John’s Blog/Newsletter: SEA LEVEL RISE NOW

China and U.S. Vie for Greater Greenland Presence

The Arctic may not be a chessboard, but China and the United States are maneuvering as if it were. Both nations are working hard to improve their strategic positions. Just in the last few weeks things have heated up, with each looking to build airfields and other points of presence.

As the Arctic continues to melt at an accelerating pace, it’s worthwhile to understand why gigantic Greenland is “ground zero.” Usually my Greenland focus is on its dominant role in global sea level rise, but it’s worth recognizing some of the other aspects of this key Arctic nation that are largely overlooked. So, this will be the first of three blog posts about the northern giant:

#1 – Today’s Post: Why Greenland Is So Strategic to China and the U.S.
#2 – Surprising Ways that Climate Change Affects Greenland
#3 – How Greenland Affects Sea Level and Shorelines Globally

Why Greenland is So Strategic for China

The U.S. has a long history in Greenland with the key presence being the lease of Thule (“Two-Lee”) Airbase in the far north. This is a critical location particularly as it’s the first site to detect potential Russian missiles coming over the pole.

Greenland has many unusual characteristics:

It is the 12th largest nation, roughly 1,600 miles north to south and a thousand miles east to west, making it roughly the size of the U.S. east of the Mississippi River.
With just 56,000 residents, it is the least densely populated of all nations.
It is an independent nation, but part of the Kingdom of Denmark, who assume responsibility for its defense and coast guard.
Nearly 80% is covered by an ice sheet, averaging more than a mile thick.
All the towns are on the coast. There are no roads connecting communities. Travel is by boat or airplane, and in the winter months by snowmobile or dogsled.

The map above shows the shipping routes that are becoming more important as the Arctic Ocean melts making possible faster shipping and access to natural resources. The US has Arctic presence (with Alaska and through our agreement with Greenland) along with Canada, Russia, Norway and Iceland. China is absent.

In Anne-Marie Brady’s insightful 2017 book, China as a Polar Great Power, she describes the Chinese global view, with presence in the Arctic being an essential element. In recent years they have established small mining operations in Greenland but have made clear that they want to greatly expand them. As is typical of the Chinese they are strategic and patient.

What would they be mining? Gold, rare earth minerals (needed for modern electronics), and uranium have all been talked about. Some think that such mining is mostly rationale to establish a large community, with a port and airfield. In terms of establishing a strategic presence, that could make a lot of sense. For now, China’s alleged plans for a mining city of five thousand people have been frustrated. Politico published a thorough description of the diplomatic chess game last week, “Pompeo aims to counter China’s ambitions in the Arctic”

In fact, the U.S. is strengthening relations with Greenland in several ways. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that we will open a Consulate in the capital, Nuuk. The Department of Defense said that it will look to develop airfields that have joint military and civilian use — thwarting China’s efforts to build new runways there.

Yet the U.S. is undermining its credibility in the region at the same time. At a meeting last week in Finland of the eight-nation Arctic Council –– Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Iceland, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the U.S. –– Secretary Pompeo alienated the entire group by refusing to sign a declaration due to some wording that the U.S. administration found objectionable. What was the sensitive language? References to “Climate Change.”

The members were incredulous. It’s impossible to miss climate change in the Arctic, which is warming at twice the global rate. Temperatures are already several degrees above normal as a year round average. One would have to be blind to miss the catastrophic collapse of the great glaciers and the spawning of immense icebergs along with prolific other evidence. More about this next week in Part 2.

One of the hallmarks of chess is that successful players think several moves in advance. As Greenland moves from relative obscurity to prime strategic location, it will present itself as a challenging chessboard indeed. It will be more than interesting to see how the strategies of China and the U.S. are played.

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I have been to Greenland many times and always come away with new clarity about the changes underway. Each year is visibly different. The glaciers and icebergs are beautiful and powerful beyond description. For anyone who wants a first-hand experience to see the effects of climate change in Greenland up close, I am organizing another exclusive fact-finding trip, September 8-15. For full information and a two-minute video, CLICK HERE.

By John Englander May 13, 2019 Sea Level Rise

2 Comments

James Gerard

- 5 years ago Reply

Hi John: Glad we have made contact. Interesting article ( China and U.S. Vie for Greater Greenland Presence) Of course El Trumpo has both rear hooves firmly in his mouth on this topic, and most if not all others.

My major interest in Greenland has also been its effect on sea level. One concept I find fascinating is that if most or all of Greenland’s ice melts, as well as significant Antarctic ice, Greenland will not experience ocean level rise. This will be due to elastic rebound of the Earth’s crust. Greenland will rise more than the ocean because of the reduced mass on its land surface.

Is that correct information according to your understanding?

Also, what are the current figures for average ocean rise due to Greenland + Arctic ice melting?

Fact check this: the amount of heat energy that has been accumulated in the oceans since the start of CO2 rise in the late 1800’s both has prevented a great deal more overall temperature rise, and has caused a major part of the shelf ice melting, and the melting of the Arctic glacier’s underpinning to the ocean floor in some areas of the Arctic? This immense store of energy is also one of the major problems we have in preventing more severe climate change in the future.

What is your understanding of the threat of ocean acidification? I hear that reduction in calcium availability will start a slide toward extinction of all sea creatures with skeleton or shell. That would make basifying the ocean both necessary for preservation of ocean life, and it would allow us to make use of the already existing massive CO2 removal “machine” – the oceans, to get atmospheric CO2 back to pre-industrial levels. This could be accomplished by mining deposits of limestone and olivine, grinding and treating them appropriately, and distributing them in the oceans. A friend and I calculate that a massive enough effort – roughly equivalent to the amount of coal mined yearly – assuming a cessation of coal mining, and using much of the same equipment – could accomplish the removal of excess CO2 in 60 years.

But, you might ask, where would all that energy come from? Glad you asked. Go see the Moltex Energy site.

Moltex Energy has made a breakthrough in reactor design. Their SSR (Stable Salt Reactor) is a molten salt design, using fuel tubes as in current PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor). The liquid molten salt fuel is contained in the tubes, while heat transfer is accomplished by non-radioactive molten salt flowing around the tubes, which get hot from the fission reactions inside the tubes. This whole system runs at atmospheric pressure, and the molten salt fuel and coolant both are completely stable and cannot produce any escaping radiation into the atmosphere no matter what happens. (An early commenter on Molten Salt Reactors noted that a fuel spill from a MSR is measured in square meters, not square kilometers.)

These reactors are completely safe and are much simpler and less expensive to build than either PWR or other molten salt designs.

These reactors are designed to use present stockpiles of “Nuclear Waste” as fuel. They will deliver power to the grid at about half the cost of coal. This is due to their inherent safety and simplicity. They cannot explode in any way, and they cannot melt down. Thus they do not need a huge containment structure, nor a massive and extremely expensive reaction vessel. These reactors are significantly less expensive to build than a comparable coal or natural gas plant.

These reactors will replace all other molten salt and PWR designs, and will be the basis for a new generation of nuclear power plants globally. Since they will use present stockpiles of Nuclear Waste as fuel, and that will provide fuel for a long time, it is going to require some new research to see what this does to the immediate future of uranium mining.

In reference to ocean basification, these reactors are sufficiently inexpensive to build that they constitute a refutation of any attempt to say that the project is too expensive to be practical – assuming there are those foolish enough to think avoiding (human caused) extinction of ocean life is unimportant or impractical because of cost. The cost will be no more than the cost of mining coal over the past two centuries. Of course the payback will not be in dollars. We will have to learn to equate profit in terms of survival of species with profit counted in dollars or rubles.

While using any available fuel, these reactors produce only a tiny amount of short-lived waste. All transuranics and other fissionable isotopes are recycled into the fuel salt mixture. They stay there until consumed This reactor completely solves the waste storage problem.

Go to the Moltex Energy site for clear descriptions of these remarkable reactors. Listen to the lectures by Ian Scott. The first one is scheduled to be built in New Brunswick, Canada.

I will post this and other comments on your facebook page.

John

- 5 years ago Reply

James — I have posted your detailed comment, but regret I do not have time to respond to your many questions and fact checks at this time. I am very focused to finish the writing of my next book, due to the publisher in two weeks. (The book, Moving to Higher Ground – Rising Sea Level and Path Forward — should be available early next year BTW). As for your major points. Yes, Greenland will rise due to isostatic rebound, but that is a very slow process. No time now to get into timescales and magnitudes. Yet turning CO2 into useful products could become a big opportunity. Ocean acidification is a major challenge, regardless. The molten salt nuclear is very promising. All for now; I will try to revisit this in September, but I am also conducting a field trip to Greenland. Best regards.