Oil drilling in arctic.

[animartco]

Hi All,
I heard something very frightening on TV a couple of days ago. Wasn't listening that well, it was only a short flash, but somethin gto do with the Russians wanting to drill for oil beneath the arctic ice? Has anyone any more information on this?
If there is an oil spill beneath the arctic ice, this will kill not only all the mammals in the area, whales seals walrus and polar bear, but will also kill huge populations of breeding and migrating squid, krill, etc, enough to affect the life in all the worlds oceans.
Beneath the ice is 'out of sight out of mind' until all oceans start to die off. (I mean more quickly than at present.)

[Littlesparrow]

A quick Google revels the debate has been going on a long time it America and BP has signed some kind of deal with the Russians to explore for oil. Greenpeace is opposing it on the grounds of the danger posed to wildlife and the environment.

[eeyore]

I broadly agree that its a bad idea - tho an oil spill there wouldnt be significantly worse than elsewhere (such as the BP adventure in the gulf of mexico)

but the bottom line is that as long as people want to drive cars and fly planes oil is going to be necessary evil.

and oil rigs arent going to be out of sight out of mind - they'll be on the surface where you can see them - just like the alaskan ones already are.

(I'm also slightly puzzled by antimarcos oposition to this, given that only a month or two ago she was suggesting huge catterpillar tracked vacuum cleaners trundelling accross the sub artic tundral ecosystems to harvest methane )

[tom00_uk]

in Alaska its been happening for a while. just the other day the pipe line was once again switched off while they dealt with a hole and a spill onto land

[animartco]

Originally Posted by eeyore

I broadly agree that its a bad idea - tho an oil spill there wouldnt be significantly worse than elsewhere (such as the BP adventure in the gulf of mexico)

but the bottom line is that as long as people want to drive cars and fly planes oil is going to be necessary evil.

and oil rigs arent going to be out of sight out of mind - they'll be on the surface where you can see them - just like the alaskan ones already are.

(I'm also slightly puzzled by antimarcos oposition to this, given that only a month or two ago she was suggesting huge catterpillar tracked vacuum cleaners trundelling accross the sub artic tundral ecosystems to harvest methane )

Hi Eeyore. Not significantly worse? An oil spill as large as the one we have just had, occuring underneath the ice could potentially wipe out life on Earth. In fact habitual drilling would kill everything, purely because of the 'out of sight out of mind' syndrome. If no one hears about it and it isn't on the news, what does it matter if there are regular spills under the ice? It could be happening constantly. Who would know, apart from the drilling companies and they wouldn't be telling! The first thing anyone would know about it is when everything in the seas started to die.
The underside of the arctic ice sheet is not a deserted unimportant environment. Far from it! It is the breeding ground of a goodly pervcentage of the oceans plankton and small marine animals. They live in their billions just beneath the ice, where they have light air and protection.
Any spill would spread out beneath the ice killing the environment, and how would it ever be cleaned up? Ad to this the fact that spill after spill after spill would go unrecorded, and I hope you can see the disaster looming?

[tom00_uk]

Originally Posted by animartco

Hi Eeyore. Not significantly worse? An oil spill as large as the one we have just had, occuring underneath the ice could potentially wipe out life on Earth. In fact habitual drilling would kill everything, purely because of the 'out of sight out of mind' syndrome. If no one hears about it and it isn't on the news, what does it matter if there are regular spills under the ice? It could be happening constantly. Who would know, apart from the drilling companies and they wouldn't be telling! The first thing anyone would know about it is when everything in the seas started to die.
The underside of the arctic ice sheet is not a deserted unimportant environment. Far from it! It is the breeding ground of a goodly pervcentage of the oceans plankton and small marine animals. They live in their billions just beneath the ice, where they have light air and protection.
Any spill would spread out beneath the ice killing the environment, and how would it ever be cleaned up? Ad to this the fact that spill after spill after spill would go unrecorded, and I hope you can see the disaster looming?

how would a spill of the same magnitude as has just occurred in the Gulf of Mexico "wipe out life on earth"?

"every thing in the seas started to die" - there are a lot of independent checks in place to try to prevent spills and if they start to stop them as quickly as possible

"how would it ever be cleaned up" - in most cases it is better to leave the oil to disperse its self and be broken down by the micro organisms that have been using oil as a food source for millions of years. the dispersant dumped on slicks can result in far greater ecological damage than the original spill

not sure what you mean by "habitual drilling" they drill in areas were it is expected from a range of other tests to find oil or gas. the costs involved mean they are unlikely to put holes in the ground on a whim as a dart landed in the map at that spot