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TIL there's a known massive oil reserve in antarctica discovered only earlier this year (2024)

Russia just found huge oil reserves in Antarctica

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-oil-antarctica-putin-1900233

The reserves uncovered contain around 511 billion barrels worth of oil.

While territorial claims are and will likely be heated, what struck me is that the area is right near the Drake Passage, in the Weddell Sea (which is fundamental to the world's ocean currents AFAIU).

I don't know how oil drilling in the antarctic could affect the passage, but still, I'm not sure I would trust human oil hunger with a 10ft pole on that one.

Also interestingly, the discovery was made by Russia, which is a somewhat ominous clue about where the current "multi-polar" world and climate change are heading. Antarctica, being an actual continent that thrived with life up until only about 10-30 M yrs ago, is almost certainly full of resources.

67 comments

apfelwoiSchoppen

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Just what we don't need.

qprimed

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ever get the feeling that devil's blood really is the final "fuck you, mammals!" from the dinosaurs?

acockworkorange

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From the unicellular algae *

It’s much older than dinos.

qprimed

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til 👍

acockworkorange

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Congrats on joining the daily 10,000.

BTW there were tar pits present in the Triassic. That’s just how old oil is.

AngryCommieKender

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Hell, there are still tar pits with mammoths and dino skeletons stuck in them to this day! I saw them when I was 5, and vaguely remember the Le Brea Tar pits. Apparently I charmed the staff with my knowledge of dinosaurs and which eras they lived in. Of course this was the '80s so they didn't have feathers yet.

acockworkorange

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I thought the animals at La Brea were all from the Cenozoic. There are Dinos in there as well?

AngryCommieKender

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I'm probably remembering it wrong. I was 5 and obsessed with dinos.

qprimed

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so, quite literally there were non trivial stores of energy dense hydrocarbons available almost immediately after the permian? thats pretty wild.

any real evidence for large amounts of abiogenic oil, or is this still on the weird end of strange?

acockworkorange

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Sorry, meant to say Jurassic. Oil formation time isn’t consensus yet, but it’s estimated it can take as little as a couple hundred thousand years, so it’s possible there were tar pits in the Triassic. I’m not aware of any evidence to it, but I’m no geologist or archaeologist.

As for abiogenic oil, first I’m hearing of it. Not a clue. Seems fringe.

qprimed

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thanks for the update!

yeah, the abiogenesis idea has been around since the 1950s-ish, I think. it comes and goes, but never seems to get fully debunked. current tepid consensus seems to be that its a plausible earth geo-process, but likely only a very, very minor contributor on this world.

really apprreciate the interaction. :-)

Sundial

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I'd actually be curious to know if melting ice caps makes oil drilling more or less hazardous in this case.

But 100% agreed on not trusting oil companies to be mindful when doing anything there. We may also be hearing some formal declaration from the US saying the penguins have WMDs and are anti freedom in the not so distant future.

aaron

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We only attack 'half-black' entities, it's politically expedient.

msage

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So fuck peguins I guess

FlyingSquid

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I would think if the cap is melting, even keeping the rig in place would be a problem.

pyre

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guys i don't know about you but i have a feeling Antarctica needs some democracy right the fuck now.

werefreeatlast

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Fucking Communist penguins leaving their children to fend for themselves! Do they have polar kangaroos up there in American soil? Let's defend it! The polar kangaroos are near extinction.

ThrowawayPermanente

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The black penguins and the white penguins are getting along a little too well, they need some social media

ChaoticNeutralCzech

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US and Russia are the only countries exempt from the ban on new territorial claims under the UN Antarctic Treaty. Drilling is also banned but thanks to carbon credits, you don't need to drill to monetize oil: you just need to threaten that you will.

"You know us: we have violated international law before. You can pay us $5/ton to leave some of the oil behind on the off-chance that we do it again. New low for carbon credits!"

SubArcticTundra

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That's fucking stupid. That's like paying someone for not killing you.

ChaoticNeutralCzech

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Well, this is how a large part of how carbon credits "work". You can pay someone to not cut down their tree, for example, and get a certificate in return. However, the demand for wood will likely just get satisfied elsewhere and there is little stopping people from selling multiple carbon credits per tree, or just including trees that would not get cut down anyway.

In the best case scenario, actual carbon gets stored so that it won't decompose (like dead trees or other biomass in oxygen, maybe even plastic someday) or burned (like coal that future people can reach); however, that's energy-intensive (hydrocarbons release energy when turned into oxides and vice versa) and difficult. Obviously, such carbon credits are expensive and they would probably cost an airline as much as fuel for your flight. Sealing an oil reservoir instead of using it, as I suggest, would be the easiest way to effectively accomplish this but oil producers don't want to miss out on the fields they operate.
Unless the "carbon neutral" option for your flight ticket is a large percentage of its price, they are probably using dubious carbon credits - in the typical case, they are like saying your crypto mining rig is zero-emission because it's next to an existing hydroelectric dam. The energy from that could have been used to offset some carbon-intensive production elsewhere (unless all your energy demand is already satisfied by clean electricity and you cannot export, like ~~Iceland~~ some islands).
At worst, it's a pure scam that offsets no carbon and is pushed by Big Oil to prevent buyers from considering systemic changes to their carbon-heavy operation.

Edit: Iceand indeed has an overproduction of clean energy and they use it to extract and export aluminum, which is energy-intensive. Still, as long as there are gas furnaces and combustion engines on the island, there is room for improvement. However, small tropical islands (which cannot host aluminum factories) mostly use solar panels and some storage solution, and computationally heavy tasks are a legitimate use for any excess electricity production.

JovialMicrobial

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I don't know man, in the US people pay insurance companies money to have access to life saving medications like insulin. So in a way we pay people so we don't die from medical neglect.... which could be considered negligent homicide depending on how you argue it.

This sort of bullshit is normalized in the US. I dont like that our country operates like the mafia, but here we are.

Kedly

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Is that not what mugging usually is?

FlyingSquid

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How much can we pay them to never drill for any oil again? Because I'm thinking it's worth the cost.

slampisko

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Good, let's all make sure it stays right where it is

Maggoty

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Instructions unclear, we started world war 3 over Antarctican resources.

ivanafterall

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Ron Howard: They didn't.

It's Always Sunny theme music

FRANK MELTS ANTARCTICA

assembly

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US about to declare war on the Arctic and bring some freedom to…uh…the penguins?

Stovetop

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I was about to correct you, but then thought, no, I wouldn't put it past the US to invade the Arctic when oil is discovered in the Antarctic.

ZeroCool

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[Trump pulls out a sharpie and starts circling the wrong part of the map]

"I AM PLACING TARIFFS ON PENGUINS UNTIL THEY GIVE US THEIR OIL AND SHOW ME HOW TO DO ALL THE DANCE MOVES FROM HAPPY FEET!"

sp3tr4l

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Followed by 65 year old Moms whose children haven't spoken to in a decade making Facebook memes with a Minion with Trump's toupee and 8 clones of the same exact frame of Pingu atop an Iceberg, next to a crop of the American Flag from Apollo 11, with an oil rig in the background.

Upper Text: Happy Feet Tariffs: The Final Frontier!

Bottom Text: Trump and Penguins Agree - LOVE America!

RangerJosie

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Gonna find a penguin wedding and drone strike it. Just for shits and giggles. (All penguins within 500ft of the impact are designated "Enemy Combatants" by default. (This totally isn't a war crime))

TropicalDingdong

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This totally isn’t a war crime

Robert M. Gates:

Very legal. Very cool.

Pilferjinx

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Yeah, it's Russia sniffing around the area that should be unclaimable any nation.

CosmoNova

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That would be a war against the world and they would break their own agreement.

FlyingSquid

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And America never breaks agreements!

fsxylo

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"climate change is actually good because it'll melt all this ice that's in the way of our oil!"

SLVRDRGN

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"The more oil we use, the more ice we clear! The more ice we clear, the more oil to use! It's a never ending cycle of win!"

vulture_god

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That's actually a real strategy by Russia. Since they have so few deep water ports for their Navy, if temperatures rise then they have new options in their far north territories.

InternetUser2012

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ANTARTICA!!!!!! ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FREEDOM!!!!

Iloveyurianime

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GODBLESS AMERICA RAAAAH 🗣🗣🔥🔥

ace_garp

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I saw a warning-documentary 2 weeks ago on the big-screen, it was called 'John Carpenter's The Thing'

Leave that shit well alone.

ivanafterall

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At least it turned out alright in the end!

Alexstarfire

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I was thinking the black oil from X-Files.

captainlezbian

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Oh no

someguy3

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The reserves uncovered contain around 511 billion barrels worth of oil, equating to around 10 times the North Sea's output over the last 50 years.

According to documents discussed in U.K. parliament last week, the discovery was made by Russian research ships in the Weddell Sea, which falls under the U.K.'s claim in Antarctic territory. That claim overlaps with those of Chile and Argentina.

So in the water, not the land.

maegul

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What difference does it make?

someguy3

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The land is not supposed to be claimed by any nation. The sea, well as the article says is claimed by 3.

Maggoty

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Oh boy UK vs Argentina rematch! I need some popcorn.

Iamdanno

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At the current usage rate, how long would 511 billion barrels last?

someguy3

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Googling says 36.4 billion barrels per year as of 2018, so 14 years.

That kind of calc isn't fair though because there's a ton of protection everywhere else.

Iamdanno

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Of course its just an estimate. I'm sure the "burn rate" will change between now and whenever it could be extracted, if that ever happens.

mechoman444

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Oil in Antarctica? Hold on to your shorts boys, America is sending all the freedom!

CrayonRosary

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I'm not sure I would trust human oil hunger with a 10ft pole on that one.

I'll fix it for you:

I'm not sure I would trust human oil hunger as far as I could throw a 10 ft pole.

jordanlund

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Fortunately global warming will make it super easy to get to! Win/Win!

thedeadwalking4242

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I’ll see you all in anchorage in 2076

SLVRDRGN

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Why Anchorage??

back_to_my_bed_again

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fallout

Scolding7300

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Maybe that's the last place we'll have oil after everything else is drained? Or maybe some contract expiring that year

Beacon

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I'm pinning my hopes on crude oil prices being much lower after the 10-20 years it would take to sort out the territorial disputes and complete construction of rigs that could pump oil in large volume. Oil will still be very valuable in 10-20 years, but i would guess it'll be much less valuable then, and hopefully the price will be low enough to make it not worth the massive outlay cost

AceFuzzLord

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In other news, oil tycoons have already begun making as much propaganda as possible as to why the world needs Antarctic oil for your car and why it's more environmentally friendly than any other source of fuel.

I'd say /s but I'm pretty sure they're still putting out pro oil propaganda because their lives and riches depend on destroying the planet.