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Association of Energy Engineers
New York Chapter
www.aeeny.org
April 2009 Newsletter Part 1
Meeting Announcement | April 21: Wireless Technologies & Cutting-Edge Energy Applications
Note: Monthly meetings take place at 1540 Broadway, 14th floor. The entrance is on the North side of 45th
Street, east of Broadway. AEE visitors will be sent by security to the 14th floor.
Concrete Is Remixed With Environment in Mind
By Henry Fountain, NYTimes, Mar 31 09
Bill Alkofer for The New York Times
BIG JOB The Minneapolis bridge uses concrete mixes tweaked
for strength, durability and environmental
SOARING ABOVE THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER just east of downtown Minneapolis is one remarkable concrete
job. There on Interstate 35W, the St. Anthony Falls Bridge carries 10 lanes of traffic on box girders borne by
massive arching piers, which are supported, in turn, by footings and deep pilings.
The bridge, built to replace one that collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people, is constructed almost entirely
of concrete embedded with steel reinforcing bars, or rebar. But it is hardly a monolithic structure: the
components are made from different concrete mixes, the recipes tweaked, as a chef would, for specific strength
and durability requirements and to reduce the impact on the environment. One mix, incorporated in wavy
sculptures at both ends of the bridge, is designed to stay gleaming white by scrubbing stain-causing pollutants
from the air.
The project, built for more than $230 million and finished in September, three months ahead of
schedule, “might have been the most demanding concrete job in the United States in 2008,” said Richard D.
Stehly, principal of American Engineering Testing, a Minneapolis firm that was involved in the project. It is a
prime example of major changes in concrete production and use — changes that make use of basic research and
are grounded, in part, in the need to reduce concrete’s carbon footprint.
Concrete may seem an unlikely material for scientific advances. At its most basic, a block of concrete is
something like a fruitcake, but even more leaden and often just as unloved. The fruit in the mix is coarse
aggregate, usually crushed rock. Fine aggregate, usually sand, is a major component as well. Add water and
something to help bind it all together — eggs in a fruitcake, Portland cement in concrete — mix well, pour into
a form and let sit for decades.
Let a lot of it sit. Every year, about a cubic yard of concrete is produced for each of the six-billion-plus
people on the planet.
Think of it this way. The stretch of sidewalk in front of your house? That is you and your spouse’s share.
That concrete truck rumbling down the street? It holds a yard for each member of the New York Yankees’
starting lineup. Add the Mets and the Red Sox, and you have enough for the typical house foundation and
basement floor.
But those are small projects. The St. Anthony Falls Bridge used about 50,000 yards of concrete. Hoover
Dam used more than three million. And the Three Gorges project in China contains more than a yard for every
man, woman and child in Canada, population 33 million.
All that concrete may seem the same. And the basic product did remain relatively unchanged since the
invention of Portland cement in the early 1800s. (The ancient Romans made concrete, too, but from volcanic
ash.) Producers have always tinkered with the mix to find the right proportions of concrete’s basic ingredients,
but the recipe never varied much.
Now the experimentation is more elaborate, designed to tailor the concrete to the need. Increasingly, that
need includes the environment. Aesthetic considerations aside, concrete is environmentally ugly. The
manufacturing of Portland cement is responsible for about 5 percent of human-caused emissions of the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
“The new twist over the last 10 years has been to try to avoid materials that generate CO2,” said Kevin
A. MacDonald, vice president for engineering services of the Cemstone Products Company, the concrete
supplier for the I-35W bridge.
In his mixes, Dr. MacDonald replaced much of the Portland cement with two industrial waste products
— fly ash, left over from burning coal in power plants, and blast-furnace slag. Both are what are called
pozzolans, reactive materials that help make the concrete stronger. Because the CO2 emissions associated with
them are accounted for in electricity generation and steel making, they also help reduce the concrete’s carbon
footprint. Some engineers and scientists are going further, with the goal of developing concrete that can capture
and permanently sequester CO2 from power plants or other sources, so it cannot contribute to the warming of
the planet.
Given the numbers, the possibilities for carbon sequestration are enormous. The United States concrete
industry’s big annual trade show, held in Las Vegas each winter, is called World of Concrete, and for good
2
reason. Concrete is made and used just about everywhere, with China responsible for half the world’s
production.
In the making of concrete, the Portland cement and water form a paste in which a series of reactions
occur, hardening the paste and locking the aggregates within it. Those reactions use up the water — concrete
doesn’t “dry out” through evaporation — and produce heat. They also make the product caustic. While most of
the strengthening occurs in the first few days and weeks, the process can continue for years, as long as there is a
little moisture around.
Michelle L. Wilson, director of concrete knowledge for the Portland Cement Association, a trade group,
described a hydrating cement particle this way: “It’s not a piece of popcorn, it’s not popping from the inside
out. It’s more like a jawbreaker — as the water hits it, the hydration is in layers from the outside in. You can
continue to hydrate that jawbreaker down.”
Just as a dose of brandy or other extra ingredient can improve a fruitcake, concrete can be modified by
adding other materials and chemicals. The recipes have become much more sophisticated, said Jay Shilstone, a
concrete consultant in Plano, Tex.
“It used to be that the chemicals added to concrete were soaps or sugars — very simple,” Mr. Shilstone
said. “Now we’re doing designer chemicals to work on specific components.”
Some chemicals make wet concrete flow better into a form’s nooks and crannies without separating.
Others prevent the cement particles from flocking together, so the amount of water can be reduced — which
means that less cement is needed as well. Chemicals can be added to slow the reactions to give contractors more
time to work with the wet concrete. Isocyanates and other catalysts can speed the reactions up, if the concrete
needs to reach a certain strength in a short time.
Increasingly engineers are also paying attention to the internal structure of the concrete to improve
strength and reduce permeability. “There’s been a major push to look at the particle size distribution,” Mr.
Shilstone said.
Although powdery, on a microscopic scale cement actually consists of relatively large grains. So
researchers are looking at even smaller particles, “microproducts that can go in and do magical things with the
cement matrix,” Mr. Shilstone said.
Dr. MacDonald added a small percentage of silica fume, another industrial waste material, to the mix for
the bridge’s box girders, to make the concrete more impermeable to road salt, which corrodes rebar, eventually
destroying concrete from within.
One large cement producer, the Italcementi Group, adds titanium dioxide particles to one of its products.
The cement makes the concrete white by acting as a catalyst under sunlight to break down organic pollutants in
the air. “It speeds up the natural oxidation process,” said Dan Schaffer, a product manager for an Italcementi
subsidiary, Essroc, which supplied the cement for the I-35W bridge sculptures.
Some researchers want to eventually eliminate Portland cement entirely and replace it with other
cements to produce zero-carbon, or even carbon-negative, concrete.
Portland cement is at the heart of concrete’s environmental problems. About a ton of CO2 is emitted for
every ton of cement produced. The basic manufacturing process involves burning limestone and other minerals
at about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit to create an intermediate product called clinker.
“Essentially, we’re trying to make the same minerals that they did in 1825,” said Mr. Stehly, who is
head of a committee addressing sustainability issues at the American Concrete Institute.
3
The cement industry, particularly in the United States and Europe, has reduced CO2 emissions through
the use of more efficient kilns and processes, and is now allowed to add some ground unburned limestone to the
clinker, reducing the actual cement in the mix. But about half of the CO2 from cement cannot be eliminated —
it is produced in the reaction, called calcination, that occurs as the limestone (which consists of calcium
carbonate) is being burned.
So to reduce concrete’s carbon footprint to near zero or less, different approaches are needed. Novacem,
a British startup, is developing a cement that does not use carbonates and can make concrete that absorbs carbon
dioxide. Carbon Sense Solutions, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, wants to bubble CO2 through wet cement,
sequestering the gas through carbonation (a process that occurs naturally, though very slowly, under normal
conditions).
At a site adjacent to a gas-fired electricity generation plant in Moss Landing, Calif., the Calera
Corporation is developing a process to bubble power plant flue gases through seawater or other brackish water,
using the CO2 in the gases to precipitate carbonate minerals for use as cement or aggregates in concrete. The
process mimics, to some extent, what corals and other calcifying marine organisms do.
Calera calculates that producing a ton of these minerals consumes half a ton of CO2, so the resulting
concrete could potentially be carbon negative — sequestering carbon dioxide permanently.
Brent R. Constantz, the company’s founder, has a background in cements, having made specialty
products for use in orthopedic surgery. But he does not describe Calera as a cement company. “We’re primarily
driven by the need to capture large amounts of CO2 and sequester it,” he said.
The company probably will begin by making aggregate, because the barriers to making a commercially
acceptable product are lower than with cement. Even with aggregate, any new product must meet standards and
must be accepted by the concrete industry, which can be conservative. “Any time you introduce anything new,”
Dr. Constantz said, “it’s a challenge.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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The New York Chapter of AEE would like to thank our corporate sponsors who help underwrite our
activities. Please take a moment to visit their websites and learn more about them:

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
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If you or your firm is interested in sponsoring the New York Chapter of AEE, please contact Jeremy
Metz at [email protected].
4
Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don’t Work?
By Leora Broydo Vestal, NY Times, Mar 28 09
SAN FRANCISCO — It sounds like such a simple thing to do: buy some new light bulbs, screw them in, save
the planet.
But a lot of people these days are finding the new compact fluorescent bulbs anything but simple.
Consumers who are trying them say they sometimes fail to work, or wear out early. At best, people discover
that using the bulbs requires learning a long list of dos and don’ts.
Take the case of Karen Zuercher and her husband, in San Francisco. Inspired by watching the movie
“An Inconvenient Truth,” they decided to swap out nearly every incandescent bulb in their home for energysaving compact fluorescents. Instead of having a satisfying green moment, however, they wound up coping with
a mess.
“Here’s my sad collection of bulbs that didn’t work,” Ms. Zuercher said the other day as she pulled a
cardboard box containing defunct bulbs from her laundry shelf.
One of the 16 Feit Electric bulbs the Zuerchers bought at Costco did not work at all, they said, and three
others died within hours. The bulbs were supposed to burn for 10,000 hours, meaning they should have lasted
for years in normal use. “It’s irritating,” Ms. Zuercher said.
Irritation seems to be rising as more consumers try compact fluorescent bulbs, which now occupy 11
percent of the nation’s eligible sockets, with 330 million bulbs sold every year. Consumers are posting
vociferous complaints on the Internet after trying the bulbs and finding them lacking.
Bulb makers and promoters say the overall quality of today’s compact fluorescents is high. But they also
concede that it is difficult to prevent some problem bulbs from slipping through.
Experts say the quality problems are compounded by poor package instructions. Using the bulbs
incorrectly, like screwing low-end bulbs into fixtures where heat is prone to build up, can greatly shorten their
lives.
Some experts who study the issue blame the government for the quality problems, saying an intensive
federal push to lower the price essentially backfired by encouraging manufacturers to use cheap components.
“In the pursuit of the holy grail, we stepped on the consumer,” said Michael Siminovitch, director of a
lighting center at the University of California, Davis.
Compact fluorescents once cost as much as $30 apiece. Now they go for as little as $1 — still more than
regular bulbs, but each compact fluorescent is supposed to last 10 times longer, save as much as $5.40 a bulb
each year in electricity, and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from burning coal in power plants.
Much of the credit for that sharp cost decline goes to the Energy Department. The agency asked
manufacturers in 1998 to create cheaper models and then helped find large-volume buyers, like universities and
utilities, to buy them. That jump-started a mass market and eventually led to sales of discounted bulbs at
retailers like Costco, Wal-Mart Stores and Home Depot.
Consumers are supposed to be able to protect themselves by buying bulbs certified under the
government’s Energy Star program. But experts and some environmental groups complain that Energy Star
standards are weak, permitting low-quality bulbs with too high a level of mercury, a toxic metal contained in all
compact fluorescents.
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“The standard essentially establishes a floor, which sorts out the junk, with the expectation that the rest
is good,” Mr. Siminovitch said. “It’s not.”
The government, which will begin enforcing tighter specifications this year, says it must seek a balance
between quality and affordability to achieve its goal of getting millions of additional consumers to install the
bulbs.
“Something that is perfect but not affordable wouldn’t serve the broad interests,” said Peter Banwell, the
Energy Department’s manager of product marketing for Energy Star.
Alan Feit, vice president of Feit Electric, says he does not think the problems experienced by the
Zuerchers indicate an overall quality problem with his bulbs. But he acknowledged the difficulty of keeping
tight quality control on a cheap, mass-market item. “There are 40 to 50 components that go into these things,”
Mr. Feit said. “While manufacturers try to inspect all incoming materials, one little mistake may cause a
performance problem.”
Victor Roberts, an independent expert in Burnt Hills, N.Y., who conducts failure analysis testing on
compact fluorescents, suspects that some suppliers — many of them in China — are using substandard
components.
“Somebody decides to save a little money somewhere,” he said, “and suddenly we have hundreds of
thousands of failures.”
The Program for the Evaluation and Analysis of Residential Lighting at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
in Troy, N.Y., tests Energy Star-certified bulbs to see if they still meet requirements.
In the 2007-8 tests, five of 29 models failed to meet specifications for such categories as lifespan,
luminosity and on-off cycling and were removed from Energy Star’s list of qualified products. Because of
performance concerns, the government is expanding the watchdog program, vowing to test samples of 20
percent of the thousands of certified bulb models each year.
In California, where bulbs have been heavily encouraged, utilities have concluded that they will not be
able to persuade a majority of consumers to switch until compact fluorescents get better. That is prompting
them to develop specifications for a better bulb.
The effort aims to address the most consumer complaints: poor dimming, slow warm-up times,
shortened bulb life because of high temperatures inside enclosed fixtures, and dissatisfaction with the color of
the light.
“Because of the aggressive goals in California, we have to be pushing the envelope at all times,” said
Roland Risser, director of customer efficiency at Pacific Gas and Electric.
Experts and bulb manufacturers say that consumers need to play a role in solving the problems by
learning more about the limitations of compact fluorescent bulbs. The Federal Trade Commission has begun to
study whether it should force improvements in the labels of the bulbs.
Better labels might have helped the Zuerchers, the San Francisco couple. Initially, they put regular
compact fluorescents in virtually every socket in their home, including enclosed ceiling lamps, dimmable
fixtures and areas where lights are turned on and off frequently.
But some of those applications require specialized, more expensive bulbs, something the Zuerchers say
was not made clear on the label of their Feit bulbs or on any sign they saw posted at Costco.
“We’re both college-educated and pay attention to labels we read,” Ms. Zuercher said. “It feels like
someone forgot to put a place to find the information.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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6
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March Chaper Meeting Notes
March 17, 2009: Rit Aggarwala, Director, NYC Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and
Sustainability, discussed how the Mayor’s PlaNYC initiative is looking into opportunities to implement energy
efficiency and climate change for not only City-owned buildings, but to buildings city-wide. The Mayor is
coordinating a Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which is working with local stakeholders, looking into
improving the City’s resilience to climate change.
The task force is also looking for opportunities where building codes for energy efficiency may be
updated. Rit suggested that certain buildings in the future may be responsible for conducting energy audits and
be mandated to make investments for energy efficiency deemed to have a reasonable payback time (around 5
years).
Alice Miller, Chief of Consumer Advocacy, Office of Consumer Services at the New York State Public
Service Commission discussed the New York State Energy Plan. Specifically, she discussed the administration
of the State’s Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (EEPS), the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), and how
these two programs contribute to the Governor’s 45x15 goal. The 45x15 goal represents the State’s
Administrative rule that requires (on average) the State’s electricity demand be met with 30% renewable energy
by 2015, and that demand be reduced 15% below projected 2015 levels.
Staff from NYSERDA, who were in the audience, also offered an email address where individuals and
companies can learn about NYSERDA funding opportunities from the Stimulus package:
[email protected]; and a NY State website being used to track all economic recovery projects
(and funding opportunities): www.economicrecovery.ny.gov.
Of Clean Tech and Thomas Edison
By Kate Galbraith, NYTimes, March 24, 2009
Edison promoted the light bulb as a substitute for gas lamps, but it was dismissed as uneconomic and
impractical. Sound familiar?
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/of-clean-tech-and-thomas-edison/index.html?nl=tech&emc=tech
8
snopes.com: Bakken Formation
Claim: Article provides information about untapped oil reserves in the Bakken formation.
MIXTURE OF TRUE AND FALSE INFORMATION Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2008]
Just poking around the Internet recently, I simply "Googled" the search "Untapped U.S. Oil Reserves,"
and the result (like the current price of a gallon of gas - BLEW ME AWAY! Go ahead, take a minute and see
for youself! Never mind, I'll share some of the highlights I found.
1. Ever heard of the Bakken Formation? GOOGLE it. I did, and again, BLEW my mind. The U.S. Geological
Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oilmen/women knew was coming, but man was it
big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95)
on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota; western South Dakota; and extreme
eastern Montana ... check THIS out:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to
eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at
503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable ... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base
worth more than $5.3 trillion.
"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no
idea." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst. "This sizeable find is now the highestproducing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as
the "Bakken."
And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U.S. oil exploration
has been considered a dead end. Even the "Big Oil" companies gave up
searching for major oil! wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the
Bakken's massive reserves... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light,
sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL! That's enough crude to fully
fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.
2. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from TWO YEARS
AGO, people! U.S. Oil Discovery - Largest Reserve in the World! Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the
world is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. What the!?
They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on
earth. Here are the official estimates:
o 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
o 18 times as much oil as Iraq
o 21 times as much oil as Kuwait
o 22 times as much oil as Iran
o 500 times as much oil as Yemen
and it's all right here in the Western United States.
9
HOW can this BE!? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this!? Because we've not DEMANDED
Legislation to come out of Washington allowing its extraction, that's why!
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the
entire Middle East - more than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of
crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
Don't think "Big Oil" will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive
marketplace, and if they can extract it (here) for less, they can afford to sell it for less
- and if they DON'T, others will. It will come down - it has to.
Got your attention fired up yet? Hope so! Now, while you're thinking about it ... and hopefully P.O'd, do
this:
3. Take 5-10 minutes and compose an e-mail; fax or good old-fashioned letter to our elected officials in
Washington ... and their respected leaders. We'll start with them, and here's how you
can send them your e-mail/fax, DEMANDING the immediate Legislation/an Energy PLAN that calls for
tapping into these (OUR OWN!) Reserves, as well as allowing for the offshore drilling for
OUR oil, in OUR offshore waters and Inter-continental shelf ... not to mention Alaska. Technology ain't what it
used to be people (ever had arthroscopic surgery?). They can surgically extract OUR oil, and get us on the way
to at least some measure of Energy independence.
Origins: This item about untapped oil reserves in the Bakken formation (which lies within portions of North
Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana) appears to have been taken from a tout sheet intended to sell subscriptions
to an investment newsletter. It is vaguely true in the sense that geologists have estimated there is a good deal of
undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in that area, and as the price of crude oil increases and the technology
for extracting resources from formations like Bakken improves, that area becomes more and more economically
viable as a source of oil for the U.S. However, the estimate of over 500 billion barrels of oil to be
recovered from the Bakken formation is an overly optimistic one based on incomplete, outdated information.
A November 2006 report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) stated that:
With new horizontal drilling and completion technology taken into account, the technically recoverable
resource base for the entire Bakken Formation is potentially much larger. A draft study by the late organic
geochemist Leigh Price provides estimates ranging from 271 to 503 billion barrels (mean of 413 billion) of
potential resources in place. The study represents Dr. Price's work as it stood at the time of his death in August
2000. It was conducted while he was working for the USGS, but it did not receive a complete scientific peer
review by the USGS and was not published as a USGS product. A new assessment of the entire basin, due out
in about a year, will provide an updated USGS estimate of the technically recoverable oil resources in the
Bakken Formation.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released its assessment of undiscovered oil resources in the Bakken
formation in April 2008, and although it reported a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that could be recovered
from that area compared to its 1995 estimate, the 2008 USGS estimate was still far short of the 503 billion
barrel volume cited above:
North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically
recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.
A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil
that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.
10
New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production
technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil
volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.
The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65
billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of
petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical exploration and production analyses
to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.
Certainly 3.65 billion barrels of recoverable oil is nothing to sneeze at, but a little perspective is in order.
The U.S. currently imports an average of about 10 million barrels of oil per day (for a total of about 3.65 billion
barrels of oil per year), so even if all the estimated undiscovered oil in the Bakken formation were extracted
today, it would only be enough to wean the U.S. off of crude oil imports for one year. That's still a good thing,
but it's not nearly "enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight" as claimed above.
As for the second part of the article, a 2005 study co-authored by James T. Bartis for the RAND
Corporation (a nonprofit research organization) noted that estimates had placed upper range of shale oil
resources to be found within the Green River Formation range of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming at between 1.5
and 1.8 trillion barrels. However, the report also stated that not all of that oil was recoverable and offered a
midpoint estimate of about 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale resources. Moreover, the report also
noted that even under "high growth assumptions," an oil shale production level of 1 million barrels per day
(about 10% of the amount of oil the U.S. curren-tly imports daily) is "probably more than 20 years in the
future," and depends upon scientists overcoming some substantial obstacles first:
But development of the resource hinges on overcoming economic, technical and environ-mental
obstacles, Bartis said. "No work has been done on the impacts of development and ways to mitigate those
impacts," he said. For example, shale development requires large expenditures of water and energy, produces
air pollution and carbon emissions and leaves toxic byproducts that could endanger the environment.
Last updated: 27 March 2009
The URL for this page is <http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp>
Melting Arctic Ice may Unlock Energy, Ore and Shipping Lanes
Faster shipping, vast new energy resources - what's not to love about the melting ice cap?
By Dough Tsuruok, Investor’s Business Daily, Mar 23 09
WHETHER IT'S FROM GLOBAL WARMING OR NATURAL CYCLES, the seas near the Arctic Circle have
been mostly open to shipping traffic since 2007 - though ice levels unexpectedly rose last summer. Ships are
hindered only by seasonal ice floes that are getting easier to penetrate.
"You can argue about the causal factors but there's no question that the Arctic is melting," said Rob
Huebert, associate director of the Center for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.
Companies and countries are waking up to the commercial opportunities.
"The world is realizing that there's another underutilized ocean and a treasure trove of resources out
there," Huebert said.
The grab for oil and materials in these frigid wastes is also stirring territorial disputes and a build up of
Arctic military capabilities by various nations. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has set a March 25
hearing on how climate change could affect Arctic security.
Northwest Passage
The Arctic takes in the northern reaches of Canada, Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Scandinavia,
11
covering one-sixth of the earth's surface.
One of the biggest business upsides is that the fabled Northwest Passage linking Europe with Asia is
now a reality. Explorers centuries ago hunted for a route through the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of
North America to Asia. But they couldn't break through the solid ice near the North Pole.
Now, a large part of the year-round ice is gone. This is opening shipping lanes that may alter global
trade patterns and manufacturing in a big way. About 12-20 vessels are passing through the Northwest Passage
annually. An estimated 200 have already made the trip.
The day may not be far off when cargoes of finished goods from China sail through the Arctic to
Europe, saving time and fuel.
Arctic expert Rockford Weitz cites studies by U.S. government agencies and others that predict the
permanent ice sheet that covers the top of the world may largely disappear by 2020. "Some say it may happen
by 2013 - which is only four years away," Weitz said.
The credit crunch and territorial claims by interested nations may temporarily stymie use of the Arctic.
But many experts say it's an idea whose time has come.
"Airlines fly over the Arctic all the time; maritime ships never tried because of the ice - that will
change," Weitz said.
Weitz leads the Arctic Futures Initiative, an executive consulting service that advises on Arctic issues.
He says moving cargo from China or Japan to Europe via Russia's Arctic Sea route could lop 20%-24% off the
distance from regular routes.
Products, parts and resources will move faster, changing the global supply chain for the better.
"You can shorten distribution times and the amount of inventory stored in advance," Weitz said.
Big energy and mining firms from the U.S., Russia, Canada and Scandinavia are building or eyeing
Arctic port facilities that would have been blocked a few decades ago.
Such ports make it easier to access, process and remove a mother lode of oil, gas, mineral and fishery
resources from the Arctic. Until now, the bulk of these resources moved from north to south by truck or pipeline
until they reached a useable port or railhead.
Heating Up Energy
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic holds up to 90 billion barrels of untapped oil. They also
reckon the region holds as much as 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 44 billion barrels of liquid natural
gas. Those gas reserves would equal all the proven reserves in (non-Arctic) Russia.
Oil-bearing sands in Canada's Arctic promise another source of energy if cost-effective ways to extract it
can be found, given the current volatility in oil prices.
"It's feasible to extract Athabasca oil sands if oil is at $60 a barrel, but not at $40 a barrel," said energy
consultant Kevin Coates.
Oil prices rose $3.47 to $51.61 on Thursday, the highest close since Nov. 28. The sharp drop from last
July's peak above $147 has cooled plans to exploit Arctic energy and other resources. But analysts say interest
will rebound once the world economy recovers.
A 2007 Russian government report estimated that there's nearly $2 trillion worth of mineral ore just in
Russia's portion of the Arctic.
Big mines already operate in Canada, Alaska and Russia near the Arctic Circle.
Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest nickel miner, operates in the Russian Arctic. It ships its ore via the
Kara Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia.
Alaska's Red Dog Mine is the world's largest zinc operation. It's just north of the Bering Strait and is run
by mining company Teck Cominco.
Greenland, a partly autonomous part of Denmark, is another potentially mineral-rich area. The glacier
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that covers the island is receding, allowing for intensive surveying.
Gazprom, the world's biggest gas company, is one of the biggest players in exploiting Arctic energy
resources. So is Lukoil, Russia's largest oil company.
Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil have long been involved in developing energy reserves in
Alaska and other Arctic areas. Pioneer Natural Resources, a large Dallas-based independent oil and gas
producer, also invests heavily in Alaska.
Shell, French oil firm Total and Chevron are developing the Shtokman field in Russia's Arctic, one of
the world's largest natural gas fields, with Gazprom. And Norway's national company Statoil is engaged in
various oil exploration and technology projects in the Arctic.
Analysts say much of the gas and oil in the Arctic is underwater, requiring complex offshore drilling
technology - something that Norwegian and Russian firms excel at.
Timber And Fish, Too
Russia also boasts huge timber reserves in Siberia and other northern areas. The nation's backward roads
made it hard to extract this lumber. But analysts say shipping it to Asia and Europe through Arctic seas is
viable. The rivers in these timber-rich areas all run north. So logs could be floated by river to the Arctic Ocean
where they could be picked up by ships.
On the fishery side, the parting ice up north is revealing a bonanza of cod, Alaskan pollock, Arctic char
and other species. With once-rich fishing grounds in Europe, Asia and the U.S. depleted, Arctic seas offer new
sources of fish and other sea food. Most fish sold at U.S. fast-food outlets comes from Arctic waters.
But legal disputes regarding ownership of the Arctic resources and sea lanes are heating up.
Russia, Norway, Canada, the U.S. and others are laying claim to Arctic assets. Huebert says they're also
quietly beefing up submarine and other naval capability in Arctic waters.
One sticking point is the Northwest Passage. The U.S. maintains that the route lies in international
waters, while Canada says it belongs to them.
Under the Law of the Sea Treaty defining national rights in using the world's oceans, nations have the
right to extend their exclusive economic zones from 200 miles to up to 350 miles offshore if they can prove that
these underwater areas are part of their continental shelf. The U.S. is yet to ratify the treaty.
Weitz says the potential for disputes is underscored since the Arctic Ocean has the longest continental
shelf of any ocean in the world.
Anne Korin, a co-director of the Institute for Global Security in Washington, D.C., says such disputes
are becoming common in a world where governments are tussling to control energy or other resources.
She warns that multinationals may hesitate to invest more capital in Arctic ventures until the issue of
"who owns what" is settled.
© Copyright 2009 Investor's Business Daily.
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NY Chapter AEE Board Members
David Ahrens
[email protected]
Michael Bobker
[email protected]
Timothy Daniels
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Jack Davidoff
[email protected]
Fredric Goldner
[email protected]
Placido Impollonia [email protected]
Dick Koral
[email protected]
John Leffler
[email protected]
Robert Meier
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Jeremy Metz
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John Nettleton
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Chris Young
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Asit Patel
[email protected]
Board Members Emeritus
Paul Rivet
[email protected]
George Kritzler
[email protected]
Alfred Greenberg
[email protected]
George Birman
718- 677-9077x110
646-660-6977
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914-422-4387
Past Presidents
Mike Bobker (2003-05), Asit Patel (2000-03), Thomas Matonti (1998-99), Jack Davidoff (1997-98), Fred
Goldner (1993-96), Peter Kraljic (1991-92), George Kritzler (1989-90), Alfred Greenberg (1982-89), Murray
Gross (1981-82), Herbert Kunstadt (1980-81), Sheldon Liebowitz (1978-80)
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