Mining in Arctic is a technical nightmare. Typical alloys become brittle in these temperatures, darkness severely limits operations and/or workplace accidents, transport requires ice-breakers, permafrost is fundamentally unstable (heat from buildings melts it, causing sinking), and you need to pay people a lot to work there.
The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
41–50 of 217 posts
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#42There are a few things that confuse me about this potential acquisition: 1. You won't govern it. Greenland has it's own Self-Government Act. [0] 2. You won't own the land. Almost all land is owned by the State. [1] 3. The Danes have no special land ownership rights. [2] 4. Land use rights, however, are granted for different activities (fishing, mining) subject to approval. [3] I'd imagine none of this changes under a…
They are probably thinking of Alaska or Louisiana Purchase, i.e. not just buying the land within Denmark, but territory transfer.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#43By the time those resources are accessible, we'll be in a major flood disaster on all our coasts. Why don't we just leave this bit of resource alone for the sake of land that actually supports life.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I wonder is about the second order effects. I mean, I'm pretty far from Denmark but here the talk is pretty much like an existential crisis. Even if the US does nothing about it, seems that many people has finally realized that Europe has no allies. This has a lot of implications regarding the Pax Americana, the US/EU financial system, Eurasia, and many others. I don't see any positive outcome for the west in ge…
> Even if the US does nothing about it, seems that many people has finally realized that Europe has no allies. Indeed. But just because EU thinks too high of themselves and is turning down their last natural allies that is the South American/Mercosur countries. So whatever happens to EU is their own fault
Europe and the EU are two different things. The EU is already having it's own credibility crisis inside the EU, and there are already heavy pushes for reform.
The conversation is completely different in Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain, for example.
The EU has enacted pretty stupid policies but I don't think the status quo was about to last a lot. Now with the Greenland issue things are about to speed up.
My guess is that, because they shaked hands with conservative leaders in Europe, the White house thinks this is going to benefit them.
I don't think this is going to be the case mid term.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#45There are a few things that confuse me about this potential acquisition: 1. You won't govern it. Greenland has it's own Self-Government Act. [0] 2. You won't own the land. Almost all land is owned by the State. [1] 3. The Danes have no special land ownership rights. [2] 4. Land use rights, however, are granted for different activities (fishing, mining) subject to approval. [3] I'd imagine none of this changes under a…
> unless of course the US also plans to bulldoze Greenland's sovereignty.
It's probably not helpful for me to speculate, but surely this? If the US is truly prepared to invade another ally's territory for material gain, I'd assume the idea that they'd honor other existing laws is unlikely.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#46What could become an economic boom will become a century of humiliation for Europe Well done Europeans, catering to Trump
Could you please explain how does Europe cater to Trump and how does it make him more likely to invade Greenland?
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#47The events of the past 12 months, culminating in Venezuela and now Greenland, has made me reevaluate a lot of my beliefs about unimpeded competition between free agents (i.e. a free market) leading to the best and most peaceful outcomes. Clearly, a few participants becoming disproportionately powerful is a failure mode. The way I've tried to reconcile my beliefs with what are clearly contradictory observations in the…
Perhaps we need the equivalent of the concept of anti-monopoly regulations on an international scale.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always has been. Big powers have always been meddling in other nations.
True, but after this led to the disasters of WW1 and WW2, there was a genuine international effort to constrain it. Of course, it was a deeply imperfect system, especially with the cold war going on, but it was still an improvement on the naked imperialism and genocide that preceded it. Unfortunately, it appears we're rapidly regressing to the former situation, except this time with atomic weapons.
The vast majority of people aren't empathetic enough to learn from experiences they didn't live through themselves. Yet I'm still surprised that the death of the living memory of WW1 and WW2 would take effect this quickly.
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#49The events of the past 12 months, culminating in Venezuela and now Greenland, has made me reevaluate a lot of my beliefs about unimpeded competition between free agents (i.e. a free market) leading to the best and most peaceful outcomes. Clearly, a few participants becoming disproportionately powerful is a failure mode. The way I've tried to reconcile my beliefs with what are clearly contradictory observations in the…
I had similar thoughts, and my conclusion is that competition is an inherently unstable state of affairs: at some point somebody wins, and they will try very hard to prevent any further competitors from arising.
Indeed, competition is undesirable for all participants involved: everybody wants to win and exploit the rest for their own gain. Note that this is the only way to make competition work and result in its temporary benefits (if nobody wants to win, nobody will compete).
So there must be a system to keep the competition going and preventing the rise of a definitive and exploitative winner, and the existence of this system has to be accepted by the competitors. But why would serious competitors accept a system that prevents them from winning?
Re: The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
#50For decades Europe has cheered on, if not actively aided as America bullied smaller nations. Now they’ve come to realise they aren’t so special.