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The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) includes the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 12 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one of the world's largest pipeline systems. It is commonly called the Alaska pipeline, trans-Alaska pipeline, or Alyeska pipeline, (or the pipeline as referred to in Alaska), but those terms technically apply only to the of the pipeline with the diameter of 48 inches (122 cm) that conveys oil from Prudhoe Bay, to Valdez, Alaska. The crude oil pipeline is privately owned by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. The pipeline was built between 1974 and 1977 after the 1973 oil crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States. This rise made exploration of the Prudhoe Bay oil field economically feasible. Environmental, legal, and political debates followed the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, and the pipeline was built only after the oil crisis provoked the passage of legislation designed to remove legal challenges to the project. The task of building the pipeline had to address a wide range of difficulties, stemming mainly from the extreme cold and the difficult, isolated terrain. The construction of the pipeline was one of the first large-scale projects to deal with problems caused by permafrost, and special construction techniques had to be developed to cope with the frozen ground. The project attracted tens of thousands of workers to Alaska, causing a boomtown atmosphere in Valdez, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. The first barrel of oil traveled through the pipeline in 1977, and full-scale production began by the end of the year. Several notable incidents of oil leakage have occurred since, including those caused by sabotage, maintenance failures, and bullet holes. As of 2010, the pipeline has shipped almost of oil. == Origins == (詳細はIñupiat people on the North Slope of Alaska had mined oil-saturated peat for possibly thousands of years, using it as fuel for heat and light. Whalers who stayed at Point Barrow saw the substance the Iñupiat called pitch and recognized it as petroleum. Charles Brower, a whaler who settled at Barrow and operated trading posts along the arctic coast, directed geologist Alfred Hulse Brooks to oil seepages at Cape Simpson and Fish Creek in the far north of Alaska, east of the village of Barrow.〔Banet, p. 27〕 Brooks' report confirmed the observations of Thomas Simpson, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company who first observed the seepages in 1836.〔Naske p. 241〕 Similar seepages were found at the Canning River in 1919 by Ernest de Koven Leffingwell.〔Leffingwell, E.d. ("The Canning River region, northern Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 109" ), U.S. Geological Survey. 1919. Accessed June 14, 2009.〕 Following the First World War, as the United States Navy converted its ships from coal to fuel oil, the importance of securing a stable supply of oil became important to the U.S. government. Accordingly, President Warren G. Harding established by executive order a series of Naval Petroleum Reserves (NPR-1 through -4) across the United States. These reserves were areas thought to be rich in oil and set aside for future drilling by the U.S. Navy. Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 4 was sited in Alaska's far north, just south of Barrow, and encompassed .〔Bird, Kenneth J. and Houseknecht, David W. ("2002 Petroleum Resource Assessment of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA)" ), USGS. 2002. Accessed June 14, 2009.〕 Other Naval Petroleum Reserves were embroiled in controversy over government corruption in the Teapot Dome Scandal. The first explorations of NPR-4 were undertaken by the U.S. Geological Survey from 1923 to 1925 and focused on mapping, identifying and characterizing coal resources in the western portion of the reserve and petroleum exploration in the eastern and northern portions of the reserve. These surveys were primarily pedestrian in nature; no drilling or remote sensing techniques were available at the time. These surveys named many of the geographic features of the areas explored, including the Philip Smith Mountains and quadrangle. These efforts are summarized in 〔Smith and Mertie 1930〕 (). The petroleum reserve lay dormant until the Second World War provided an impetus to explore new oil prospects. The first renewed efforts to identify strategic oil assets were a two pronged survey using bush aircraft, local Inupiat guides, and personnel from multiple agencies to locate reported seeps. Ebbley and Joesting reported on these initial forays in 1943 Starting in 1944, the U.S. Navy funded oil exploration near Umiat Mountain, on the Colville River in the foothills of the Brooks Range.〔Naske, p. 244〕 Surveyors from the U.S. Geological Survey spread across the petroleum reserve and worked to determine its extent until 1953, when the Navy suspended funding for the project. The USGS found several oil fields, most notably the Alpine and Umiat Oil Field, but none were cost-effective to develop.〔Naske, pp. 245–246〕 Four years after the Navy suspended its survey, Richfield Oil Corporation (later Atlantic Richfield and ARCO) drilled an enormously successful oil well near the Swanson River in southern Alaska, near Kenai.〔Naske, p. 247〕 The resulting Swanson River Oil Field was Alaska's first major commercially producing oil field, and it spurred the exploration and development of many others.〔Roscow, p.53〕 By 1965, five oil and 11 natural gas fields had been developed. This success and the previous Navy exploration of its petroleum reserve led petroleum engineers to the conclusion that the area of Alaska north of the Brooks Range surely held large amounts of oil and gas.〔Roscow, p. 27〕 The problems came from the area's remoteness and harsh climate. It was estimated that between and of oil would have to be recovered to make a North Slope oil field commercially viable.〔 In 1967, Atlantic Richfield (ARCO) began detailed survey work in the Prudhoe Bay area. By January 1968, reports began circulating that natural gas had been discovered by a discovery well.〔Roscow, p. 10〕 On March 12, 1968, an Atlantic Richfield drilling crew hit paydirt.〔BP plc. ("Prudhoe Bay Fact Sheet" ) (PDF), BP.com. Accessed July 15, 2009.〕 A discovery well began flowing at the rate of of oil per day.〔 On June 25, ARCO announced that a second discovery well likewise was producing oil at a similar rate. Together, the two wells confirmed the existence of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field. The new field contained more than of oil, making it the largest in North America and the 18th largest in the world.〔 The problem soon became how to develop the oil field and ship product to U.S. markets. Pipeline systems represent a high initial cost but lower operating costs, but no pipeline of the length needed had yet been constructed. Several other solutions were offered. Boeing proposed a series of gigantic 12-engine tanker aircraft to transport oil from the field, the Boeing RC-1.〔Naske, p. 256〕 General Dynamics proposed a line of tanker submarines for travel beneath the Arctic ice cap, and another group proposed extending the Alaska Railroad to Prudhoe Bay.〔Naske, pp. 256–257〕 Ice breaking oil tankers were proposed to transport the oil directly from Prudhoe Bay. In 1969, Humble Oil and Refining Company sent a specially fitted oil tanker, the , to test the feasibility of transporting oil via ice-breaking tankers to market.〔Gedney, Larry and Helfferich, Merritt. ("Voyage of the Manhattan" ), Alaska Science Forum. December 19, 1983. Accessed June 14, 2009.〕 The ''Manhattan'' was fitted with an ice-breaking bow, powerful engines, and hardened propellers before successfully traveling the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Beaufort Sea. During the voyage, the ship suffered damage to several of its cargo holds, which flooded with seawater. Wind-blown ice forced the ''Manhattan'' to change its intended route from the M'Clure Strait to the smaller Prince of Wales Strait. It was escorted back through the Northwest Passage by a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, the CCGS ''John A. Macdonald''. Although the ''Manhattan'' successfully transited the Northwest Passage again in the summer of 1970, the concept was considered too risky.〔Kavanagh, Dave. ("S.S. Manhattan & the Northwest Passage" ), sunshiporg.homestead.com. July 12, 2005. Accessed June 14, 2009.〕 A pipeline was thus the only viable system for transporting the oil to the nearest port free of pack-ice, almost 800 miles (1,300 km) away at Valdez. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Trans-Alaska Pipeline System」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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