Oil Drilling - How much damage?

Factual Questions
1

A friend and I got into an arguement today about George W. wanting to drill for more oil in Alaska. He says that the environmental damages are far outweigh the need for oil, but I argued that oil drilling doesn’t cause ‘irreparable environmental damage’ as he put it.

I’ve done a little bit of research online, but I can’t seem to find an unbiased report. It’s either “Oil drilling destroys all” or “Oil drilling is harmless”. So, I’m gonna ask here. Exactly how much damage does oil drilling do to the local environment (in Alaska, in particular)? If you have an unbiased site to share, go ahead. Every little bit counts. Thanks.

2

What environmental damages? I think that’s ridiculous. It’s not like you find the oil in the ground and then squirt it all around. You drill for oil, and pump it out. What’s the harm in that? I’ve worked on a drilling rig for many years. I can’t see how it would hurt the environment. Everything is always cleaned up after the hold is drilled, then a pump is put in its place. Even if it caused some (very small) damage, I wouldn’t go so far as to say “the environmental damages are far outweigh the need for oil”. I don’t think its any more harmful than drilling a water well.

3

Well, there is always some harm that comes from the actions associated with the drilling - much more so than the drilling itself. Building roads, camps, buildings, storage areas for equipment. And there will be spills - small spills, large spills, leaky pipelines - these all cause some harm. But how much? With proper Government and Sierra Club supervision, most likely not a whole lot IMO. The main issue that is not spoken of openly, IMO, is simply that the Greens do not want any more oil development. Period. And thus, the argument of “apocalyptic environmental damage” (quote from unknown Earth First! member on The News Hour with Jim Leherer) IMO hides the real argument.

And the thing is, I pretty much agree with them, but not for that reason. I do think we need to conserve more, and I do think we need more nuclear power, and somewhat higher taxes on gasoline to be put towards renewable combustion fuels. I do think people should be honest about why they want to drill or to stop drilling. IMO, it comes down to this:

Pro-Drilling - we want to make $$$ and have cheap gas for one and all. For a little while longer.

Anti-Drilling - we don’t want the oil companies to get any richer, and think we should conserve, not use, this carbon-based Greenhouse-Gas emitting resource.

This, of course, was once again IMO.

4

IMO, Anthracite is a completly loony. But that’s just IMO :). (j/k)

Anyhoo, as to the OP, I think it’s relative. If you have to put in a 500 mile road through virgin forest and over 18 endangered species’ homes to get to the place where you are going to put A Very Big Hole In The Ground, then yeah, there is some environmental damage. I don’t know any of the specifics of Alaska, though.

No matter how bad it is, we’ve (Americans) done worse in the past. Try hydraulic mining if you want to talk about environmental destruction. This would be chicken-scratch.

One idea I’ve heard floating around is a comprimise; by doing cross-drilling from a nearby town (Barrow?) rather than the traditional wells.

5

Would it be accurate to say that the consumption of the oil (pollutants from gasoline, discarded plastics, what-have-you) causes more environmental damage than its production?

6

I mostly agree with Anthracite. With reasonable restrictions, environmental damage can be limited.

You can not allow jogging in a park without causing environmental damage. The ground will get packed so grass won’t grow, the slope of the ground will be changed which alters water run off, etc. After ten years the damage will be permanent, you will always tell there was a path through there.

As Anthracite said environmental damage is being used as an excuse to rationalize peoples’ basic philosophy on the use of oil.

I disagree on the need to conserve oil. Having it in the ground does not help anyone. If we use it up, so what. The whole point of gas taxes and drilling restrictions is to force us to use other energy sources. Well, when we run out of oil, we will switch to something else. There are plenty of other choices, but now, they cost more and are not as convenient.

7

There would be no Very Big Hole in the ground. There WOULD be a lot of little holes in the ground.

There has already been considerable drilling on federal ‘wilderness’ lands in the lower 48 and Alaska’s North Slope; the question here is whether Alaskan wilderness under discussion is more environmentally sensitive than other areas.

Creating a typical ‘pad’ for a land rig involves clearing and leveling a rectangular patch covering a couple of acres, plus an access raod from the nearest existing highway.

As I understand it, the immediate concern about environmental damage in Alaska pertains to the stripping of fragile ground cover for the access road and rig location. Left alone, it would take many years for vegetation to grow back.

Identifying oil-bearing structures would require a series of single exploration wells at different locations; fields identified in this way could then bve exploited by drilling multiple directionsal wells from a single location. It is possible to use a heli-portable rig, which eliminates the need for the access road, but at significantly greater drilling cost.

For successful wells, some infrastructure would be needed, mainly a surface pump and either a connection to a trunk pipeline or truck-serviced stock tanks on location. A pipeline must be surface-mounted because of the permafrost layer, and must allow for migration of wildlife, as with the pipeline to existing North Slope fields. The average economical life of an oil or gas field is 25-30 years, so environmental effects could be expected for at least this amount of time.

Lastly, moving the crude to the lower 48 would involve increased shipping traffic. AFAIK, nearly all large spills have involved tanker accidents, so this would the mosty likely source of major, long-term environmental effects. Recently, there has been increased discussion of constructing a rail link between Alaska and British Columbia; while the potentil for spills would still exist, any worst-case rail accident would have considerably less impact than a tanker sinking.

None of these effects are ‘permanent’, and impact could be further minimized by specifying that only some small land area (say, 10% or less) of the wilderness lands could be altered by drilling production operations.

Hope this helps.

8

I might add that I was the one Chocobo was arguing with. My arguments were limited (for the time being) to Alaska, and I most certainly didn’t say that effects outweigh need. But, enough with the whining. I think that Rocket88 best stated my argument. Destruction of permafrost in Alaska destroys the habitat that animals need. This is accomplished by the oil rig itself and the transportation vehicles. Plus, you have to build extra pipeline to transport the oil and connect it to the main line. While it may not be the most destructive thing in the world, it is most certainly environmentally unsound.

9

Yes, building roads, pads, etc. degrades the land they are built on. But have you ever looked at a map of Alaska? It is HUGE. Try for a little perspective.

10

Hello Yeah - I live in Alaska. I have the perspective, and can adequately compare Alaska to all the rest of the states. Just because the state is big is no justification for ripping it up.

I agree 100% with Anthracite. And sethdallob, just because we’ve done worse elsewhere is no justification for doing more damage.

If you want to read about the spills, you’ll have to find the small print of some non-oil-related newspaper. The spills happen on an alarmingly frequent basis, and we’re not talking about a half a gallon here. Cleanup, in this Arctic environment is not easy, and I can personally describe the huge disaster that Exxon made of Prince William Sound - a place I’ve kayaked in for years.

Exactly.

11

Isn’t part of the problem that Alaska ,since it is so far north, has a little,OK big, problem recovering from being torn up. Plants don’t grow fast there.The earth has a way of repairing some damage it just takes a while.

12

“I live in Alaska. I have the perspective, and can adequately compare Alaska to all the rest of the states. Just because the state is big is no justification for ripping it up.” Lost, who wants to rip up Alaska? I must have missed something. Please explain what you are talking about

My point is that Alaska is huge and you can drill a lot of holes, put in a some pads, and build some roads and you will still have a hell of a lot of pristine wilderness left.

“I think we need to conserve more, and I do think we need more nuclear power, and somewhat higher taxes on gasoline to be put towards renewable combustion fuels.” I’ll go further than that. We not only need to clean up our environment by building more nuclear power plants, but we should have slapped a $1.00/gal tax on gas when it was first proposed years ago. Now, $2.00 is probably right. Americans will be paying for the folly of our absurdly low gas taxes for years to come. (Actually, we already are.)

13

You are missing the point on the permafrost. No one objects to digging through it. Normally a pipeline is put three feet deep, deeper at road crossings etc, to protect it from outside damage. Freezing/thawing of soil is hard on the pipeline coating. Up north you can either bury a pipeline real deep, below the permafrost, which is expensive, or put it above ground, which can only be done in real rural areas, and then high enough that animals can get under it. Neither hurts the environment, though an above ground pipeline, which is cheaper, just looks out of place.

14

The real problem is not the destruction of a small percentage of the land where the roads and drilling pads are built. The problem is habitat framentation.

15

Yes, there is oil in Alaska. If we go there we will be able to have cheap gas for a few more years. Yes, it is possible that we won’t be doing any “significant” damage to the wilderness when you look at the “big picture.” The point is that we need to find alternative energy sources. If we don’t go drilling in Alaska, and people start having to pay more for gas, it will give us more reason to look for alternative energy sources. IMO, we shouldn’t be waiting until we’re down to the last drops, and once again, IMO there is not enough motivation (especially with this new admin.) to really go balls out to find alternative energy sources.

So yeah, maybe there won’t be “significant” damage to Alaska, but after we’ve continued to pollute and use up fossil fuels we’ll run into problems much more serious than possibly messing up Alaska.

Here’s the easiest way, leave Alaska alone, people can either pay more for gas or use public transportation, and we find some better energy resources.

16

What’s a permafrost?

Thanks, I’m a Dumb New Yawkah.

17

friedo
What’s a permafrost?

perma(nent)frost

18

Yeah - Just because Alaska is big is no reason to accept some environmental degradation if it can be avoided. Major damage can add up incrementally. The problems in the lower, wee states didn’t happen all at once. And then there is habitat fragmentation issues like dtilque said.

Enright3 - I think the others have responded well to your post. The immediate well is not the main problem, rather, the whole support network (roads, etc.) and pipeline. Pipelines themselves are frequent sources of leaks and the associated transfer stations often deal with leaks & spills.

Of course, our society is heavily reliant on oil, so we need to work with these resources, but the image of the pristine, environmentally-friendly oil field is inaccurate (and so is calling oil companies evil). Reality is much more of a gray area.