Another Exxon Valdez Waiting to Happen?

From the Energy Front 102009

Hey folks,

Happy Tuesday to you. Since it is Tuesday, time to check in at the Energy Front. People wonder why gas prices are going back us? Because of stupidity like this. According to The Christian Science Monitor - Alaska oil's new 'Gulf of Mexico'

Oil companies are eyeing Alaska's largely untapped outer continental shelf. Critics say that's another Exxon Valdez waiting to happen. By Yereth Rosen / Correspondent

Anchorage, Alaska - The treacherous, ice-choked waters off Alaska have long lured risk taking fortune hunters seeking furs, fish, or other riches.

Merchant marine companies in the 19th century were so intent on pursuing the lucrative whale-oil and baleen trade that they were willing to lose entire ships, and they did. Vessels were occasionally crushed by masses of shifting sea ice.

Today, the prize is petroleum.

Inspired by higher prices, new technology, and the inescapable fact that Alaska's onshore fields are running dry, companies have put up billions of dollars to start the search for oil and gas in the lightly developed, federally managed Alaska outer continental shelf (OCS). In all, the OCS could hold oil in quantities similar to that at Prudhoe Bay – the oil field that has fueled Alaska's economy for four decades.

Most likely it holds even more. This is a nice story, but that is all this is. Like the set up to a new Science Fiction movie.

Yet those forces of nature so brazenly flouted by traders centuries ago, coupled with the new stresses from a rapidly changing Arctic climate, are giving environmentalists and Inupiat Eskimos pause. If boosters consider the OCS to be the next Prudhoe Bay, critics fear it could be the next Exxon Valdez.

Like I said Stupidity. How many plane crashes have there been? How many planes are in the air as we speak? How often do you drive? How many cars are on the Road? How many accidents have YOU had? How many Hurricanes happen yearly? How many Katrinas have there been? Then you also have the fact that the Exxon Valdez was HUMAN Error. The Captain left two people at the helm, both of whom were not given their mandatory 6 hours off duty before their 12-hour duty began. The Ship was on Autopilot, and some suggest alcohol was involved. Although this was a horrible accident, again, ONE in how many ships, years, and reality? How long have we been reliant on oil? How many tankers, Oil Wells, Rigs, ETC, have been in operation and transporting Oil for how many years? ONE big accident, Exxon Valdez. Yes, the Evironut's Katrina.

Lawsuits have already forced oil companies to pare back or delay drilling plans. But with the Obama administration set to review offshore drilling rights in the region – promising a balance of economic and environmental needs – the issue is now coming to a head.

The US Minerals Management Service estimates the entire Alaska OCS – the waters stretching from three to 200 miles offshore – holds 27 billion barrels of oil. Almost none has been touched by a drill bit.

The most promising section of the Alaskan OCS could be the Chukchi Sea – the largely ice-covered expanse between northwestern Alaska and northeastern Russia. Also a target is the Beaufort Sea off the north coast.

Industry representatives say they are only beginning to grasp the enormous hydrocarbon potential of the area, once considered too far and too forbidding to justify investment. Only five wells have ever been drilled in the Chukchi. In the similar-sized Gulf of Mexico, the number is nearly 50,000, notes Rick Fox, Alaska asset manager for Shell, the company leading the charge into Alaska's OCS.

Remember the technology is here. They can now drill DEEPER than ever. Use ONE Rig to drill five different Wells. Then when they leave, no one will even know they were there. Then look at the FACT that with all the Hurricanes we have had over the years, not one drop of Oil has been spilled by Rigs getting slammed.

Shell has so far spent $2.5 billion in an effort to establish offshore Alaska as a major global operating center. This includes $2.1 billion for Chukchi leases in a record 2008 sale.

Alaska politicians are gung-ho supporters of OCS development, even though OCS oil would provide no royalties or production-tax dollars to the state, since it is federal territory. The reason: Without OCS oil, the 32-year-old Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) faces a grim future. It is running at one-third of its capacity.

"We are quickly approaching the minimum throughput rate, beyond which the flow of oil cannot be maintained. Without development of new sources of Alaskan oil, TAPS could shut down within the next decade," Gov. Sean Parnell said in a Sept. 3 letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who is mulling the Obama administration's national offshore-drilling strategy.

Translation folks, STALLING any production and Drilling. In doing so, keeping us dependant on Foreign Oil and keeping prices higher than they should ever be. Truth is, the Obama Administration is beholden to the Evirokooks out there. As we have seen time and time again, they are not afraid to put the entire country at risk to attempt to keep their support up. To keep to their agendas.

Inupiat Eskimos, however, have long opposed OCS drilling. They see it as a threat to their culture, which is founded on whaling and harvests of other marine mammals and fish.

"That's pretty concerning to us because of the damage that will cause to our 'garden,' " says Caroline Cannon, president of the tribal council for Point Hope, the Chukchi Sea whaling village believed to be the oldest continually occupied community in North America.

Oil spills and leaks will be impossible to clean up once they seep in and around the broken ice that doomed mariners in the past, say critics. They are unmoved by industry claims of improved technology demonstrated in hostile climes like the North Sea or the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico.

"That's what Exxon told us in Prince William Sound," says George Edwardson, president of the Barrow-based Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, another tribal government.

{Sigh} Fear tactics and implications that have no bases in reality. Speculation of what if. What if an Asteroid hit us tomorrow? Yeah, BIG PROBLEMS. But only IF. Do you think that will happen? Most likely not. But they are saying we shouldn't live here because that MAY happen. See what I mean?

Risks go beyond spills, critics say: The din emitted by seismic tests and other operations will drown out whale calls and, possibly, injure or deafen marine mammals, while air pollution and air and marine traffic will cause further disruptions.

That would be amid stresses already evident from global warming, which has amplified impacts in the Arctic. Climate upheavals that are already imperiling polar bears, Pacific walruses, and other wildlife are obvious to residents, Cannon says.

ABSOLUTE BS. The Polar Bears are multiplying in RECORD NUMBERS! There are now more than there has been in YEARS. They are doing just fine. THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING!. We are actually in a cooling cycle. Anyone dealing in REALITY and has half a brain will tell you that.

"We've seen dramatic changes in the thickness of the ice," she says. "We're having rainy weather in January."

We are not IN January yet. The ICE is actually getting thicker folks. But they are trying to base a trend on last year. You can't do that. Well, you can, but you would be wrong. We have warm years, we have cold years. Years with more rain, years with less. Years with lots of storms, years with no storms. So on, so forth. It's called CYCLES. Natural occurring CYCLES.

A series of lawsuits and administrative challenges has been filed by organizations ranging from small environmental groups to the North Slope Borough – the local government for the Minnesota-size district of northernmost Alaska.

One result was a court ruling that forced Shell to back down from its plan to drill more than a dozen wells over three years at two Beaufort prospects. Another ruling cast doubt on the entire 2008 lease sale. In that case, an appeals court in Washington, D.C., found that the Bush administration's leasing program was flawed and "irrational." It is unclear whether the leases sold then will have to be modified or even voided.

Now it is up to Mr. Salazar to review Alaska's entire offshore oil and gas future, not just in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas but also in the salmon-rich Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet areas, where the Bush administration had scheduled lease sales.

Stymied by the legal challenges, Shell is trying to win over locals. In response to Inupiat advice about whales' disdain for the color red, Shell ordered its vessels painted blue and white. The company has allowed its facilities and equipment to be used for local search-and-rescue missions. And the Arctic Slope Regional Corp., a for-profit corporation owned by many of the same Inupiat residents whose tribal governments formally oppose offshore development, is a major contractor.

All about money and control folks. But you want to know WHY we are not using our own resources? Why Gas Prices keep going up? Why we have not gotten away from Oil at least in BIG part, by construction Nuclear facilities? It is because of Stupidity like this.

Our efforts are always blocked by a small group of Kooks, that stand in the way. Their "what ifs" and insane worse case scenarios scare people who are ignorant of the reality of the situation into thinking that the world will end tomorrow. Just like the Liberals are doing with Global Warming, Obamacare, Bank Bailouts, Car Bailouts, ETC. It's in their playbook. "If we do this, we will all die. If we do not do this NOW, we will all die. Your Kids, DEAD! The world will end." Blah, blah, blah. The only problem is, they are LYING to you. None of this is based at all, in the slightest bit, of reality.
Peter

Sources:
The Christian Science Monitor - Alaska oil's new 'Gulf of Mexico'