What’s the Real Story Behind the Alaska Pipeline?
Written by Ruedigar Matthes
Published on June 18th, 2009
Posted in Climate Change, Editor's Choice, Natural Resources
With the spotlight shining on clean energy, the stage has been set for the U.S. to rid itself of a harmful addiction to foreign oil. The stars are aligned and the cards have been dealt. Soon we’ll have kicked the dirty habit, right?
Sarah Palin seems to think so. Perhaps you’ll remember her proposal to tap the natural gas supply found under the pristine Alaskan wilderness. As Governor of Alaska she “fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history . . . a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.”
While it may be true that part of America’s energy independence lies under Alaskan soil, there’s more to the story than simply drilling for oil. Drilling for Alaskan oil may be even dirtier than it seems.
Alaska’s 35 trillion feet of natural gas could be used to wean the U.S. from our mother in the Middle East, but that isn’t quite what the authors of the pipeline have waiting on the next page. Much of the natural gas harvested in Alaska would be used to expand the oil sand (tar sand) projects in Alberta, Canada. Such expansion of the tar sands projects would bring the finished tar sands product to our front doors. Now what’s wrong with that? Isn’t tar sand a way out of our dependency?
“The tar sands of Canada constitute one of our planet’s greatest threats. They are a double-barreled threat. First, producing oil from tar sands emits two-to-three times the global warming pollution of conventional oil. But the process also diminishes one of the best carbon-reduction tools on the planet: Canada’s Boreal Forest,” said Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University.
The Alberta tar sands project has gained the moniker “the most destructive project on earth.” Al Gore stated that “For every barrel of oil they extract there, they have to use enough natural gas to heat a family’s home for four days.” Tar Sands operations currently use about .6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. By 2012, that level could rise to 2 billion cubic feet a day. I guess that it would be important for them (the Big Oil companies who are harvesting oil from the tar sands) to have a reliable ‘domestic’ source of natural gas. It would certainly save them a few bucks.
It isn’t simply the horrendous amounts of natural gas consumed that is disturbing about the tar sands projects. Most of the tar sands rest peacefully under Canada’s Boreal Forest, the world’s largest intact forest. Alberta’s oil sands underlie one-fifth of the province, and it is possible that oil sand exploitation could affect an area 40 times larger than the mine-able area.
http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/06/18/whats-the-real-story-behind-the-en...
