The Arctic sea ice has
retreated steadily for the past 10 years
reaching record lows, or close to it, every
year. The retreat promises to reveal all
manner of riches for those willing to risk
everything. Unfortunately there seems to
be no shortage of takers.
The world seems to be
racing headlong towards a point of no return
– one that seems to me best described as
a ‘stupidity tipping point’. Allow me to
show you:
Faced with possibly
the most worrying and unequivocal sign of
climate change, our collective response
seems not one of sense and urgency, but
more of joy and greed. As the diplomatic
cables released by Wikileaks last week showed,
respectable national leaders are about to
tip over from the realm of reason to descend
into a frenzied resource grab. An ‘Arctic
carve up’, where the only lingo is Realpolitik:
“protecting our Arctic interests” etc. They
race each other to the trough of short term
profit seemingly oblivious to the long term
risk. The Russians even planted their national
flag at the bottom of the polar seafloor
beneath the North Pole. If it wasn’t so
scary it would be comic.
“The challenges in the
region are not just environmental,” said
Hilary Clinton in Nuuk before the Arctic
Council meeting last week. “The melting
of sea ice, for example, will result in
more shipping, fishing and tourism, and
the possibility to develop newly accessible
oil and gas reserves. We seek to pursue
these opportunities in a smart, sustainable
way that preserves the Arctic environment
and ecosystem.”
Sorry Secretary Clinton,
what is so smart or sustainable about drilling
for the last drop of oil, at the risk of
destroying the very Arctic environment and
ecosystem that you seek to preserve?
As I write this, a small,
lone Scottish energy company is racing up
to the High North on a hired rig to begin
the only exploratory drilling in the Arctic
this year. The stakes are high – and I don’t
mean the $900m of other people’s money they
have borrowed for their risky gamble of
a drilling operation. What I mean is the
threat of the most catastrophic oil spill
in, in the most fragile habitat on earth,
at the most critical time.
The US Minerals Management
Service estimated a “one in five” chance
of a significant spill occurring over the
lifetime of energy activity in just one
block of leases in Arctic waters off Alaska.
The overall chance of a spill therefore
increases as more blocks are explored. The
blocks that Cairn Energy plans to drill
this year are in the notorious “Iceberg
Alley” west of Greenland – where freezing
temperatures, extreme weather conditions,
and dangerous icebergs from the disintegrating
Greenland glaciers reign. Cairn Energy has
just a few months to carry out the operation.
In the event of a spill, a relief well would
probably not be completed in the same season
and this could mean that oil could spill
from a blowout for years. The highly toxic
petrochemical mix would pollute unchecked
the nutrient rich Arctic waters that are
crucial for the health of the global fisheries.
And to cap it off, there is no known way
to clean up an oil spill under ice.
If the situation is
not twisted enough – add Russian floating
nuclear power stations into the mix. Yes
you heard me right. While the embattled
reactors in Fukushima are still leaking
tons of radioactive water into the ocean,
Russia is building and testing floating
nuclear power stations to power the exploitation
of resources, including oil, from the Arctic.
Just two weeks ago, a Russian nuclear icebreaker
had a radioactive leak and had to be towed
back to port from the icy Kara Sea.
From the ‘Arctic carve
up’ to the floating nuclear plants and new
drilling in iceberg alley, we are witnessing
“stupidity tipping events” occurring everywhere.
The Arctic is under threat. It is threatened
by our addition to oil – oil for which we
seem happy to pay any price.
I think it is time for
us to take a collective deep breath, and
think things through. There are so many
untapped smart solutions out there. Instead
of drilling for the last drop of oil at
the real risk of yet another war and the
destruction of our last precious environmental
capital, we could, for example, increase
fuel efficiency and save 1.1 million barrels
of oil - per day - in the EU alone.
Come on, people. Don’t
get dragged past the point of no return
by Realpolitik. Protect the Arctic. Slow
down our consumption of oil. Tap into abundant
clean energy.
+ More
Denmark willing to ban
marmite but not risky deep sea Arctic oil
drilling
Our little jar of marmite
on board the Arctic Sunrise has polarized
the crew – you either love it or you loath
it. There’s no middle ground and, for some
reason, it’s a popular topic of discussion
over breakfast in the mess.
So this morning’s news
that Denmark has banned marmite caused a
bit of a stir, and also raised the obvious
question: If Denmark is banning marmite
because it contains added vitamins – why
not ban risky deep sea oil drilling because
an Arctic oil spill would release all manner
of toxic chemicals and be near impossible
to clean up?
The Cairn Energy oil
rig we are confronting right now here in
the freezing waters near Greenland is set
to drill four exploratory wells in the dangerous
waters between Canada and Greenland.
In 2010, Cairn stressed
that its drillings off Greenland were in
relatively shallow waters of around 300m,
and so in no way comparable to the deep
water Macondo well that ruptured in the
Gulf of Mexico. This year, however, Cairn
intends to drill at far greater depths than
before. With the exception of two potential
drill sites, all its wells will be at extremely
risky depths of between 900m and 1,530m.
Yesterday we obtained
a series of documents under a Freedom of
Information request that show the UK government
has been saying privately what we've been
saying publicly: An Arctic oil spill would
be all but impossible to clear up.
In one email exchange,
government officials told the energy secretary
Chris Huhne: "It is difficult to get
assistance in case of pollution problems
in such areas, and near impossible to make
good damage caused."
Another document reports
that "considerable challenges remain.
The most significant of these is environmental
- and the possibility of a second Gulf of
Mexico type event ... The Arctic ecosystem
is particularly vulnerable, and emergency
responses would be slower and harder than
in the Gulf of Mexico due to the area's
remoteness and the difficulty of operating
in sub-zero temperatures." (Download
part one and part two of the FOI documents.)
So it seems that everyone
is agreed. Arctic drilling is an outrageous
and unnecessary gamble that has to stop.
It’s little wonder then perhaps that Cairn
Energy has thus far refused to release it’s
spill recovery plan for its Arctic operations.
