Some estimates of the thermal effects of a heated pipeline in permafrost

Abstract

One of the greatest mineral resource discoveries in the history of man is a colossal petroleum resource near Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Slope of Alaska. Today, industry and government are engaged in an important dialogue as to how this resource may be developed and transported to market, and in what time frame, in the best interests of the Nation. The petroleum industry, by its own initiative, determined that a 800-mile pipeline, four feet in diameter, should be constructed reaching from Prudhoe Bay across all of Alaska to the ice-free south coast port of Valdez.