US Weakness Exposed by Bad Pipeline
by James Buchanan
Just how safe are we from terrorism? Let’s say terrorists wanted to devastate the US economy. All they would have to do is drive an SUV out into the Alaskan wilderness and sabotage the pipeline. Near panic in the financial markets followed an announcement by British Petroleum that their trans-Alaskan pipeline was shutting down due to unforeseen corrosion. If al Qaeda were a real terrorist organization instead of a creation of the CIA and/or Mossad, the Alaskan pipeline would be blown up every six months. Rebels in Iraq have been highly effective blowing up pipelines despite the presence of the US army. It’s just impossible to defend a target that spans hundreds of miles going through vast stretches of barren territory.
A recent news article reports “Oil prices surged to an all-time high as BP said a new oil spill would shut off all its production from the biggest oilfield in the United States. The closure of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska will rob the market of 400,000 barrels of oil a day, about 8 per cent of all the oil produced in the US. That, together with escalating violence in the Middle East, sent crude prices up 3 per cent to a record $78.44 (£41.15). BP said it was unable to predict how soon it would be able safely to restart production after finding that 16 miles of pipelines were corroded and need to be replaced. Although it held out the prospect that regulators may allow it to reopen parts of the field soon, BP shares fell 13.5p to 622.5p as analysts speculated on whether production would be shut down for weeks or months. The company also admitted it had found another oil spill in the region, a vast Arctic wilderness which had already suffered its worst on-land spill earlier this year when 200,000 gallons of oil leaked from the BP pipeline.”
The BP pipeline disaster also highlights our continuing critical dependence on crude oil. We have had decades to develop alternate energy sources, but our political leaders have failed to fund any of these. Virtually the entire west coast of America sits on top of geothermal hot spots only a couple hundred feet under the ground and yet nothing has been done. There have been huge improvements in nuclear power plant design, but not one new reactor has been built in the US since the ’70s.
Nuclear fusion research has produced experimental reactors that can produce more energy than they use for short periods of time. It’s only a matter of engineering work to make them practical. With the expenditure of a few hundred billion on nuclear fusion, we could make a breakthrough that would eventually make electricity free. Of course, the oil companies and utility companies don’t want Americans to have free electricity for their homes (or for future electric cars).
There are short term solutions such as bio-diesel. There is also E-85 fuel for flex-fuel cars (designed to burn either unleaded gas or alcohol). There has been a strong demand for electric cars, hybrids, biodiesel and now flex-fuel cars. Many Americans are willing to take the first step away from oil dependency even if our government is firmly in the pocket of Big Oil.