Page 2 of 2 Energy at the Xtreme edge
By Michael T Klare
The mining of oil sands and their conversion into useful liquids is a costly
and difficult process, and so the urge to do so tells us a great deal about our
particular state of energy dependency. Deposits near the surface can be
strip-mined, but those deeper underground can only be exploited by pumping in
steam to separate the bitumen from the sand and then pumping the bitumen to the
surface - a process that consumes vast amounts of water and energy in the form
of natural gas (to heat that water into steam). Much of the water used to
produce steam is collected at the site and used over again, but some is
returned to the local water supply in northern Alberta, causing
environmentalists to worry about the risk of large-scale contamination.
The clearing of enormous tracts of virgin forest to allow strip-mining and the
consumption of valuable natural gas to extract the bitumen are other sources of
concern. Nevertheless, such is the need of our civilization for petroleum
products that Canadian oil sands are expected to generate 4.2 million barrels
of fuel per day in 2030 - three times the amount being produced today - even as
the extraction devastates huge parts of Alberta, consumes staggering amounts of
natural gas, cause potentially extensive pollution, and sabotage Canada's
efforts to curb its greenhouse-gas emissions.
North of Alberta lies another source of Xtreme energy: Arctic oil and gas. Once
largely neglected because of the difficulty of simply surviving, no less
producing energy, in the region, the Arctic is now the site of a major "oil
rush" as global warming makes it easier for energy firms to operate in northern
latitudes. Norway's state-owned energy company, StatoilHydro, is now running
the world's first natural gas facility above the Arctic Circle, and companies
from around the world are making plans to develop oil and gas fields in the
Arctic territories of Canada, Greenland (administered by Denmark), Russia, and
the United States, where offshore drilling in northern Alaskan waters may soon
be the order of the day.
It will not, however, be easy to obtain oil and natural gas from the Arctic.
Even if global warming raises average temperatures and reduces the extent of
the polar ice cap, winter conditions will still make oil production extremely
difficult and hazardous. Fierce storms and plunging temperatures will remain
common, posing great risk to any humans not hunkered down in secure facilities
and making the transport of energy a major undertaking.
Given fears of dwindling oil supplies, none of this has been enough to deter
energy-craving companies from plunging into the icy waters. "Despite grueling
conditions, interest in oil and gas reserves in the far north is heating up,"
Brian Baskin reported in the Wall Street Journal. "Virtually every major
producer is looking to the Arctic sea floor as the next - some say last - great
resource play."
What is true of oil generally is also true of natural gas and coal: most
easy-to-reach conventional deposits are quickly being depleted. What remains
are largely the "unconventional" supplies.
US producers of natural gas, for example, are reporting a significant increase
in domestic output, producing a dramatic reduction in prices. According to the
DoE, US gas production is projected to increase from about 20 trillion cubic
feet in 2009 to 24 trillion in 2030, a real boon for US consumers, who rely to
a significant degree on natural gas for home heating and electricity
generation. As noted by the Energy Department however, "Unconventional natural
gas is the largest contributor to the growth in US natural gas production, as
rising prices and improvements in drilling technology provide the economic
incentives necessary for exploitation of more costly resources."
Most of the unconventional gas in the United States is currently obtained from
tight-sand formations (or sandstone), but a growing percentage is acquired from
shale rock through a process known as hydraulic fracturing. In this method,
water is forced into the underground shale formations to crack the rock open
and release the gas. Huge amounts of water are employed in the process, and
environmentalists fear that some of this water, laced with pollutants, will
find its ways into the nation's drinking supply. In many areas, moreover, water
itself is a scarce resource, and the diversion of crucial supplies to gas
extraction may diminish the amounts available for farming, habitat
preservation, and human consumption. Nonetheless, production of shale gas is
projected to jump from two trillion cubic feet per year in 2009 to four
trillion in 2030.
Coal presents a somewhat similar picture. Although many environmentalists
object to the burning of coal because it releases far more climate-altering
greenhouse gases than other fossil fuels for each BTU produced, the nation's
electric-power industry continues to rely on coal because it remains relatively
cheap and plentiful. Yet many of the country's most productive sources of
anthracite and bituminous coal - the types with the greatest energy potential -
have been depleted, leaving (as with oil) less productive sources of these
types, along with large deposits of less desirable, more heavily polluting
sub-bituminous coal, much of it located in Wyoming.
To get at what remains of the more valuable bituminous coal in Appalachia,
mining companies increasingly rely on a technique known as mountaintop removal,
described by John M Broder of the New York Times as "blasting off the tops of
mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams." Long opposed by
environmentalists and residents of rural Kentucky and West Virginia, whose
water supplies are endangered by the dumping of excess rock, dirt, and a
variety of contaminants, mountaintop removal received a strong endorsement from
the George W Bush administration, which in December 2008 approved a regulation
allowing for a vast expansion of the practice. President Obama has vowed to
reverse this regulation, but he favors the use of "clean coal" as part of a
transitional energy strategy. It remains to be seen how far he will go in
reining in the coal industry.
Xtreme conflict
So let's be blunt: we are not (yet) entering the much-heralded Age of
Renewables. That bright day will undoubtedly arrive eventually, but not until
we have moved much closer to the middle of this century and potentially
staggering amounts of damage has been done to this planet in a fevered search
for older forms of energy.
In the meantime, the era of Xtreme energy will be characterized by an
ever-deepening reliance on the least accessible, least desirable sources of
oil, coal, and natural gas. This period will surely involve an intense struggle
over the environmental consequences of reliance on such unappealing sources of
energy. In this way, Big Oil and Big Coal - the major energy firms - may grow
even larger, while the relatively moderate fuel and energy prices of the
present moment will be on the rise, especially given the high cost of
extracting oil, gas, and coal from less accessible and more challenging
locations.
One other thing is, unfortunately, guaranteed: the era of Xtreme energy will
also involve intense geopolitical struggle as major energy consumers and
producers like the United States, China, the European Union, Russia, India, and
Japan vie with one another for control of the remaining supplies. Russia and
Norway, for example, are already sparring over their maritime boundary in the
Barents Sea, a promising source of natural gas in the far north, while China
and Japan have tussled over a similar boundary dispute in the East China Sea,
the site of another large gas field.
All the Arctic nations - Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States
- have laid claim to large, sometimes overlapping, slices of the Arctic Ocean,
generating fresh boundary disputes in these energy-rich areas.
None of these disputes has yet resulted in violent conflict, but warships and
planes have been deployed on some occasions and the potential exists for future
escalation as tensions rise and the perceived value of these assets grows. And
while we're at it, don't forget today's energy hotspots like Nigeria, the
Middle East, and the Caspian Basin. In the Xtreme era to come, they are no less
likely to generate conflicts of every sort over the ever-more precious supplies
of more easily accessible energy.
For most of us, life in the era of Xtreme energy will not be easy. Energy
prices will rise, environmental perils will multiply, ever more carbon dioxide
will pour into the atmosphere, and the risk of conflict will grow. We possess
just two options for shortening this difficult era and mitigating its impact.
They are both perfectly obvious - which, unfortunately, makes them no easier to
bring about: drastically speed up the development of renewable sources of
energy and greatly reduce our reliance on fossil fuels by reorganizing our
lives and our civilization so that we might consume less of them in everything
we do.
That may sound easy enough, but tell that to governments around the world. Tell
that to Big Energy. Hope for it, work for it, but in the meantime, keep your
seatbelts buckled. This roller-coaster ride is about to begin.
Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at
Hampshire College and the author, most recently of Rising Powers,
Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Owl Books). A documentary film
based on his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media
Education Foundation.
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