Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Truth About ANWR Drilling............

Get this straight! The Dems do not want to solve the energy crisis with any use of fossil fuels. Reid, Pelosi, Boxer, Schumer et al have said this. The Dems will block every effort to expand domestic recovery of fossil fuels. They have said they want to nationalize oil companies, called oil dirty, claimed oil and coal make us sick, charge windfall profit taxes and spend untold billions on alternatives, claimed it will take too long to get new oil,etc. etc..
The Dems want us brought to our knees and go crawling to the Government for help! To the messiah - President Obama.

"claimed it will take too long to get new oil,etc. etc.."

Right on the money bigwhoop. But they won't tell you that it will take even longer for their "alternatives" to come on line. And just what are those alternatives they never get into detail about? I've not heard one Dem describe them or be truthful about the fact that they will not come close to solving our needs.

Qtip
Soli Deo Gloria!

And exactly who will be able to afford these alternatives?

What did you find fault with - the timing or the output figures? Please post something more detailed than 'they are wrong'. Something along the lines of 'here is where they are wrong, and here's why'. Data would be handy, along with cites. What is your position with the drilling company that gives you specific knowledge contrary to this report?

Regarding the timing, here's what the report had to say:

The 10-year timeline for developing ANWR petroleum resources assumes that there is no protracted legal battle in approving the BLM�s draft Environmental Impact Statement, the BLM�s approval to collect seismic data, or the BLM�s approval of a specific lease-development proposal.

The Alaska North Slope Badami and Alpine oil fields are recent examples of how long it might take to develop new ANWR oil fields. Located near the western border of ANWR, on State lands, the Badami field was discovered in 1990 and went into production in 1998, thereby taking 8 years between the oil discovery and initial production.

On the western border of the State lands, near the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the Alpine field was discovered in 1994 and initial oil production occurred in 2000, thereby taking 6 years from discovery. These Alaska North Slope oil field development time delays do not include the time delays associated with BLM leasing, the collection and interpretation of seismic data, and the drilling of exploratory wells.

As for output, can you please post a cite that gives different predictions?

As noted, the US currently imports 12 million barrels of oil per day, which along with the 8 million barrels of domestic production, gives the 20 million barrels per day required by the US. (numbers rounded for convenience)

All of the oil produced in Alaska amounted to only 719,000 barrels per day (Texas actually produces more oil - 1,880,000 barrels per day - more than double Alaska's output). Even if ANWR drilling resulted in multiplying Alaska's oil output ten fold, we would still have to import about 6 million barrels per day. The high resource from the report cites would essentially triple Alaska's oil output.

Oil production fired source: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbblpd_a.htm

The solution is to both drill and look to alternatives, realizing that:

1. it will take years for new oil sites to come on line
2. maximum explotation will only result in modest decreases in fuel costs and inported oil
3. It's a stopgap measure, as oil resources in CONUS are already in decline, and worldwide demand for petroleum products is only going to increase, while the US will continue to be art a disadvantage bidding for imported oil against nations that hold large amounta of American capital and have trade surpluses.

Covering you ears and yelling 'la la la' is not going to fix the problem.

And it bears repeating that the large petroleum companies are international. Their bottom line doesn't depend on selling oil to the US. Euros or Yuan spend just as well as dollars. They will sell to whoever has the cash.

At current prices, not many will be able to afford the alternatives.

I just helped my neighbor install a wind turbine at the cost of $57,000. At current electric rates it will take 20+ years to pay for itself..........Just about the time the unit needs repairs!.............100 feet in the air!

The "reasoning" that says "it won't solve all our problem, so we shouldn't use it to solve any of our problem" extends the limits of stupidity.

<Roiderz> In further news, China is in negotiations with Cuba to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. This will be right off the Florida coast....

Let's get it before the Chinese take it.

Source please?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5hR14NF0es&eurl=http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/12/mel-martinez-v-cheney/

Even SNOPES.COM ANWR drilling opponent rebuttals of the piece are mild and easily contested.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/anwr.asp

I don't think anyone here opposes drilling in ANWR. The problem is that it isn't going to fix anything. As noted, even if you accept the high production figure of 1.4 million barrels per day coming from ANWR (Which would make twice as productive as the rest of the state of Alaska) that's still only about 10% of what we import.

We need to drill in ANWR and pursue other technologies.

When you look at how some of the traditionally conservative parts of the country are trying things like wind:

http://www.vestas.com/

perhaps there is an energy future in more than oil and alcohol.


For those who aren't familiar with these types of wind turbines, these monsters are some serious hardware with individual blades being longer than railroad flatcars and the generator units approximately as big as 40 foot container vans. I have no idea what their power output is or what kind of return they have on investment. However, There was a single lonely one along I-35 five years ago and now there must be closer to 100. That must say something.

Still, I have yet to see a reliable electric power source for a small boat or snow vehicle so.......drill ANWR (and Peru, Malaysia, Russia, and wherever else there are sources of petroleum.) If is wasn't such a good source of energy, it wouldn't be as wildly popular as it is.

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Thanks, Plinker.

Drill ANWR and then add the rest of the pieces to the puzzle....like the midwest and East Coast and West Coast and then we're making headway. We do that and oil will come down. An oil spill isn't any worse than blood in the streets.....both biodegradable.

Took me a couple of seconds to figure-out that "<Roiderz>" referred to the Reuters news agency.

Thanks for the chuckle.

Tod,

One of those alternatives you speak of is nuclear. The liberals are against that also. And they use the same words you did, "a long time to come on line". It's part of their mantra. ALL the pieces of the puzzle will take some time to come on line and the reason for it is over regulation; much of it enviormental. In my neck of the woods they are discussing wind turbines in many areas. Who do you think is putting up the biggest fuss? The local ENVIOMENTALISTS. Go figure. They want green and then fight it when it comes up! I think they really want 2/3's of the world's population to drop dead, as long as it is not them. Some property owner's group have some questions about turbines also based on decreased property values and whether they would get a "break" on power rates. The enviormental movement has got to put in it's place first before we can really make any inroads in energy, especially in the area of coal usage. And we have got a lot of that!

Qtip
Soli Deo Gloria!

This is the wind turbine that I helped install. It is a 6-kilowatt turbine that produces 6,000 watts of electricity an hour with winds of 25 mph. Here on our ridge that is a common occurrence. During the winter the winds really howl and this unit is designed to keep producing power regardless of high wind speed. Some older units are designed to shut down during winds of 50 mph and higher.


Currently the utility company's don't have to adequately compensate you for excess power produced. There is pending legislation that would require the P.C. to do so. This would go a long way to making this a worthwhile, profitable investment for those in high wind areas of the country.


This unit sits directly across the road from our farm. I like it!

We've got many of those units in Wyoming, and many more coming.

The fact that some crude isn't capable of being refined in the US is due to the fact that they won't let any new refineries be built that could handle the odd crudes. And one of the last outages we had in Texas with electricty was a really beautiful day and the wind laid out in the texas panhandle so the wind generators had all quit susposedly catching the grid by surprise.