fenderbender

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.


Arctic oil and gas drilling ready to take off - environment - 01 September 2010 - New Scientist



Complete and utter bullshit this is. Are we really that stupid to let these FEW people to destroy our planet?

WTF guys

People of this world PLEASE UNITE!
There is only a handfull of these greedy retarded fuckers who control us. They control us in almost every way in some shape or form.

Fight this PLEASE im begging you as a brother

help stop this somehow cause i dont know how to...

please

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Grieves

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Lloydy

like it or not we need oil and until we find a viable alternative theyre going to keep drilling to get that shit out of the ground

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Keep the red flag flying high

Bearsy

Seriously. Instead of all these people complaining about it, and spending money to fight it, why don't they put their time and effort and money into researching alternative fuel?
I don't like the idea of drilling for oil either, but it's a necessary evil.

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Sir-Ex

Necessary to what?

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Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

Bearsy

For every aspect of our society to function in any way possible?

Granted, the oil big wigs have put us into this position by fighting change by any means possible(see La Jamais Contente, the electric car that held a land speed record of 100k/h in 1899 and the fall of the early electric car, beginning in 1912), but we're here and we have to deal with it.

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Sir-Ex

Why is it necessary for our society to function?

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Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

Bearsy

Are you playing Devil's advocate or do you seriously not know? The shirt you're wearing, the chair you're sitting on, the book you read before bed last night, have all probably gone through 4-5 different stages to get to you. More if you count harvesting of raw material and on through production. All of which are completely dependent on oil.
It's called an oil "Crisis" for a reason. Without it we're essentially fucked.

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Sir-Ex

In creating a society fueled primarily by a single non-renewable resource, 'we' fucked ourselves with oil, and we are currently fucking ourselves and the planet with oil.

Without oil, lots of people die.


Either way we're essentially fucked, as we've already fucked up.

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Ditch the cigs!!!!!!

JcP

they exist, we just think the risk for oil outweighs the cost(s) associated with switching.

edit: the powers that be think the risk for oil outweighs the cost(s) associated with switching. I'm more than happy to take a large cut in my standard of living if it meant humanity got off of this ridiculous oil addiction quicker.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rev It's not what you see, it's that you're looking.

Sir-Ex

Alternatives for fuel alone, perhaps there are.

A replacement for oil and the full spectrum of what it's used for in present society, nothing at all.

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JcP

besides plastics, name something oil cannot be replaced for? all refined oil products used for fuel can be replaced with renewables and much better forms of power (again, if we'd man up and accept the costs).

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Just look out around us, people fightin their wars...
They think they'll be happy when they've settled their scores...
Let's lay down our weapons
and hold us apart
be still for just a minute
try to open our hearts
MORE LOVE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rev It's not what you see, it's that you're looking.

Sir-Ex

How can you say 'besides plastics'? You can't just ignore plastic, plastic is used eveywhere.

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JcP

perhaps you are arguing a different point.

as a metaphor: I'm telling an obese man to stop eating such high calorie foods. You seem to be arguing that you can't avoid all calories.

"In 2006,1 about 331 million barrels of liquid petroleum gases (LPG) and natural gas liquids (NGL) were used to make plastic products in the plastic materials and resins industry in the United States, equal to about 4.6% of total U.S. petroleum consumption. Of the total, 329 million barrels were used as feedstock and 2 million barrels were consumed as fuel."

besides the fact that a HUGE chunk of that could be eliminated through alternative materials (such as glass bottles/cloth bags/etc), if we could reduce our use of oil to 4.6...or even 10% of our current usage, that would be a completely different world.
not to mention the inevitable replacement of plastics with new and better products promised through nanotechnology and carbon manipulation.

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Just look out around us, people fightin their wars...
They think they'll be happy when they've settled their scores...
Let's lay down our weapons
and hold us apart
be still for just a minute
try to open our hearts
MORE LOVE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rev It's not what you see, it's that you're looking.

Flamingnun

lol wut. It's logistical management that's the problem, not teh evil oil companies (who actually fund billions into "alternative" energy means, albeit to potentially safeguard their own futures) desk ledgers.

Oil's very convenient because you can produce a lot of product from a relatively small area of landmass, in the scheme of things. If "humanity got off of this ridiculous oil addiction" with, for example Hemp, you'd need an entire continent covered with Hemp to even come close to sustaining current global petrochemical demand, which in itself creates more problems than it solves.

Oil is not going to dissapear within our generation, or the next, or probably not for a fairly long time after that. There's little point hypothesising about a perfect world with no oil, because it's not going to happen.

Really what needs to be done, is strike a healthy balance between developing and producing alternative fuels, and improving how we use the ones we currently have. I.e: Finding monetary/environmentally sound ways to replace sectors of the petrochemical industry with "renewable" green sources, that don't require mowing half the rainforest down to grow hemp, in a catch 22 situation.

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JcP

you created a strawman here, but I agree with you. We will never get off of oil because it's not going to happen. People like their standard of living, and won't change. I, however, would change (and have been), regardless of those who refuse to.

My point (and it stands) is that we have the ability to get off of oil if we chose to...the problem is that people want big cars, they want plastic bags, they want those plastic toys for their kids, they want continued economic expansion on a finite planet, etc etc.

The argument is a false one. Our current standard of living is incongruous with a healthy environment to live in. At some point or another a day of reckoning is coming. I'm of the opinion that tackling problems earlier than later might suck in the short term, but in the long term you're better off.

And I didn't blame the oil companies. I blame lazy consumers who can't be bothered with foresight.

__________________

Just look out around us, people fightin their wars...
They think they'll be happy when they've settled their scores...
Let's lay down our weapons
and hold us apart
be still for just a minute
try to open our hearts
MORE LOVE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rev It's not what you see, it's that you're looking.

Parallax

people buy too much shit thats made with oil, plus everything you own is designed to be disposable to break after a certain amount of time so you have to buy a new one. they gotta start building things to last, and with the ability to get upgraded components so you dont have buy a whole new unit. take razors for example, you gotta keep buying the plastic blade holder thingies like every week. and they have these strips that fade after 3 shaves, and they instruct users to replace it when it fades. its bullshit, its just another way to keep people buying the product. the way to go would be to use the oldschool safety razors, i've been using the same one for like 3 years and ive had to change the blade maybe 3 times. and the whole thing is made of metal and its durable as fuck. ill probably be using the same razor until i'm an old man, or until they stop making proper razor blades. think of all the resources spent on the disposable razors alone. cars are a big problem too, they put too many useless features on them, yet they don't as long. for example, my prof from college was telling about how designed some car part for chrysler, and they rejected his design not because it was crap, but because it was too durable, didnt fit in with their 5 year planned obsolescence scheme. they ended up making it worse and thats what went into the car. people used to drive the same car their entire life, now they replace it every few years.

people, stop buying so much shit you dont need, and if you do need something get the durable stuff that will last you a lifetime, fuck the disposable stuff.

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Debaser

I personally beleive there are multiple free energy options out there that have been swept under the rug so the oil companies can keep their profits. Yes, oil is used for much more than fuel, but it's mainly used for fuel.

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Parallax

more like fifty-fifty even if everyone started riding bicycles and using hemp oil for fuel you'd still need oil

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Captain Cannabis

lol

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