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Oil Exploration Ramps Up In US Arctic
ananyo writes "A new round of exploratory oil drilling is due to begin in the Arctic this July. The oil giant Shell was granted permission some months ago by the U.S. government to drill two exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea and three in the Chukchi Sea, both north of Alaska, this year — between 15 July and late September. The project is finally coming to fruition after years spent fighting legal challenges. It will be the first oil-exploration program to run in U.S. Arctic waters since 2000, and could mark the start of the first offshore commercial drilling in the American north, although it would take another decade to establish production wells."
Nothing changes until it is all gone.
Good.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
For techy people? Oh well, probably more topical that a fake severed head on a fake TV show.
FWIW, Shell has drilled in the Arctic before - several other exploratory wells. They've done quite a bit of due diligence to mitigate problems including painting their disaster recovery ship a dark blue so as not to scare the whales.
They realize quite perfectly if they have a major spill or blowout then the game is over. Further, there is no assurance that this will go anywhere beyond the exploratory wells - they may not find oil, they may not find much oil, it may cost too much to pull out.
And if they wait long enough, the whole area may turn into a tropical paradise, much like it was when the algae, etc. that created the biomass that subsequently became oil was alive.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The sooner we decouple from the Muslim extremists the better
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
One spill wasn't stopped. Therefore, no spill can be stopped.
I applaud your flawless logic.
Clap.
Clap.
Go back and look at the causes of that oil spill and why it was unable to be plugged quickly. It was easily preventable, and Shell should be making doubly sure that all of their safety devices work.
If Shell has a spill in the Arctic on the scale of BP's spill in the Gulf then NOBODY will be allowed to drill in the arctic for probably another decade. The environmental groups will go absolutely nuts.
If Shell does not have a spill in the next decade it will be a lot easier for them to convince the environmental groups that they will drill responsibly in ANWR.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
No more stupid than people basing personal and political modern nuclear power stations on 40+ year old models breaking that were far over their mean-times for operation. More people have died from sugar plant explosions than nuclear power; this even in the primitive models. A few hundred liquid fuel thorium reactors would dissolve the need for high-price municipal monopolies on energy generation and distribution. That's the real issue here.
LFTR's eat old nuclear waste from the U235 systems Carter forced upon us. So, no more poisoning the water tables!
The Economist has a funny quote in their article -http://www.economist.com/node/21556800 - on how faster-than-expected warming in the Arctic will open up previously inaccessible resources:
"Oil companies are reluctant to admit that climate change plays a part in their northward shift. They do not want to be seen to be profiting from the environmental damage to which their activities have contributed."
No seriously, go back and re-read what you wrote. It only makes sense in your head because there is a lot of context you are not writing out that exists only in your head.
I don't know what is up with you today, but you are being a huge fucking asshole, it is probably best for you to get up and take a little walk and clear your head.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
They're desperate, as they should be. There's less then 40 years of conventional oil at current usage rates. Far more importantly, the remaining oil is going to have declining energy return all the way to the bottom. If the oil companies can put the days of reckoning off for five more years, they've done well for themselves, and we have that much longer before people start starving.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
This is what we in the debate business call misdirection. Rather than conceding the parent's point, the above poster attempts to lead the debate away from that by asking what he feels is a humiliating question.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Oil Guy: Do you find it ironic that we denounce global warming, but use higher temps and lower ice mass to get more oil for more Carbon emissions?
Tobacco Guy: no, not at all.
I heard below 20% capacity or about 400,000 barrels a day it can become unsafe to operate in the winter. Its down to about 500,000 now.
I drove along the pipeline road from Valdez to Fairbanks 6 years ago. Its an amazing thing to see,
...or that the first person to call the opposition names in a debate is the first side that loses?
And how did you figure that out? Wishing to the economist fairy that a non-renewable resource will instead last forever, production will never be less than demand (despite demand rising exponentially), and never go into permanent supply decline?
Futures speculation affects short-term prices. Yes. But actual supply and demand affects long-term prices. Even OPEC learned this back in the 1970s when they artificially flattened supply increases, prices spiked during the oil crisis, the global economy crashed, demand correspondingly crashed, and then so did the prices despite OPEC desperately reducing supply. If OPEC couldn't artificially dictate whatever price they wanted back in the 1970s, what makes you think speculators can artificially set whatever price they like? Speculators can perturb the overall trend for a little while, and that's where they make their money, but the price is not disconnected from availability over the long term. On top of that, if prices rise sufficiently, demand empirically falls. If the economy does poorly, demand falls, and so do prices. This is not the signature of a system entirely controlled by speculation.
Also, if supply wasn't ultimately a constraint, then you wouldn't have companies spending money to try to find oil in remote and/or deep-water and/or harsh Arctic environments where it easily costs 10x as much to drill and produce as it would on land closer to markets. They're drilling here because the conventional/cheap supplies are dwindling away. They're drilling here because they have no other choice if they want to maintain production levels. If that's not a sign of a real issue with regards to availability, I don't know what could convince you. Why spend 10x as much for a barrel of oil there if, supposedly, they could get all the oil they wanted from somewhere else cheaper?
We're genuinely in the bottom half of the barrel.
Such an oil spill could be stopped in a matter of days instead of months, if they were required to drill a relief well simultaneously with the main well. Other countries manage to enforce this simple precaution, but the US government is too beholden to the interests of industry.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
As a Norwegian I don't understand your frankly ignorant attack on Arctic resource exploitation. We have been active in this region for a long time, with rapidly increasing activity levels the last two decades.
As an Arctic nation we are very concerned with regards to our environment and safety. We have a proven track record.
May I ask if you have any real knowledge of the region or indeed oil & gas exploration?