The visit of the Royal Dutch Shell's Polar Pioneer Oil Drilling Rig to the Port of Seattle's Terminal 5 in May, 2015 sparked demonstrations against drilling for petroleum products in Alaska's Chukchi Sea, and helped to focus attention on environmental issues, the use of energy resources, externalities and systemic risk.
Energy resources include petroleum products, nuclear energy and alternative energy sources such as solar, wind power, biodiesel, ethanol, hydro and other emerging energy sources. The Polar Pioneer and other Arctic drilling operations are concerned with the development of petroleum resources as the planet deals with exploration for additional sources of petroleum.
Alaska's Chukchi Sea, high in the Arctic, above the Alaska Archipelago, is a marginal sea that sits between Russia and Alaska and is navigable only four months out of the year.
There are many risks involved in drilling in the Arctic. Past oil spills, such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March, 1989 highlight the risks involved with drilling in such a hostile environment where repairs, mitigation and cleanup are much more difficult. Storms, ice, extremes of light and darkness and other climatological issues present challenges. The opening up of Arctic areas for shipping also presents a long term challenge in a number of ways; this risk includes not simply the risk posed by the oil drilling activities themselves but ancillary activities that support these activities as well as other commercial activities.
There is the risk that sea lanes could interrupt the ability of sea ice to reform. Sea ice, with a high albedo (reflectivity index between 0 and 1) , helps to counteract planetary warming. As anyone who has tried to bake an egg on a hot black asphalt knows, black surfaces absorb heat and white surfaces reflect it, and a decrease in sea ice is associated with positive feedback mechanisms that increase global warming. Preserving the Arctic ice in the face of increased commercial traffic is a very important element in ensuring planetary balance.
Is it possible that the planet is finding its own way towards an equilibrium, as we sit and ponder our options?
In 2012 a phytoplankton bloom was discovered floating in the Chukchi Sea between Wainwright and Barrow, Alaska.
Set in the context of climate change, involving long term planetary forcing mechanisms such as the Milankovitch Cycle and global warming, population growth, globalization, and development of emerging economies, the use of energy resources is an important topic.
Could this bloom be a mechanism for mitigating the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide? Phytoplankton account for "half of photosynthetic activity on Earth", according to NOAA. The presence of extensive blooms of the fern Azolla in the Arctic Ocean are associated with the emergence of an ice age in the middle Eocene epoch (Azolla Event) 49 million years ago, which transformed the Earth from a "greenhouse" to an "icehouse". Blooms have varying ability to sequester carbon dioxide, as indicated by the Azolla foundation.
The appearance of algal blooms in the Chukchi Sea may be an early indicator of planetary compensatory mechanisms to deal with the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (including methane and water vapor ) in the atmosphere, and rising temperatures.
The issue of drilling in the Arctic's Chukchi Sea is thus an important issue that doesn't simply entail the issues of how to drill in such a hostile environment without disturbing it, but also is set in the context of a bifurcation point with regards to issues of planetary balance.
Past articles from my blog on environmental issues and the issues of externalities incude:
Externalities and Risk - The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
Climate Change and Carbon
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport - Environmental Issues (one of a series on the airport)
Climate Change and the Thermohaline Circulation
Marilyn Dunstan Photography
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