It's Getting Hot in Herre (18 Apr)

The Latest News in Climate Change/Global Warming, Peak Oil, and Sustainability

One of the big pieces of news for the day comes out of Britain, where the Guardian is reporting that UK scientists are none too pleased with US colleagues working in league with oil companies to search for oil in the Arctic Circle:

British scientists are at loggerheads with US colleagues over a controversial plan to work alongside oil companies to hunt for fossil fuel reserves in the Arctic. The US Geological Survey is lining up a project with BP and Statoil to find oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean, under the auspices of a flagship scientific initiative intended to tackle global warming.

But the head of the British Antarctic Survey, which coordinates UK activity at the poles, has said he is "very uncomfortable" with the idea and has questioned its ethical and scientific justification.

[...]

The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet and last September saw the lowest extent of sea ice cover for more than a century. Scientists say the temperature there could rise by a further 4C-7C by 2100, and the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in summer by 2060.

Documents on the IPY [International Polar Year] website show that BP and Statoil, a Norwegian company, are "significant consortium members" on a USGS proposal to assess "energy resources in the circumarctic area including oil, gas, coalbed methane and methane hydrates". Geologists estimate that a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves lie under the Arctic, and analysts have predicted a 21st-century goldrush to tap them as the Arctic Ocean's ice cover retreats.

[...]

The USGS proposal has been approved by scientists organising the IPY, but Prof Rapley plans to question its suitability at a committee meeting this week in Cambridge. "If it was in the context of how are we going to manage the inevitable move towards extracting these resources from the Arctic in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way then I think that would be fair game," he said. "There is an argument that it is much better to work with companies that are considering how to exploit these resources rather than taking a somewhat prissy position. But there are some things that are ethically in, and some that are ethically out."

What's at stake here? From another Guardian article:

The US Geological Survey surprised some experts when it declared that a quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves lay under the Arctic Ocean. As the ice retreats, oil companies are scrambling to open a new frontier.

Bruce Evers, an analyst with the London firm Investec, says the big companies have no choice but to investigate the Arctic. "If they think there is oil and gas there then they absolutely can't ignore it," he says. "If there is going to be an Arctic Klondike rush then they will want to be there along with every other Tom, Dick and Harry. They can't afford to sit and watch the others explore and come up with some huge discoveries."

Attempts to open up the Arctic national wildlife refuge in Alaska to drilling remain deadlocked in the US Congress, but several companies have dipped more than a toe in the chilly Arctic Ocean further north. BP Amoco is developing an Alaskan offshore oil deposit called Northstar and the Norwegian company Statoil is working on a gasfield some 90 miles across the frozen Barents Sea from its most northerly outpost, Hammerfest. Called Snow White, the project is expected to start pumping liquefied natural gas to the US and Europe next year.

The jewel in the Arctic energy crown is the Shtokman field, also in the Barents Sea. Some 300 miles off the Russian Arctic coast and 10 times the size of Snow White, it is the largest offshore gas reservoir in the world. The Russian energy giant Gazprom is poised to announce partnerships with other companies to drill up to 120 wells.

"It's an unfortunate fact of life that the climactically benign and politically stable areas are running out of oil and gas," Mr Evers said. "So in politically stable areas like the Arctic there's going to be a substantial amount of interest."

Now, let's take a quick spin through some other news tidbits, cos I gotta get back to work writing up descriptions of Christmas nutcrackers (I kid you not--this is one that I'm working on; note that what you see up there is placeholder stuff that gets overwritten by my prosaic descriptions later).

• EVWorld reprints an article from the Alliance to Save Energy with some good energy saving tips, including:
  
  • Keep air filters clean to improve mileage by up to 10 percent. Replacing clogged or dirty air filters also keeps impurities from damaging the inside of your engine.
    
  • Keep tires properly inflated to improve gas mileage by about 3.3 percent and improve tire safety and longevity. Every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent.
  
  Seems like such a small thing, but I recently filled up the tires on Gunter Grass (our flounder-like Honda Civic) and could easily tell that our MPG increased.
  
• I hate packing peanuts, but Treehugger points to a very interesting/innovative packing prodcut called Geämi that's made from recycled paper.
  
  
  

  The product is a roll of paper that has tiny slits in it that expand when it is rolled out. [The slits] contort into honeycomb forms when stretched. 20 inch paper loses 20% of its width as this new 3 dimensional packaging takes shape. The company suggests it will now perform the “same functions as foam peanuts, bubble-type wrap and molded polystyrene - wrapping, cushioning, void filling, blocking and bracing - but without the environmental liability.” Furthermore because it arrives basically flat packed, it is 40 times more space, and thus shipping, efficient than bubble wrap.

  
  
  
• WaPo columnist Richard Cohen has some positive words for Al Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Check back later today, and I'll have some grabs from the article as well as a fuller update on Mr. Gore.
  
  
• General Motors continued to focus on its national ethanol campaign (earlier post) with plans for the addition of approximately 20 new E85 ethanol fueling sites in the southeast Michigan area through a collaborative partnership with Meijer and CleanFUEL USA. [Green Car Congress]
  
  
• If you're interested in alternative fuels investment like ethanol, check out this column by Joanna Glasner over at Wired, which lays out the pros and cons.