Greenland bans all oil exploration | Hacker News Reader

Greenland bans all oil exploration

cbc.ca

222 pointselorant52 comments

This is great news, to me it's in the same category as drilling off the north slope of Alaska. There's just no reason to allow it. I did my PhD on Greenland.

I'm not sure why their cover photo for this story is a photo of Polarstern in the sea ice north of Norway...

> it's in the same category as drilling off the north slope of Alaska

Politically it’s night and day. Alaska has proven, producing reserves. Greenland has suspected reserves. Banning future jobs and money is easier than banning ones in hand.

For Alaska, it may be only about jobs. But for Greenland, it's about independence. And foregoing dreams of independence seems like a bigger sacrifice.

Pragmatically, what does Greenland have to gain from independence? And think about all the new responsibilities it would be burdened with, especially w.r.t. defence/security policy.

I actually think your point is a good one. There are a lot of places in the world where independence would be obviously preferable to the current situation but I don’t think Greenland is one of those places, at least it isn’t obvious.

But I wouldn’t say that the dream of independence is gone from Greenland if they desire. Global warming will, after all, probably make the periphery of Greenland more habitable (like the Medieval Warm Period, before the cold Maunder Minimum, when it was farmed by Vikings), even as it ravages the glaciers.

Typically people like self determination. To the extent that people living in Greenland have different interests than those of Denmark that are imposed upon them then effective self determination is more attractive. I’m sure modern Denmark is a relatively benevolent colonist so who knows?

Denmark is a relatively benevolent colonist, yes. The conflicts that have thus far surfaced have been around Greenland being able to make all its own trading decisions even when they become issues of national security (as when China attempted to build out rare-earth mines).

I am sympathetic to Greenland's desire for total self-determination but so long as they continue to receive aid from "mother Denmark", and so long as they are unable to mount a proper defense of their lands with their own military funded from their own pockets, they will never be allowed. The danger of another nation sailing in with a fighting navy is just too great.

You simply can't defend a country the size of four Californias when you are a nation of 56000 people.

A bit of a tangent but as a Dane I'd like to see Denmark, the Faroes, and Greenland find a way to come closer together, given that the population of the Faroe Islands and Greenland together number little more than 100,000. Our relationship to the Faroe Islands is already "pretty good", it's our relationship to Greenland that could be much improved.

I've long advocated that Danes have a duty to visit their friends in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In Danish, the autonomous territories and Denmark together are called, "Rigsfællesskabet", the "Fellowship of the Kingdom". We understand each other by going to those places and hearing of the problems and difficulties they face: what they need.

For reference, Iceland has a population of only 360k people and has no standing army. It has nevertheless not been militarily attacked and subjugated, because of its alliances, including its NATO membership. If Iceland with its small population and no military can be kept secure through NATO membership, so can Greenland.

Iceland was invaded by the Brits in WWII to keep it out of German hands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Iceland

And NATO did not exist back then.

Greenlands population is only 56000, so the additional responsibilities hits a lot harder than people might think.

56000 is just a big town and Greenlands area is 5 times that of California and a much harsher environment.

I see your point, but defense seems wholly unnecessary. In what possible scenario would Greenland be invaded and not be protected by the US, Canada, and/or the UK.

> In what possible scenario would Greenland be invaded and not be protected by the US, Canada, and/or the UK.

If Russia put down a commercial landing and started drilling off Greenland, we’d throw around sanctions but I’d sure as hell want to see a military base before I’d advocate going to war with a superpower over fewer than 60,000 people. Especially if a decent fraction of the population could, reasonably, claim they were free riding on our blood and money.

In the case where the US, Canada or UK are the invaders, regardless of how likely could that be.

Considering Brexit, there's precedent: The Cod Wars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfD3gevx48Y

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars

Not just jobs, but also the permanent resident payments for the inhabitants of Alaska.

>I did my PhD on Greenland?

On what, specifically? That sounds interesting... history? culture? native populations? economy? Very curious as I have literally never heard anyone say "I did my PhD on Greenland" before

Given the user name and Greenland's unique geology, I'm going to guess geology.

Extra points for intelligence - thank you sir or madam, sounds like you are right

Did anybody mention that imported oil is their one and only source of energy. No solar or steady winds for 8 winter months. Fishing fleet, their only source of all-year-round income, runs on oil, of course.

Discussed a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27859517

Now it's time for the whole world to ban oil exploration or at least oil/oil derived imports. The tech is here to make it happen.

Role models help tremendously. So far we've had them almost uniquely in the other direction, but the motivation to follow will become overwhelming.

Soon even Americans will choose not to run a/c 24/7 May to September and fly at a whim.

Incidentally, less tech usually reduces pollution and increases health, longevity, stability, and resilience more, though it doesn't make the headlines.

Pipe dream. You’re looking at 50-100 years to wean the world off of oil.

I’d actually suspect we’re closer to the middle of the s curve on green tech than we give credit to.

Most automakers are now divesting from ic technology. GM announced a lithium mine that will at least double global lithium production. Solar is now mass producible and cheaper than most carbon plants in most locations.

It’s really cheap to set up solar production relative to coal power plants, with much less regulatory burden and the ability to make arbitrarily small utility production.

Conversely negative economic impacts of fossil fuels are now being felt via climate variability.

Don’t disagree that we’ll see significant uptake of electric vehicles over the next 10-20 years in Western countries. But Asia and Africa will be 20-30 years behind that curve.

Ola Electric just got 100,000 bookings for their electric scooter in a week, and is building one of the largest EV factories on Earth. Same for ReVolt Motors in India.

The magnitude of change can only be comprehended in the rear view mirror, not from the windshield

We'll probably make plastic out of oil for a while after we stop burning it. But we burn so much compared to what we need for other purposes that the existing reserves will last a long time.

They said the same about electric cars and here we are.

Where is here? A few percent market share? The average age of vehicles is 12 years. Even if all gasoline vehicles are banned in 2030 you’d be looking close to 2050 to eliminate gas.

And that’s in rich nations. You think India or China has the money to buy all new vehicles?

The rich countries make the cars. All brand new cars will be electric very soon. China is into EV big time as well, especially since they don't have oil reserves and this is one in 100 years chance to disrupt the auto industry owned by foreign countries.

This gives Russia excellent cover in overextending their territory with their arctic oil exploration and infrastructure development. Next Greenland will say "What arctic land claims?"

Would that even be possible since Greenland is just part of Denmark?

It'd be like Hawaii saying "Go on, Botswana. Our ocean is all yours."

If I were Russia I would be much less worried of conflict if competing oil companies were not bankrolling opposition to my land grab.

Greenland isn't allowed to do that; their foreign relations are mostly controlled by Denmark.

Greenland gets a lot of money from Denmark, so stopping oil exploration will only have a very insignificant impact on their budget. I’m sure they figured out other ways for the country to earn money.

Yeah well, if Denmark stopped giving them cash they would unban it the next day.

This will work for as long as the world has enough oil to meet demand. Eventually as oil becomes a more scarce resource, someone will explore for oil there.

It would be a long time before we run out of oil. Given that solar is becoming super cheap, our reliance on oil will keep reducing.

What is likely to happen is change in political will to keep the ban - you know, the usual bribery and the talk of “jobs” etc. That is a bigger threat than oil shortage

Isn't political will just a function of external motivators such as the profitability of extracting oil? (Which will go up as supplies dwindle?) I don't think people will just decide differently with no change in circumstances.

Tapping oil reserves has a history of wrecking governments and economies. The economics of it quickly push out other forms of industry. Politicians quickly seize on the opportunity to claim they personally own the reserves - and become dictators. Then there's the horrible ecological costs.

The best option is to develop means of providing energy which disrupt the economics of even oil extraction/refinement. Nuclear could do this - uranium occurs at a pretty constant rate across the earth's crust. Nuclear could also be built out at a rate of choice to meet and pass the energy provided by fossil fuels. One thing that typified the industrial expansion to modernity is ever increasing utilization of greater amounts of energy. Energy storage even has suitable options to disrupt fossil fuels - vis a vi hydrogen fuel cells, lithium batteries, and plenty of other options. (Personally, I like that fuel cells output water since desert areas are seeing greater population characteristics.)

In short, the best option is to leave oil and fossil fuels in the ground and grow the world off its use through appropriate investments in tech and infrastructure.

Replying instead of editing

Even the term “fossil fuels” is an inappropriate framing of the chemicals involved since it restricts their use to burning. Consider the processes involved in their formations: organic material grew for eons millions of years ago. It then had to be buried in just the right conditions and later embedded into even further beneficial conditions. It took millions of years, high temperatures, and high pressures to go from plant material to these complex molecular forms. Then we dig them up or seep them out with fracking and further refine them. Then we burn them. Huge losses of energy all along the way. Using oil as fossil fuel is a huge waste of the energy it took to create those molecules.

We've changed many practices against pure profitability, including asbestos, marketing cigarettes to children, HCFCs, and slavery.

We may not have reached 100% on each, but we've changed a lot. We have other values than money.

Increasing solar and decreasing oil are largely independent. History shows that when we find new energy sources, we keep using the old and add the new.

Solar allows us to keep doing some things that oil powers, but we would stop using oil at some point, limited by pollution killing too many of us, running out, or choice.

Perhaps. I think the key question is how quickly the cost of alternatives goes down relative to oil.

But if Greenland is the last reserve of oil left on the planet, the value of that oil will be astronomical. Holding off on drilling during cheap oil is a good investment.

We'll need to cut about 50% of fossil fuel demand globally in the next 30 years (see eg https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050 ). It will probably happen by tax and emissions trading mechanisms (and elimintating subsisidies ) sufficiently to reduce demand to this level.

I don’t agree. We already have alternatives to oil, they’re just more expensive in many cases.

In the 00s, we pursued biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel, bioplastics, etc… which has problems but does still replace some uses of oil) and on-shore wind aggressively.

In the 2010s, we developed battery electric vehicles, grid storage, solar, and off-shore wind.

I suspect this decade we’ll see hydrogen steel and ammonia production, battery electric flight, and chemical carbon capture. Another decade of this and expensive methods of oil extraction just aren’t very feasible, so if the price spikes, people will just switch to alternatives faster or even start synthesizing carbon neutral hydrocarbons (ie via electrolyzed hydrogen, direct air CO2 capture, and Fischer-Tropsch).

What replaces plastic currently?

With enough energy you can make plastic out of CO2 and water. So it's an economic question: What happens when oil is no longer useful as fuel? Will it be cheaper to just synthesize the hydrocarbons you need, or will it be cheaper to keep some of the oil infrastructure running?

I have no idea why you're being down-voted. You literally can make any hydrocarbons we get from crude using synthesis gas (from CO2 and water split into hydrogen) using the Fischer-Tropsch process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...

Are folks just not aware of this, so they think people who say you can "make plastic out of CO2 and water" are talking hand-wavy nonsense?

The process is used commercially today in Qatar, Malaysia, and South Africa plus has had pilot plants in the US. But many of these US pilot plant efforts stopped when the price of oil cratered. So again, we absolutely do have alternatives to crude oil, it's just a function of economics.

We can also play with some alternatives such as artificial spider silk. This is an opportunity not just to ape current methods, but actually come with something completely new.

PLA is a plastic made of corn (it is polymerized lactic acid). It's actually a pretty versatile thermoplastic as it's semi-crystalline and so although it can be formed at relatively low temperatures, if you heat treat it (which increases its crystallinity), it can withstand ~boiling temperatures like other common thermoplastics. It's also technically biodegradable, but usually won't actually break down unless thin and in proper industrial compost processes. (Which can be kind of good for many applications... you don't want your plastic breaking down while in use, although you definitely don't want to be littering PLA.)

It's pretty cheap, commonly used in one-time plastic items, and is the most common 3D printing plastic.

But also, you can make polypropylene and polyethylene pretty easily from methane (which can be from biological sources or synthesized from electrolyzed hydrogen and CO2) via methanol-to-olefins processes, common in China.

But you're missing the point. We can synthesize literally anything you can make from oil using hydrogen, direct air captured CO2, and the Fischer-Tropsch process. It's a complete replacement for crude oil. It's just more expensive than getting it from the ground.

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