Posted on 05/18/2002 12:47:32 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:48 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
SEATTLE - The sprawling National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on the remote Arctic coast contains four times more oil than previously believed, with deposits even greater than those in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, federal geologists reported Thursday.
But the US Geological Survey said the deposits are less concentrated and more remote than those at the Arctic refuge and would be more lucrative to exploit only with a substantial increase in oil prices.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Let Saudi Arabia drink its oil.
I read a few days ago that even with the increase in estimated reserves, the amount is enough to "fuel" us for 133 days.
It was a FR thread a few days ago... I'll look...
I think the folks in Washington want to save this for a real rainy day which hasnt arrived yet.
One of the disadvantages of setting fire to a non-renewable resource.
We should switch to a hydrogen economy and save our crude reserve for something other than burning it in internal combustion engines.
With a hydrogen economy we can maximize theefficiency of nuclear generating plants by running them flat out 24/7/365 which is the only way that they are efficient and use the excess generating capacity in off hours to make hydrogen out of water.
An added benefit is that when you burn hydrogen it produces water instead of all those wierd partial combustion hydrocarbon products.
A petrolium engineer once said that he wasn't sure what went on inside a petrol fuelled internal combustion engine, but he thinks that it is the work of the devil.
We're going to have to plan ahead and realize this stuff just doesn't spring out of the ground and into our gas tanks or factories or what ever. Someone has to invest in getting this to market and if the cost outweighs the benefit they aren't going to drill. I'd like to see us build up more reserves. Perhaps we can invest in more Alaskan oil. I think it's outrageous that environmentalists have such a say about the use of U.S. lands. What ever happens, our military and domestic energy needs can't be left hanging out to dry.
We get oil from other sources than the Middle East, so we never would have to go it alone for our total energy needs for six months. If that looked like the case we could and would go "get" the oil we needed. I'm not sure of what is under Alaska. I don't think anyone does. I expect that it is a very conservative figure. Until a cheaper alternative is profitable to produce and widely available, oil will remain king.
I've heard similar estimates. If this is in fact what they are estimating, then I don't see any reason to even bother with drilling up there.
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