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Drill in Alaska, drill now!

Written by Dr. Rich Swier

Monday, 14 July 2008

Below are a series of pictures highlighting the size of ANWR, the size of the part of ANWR that Republicans want to drill in, what that small area really looks like during the summer and winter, and pictures of the existing oil rigs at Prudhoe Bay and what it looks like during the summer and winter.

This first diagram shows the size of ANWR and Alaska compared to the continental U.S. Clearly ANWR, while containing 19 million acres, is small when compared to the entire U.S.

Prudhoe Bay in the winter. Note the similar desolation of Prudhoe Bay and the proposed drilling area. Neither is hospitable in winter.

As Paul Driessen of Townhall.com points out, "One of our best prospects is Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which geologists say contains billions of barrels of recoverable oil. If President Clinton hadn’t bowed to Wilderness Society demands and vetoed 1995 legislation, we’d be producing a million barrels a day from ANWR right now. That’s equal to US imports from Saudi Arabia, at $50 billion annually.

Drilling in ANWR would get new oil flowing in 5-10 years, depending on how many lawsuits environmentalists file. That’s far faster than benefits would flow from supposed alternatives: devoting millions more acres of cropland to corn or cellulosic ethanol, converting our vehicle fleet to hybrid and flex-fuel cars, building dozens of new nuclear power plants, and blanketing thousands of square miles with wind turbines and solar panels. These alternatives would take decades to implement, and all face political, legal, technological, economic and environmental hurdles.

ANWR is the size of South Carolina. Its narrow coastal plain is frozen and windswept most of the year. Wildlife flourish amid drilling and production in other Arctic regions, and would do so near ANWR facilities. Inuits who live there know this, and support drilling by an 8:1 margin. Gwich’in Indians who oppose drilling live hundreds of miles away – and have leased and drilled their own tribal lands, including caribou migratory routes.

Drilling and production operations would impact only 2,000 acres – to produce 15 billion gallons of oil annually. Saying this tiny footprint would spoil the refuge is like saying a major airport along South Carolina’s northern border would destroy the state’s scenery and wildlife.

It’s a far better bargain than producing 7 billion gallons of ethanol in 2007 from corn grown on an area the size of Indiana (23 million acres).

It’s far better than using wind to generate enough electricity to power New York City, which would require blanketing Connecticut (3 million acres) with turbines. "

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