It was not my intent to discuss the level of impact different development scenarios might cause. My intent was to reply to a poster and indicate that the 1002 area where oil and gas development would take place is utilized by wildlife of ANWR. 2,000 acres is not the entire prime calving area, but it's in the prime calving area. So much for stating the obvious.
Yours is an exclusive logic that would rather see us freeze to death in the dark rather than reasonably develop reserves that could be substantial with development and accomplishing that with MINIMAL disruption to the wildlife and perhaps to their benefit.
I advocate scenarios that would have maximum benefit for this country. Because of that, I advocate increased use of nuclear power and development of biofuels (notably cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass) that would substantially change our energy and fuel-use infrastructure, not prolong a dependency on petroleum that endangers our national security and long-term economic future. ANWR oil, no matter how it is sliced and diced, will have a short-term, low-impact effect on the overall fuel use profile of the United States. You might not want to take that from me -- you might want to read the post earlier in this thread that expressed the opinion of strong conservative Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who holds a Ph.D. (in physics, I think) and see why he opposes ANWR drilling.
I can agree with much of what you stated above. However, time is an issue. It will take time to build more nukes, take ethanol from laboratory to full production, etc. To span that gap requires the continued development of petroleum resources. To do that you've got to drill and expand refinery capability and capacity.
You might not want to take that from me -- you might want to read the post earlier in this thread that expressed the opinion of strong conservative Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who holds a Ph.D. (in physics, I think) and see why he opposes ANWR drilling.
Opinions are like armpits, everyone has a couple of them. I have a M.S. in Geosciences, big deal. I think we should and can drill in many more areas in our country not only for petroleum but natural gas, and there is a lot out there that can be gotten to in a manner that won't kill the world. And as far as the resource, that can't be fully evaluated until exploration can actually begin. In many oil producing areas, the initial finds are just the tip of the iceberg. There are some estimates that ANWR could replace our imports from Saudi Arabia for 30 years. And that would serve as a bridge over to other energy sources. It will take a VERY long time for a single nuke plant just to clear the initial regulatory hurdles, let alone the construction time, prove outs, etc until finally on-line and pumping electricty to us. What do you suggest we do to bridge the gap. BTW, conservation isn't the answer. It has been estimated that if all cars were switched over to hybreds, the fuel savings would only last a short time.