WHEN ALASKA WAS CUT IN HALF: THE OIL PIPELINE

Source: American Experience.

By Gundhramns Hammer
July 4, 2014
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Its existence was no secret. Iñupiat people in the North Slope of Alaska had known about it for thousands of years. Whenever they needed it for heating or putting some light in their tents or igloos, all they had to do was to go to the right spot and take a hunk of peat soaked with it.

Whalers and other "white" explorers came to know about it as well. The government too. 

It sat there as reminder of Nature´s forces and the cycles of life.

In this land, long winters gave way to brief springs which lead to capricious summers and these to fleeting autumns until the cold weather came back with all its might once more. 

Life went on as usual, in harmonious ways. But soon this mysterious burning substance became the centre of a rush. 

Now we know what it is. It is what keeps the industrial revolution machines and power plants spitting smoke and fire, threatening life itself with the contamination of the atmosphere.  Its name is petroleum.

One day it came to happen that in the hands of greedy people, this "black gold" turned Alaska into a mad anthill filled with fortune seekers of all walks of life when, after the 1973 oil crisis, it was decided that it was about time to get the bigs bucks out of it. 

To do so it was necessary to come up with an engineering scheme that would face the hardships of cold weather, sit on unstable permafrost, cut through mountains, cross streams and rivers and travel underground in some sections.

So it was devised and implanted. From 1974 to 1977 more than 20.000 men and women worked like hell to build this pipeline.

Despite the thousands of environmentally concerned activists that held long protests against such project for a long time, big business prevailed in the end. 

Alaska, a pristine territory, was cut in half.

Man violated Mother Nature once again in the name of "development" and "progress".  

Ever since this pipeline has been constructed more than 16 billion of barrels of crude oil have flowed through it. The oil travels from Prudhoe Bay way above the Arctic Circle to the port of Valdez on Prince William Sound.

This is a whopping 1.287 km (800 miles) of pipes (Fig. 1). Although it is considered one of man´s greatest engineering feats of the 20th century, we must remember one thing: Somewhere on the face of Earth there must be a huge hole from which the iron ore was dug out to build the thousands of pipes needed for this Nature buster. Without mentioning the headaches such as Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Figure 1. The Trans-Alaska pipeline system. Source: Alaska-in-Pictures.com.

But this story has not ended yet. It has just begun.

Alaska is under modern man´s pounding fist to meet the ever expanding oil and mineral demands.

Most likely, man will not put an end to this industrial fiery tale. Eventually, Nature will. 

And when Nature punishes its creatures, it hits where it hurts the most.  

Grizzly bears in Alaska know this very well, for example. They adapt to survive. 

Although we humans are quite adaptable via cultural means, we are too short-sighted, get stuck with anti-biospheric addictions too easily and thus tend to behave like biological moronic robots too frequently, interested only in fucking, screwing up our neighbours and Mother Nature and making wads of money.

Unless the problem hits our faces, we do not wake up. And if we ever do so, it is only temporarily. 

There lies the gist of our problem.

And the problem it is not energy. It is us, the way we think and act, with no wisdom. 

We misuse what should never be misused: The finite natural resources of planet Earth.

We must move on beyond from the business adjustable and convenient concept of "sustainable". We must reach the point  of being Nature entuned or harmonious.

For that we need a new paradigm. 

Have we already run out of time for that?

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System

The following documentary (Video 1) will show you what it took for the construction ot the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.

 
Source: History Earth via YouTube
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"In the early weeks of 1968, after a decade-long search for oil in Alaska's frozen wilderness, gas burst up out of an exploratory well on the North Slope with such force the crew thought it was about to blow. Geologists soon calculated that as much as ten billion barrels of oil lay below the frozen tundra of Prudhoe Bay -- the largest oil find in North America.

The pipeline built to bring that oil to market was one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century. For more than three years, workers battled brutal Arctic weather to construct an eight hundred mile pipeline that traversed three mountain ranges, thirty-four rivers, and eight hundred streams, and that withstood earthquakes and sub-zero temperatures. The men, machines and money the pipeline brought to Alaska would forever transform what had long been regarded as America's last great wilderness. The pipeline's construction pitted America's need for energy against its desire to protect land and wildlife, sparking one of the most passionate conservation battles in American history.

This American Experience program explores the impact the pipeline had on culture and society in Alaska as well as the environment, featuring the men and women who worked on the line as well as long-time Alaska residents, members of the Native Alaskan community, environmentalists, government geologists, congressional supporters and foes of the project, and local Alaska politicians."

Video 1. The Alaska oil pipeline.