 This is a photo of the Russian ship Renda which was brought in to save the Alaskan city of Nome in January 2012 with fuel that Russia brought in all the way from its territory over to Nome is notable today as we find Russia putting its navy in the northeastern passage and in the best position of all to exploit the Arctic in terms of energy we're now largely focused on the fracking of shale gas but in a decade or two the Arctic will be bigger than fracking is now there's so much oil and gas up there and global warming is making it available Russia has most of the Arctic oil and it is at the technological forefront of how to operate there shale is part of why Russia is in trouble now but the Arctic if Russia plays it well could help to rescue it