Oil and Gas in the Arctic | Ice Race | Free Documentary

the world's final oil reserves are in the process of becoming depleted only one source remains untouched the arctic the world's most northerly area protected by a shield of ice and frost until now global warming and new technology are opening up access to these vast resources but should the world's need for more fuel take precedence over the unique fauna and environment of the arctic where should the borders be drawn and is it possible to avoid conflict in the race for the arctic [Music] oil has changed the world we use it to fuel our vehicles and our war machinery it runs our industry and our economy and it's used as a raw material in numerous products our whole era has been defined by oil but it's also a threat as we approach the end of the oil age we are still completely dependent on oil most of the world's major oil fields have now passed peak oil the situation is most dramatic in the usa this superpower will soon have no major oil wells left the country is currently consuming three times as much oil as it produces and it's paying sky-high prices throughout the world to secure access to this black gold however the usa still has well-stocked untouched oil reserves in its own territory in the sea of alaska the northernmost town in the usa barrow lies in the middle of an area which is believed to contain alaska's richest oil reserves and the communities in this region have both the will and the political power to slow down the exploitation that might take place in their region the local eskimo population lives mainly off the area's natural land and sea resources and an indomitable will to survive and they're now directing their energy towards the oil industry that wants to establish activities in the area one of these eskimos is eugene brower jr who has placed himself at the forefront of the battle against the oil companies based on my observation and dealing with the oil industry they are not very much worried about the marine mammals or the people that are going to be impacted in the in the area all they're looking at is their bottom line can they make millions and millions or billions on a major fund in the ocean they're not looking at the consequences of the people that are being impacted by whatever is going to be happening out there [Music] eskimo history and traditions in alaska go back almost 3000 years they're linked directly to a unique style of hunting due to the fact that during the winter the sea is covered by ice which extends all the way to the north pole [Music] the eskimo people have used the pack ice as a base for hunting bow head whales which can grow to lengths of up to 20 meters the whaling is the fabric of this town a lot of the kosovo villages that such as the bowhead whale it goes back thousands of years and he held everybody together everything he lost around the whale captain's greatest honor to feed the community of four or five thousand people and sharing that great animal to the to the people that live around you [Applause] eugene brower jr was eight years old the first time he joined his father's team he worked his way up through the ranks and today he is also a captain now during the spring his whaling team sets up camp and lives on the ice for several weeks this is the time when pods consisting of several thousand bowhead whales migrate east beneath the ice heading towards greenland patience is an invaluable virtue when the hunters wait for the whales to surface in cracks in the ice it's a kind of like a bond that you have with the animal then when he comes up he'll come right to your boat and sometimes you stop don't even move you just make these strike where you need to make your instantaneous kill and you roll over and die for the time being the whalers have the ice-covered sea to themselves but brown knows that he's fighting a battle against a powerful opponent an opponent waiting just 400 kilometers away prudel bay is the largest oil field in the usa since oil was discovered here during the 1970s more than 15 billion barrels of oil has been pumped up from the field covering up to 20 percent of the usa's oil requirements large quantities of gas have also been found in this area [Music] the oil and gas industry in alaska is the cornerstone of all of the industries here in the state of alaska direct and indirect employment from oil and gas approximates 44 000 employees and so that makes up roughly one in every eight jobs in the state of alaska is directly related to the oil and gas industry being here drilling wells spending money so it's very very important to the state but after almost 40 years of operations a dramatic situation has emerged during peak production crudo bay produced 2 million barrels of oil per day today this figure has dropped to just a few hundred thousand barrels per day the fields are becoming depleted and no new finds are being made the oil industry is therefore seeking to expand its exploration areas because there are still huge quantities of oil to be obtained from this area beneath the ice-covered ocean a survey conducted in 2008 showed that probably only one third of alaska's reserves have been extracted there are still 30 billion untouched barrels of oil right outside barrow the survey also showed that it's highly likely that there are major oil reserves around canada and greenland off the norwegian coast and on the russian continental shelf total arctic oil reserves are estimated at almost 90 billion barrels there are people and indigenous populations living all over the arctic who for better or worse would be affected if the petroleum industry descended on their territory the industry would be able to provide jobs and tax revenue but possibly at the expense of destroying their lifestyle and traditions arctic fauna would also be affected many species only live in this area and their survival is completely dependent on the ice and the unspoiled wilderness there would be a price to pay for establishing the oil and gas industry in the arctic and alaska is more aware of this than anyone else french the soviets and the u.s navy are sending oil skimmers exxon officials promise they won't pull out until prince william's sound looks like it did before the accident evidence of environmental damage continues to wash up on miles of beach the sinking of the exxon valdez oil tanker in alaska in 1989 is one of the worst disasters to have occurred in the history of the oil industry miles of beaches were ruined and at least 250 000 seabirds died because of the oil [Music] the natural landscape and economy of the area are still suffering from this disaster exxon valdez happen in pretty ideal conditions we don't want to see anything like that happens because it will be virtually the end of our way of life edward ita the mayor basically has a positive attitude to onshore oil and gas activities in his county however now that the oil industry wants to start drilling in the sea he's putting his foot down ita represents a population of just over 8 000 people but even so he wields tremendous power over the millions of people living in the usa the gas chiller building and the chiller because in practice it's his county council which is currently blocking offshore operations in alaska despite the usa's precarious oil requirements we are trying everything we can to get our message out and it's not an extreme message it's not the message some environmentalists and conservation groups are saying not to drill period we're saying meet our concerns assure us that an oil spill can be cleaned up in our waters up here especially in ice infested waters and ita has shown that he means business in 2005 the bush administration permitted the sale of offshore licenses in the territory outside barrow they ignored local objections about the polar bears and whales which live here being threatened species the oil industry invested 2.7 billion dollars on licenses and started carrying out seismic surveys however these exploration activities soon came to a halt because under the leadership of ita a number of lawsuits were filed against them one court found in favor of ita and the local population stating that the environmental impact would first need to be investigated in greater detail what i am striving for as mayor of the north sloboro is to put our way of life our subsistence way of life on an equal footing with the needs of our country we recognize very clearly the needs of our country we recognize the benefits that we have received economically from the development of oil and gas onshore the camp has been set up several kilometers offshore the ice appears to be stable but eugene brower jr keeps a constant vigil out here a change in the wind or an unexpected attack by a polar bear could mean the difference between life and death the members of the team have been given orders to work quietly the bowhead whale has extremely good hearing and is very sensitive to unusual sounds even through the ice on the oil industry was doing a seismic activity we could not spot or see any whales 30 40 miles offshore nothing for the simple fact they put a floating platform about 20 miles to the east of us 9 miles out in 60 feet of water it was idling in idle mode but the noise that was being emitted from that man-made blood drilling platform or diverting the whales out whaling activities were completely ruined that year eugene had to cancel all his plans and travelled many kilometers across the ice to find wales and even then the barrow whalers only caught four out of their quota of 22. so by the time they struck and landed those four whales the only thing that was uh eatable was the mukta that's the skin and the blubber and the rest of the stuff that we'd like to eat and they had bloated so we couldn't eat them [Music] from the point of view of the united states capital this deadlocked conflict in alaska is a cause for concern further politicians and experts here there is more at stake than just the environment in the united states today people are deeply concerned about climate change and they're deeply concerned about polar bears and indigenous populations and and so forth and so people tend to be looking at the problem from the point of view of a feeling that that there is an infinite amount of oil and so we don't have to drill in sensitive areas we don't have to do this we don't have to do that renewables will solve all of our problems and so forth and and so people are not really facing up to the real issues that are involved for the first 100 years after oil was first discovered in the usa the country was self-sufficient in oil this was one of the reasons why the nation was able to develop to become a superpower by the 1970s the usa was experiencing the peak of national oil production [Music] the country was pumping out almost 10 million barrels of oil per day in order to run the wheels of society since then oil extraction has been reduced by 50 percent to around 5 million barrels while consumption has increased to 15 million barrels the usa now has to import 10 million barrels of oil every single day putting the country in a very difficult position of the top nine oil exporters in the world only democratic norway is a liberal democracy the others are all either autocratic kingdoms or dictatorships or they may pretend to democracy such as russia but are in fact dictatorships i think that there's no way the united states or north america could increase its production of oil from relatively expensive sources such as oil shale in the united states or oil sands in alberta and canada and then build a protective barrier around north america and just consume what we produce james woolsey was the director of the powerful u.s central intelligence agency the cia during the 1990s in his current role as an advisor he's become a keen champion of environmental issues and believes that both serve the same goal not destroy oil but destroy its strategic role destroy its monopoly destroy its dominance of transportation i think by moving toward electrification of transportation and toward alternative biofuels second and third generation biofuels largely made from waste products from agricultural residues from algae etc dependence on oil is considered to be the main reason behind the us invasion of kuwait and iraq both of these countries are now some of the usa's most important suppliers of oil but this nowhere near covers total u.s requirements the usa is forced to engage in oil trading and to build alliances with a number of countries and regimes that are politically miles apart including unstable nations like venezuela and nigeria [Music] but the usa's most important oil supplier is saudi arabia whose authoritarian royal family adheres to the militant extremist wahhabi branch of islam [Music] in exchange for oil the usa sells huge quantities of weapons to the wahhabis in wahhabi islam which if you read their fatwas which is what one ought to read not what they say to us but what they say to one another in arabic translated the wahhabis of saudi arabia's views are murderous with respect to shiite muslims jews homosexuals and apostates extraordinarily oppressive of of women and have as the objective a worldwide caliphate someday a worldwide theocracy a theocratic dictatorship those views are substantively the same as al-qaeda's [Music] al qaeda believes they should feel free to fly airplanes into buildings in new york and washington or any place else wherever they want whenever they want but the substantive views of the wahhabis and al qaeda are approximately the same because they are so rich saudis control about 90 percent of the world's islamic institutions what that means is if a little pakistani boy in rawalpindi or a little palestinian boy in hebron is being taught in a school that he should more than anything else want to be a suicide bomber um the people who are paying for him to be educated those little boys to be educated that way are essentially you and me every time we pull into a filling station every time we fill up with gasoline [Music] well clearly the u.s is not producing what it had in the past today the united states is importing 65 percent of the crude oil that it uses i can remember a time when folks got concerned when that number approached 20 percent and clearly we're far beyond that so in terms of what it means for the nation's energy security uh the increased oil and gas production that could come from alaska would go a long way to satisfying um the needs of u.s energy consumers [Music] it was therefore no surprise when oil exploration in alaska became part of the u.s election campaign in 2008 led by alaska's own candidate for the vice presidency sarah palin we cannot leave ourselves at the mercy of foreign suppliers to confront the threat that iran might seek to cut off nearly a fifth of the world's energy supplies or that terrorists might strike again at the ab cake facility in saudi arabia or that venezuela might shut off its oil discoveries and its deliveries of that source americans we need to produce more of our own oil and gas and take it from a gal who knows the north slope of alaska we've got lots of both how many drilling operations are going to be allowed is it 2 4 10 15 20 we don't know nobody will tell us and in that light we have what we call cumulative effects because there are three or four major multinational international oil companies that want to operate offshore and by themselves they don't make much of a difference and so they're given the permit but cumulatively when you put all three or four together then the noise the the the support ships the helicopter services everything starts to add up and pretty soon it seems that the value of oil and gas is brought way up and the value of our way of life the subsistence value is is diminished as far as the usa is concerned oil is the most important resource in the arctic however on the opposite side of the arctic ocean another arctic resource is playing a much greater role gas the survey carried out in 2008 showed that total gas reserves in the arctic probably amount to a massive 1.6 billion cubic feet this alone is enough to supply the whole world for 15 years substantial quantities of this gas are thought to be located in alaska but the really big fines over two-thirds are on the russian continental shelf i think russia will be in a very important strategic position of course there's quite some distance to the western markets but they'll have an energy resource that could be very useful for western europe for many many decades to come and i think we'll see in some very important just political discussions between russia and and the western world about gas in the coming years murmansk lies in the northwestern part of russia and it is the world's largest town north of the arctic circle murmansk experienced a severe decline when the soviet union collapsed the naval base in the area was more or less closed down and moonmask with its 370 000 inhabitants entered a period of massive unemployment and poverty however today the town is experiencing growth the number of vehicles on the roads is on the increase roads houses and new supermarkets are being built and the port which had been declining since the 1990s is to undergo a complete makeover the reason for this lies in the sea off moon monster on the so-called stockmanfield the stockman field is considered to be the most promising gas find in the russian part of the arctic and it's to be developed under a joint venture with the russian oil company gazprom french total and norwegian statorial hydro there is good cooperation on the political level between russia and norway and we are pleased to see that putin has appointed norway as russia's strategic partner in the north i regard stockman as the locomotive for new offshore developments in the arctic but the help being offered to russia by the european oil industry is also giving cause for concern when stockman comes on stream in 2013 if all goes according to plan the field will provide the whole of europe with gas for 50 years to come [Music] in many ways europe is in the same situation as the usa producing little energy of its own when compared to its consumption and in the west there are many people who are skeptical about the power that this will give russia we can remember that several years ago mr putin he visited germany and he asked frau merkel to send the future agreement to sell all these guests from the second stage of stockman to germany and she refused after the press of france after the press of mr shiraku was the president of france he said that it's very dangerous this cooperation between russia and germany and he asked her not to do it and putin was very angry but we see that now we have two possible partners french tatal and norway statue hitler and of course we know very well it's not a secret that without foreign companies it will be very difficult to develop this project i think it's a very serious security situation for europe we have one problem oil europe has two oil and gas the russians will throw under putin and medvedev whatever that will throw their weight around as much as they possibly can because holding in reserve and only mentioning from time to time that they have nuclear capability and they would threaten say poland or the czech republic for cooperating with the united states they've done this recently but if they have their nuclear threat and then on a day-to-day basis they try to influence their near and not so near neighbors so all of western europe almost with their energy based power that cuts down on their need for conventional armed forces it's a dangerous situation the wind on the ice has become stronger and eugene brower is not taking any chances he's seen whalers lose both their boats and equipment when they've waited too long before retreating in the past such situations were rare but in recent years eugene has noted that the ice has become thinner and thus weaker than previously strong winds cause the ice to give way more easily we're only about uh a mile from where the polar pack is grinding out there and making pressure with yourself for the safety of my crew and my equipment we have to pull out till this wind dies down and as warm as the weather is uh i don't trust it and i'm gonna move i'm gonna pull back pull my equipment back and then wait for the more ideal conditions and come back out with my crew eugene brower is not the only one to notice that ice conditions have changed a long time before the concept of global warming became known indigenous populations throughout the arctic were issuing warnings about less ice and higher temperatures in their territory everyone can see that they were right satellite pictures show how the area covered by ice has suffered dramatic reductions since 1979 and has been melting at an ever increasing rate with each successive year this increase is caused by sunlight shining on an ocean that is becoming increasingly ice free and which absorbs heat from the sun thus causing the ice to melt from below [Music] climate researchers estimate that by 2030 the arctic will be completely ice free during the summer polar bears seals walruses and several species of birds and fish would then be facing extinction there is broad agreement that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of oil and gas is the main reason why the ice is melting and there is a certain amount of iron in the fact that the oil companies are earning most on this melting ice in a way it is a paradox that it is changes in climate that makes it possible to to make oil and gas exploration and production in the arctic we can see that now for instance in northwest greenland and northeast green and we could not acquire seismic diaz 10 15 years ago it was very difficult now it's much easier and with new deaths and new models and of course you'll see more exploration it's the same north of alaska and north of canada these areas were locked by ice more or less year round and now you see a lot of open water pressure on the arctic will increase dramatically as the ice melts because global oil requirements are expected to increase over the next few decades as the oil fields simultaneously become more depleted the situation in india and china serves to illustrate this over one-third of the world's population 2.4 billion people live in these countries at the same time they've experienced annual economic growth amounting to almost 10 percent since the 1980s and 1990s china currently imports around 4 million barrels of crude oil per day while the equivalent figure for india is around 2 million if growth continues at the same rate both countries will overtake the united states in a few decades both economically and in terms of oil consumption if the demand for oil increases as dramatically as indicated by this scenario the only possible solution would be to start searching for oil in new areas because it would be impossible for today's oil fields to produce enough for everyone [Music] people need to recognize that peak oil is a reality it's clearly been demonstrated in the united states and norway and a number of other countries around the world in fact a few years ago the swedish royal academy did a study and concluded that 55 out of 65 of the world's largest oil producing countries were past peak and in decline and there are likely significant reserves of oil in areas that are now off limits and and companies are not able to go in and produce that oil at some point that's likely to change because people will be desperate for oil the oil industry is already busy making preparations for the expansion of operations in the arctic however warnings issued by environmentalists and opposition from local populations have had some impact during the spring of 2009 a unique research project was carried out in the icy waters off the svalbard island of halpin the expedition was funded by six oil companies under the leadership of the norwegian sintef research institute the main objective was to investigate ways in which efficient cleanup operations could be conducted in the event of an oil spill in arctic waters in open water the main challenge is the the waves and currents and how the boom behaves in these conditions in ice we have other challenges like low temperatures we also have darkness in the in winter which is challenging so we have different problems in ice compared to open water but we also have the different solutions during full-scale trials 20 cubic metres of oil was released afterwards different methods such as mechanical collection and the use of chemicals were tested one of the first observations made was that the ice actually helped the cleanup operations this surprised the scientists since they had always thought that ice hampered cleanup work the ice is keeping the oil confined and it prevents the oil from spreading it also dampens the sea so we don't have the same wave problems as we have in open water if the oil is in between this ice flows it will follow the same speed as the ice flows meaning that it will not spread very fast it will not drift very fast so the oil can be collected in between ice flows the most efficient method of oil clearance is to ignite an oil slick causing 95 percent of the oil to burn up this method is rarely used in warmer climates because oil combines with water after just a few hours the scientists on halpen showed that in icy waters oil takes much longer to mix with water the oil was ignitable for up to five days after being released this could mean that rescue teams would have more time to come to the rescue but these methods obviously have their limitations they would be dependent on having the right equipment and actually getting personnel to the location of an oil slick something that couldn't be guaranteed in the arctic furthermore the weather conditions and proximity to vulnerable areas would also limit the type of cleanup alternatives that could be used oil and gas operations in the arctic will never be entirely without risk thanks to a number of united nations reports and climate conferences the world has become more aware than ever before of the serious environmental situation research is being carried out into new sources of energy such as solar energy hep and wind power vehicles are being developed that can run on emission-free sources of energy and some countries have already set ambitious emission targets without waiting for international agreements south korea is almost completely dependent on foreign energy imports here they are now making a full commitment towards producing their own co2 free energy in a manner which paradoxically was recently regarded as being the most environmentally hostile of all we have to calculate the cost and benefit and i think developing nuclear energy resources will be better than continuing to depend on coals or oils which produces huge amounts of co2s so i think i mean for the time then we may focus on nuclear energy but we will have to continue our efforts on developing solar energies for example um skeptics claim that with nuclear power we would be getting rid of one problem and replacing it with another a number of leading nations are planning to follow the example of south korea and by 2020 it's anticipated that almost one-fifth of the world's energy will be derived from nuclear power this is the price we'll have to pay if we want to get rid of oil i've proposed an investment of 15 billion a year 150 billion dollars all told over 10 years in alternative energy which will create millions of jobs and break the cycle of our addiction to oil we need to do more than drill the question is one of whether or not investing in new sources of energy would come in time to avert global depletion of oil something which would impact heavily on local populations and the unique foreigner of the arctic as the end of the oil era approaches there are no sources of energy that are ready to replace the dominant role played by oil in our society and anyone standing in the way of the world's last untouched oil reserves would be subjected to ever-increasing pressure we've been blessed with enormous amounts of oil for a long period of time and it's led to i think wonderful development of civilization in the world of course we got problems and we've done a number of things we wish we could redo but it's we're really very very fortunate for what we've had but that's going to go away and we're going to have to deal with the problem realistically as opposed to idealistically in terms of how people ought to think about this is number one recognize that it's going to happen number two recognize that it's going to have terrible economic consequences for most people in the world and recognize that fixing the problem is not going to happen quickly i believe in my heart of hearts that eventually there will be oil and gas development offshore the energy needs of america are too great and be that as it may the wind has died down and open sea can be glimpsed in the distance this is the chance eugene brower has been waiting for a lot of adrenaline flowing in you when you when you get their harpoon that that darting gun when it's fully rigged is about uh maybe 20 pounds 20 to 25 pounds depending on the the diameter of the handle so that the harpooner has to have the strength to pick it up and throw it at the whale the whale can be about maybe six meters away from you [Music] it's an honor and you nothing will like it [Music] we have a belief that whale gave himself to you if you deem worthy that he'll come to you and let you strike it you kill it and you bring it home it's the honor that you have yeah the people rejoice by hollering hucking crying that they have fresh animal to eat and we pray we give thanks to the maker of the great animal to give us this whale for us to feed our community with my main hope with all the fights of the oil industry is that my people will live the lifestyle that we are living right now the world is changing but the marine resources is something that i want to keep in half our people are they're evolved around sharing [Music] you share what you have you share your catch you give you the less fortunate the animal will always come back to you and give itself to you so you can always keep that going and that's the lifestyle i wanted my children to have and enjoy in their lifetime [Music] hey [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 353,940

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), Arctic Documentary, climate change, global warming, arctic exploitation, climate change documentary, ice race, arctic oil, arctic gas, oil in the arctic, natural resources, oil resources, gas resources

Id: mjmmWf8XNvg

Length: 49min 13sec (2953 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2021