Should we drill for oil at ANWR or leave it alone to perserve the refuge?

of course we should drill there, i cant believe so many people are brainwashed into thinking that it is a good thing to leave it alone and that if we drill there, the whole place will be ruined.





we need to get off our addiction to oil, but as long as we dont accomplish that, we should drill everywhere, including off all of our coasts and in our national parks.





and we need to put up a lot more windmills.Should we drill for oil at ANWR or leave it alone to perserve the refuge?
I'm a bit ambivalent on the subject. I earn a living as an exploration geologist, and have worked the North Slope of Alaska in the past. I actually spend time working in wilderness areas and value them probably much more than most people, yet I don't think ANWR should be ignored forever. However, that oil has been there since the Cretaceous, so what's a few more decades?





I think that most of the people who object to drilling in ANWR are hypocrites. They all want to drive SUV's and they waste energy like it was water or air, but they think they should protect something they know nothing about (ANWR) from something else they know nothing about (oil drilling), because it seems politically popular. People listen to emotional appeals from organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council that has been known to promote causes for their own profit


(see: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/20鈥?/a>


They have no idea that most of the common everyday products they consume are made from oil either as a raw material or energy source. Yet most people don鈥檛 want to change their lifestyle in order to make it possible to ignore oil reserves such as ANWR. For the record, I ride a bicycle to work and haven't bought a tank of gasoline in four months now.





The absurdity of protecting ANWR, from my point of view, is that it will necessitate drilling somewhere else in the world that is just as environmentally sensitive and precious. Would we rather buy Russian oil when we know the Russians are willing to let a pipeline leak oil creating a major spill, leaking for an entire winter onto Arctic ice because they aren't willing to fix it? Would we rather have Nigerian oil where the pipelines are cut into by thieves, causing uncounted spills and fires, severely impacting the local villages? Or would we rather strip-mine all of Northern Canada for tar sand? Maybe people would prefer to drill off the coast of California and Florida? As long as we keep burning oil, it has to come from somewhere, and so far no alternative fuels have the potential to completely replace oil.





I've seen lakes covered with foot-deep oil in some former communist countries; oil that was leaking from poorly maintained government-owned wells. This is the alternative that we are making inevitable when we refuse to use our own resources in a responsible manner. The Alaska North Slope has always been, in my opinion, one of the more environmentally conscious and responsible oil installations in the world (the Exxon Valdez being a major exception), probably because of the original controversy of the Alaska Pipeline. In my opinion there is likely to be more environmental damage caused by NOT drilling in ANWR than there is if it is drilled by responsible, highly-regulated companies. Withholding ANWR from oil production is not going to cause the suburban SUV drivers to buy hybrids.





It will be likely to take ten years or more to produce the first oil. This is because oil companies can only do seismic exploration and drilling during the dark Alaskan winter, when the ground is frozen and they can build ice-roads for equipment. In summer the tundra thaws and cannot be crossed. Alaskan oil generally supplies the west coast of the US, which is not supplied by pipelines from the Gulf of Mexico, so it tends to have its own oil market and pays higher prices than the rest of the US for this reason. The other major supplies to the West Coast US might be projects like Sakhalin in Russia, but more than likely the Koreans, Japanese, or even the Chinese will buy that oil before it is available to the US. The US West Coast will need the additional oil in a decade much more than it does now, and I think the people who object to ANWR drilling are failing to think about future need in the proper time frame. California is still the third largest oil-producing state in the US, but that is probably declining, as is production from Prudhoe Bay and other Alaska reservoirs.





There are ways to limit the footprint of oil installations. Directional drilling has become a commonplace technique that allows many wells to be drilled in many directions from the same small well pad. I think some companies have even considered directional drilling ANWR from offshore, although in the Arctic this is incredibly difficult. If the right controls are placed on the drilling and seismic (for example the Federal Government should make the seismic survey data public property so that it only has to be done once), I think drilling in ANWR can be done with minimal impact.





The other thing that always escapes this discussion because most people know so little about it, is that the NPRA, (the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, formerly the Naval Petroleum Reserve #4), is open for drilling. The NPRA lies to the west of Prudhoe Bay, while ANWR lies to the east. Oil companies have had an active interest in the NPRA and have been exploring new areas there in recent years. I鈥檝e never understood the logic of the environmentalists who are so adamantly opposed to ANWR drilling that never mention NPRA, which is probably even larger an area of the North Slope than ANWR. The USGS assessment of the petroleum potential of NPRA is about equal to that of ANWR in volume.





Another factor that few people outside of Alaska consider is that oil royalties are a major source of income for both the state of Alaska and the US Federal government. Alaska earned $3.5 billion dollars off of oil revenue last year. The government鈥檚 share of oil revenue in Alaska is about 60% of the total, according to the Governor of Alaska.


http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/061鈥?/a>


Not only would not drilling in ANWR cost the state of Alaska and the Federal government a possible income of many billions of dollars, it would add about $700 billion dollars to a growing US Trade Deficit, due to increased need to import foreign oil. I鈥檓 basing that calculation on a $70 barrel of oil, which may be a conservative price for oil in a decade.





I think we will eventually be forced to drill for oil in ANWR. Either it starts now, or twenty years from now. Either way it is probably inevitable.





To learn about the NPRA go to:


http://energy.usgs.gov/npra.html


The USGS assessment of ANWR is at:


http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/Should we drill for oil at ANWR or leave it alone to perserve the refuge?
Leave it alone i believe. It's time to get off the oil bandwagon.
Sign this petition to protect ANWR.


http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeactio鈥?/a>
ANWR is a deserted wasteland and the only reason we don't drill there is a marxist plot to hamstring our economy.
Drill because we need oil for many more reason than just gas for are cars. Lots of things we use everyday is made from oil. Plus we have millions of barrels of oil. We use ours and no one else. Than watch the price of oil drop. We depend on the middle east to much