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March 16, 2005
Drill It, Baby!
The Senate is where all the action is these days and today, by a 51-49 margin, it allowed an amendment piggybacked onto the Senate budget bill that opens up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.
The thing about ANWR is, we don't know how much, if any, oil is there. We know it'll cost a helluva a lot to extract what oil might be there, and if the oil companies find oil there, it'll be at least 10 years before any of that oil winds up in your gas tank if you have a gas tank in 2015.
The money spent on drilling in ANWR could probably be better used on improving public transportation in places like Los Angeles, working on George Bush's hydrogen car (an idea stolen from Al Gore, btw), and otherwise improving education in conservation. Oh, but the oil companies wouldn't be able to make any money that way. Too bad.
Personally, I hope ANWR winds up being a dry hole just to fuck the oil companies and their pals in the Senate. I'm riding the bus downtown when I'm working full-time this summer and the buses here run on soybeans.
More on the Senate later. Jimmy Stewart's legacy is on the line.
Posted by Half-Cocked at March 16, 2005 02:36 PM
Comments
Just wanted to let you know, you're linked.
Posted by: Hampton at March 16, 2005 03:21 PM
Steve,
Don't forget to fill-out a bracket on ESPN.com. Later,
Mark
Posted by: Mark at March 16, 2005 03:42 PM
According to Power Line:
"The portion that will be open to drilling (assuming the Senate approves its budget and the House goes along) is a largely barren coastal section about the size of a regional airport in a refuge the size of the state of South Carolina. Drilling will occur only in the winter, when the place is frozen solid, using sophisticated technology that will scarcely leave a footprint come spring, when the single caribou herd that grazes in the refuge comes calling."
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_03.php#009860
Posted by: JR at March 16, 2005 11:02 PM
Jeremy:
I'm trying to not be knee-jerkingly dismissive of anything Powerline says so I'll grant that what Hindrocket or whoever says is probably in the ballpark. However, it's a very short-term solution to a long-term problem. Even if there is oil there, it's probably a year's supply at best. I just think there are better ways to be spending the money that will be spent on exploration and extraction. If those companies were forward thinking at all they would be spending money on R & D to make money from non fossil fuel resources. Of course, thanks to the stock market and the media American businesses are so focused on quarterly profits that 10 years probably seems like a long time to them.
Posted by: Steve at March 17, 2005 12:14 AM
I think the most realistic projection I saw was that ANWR drilling would decrease dependence on foreign oil by a whopping 2% for a few years. Not a great benefit for the environmental cost or the price-tag.
Best projection(s) for actual oil recovered: 10.3 billion barrels: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/execsummary.html
That sounds like a lot, until one understands that OPEC is churning out half a million barrels PER DAY: http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=106894&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=27362
Or that output in the Caspian Sea region (for 2003 anyway) was 1.5 to 1.7 million barrels PER DAY. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspian.html#oil
Assuming we pumped 750,000 barrels per day out of ANWR, the reserves would run out in about 3 years.
Fuck Bush - Fuck the rat-bastards who tacked this measure onto the budget (Lieberman was right - that IS the "nuclear option) - and Fuck the three Democrats who voted in favor of this.
Posted by: Kevin at March 17, 2005 09:28 AM