Norway's exploratory drilling rig the Leiv Eiriksson is already in action in the Davis Strait, between Greenland and Canada.
Image: S. Morgan/Alamy
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From Nature magazine
A new round of exploratory oil drilling is due to begin in the Arctic this July. Oil companies are no doubt dreaming of a northern oil rush, while environmentalists face nightmares of devastating spills.
The oil giant Shell has been granted permission by the US 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 programme to run in US 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.
The US Geological Survey estimated in 2008 that the Arctic holds up to 90 billion barrels of oil — 13% of the world’s technically recoverable supply. Exploration and production is already under way on the other side of the Arctic, off Norway and Russia, for example (see The great Arctic oil race begins). Many parts of the Arctic circle are becoming ever-more accessible thanks to improved technologies and a reduction in summer sea ice because of climate change.
In a previous round of US exploration in the 1980s and 1990s, oil companies drilled a handful of wells in the Chukchi Sea and dozens in the Beaufort — but those wells didn’t prove economic enough to pursue. “Speculation is that Shell has learned a lot and may be poised to hit the jackpot this time,” says environmental chemist Jeffrey Short of JWS Consulting in Juneau, Alaska.
However, many fear that offshore drilling in the challenging conditions of the north, and around sensitive and understudied ecological systems, could spell disaster. Some contend that Shell’s emergency-response plans have holes, and that even regular operations could disrupt species such as bowhead whales. “Decisions need to be based on good science and a demonstrated ability to clean up a spill. Shell has met neither of those conditions,” says Michael LeVine, of the ocean-conservation organization Oceana in Juneau, Alaska. The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in Washington DC have approved Shell’s safety plans, but the company is still awaiting a final rubber stamp before work can begin.
Safety firstAfter the disastrous blowout of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, US President Barack Obama temporarily suspended any Arctic oil exploration. After that suspension was lifted, there was still a high regulatory bar on applications. In their oil-spill-response plans, Shell had to prepare for a worst-case scenario nearly three times bigger than in their previous plans for drilling in the Beaufort Sea, map out the possible discharge over 30 days instead of 3 days, and identify the specific equipment that would be used to mop up such a spill. The company has also agreed to start a bowhead-whale-monitoring programme from 1 August, and to suspend drilling in the Beaufort from 25 August until after locals have finished their subsistence hunts.
The company says it has taken unprecedented steps to prevent a spill, as well as in preparation to clean one up, including having an extra cut-off on blowout protectors and putting capping equipment on a ship stationed between the two sites. “It’s by no means a stretch to say Shell has set the bar extremely high for others to follow and we are proud of that,” says Shell Alaska spokesman Curtis Smith.
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21 Comments
Add CommentIf BP couldn't fix a hole a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico good luck if the Tundra gives way or other things in this fairly unexplored region go wrong. Fixing things at 50 to 100 degrees below zero is a bitch.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot to worry. According to the anti-environmental and anti-global warming crowd, the arctic regions are cooling down. Soon they will be too cold to make drilling practical by the time they get the rigs built. The oil will freeze solid in the pipes before they can get an ice breaker in so the tankers can offload it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDespite the risks?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAside from extremely minor leaks, there have been exactly two major oil spills from rigs in the past fifty years or so; there was the one off the coast of Santa Barbara in the late 1960's, and the more recent one in the Gulf.
Singing Flea: what, exactly have you been heating your home with, red meat? Do you walk to Florida in the morning to get oranges for your juice? Do you then walk to Nebraska to harvest some wheat for your toast?
@timbo555, "Aside from extremely minor leaks, there have been exactly two major oil spills from rigs in the past fifty years or so", that is two more than the arctic could sustain. We hear this from apologists like yourself every time. There is nothing that can go wrong, we've got it all figured out this time. Then the next worst disaster of all time happens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"what, exactly have you been heating your home with", where we get energy from now does not necessitate that we get oil from the arctic. I, as a consumer, have few options for heating my home. Whatever the grid supplies I am forced to consume. But as a voter I can demand that my country look for other sources of energy. That will ultimately force my local power grid to change.
I get so bored of shills such as yourself who claim that the way things are is the only way things can be. Everything else is too expensive or "unrealistic". That is B.S. There are many options now, it is only a matter of the will of the people to change. I suppose we can't blame you for trying to protect your kingdom. Keep in mind though, we are trying to protect everything else.
I moved to a place where oranges grow in my back yard and there is no need for heating or cooling my home. Eat your heart out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The US NEEDS additional oil resources to preclude having to buy oil from foreign sources. Any reasonable person will agree that is true."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe US does not need additional sources of energy. Greedy people here just 'want' more energy to waste.
Any reasonable person would start using some common sense when it comes to wasting energy. You won't find much of that in America these days.
When the oil run out they will all be crying it was liberals that wasted all the resources by feeding the poor.
@pokerplyer, "And others of us get very tired of those who blindly fear a warmer climate" it is not blind when you have evidence - and there is a tonne. Whereas all you have is conspiracy theories and blogs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The US NEEDS additional oil resources to preclude having to buy oil from foreign sources" - False Dilema
"Any resonable person will agree" - Prejudicial Fallacy
The oil in the arctic will be used it is just an issue of when" - Begging the question
"Only a fool would be opposed to developing this asset now." - Prejudicial Fallacy
Ignorant, Irrational and Corrupt is no way to go through life son.
@N a g n o s t i c, well now that you have made your opinion known, I guess the matter is settled. The world was waiting anxiously for you to make a decision.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you know what permafrost is, what happens if it melts and what it supports currently. I would take a long look at the implications of if by chance the tundra warms enough for the permafrost to melt and what the consequences would be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPicture the earth letting out a flatulence that has never been seen before and then all the structures that bring the oil down to us falling into melting ground and any chance of fixing the thousands of miles impossible because you have a continent size mud hole that we use to call Alaska.
Have you ever got stuck in clay, I did in the mid west, it is pretty hard to get out of.
It doesn't matter whether you like the idea of conservation or not. It is not a problem you can solve by voting in the first place. Anyway, America has not been a true republic since the right wing appointed majority in the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people too and can spend as much as they like to buy politicians.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact is we don't have the luxury of unlimited fossil fuel resources, so voting against conservation laws will only hasten the day when we run out. Sorry, there is no fairy anaerobic microbes manufacturing oil out of magma hidden deep in the now polluted lower bedrock layers.
All of this really doesn't matter anyway if in the process of burning all this fuel, we pollute the planet beyond the point of no return for human habitation as a result.
You remind me of the grasshopper and the ant fable. Guess which one you are? This is not about economic growth, it is about destruction of our environment for a few days of merriment.
I personally am not opposed to drilling for oil in the arctic, I just think it is not a wise decision to continue doing so just to maintain our current level of over consumption. There will be a time in the future when it may be much more economically practical. Unfortunately, altruistic responsibility has never been a popular goal of the right wing in this country.
@pokerplayer, "There is absolutely zero reliable evidence that the world will be worse off as a result of it being slightly warmer over the long term." again you use the right wing strategy, lie often enough and maybe people will believe you. And, let's make no mistake, you are lying. You're not mistaken or confused. You have trolled here long enough to know better. Organisms live within tight budgets within their ecosystems. Abrupt changes to those cause collapse. Increasing sea levels imperil a large percentage of the world's population which live close to the sea. Changes in climate will cause shifts in regional weather patterns. Parts of the world are already experiencing changes to their growing season. Now, of course, if you mean climate change won't affect you personally in a negative way, and it is hard to imagine that you think in terms of anything other than yourself, that may be the case. There may be some short term winners. Ultimately, the majority will be losers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also need to point out here that you were one of those people who denied the climate was changing at all so I guess we are seeing some movement here, although the objective remains the same. Maintain the status quo. Regardless, we know what you represent. It certainly isn't science.
@pokerplyer, "Let's review. Schmidt claimed that there tons of evidence and provided none." I pointed you to the issues, the studies are easy to find, many of them here. I'm not wasting my time listing references you have already refused to read.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I pointed out that GCMs have been demonstrated to be unreliable and he/she did not disagree." - Argument from silence.
"someone making a claim of a potential harm does not mean it will happen" making a claim that changing a system will result in no harm is also an unsubstantiated claim. You are required to prove that and you haven't. Should I be allowed to remove bricks from your house until you can prove that the next one will cause it to collapse? We are changing the system, the onus of proof is on us.
"Species have adapted or dies out over history and the process will continue." the fact that species go extinct naturally, does not mean that the mass extinction related to human activity is not harmful. That is the naturalist fallacy. You could argue that people die naturally so murdering them isn't harmful.
"You don't disagree that the claims of warming were overstated." sure I do. Just because I don't address every idiotic comment you make doesn't mean I agree with them. See Argument from Silence. I have been following this issue since the beginning and if anything warming predictions have been conservative. I suspect that once we get a better handle on the forcings we'll find our current estimates to be conservative.
"I never claimed that the climate would not change." no you claimed it was not changing. Now you are claiming change isn't bad. You seem to claim that mistakes in the past make a source wrong all the time. What does that say about you?
"I have claimed it is inappropriate to claim that specific weather events are tied to CO2 having risen." You have denied AGW! Regardless, this is a straw man argument. The science I have read has never said that global warming caused a weather event. I have heard that it may have contributed to the severity. If anything, it is the deniers that confuse climate with weather.
Again, you come here and lie and expect that your lies be taken as fact until everyone else proves you wrong. No. The onus is on you to prove your assertions. But I don't really care about that. If you really had something to say you would have published a paper rather than troll sciam. I just want to let you know, you aren't fooling anyone. You're full of crap. You are why we have science, so we can see people like you for what you are.
Nicely said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissinging flea
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay I am so sick of people saying "Sorry, there is no fairy anaerobic microbes manufacturing oil out of magma hidden deep in the now polluted lower bedrock layers. " Where are you getting your information. Those little critters are what makes your stomach work, they are prolific especially in dead zones (New Orleans ring a bell) and they are prolific (puts out 3000 times more than what goes in), sustainable (keep working won't die unless you starve them and they eat chlorophyll (you know the green stuff in plants that ends up on the floor of the mill and eventually dries up or recycles) which even an oilman might understand (H2 and O2) on demand or in manufacturing terminology 'Just in Time')).
We can create batteries out of custom tipped viruses which DARPA is currently doing with the research by Angela Belcher. 2 Nobel Prizes in Physics were awarded last year for science dealing with graphene (Pencil Lead) one of them being for the cheap production of said graphene. BTW graphene has been show to exhibit quantum tunneling 100% of the time the way it is arrayed. Nothing else does that.
This doesn't even begin to talk of other reasonable uses for C which would include buckeye balls, nano tube technology, synthetic diamonds.
Just in organic electronic chemistry we will be in a different world than this ball of grease. But we have to stop that lie of yours. How do you think oil was created?
Here is the last really, really hard question what is the waste product of oxidizing Hydrogen. I'm going to go get a drink of some and be back later.
Here is the article to little bacteria that do:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-production-comes-natu&posted=1
Here is Angela Belcher:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/sciam-belcher.html
I would like to make the environmentalists responsible to prove that this would be detrimental to the bowhead whale. Currently companies are in the position of having to prove a negative when accused of possible problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhen the bowhead whales start doing bonehead things to the environment I agree they should have to answer for their damage. And they should have to report to the bowhead whales congressional committee and the walruses for a better arctic area.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUntil then, grow up michael.sharp, that was a bonehead response.
Remember the oil shortage back in the 70s? This was used to justify drilling in ecologically sensitive areas. THEY LIED. There is no shortage. They keep finding oil every where they look. Even in the US where the oil has been pumped for a hundred years, they are finding ways to still get the oil out. BOGUS!!. We need to stop all tax credits for looking for oil. Invest our efforts in getting away from burning oil and coal. I fear the only way we'll stop using oil is when climate change drowns all the coastal cities and the worlds society collapses and then there will be no market.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was said that oil is a non renewable resource. We have a lot of oil in this country (not oodles but quite a bit) but what happened was the price per barrel dropped back down to where it was not profitable to pump US oil any more and cheaper to buy the exported oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow that oil is at around 100 or more dollars per barrel it may be time to go at some of our oil, but that does not solve the problem in a couple of ways. First of all it is still a non renewable resource so eventually we will have wars over what is left and secondly it is dirty and like smoking not great for the lungs of the earth.
Another issue to consider especially with the sand oil is that we use water to push the oil out. Now we already have shortages of drinkable water and the entire SW has been in a drought like state for almost 20 years so we may want to think twice about using water for more esoteric needs and keep it to the closer to home issues.
I was kind of hoping that we could have used the Keystone Pipeline to bring water down from the aquifers in NE to the South West to recharge their bone dry aquifers but that ideal is dead. If we had done that I think we could have put a ton of ecologic rules on the pipelines and killed two birds with one stone.
But we have to get off the oil ASAP and on to cleaner ways to use energy. If anyone hasn't noticed the Germans are laying down an infrastructure to deliver H2 in the same way we deliver gasoline. Hmmmm If I burn H2 I get H2O, what a concept. But hey what do the Germans know, look at the cars they make.
Hey Pokerplayer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this>>Please provide any evidence of ANY extinction that can be demonstrated to be due to climate change due to humans releasing CO2<<
Polar bears are having a pretty hard time.
Also,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-predict-extinc
and
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mass-extinctions-tied-to-past-climate-changes
and
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=scientists-predict-extinc
Methane is outgassing, predictably, from the Arctic permafrost on land and, unexpectedly, very heavily from clathrate from the ocean floor. Add that to the albedo, and you have a clear feedback cycle that simply CANNOT leave things as they are.
Even if there were NO climatic issues at all, however, there are several energy sources simpler and cheaper than oil or coal, such as volcanic (exposed magma) geothermal, (Hawaii being an ideal lab for developing that tech) and solar thermal, which can grow considerably and be kept as simple as possible. Photovoltaics still have a lot to develop in multiband capability (using all colors, ultraviolet and infrared). Wind and sea power still have a longer developmental path, and may still not be as cheap as coal for a while, but also have oodles of room for improvement. I imagine that if only these were weapons, they would surely be far more advanced.
The thing about current tech not its inevitability, but that its function is to maximize profits. Consumer society is not about the consumers, it is about the rich getting richer. Sure no one wants a lower standard of living, but we can wean off the oil, and save some for out descendants, right now, while we can and still have lots of options.
David, I was joking. Irony: a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCheers. :-)
Shakespeare you say, ShakeSphere say I...
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