Is it any wonder the oil industry isn't concerned about climate change? The melting of the ice in the Arctic is something they look forward to while cackling evilly and rubbing their hands together in glee:
Sending oilsands bitumen north through N.W.T. to a port in the Arctic is feasible, according to a study commissioned last year by Alberta.
Dubbed the Arctic Gateway Pipeline, the proposed link would ship bitumen along the Mackenzie Valley to a port in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.
It says shipping of bitumen through Tuktoyaktuk could start as early as next summer, using freight trains to Hay River, N.W.T., then barges the rest of the way down the Mackenzie River and on to Tuktoyaktuk.
The recently released study is the next step in efforts to get Alberta's oil sands bitumen to market by any means necessary. With strong opposition to pipelines south from the tar sands across the US to the Gulf of Mexico and west across BC to the Pacific, the province is now looking north. The previous step that makes this one possible was the devolution of powers to the Northwest Territories last year to
clear the way for development.
Alberta’s plan to get its landlocked oil to overseas markets by way of Arctic shores might just become a reality — and sooner than the stalled Northern Gateway or Keystone XL projects....
[I]n finalizing its devolution agreement last spring, the Harper government reduced the layers of oversight, centralizing the territory’s complex land- and water-board system into a single review board, akin to what exists in Alberta....
The report proposes three different options for getting the Alberta oil sands bitumen
to the Arctic Ocean for shipment.
The report’s authors — of Arctic petroleum consultants Canatec Associates International Ltd. — propose three potential options, all of which the report deems technically feasible. A pilot project using small test shipments could be started as early as next year, it said.
At its most ambitious, a northern pipeline project could make 35 million barrels of diluted bitumen a year available for trans-ocean export. Northern Gateway, by comparison, proposes to ship 190 million barrels a year.
The most basic scenario would see a brand new pipeline built, connecting Fort McMurray, almost as-the-crow-flies, to the far-north port of Tuktoyaktuk.
Yet, at some 2,400 km in length — more than twice as long as the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to the B.C. coast — it, like Gateway, is bound to draw environmental controversy over possible risks to the territory’s pristine wilderness.
There is also the tricky matter of navigating the iceberg-laden waters of the Beaufort Sea.
Soooo much easier with the climate warming and the Arctic due to be ice-free in summer in the near future. When ice does make the passage (both west to Asia and east to Europe) impassable, why they'll just store the oil in facilities on the shore.
You can see for yourself some of the possible outcomes of accidents on the Beaufort Sea here.
It's not as if this is something that any but a tiny, tiny minority of people want to see done. A recent international poll of poeple worldwide showed that the vast majority want Arctic waters protected from this kind of activity.
International polling revealed today that 74 percent of people worldwide support the creation of a protected sanctuary in the international waters surrounding the North Pole. In Canada, support for this enhanced form of protection ranks higher than the global average, with 78 percent favourable opinion.
The study, commissioned by Greenpeace and carried out by Canadian company RIWI, was conducted across 30 countries on six continents. It demonstrates overwhelming public support for a formally protected area in the High Arctic for mammals and other marine life.
In addition, 71 percent of those polled say they support the entire Arctic Ocean to be free of oil drilling and other types of heavy industry. This figure climbs to 75 percent in Canada.
Currently only 1.5 percent of the Arctic Ocean is protected — less than any of the other world’s oceans.
You can see a rough map of the proposed Arctic Gateway Pipeline
here.