Read Online Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming by McKenzie Funk - Free Book Online
Authors: McKenzie Funk
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thirty years. Natural carbon sinks—oceans, plants—could now hold 10 percent less carbon than fifty years ago, their efficiency as buffers weakening. “Since 2000, the growth in carbon emissions from fossil fuels has tripled—tripled compared to the 1990s!” he said. “We’re exceeding even the highest IPCC emission scenarios.” He showed us a graph and how we were above the red line.
“Okay, let’s summarize,” he said. “We lost 22 percent of the area of sea ice in two years. And you think that’s business as usual. We’ve lost 80 percent of the volume of Arctic sea ice in the last four years, and we pretend this is just part of what we do.” He looked at the crowd, visibly seething. “So, what can we conclude?” he asked. “That the emperor has no clothes. The expansion of oil and gas activities in the Arctic will fuel further greenhouse-gas emissions, which will, in turn, cause further warming and systemic changes to the Earth’s system, which, in turn, will cause massive impacts in the Arctic and globally, which will hurt you and me. Ladies and gentlemen, we are living inside the paradox.” He then called for a moratorium on all offshore oil and gas development in the Arctic. For a moment, there was a stunned silence—his anger seemed out of place, rude and unhinged, an interruption to what had so far been a pretty nice conference—then the crowd clapped politely.
In time, Shell would have a practiced response to the apparent paradox, which was to say that it was no paradox at all. “There was a question about whether there was a paradox to produce oil and gas in the Arctic,” Blaauw told another conference. “I don’t think so. The story is pretty simple. Today, we share the planet with 6.9 billion people. By 2050, there will be 9 billion people. In order to meet rapidly growing demand, especially from China and India, diverse sources of energy need to be developed in parallel. Renewable energy, yes, in ever greater volumes. We need to reduce CO 2 emissions. But also fossil fuels and nuclear. We need them all. As conventional oil and gas sources run out, we need to look at unconventional resources and unconventional locations. And that’s exactly where the Arctic comes in.”
Shell executives also studiously avoid any suggestion that the company’s Arctic ambitions are tied to melting sea ice. This is, in many ways, reasonable. As Blaauw has pointed out, the last time oil prices were this high, after the 1970s oil shocks, Shell began exploring the Arctic’s Chukchi and Beaufort seas, west and north of Alaska, only to give up a dozen prospects after oil prices bottomed out again. Its main Arctic drill ship, the twenty-eight-thousand-ton, 270-foot-diameter Kulluk, which it purchased in 2005 and began refurbishing at an eventual cost of more than $300 million, is more than thirty years old, having been built during this same period of high prices. Now prices were back, global supplies were further depleted, and improved technology also made the Arctic more commercially viable: Thanks to a new exploration technology, directional drilling, no longer does every well require an expensive, environmentally disruptive platform of its own. Rather than dozens of pinpricks in the seabed, a single platform could drill a web of wells in every direction. There was another key change: In the 1980s and 1990s, the eight-hundred-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline was full of Prudhoe Bay oil, too full to carry anything more. Now it was running so dry that Alaska officials were desperate to find new supplies, lest the depleted oil in the pipes get so cold that it began freezing in place.
But melting ice is not irrelevant. In public statements and private conversations, Shell officials acknowledge the following truths: Climate change is real. Climate change is melting the Arctic. Ice-free seas are easier for shipping. Ice-free seas are easier for spill cleanup. Ice-free seas are easier for seismic survey, which, as
“Okay, let’s summarize,” he said. “We lost 22 percent of the area of sea ice in two years. And you think that’s business as usual. We’ve lost 80 percent of the volume of Arctic sea ice in the last four years, and we pretend this is just part of what we do.” He looked at the crowd, visibly seething. “So, what can we conclude?” he asked. “That the emperor has no clothes. The expansion of oil and gas activities in the Arctic will fuel further greenhouse-gas emissions, which will, in turn, cause further warming and systemic changes to the Earth’s system, which, in turn, will cause massive impacts in the Arctic and globally, which will hurt you and me. Ladies and gentlemen, we are living inside the paradox.” He then called for a moratorium on all offshore oil and gas development in the Arctic. For a moment, there was a stunned silence—his anger seemed out of place, rude and unhinged, an interruption to what had so far been a pretty nice conference—then the crowd clapped politely.
In time, Shell would have a practiced response to the apparent paradox, which was to say that it was no paradox at all. “There was a question about whether there was a paradox to produce oil and gas in the Arctic,” Blaauw told another conference. “I don’t think so. The story is pretty simple. Today, we share the planet with 6.9 billion people. By 2050, there will be 9 billion people. In order to meet rapidly growing demand, especially from China and India, diverse sources of energy need to be developed in parallel. Renewable energy, yes, in ever greater volumes. We need to reduce CO 2 emissions. But also fossil fuels and nuclear. We need them all. As conventional oil and gas sources run out, we need to look at unconventional resources and unconventional locations. And that’s exactly where the Arctic comes in.”
Shell executives also studiously avoid any suggestion that the company’s Arctic ambitions are tied to melting sea ice. This is, in many ways, reasonable. As Blaauw has pointed out, the last time oil prices were this high, after the 1970s oil shocks, Shell began exploring the Arctic’s Chukchi and Beaufort seas, west and north of Alaska, only to give up a dozen prospects after oil prices bottomed out again. Its main Arctic drill ship, the twenty-eight-thousand-ton, 270-foot-diameter Kulluk, which it purchased in 2005 and began refurbishing at an eventual cost of more than $300 million, is more than thirty years old, having been built during this same period of high prices. Now prices were back, global supplies were further depleted, and improved technology also made the Arctic more commercially viable: Thanks to a new exploration technology, directional drilling, no longer does every well require an expensive, environmentally disruptive platform of its own. Rather than dozens of pinpricks in the seabed, a single platform could drill a web of wells in every direction. There was another key change: In the 1980s and 1990s, the eight-hundred-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline was full of Prudhoe Bay oil, too full to carry anything more. Now it was running so dry that Alaska officials were desperate to find new supplies, lest the depleted oil in the pipes get so cold that it began freezing in place.
But melting ice is not irrelevant. In public statements and private conversations, Shell officials acknowledge the following truths: Climate change is real. Climate change is melting the Arctic. Ice-free seas are easier for shipping. Ice-free seas are easier for spill cleanup. Ice-free seas are easier for seismic survey, which, as
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