a rate that it's actually causing the polar ice caps to melt. Instead of turning around and thinking about just what the hell we're doing to ourselves we actually use this as an excuse to start a competition for oil rights under the ice that we're about to melt. Just take a step back and think about that for a minute, the lunacy of it just absolutely blows my mind.
This is like a crack addict scraping the dead tissue out of their lungs and putting that shit back into their pipe and smoking it. Doesn't there come a point at which people think our energy consumption might be costing us too fucking much and we need to just cut down a tad? Seriously, if this talk about drilling for oil in the Arctic isn't meant as a joke then satire is dead, and our species is headed the same way.
</rant>
...now we are dealing with a militarily powerful, mineral rich nation with a paranoid persecution complex and authoritarian instincts.
Who? Russia, or the USA?
What?
Great, so all we have to do is burn off all other oil sources to heat the planet up enough to melt the ice cap to get more oil.
What most don't realize is that the polar ice caps play a major role in moderating the Earth's temperature. Ice reflects light, while water (or at least its contents) absorbs it. Without the ice caps, the sunlight is absorbed into the water, raising the temperature of the oceans globally, compounding the global warming issues we're already facing.
Trust me, if that happens, the last thing we'll be worried about is finding more oil. The average year would make the last El Nino year seem like scattered showers with mild gusts.
The North Pole has become an island for the first time in human history. "Shipping companies are already planning to exploit the first simultaneous opening of the routes since the beginning of the last Ice Age 125,000 years ago. The Beluga Group in Germany says it will send the first ship through the north-east passage, around Russia, next year, cutting 4,000 miles off the voyage from Germany to Japan."
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Last sub floating wins...
*scratches head...*
The owners of the robots become wealthy and hold the power, not the robots themselves.
We're an extremely long way from any sign of actual machine intelligence, and only a complete moron would give such a machine power. Uh oh...
Ok, we're an extremely long way from machine intelligence...
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.