As energy prices creep steadily higher, there's a growing segment of America that believes short-term relief can literally be tapped from fossil-fuel resources in the Western states. But many of those resources are found on public lands that buffer national parks, national wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas, and their development could have dire consequences for those landscapes.
Still, energy companies and more than a few politicians are clamoring for greater energy development in the West, from tapping the coal, oil, and natural gas fields in Montana and Wyoming to the oil shale and tar sands deposits buried beneath southwestern Wyoming, Utah, and western Colorado and to the oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
But development of these resources carry more than a few impacts. Already there have been concerns expressed about how development of the massive Jonah Gas Field in southwestern Wyoming will or already is impairing air quality over Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks and impact wildlife corridors that animals from those parks utilized.
Then, too, there have been fears expressed about how oil shale and tar sands development could tarnish the landscapes around Arches and Canyonlands national parks, Dinosaur National Monument, and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Utah. Such developments would require massive amounts of water and, some believe, generate two-and-a-half more greenhouse gases than traditional oilfield development does.
And then, of course, there are the analysts who say there's no way we can sate our energy hunger with domestic resources. Here's a snippet from a fact sheet compiled by The Wilderness Society:
At current consumption levels, U.S. resources are inadequate to achieve energy independence. The United States contains 2.5 % of the world's oil resources and 3% of world natural gas resources. But we account for 24% of total world consumption of oil and 22% of natural gas consumption. Opening more areas to drilling in the U.S. can never make us less dependent on foreign oil or natural gas. The only way we will ever reduce our dependency is to reduce our consumption.
Yet in spite of these dire predictions of environmental degradation and the analysts' opinions that the proposed developments would not solve our current energy plight either in the short- or long-term, more and more Americans seem to favor drilling our way to lower energy costs, conservation of energy or natural resources be damned. Here's the bottom line from a national survey the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press conducted late last month:
Amid record gas prices, public support for greater energy exploration is spiking. Compared with just a few months ago, many more Americans are giving higher priority to more energy exploration, rather than more conservation. An increasing proportion also says that developing new sources of energy - rather than protecting the environment - is the more important national priority.
The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 18-29 among 2,004 adults, also finds that half of Americans now support drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, up from 42% in February.
What's shocking about this report, at least to me, is not only the overall trend, but which demographic groups are moving into the "drill for our salvation" camp: "Young people, liberals, independents, Democrats, women and people who have attended college," according to the Pew survey.
You can find the rest of the survey here.
The Traveler is interested in your thoughts on this issue. Does this survey reflect your beliefs? Are our domestic energy resources a panacea for the current energy crisis? Or, should we as a nation be more focused on researching and developing alternative energy sources, both to preserve our public lands and to try to stem anthropogenic contributions to climate change?
What about conservation of our national parks and other federal lands? Would you mind if they suffered from greater energy exploration as long as the price of gas went down a nickel or dime and you saved $10-$25 a year on your heating bills? Do you care what future generations think of our conservation practices?
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Comments
The electric hybrid is a joke, and certainly not the long-term solution to our energy needs. All these vehicles are doing is giving with one hand (slight reduction in petroleum requirements) while increasing environmental concerns over battery recycling / disposal, along with a disproportionate increase in the power required to recharge the cells every day or so. You save a little in gasoline and you pay more to the electirc company. Where's the savings to the consumer? Vehicle costs are a wash. My utility bills go up. Sounds like a lose/ lose proposition from my perspective.
The power generated from electric vehicles, such as the "green" snow sleds that are being touted for Yellowstone's winter onslaught, are inherently flawed to effectively perform their intended goal of noise / pollution reduction. Just like the rechargeable RC toys, both 1/64th scale and those monstrosities that the <10 set uses that emulate driving what’s tantamount to an electric go-kart, in rough terrain (especially when temperature extremes are factored into the equation) the discharge of the energy cells is too rapid to be useful for any meaningful length of time / distance. And that's probably a big reason that Yellowstone isn't all that keen on a fleet of those buggers running amok in the winter, Kurt. Too many search and rescue operations at risk retrieving stranded sledders who weren't paying attention to the "fuel" gauge, and didn't heed the warnings to come back home when the street lights came on.
Now, the compressed air series vehicle currently entering initial production phase in France, now THAT'S something that could be useful. It utilizes a large cylinder of CO2 and a supplemental small gasoline tank that kicks in on when the internal recharging system is reloading the "gas" tank, as it were. It can go ~150 on compressed air alone, with NO petroleum assistance, and up to ~650 miles with the assist of a 5 gallon gasoline boost. The vehicle recharges its CO2 tank while driving, which is something the electric vehicles simply can't do efficiently without doubling battery capacity and weight, which defeats the whole purpose of the system as it drives overall "fuel" economy right down the toilet. The French series of vehicles may be "ugly", which is a personal issue anyway, but given the overall efficiency and the opportunity to shove it up Big Oil's behind, I'd buy a fleet of them, give them away and start another “French Revolution”.
And as posted on other threads, geothermal is currently being enlisted as a major component of the power supply for many up-and-coming residential and commercial developments on both coasts. While the Yellowstone field is indeed huge, it's by far not the only or even most convenient source for "hot Earth" energy. Before we tap the Mother lode, a bit more expertise should be garnered in the most effective methods to manage /distribute the resource. But by all means, let’s put the pedal to the metal and get this resource on-line on a major scale within the next 5-10 years. Absolutely NO reason, technologically speaking, why that goal can’t be accomplished, unless you factor in the propaganda and general resistance from the utility infrastructure. Screw them…..and the horse they refuse to ride out on.
Damn it Bob, you stole my thunder by a matter of seconds. I'll get you for this........
Dear Kath:
-- On the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it is wrong to think of it as a project to drill in only a tiny area. The fact is that the place they want to drill also happens to be the most sensitive part of the Range, right in the caribou calving ground.
-- and, it is not true that the impact of development of the pipeline are insignificant. If you see what has happened to the Prudhoe Bay drilling zone, and superimpose that upon the calving ground inside the Arctic NWR, you'd see an area pretty much eaten up. Prudhoe Bay has had pretty continuous accidents and continual damage.
-- a lot of the damage of development comes with all the ancillary impacts. The feeder roads. The location of headquarters sites, staff housing, feeder pipelines, air strips. Constant resupply. Recreation zones. Extra people during their time off creating a huge bump of access to the backcountry.
-- All areas do not recover at the same rate. some of the Arctic areas that experienced only truck tracks during World War II ( we are talking 60 years ago) are still plainly visible. There are documented cases of one truck track leading to erosion and defrosting of permafrost to the extend that they actually became streams and drained entire lakes. You need to know what the impacts really are, and not be comforted by dismissing them all as equally sustainable.
If you want to look right at development and go for it, don't minimize what the impacts are, but realize what the impacts are. All sites are not the same, and all cannot be developed the same way, or easily absorb the same amount of impact.
-- On the Yellowstone system, I was involved in a review of the geothermal capacity of Yellowstone and other parks in the early 1980's. At that time, of the 10 or 12 major geothermal sites the size of Yellowstone's around the world, all but two had been "destroyed" by development. By destroyed, I mean what happens is the underground water in these systems is what is tapped. Draining that water for industrial heating use means that the phenomena you are used to at Yellowstone -- geisers and mud pots across a steaming landscape -- will go away. You can decide whether it is important or not that one of the two remaining sites like Yellowstone is preserved, or even is of value as a preserved site. But as long as you are using the underground hot water as the key thing for your development, tapping it will reduce or eliminate the water pressure needed to sustain what most people think of when they think of Yellowstone.
Maybe we should just decide to try to keep our kind of massive technology in place, and just come up with increasingly difficult sources of energy by engineering it. Or, as Bob is suggesting, maybe we don't need to sustain an engineering system as the underpining of our culture based on unlimited cheap oil.
The problem with the 'drill baby, drill' concept is we remain addicted to doing things in ways that just cannot last.
Lone Hiker, you've been reading the crap I post on Traveler long enough to know that, if you want to kick my ass, you are going to have to pack a lunch, get a good book to read, and go stand at the end of a very long line.
Geothermal energy is almost impossible to store or transport. So Yellowstone is simply too far out-of-the-way to use the geothermal options there effectively. Fortunately it is not necessary to drill the nations first National Park, as geothermal energy can be used at almost every place where there are deep (12.000-20.000 feet) aquifers. And there you don't risk there to trigger a super-volcano.
MRC, I'm not sure your first comment is entirely true. Raser Technologies earlier this month cut the ribbon on a 10 megawatt geothermal plant in Utah. They've already marketed some of the electricity to some California communities. Here's a snippet of their news release:
Raser concentrates on geothermal electricity. There you run into the problem, that the national electricity grid is in an abysmally bad condition and the loss on the long-distance is considerable. High-voltage direct current could reduce the loss, but so far there are only two long distance HVDC lines, one between Quebac and New England and the Intermountain line between Utah and Los Angeles. Might Raser deliver the energy from the new plant to Anaheim over that power line? The new plant is pretty close to the starting point in Delta, Beaver County, UT so it might be possible.
To go back to the title of Kurt's story that started this discussion: "Do You Care About Energy Exploration Near Our National Parks?" My answer is "yes," and it sounds like quite a few others share that view.
It is encouraging to read the comments in favor of a combination of conservation and accelerated development of alternative energy sources. I agree that's the only long-term solution. And ... I concede that development of some domestic resources of oil and gas is both a political reality and probably needed to help bridge the gap until better alternative sources of energy come on-line - but ONLY if the location of such development is carefully considered.
Here's an example of such development I can live with: The full extent of the Barnett Shale natural gas field is not yet fully known, but it's already the second largest producing on-shore domestic natural gas field in the United States. It's located beneath north Texas, and active development of that field is underway. The Dallas-Ft. Worth airport complex covers 18,000 acres, and much of that is open space buffer. The first of about 300 planned wells are already being drilled on airport property. There are similar sites across the area that are currently in marginal agricultural use that could also be developed. In my book, that makes a lot more sense than developing new fields near areas such as national parks.
There are a lot of good ideas above, but I was especially intrigued by Bob's comment:
That approach might help reduce the problems related to lack of existing infrastructure to move electric power long distances, from the places where wind or solar are most viable, to places with large concentrations of power consumption.