John Phipps: Why the Long-Awaited Transpolar Shipping Route Could Now Be Reality by 2050
USFR-John's World, 5.14.22
The cruise industry is struggling to survive, and so I think they are trying anything to induce Covid-shy seniors to return. This offering surprised me, although it shouldn’t have: cruising the Northwest Passage from Greenland to Alaska. I noticed the ships don’t have any waterslides though.
Explorers like Cartier, Drake and Cook not to mention Vikings long before them, all searched in vain for a path to circumnavigate North America by going over the top. With the Arctic warming 2 to 4 times faster than the rest of the world, estimates of when such routes will be regular shipping lanes keep advancing. Right now, it looks like the long-awaited transpolar shipping route (TSR) could be a real thing around 2050.
There is already modest traffic along the Northwest and Northern Routes, but not only is that a longer transit, overlapping claims of sovereignty are slowing their use. Even though the TSR will initially have a usable window of a few weeks in September, plans and being made and put into action by shipping companies and nations.
Surprisingly, China is taking the lead in order to reduce shipping time and cost to Europe. One solution shippers are considering are designated arctic ships designed for the polar crossing and then on- and off-loading to conventional ships at locations like Alaska and Iceland. In fact, one German seaport company is in the initial phase at doing so in Finnisfjord, Iceland. Canadians are pondering how to exploit the small port of Churchill, both for grain and oil shipping.
The port is currently closed as 600 miles of rail to serve it are being rebuilt on the increasingly squishy muskeg terrain. Transpolar ships won’t make a huge dent in the traditional routes like the Suez or Cape Horn for years to come, but the embarrassing blunder by the grounded Ever Given last year and the updated timelines for more open and longer-lived transpolar routes look better every year.
Now all I need is about $40,000 to see it for myself.
