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Stewart
Trad climber
Courtenay, B.C.
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May 12, 2015 - 07:46pm PT
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It amazes me that there are people on this planet who seem to be unaware of the nearly apocalyptic effects of an oil spill in the Arctic.
And to give this permission to Shell.
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hashbro
Trad climber
Mental Physics........
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May 12, 2015 - 11:50pm PT
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an incredibly disturbing turn of events
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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May 13, 2015 - 12:32am PT
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hey there say, tobia... thanks for sharing...
it all is very sad stuff... :(
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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May 13, 2015 - 09:08am PT
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I'll cynically second that thank you.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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May 13, 2015 - 11:50am PT
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There's no reasoning with the vast majority of them Paul. Their minds have been hobbled by trendy groupthink.
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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May 13, 2015 - 12:07pm PT
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Hey Tolman,
I understand what you are saying and I enjoy the 'wonders' of fossil fuel for sure. I also do my best to curb my consumption while still having 'responsible' fun while I'm here. I think we can do better with our energy needs in terms of new devo and more conservation efforts in our use of fossil fuel. We are only human after all so it'll take a significant event to cause a collective change in the way we go about life. I am also aware of where I sit in relation to the rest of human population and understand it is far easier for us to change than any developing country, any of them. Anyway, I see our current 'sitch and practices short sighted in favor of $$ over anything else.
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Stewart
Trad climber
Courtenay, B.C.
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May 13, 2015 - 12:48pm PT
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tolman-paul: Or how about we do everything in our personal lives to minimize our dependence on this resource - not to mention developing alternate energy sources? Or maybe put some deep thought into the particularly catastrophic consequences of an oil spill in the Arctic - in case you haven't noticed, we're not exactly short of oil these days.
Oh, and rick sumner - I don't do the groupthink thing. I've got a mind of my own and I'm less susceptible to that disease than the pathetic sheep who elected Dubya Bush and his co-defendants and have now polluted Congress with mobs of his moral and intellectual clones.
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thebravecowboy
climber
liberated libertine
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May 13, 2015 - 01:08pm PT
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operating to high standards in the US
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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May 13, 2015 - 01:47pm PT
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Its well worth it to risk the whole of the Artic so that Shell Oil and its stockholders can make more money. I mean why not, as we have already f*#ked up the planet beyond belief, why not destroy one of the very last vestiges of the wild ecosystem? and maybe, based upon everything that I see and the demons that are behind all this, that is the whole purpose.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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May 13, 2015 - 01:51pm PT
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Thanks for demonstrating your independent mind Stewart. Seems I've heard the exact same talking points millions of times over. You forgot the Koch bros though.
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Stewart
Trad climber
Courtenay, B.C.
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May 13, 2015 - 04:32pm PT
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Yeah - I guess the smart thing to do is nothing. After all, global warming is our kid's problem - not ours.
rick sumner - maybe you should start listening. And maybe even thinking about the big picture.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - May 13, 2015 - 05:03pm PT
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We have become a nation of consumers. How many products are made in the U.S.? We import most of our goods, the majority of which come from places where safety, the environment and the quality of life is of little concern.
Trying to reverse that trend by drilling in the Arctic is not a practical means of change.
My personal consumer habits don't play into the problem at hand. It isn't about me or my utilization of products made with petroleum; or any other consumer's habits.
The Atlantic Coast has just been opened to drilling. There is no need to go to the Arctic region at present, other than the financial gain of corporations and their stockholders.
The Arctic region is too fragile of an ecosystem to open it up to the "responsible" American oil industry.
It is possible they have become more environmentally friendly (because they were forced to); but those safe-guards are not possible in the Arctic Ocean. If there were any kind of accident in the Arctic from oil production, it would be impossible to contain. The damage can't be undone. What then? "Oops, we're sorry".
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Social climber
SLO, Ca
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May 13, 2015 - 05:16pm PT
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Whatever one's views, offshore rigs are pretty awesome.
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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May 13, 2015 - 05:50pm PT
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Good article on the Kulluk rig.
Back in the early 80's I lived in Alaska and remember a jack up rig towed off Dutch Harbor toward Japan. The Helicopter deck was in a vertical position for towing, it came loose during a storm in the Gulf of Alaska, crashed down and cracked the hull. The rig eventually went down in the Aleutian trench South of Dutch Harbor.
I worked on the Kulluk rig, offshore from ANWR, in about 1995. The Kulluk was owned by Canadians at the time and was a mostly Canadian crew.
The Kulluk had a contingent of about 3 or 4 Canadian icebreakers to break up or steer the ice away from the summer drilling operations. If the moving ice was too large, the rig would pull up the drill and move out of the way.
To bring phone and network onto the rig, we used a gyro-stabilized C-band earth station antenna.
In the case of the rig moving, where the satellite signal would be lost, we used a terrestrial link with more limited bandwidth, from Prudhoe Bay out 70 miles to an old Exxon repeater site 40 miles South of the Beaufort Sea, and repeated out to the rig offshore where an omni-directional stick antenna was mounted on the top of the derrick.
I don't remember anything consequential during that project. Mostly I remember Vice President Al Gore and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit landing on the rig one day. I hid inside the comm shelter to avoid the dog & pony stuff. They left the rig after a couple of hours to fly into ANWR and stay in a lodge on a lake at the base of Mt. Chamberlain, highest peak in the Brooks Range.
I also remember a contingent of Alaskan oil spill technicians traveling to Russia in the early 90's and telling me of witnessing a gusher of oil which had been going for months, despoiling a huge marshy area somewhere in Siberia.
The environmental problems in this country pale in comparison to other parts of the world.
The oil industry in the US is generally pretty environmentally conscious. Maybe not so much because of their altruism, but because there is too much money to lose by breaking environmental rules and regulations.
I always wondered how drilling could be stopped in ANWR, where the original agreement allowed drilling only in the flat coastal plain near the coast, but not stopped offshore of ANWR, where the risks in open water are much greater.
We will slowly evolve away from petroleum as the major source of energy.
Nuclear power will take years to politically recover from the disaster in Japan. The genie is out of the bottle and technology will improve, but how far it goes remains to be seen.
Musk's future battery plant in Carson City looks interesting and battery technology continues to evolve with nano-technology possibly bringing us to the next plateau.
Electric cars of the future will be in the majority.
Photo-voltaic technology is steadily becoming more efficient and cost effective.
Wind and Sun power will always be limited in certain regions, but battery storage will help bridge those gaps.
I can imagine a future environmental issue being the disposal of toxic battery materials, but maybe new battery nano-technology will minimize it.
Technology will determine our future and our fate.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujň de la Playa y Perrito Ruby
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May 13, 2015 - 09:19pm PT
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It caught me off-guard so I have to do some more reading, but what they're saying is that:
they're only going to "explore" in 140 feet of water
in the summer
Somehow that doesn't ring true.
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EdwardT
Trad climber
Retired
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May 14, 2015 - 05:08am PT
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Somehow that doesn't ring true.
Kind of deflates comparisons to the Deepwater Horizon spill, don't it.
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Degaine
climber
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May 14, 2015 - 07:00am PT
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tolman_paul wrote:
I always find it a bit ironic that climbers enjoy gear and clothing that is largely made from petrochemicals and yet are so hostile to the oil industry.
I always find this kind of comment ironic, borderline distasteful. So according to you, because I benefit from products made from hydrocarbons and fill up my tank, I should just keep my f*#king mouth shut and make no comment whatsoever when something smells funny?
tolman_paul wrote:
What would be more useful would be to come to terms with the fact they we benefit from hydrocarbons and as users of these products we should find ways to responsibly develop these resources.
Well that just contradicts the first part of your post. I know that I benefit from oil and oil-based products, and I think that this particular project in the Artic is an extremely bad idea. If I understand your post correctly, you think that my objection is "being hostile to the industry"?
Do you think that the world's oil resources are being responsibly developed and used?
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Larry Nelson
Social climber
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May 14, 2015 - 07:38am PT
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ZBrown wrote:
they're only going to "explore" in 140 feet of water in the summer
Somehow that doesn't ring true.
Not so sure about the Chukchi Sea, but I think it is probably similar to the Beaufort Sea.
NOAA maritime charts of the Beaufort Sea show depths in feet, not fathoms, and the tides are measured in inches, not feet. There are some places where you can go offshore for miles and be in 5 feet of water.
How far down the drill bits go into the Chukchi seafloor, I don't know (5,000 feet or more?).
"Summer" season in the Arctic is the only season they can drill offshore, short of manmade islands which are only feasable relatively close to shore.
Sea ice is definately one of the summer challenges.
The distance from shore in the Chukchi is also a challenge in summer due to weather and fog conditions.
One thing I have observed over the past decade is that the old hardy souls who first developed the North Slope are retiring. It seems the new generation of contractors has to learn the old Arctic lessons the hard way. "Generally", these lessons translate into increased overhead rather than unsafe practices.
Because of technology and the industry's compliance to regulations, it is now safer to drill in the Arctic than ever before, but that doesn't mean there are no risks.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujň de la Playa y Perrito Ruby
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May 14, 2015 - 07:24pm PT
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Well Larry, technically I didn't say "it". I was just reporting what the reports of what the presumptive drillers said were.
My point is that the companies in the industry do not have a good track record with regard to telling the truth.
Does anyone recall the "cloned" safety (response) plans filed by BP?
“We weren’t managing for actual risk; we were checking a box,” says Mark Davis, director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy at Tulane University. “That’s how we ended up with a response plan that included provisions for dealing with the impacts to walruses: because [BP] copied word for word the response plans that had been developed after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill [in Alaska, in 1989] instead of a plan tailored to the conditions in the gulf.”
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