Oil Cos In Alaska Now Having To Artificially Freeze Melting Permafrost So They Can Get At More Oil

[hatrack]

EDIT

"To be honest, climate change is pretty good business for our company," says Ed Yarmak, who runs Arctic Foundations and gets about half his work from oil companies on the North Slope. "We're in the business of making things colder." By "things" he means the permafrost that blankets Alaska's North Slope.

The oil industry has built a vast network of pipelines and buildings on top of permafrost, and has always had to use special engineering to adjust for it. Oil operators have used Yarmak's product since the 1970's, but he says rising temperatures mean it's needed even more.

As permafrost thaws, he says, "the doors start to stick, the sheet rock cracks, the floor isn't level any more. Things aren't the way that they planned them." To help, Yarmak manufactures long metal tubes filled with a refrigerant, called thermosyphons. In his company's Anchorage warehouse he points out a dense array of tiny fins that stick out the top.

"It's where the heat comes out and goes to the air," he says. These giant tubes are partially buried in the permafrost. The gas inside pulls heat out of the ground and in the process, keeps it frozen. Each tube is custom-made and can cost up to $10,000. Yarmak says oil companies have installed thousands of them across Alaska's Arctic. If the state continues to warm as projected, he expects to be in business a long time to come.

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https://www.npr.org/2018/06/11/617240387/oil-industry-copes-with-climate-impacts-as-permafrost-thaws

[Mickju]

1. This is clearly insane.