Green Options

Two million square miles of permafrost—an area two-thirds the size of the United States has now thawed since the beginning of the 20th century. And all that thawing permafrost is costing the Russian oil and gas industry billions of dollars to repair damaged pipelines and infrastructure as global warming changes the face of western Siberia.

The energy program head of Greenpeace in Russia, Vladimir Chuprov, after interviewing experts at Gazprom, concluded, “For Russia, the biggest threat of the permafrost melt is to oil and gas company infrastructure.” (from Carbon-Based)

Thawing permafrost presents even more of a threat: it could release frozen methane deposits and causing runaway global warming, mass-extinctions, and huge amounts of economic damage to global infrastructure and economic well being. In addition to Gazprom’s, that is.

Neglecting its responsibility to protect & preserve the fragile Arctic ecosystem, Russia is planning to use floating nuclear reactors to power its oil drilling efforts in the region.

It seems that after using oil & gas as tool to punish the East European nations for their closeness to the U.S. and showing Europe how dependent it is on its supplies, Russia is further trying to wield power by what seems is an intent to control a major share of the carbon credits market.