Posted on 03/20/2004 7:52:02 AM PST by Isara
Energy: A new report on oil development in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was met with the usual howls. But that doesn't change the fact that there are no good reasons not to open oil fields in that region.
Last week, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration issued a study that said oil pumped from ANWR could cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil by nearly 900,000 barrels a day by 2025 — about two-thirds of what we import from Saudi Arabia each day.
Environmental groups reflexively dismissed the report, saying that the boost is so negligible that it's not worth disturbing the coastal plain. They wield heavy political clout and get a great deal of public sympathy for their positions. But those strengths are derived from the groups' muddled presentation of the facts.
Even though opening ANWR would mean a 20% increase in domestic production, the green groups say that contribution won't address the country's energy needs; they look at the predicted decline in domestic oil production and can say that ANWR will replace only what will be lost.
There is another side to this argument, though. If ANWR had already been tapped, it would be providing enough oil to today's market that those gasoline prices that have climbed so painfully high would still be within a more reasonable range.
As for replacing what will be lost in the inevitable fall in domestic production, that speaks for itself. If we don't replace it with Alaskan oil, it will have to come from another country. We import about 55% of our oil now, but if ANWR isn't opened to development, the EIA says that ratio will hit 70% by 2025.
Even if ANWR were to cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil to zero, it's a good bet environmentalists would still oppose development because, in the words of Jim Waltman of The Wilderness Society, the region is a "national treasure."
We don't dispute that to some eyes ANWR is beautiful. But it can be appreciated only in small doses. For several months of the year, it simply can't be seen — there is no sunlight in the region.
The public won't hear that on the network news or read it in their local daily newspaper. Nor will it be told that of ANWR's 19.6 million acres, the footprint for oil extraction will be a mere 2,000 acres.
Consider that Alaska's land mass exceeds 366 million acres and it turns out that ANWR's relation to the rest of the state would be roughly equal to that of a postage stamp sitting in a space a little larger than a quarter of a basketball court.
One other environmental fact that environmentalists won't speak of is the increase in herd size of caribou from 3,000 to 32,000 since oil production began in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. It's just too easy to claim, without substantiation, that development will be an ecological disaster.
But that's expected. The green groups don't want anyone to know their secret: There is no good argument against drilling in ANWR.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
they look at the predicted decline in domestic oil production and can say that ANWR will replace only what will be lost.Because, as we all know, the energy shortage is going to improve with age. IOW, greenies are stupid or liars. If the ANWR doesn't get drilled now, there won't BE any way to make up the shortfall. Known US reserves now in production will (at current rates) be gone in ten years.
No problem. All we have to do is reduce our oil imports by fifty eight per cent. We went after Saddam Hussein because the US was attacked on 9/11/01 by a terror network which relied in part on Saddam Hussein. Kerry's an [characterization deleted] for trying to spin it otherwise, as are any others who try. The US needs to keep it a long term goal to get rid of all despotates (unfriendlies first of course) and transition the entire world into democracy. Europe can sit on the sidelines (which historically, it generally has done, when it wasn't trying to grab all the real estate it could during the period when Malthusianism ruled gov't actions).Moderate Republicans Try to Block ANWR Bill"It would seriously undermine the legislative process to add new provisions behind closed doors and at the very last minute to a must-pass spending bill that is already four months late," the eight GOP lawmakers said in a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla... The Senate Republicans, led by their appropriations committee chairman, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, succeeded Monday night in protecting provisions that would open more areas in Alaska and national forests throughout the West to new logging... Stevens also is pushing for language in the bill to provide money for "pre-drilling" in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve... Opening ANWR to drilling for oil and natural gas is the centerpiece of President Bush's energy policy... The letter was signed by House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert of New York, Reps. Mike Castle of Delaware, Christopher Shays of Connecticut, Jim Leach of Iowa, Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, Chris Smith of New Jersey and Sue Kelly of New York.
by John Heilprin
February 11, 2003Kerry Blasts Bush Environmental PoliciesKerry said in a speech at the John F. Kennedy presidential library in Boston that the United States must reduce its dependence on foreign oil so it cannot be held hostage by leaders like President Saddam Hussein of Iraq... Kerry, one of six declared Democratic candidates who plan to seek their party's nomination to challenge Bush in the 2004 presidential election, said the United States cannot drill its way to self-sufficiency along the lines favored by Bush in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Instead, he urged development of technology to make homes, businesses, and transportation more efficient while creating a national market for biofuels from crops, wood, and waste.
Reuters
February 11, 2003
I remember May of 1969. I was at a site on the eastern edge of the ANWR. I spent several hours watching the migration of the caribou herds as they came down to the costal plain from their winter meadows in the Brooks Range! Today those herds have tripled in size. The Alaska Pipeline is credited in this increase. The oil pumped from the Prudhoe deposits is so hot from the geothermal layers that the Alaska Pipeline had to be installed above the ground level so as not to effect the permafrost tundra. The caribou are not dumb. Mothers and calfs have been seen standing under the pipleline to keep warm in the winter. More calfs survive and the herd increases. The wolves and other predators also increase and so the circle of life is proven once again.
The Greens just don't get it!
Remember that it's a long process to get any oil or gas up. Right now, we don't even have any agreement whether to drill or not. This part of the process alone may take a decade.
Balance of Payments. We won't get that far if we don't fix it. Meanwhile, we can access the wealth to produce the capital necessary to implement substitute sources.
It doesn't even take a comet. When we lived in Valdez, we were continually hacking back the wilderness that encroached on our property. Willows, elder, alder, and cottonwood had to be repeatedly ripped out and removed. Anything man can build in the wilderness, he can destroy. A few good bulldozers here and there could take out the pads and remove the roads. Nature in Alaska is particularly aggressive, one reason why it remains a wilderness. Most people just don't have the stamina to keep pushing it back.
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