The TransAlaska Pipeline

While I was in Alaska recently I made it a point to visit a portion of the TransAlaska oil pipeline.

These are pictures I took of a portion of the pipeline I visited just north of Fairbanks.

The pipeline runs 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope to Valdez on Prince William Sound.

It crosses three mountain ranges and over 800 rivers and streams.

The pipeline is a true engineering marvel that I found to be in remarkably great shape considering it is almost 50 years old.

The portion I visited was elevated due to the permafrost layer in the ground in that area but many portions the pipeline are underground.

Source: https://anupma-prakash.github.io/treasure-hunt-alaska/ch5/info_pipeline.html

The pipeline was constructed in the mid-1970's but not until surviving numerous protests and legal challenges from environmental groups.

A major argument of the groups was that the pipeline would disrupt traditional migration patterns of the Caribou population in the state.

Contrary to concerns, the Central Arctic Caribou herd which inhabits the area nearest to the pipeline,  grew from less than 5,000 in the mid-1970's to over 67,000  by 2008.

Some have argued that the Caribou liked the warmth of the pipeline in the winter and it has contributed to more reproduction. However, this is an unproven theory.

Whatever the reason, the doomsayers were wrong as they so often are.

We saw a number of Caribou while in Alaska. This is one we saw while in central Alaska.

The total population of Caribou in the state is now estimated to be 750,000-900,000.

That is greater than the human population in Alaska.

What is troubling about the pipeline right now is that it is only being used to about 25% of capacity.

It is designed to be capable of transporting over 2 million barrels of oil per day.

The pipeline actually transported 2.1 million barrels of oil per day in 1988.

It recently has been utilized for less than 500,000 barrels per day.

The fact that we have the resources and infrastructure in the United States to do so much more in regards to energy production but have a political class who consciously ignore it is unprecedented in human history.

Sitting adjacent to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska are the ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) oil reserves that the U.S. Geologic Survey has estimated contains between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of oil.

The TransAlaska pipeline could also be easily utilized to transport this oil to market.

The oil development area at ANWR is miniscule in relationship to the total area of ANWR.

We are talking about a footprint of 2,000 acres compared to a total area the size of the state of South Carolina.

Yet the Democrats and the environmental extremists want to block all oil projects here and everywhere else in the United States.

The coastal plain area along the Beaufort Sea is one of the most inhospitable and uninhabitable places on earth for human beings.

It is 250  miles north of the Arctic Circle. There is practically no daylight during the winter months. The HIGH temperature during the winter is usually between -2 and -10 degrees. Over 85% of the days of the year are overcast.

Source: https://mustreadalaska.com/blm-to-offer-entire-coastal-plain-of-anwr-for-energy-leases/

The Trump administration put oil leases in ANWR up for sale in the waning days of his Presidency. but Biden has worked to shut that effort down. In addition, what oil company wants to risk billions of dollars of investment in those oil fields when Biden has threatened oil executives with prosecution for drilling for oil?

Remember when Biden said this when he was running for President?

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7837265/We-jail-Biden-wants-prosecute-fossil-fuel-executives-environment-damage.html

It should come as no surprise that crude oil and gasoline prices have risen substantially during the Biden administration while falling while Trump was President.

U.S. Regular All Formulations Gas Price
Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GASREGW

Biden's answer to creating more oil supply is to attempt to get Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members to pump more and to raid our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to attempt to rein in gasoline prices.

Over 275 million barrels of oil have been taken out of the SPR in the last two years.

At current consumption rates, the SPR only holds a 20-day cover if there was a real supply disruption. The SPR has not such sparse reserves since 1983.

With the ability to pump an additional 1.5 million barrels of oil per day through the TransAlaska Pipeline none of this would have been necessary. 

Twice the amount of oil taken out of the SPR in two years could have been produced in the United States in just one year from Alaska alone.

It is just one more thing that makes no sense whatsoever.

Add to the list is how we have now learned that the man in charge of water management in Maui refused to release water to firefighters to fight the blaze for five hours.

Fire is overwhelming the village of Lahaina, people are dying, and this man did not immediately approve water to fight the inferno?

During a debate last year on water management the same official argued that water usage should be allocated based on "equity". He argued that it should not be something we share or use but something that should be "revered" and which "equity" should be considered when it is allocated for use.

Link: https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1692991470121197916

I wish I was making this up.

Yes, the environment needs to be protected and valued.

Yes, we need to be prudent about our use of the resources that God has provided us.

However, those resources were provided to us on this planet to allow humans to survive, prosper and multiply.

To see the wonderful resources that are accessible and readily available to better mankind and the United States of America sitting there in Alaska underutilized is beyond disappointing and disheartening. 

When the environment and climate becomes a "religion" and a "god" upon which we worship to the exclusion of mankind and God, the creator of all things, we are in deep, deep trouble.

Friends, this is where we are.

At times like these it is more important than ever to trust the Word.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

                                                                                       -Genesis 1;26-28, ESV