Artist's commentary
5. ice
Arctic Alliance
At the beginning of the 21st century, a federal republic composed of seven countries, a permanent neutral state between the two superpowers.
Connected to the North Pole, it is an important area that supports the Arctic Observation Base of all countries in the world.
The population is sparse, and permafrost occupies 60% of the country.
Although it was involved in the war at the beginning of the oil war, it became a non-war zone with the conclusion of the Arctic Treaty during the war, so it suffered less damage.
Warming
Wars and accidents involving the mining of combustible ice at sea have exacerbated the warming process. The average temperature in 2050 has risen by two degrees compared to a decade ago. Extreme weather and rising sea levels brought about by abnormal climate threaten people's lives. Warming and resource depletion can be said to be the biggest issue for mankind in the second half of the 21st century.
Affected by warming, permafrost on a global scale began to dissolve. Especially for the North Company, where permafrost occupies 60% of the country's land area, it cannot be ignored.
The surface subsidence caused by the dissolution has caused the maintenance cost of infrastructure to rise sharply, which has brought a fatal blow to the buildings, roads, and railway facilities in the permafrost range.
Ironically, this is good news for the mining and petroleum industries. The dissolution of frozen soil has allowed them to discover more exploitable oil fields and deposits: war and global warming have alleviated Beilian’s resource problems to a certain extent.
The energy resources required by Beilian are extremely dependent on imports. The energy self-sufficiency rate in 2052 is 10.3%, which is a slight increase compared with 6.0% in 2049, but it is still at a fairly low level compared with other countries.
Due to the exhaustion of resources, the energy exports of various countries have been decreasing year by year, and the development of new energy has become the most important issue of Beilian. Therefore, the methane hydrates existing under permafrost began to be valued by people.