Resources in Cold Environments (DP IB Geography)

Opportunities in Cold Environments

• Valuable minerals are found in many cold environments, such as nickel, gold, iron ore and diamonds in northern Canada and coal, tin and uranium in Russia

• The development and exploitation of these resources puts cold environments at risk while providing benefits, such as

  • Developing large areas of underpopulated and remote areas

  • Providing employment

  • Generating income from exports 

• Opportunities include:

  • Mineral extraction

    • There are valuable reserves of minerals and rare earth elements such as gold, silver, neodymium, terbium, etc.

    • Russia has large uranium and phosphate deposits and the Yukon, Alaska, is renowned for its gold

  • Energy

    • Gas and oil are abundant

    • The US government is extracting oil from the oilfields near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska

  • Fishing

    • The cold coastal waters have good fish stocks and attract commercial fishing vessels

    • The deep, cold water is ideal for unusual fish species, such as the Patagonian Toothfish, that command a high price in markets around the globe

  • Tourism

    • Wilderness and adventure tourism to extreme cold environments is a growing industry for countries and local communities

    • Tourism to the world’s northernmost urban community: Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway,  or taking part in the Yukon Quest dog sled race, which is worth $4 billion a year

• The benefits can be considered as:

  • Local, where communities can benefit from income and job opportunities

  • National, where a country benefits from extra taxes paid by companies and employees

  • Global, where other countries can benefit from imports of resources

  • Social improvements such as better insulation in homes and education 

  • Economic growth from the development of roads and hotels

  • Political, where a country holds power over resource supplies, etc. 

  • Environmental benefits are limited, but development can raise environmental awareness

Challenges in Cold Environments

• Development and processes within cold environments occur slowly 

• Any changes will quickly cascade, and once damaged, the ecosystem takes a long time to recover, if at all

• This makes cold environments fragile

• The main challenges facing resource development in cold environments include:

  • Attracting workers to live and work in hostile environments is costly

  • Protecting people and equipment from the harsh weather conditions

  • Accessibility, management and operating difficulties

  • Meeting and protecting the rights of local Indigenous peoples

  • Environmental concerns, such as damage to periglacial ecosystems, pollution from oil spills or overfishing

  • Changes in economic and political circumstances

• Relief/physical geography

  • The rugged and mountainous terrain make these areas inaccessible for vehicles to deliver goods and materials for development and day-to-day living

  • The ground can be frozen up to surface level for many months of the year, making farming, building and mining very difficult

• Extreme temperature 

  • Very low temperatures and long hours of darkness make building anything difficult

  • Working practices have to be adapted; some employees take warming-up breaks to prevent frostbite and hypothermia

  • Calorie intake has to be increased to cope with extreme temperatures and keep healthy

  • Engine oil can freeze, rubber tyres can become brittle and steel can shatter under low temperatures

  • Water cannot be used to process 'ores' as it freezes and special dry methods have to be used, increasing the costs of mining

• Infrastructure

  • Building roads, railways and pipelines for water and electricity supplies is very difficult on frozen ground that is liable to melt

  • Pipelines need to withstand freezing as they cannot be buried underground due to the permafrost 

  • Traditional methods of building are unsuitable and alternatives such as using jet engines to thaw permafrost or dynamite to blast away ice and rock are used

  • Many roads are only passable during the summer months and only if it hasn't rained or they become waterlogged

    • Flying is the usual means of transport but this adds to pollution and maintaining a runway or helicopter pad adds to costs

• Buildings

  • Creating solid foundations for buildings is difficult (frozen and unstable ground), making any further development difficult

  • Reducing heating costs through triple-glazed homes and geothermal power

  • Homes are raised on stilts to prevent their heat from melting the permafrost, which can cause the land to sink and subside)

  • Domestic pipes are above ground

    • This prevents damaging the permafrost

    • Allows access to the pipes

    • Prevents them freezing underground

• Permafrost

  • This underlies the periglacial environment and is easily damaged with mining

  • The permafrost melts as a result of drilling heat, causing the land to sink

  • Oil spills also cause catastrophic damage to periglacial and polar regions, as the fragile ecosystem cannot remove the oil quickly, affecting the ecosystem

  • Waste materials (tailings) from mining cover natural vegetation and change the depth of the active zone of the permafrost freeze-thaw cycle

  • Transport produce heat that damages the permafrost 

    • Alaskan roads are built on 1-2-metre-thick gravel pads that stop heat transferring from vehicles to the soil beneath, which would cause permafrost to melt and roads to crack

    • Parts of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline are raised on stilts to prevent permafrost melt and unstable ground

Resource nationalism

• Norway is in northern Europe

• Its demand for energy is one of the highest in the world

• The population is mainly urban, with 83% of people living in towns and cities

• Norway is one of the world's largest energy exporters and has significant energy resources, including:

  • Over 1% of the world's gas reserves (17th in the world)

  • Approximately 0.3% of the world's oil reserves (22nd in the world)

  • There are also some coal reserves

  • Hydropower generates 90% of Norway's electricity, accounts for 65% of energy use and has enabled the development of energy-intensive industries with limited greenhouse gas emissions

• Oil and gas account for 1/3 of Norway’s export earnings and are vital to the economy

• Around 8 000 people are directly employed by oil-related businesses

• Almost 250 000 jobs are attributed directly or indirectly to the oil and gas industry

• At first, Norway mostly relied on the expertise of foreign companies to extract the energy

• Over time, the industry has fully developed and Norway's expertise is in demand all over the world

• The Norwegian government has maintained a strong national resource policy from the outset by:

  • Maintaining at least a 50% share of all gas and oil fields

  • Establishing a state-owned limited petroleum company, Petoro, in 2001

  • Investing the profits of its resources back into a welfare pension fund for its citizens

Case Study:

Development opportunities in Alaska

• Oil and gas: Over half of Alaska’s income comes from the oil and gas industry

  • Most oil fields are around Prudhoe Bay and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline links the oil fields to Valdez where the oil can be shipped out

  • The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is 800 miles long and built to transport the oil across Alaska rather than ship due to the Arctic sea ice in winter

• Mineral resources: Gold, silver, iron ore and copper ore are mined particularly in the Tintina gold belt region

  • Tintina Gold Belt extends for 150,000 square kilometre in an arc-shape across Alaska 

  • First mined during the Klondike gold rush of 1898 and continues to this day

  • Approximately 30% of Alaska's wealth comes from the gold industry alone and accounted for over $900 million

  • Total contribution of mineral resources to the Alaskan economy is estimated at over $2.2bn (2021)

• Fishing: Salmon, crab and pollock are fished in the waters around Alaska

  • It employs 100,000 people and contributes over $6 billion to Alaska’s economy

• Tourism: Tourists are attracted to Alaska’s wilderness scenery

  • Over 2 million tourists visit Alaska each year

  • Each year in Anchorage, tourism creates thousands of jobs, brings in approximately $290 million in direct spending, more than $38 million in local taxes, and im

Challenges to development in Alaska

• Access to resources, finding a workforce, providing buildings, infrastructure and protection from extreme weather are particularly challenging in Alaska

• Extreme temperatures

  • Annual temperature is around -9°C with snow and strong winds 

  • Exposure to them can kill and healthcare is usually at a distance

  • Vehicle and equipment failures are common and getting them repaired is difficult and time-consuming

  • Extremes in the amount of daylight: in winter, it can be dark nearly all the time and mental health issues are common

• Accessibility

  • Alaska is over 21 hours by road from the US

  • Many areas are extremely remote, and the mountainous terrain makes access difficult and expensive

  • In winter, access to some towns is either by air or on dangerous ice roads

  • In summer, due to ground melt, some main roads are impassable as they are too soft to drive along

  • With a small and scattered population, people in small towns can be a long way from employment opportunities, services and goods

  • Everyday goods (food, drink, clothing, toys, etc.) are very expensive as they have to be shipped in and during the winter months, it can take weeks or months for shipments to arrive

• Buildings and infrastructure

  • Buildings and infrastructure need to cope with the frozen ground and weather conditions

  • This makes it difficult and expensive to build in Alaska

  • Most building work has to take place during the summer, as the days are longer and temperatures are warmer

  • The value of Alaskan resources, means finding ways to adapt to the challenges:

    • Parts of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline are raised on stilts, this prevents the permafrost from melting and makes the ground unstable

    • In areas of permafrost, houses are raised on stilts to prevent their heat from melting the frozen ground beneath (which can cause the land to sink and subside)

    • Reducing heating costs through triple glazed homes and geothermal power

    • Alaskan roads are built on 1-2-metre-thick gravel pads that stop heat transferring from vehicles to the soil beneath, which would cause permafrost to melt and roads to crack