[darwinsdog]

There isn't going to be any "transition to alternative energy." All the alts combined aren't a drop in the fossil fuel bucket. Drilling the dregs doesn't go into preps for powerdown anyway. It goes into propping up BAU. Get real.

[green_achers]

Anything you do to increase supply will lower prices of the alternatives also. That would be a market signal for them to not be developed.

If we are ever going to develop alternatives, fossil fuel is going to have to be expensive. No government program or any other definition of "we" is going to do the R&D. Just ask Jimmy Carter.

[bsneath]

Why not stipulate that the proceeds from ANWR & OCS oil and gas leases shall be used to encourage alternative energy development? This way we can avoid near term economic collapse and promote alternatives to oil and gas.

[IgnoranceIsBliss]

1. It will be drilled.

2. It will not matter, at least as far as the price of oil is concerned.

\

The only good thing with this scenerio is that at least we won't have to keep hearing "The Democrats/ liberals/ environmentalists won't let us drill our way out of this mess!" and "It's all THEIR fault!" anymore. I wonder what the war cry will be when we find out that drilling really didn't help us?

[emersonbiggins]

I wonder what the war cry will be when we find out that drilling really didn't help us?

"You STOPPED believing! You STOPPED believing!"

Once the consensus trance breaks, expect the harbinger to be shot.

[Nickel]

I wonder what the war cry will be when we find out that drilling really didn't help us?

"The Democrats/ liberals/ environmentalists kept us waiting too long to drill our way out of this mess! It's all THEIR fault!"

[hillsidedigger]

I imagine this has been discussed before but the search function here doesn't work for me.

So, I'll just ask - How many of you believe Sarah Palin when she implies that a mere 2,000 spot in the Arctic Refuge contains close to one percent of the remaining oil reserves of the world?

I asked that same question on the 'homesteadingtoday' forum a little over a year ago and you would be shocked how many responded that if Sarah said it, it must be true.

I wonder if that lie is contained within her new book?

[Maddog78]

I really don't know if this strip contains that much oil but to put it in context it is not just a square block of land she is talking about.
It's a strip along the coast, so using directional drilling it could well contain quite a bit of oil.


http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/ ... g_ahwr.htm

At the time Congress established ANWR as a protected area, one significant sliver of it along the coastal plain, known as the 1002 area, was not included. Congress specified further study of that portion for its oil and gas production potential. Today, the largest untapped onshore energy reserve in this country is made up of roughly 2,000 acres of the 1002 area.

snip....................

While friends of the porcupine caribou struggle to protect the 1002 area from oil drillers, it’s estimated that we could be pumping as many as 16 billion barrels of oil— as much as 30 years worth of Saudi Arabian-type oil — out of a 2,000 acre drill area, which is a little more than one-hundredth of 1 percent of ANWR. By our math, that would leave approximately 18,998,000 acres for visiting birds, Snowcats (the mechanical variety) and the caribou, who, by the way, don’t have the good fortune in this case of being endangered, or this debate would have already been over.

snip.......................

[avtech]

Q. Would the 2,000 acres be in one compact area?

A. No. The "limitation" does not require that the 2,000 acres of production and support facilities be in one contiguous area. As with the oil fields to the west of the Arctic Refuge, development could and would be spread out over a very large area. Indeed, according to the United States Geological Survey, oil under the coastal plain is not concentrated in one large reservoir but is spread under the coastal plain in numerous small deposits. To produce oil from this vast area, therefore, supporting infrastructure would stretch across the coastal plain: rather than the "footprint" the industry talks of, we would see instead a sprawling spider web of development.

http://savethearctic.com/arctic.asp?id2 ... d3=arctic&

[MD]

A teaspoon of salt flavors the whole stew.

[hillsidedigger]

There are a lot of links and maps on the internet about the 'phantom 2,000 acres' and in truth the so-called 2,000 acres is mostly just the footprint of the 500 or so drilling pads to be established across the 1.5 million acres of the coastal plain within the Arctic Refuge.

In order to spot the drill holes in the best locations and determine the direction to drill a thorough seismographing of the 1.5 million acres would need to be executed requiring up to 9,000 miles of seismograph line.

Can 9,000 miles of seismic testing occur on 2,000 acres?

[DomusAlbion]

It will be explored and it will be drilled. We (the USA) will need the oil.

[hillsidedigger]

I really don't know if this strip contains that much oil but to put it in context it is not just a square block of land she is talking about.
It's a strip along the coast, so using directional drilling it could well contain quite a bit of oil.


http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/ ... g_ahwr.htm

At the time Congress established ANWR as a protected area, one significant sliver of it along the coastal plain, known as the 1002 area, was not included. Congress specified further study of that portion for its oil and gas production potential. Today, the largest untapped onshore energy reserve in this country is made up of roughly 2,000 acres of the 1002 area.

snip....................

While friends of the porcupine caribou struggle to protect the 1002 area from oil drillers, it’s estimated that we could be pumping as many as 16 billion barrels of oil— as much as 30 years worth of Saudi Arabian-type oil — out of a 2,000 acre drill area, which is a little more than one-hundredth of 1 percent of ANWR. By our math, that would leave approximately 18,998,000 acres for visiting birds, Snowcats (the mechanical variety) and the caribou, who, by the way, don’t have the good fortune in this case of being endangered, or this debate would have already been over.

snip.......................

Why do dishonest websites often have the word 'freedom' in their name?

[hillsidedigger]

It will be explored and it will be drilled. We (the USA) will need the oil.

Well, then, why don't they just come out and say we need to develop a new 1.5 million acre oilfield instead of saying, "It's only 2,000 acres"?

I don't think enough oil would be found there to make a big difference and in the long run all the oil that has been pumped from Alaska (which isn't all that much) will be proven to be futility only offsetting the inevitable for a short time.

[Maddog78]

I don't think enough oil would be found there to make a big difference

Well, that's it then. Cancel the seismic. Send Palin back to Alaska.
sidedigger doesn't think the oil is there so that's good enough for me.

[shortonsense]

It will be explored and it will be drilled. We (the USA) will need the oil.

Well, then, why don't they just come out and say we need to develop a new 1.5 million acre oilfield instead of saying, "It's only 2,000 acres"?

Prudhoe Bay is only about 150,000 acres in areal extent. Are you saying that we're now finding oilfields near 10X larger?

[Tanada]

The real question that should be asked is, what impact has the development of Prudhoe Bay fields had on the wildlife? Secondly is that level of impact acceptable for ANWR development?

If the answer is minimal and acceptable then drill, if the answers are otherwise then don't drill.

[Plantagenet]

The real question that should be asked is, what impact has the development of Prudhoe Bay fields had on the wildlife? Secondly is that level of impact acceptable for ANWR development?
If the answer is minimal and acceptable then drill, if the answers are otherwise then don't drill.

The Prudhoe Bay caribou herd tripled in size after development of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield and pipeline. Oil field development actually appears to be good for Alaskan Caribou.