As Permafrost Collapses, Oil Companies To Freeze The Ground, So That Drill Rigs Don't Collapse
EDIT
Are you sitting down? ConocoPhillips and other companies are investigating ways to cool the Earth underneath their operations so they can keep on doing business as usual. Damn global warming! Full speed ahead! The plan was noted in an environmental impact statement prepared by the U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, State of Alaska, North Slope Borough, Native Village of Nuiqsut, City of Nuiqsut, and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope. The conclusion? Drill, baby, drill!
The Guardian reports the melting permafrost has created new business opportunities for some. One Alaska company, BeadedStream, sells equipment that measures and transmits tundra temperature data so oil companies will know as soon as the ground is frozen solid enough to transport equipment, according to National Public Radio. Another firm, Arctic Foundations, is doing a brisk business selling thermosiphons – tubes that pull heat out of the ground to keep permafrost from thawing underneath oil infrastructure.
The melting is welcomed by others. Melting of Arctic sea ice removes an obstacle from shipping liquefied natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope, according to the Anchorage-based company, Qilak LNG. “Our reliability quotient goes up,” Mead Treadwell, a local businessman and former Republican lieutenant governor of Alaska who supports the project. “Climate change, the changing composition of sea ice, has made this more economic.”
What is it about Republicans that makes it impossible for them to look beyond the end of next week and see what the medium and long term results of their policies will be? When did the Republican Party decide it fully supports destroying the environment if there is money to be made? Probably when Charles Koch began pumping massive amounts of money into Republican causes to satisfy his insatiable greed.
EDIT
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/10/20/the-epitome-of-stupidity-oil-companies-chill-the-ground-in-alaska-so-they-can-keep-drilling/
= new reply since forum marked as read
