The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 3, T+36 -- December 11, 2018 -- Shale Story Staggering

I had no interest in this article, but the very first paragraph caught me by surprise. I thought the Arctic was ice-free and tourists were watching polar bears from Norwegian cruise ships. Boy, was I wrong! From oilprice:

For many, the Northeast Passage through the Arctic could one day be a ‘Northern Suez Canal’. While icy waters have frozen such dreams, recent advances in nuclear technology might finally unlock the full economic potential of the once-daunting Arctic waters.

There is no shortage of interest in the High North. In October, the Trump administration in the U.S. approved a project to extract oil from beneath the Beaufort Sea, though melting ice has since forced changes to those plans. [What?]

That same melting ice, while raising major environmental concerns, simultaneously creates other possibilities: among them, the prospect of dramatically shortened sea routes between Europe and Asia which could cut transit times by two weeks compared to the Suez Canal passage. Those reduced travel times translate to savings of 40% on both fuel and shipping costs, while lowering CO2 emissions by 52%.

However, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) along the Russian Arctic coast – a key leg of the Northeast Passage – has historically been traversable only from July to October. It has mainly been used by domestic Russian players, and requires the use of icebreakers and specially equipped ‘ice class’ vessels. In short, a thriving NSR has been nothing more than a dream, even with the melting ice, because it’s simply impossible to sail in the region for most of the year.

Not quite ice-free, I guess.

The Economist now says the Arctic will be ice-free by 2040. And that's about the time the Arctic will be producing oil, I suppose.

When was the Arctic predicted to be ice-free? 2014. 

I love the quibbling. From snopes, FWIW:

What's True

In the late 2000s, Al Gore made a series of high-profile statements suggesting the possibility that Arctic sea ice could be completely gone during the summer by around 2013 or 2014.

What's False

Gore did not himself make these predictions but said (in some cases erroneously) that others had; Gore never referred to a year-long lack of ice for both poles, but instead largely referenced Arctic sea ice in the summer.

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