Dan Minette wrote:
> Ah, Doug, there are approximately 19 million acres of land in ANWR. 12,000
> acres is about 0.06% of the land. I have a hard time believing that this
> will turn the area into an industrial area.
Note that area 1002 is 1.5 million acres and that 80% of the recoverable oil
is within the undeformed area, northwest of the Marsh Creek anticline
(whatever that is) (1). I haven't found any figures on the size of the
undeformed area, but it looks as if it's about 1/3 of the 1002 area - lets
estimate high and say 600,000 acres. So rather than .06%, we're closer to 2%
of the affected area. Of course this still doesn't sound like very much, and
I'll concede that "industrialize" is too strong a word for the proposed
development. Nevertheless, there seems little point to spoiling this area
with any development for what, from a historical perspective, is little but a
drop in the bucket. See http://www.oilanalytics.org/policytop.html
> Doug, have you ever been near an oil platform? Do you have an idea of how a
> well is drilled and how it is produced? Do you know about the wildlife at
> Prudue Bay, and how industrialized that still is or isn't?
I know what it's like when the tar residue from an oil spill washes up on the
beach, and with it hundreds of dead birds. I know how the oil derricks
blemish
the Coast near Santa Barbara. I saw the pictures and read the body count from
the Exxon Valdiz disaster. And I read just the other day that Exxon still
doesn't have any double hulled tankers.
> I have friends that have gone up there to work. From the sounds of things,
> just outside of camp,it is really wild. Indeed, going from the rig to the
> housing unit, they had to carry a gun, just in case the polar bears attacked
> them.
>
Have any of your friends helped construct this website:
http://www.anwrnews.com/? This is a site put up by BP employees that "want to
see ANWR developed. But we are afraid for our safety, and we are afraid for
the environment. British Petroleum has steadfastly refused to hear our
concerns. We have honestly tried to work our concerns through BP management.
We have brought our concerns to Alaska State Regulators, only to be deceived
by the agencies. It is evident that there is an unwholesome relationship
between the state in its role of oversight, and British Petroleum. BP fires
contractors, and harasses its own employees who bring forth safety and
environmental concerns. BP and the State of Alaska have operated with impunity
in the arctic darkness for too long. It is time to take a step back, and do it
right."
> >Personally, I'll take the word of an individual or group of individuals that have
>little
> > or nothing material to gain over giant, greedy, power mongering corporations
> > that have everything to gain anyway.
> >
> The problem is that some of these groups live in alternate realities. For
> example, Greenpeace successfully lobbied against locating a low level
> radioactive dump in an area in Conn. By low level I mean things like the
> booties that people wear into areas that have very low level contamination.
>
> The levels people were talking about were at the levels comparable to the no
> salt (potassium chloride) that you can buy at the local store. I quit
> Greenpeace when they refused to budge on this issue. They considered me
> prejudiced because I work with radiation.
Greenpeace _is_ too extreme on many issues, but so is the oil industry though
they mask it well with their bulls**t "people do" kind of PR campaigns. The
difference is, Greenpeace and other environmental groups don't have millions
to spend on PR.
>
> On a slight tangent, I have a great deal of difficulty with the California
> attitude towards energy production and conservation. SUVs are very popular
> there. But, they won't allow oil wells off their coasts. They are
> perfectly happy getting oil from Gulf Coast wells, or North Sea wells, or
> African Wells, but not Californian wells.
California is 49th of 51 in per capita energy consumption (2) (Texas is
fourth). I think the
SUV trend is silly, but it isn't just California that buys them, and come this
summer, when gas prices top $3/gal., I'll bet the trend comes to an abrupt
end. California pioneered automobile emissions standards and I believe still
has the strictest laws on the books. California has the fourth highest oil
production (year to date) (3), but we will never, never, never besmirch the
Big Sur Coast with oil rigs an the inevitable mess they cause. Did I say
never? N-E-V-E-R. I'd be one of many thousands to volunteer for the monkey
wrench gangs if they try. Our coast is a treasure and no amount of oil will
entice us to desecrate it. I dare say that most other state's oil production
is a lower percentage of their consumption, but who cares anyway. Much of the
country gets a lot of it's produce from California, especially in the winter
months. Should I suggest that other states be more produce independent?
>
> They are shocked at the power shortage, but they won't build power plants.
> If they authorized nuclear plants, they could have electricity that did not
> contribute to global warming. But instead, they relied on plants in other
> states.
Who is they? If anything, we suffer from poor leadership over the past two
decades. For sixteen of those years a Republican has been in the state
house. Most of us had no idea that there was a problem here until last year.
We took the pro industry step of deregulating 2 years ago and this is what it
bought us. I'm convinced that most of the so called crisis is a hoax anyway,
though I don't have facts and figures to back my convictions (to busy trying
to get info on the ANWR and other stuff, but I'll bet it's out there). And I
don't know if you've heard of Diablo Canyon, California's last foray into
nuclear energy, but if you have you probably know what a fiscal disaster it
has been. I pay $2.20/month nuclear decommissioning fee. Yikes. Someone has
to show that Nukes can be economically viable before we spend any effort
building a bunch of them. And don't forget we have a little earthquake
problem here.
>
> IMHO, if California was serious about the environment, they would impose a
> $5.00/gallon tax on gas and a $0.10c a kWh tax on residential electricity
> usage to promote conservation, with tax rebates given to make it revenue
> neutral and to minimize the impact on the poor. It won't happen, though.
We have always encouraged alternative sources here and have several wind farms
and at least one large scale geothermal plant. We have high gas taxes, but I
think that a 250% tax would be a little silly. A 40% rate increase was imposed
the other day, I'll be paying about .17/Kwho. What are you paying again?
Maybe we should charge a premium for states with the highest per capita use.
>
> Back on task, I could sketch a plan to drill in Alaska with a fairly minimal
> impact on the environment. I'd use a few big platforms and run a lot of
> horizontal wells. I'd have them use the type of drilling fluids used in the
> North Sea by the Norwegians. (and you should know that they are strong
> environmentalists.)
>
> As I said before, I think this small reserve (about 4 bbl economically
> recoverable at today's projected prices) should be saved for when we really
> need it and oil is dear. But, we've been able to drill for oil in countries
> that have very stringent environmental regulations like Norway quite
> successfully. I don't see why Alaska cannot follow Norway's success.
>
I refer you to anwrnews.com again. BP owns the rights. Is it wise to let
them in there?
You've said before you think that we should hold the area in reserve. The
best (only?) way to do that would be to protect it now. If we call it some
kind of reserve there is little doubt we'll exploit it as soon as the oil
companies deem it expedient.
(1) http://energy.usgs.gov/factsheets/ANWR/fs-0028-01.html
(2) http://gils.doe.gov:1782/cgi-bin/w3vdkhgw?qryCGATnFHu_;doecrawl-008168
(3)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/petroleum_supply_monthly/current/txt/table_26.txt
