The Arctic Oil Rush and My Misgivings
Every time that I see “Arctic” paired with “oil” in the one sentence, I start getting antsy. It can only mean one thing, and that one thing is eventually going to see oil spills coating ice-sheets rocking up on the front pages of our newspapers. And over and over people are reminded that whatever oil lays beneath those icy plains, won’t sustain the planet for very long.
A government-run US Geological Survey found that 90 billion barrels of oil and a vast quantity of natural gas is waiting beneath the Arctic Circle. These results came to light late last week, once again reenergizing publicity for the future of Arctic drilling.
According to the study, 90 billion barrels of crude, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of gas and 44 million barrels of natural gas liquids, are all just waiting for humans to come and extract them at any cost. Those humans will probably be representatives of the six countries that own – for a given value of “own” – stakes in the Arctic; Russia, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Greenland and the US.
“The Alaska platform really looms as the most obvious place to look for oil in the Arctic right now,” said USGS geologist Donald Gautier.
