The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future

394 This has to do with the generally clockwise rotation of gyres in the northern hemisphere oceans, transporting southern ocean water north along the western edges and northern ocean water south along the eastern edges of the Atlantic and Pacific Basins. Thermohaline ocean circulation is also vitally important, as we shall see shortly. Finally, prevailing wind directions are westerly for much of the northern hemisphere meaning advection of warm ocean air over the land moves generally from west to east rather than east to west.

395 In the northern hemisphere. Ibid.

396 For more on how physical geography can influence human settlement, see Harm de Blij, The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape, (USA: Oxford University Press, (2008), 304 pp.

397 This was done under the U.S. Lend-Lease program to supply massive amounts of military material to its allies during the war. P. 42, K. S. Coates, W. R. Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 309 pp.

398 All told, the United States poured at least $4 billion (in 2009 dollars) into the projects. U.S. expenditures from 1942 through 1945 were roughly $41 million for airfields, $20 million for the initial temporary highway, $133- $144 million for the Canol Road and pipeline, $131 million for the finished highway; no data for the Haines Road. K. S. Coates, W. R. Morrison, The Alaska Highway in World War II (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 309 pp.

399 When a Japanese invasion became unlikely, the U.S. soldiers and contractors were recalled from northwestern Canada and the newly built infrastructure soon turned over as promised. Other northern bases were retained for decades, including a large military presence at Keflavik, not turned over to Iceland until 2006. Sondre Stromfjord (now Kangerlussuaq) was turned over to Greenland in 1992. Thule Air Base is still operated by the United States.

400 A. Applebaum, GULAG: A History (London: Penguin Books 2003), 610 pp. Highly recommended.

401 The acronym GULAG or Gulag comes from Glavnoe upravlenie legerei, meaning Main Camp Administration. Work camps had long antecedents in tsarist Russia and were implemented by Lenin almost immediately after the Russian Revolution. But Stalin’s expansion of the camp system in 1929 took it to a new level of scale and economic significance. For more, see A. I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 (New York: Harper Collins, 1974), 660 pp., and A. Applebaum, GULAG: A History (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 610 pp. See also F. Hill and C. Gaddy, The Siberian Curse (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003).

402 F. Hill and C. Gaddy, Ibid.

403 Ph.D. dissertation of T. Mikhailova, “Essays on Russian Economic Geography: Measuring Spatial Inefficiency,” Pennsylvania State University, Department of Economics, 2004. See also F. Hill and C. Gaddy, Ibid.

404 Geological evolution and other material for this section drawn from June 5, 2009, personal interview with John D. Grace of Earth Science Associates, Long Beach, California, and his superb book Russian Oil Supply: Performance and Prospects (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 288 pp.

405 A primary reason for this is economic “discounting” of up-front capital, in which money is valued higher today than tomorrow. The anticipated future profits for a proposed project are weighed against the alternative profits that could be generated by placing the project’s up-front cost into some other interest-bearing investment today. If the second number is larger, it makes no financial sense to proceed. Massive projects with longtime horizons to profitability, like building a freeway system or developing West Siberia, are thus unattractive to private capital. The key parameter in these calculations is the “discount rate,” i.e., the interest rate. The steeper the discount rate (the higher the interest rate offered by alternative investments), the sooner a project must be completed to make sense. Economic discounting is extremely important in energy development: Whether a proposed oil or gas field will take five years or seven before production can make the difference between its making economic sense or not.

406 I led a three-year National Science Foundation project to study peatland carbon dynamics in the West Siberian Lowland from 1998 to 2000. Its purpose was to drill cores across the region and involved dozens of Russian and American scientists and graduate students, including Olga Borisova, Konstantine Kremenetski, and Andrei Velichko at the Russian Academy of Sciences and David Beilman, Karen Frey, Glen MacDonald, and Yongwei Sheng at UCLA. For publications and results, see http://lena.sscnet.ucla.edu.

407 The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is the successor to the Soviet KGB and Russia’s main domestic security agency. Upon arrival, foreign visitors to West Siberian cities must register/interview with local FSB officers and surrender passports at hotels. Some towns are completely closed to foreigners.

408 Including a CAD$1.2 billion bid for the rights to explore an offshore area of 611,000 hectares, p. 77, AMSA 2009.

409 “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle,” digital data and USGS Fact Sheet 2008-3049 (2008); D. L. Gautier et al., “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas in the Arctic,” Science 324 (2009): 1175-1179.

410 More specifically, the other promising geological provinces for oil are the Canning-Mackenzie (6.4 BBO), North Barents Basin (5.3 BBO), Yenisei-Khatanga (5.3 BBO), Northwest Greenland Rifted Margin (4.9 BBO), the South Danmarkshavn Basin (4.4 BBO), and the North Danmarkshavn Salt Basin (3.3 BBO). Other promising geological provinces for natural gas are South Barents Basin (184 TCF), North Barents Basin (117 TCF), and again the Alaska Platform (122 TCF). P. 1178, D. L. Gautier et al., Ibid.

411 Interview with Alexei Varlomov, deputy minister for natural resources of the Russian Federation, Tromso, January 22, 2007.

412 In 2008 Russia produced 602.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas and had 43.3 trillion more in proved reserves, both greater than any other country. Russia produced an average of 9,886,000 barrels of oil per day, second only to Saudi Arabia (10,846,000 barrels per day). BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2009, available at www.bp.com/statisticalreview.

413 See Chapter 3.

414 J. D. Grace, Russian Oil Supply: Performance and Prospects (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 288 pp.

415 At peak production West Siberia’s giant Urengoi, Yambur, and Medvezhye gas fields produced almost 500 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year; by 2030 production will decline to 130 billion cubic meters per year. E. N. Andreyeva, V. A. Kryukov, “The Russian Model—Merging Profit and Sustainability,” pp. 240-287 in A. Mikkelsen and O. Lenghelle, eds., Arctic Oil and Gas (New York: Routledge, 2008), 390 pp.

416 Gazprom commenced laying pipeline across the floor of Baydaratskaya Bay in 2009, hoping to open the Bovanenkovo gas field for European markets by 2011. July 24, 2009, “Yamal Pipeline Laying Proceeds,” www.barentsobserver.com.

417 Some producers skip the upgrading step to produce lower-grade bitumen. The described process is used by Syncrude, Canada’s largest tar sands producer. B. M. Testa, “Tar on Tap,” Mechanical Engineering (December 2008): 30-34.

418 In 2008 a flock of about five hundred mallard ducks died after landing in a Syncrude tailing pond. “Hundreds of Ducks Die after Landing in Oil Sands in Canada,” Fox News, May 8, 2008. See also E. A. Johnson, K. Miyanishi, “Creating New Landscapes and Ecosystems: The Alberta Oil Sands,” Annals, New York Academy of Sciences 1134 (2008): 120-145; and M. J. Pasqualetti, “The Alberta Oil Sands from Both Sides of the Border,” The Geographical Review 99, no. 20 (2009): 248-267.

419 T. M. Pavelsky, L. C. Smith, “Remote Sensing of Hydrologic Recharge in the Peace-Athabasca Delta, Canada,” Geophysical Research Letters 35 (2008):L08403, DOI:10.1029/ 2008GL033268.

420 Oil sands operators self-report that a total of 65 square kilometers have been reclaimed in some form, or about 12% of the total disturbed area. According to the nonprofit Pembina Institute, only 1 square kilometer has been fully restored and certified by the government of Alberta. Regardless of this discrepancy both numbers are small compared with the 530 square kilometers disturbed.

421 E. A. Johnson, K. Miyanishi, “Creating New Landscapes and Ecosystems: The Alberta Oil Sands,”