The party’s over in Alaska

[yortsed snacilbuper]

America’s Last Frontier is in trouble. The 40-year oil boom that turned Alaska from a frigid backwater into one of the nation’s richest states is over. Not only have petroleum prices crashed, but Alaska’s supply of crude is running out. Thirty years ago the state was pumping 2 million barrels a day, a quarter of all U.S. output.

But over the past decade, the Prudhoe Bay oil field, once the largest in North America, has started to reach the end of its life. Alaska’s output has fallen to 500,000 barrels a day, enough to fill only one-quarter of the capacity of the state’s main economic artery, the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-party%e2%80%99s-over-in-alaska/ar-BBsHPmi?ocid=spartanntp

[hatrack]

1. Having the GOP-controlled (of course) legislature eliminate state oil taxes didn't help

Oops.

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. I remember the National Geographic Article that documented the wonder of the Alaska Pipeline.

In a few years, it will be another decaying, technological relic of a forgotten age. Alaska will be a poverty-stricken backwater.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

3. Maybe SP will rescue Alaska some how?

[Bucky]

4. maybe the pipelines can be used to pump ice to California

[KamaAina]

9. Doubtful. It runs from the oli fields to the infamous port of Valdez.

Where supertankers pick it up, hopefully without spilling it all over the damn place.

[Hortensis]

5. I think I read they were kind of hoping the GOP would

win in 2016 and increase military spending and jobs up there, or at least not decrease it.

[maxsolomon]

6. So, they're basically hoping for the exact thing the GOP rails against elsewhere

But it'll be the Military, so it's patriotic instead of Gubmint Waste.

Typical.

[Hortensis]

7. Well, yes. But there are some arguments for it,

to be fair, even if I mostly agree about military waste. But, after all, conservatives are naturally more fearful than liberals, so they need to feel they have a strong defense and don't see it as waste.

And on the positive side strong defense = more, usually decent-paying jobs supporting viable communities. A way of distributing tax dollars from more prosperous people and states to poorer ones. Democrats do the same when we fund regional hospitals, which we, in our cluelessness about all the enemies planning to invade and destroy us, think is more important.

Gee, maybe Alaska could become the place to go for gene rearrangement therapy. It could combine nicely with the tourism industry so people wouldn't mind flying up there so much.

No. I don't think so either.

[maxsolomon]

8. please tell me you're joking:

"Democrats do the same when we fund regional hospitals, which we, in our cluelessness about all the enemies planning to invade and destroy us, think is more important."

[Hortensis]

10. Yes. The dependent clause part. :)

[KamaAina]

11. Air cargo?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens_Anchorage_International_Airport#History

Most scheduled passenger service from Anchorage to Europe and Asia ceased in the early 1990s following the end of the Cold War. Korean Air continued to serve Anchorage on a scheduled basis until the early 2000s. China Airlines, the last Asian carrier to serve Anchorage on a regular basis, used Anchorage as an intermediate stop on its Taipei-New York route until 2011, when it rerouted these flights to stop in Osaka. While a few charter passenger aircraft still stop at Anchorage on flights between Asia and the eastern United States, scheduled cargo carriers – which benefit from more volume and thus shorter route segments – continue to use Anchorage frequently.

Could they build something around that?

edit: So ideally, Anchorage : transpacific :: Memphis : FedEx.