Saving areas from oil exploration - realistic?

[Arnfinn Madsen]

The senate blocked exploration of oil in some Alaskan areas if I understood the news report correctly. Similar things have been done to vulnerable areas in other oil producing countries. Is it really realistic? Will not the ever-increasing scarcity of oil eventually lead to exploration? (as benefit at some point will outweigh environmental costs)

[bocablkr]

[ QUOTE ]
The senate blocked exploration of oil in some Alaskan areas if I understood the news report correctly. Similar things have been done to vulnerable areas in other oil producing countries. Is it really realistic? Will not the ever-increasing scarcity of oil eventually lead to exploration? (as benefit at some point will outweigh environmental costs)

[/ QUOTE ]

Just in case you are really interested in the facts about drilling in ANWAR.

Consider the following:

The companies that want to get at that oil estimate there's 16 billion barrels waiting to be pumped south – or about 30 years worth of Middle East oil imports. U.S. government geologists have estimated a likely reserve of perhaps 10.4 billion barrels in the 700,000-hectare coastal plain region at the northern end of the ANWR. That's the only part of the refuge where the U.S. government has considered lifting the ban on development.

But it would be economically feasible to pump out only a fraction of that reserve. A 1998 study estimated that about 1.9 billion barrels could be recovered at a price of $24 per barrel. Environmentalists and other opponents of opening the area to oil exploration argue there's no way to know how much oil is there.

The Union of Concerned Scientists suggests there may be enough oil to fuel vehicles in the United States for six months. It argues that making vehicles more fuel-efficient will save far more oil than Alaska could ever produce.

Fact: there is likely between 6 to 18 months worth of 'economically' recoverable oil. That will start to flow 8 to 10 years from now. How is any of that going to help us now. It won't. Don't say 'well it is a start' or 'every little bit helps' (see below).

Fact: there is not enough oil reserves in the entire United States for us to ever 'drill' our way out of our foreign dependence on oil.
The only answer is to reduce our demand for energy, find alternative energy sources and improve the efficiency and cost of current technologies.

Spend the billions of dollars that would be wasted in oil drilling in ANWAR and instead use it to finance research and development of alternative energy sources as well as improving existing technologies. This would create thousands of good paying jobs and if fruitful a new energy source. Spend money on public awareness programs to increase conservation and recycling. Make it cost effective to use recycled materials. If the automobile industry was forced to increase there MPG fleet average just a few miles it would save more oil in a few years than all the oil we would ever get from ANWAR. It would also increase jobs in Detroit, not ruin the industry as Rush Limbaugh and his ilk would have you believe.

We had a Manhattan project' to build the A bomb before the Nazis, we should have a Manhattan project' for a new source of energy. Consider this - if another country discovers something before us we will be even more dependent on foreign sources.

One other tidbit:

The Republicans' assertion that the plan would use "only 2,000 acres" of land for oil production is patently false. The 2,000 acres refers only to the actual drilling area and does not include the roads, airstrips, pipelines, and other support facilities that would be necessary to begin drilling in the reserve. Drilling in the refuge will really create a spider web of industrial activities over the entire 1.5 million acre coastal plain, so it is much larger than just a small footprint. This legislation might also open up nearly 100,000 acres of native land on the Arctic coastal plain.

Bocablkr, there are many othere people that disagree with your "facts". Some say that there is enough to hold us for "years".

We should already have pumped the place dry by now.

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
But it would be economically feasible to pump out only a fraction of that reserve. A 1998 study estimated that about 1.9 billion barrels could be recovered at a price of $24 per barrel.

[/ QUOTE ]

I note that the price to recover oil in Saudi Arabia and Iraq is between $2 and $3 a barrel if memory serves. With this in mind allow me to fix the following excerpt from your post:

[ QUOTE ]
Fact: there is not enough oil reserves in the entire United States for us to ever 'drill' our way out of our foreign dependence on oil.
One way where we could conceivably reduce our foreign dependence on oil is finding alternative energy sources.

Improving the effeciency and cost of current technologies that utilize oil will tend to reduce the demand for oil due to less consumption. Reducing the demand for oil will make the USA <u>more dependent</u> on foreign oil sources like Saudi Arabia and Iraq since their production costs are vastly lower than domestic production costs. The marginally profitable producers cease production when the price of a barrel of oil decreases enough. The lowest cost producers win out in the long run

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
Bocablkr, there are many othere people that disagree with your "facts". Some say that there is enough to hold us for "years".

We should already have pumped the place dry by now.

[/ QUOTE ]

From ANWR.org A website deicated to propome drilling in the refuge.

Recoverable oil estimates ranges from 600 million barrels at the low end to 9.2 billion barrels at the high end. The US is currently using nearly 20 million barrels per day and increasing every year- so the low end estimate is a months worth of oil in the US. The high end is at less than 16 months. No "realistic" estimates have come out that think ANWR could fuel America for any signifigant period of time. At best estimates that it could contribute 1-3% of our total production for 15-20 years (at current levels of incresing use) before it became uneconomical to continue.

[adios]

But if there is no significant impact on the ANWR environment why not? ANWR.org seems to imply there wouldn't be much of an impact if any.

[BluffTHIS!]

The thing is that if it could be guaranteed 100% for certain that the ANWAR's environment would not be damaged, the lib enviros still would be opposed just because of their utopian unspoiled enviro notions, but most importantly, because they really don't want us to have large supplies of oil because of the rest of their agenda against carbon fuels.

[zipo]

&gt;&gt;Is it really realistic? Will not the ever-increasing scarcity of oil eventually lead to exploration?&lt;&lt;

At some point ANWR will get tapped. Not because it will materially lower US dependence on foreign energy, but because the energy lobby stands to make a bundle of loot by ramming it down the throats of a tame, lickspittle, and avaricious Congress.

That same energy lobby and their lackeys in high office are using ANWR as a red herring to divert attention from what really needs to be done - namely, implementing meaningful conservation measures (for example, mandating that fuel efficiency in autos be doubled in the next 5 years) and seriously developing alternative energy sources.

Of course, big energy will lose big profits if the US gets serious about our energy problems, and so our national interests will continue to be sacrificed to this influential special interest - at least until we get people in the White House and Congress who will confront this lobby head on rather than servicing it.

[Rockatansky]

[ QUOTE ]
The thing is that if it could be guaranteed 100% for certain that the ANWAR would produce no oil, the right-wing nutjobs would still be dermined to drill, since what this is really all about is winning a symbolic victory over people who care about the environment. They really don't want us to have large supplies of oil because it would lower the oil companies' profit margins.

[/ QUOTE ]

[BluffTHIS!]

Excellent logic. The right wants to drill just to screw the enviros, but at the same time really wants less oil. And the left chortles with glee as the right acts at cross purposes.