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Antarctic marine reserve plans scuppered by Russia

by Dean Golan Posted on July 17, 2013

Antarctic marine reserve plans scuppered by Russia

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Still open for fishing.

You can’t get much farther from Antarctica than Russia. Yet it was Russia that this week sunk American- and New Zealand-led efforts to create sprawling marine reserves around the South Pole.

The multi-nation Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources met in Germany this week to discuss proposals to protect more than 1.5 million square miles from the growing threat of fishing. The meeting was called after the countries that make up the committee failed to reach agreement on the proposals last year. From Nature:

There was widespread hope that new reserves in the Ross Sea and in East Antarctica would be approved this week …

But [Tuesday] at the meeting the Russian delegation questioned the very authority of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), which regulates fishing in Antarctica, to create reserves, several participants said. To establish any reserve requires the agreement of all 25 members.

This has enraged NGOs, who pointed out that CCAMLR has already created one such ‘marine protected area’ and that all of the commission’s members had previously agreed in principle that it should create such zones. NGO representatives accused Russia of coming in bad faith to the meeting, which was convened specifically to discuss the marine reserves after they were not agreed to at another meeting last year.

“Everyone here is very disappointed,” says Steve Campbell, campaign director at the Antarctic Ocean Alliance, a coalition of groups pushing for more marine protection in the region. “There is no doubt CCAMLR has authority to establish these areas.”

Reserve supporters aren’t giving up hope, though. The proposals will be considered again in October when the committee gathers in Australia for its next regular meeting.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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As oil production hits a 14-year high, a look at how it affects one North Dakota family

by Myrna Posted on December 4, 2012

As oil production hits a 14-year high, a look at how it affects one North Dakota family

By Philip Bump

Another reminder of how much Barack Obama hates oil: U.S. production reached its highest point in 14 years in September, rolling out 6.5 million barrels a day.

EIA

Much of that is thanks to a massive increase in production in North Dakota as oil companies use hydraulic fracturing to extract oil from the Bakken Shale formation.

EIA

We’ve previously noted how this is transforming the state for the worse — crime, housing prices, spills. But today The Guardian describes those changes in the context of one North Dakota family, the Jorgensons, who’ve lived in the state since 1979.

[The oil wells] began appearing in 2006, and within just a few years dominated the area landscape. Today at least 25 oil wells stand within two miles of the Jorgensons’ home, each with a pump, several storage tanks, and a tall flare burning the methane that comes out of the ground along with the petroleum.

Like most people in North Dakota, the Jorgensons only own the surface rights to their property, not the subsurface mineral rights. So there was nothing they could do when, in May 2010, a Dallas-based oil company, Petro-Hunt, installed a well pad on the Jorgensons’ farm, next to a beloved grove of Russian olive trees. First, heavy machinery brought in to build the well pad and dig a pit for drilling wastes took out some trees. Then the new hydrology created by the pad drained water away from the olives, while others became exposed to the well’s toxic fracking fluid. Some 80 trees were dead by the summer of 2011.

electroburger

Oil from North Dakota arrives in Texas by rail.

The Jorgensons’ story gets progressively worse. Another well, even closer to the home, creates a constant, unpleasant smell. In August, a methane flare went out, meaning that toxic, flammable gas was permeating the area — and they had no idea who to contact to resolve the problem.

It seems clear that the state is more interested in facilitating extraction than meeting the needs of even long-time residents. One small change went into effect last year, but doesn’t do much good.

In 2011, North Dakota began requiring oil companies to negotiate with surface rights owners who claimed present and probable future damages to their land, but the state didn’t require them to reach a settlement. Those landowners who have secured settlements normally receive about $1,750 an acre per year in damages. One White Earth rancher who refused to give her name because she worried about “violent retaliation” by oil company workers (she said cattle in the area have been shot by oil workers) says: “You either take the money or they take it [the land] from you anyway by court order.”

“People feel powerless,” says Derrick Braaten, a Bismarck attorney who represents surface-rights owners who are battling oil companies. “The oil company is coming on your property. You don’t have the ability to protect the land. You push the monster back, but at a certain point it’s gonna walk on top of you.”

At the end of the day, this rampant push for more and more oil extraction is worth it, though. It’s worth the damage to property, the health issues, and the disruptions to families. I mean, just look how consistently gas prices have plummeted as we’ve produced more domestic oil.

Gasbuddy.com

Source

How the North Dakota fracking boom shook a family, The Guardian

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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For the first time, a fossil fuel tanker is navigating the Arctic

by Myrna Posted on November 26, 2012

For the first time, a fossil fuel tanker is navigating the Arctic

By Philip Bump

The Ob River is a massive tanker that can carry 150,000 cubic meters of liquified natural gas. (You can tell it carries liquified natural gas because the side of the vessel says “L N G” in massive letters.) And the ship is about to do something that no tanker has done before: traverse the winter Arctic to ship fossil fuels from Norway to Japan.

MarineTraffic.com

You can follow its progress from your own natural gas-warmed home! Click to embiggen.

From the BBC:

The tanker was loaded with LNG at Hammerfest in the north of Norway on 7 November and set sail across the Barents Sea. It has been accompanied by a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker for much of its voyage. …

“It’s an extraordinarily interesting adventure,” Tony Lauritzen, commercial director at [the company that owns the vessel,] Dynagas, told BBC News.

“The people on board have been seeing polar bears on the route. We’ve had the plans for a long time and everything has gone well.”

Oh, good! There are still polar bears!

According to the BBC, the Hammerfest LNG facility (which, I’ll note, is an awesome name) was created to ship gas to the United States. With the natural gas boom created by fracking, the market has shifted to the east — particularly Japan, which needs energy sources in lieu of its nuclear plants. Under traditional conditions, that would have required a route around Europe, through Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, and around the southern expanse of Asia. Now, however, it can slip above Russia and down to Japan in 20 fewer days.

Why is this possible? You know why this is possible. Because we’ve polluted the atmosphere with things like the methane in that tanker.

The owners [of the Ob River] say that changing climate conditions and a volatile gas market make the Arctic transit profitable.

But the fossil fuel profiteers want to assure you that climate change is just a tiny part of this.

“The major point about gas is that it now goes east and not west,” says Gunnar Sander, senior adviser at the Norwegian Polar Institute and an expert on how climate change impacts economic activity in the Arctic.

“The shale gas revolution has turned the market upside down; that plus the rapid melting of the polar ice.”

He stresses that the changes in climate are less important than the growing demand for oil and gas.

Yes, that’s important to note. This huge tanker is shipping fossil fuels through the Arctic — something that has never been feasible before – just because there’s demand for it on the other side. If the Arctic hadn’t melted, they would have done this anyway, somehow.

As the commercial director of Dynagas said: “It’s an extraordinarily interesting adventure.” This changing climate, this brand new world is indeed a fascinating, uncharted adventure for us all!

Polar bears included.

artic pj

The Arctic Ocean, off the coast of Norway.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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