Biden backs down and authorizes the construction of 199 oil wells in Alaska

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The ConocoPhillips company is expected to produce 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day in a region where endangered species live. On the other hand, the World Bank is considering refinancing oil and gas exploration projects in developing countries.

Democrat Mary Peltola, member of the US House of Representatives from Alaska, during her speech to explain the decision on the Willow projectBecky BohrerAP

Economic reality has prevailed over environmental reality. In just 24 hours, two pieces of news from Washington have once again highlighted the importance of oil and natural gas in the world economy. First, the Government of Joe Biden announced the approval of the Willow (which means “willow”) oil project in the Arctic.

It was a change in position that was expected, but it is still striking in a president who, the first thing he did upon arriving at the White House, on January 20, 2021, was to cancel the XL section of the Keystone pipeline, which was going to to take oil from the tar sands of Fort McMurray (Alberta), in Canada, to the refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Biden justified the closure of the XLwhich was already being built, because of the enormous carbon emissions from tar sands oils.

Then came the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the explosion of inflation, and the cooling of relations between the US and Saudi Arabia. And the three elements changed the scenery. The consequence is that the Texas oil company ConocoPhillips will drill 199 oil wells in three areas of gravel and cement built on the frozen soil of the Arctic – the so-called ‘permafrost’ – which it expects will generate some 180,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Alaska currently pumps just under half a million barrels a day., which does not even reach a quarter of the moment of maximum production in the state, at the beginning of the eighties. Virtually all of Alska’s crude – a territory larger than Spain, France, Germany, and Italy combined – comes from a northern fringe bordering the Arctic Ocean.

Willow is there, in a region where survival hunting and fishing is still practiced by its inhabitants, and where endangered species such as polar bears and bowhead whales live.

CO2 emissions

Segn ConocoPhillips, Willow produce a total of about 600 million barrels of crude. But that will be accompanied by 239 million tons of CO2, the main gas that causes warming of the atmosphere and acidification of the sea. That means as many as 1.7 million cars on the roads during that same period of time. Paradox of paradoxes: Global warming is causing the ‘permafrost’ to disappear, as anyone traveling through Alaska can see, where roads suffer sudden and unforeseen speed bumps and mountain sides collapse as the frozen ground melts. it melts. The melting of the ‘permafrost’ also releases methane, which is the gas that warms the atmosphere the most.

Map of Alaska showing the area in which the Willow project will drill
Map of Alaska showing the area where the Willow project will drill for crude oilAP

The other weather news to come out of Washington yesterday was that the World Bank is considering refinancing oil and gas exploration projects in developing countries. In 2017, this multilateral institution, which is the world’s largest agency in the fight against poverty, had promised to stop financing these types of operations. in 2019.

Now, however, the inability of developing countries to obtain financing that allows them to develop ‘clean’ energies has forced the institution to rethink that policy, at least in some specific cases. This is how the World Bank is trying to help develop the enormous natural gas potential of Mozambique, a country where only 30% of the population has access to electricity.

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