Oil exploration under Arctic ice could cause 'uncontrollable' natural disaster

[highplainsdem]

Source: The Independent

Oil from an undersea leak will not only be very hard to deal with in Arctic conditions, it will interact with the surface sea ice and become absorbed in it, and will be transported by it for as much as 1,000 miles across the ocean, according to Peter Wadhams, Professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

The interaction, discovered in large-scale experiments 30 years ago, means that the Arctic oil rush, which was given a huge boost last week with a $3.2 billion (£1.9bn) investment from Exxon Mobil, is likely to be the riskiest form of oil exploration ever undertaken, said Professor Wadhams, who is a former director of Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute.

-snip-

"The oil is caught underneath the ice, so you can't get at immediately to clean it up or burn it off. You don't know exactly where it is, and then it gets encapsulated in the new ice which grows underneath, so you then have a kind of oil sandwich inside the pack ice.

"And that's being transported around the Arctic and isn't released until spring, when it may be several hundred or even a thousand miles from the source of the spill, so you can have a huge area of the Arctic becoming polluted by oil without initially it being clear where that oil is."

-snip-

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/oil-exploration-under-arctic-ice-could-cause-uncontrollable-natural-disaster-2349788.html

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The article mentions the other risks of going after the oil in the Arctic -- "ice encroachment, the remoteness of the Arctic, darkness, extreme weather, deep water, high seas, freezing conditions and icebergs" -- but the most worrisome information here is about how the oil will interact with ice, and this information is based on a study done off the coast of Canada in the 1970s.

Not only would spilled oil be trapped in the ice and transported vast distances by it, but when it thaws it will be still be fresh oil because the ice will have kept it from weathering. And Professor Wadhams points out it will be released on the edges of pack ice, where migratory birds feed.

[No Elephants]

1. President Carter tried to avert things like this. They call him one of the

worst Presidents ever.

Reagan, who dismantled everything Carter tried to do as soon as the price of oil went down, makes almost everyone's list of best Presidents ever, including Obama's and Hillary's.

Go figure.

[Lorien]

5. Reagan is on the "worst" list of nearly everyone worth listening to

and Carter was pretty decent compared to what we've had since then. But this issue is WAY bigger than partisan politics.

[ixion]

12. Carter is the ONLY decent president since JFK,

in my opinion.

[slay]

2. Humans are an uncontrollable natural disaster

these days.

[emilyg]

3. Yes.

[LAGC]

8. Amen to that.

We're our own worst enemy, and will likely do ourselves in long before nature decides to finally wipe us out.

[ixion]

13. As Agent Smith said: We're a virus.

:(

[Pooka Fey]

21. It's my absolute favorite scene from "The Matrix"

:-)

[Delphinus]

23. Boy,

isn't *that* the truth!

[Nihil]

25. Very true ...

... a frighteningly powerful & destructive one at that ...

:-(

[SammyWinstonJack]

22. Greed is an uncontrollable disaster to nature, these days.

[aquart]

4. They'll do it anyway.

[defendandprotect]

6. Something about capitalism that makes people and politicians do really stupid things -- !!

[ashling]

7. Greed.

nt

[Golden Raisin]

9. Unfettered capitalism

plus Military/Industrial Complex with a big dash of Ayn Rand Republicanism thrown in will ultimately destroy this planet.

[BeHereNow]

10. What ever... no?

As I have said before:
We are the only species on the planet that shits
in our own nest.
To our own detriment.
BHN:popcorn: :popcorn:

[truthisfreedom]

11. Well, if we need uncontrollable disasters to finally put the neaderthal rethugs' collective noses in

the corner, permanently, so be it. I've always said, and have never been quoted, but you can start if you want... we should have killed the neanderthals off when it was still legal. Look. We're smart enough to clean up the mess they create no matter how bad it is. Just let them loose and carefully steer them around until they wreck every avenue of exploitation that's left, and we'll use the prescribed burns to serotinously trigger our fellow Dems into action.

[DetlefK]

14. Ain't see a problem with that.

It is very easy:
If you want to drill in the Arctic, then you have to sign the following clauses:
1. The 20 top-ranking members of the company are fully responsible for any damages that might occur in case of an oil-spill, regardless of fault.
2. If any oil-spill-related damages have to be paid, the money has to be deduced from the private assets of the 20 top-ranking members of the company first. As soon as each of those natural persons possesses less than $100,000, the rest of the payments may be deduced from company assets.
3. In case of an oil-spill, the company will be liable for 100% of any related industrial and economic damages.
4. In case of an oil-spill, the company will be liable for 100% of the costs of the cleanup of any related environmental damages.
5. In case of an oil-spill, the company will be liable for 100% of the healthcare costs of any related health problems.
6. The company hereby agrees, that the US government is in no way bound to assist, directly or indirectly, the company or any of its members (natural or corporational) financially in case of an oil-spill.

[durablend]

15. Forget it

A Republican president would just void and nullify that (that's assuming SCOTUS didn't kill it first)

[digitaln3rd]

16. Thank goodness we have a president that stands by the EPA though.

Oh, wait....

[izquierdista]

17. Not to worry

They are planning to melt it all first.

[certainot]

18. one of the 'advantages' of global warming denial is the melting will allow accessibility and

the emergencies will 'necessitate' centralized 'solutions' to divert trillions for nukes, etc, to the plutocrats.

[Uncle Joe]

19. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, highplainsdem.

[Pooka Fey]

20. Nobody could have foreseen this environmental catastrophy....

:argh:

[Hugabear]

24. There needs to be a global BAN on oil exploration

I know it won't happen, but it's still something that would be nice to see. I don't care if there are a zillion barrels of oil under the Arctic and other sensitive places, enough to last another 1000 years. The damage we're doing to the planet is irreparable. We have the technology and the means to move beyond fossil fuels. Yet as long as we keep sucking oil from the ground, there will never be any incentive to do so.

[Spacemom]

26. Why does this remind me of

a junkie willing to do absolutely anything to get their next fix?