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The Reality Behind ANWR

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The Reality Behind ANWR

from JoeUser Forums

There's been a lot of talk lately about drilling in ANWR and opening up offshore areas for further development. In this article I will address only the issue surrounding ANWR, as I don't have enough info about the moratorium on coastal development.

The Myth:

Drilling in ANWR will increase domestic production and lower the price of gas at the pump (eventually) By increasing domestic production we will also be less reliant on foreign oil.

The Truth:

Drilling in ANWR will only maintain the status quo, because production from other fields in Alaska have been declining for years. Oil that gets pumped out of ANWR will only compensate for lost oil being pumped from fields that are in decline.

Companies like BP are indeed salivating at getting into ANWR as are many Alaskans. There is indeed a lot of oil there. USGS estimates put it somewhere between 6-16 billion barrels recoverable (so let's average it at 10 for discussions sake) So, those 10 billion barrels could theoretically supply the U.S with all the oil it needs for one year and 4 months, at 21 million barrel per day consumption approximately, only about 5-ish million barrels per day are produced domestically)

So in the big picture, yes, there is oil in ANWR. But there is a BIG piece of the puzzle that has been left out of the dialogue regarding this issue!

The real reason why there is such a big push to develop ANWR has very little to do with dropping the price of gas, and a lot with being able to maintain profitability for certain business interests. The piece of the puzzle that's missing is called Prudhoe Bay.

What's been so heavily under-publicized and under-reported, is that production from Prudhoe Bay has been falling for years now and there's not too much left. This is no dirty secret. All the oil companies publicly report the numbers, some of which actually end up in snippets in the news, but it's mostly been ignored in the major media dialogue.

Don't believe me? Let's look at a few facts about Prudhoe Bay-

Production peaked in 1979 at 1.5 million barrels per day production, and stayed relatively consistent up until the mid 80's when it started to decline. Today production has declined 70 % from it's peak 20 years ago to only 470,000 barrels per day.

Although various satellite fields have been turned up since 1998, collectively it is a pretty safe bet to say that Prudhoe Bay is indeed dying a slow death. All the big companies that are invested in Prudhoe know this. They've known it for years. And they know that they don't have too much longer before production drops off so much that the cost of maintaning operations there starts to become questionnable.

This leads us to the true heart of the matter:

The push to develop ANWR has very little to do with increasing domestic production and much to do with trying to maintain the status quo. From a business perspective, this make perfect sense. You already have massive infrastructure and development in the neighbourhood. Now that existing fields are declining, the push is to open up untapped fields nearby. The biggest and juiciest of those is ANWR.

At best, if all goes well this will help to keep domestic production from falling into further decline, but it is highly unlikely that it will increase it by any appreciable amount, therefore not dealing with dependency on foreign oil, OPEC, or market volatility.

politics
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Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top

This is flat out wrong. The administration is begging industry to come up with alternatives that work. They were so desperate for alternatives they went against better judgment to push bio-fuels. It was a short sighted decision that is costing us big time.
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The Bush administration has pursued bio-fuels, this is indeed correct. However, this is also part of a larger pattern that fits in with the administration's ideological views. Let's take a step back and look at this objectively;

The Whitehouse, as part of their 'alternative energy' platform has encouraged:

1) "clean" coal. While scrubbing certainly can be introduced that reduces the pollution somewhat, there is still a great deal of contamination that results from coal fired plants, and no matter how you spin it they are incredibly inneficient, due to the very nature of the amount of energy stored in coal and the means of retrieving that energy. The administration was pushing this lie big time a couple of years ago (remember those "clean coal" commercials with the smiling kids? yeah, those got pulled after massive uproar from the scientific community and many folks who actually engineer and work in coal fired plants calling in on the administration's lie!!!!)

2) Ethanol from corn. Taking an existing product (food) and using it to fuel our obsolete and inffecient machines. There are enough calories in 1 single tank of ethanol-based fuel to feed an adult for an entire year. Coincidentally, the average north American's diet is based on almost 70% corn. If you're not eating something derived from corn, chances are pretty good it was fed by corn products. Going to bio-fuels was a win-win in the eyes of the administration because it would (theoretically) help out any struggling farmers AND lower the price of gas. Yup, that worked out real well.

3) Hydrogen. Even the senior engineers developing and playing PR for this technology have said that any rollout within the next 15-20 years is wildly unrealistic. And 15-20 years ago they said the same thing, even though way back then they had working hyrdrogen cars out... Why?

3a) The energy required to create hydrogen fuel results in a net loss. This means that far more energy is required to creat the fuel than is gained from that fuel as a locomotive source for vehicles (same thing as going one step forward, two steps back)

3b) Thousands of new stations would need to be constructed all across the continent with specialized containment for hydrogen. Can you say mega bucks? The cost of this would easily be in the hundreds of billions, especially considering that due to hydrogen's volatility, containment technology would have to be pretty tight!

So, all of the administration's so-called alternatives have either been quick fixes (ethanol) lies (clean coal) or outright pipe-dreams (hydrogen fuel cells)

Why did the administration pursue these 3 fields?? Take a big guess. That's right.... money and profit!!!

All 3 "alternatives" they've been pushing are extremely profitable, and require a fuel source that you must continually pay for

Meanwhile, electric cars which are the best alternative and can be readily mass produced in a short time (GM proved this in the mid 90-'s for Christ's sake!!!!) have continually been sidelined. Solar power and wind power projects have also been sidelined at the federal level.... the only ones pushing for them have been at the State level and below!!! Why?

Because solar and wind power rely on a fuel source you don't have to pay for.

Electric cars do rely on a fuel you have to pay for, but they're so efficient and give so much bang for your buck that profits are massively reduced for the manufacturer. Also, there's also the danger that folks can throw a couple solar panels on their roof and fuel their cars that way, which is a distinct possibility for most folks weekly driving habits.

We see this playing out in Bushes' "drill for more oil" push. Again, sticking with a method and technology that will require continual payment, regardless of the fact that finite resources are being depleted!

Back during Carter's presidency he started a massive program to pursue alternative energy initiatives based on renewable resources. IF the good people of the United States had stuck with his initiatives you wouldn't be in this pickle today. Why didn't it pan out? Because within the first 60 days of taking office, Reagan cancelled almost all of the initiatives Carter started. The genius known as Reagan even declared war on the sun by demanding that the solar panels on the White house be removed.

Now, almost 30 years later Bush's solution is to "drill for more oil, because we're addicted to oil" and to push the unrealistic pipe dream of hydrogen fuel while rolling out the debacle that is bio-fuels and the lie that is clean coal. Oh yes, and let's also build more nuclear reactors, not mentioning the fact that nuclear plants require massive amounts of water for cooling and the continental United States is currently facing water shortages and possible droughts in many areas due to over-use of many aquifers and rivers and lakes (there are a couple existing nuclear plants in the States that are quietly panicking right now due to continually dropping levels in the lakes they draw from for cooling, thus bringing into question how long they'll be able to continue operating at current generating capacity)

Again, the commonality between all of his proposals? No real change. Stick to existing technologies and methods and dress them up real nice and purdy to make them more palatable for the public. Any viable alternatives that are free after initial installation? Well that's an outright sin in the eyes of the free marketeers! Every service on the planet must be generating a continuous profit they cry, and so we are left with a gameplan that will see to our eventual extinction if we don't change!

Reply #27 from PolMach Forums Top
Sorry El Duderino, I should read all responses before replying.
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Not a problem, great minds think alike.

Considering that both Britain and France have ordered construction of dozens of nuclear power plants, what the hell are the Democrats waiting for? They should unite with Republicans to usher in the new Nuclear power age...
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I couldn't agree more. The problem is that the same people who claim to want alternative energies will fight you tooth and nail against building nuclear power plants. Even though the energy produced is nearly carbon neutral they simply don't care. Also you have the problem of where to build the nuclear power plants. Try finding some locations in the US that won't be met by many protests of people who don't want one built in their back yards because they keep thinking about 3 mile island.

As for Canadians paying more for gas than the States, I was alluding to the fact that even though we are a net exporter and you are a net importer, we still pay more. While a small portion of this is indeed due to taxation for our social programs, as you have correctly stated, much of it is also due to the fact that many of the oil companies operating in Canada are American. Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, etc, comprise the major players developing and exporting our oil. Therefore the prices paid for barrels going across the border is not so much due to our government as it is international economics, and collusion between the big players in country!
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Just out of curiosity, Canada is able to generate all the oil that it needs but does Canada have the refineries to turn the oil into gas? I wonder if part of the reason that Canadians pay more for gas is that they import gas from the US? Again I have no idea if this is the case I'm just curious.
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Reply #28 from PolMach Forums Top
Again, the commonality between all of his proposals? No real change. Stick to existing technologies and methods and dress them up real nice and purdy to make them more palatable for the public. Any viable alternatives that are free after initial installation? Well that's an outright sin in the eyes of the free marketeers! Every service on the planet must be generating a continuous profit they cry, and so we are left with a gameplan that will see to our eventual extinction if we don't change!
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Artysim makes some excellent points in his post about the so-called alternatives promoted by the Bush Administration. The bottom line that should be taken from all of this is that our government isn't where the alternatives are going to come from, it will be the private industry. Don't forget that part of the reason the big automotive companies haven't put out full electric cars is most likely the after sale servicing that internal combustion engines require vs. electric motors. As the company Tesla has demonstrated with their roadster the engine of an electic car is much simpler than an internal combustion engine, essentially only one moving part in the entire engine. By being simpler that means that the car requires less maintenance which means the auto companies lose their real gold mine, the service department.

But a perfectly good alternative fuel that would enable the auto companies to keep their service departments running at full capacity that should really be developed in this country is Compressed Natural Gas, yes the same stuff that many people use to run their stoves and heat in the winter. It is something that the US actually has a fair amount of, we only import 16% of what we use currently, and you can purchase a device that installs onto your house so that your house becomes your refueling station. Sure it takes 16 hours to go from empty to full, but if you fill up every night and you drive less than 250 miles a day it shouldn't be a big deal. The other good thing about CNG is that it is almost emmision free.