Arctic Circle full of gas, running low on oil
July 25th, 2008 • environmentalism
In a short but sweet post on the NY Times Dot Earth (free!), it’s revealed that according to the US Geological Survey, the Arctic is literally chock full of uncharted natural gas but rides low on oil. The area above the Arctic Circle holds up to a third of the world’s uncharted gas which is as much as Russia? That’s mind boggling. But it is good to hear that it holds so little oil. The depth that most of that stuff lies will definitely quell many drilling prospects until we’re at the end of raping the Earth for oil but hopefully by that time, governments around the world — especially the US — will have already “seen the light” and have viable alternative energy sources in full production or near the end of the testing phase.
Granted, this will not stop people from using this area for gas extraction and given the huge amount that’s there, companies would be foolish not to try and get it. I imagine the harsh conditions and tough drilling will deter all but the hardiest, and greediest, companies from going there and risking huge sums of money to extract the gas. I’m going to applaud anyone willing to go there and drill or do just about anything.
The real part of this story that caught me was the elucidating comments especially the information from NASA’s Dr. James Hansen. He’s been a vocal proponent of seeking viable alternative energy sources and fast. He’s also a big proponent of the 350 Project(sometimes referred to as “Back to 350″) and he recently co-authored a worthwhile paper from Columbia about where we need to aim for belching carbon emissions, numerically (linked to climateprogress.org because the author also explains much of what’s discussed in laymen’s terms, the link to the paper is in the first paragraph). But back to the NT Times comments. Granted, theirs is a blog that’s frequented by people of environmentally-grounded mindsets but they still show a good cross section of what Americans think and know, much to the dismay of the ever-disconnected politicians.
Americans, for the most part, know what Americans want and even though we ‘treehuggers’ are always harbinging doom, we too know what America wants. And these comments really show that many of us know our stuff and want change. Someone with Dr. Hansen’s credentials chiming in ring true that scientists aren’t making this stuff up much to the chagrin of deniers and decriers (and probably waify Creationists too). We want something different and we want it soon so having President Bush and nominee McCain pushing for more drilling only makes sense to people with stock in oil companies and you can be assured that their push for off shore drilling will soon change to a push for Arctic drilling where the land is “untapped and raw” (my words, not theirs for now). This is why things like the Prius have huge waiting lists and people are guffawing over new hybrids and the Chevy Volt. Although the latter by new technology standards, gets great mileage but realistically after all the hype, is going to be the first major falter in fuel cell cars, it’s all pretty looks and no substance. I admit it’s a decent first mass marketed push but it’s not nearly enough. As the noose tightens slowly around the neck of oil usage and our purse strings too, we all want something different, some real, measurable, viable change. And with this new data, given what politicians and companies are going to push for, we’re going to want change even more.