Scientists Urge Caution of US Arctic Drilling Plans
Past energy sources continue plodding onward to an inevitable if slow demise, while the future of energy is researched in MIT labs, deployed in the California desert, and installed in Palestine even as Israel knocks it down.
Scientists Urge Caution of US Arctic Drilling Plans
TreeHugger’s covered the significant risks over drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean -words to the effect of ‘we have no way of responding to a spill in icy waters’ have been uttered in Congressional hearings by the head of the Coast Guard. Now a group of 573 scientists have weighed in, calling for more research before the Obama administration plans for drilling proceed.
Mongabay quotes Chuck Clusen of NRDC:
The Arctic is the last wild ocean on the planet. Its waters and the abundant life they support are simply too sensitive to be drilled, especially since neither the oil industry nor scientists have identified a proven way to contain or clean up a spill in the Arctic’s extreme conditions. At the very least, there should be no plan to lease these areas until key scientific studies have been done and until the oil and gas industry can demonstrate its ability to contain and clean up a spill.
At the very least…
US Oil Production’s Second Life Already Has An End In Sight
It’s true that new technologies have allowed the US oil production to climb again. But even with these new technologies, another peak is coming.
National Geographic News:
driven the revival-high-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling-can only squeeze so much more crude out of the U.S. landscape, they say. Projections are that U.S. oil production will never again reach the lofty heights of the 1960s, even without environmental concerns slowing development or hampering industry with new costs. But most importantly for U.S. consumers, the new supply is not expected to provide relief at the pump. The price of gasoline, still governed by global geopolitical factors like Middle East conflict, burgeoning economic growth in Asia, and constraints on supply around the globe, is projected to increase at a rate of nearly 2 percent per year. In the United States and elsewhere, the only way to escape the ever-higher price of oil in the future, the experts agree, will be to use less of it.
Source: Treehugger
