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== More than a year later after the BP oil spill, the environmental degradation from the Deepwater Horizon disaster lingers in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil can still be found on nearly 500 miles of Gulf coastline, and an enormous dead zone remains at the mouth of the Mississippi River. ==

Yet most Americans have moved on from images of the burning rig, oiled birds, and the 11 men who lost their lives. And in a crucial and dangerous way, Washington has also moved on.
== Early this month, the Obama administration approved Shell Oil's plans to drill four exploratory wells in America's Arctic Ocean. Shell's plans are the most aggressive to date in a region largely untouched by ==

humankind and where there has never been significant ocean drilling. The approval was given, despite the fact that there is no proven way to clean up oil spilled in an icy environment.
== To the people of the Arctic coast, the images from the Gulf are foremost in their mind as they wonder how long it will be until their pristine Arctic experiences a devastating spill. True, Shell's drilling -- expected to start next summer -- will be in shallow water with an average depth of 160 feet, compared to the 5,000 feet of the Gulf disaster. But the Arctic's extreme conditions and remoteness bring challenges and obstacles that are unknown in Gulf. == == Shell maintains it will be able to clean up 95 percent of any oil spilled in the Arctic using mechanical recovery. Yet this rate of success has never come close to being achieved -- anywhere. In the Deepwater Horizon spill, the mechanical recovery rate was close to 3 percent. With the Exxon Valdez, it was 8 percent. ==

Standard clean-up methods won't work in Arctic
== Robert Thompson, who lives in Kaktovik, a small Inupiat community on the coast of the Arctic's Beaufort Sea -- where Shell got provisional approval to drill -- believes that Shell's drilling plans must have been approved by people who don't know the Arctic. Even in the summer months, conditions can be so foreboding that it wouldn't be possible to mount an oil-spill response effort. == == A recent report for the Canadian government reinforces this point. In the Canadian Beaufort Sea, conditions (precluding sea ice) in June -- the tamest month on the Arctic calendar -- would keep spill response efforts from being launched 20 percent of the time. September and October? Forget about it. Despite this, Shell plans call for drilling beginning in July and continuing through Oct. 31. == == Despite warnings that global warming is accelerating the melting of the Arctic, sea ice is still found in the Arctic Ocean every month of the year. Arctic seas are far from placid. Even in the summer months, hurricane-like storms form 20-foot waves and create conditions that are so harsh that human beings often cannot step outside. == == Then there's the Arctic's remoteness. The nearest deepwater port and Coast Guard station is 1,000 miles away. That's roughly the distance between Washington, DC and New Orleans. Coast Guard Admiral Robert Papp recently told Congress "we have nothing" when it comes to the resources and capability to respond to an oil spill in the Arctic. == == Importantly, no one has been able to come up with a workable way to clean up oil in ice. Shell's spill plan includes techniques that are familiar to anyone who followed the Deepwater Horizon disaster -- in situ burning, dispersants, booms -- methods that were difficult to implement in the Gulf's calm, temperate seas, close to modern infrastructure. == == When oil companies tested some of these approaches in the Arctic (over 10 years ago), the experiment was declared a "failure." Since then, nothing has changed in Arctic oil-spill response technology. ==

US says not enough known about the Arctic
== What's more, America's own science experts -- the United States Geological Survey -- say it's "difficult, if not impossible" to make informed decisions about drilling in the Arctic because too much remains unknown about the Arctic's marine environment and the wildlife that depend on it. == == This week, in Point Hope, Alaska, on the Chukchi Sea where Shell also hopes to drill, Inupiat people from all over Alaska's Arctic coast are coming together for one simple reason -- to pass on the ways of the past to the future. ==

Community elders are sitting down with young people to teach them the traditions that have enabled them to survive in the harsh climate for thousands of years.
== Point Hope itself, a small spit of land jutting into Earth's northernmost ocean, is the oldest continually inhabited community in North America -- people have lived and thrived there since long before the planet was divvied up by nation states. == == But the air there is not filled with defeat. As Inupiat leader Rosemary Ahtuangaruak said: "I will continue to speak out for my people with the hope that future generations will continue to be Inupiat -- and not just residents in an industrialized area destroyed by drilling." == == The Obama administration should not rush forward with drilling in the Arctic Ocean until Shell can provide a proven plan to clean up an oil spill, and until there is more scientific information about the impacts drilling could have in this pristine, unique place. ==

== WHEN BP's Macondo well began spewing ** oil ** into the Gulf of Mexico, the firm was in the midst of an effort to persuade Canada's energy regulator that safety standards for offshore ** drilling ** in the Canadian ** Arctic ** were expensive, impractical and should be relaxed. Hearings on the subject were promptly suspended and the regulator declared that no new ** drilling ** permits would be issued pending a review of existing rules. "We have a duty to pause, to take stock of the incident," says Gaétan Caron, head of the National Energy Board. == == For a time it looked as though the ** Arctic ** would be the next frontier for Western ** oil ** firms, which have only limited access to the most promising prospects in sunnier climes. The retreat of the polar ice cap is making the region easier to work in, and there is thought to be lots of ** oil ** and gas to tap. But Canada is not the only country now thinking twice: America, Norway and even Russia are all contemplating tighter rules for ** drilling **. == == Canada's stay on ** drilling **, like a similar one imposed in America, is temporary. But environmental groups and some indigenous people advocate more lasting restrictions, on the ground that the ** Arctic ** is particularly ecologically fragile, far from clean-up crews and blanketed for much of the year in ** oil **-trapping ice. == == A vigorous argument about whether to open pristine bits of coastline to ** drilling ** had already been under way in Norway. The spill has made a big impression in the country, says Kristin Halvorsen, who leads one of the parties in the governing coalition and opposes the expansion, "because it shows that even with a lot of security measures and top modern technology, you can't insure against accidents when you are working with ** oil **." The row is threatening to undermine the coalition, with the prime minister refusing to rule out further ** drilling **. == == Russia's parliament, too, has begun debating updated environmental laws to address offshore spills--a move the government supports. Only Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory with high hopes for an ** oil **-fuelled bonanza, is pressing ahead undaunted with plans to expand ** oil ** exploration. Its government has approved ** drilling ** this summer in Baffin Bay, close to its maritime boundary with Canada. That decision has alarmed Jim Prentice, Canada's environment minister, who wants the highest environmental standards to be applied. == == Mr. Prentice and his counterparts from other ** Arctic ** states met in Greenland this week, to discuss offshore ** drilling ** among other topics. The ** oil ** industry is relatively confident that their response to events farther south will not be too restrictive. After all, if the ** Arctic ** does not provide new supplies of ** oil **, they will have to be obtained somewhere else. As Benoit Beauchamp of the ** Arctic ** Institute of North America, a Canadian research outfit, notes: "That somewhere else might be the ** oil ** sands, which have their own environmental problems, or it could be coming from places where you have to deal with warlords and terrorists, like Africa, or the Middle East, where we pretty much have to send armies to protect the ** oil ** and gas." ==

"Facing a freeze." //Economist// 395.8686 (2010): 72. //MAS Ultra - School Edition//. EBSCO. Web. 6 Oct. 2011.
== Disappointing environmentalists, the Obama Administration gave a conditional go-ahead on Aug. 4 to the Shell ** Oil ** Co.'s plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. Mainland Alaska has been a major ** oil ** producer for decades, but no one has yet drilled in the Arctic waters--in part because a spill in the fragile north could be devastating. But the payoff might be great. There is as much as 27 billion barrels of ** oil ** in the Alaskan Arctic. For a White House struggling to be seen as pro-energy, the risk may be worth it. By ==

The full measure of ** Arctic ** ** oil ** and gas ** drilling **
==** Arctic ** ** oil ** ** drilling ** kicked off in Greenland's waters last week, just weeks after the Deepwater Horizon leak was finally plugged, angering environmental groups. But Cairn Energy are neither the first nor the last to venture in these waters == ==** DRILLING ** for ** oil ** kicked off in Greenland's Arctic waters last week -- just weeks after the Deepwater Horizon leak was finally plugged -- angering environmental groups. Cairn Energy, based in Edinburgh, UK, is the first company to explore Greenland's waters for ** oil **. It won't be the last. == == Interest in the ** Arctic ** -- which holds 13 per cent of the world's remaining ** oil ** and 30 per cent of its gas -- is booming, driven by the rising price of ** oil ** and a shortage of other places for multinational companies to drill. == == The Deepwater Horizon spill has halted activities in American, Canadian and Norwegian waters, as new regulations are drafted. But exploration and exploitation in Russia and Greenland carry on -- and even North American and Norwegian delays will only be temporary. == ==** Drilling ** in the ** Arctic ** Ocean presents greater challenges than elsewhere, whether at sea or on land. Explorers face shifting pack ice, icebergs, storms, frigid temperatures and perpetual night in winter. This has led ** oil ** companies to set their sights on the accessible bits of the ** Arctic ** (see map). First in line are the relatively sheltered waters close to shore, and shallower regions further out where artificial islands can be built and linked to the coast, transforming the expedition into one that is effectively land-based. == == In deeper water, giant steel structures that can be grounded on the seabed are the best bet. Russia's Prirazlomnoye platform, now almost complete, will weigh 100,000 tonnes and sit in 20 metres of water. Its sheer bulk will protect it from being crushed by the shifting ice that covers the area for eight months of the year. == == To drill in even deeper water, ice-resistant production ships, linked to ** oil ** wells beneath them, will have to be constantly protected by ice breakers. The first of these is planned for Russia's Shtokman gas field, which is 650 kilometres offshore, lies 300 metres beneath the surface, and is plagued by icebergs. Production is planned to begin in 2016. == == All this activity has environmental groups up in arms. ** Oil ** companies insist that they can take on the ** Arctic ** safely, yet there is no proven way to deal with a spill. The biggest threat is not from the wells -- which will be few and tightly controlled -- but from ** oil ** tankers. Pack ice, storms and icebergs mean that shipping accidents are almost inevitable, and spilt ** oil ** takes decades to break down in the cold ** Arctic ** waters. == == Nothing much can be done to cope with a spill in the winter beyond tracking the ice, waiting for the ** oil ** to surface in the summer melt, then setting it alight. Yet calls for an ** Arctic **-wide moratorium on ** oil ** exploration until safety measures are in place have gone unheeded. Over the last three years, big ** oil ** companies have teamed up with Norway's independent research organisation SINTEF, based in Trondheim, to test ways of fighting spills, such as mechanical skimmers, dispersants and performing controlled burns on deliberately spilled ** oil **. Results show they are still far from knowing how to cope. ==

Far from reducing American dependence on foreign ** oil **, ** drilling ** in one of the world's few unspoilt wildernesses may prove an expensive letdown. Tim Burnhill reports
== AMERICA has always had an unquenchable thirst for ** oil **. But after the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell, that thirst has taken on a desperate edge. Everyone agrees the US must reduce its reliance on imports from potentially hostile countries, which means finding new domestic reserves. And the pristine Alaskan wilderness is its last, best hope. == == Even before 11 September, the new US administration was plotting to open up the ** Arctic ** National ** Wildlife ** Refuge to ** oil ** exploration. Environmentalists were readying themselves for yet another battle in a war that has already lasted 30 years. All along they have doggedly reminded politicians and the ** oil ** industry that the refuge is one of the finest examples of wilderness left on the planet, with the greatest ** wildlife ** diversity of any ** Arctic ** reserve. But then came the attacks and the debate changed completely. ** Oil ** became first and foremost an issue of national security. End of argument. == == But will ** drilling ** in the ** Arctic ** refuge really reduce the US's reliance on foreign ** oil **? Ultimately it's a question of how much ** oil ** is down there, and how quickly it can be extracted. No one really knows, but the geological evidence suggests the US might be counting its chickens before they're hatched. There's a serious danger that supporters of ** drilling ** are overstating their case. The ** oil ** industry's interest in Alaska dates back to 1968 when British Petroleum and Atlantic Richfield discovered the giant Prudhoe Bay ** oil ** field on the state's north coast. Containing more than 12 billion barrels of recoverable ** oil **—** oil ** that could be extracted using current production technology—Prudhoe Bay is the largest ** oil ** field ever discovered in North America. Subsequent exploration of the surrounding area found a further six billion barrels of recoverable ** oil ** in 30 smaller fields. For comparison, Britain's largest ** oil ** field, Forties, originally contained around 3 billion barrels of ** oil **. == == For the past 30 years, northern Alaska has been the US's major ** oil **-producing region, contributing about 25 per cent of domestic production—2 million barrels a day at its 1980s peak. However, Prudhoe Bay has been in decline since 1988 and attempts to find another giant field to replace it have so far proved fruitless. == == The ** oil ** industry is pinning its hopes on a patch of wilderness 100 kilometres east of Prudhoe Bay. But under current law it's untouchable. In 1980, Congress incorporated the area into a 77,000 square kilometre ** wildlife ** refuge. And while the legislators allowed for the possibility of future ** oil ** exploration on the coastal plain, it would require an act of Congress to make it happen. == == Almost as soon as the Bush administration took office, it began moves to open up the ** Arctic ** refuge. On 17 July last year the House Resources Committee approved a bill to begin exploration. If passed, the legislation would allow full-scale ** oil ** exploration in a 6000 square kilometre tract of the coastal plain. Knowing they were in for a rough ride from the environment lobby, supporters started playing the national security card. “[The ** Arctic ** refuge] plays a critical part in reducing our dangerous dependence on foreign energy,” said Alaska's Republican senator Frank Murkowski, a long-standing champion of the energy lobby. He claimed that the ** Arctic ** refuge could contain even more ** oil ** than Prudhoe Bay—enough to replace all American imports from Saudi Arabia for 30 years. == == Then came 11 September. Within days, moves were afoot in the Senate to rush through the ** drilling ** bill as part of the emergency national security agenda. According to David Applegate, who monitors government affairs for the American Geological Institute, the issue is likely to be resolved once Congress reconvenes later this month. == == But is the refuge really an ** oil ** bonanza waiting to be tapped? For a start, it isn't geologically equivalent to Prudhoe Bay, so the presence of ** oil ** can't be taken for granted. What's more, assessments of its potential have thrown up hopelessly mixed results. == == In the past 15 years there have been seven independent estimates of the ** Arctic ** refuge's ** oil ** reserves—all with widely differing conclusions (see “A tale of seven studies”). The most pessimistic, by the Alaskan Bureau of Land Management in 1987, concluded that there was only a 19 per cent chance that there was ** oil ** in the refuge. The others were confident that ** oil ** would be found, but the amounts varied from under 1 billion to over 7 billion barrels of recoverable ** oil **. == == The current best guess comes from the US Geological Survey's 1998 study. This concluded that the ** Arctic ** refuge could contain between 11.6 and 31.5 billion barrels of ** oil ** in total, and that between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of this was recoverable. In other words, the ** Arctic ** refuge will not be as productive as Prudhoe Bay. == == And anyway, the figures are only a guess. Like most ** oil ** companies and government agencies, the USGS uses a method known as play analysis to evaluate the potential of unexplored regions. A “play” is a geological setting that may—or may not—contain ** oil ** or gas. In a play analysis, geologists use any data at their disposal, such as seismic surveys and the results of exploratory ** drilling **, to divine whether there's ** oil ** beneath their feet. They look for four telltale features: ** oil **-generating source rocks, porous rock to store the ** oil **, a layer of sealing rock above this to stop it escaping upwards, and a trap-like structure in these rocks to keep it in place. == == The end product of a play analysis is a series of numbers representing the probability that ** oil ** will be found and, if so, how much. Executives use these figures to assess the risk and potential return on investment. But ultimately they're only an estimate based on geologists' subjective feel for rock formations up to 5 kilometres beneath the ground. == == On the face of it, the figures in the USGS survey look OK. But the geological nitty-gritty is not so promising. The refuge contains 10 different plays, and the bulk of the ** oil ** will be in much younger and shallower rocks than in Prudhoe. That means smaller fields, poorer quality ** oil ** and wells that don't flow as prolifically. And with several small fields instead of one big one, you need a much higher initial investment in wells, production facilities and pipelines. == == In the end, there's only one tool that can prove the presence of ** oil ** once and for all—the drill bit. And up to now, just one exploratory well has been sunk in the ** Arctic ** refuge. Called KIC Jago River-1, it was drilled by British Petroleum and Chevron in 1986. The results remain a commercial secret, and anyhow it will take dozens more test wells to find out how much ** oil ** is present in the ** Arctic ** refuge's small, scattered fields. So even if KIC did strike ** oil **, nobody really knows how much there is down there. == == Many experts still think the ** Arctic ** refuge will deliver the goods. Ken Bird, a senior geologist at the US Geological Survey, says he's confident the refuge contains the largest undrilled ** oil ** prospects in North America. Charles Mankin, director of Sarkeys Energy Center at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, adds: “In my view there is no question that [the refuge] is the best place in the US to find giant fields.” == == But in ** oil ** exploration there's no such thing as a dead cert. A salutary lesson comes from the last great hope for a giant discovery in Alaska. In 1983, a consortium led by BP and ARCO drilled an exploratory well, called Mukluk, 14 miles off the north coast of Alaska. They had to build an artificial island in the ** Arctic ** Ocean to do it. It cost $120 million. The huge investment was justified by play analyses suggesting that there was a giant field beneath the ocean floor holding as much as 10 billion barrels of ** oil **. == == Expectations in the ** oil ** industry were sky high before the well had even cut ground. Anticipation had been fuelled by a frenetic auction of leases that had seen the ** oil ** industry bid a total of $1.5 billion for prime exploration tracts, and also by the optimistic public pronouncements from ** oil ** company executives. BP geologists said Mukluk was one of the lowest-risk exploratory wells the company had ever drilled. == == How wrong they were. The well found only a small amount of sub-standard ** oil ** and to this day remains the most expensive dry hole in the ** oil ** industry's history. Although the geologists' predictions were nearly all correct, there was one small but fatal flaw. The rocks that should have sealed the top of the field had failed. “We drilled in the right place,” said Richard Bray, a senior manager of Sohio (Standard ** Oil ** of Ohio), one of BP's partners at Mukluk. “We were simply 30 million years too late.” == == The ** Arctic ** refuge may turn out better than that, but it's never going to slake American thirst for imported ** oil **. According to the Congressional Research Service, the refuge could come on-stream in 2008 at the earliest and produce at most 1.4 million barrels a day by 2015. By then the US will be consuming 24 million barrels of ** oil ** a day, according to projections in Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Report. The ** Arctic ** refuge, in other words, will cover just 6 per cent of US requirements if Americans keep burning ** oil ** at the present rate. That's a pretty thin national security blanket ==

The full measure of ** Arctic ** ** oil ** and gas ** drilling **
==** Arctic ** ** oil ** ** drilling ** kicked off in Greenland's waters last week, just weeks after the Deepwater Horizon leak was finally plugged, angering environmental groups. But Cairn Energy are neither the first nor the last to venture in these waters == ==** DRILLING ** for ** oil ** kicked off in Greenland's Arctic waters last week -- just weeks after the Deepwater Horizon leak was finally plugged -- angering environmental groups. Cairn Energy, based in Edinburgh, UK, is the first company to explore Greenland's waters for ** oil **. It won't be the last. == == Interest in the ** Arctic ** -- which holds 13 per cent of the world's remaining ** oil ** and 30 per cent of its gas -- is booming, driven by the rising price of ** oil ** and a shortage of other places for multinational companies to drill. == == The Deepwater Horizon spill has halted activities in American, Canadian and Norwegian waters, as new regulations are drafted. But exploration and exploitation in Russia and Greenland carry on -- and even North American and Norwegian delays will only be temporary. == ==** Drilling ** in the ** Arctic ** Ocean presents greater challenges than elsewhere, whether at sea or on land. Explorers face shifting pack ice, icebergs, storms, frigid temperatures and perpetual night in winter. This has led ** oil ** companies to set their sights on the accessible bits of the ** Arctic ** (see map). First in line are the relatively sheltered waters close to shore, and shallower regions further out where artificial islands can be built and linked to the coast, transforming the expedition into one that is effectively land-based. == == In deeper water, giant steel structures that can be grounded on the seabed are the best bet. Russia's Prirazlomnoye platform, now almost complete, will weigh 100,000 tonnes and sit in 20 metres of water. Its sheer bulk will protect it from being crushed by the shifting ice that covers the area for eight months of the year. == == To drill in even deeper water, ice-resistant production ships, linked to ** oil ** wells beneath them, will have to be constantly protected by ice breakers. The first of these is planned for Russia's Shtokman gas field, which is 650 kilometres offshore, lies 300 metres beneath the surface, and is plagued by icebergs. Production is planned to begin in 2016. == == All this activity has environmental groups up in arms. ** Oil ** companies insist that they can take on the ** Arctic ** safely, yet there is no proven way to deal with a spill. The biggest threat is not from the wells -- which will be few and tightly controlled -- but from ** oil ** tankers. Pack ice, storms and icebergs mean that shipping accidents are almost inevitable, and spilt ** oil ** takes decades to break down in the cold ** Arctic ** waters. == == Nothing much can be done to cope with a spill in the winter beyond tracking the ice, waiting for the ** oil ** to surface in the summer melt, then setting it alight. Yet calls for an ** Arctic **-wide moratorium on ** oil ** exploration until safety measures are in place have gone unheeded. Over the last three years, big ** oil ** companies have teamed up with Norway's independent research organisation SINTEF, based in Trondheim, to test ways of fighting spills, such as mechanical skimmers, dispersants and performing controlled burns on deliberately spilled ** oil **. Results show they are still far from knowing how to cope. ==