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.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2025/trends-in...
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.
The US couldn't defend our bases in the area or our newly less enthusiastic regional allies. It couldn't keep the Hormuz open. The US wasted years worth of advanced munitions inventory defending against relatively cheap missiles.
The US couldn't annex Canada if it wanted to. Canada doesn't even need a military to destroy the US via assymetric tactics.
Not anymore.
What a horrible world you live in.
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.
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.
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
[2]: 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...
[4]: https://incorrys.com/energy/energy-cost/well-costs-by-play-b...
[5]: https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/conocophill...
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.
Arctic development is also expensive, and even the planned projects would have been impractical without already-existing infrastructure.
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.
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-...
[0] - https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/05/soaring-solar-and-a-...
Say you're East Timor and your neighbour wants what you have - if you don't have the means to defend yourself, you're pretty much screwed (and they were). It's the main reason we have a military - this is a harsh and unforgiving world at that level, and you need to maintain a given level of capability. We are not at the "end of history" as some thought in the early 90's, and this has been doubly re-enforced after the invasion of Ukraine.
So what I'm saying is that by making such sustained and deep cuts to the Canadian military, that our political leaders have left the second largest nation in the world undefended and subject to the whim of its neighbours. And if you're paying attention, those are some pretty unsavoury neighbours.
"What a horrible world you live in" - what a snarky and hostile thing to say, why not try to understand my message before typing out such a barbed and dismissive statement?
I do agree that the US military's perceived preeminence has taken a big blow, but what you're saying is just outrageously false.
Neither of those latter countries had a large shared land border with the US and ethnically similar populations that would make it easy to attack unhardened infrastructure.
I disagree - literal generations of cutting to the bone and beyond cannot be turned around overnight. Defunding isn't just about the dollars, it's about the lost mindshare, training, culture, morale, equipment, stockpiles - everything.
It will take a generation of strong investment and actual commitment to get this force back to something it ought to be. And based on trends since the 80's, future governments will be quick to pull back on any recent allocations.
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.
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!
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.
This will change things for the foreseeable future, and is certainly going to move the needle over that time.