The Wall Street Journal editorial page observes in “Alaska’s Ebbing Oil“:
…In its 1980s heyday, the 800-mile pipeline pushed some 2.2 million barrels of oil a day from Alaska’s North Slope to the port of Valdez. Yet as the rich fields of Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River have declined, oil flow has dropped to one-third of that volume. The drop-off is now causing serious technical problems, as slow-flowing oil drops in temperature and clogs and corrodes the pipe. Failing a technological fix, or more oil, the pipe’s near-term viability is at risk.
Environmentalists know that if the pipeline is shut down, by law it must be dismantled. If they can starve the pipeline of supply, they can kill Alaskan drilling….
To parapharase John Donne’s Meditation XVII:
Any energy source denied diminishes us, because we are involved in an energy intensive society and therefore never send to know for whom the gas pump tolls it tolls for our standard of living.