As demand for oil proliferates, multinational gas corporations desperately search for new and innovative methods for drilling. Oil sites that were prosperous and immense a few decades ago are finally reaching their limit points, prompting realization of the obvious: the world is gradually drying up. There seems to be two primary responses to this spreading phenomenon—either increased investment in energy ingenuity or revamped exploration of oil in the most isolated sections in the world. Fiscal powerhouses like Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Cairn Energy of course chose the latter, desperately wanting to keep the status quo and attain results as soon as possible.
Russell Gold of The Wall Street Journal discerns the Arctic Circle as the hotspot where avaricious oil moguls now have their sights set on. Even though the region encompasses a tiny fraction of the earth’s land mass, “it is estimated to contain the oil and natural-gas equivalent of 412 billion barrels of oil”. This translates to about “22% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas”. Should drilling prove to be successful, there is a wealth of unspoiled natural resources to be unearthed. Peter Robinson, a retired Chevron vice chairman, notes there is much scientific, not only financial, reason to drill, stating. “All around the coast of Russia, geologists salivate over the opportunity to drill”.
Exxon Mobil and the like followed the concepts of simple economics. A chance presented itself to make companies better off and those companies exploited it. But of course, there are still concerns, drawbacks, and costs. The extreme weather and ice flows during the bitter months of the arctic could potentially maul apart oil industry platforms. Even more, as Gold also points out, “Cleaning up an oil spill would be a huge effort”. The agility of a massive response to such an emergency would be infinitesimal compared to any accident in the Gulf. Additionally, the range of environmental implications of drilling has yet to be properly tested. The marathon to get a piece of the upper northern hemisphere has resulted in dodging of industrial regulation and setup of proper procedural standards.
The race to get to oil is not pointless, but in my opinion, it seems counterproductive. Billions of dollars are being invested into an oil funnel that, in a small lapse in time, will eventually close over. Instead, as I mentioned before, resources should be allocated to innovation projects, which solve the problems of tomorrow and dually inspire competition and collaboration. Becoming dependant on a commodity that invariably becomes extinct soon hardly makes much sense. Let’s face it; oil is simply not as ubiquitous as it once was. The golden era of oil availability is coming to a close. Reminiscing of the past is meant for home movies, not the global economy.
I completely agree with you! As our oil supply runs out, oil companies should be innovating, creating new and cleaner ways to harness energy, not to destroy the Arctic. Oil has been around for hundreds of years, if IBM can be innovative, and stay on the cutting edge for over a hundred years, then so can oil companies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis. Instead of funding an ultimately futile project that could have long term economic and environmental consequences, those companies should invest the money in alternative energy sources that dont have those same negatives. Also, one of the things I'm looking forward to this year is not having to read all these intensely long words out loud in debate (no offense).
ReplyDeleteAlex I agree with our ideas presented above. While companies should continue to drill for oil in order to keep up with the current demand, they need to begin investing more money into other types of energy. The world will eventually run out of oil and if we do not start innovating soon, we may hit a variety of obstacles when the world’s main fuel supply runs out. Unfortunately, I do not believe that oil companies will do this without any government incentives. Like you said, they wish to keep things that way they were and will continue to pump money into oil so long as it is profitable.
ReplyDeleteHow can estimates for potential oil be used as a main point to legitimize drilling in an area owned by nobody? This is not a situation of a known evil, it cannot be truly estimated how brutal it will be to drill in an arctic climate. Extra safety precautions, training, and reinforcement and development of existing technologies must be made to even consider it, and those are just small costs for the oil companies.
ReplyDeleteI do not think we should ever exploit the Arctic for oil. It's not just the risk of an oil spill which makes me averse to drilling in the arctic, but the actual process of drilling. The water that comes up from wells contains a toxic mix of benzene, arsenic, lead, and various radioactive pollutants, according to studies by the Natural Resources Defense Council. They add that the thousands of gallons of mud deepwater drilling unearths contain toxic metals—mercury, lead, and cadmium—that may end up in the seafood supply. I agree with you that retrieving oil from the arctic circle would be counterproductive, especially as the U.S. is increasing reliance on renewable resources.
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