7 ms·

Alaska's oil revival sparks a new energy rush Into the Arctic

46 points by Brajeshwar 5mo ago

jmyeet 5mo ago
What we should be doing is reducing our dependence on fossil fuels but nobody gets rich that way. Mines (including oil wells) are incredible wealth concentrators eg [1]. Also, nobody goes to war over a solar panel [2] and weapons are the ultimate product. They get used once and need to be replaced. But there's a lot of fearmongering and misinformation here. For one thing, it's been nearly 20 years since drilling has been allowed in ANWR and, to date, zero commercial drilling has taken place. In fact, the only exploratory drilling I'm aware of is Chevron's KIC-1 effort in 1986 [3] and the results of that have been kept secret. Now, if the results were spectacular, wouldn't you think Chevron would've started drilling? Even if there are, there are lots of reasons why it wouldn't happen. First, just look at a map. Look at where the highways end. Depending on what you count as a road, that's either Fairbanks, Alaska (in the middle of the state) or Delta Junction (SE of Fairbanks). You would need to build massive road infrastructure all the way to ANWR. It can't be done any other way. This is above the Arctic Circle and only usable several months of the year. I've seen estimates that this alone is like $5-10 billion in investment. Second, you need to house a lot of people up there and get them in and out. All of this is expensive. Building anything up there is expensive. You need workers for that. Those workers need housing. Everybody needs to be fed. Food needs to get in. You need water. It goes on and on and on. This is likely a $10-20 billion project (complete guess). Third, you actually have to drill up there. In West Texas, it goes ~$8 million to drill a well [4]. How much does it cost in Alaska? Well, we have some comparative data, namely the Willow Project [5]. The costs for this are spiralling. We don't seem to have individual well costs but they say 150 wells and $9 billion. If that's true, it's $60 million per well. As further evidence, there was an auction for ANWR leases and nobody bid [6]. You need to recover that extra cost and the only way to do it is scale so there needs to be a massive amount of oil and it's unclear if that's the case. My point here is not that expanded drilling can't happen in Alaska. Instead it's that there are significant economic barriers to such a project and it's not as inevitable as any president just signing an executive order. [1]: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/9/4111 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/9/4111 [2]: https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar-panel/ https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar... [3]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-29-me-56952-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-29-me-56952... [4]: https://incorrys.com/energy/energy-cost/well-costs-by-play-basin/ https://incorrys.com/energy/energy-cost/well-costs-by-play-b... [5]: https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/conocophillips-sees-1-billion-cost-surge-for-massive-willow-project/2-1-1897505 https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/conocophill... [6]: https://environmentamerica.org/center/articles/why-no-one-bid-to-drill-in-the-arctic-refuge-lease-sale/ https://environmentamerica.org/center/articles/why-no-one-bi...
- kogasa240p 5mo ago
  Good post
866-RON-0-FEZ 5mo ago
Something's gotta power all those new AI data centers with massive capacity and it isn't wind and solar.
- skybrian 5mo ago
  It's unlikely to be oil either. Sometimes it's natural gas.
- yogthos 5mo ago
  not in a petrostate anyways
  - antonvs 5mo ago
    Right, under Trump the US has become a full-blown petrostate. We may as well start calling him the Emir.
    - doodlebugging 5mo ago
      He's not an emir by a long stretch. His closest "allies" are waiting by the door for the inevitable announcement that time took its toll and he has faded into wherever you go when all your dysfunction stops functioning at all. They are wolves waiting to Al Haig their way into his current position.
- soperj 5mo ago
  Actually lately it's been Hydro and Solar.[0] A little of natural gas, and thankfully a ton less coal. [0] - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/soaring-solar-and-a-surge-in-hydro-push-more-coal-off-the-us-grid/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/soaring-solar-and-a-...
- 3eb7988a1663 5mo ago
  The Ember 2026 report[0] shows that 75% of new power generation in 2025 was from solar. Solar + wind were 99% of new generation capacity. Fossil fuel generation dropped for one of the first times ever (historical reductions were typically due to structural reasons like COVID or recession). In a first, renewable sources made more for the planet than coal. Renewables are absolutely going to be powering the future. Recent events have done nothing but accelerate the transition as countries are going to run to reduce their petroleum dependencies. [0] https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...
throwaway5752 5mo ago
The oil industry is dying and we are destroying the planet and a delicate ecosystem to harvest non-renewable energy. It should stay in the ground and be saved for future generations for an emergency, not to just power grossly oversized vehicles and social media content generation to manipulate people into buying things.
cyberax 5mo ago
It's important to keep in mind the scale. The US is producing around 15 million barrels of oil per day. The projects mentioned in the article, combined, would be less than 6 months of the US production. It's important for the locals in Alaska, but it's not going to change anything globally. Except maybe killing off a few endangered species and damaging the fragile ecosystem. But that's a small price to pay for oil companies' profits.
- lazide 5mo ago
  Even close to 6 months of US capacity is huge.
  - cyberax 5mo ago
    It is. But also not game-changing. And we don't have an infinite number of wildlife preserves that we can throw under the bus. Arctic development is also expensive, and even the planned projects would have been impractical without already-existing infrastructure.
    - lazide 5mo ago
      By that definition almost nothing is game changing? The US is one of the most oil hungry countries on the planet, and even 3 months supply is a quarter. That would definitely move the needle on prices!
      - cyberax 5mo ago
        > By that definition almost nothing is game changing? Yes. That's indeed correct. No amount of new oil discoveries or desperate attempts to put an oil well in every endangered species habitat is going to change the current trajectory. The practically recoverable oil reserves in the US are estimated at around 150-200 billion barrels. That's about 30 years at the current production rate. Though not at the current price, a lot of reserves are economical only if the oil price is high enough. So we'll still need to switch to something else in the long run, regardless of the CO2 pollution.
rnvd1298 5mo ago
What a truly amazing coincidence that failed Alaskan projects that can supply energy to Asian "allies" without maritime choke points become profitable again! Just as the Hormuz double blockade is implemented and extended. The current peace talks are just theater. Expect new "peace talks" every two weeks for years to come. Putin, Trump and the fracking mafia will be very happy.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
Arthur391 5mo ago
[dead]
CrzyLngPwd 5mo ago
Does that mean the US won't try to annex Canada and Greenland, after all?
- switchbak 5mo ago
  When they say "The Arctic", you can often read that as being within the borders of Canada. When you have something, and you lack the means to defend and assert that right - do you really have it? Canada has so defunded its military, that it's effectively an undefended nation.
  - msie 5mo ago
    Canada has so defunded its military Not anymore.
    - Onavo 5mo ago
      Nah, they are essentially irrelevant unless they are operating as part of a coalition. Last I checked they are still waffling on what 5th generation fighter jet to procure while the rest of the world are starting to plan for the 6th generation.
      - switchbak 5mo ago
        We're quite literally flying the "Legacy Hornet" that was phased out of the US arsenal in the early 2000's. We bought the ones Australia retired so we could keep flying these ancient planes. We had such poor capability and data link compatibility that we've been passed over on recent NATO exercises. Their replacement has been a political football for the last ~20 years, extending so far beyond the rational lifetime of our original CF-18's that it boggles the mind. Those who've tried to keep rust buckets on the road know how high the cost can be for trying to keep something flying for so long. This extends to basically every part of the Canadian military - extreme delays followed by politically motivated (and extremely bad) decision making.
    - switchbak 5mo ago
mperham 5mo ago
A truly idiotic investment when renewables are already cheaper than existing fossil fuel infrastructure (much less new infra)
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  This attitude misses the realities of scale bottlenecks and sunk costs. If we ignore climate externalities, it makes sense to build solar as fast as we can and also pump oil, preferably for export.
  - andyjohnson0 5mo ago
    > If we ignore climate externalities, it makes sense to build solar as fast as we can and also pump oil, preferably for export. I appreciate that "externalities" is a term from economics. But its also worth remembering that there are no externalities when it comes to the global climate and atmospheric system. There is precisely one planetary atmosphere and we all share it. When we degrade its ability to support life then that ultimately affects all life.
    - Zopieux 5mo ago
      White executives in their late 60s cannot care less, they'll be dead by then
- barney54 5mo ago
  Types of energy are not fungible. In some circumstances they are, but not always.
  - mperham 5mo ago
    Your statement is true, but does not imply that we need new fossil fuel investment.
- Dig1t 5mo ago
  The entire planet is energy-constrained right now, there aren't enough solar panels or batteries to power all the demand we have, and the demand only continues to grow. We are so energy constrained in fact that people are trying seriously to deploy new nuclear in the US. Even with countries like China massively subsidizing solar, we're still not going to have enough renewable energy deployed.
716dpl 5mo ago
It's not a widely known fact that sales of new combustion engine cars peaked in 2017 and has been on a downward trend since then, while global EV sales have ~10x in the same time period. So it seems like these new investments are in a race. Will they pay off before they become stranded assets? The Saudis and other middle east countries have the lowest production costs, so unless Alaska can somehow keep costs to ~$20/barrel, I would not bet on it.
- cpursley 5mo ago
  Gasoline is only one of the byproducts of oil products a modern economy requires. Lubricants, diesel, nitrogen, and the list goes on - these are still all needed even if we convert to 100% EVs.
  - 716dpl 5mo ago
    All non-transportation fuel uses account for a total of only 33% of crude oil consumption. Of the other 2/3rd, gasoline accounts for 43%. So yes, switching to EVs would have a massive impact, and probably put unconventional sources of oil (eg. Venezuela and Alberta) out of business. As for diesel, EV truck sales are starting to take off too. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/use-of-oil.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/trends-in-heavy-duty-electric-vehicles https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/trends-in...
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - jakebol 5mo ago
      Oil products are a fractional distillate of a barrel of oil. How are you going to pave the roads all these EV’s are going to drive on, or produce the plastic they consume (EV’s require ~40-50% more plastic)? If gasoline demands softens it doesn’t necessarily mean that other oil product demand will decrease at similar rates. Oil production declines over time so you need constant development even in a declining consumption scenario, and I think we are heading into a world where domestic supply will command a premium.
jmward01 5mo ago
I can guarantee that when the oil industry collapses these companies won't take the last million in their bank accounts and use it to properly cap wells and clean up dead and soon to be decaying infrastructure. We throw money at them to destroy the environments they drill in (practically giving them the land for free). We throw money at them when they sell it (by giving them tax breaks). We throw money at them for producing the products from it (by not charging for the externalized costs of global warming and pollution in general) and we will throw money at them as they are dying (by not forcing them to pay for cleanup before starting drilling). The golden parachutes of oil execs are already being packed and everyone can see it but, shocker, nobody is stopping it.
- Dig1t 5mo ago
  Why would the oil industry collapse? It seems to me that there is nearly an unlimited demand for energy on the planet. If there's extra energy somewhere, humans will find a use for it. Quality of life for humans is directly correlated with energy abundance (of all kinds, solar is included in that).
  - thejohnconway 5mo ago
    Because it’s on track to become expensive than other sources of energy. There are plenty energy sources we don’t use because they are comparatively expensive.
  - seanmcdirmid 5mo ago
    Burning oil directly is incredibly dirty, even though Saudi does that, it feels like a bad bet in general in terms of environmental destruction. You can refine it into gasoline, but that takes as much energy so you wouldn’t gain much. Better to just apply it for non-energy use cases.
- WarmWash 5mo ago
  The big producers would do it. Its the small guys and the fly by night mom&pop producers who leave pure environmental carnage behind.

46 points by Brajeshwar 5mo ago

What we should be doing is reducing our dependence on fossil fuels but nobody gets rich that way. Mines (including oil wells) are incredible wealth concentrators eg [1]. Also, nobody goes to war over a solar panel [2] and weapons are the ultimate product. They get used once and need to be replaced. But there's a lot of fearmongering and misinformation here. For one thing, it's been nearly 20 years since drilling has been allowed in ANWR and, to date, zero commercial drilling has taken place. In fact, the only exploratory drilling I'm aware of is Chevron's KIC-1 effort in 1986 [3] and the results of that have been kept secret. Now, if the results were spectacular, wouldn't you think Chevron would've started drilling? Even if there are, there are lots of reasons why it wouldn't happen. First, just look at a map. Look at where the highways end. Depending on what you count as a road, that's either Fairbanks, Alaska (in the middle of the state) or Delta Junction (SE of Fairbanks). You would need to build massive road infrastructure all the way to ANWR. It can't be done any other way. This is above the Arctic Circle and only usable several months of the year. I've seen estimates that this alone is like $5-10 billion in investment. Second, you need to house a lot of people up there and get them in and out. All of this is expensive. Building anything up there is expensive. You need workers for that. Those workers need housing. Everybody needs to be fed. Food needs to get in. You need water. It goes on and on and on. This is likely a $10-20 billion project (complete guess). Third, you actually have to drill up there. In West Texas, it goes ~$8 million to drill a well [4]. How much does it cost in Alaska? Well, we have some comparative data, namely the Willow Project [5]. The costs for this are spiralling. We don't seem to have individual well costs but they say 150 wells and $9 billion. If that's true, it's $60 million per well. As further evidence, there was an auction for ANWR leases and nobody bid [6]. You need to recover that extra cost and the only way to do it is scale so there needs to be a massive amount of oil and it's unclear if that's the case. My point here is not that expanded drilling can't happen in Alaska. Instead it's that there are significant economic barriers to such a project and it's not as inevitable as any president just signing an executive order. [1]: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/9/4111 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/9/4111 [2]: https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar-panel/ https://www.theenergymix.com/no-one-goes-to-war-over-a-solar... [3]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-29-me-56952-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-29-me-56952... [4]: https://incorrys.com/energy/energy-cost/well-costs-by-play-basin/ https://incorrys.com/energy/energy-cost/well-costs-by-play-b... [5]: https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/conocophillips-sees-1-billion-cost-surge-for-massive-willow-project/2-1-1897505 https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/conocophill... [6]: https://environmentamerica.org/center/articles/why-no-one-bid-to-drill-in-the-arctic-refuge-lease-sale/ https://environmentamerica.org/center/articles/why-no-one-bi...

kogasa240p 5mo ago
Good post

866-RON-0-FEZ 5mo ago

Something's gotta power all those new AI data centers with massive capacity and it isn't wind and solar.

skybrian 5mo ago
It's unlikely to be oil either. Sometimes it's natural gas.
yogthos 5mo ago
not in a petrostate anyways
- antonvs 5mo ago
  Right, under Trump the US has become a full-blown petrostate. We may as well start calling him the Emir.
  - doodlebugging 5mo ago
    He's not an emir by a long stretch. His closest "allies" are waiting by the door for the inevitable announcement that time took its toll and he has faded into wherever you go when all your dysfunction stops functioning at all. They are wolves waiting to Al Haig their way into his current position.
soperj 5mo ago
Actually lately it's been Hydro and Solar.[0] A little of natural gas, and thankfully a ton less coal. [0] - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/soaring-solar-and-a-surge-in-hydro-push-more-coal-off-the-us-grid/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/soaring-solar-and-a-...
3eb7988a1663 5mo ago
The Ember 2026 report[0] shows that 75% of new power generation in 2025 was from solar. Solar + wind were 99% of new generation capacity. Fossil fuel generation dropped for one of the first times ever (historical reductions were typically due to structural reasons like COVID or recession). In a first, renewable sources made more for the planet than coal. Renewables are absolutely going to be powering the future. Recent events have done nothing but accelerate the transition as countries are going to run to reduce their petroleum dependencies. [0] https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2026/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...

throwaway5752 5mo ago

The oil industry is dying and we are destroying the planet and a delicate ecosystem to harvest non-renewable energy. It should stay in the ground and be saved for future generations for an emergency, not to just power grossly oversized vehicles and social media content generation to manipulate people into buying things.

cyberax 5mo ago

It's important to keep in mind the scale. The US is producing around 15 million barrels of oil per day. The projects mentioned in the article, combined, would be less than 6 months of the US production. It's important for the locals in Alaska, but it's not going to change anything globally. Except maybe killing off a few endangered species and damaging the fragile ecosystem. But that's a small price to pay for oil companies' profits.

lazide 5mo ago
Even close to 6 months of US capacity is huge.
- cyberax 5mo ago
  It is. But also not game-changing. And we don't have an infinite number of wildlife preserves that we can throw under the bus. Arctic development is also expensive, and even the planned projects would have been impractical without already-existing infrastructure.
  - lazide 5mo ago
    By that definition almost nothing is game changing? The US is one of the most oil hungry countries on the planet, and even 3 months supply is a quarter. That would definitely move the needle on prices!
    - cyberax 5mo ago
      > By that definition almost nothing is game changing? Yes. That's indeed correct. No amount of new oil discoveries or desperate attempts to put an oil well in every endangered species habitat is going to change the current trajectory. The practically recoverable oil reserves in the US are estimated at around 150-200 billion barrels. That's about 30 years at the current production rate. Though not at the current price, a lot of reserves are economical only if the oil price is high enough. So we'll still need to switch to something else in the long run, regardless of the CO2 pollution.

rnvd1298 5mo ago

What a truly amazing coincidence that failed Alaskan projects that can supply energy to Asian "allies" without maritime choke points become profitable again! Just as the Hormuz double blockade is implemented and extended. The current peace talks are just theater. Expect new "peace talks" every two weeks for years to come. Putin, Trump and the fracking mafia will be very happy.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

Arthur391 5mo ago

[dead]

CrzyLngPwd 5mo ago

Does that mean the US won't try to annex Canada and Greenland, after all?

switchbak 5mo ago
When they say "The Arctic", you can often read that as being within the borders of Canada. When you have something, and you lack the means to defend and assert that right - do you really have it? Canada has so defunded its military, that it's effectively an undefended nation.
- msie 5mo ago
  Canada has so defunded its military Not anymore.
  - Onavo 5mo ago
    Nah, they are essentially irrelevant unless they are operating as part of a coalition. Last I checked they are still waffling on what 5th generation fighter jet to procure while the rest of the world are starting to plan for the 6th generation.
    - switchbak 5mo ago
      We're quite literally flying the "Legacy Hornet" that was phased out of the US arsenal in the early 2000's. We bought the ones Australia retired so we could keep flying these ancient planes. We had such poor capability and data link compatibility that we've been passed over on recent NATO exercises. Their replacement has been a political football for the last ~20 years, extending so far beyond the rational lifetime of our original CF-18's that it boggles the mind. Those who've tried to keep rust buckets on the road know how high the cost can be for trying to keep something flying for so long. This extends to basically every part of the Canadian military - extreme delays followed by politically motivated (and extremely bad) decision making.
  - switchbak 5mo ago

mperham 5mo ago

A truly idiotic investment when renewables are already cheaper than existing fossil fuel infrastructure (much less new infra)

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
This attitude misses the realities of scale bottlenecks and sunk costs. If we ignore climate externalities, it makes sense to build solar as fast as we can and also pump oil, preferably for export.
- andyjohnson0 5mo ago
  > If we ignore climate externalities, it makes sense to build solar as fast as we can and also pump oil, preferably for export. I appreciate that "externalities" is a term from economics. But its also worth remembering that there are no externalities when it comes to the global climate and atmospheric system. There is precisely one planetary atmosphere and we all share it. When we degrade its ability to support life then that ultimately affects all life.
  - Zopieux 5mo ago
    White executives in their late 60s cannot care less, they'll be dead by then
barney54 5mo ago
Types of energy are not fungible. In some circumstances they are, but not always.
- mperham 5mo ago
  Your statement is true, but does not imply that we need new fossil fuel investment.
Dig1t 5mo ago
The entire planet is energy-constrained right now, there aren't enough solar panels or batteries to power all the demand we have, and the demand only continues to grow. We are so energy constrained in fact that people are trying seriously to deploy new nuclear in the US. Even with countries like China massively subsidizing solar, we're still not going to have enough renewable energy deployed.

716dpl 5mo ago

It's not a widely known fact that sales of new combustion engine cars peaked in 2017 and has been on a downward trend since then, while global EV sales have ~10x in the same time period. So it seems like these new investments are in a race. Will they pay off before they become stranded assets? The Saudis and other middle east countries have the lowest production costs, so unless Alaska can somehow keep costs to ~$20/barrel, I would not bet on it.

cpursley 5mo ago
Gasoline is only one of the byproducts of oil products a modern economy requires. Lubricants, diesel, nitrogen, and the list goes on - these are still all needed even if we convert to 100% EVs.
- 716dpl 5mo ago
  All non-transportation fuel uses account for a total of only 33% of crude oil consumption. Of the other 2/3rd, gasoline accounts for 43%. So yes, switching to EVs would have a massive impact, and probably put unconventional sources of oil (eg. Venezuela and Alberta) out of business. As for diesel, EV truck sales are starting to take off too. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/use-of-oil.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/trends-in-heavy-duty-electric-vehicles https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/trends-in...
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - jakebol 5mo ago
    Oil products are a fractional distillate of a barrel of oil. How are you going to pave the roads all these EV’s are going to drive on, or produce the plastic they consume (EV’s require ~40-50% more plastic)? If gasoline demands softens it doesn’t necessarily mean that other oil product demand will decrease at similar rates. Oil production declines over time so you need constant development even in a declining consumption scenario, and I think we are heading into a world where domestic supply will command a premium.

jmward01 5mo ago

I can guarantee that when the oil industry collapses these companies won't take the last million in their bank accounts and use it to properly cap wells and clean up dead and soon to be decaying infrastructure. We throw money at them to destroy the environments they drill in (practically giving them the land for free). We throw money at them when they sell it (by giving them tax breaks). We throw money at them for producing the products from it (by not charging for the externalized costs of global warming and pollution in general) and we will throw money at them as they are dying (by not forcing them to pay for cleanup before starting drilling). The golden parachutes of oil execs are already being packed and everyone can see it but, shocker, nobody is stopping it.

Dig1t 5mo ago
Why would the oil industry collapse? It seems to me that there is nearly an unlimited demand for energy on the planet. If there's extra energy somewhere, humans will find a use for it. Quality of life for humans is directly correlated with energy abundance (of all kinds, solar is included in that).
- thejohnconway 5mo ago
  Because it’s on track to become expensive than other sources of energy. There are plenty energy sources we don’t use because they are comparatively expensive.
- seanmcdirmid 5mo ago
  Burning oil directly is incredibly dirty, even though Saudi does that, it feels like a bad bet in general in terms of environmental destruction. You can refine it into gasoline, but that takes as much energy so you wouldn’t gain much. Better to just apply it for non-energy use cases.
WarmWash 5mo ago
The big producers would do it. Its the small guys and the fly by night mom&pop producers who leave pure environmental carnage behind.