Defend this: Arctic drilling for 'extreme oil' is risky - and letting Shell do the work is reckless

[cali]

But it must be just fine, right? We should all trust this President on everything. He's earned our trust- or some of you keep telling me. The technology to clean up the inevitable major oil spill in that environment, not to mention that the drilling site is over a thousand miles away from the nearest Coast Guard Station.


America’s Arctic Ocean belongs to all of us. The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas provide habitat for countless species of wildlife. This is one of the most unique marine ecosystems in the world, home to the entire population of US polar bears. Many of America’s most beloved marine creatures thrive here, including whales, walrus, seals and countless birds.

Yet on Monday, the Interior Department decided to conditionally approve Shell’s risky and dangerous plans to drill in America’s Arctic Ocean. There are many reasons why this is a bad idea.

The Arctic is under the dual threat of climate change and development. This administration has made a strong commitment to working towards mitigating climate change. Drilling in the Arctic is backtracking on this commitment. Burning the Arctic Ocean’s oil could release an additional 15.8 bn tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is equivalent to all US transportation emissions over a nine year period. Scientists have warned that we need to keep these reserves in the ground to keep global warming in check.

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The risk of a spill is significant. By the Interior Department’s own analysis, they have found that there is a 75% chance of a major oil spill if development moves forward in the Chukchi Sea. If oil is spilled, it will be a disaster. As we’ve seen from the Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez environmental disasters, there is no such thing as an effective clean up: once oil has been spilled, the battle has been lost.

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In contrast, the Arctic Ocean is prone to hurricane-force storms, 20-foot swells, pervasive sea ice, frigid temperatures and months-long darkness. There is no proven way to clean up an oil spill in these extreme conditions. What’s more, the Arctic has extremely limited infrastructure (there are no roads or deep water ports and only a handful of small airports) and the nearest Coast Guard station is 1,000 miles away.

And, the biggest risk of all is trusting Shell in our ocean. As we all remember, Shell’s mishaps in 2012 culminated with the Kulluk, its drilling rig, running aground near Sitkalidak Island, Alaska. And, just last week, Vice reported that in April the Coast Guard held the Noble Discoverer in Honolulu for a day until engineers could repair the device that separates oil from the water in the ship’s bilges. This is the same ship whose operators pled guilty to eight felonies after Shell’s last failed season in the Arctic. You might also remember that the Noble Discoverer had 16 safety and environmental violations and slipped an anchor, nearly running aground, and caught fire at one point.

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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/13/arctic-drilling-for-extreme-oil-is-risky-and-letting-shell-do-the-work-is-reckless

[TexasProgresive]

1. We should let B-P drill

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Here's a slightly different point of view, for your edification! Today's LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sej-obama-arctic-20150512-story.html

[cali]

3. Thanks Peggy.

I've read about the lease and Shell, er, shelling out big $$$ for it. A couple of things in response: Yesterday I heard someone from an environmental group on some public radio show talking about this and about Shell's previous drilling there. That was quite a different thing as to the type of drilling, much less aggressive than what Shell will have to do to access the oil there.

The two main points that all of the environmental orgs are making are:

1) A major oil spill is almost inevitable

2) The technology doesn't exist to clean it up in that environent

The woman I heard yesterday on the radio made another point that I thought interesting; that Shell as a corporation is behaving irresponsibly toward its stockholders because a major accident entailing a large spill would be prohibitively expensive to attempt to clean up.