alaska oil?

Question

We all know the US still has plenty of oil left. My question is why aren't we drilling not just in alaska but on other parts of the US as well. Wouldn't we be able to at a worse case scenerio make the other oil rich countries relize they need to stop slaming us with these high prices if there threatend to have less oil leave there country. I could be wrong but seems to me we got a good bargaining chip. at least till a good realistic alternitive to oil comes around

I like the moto "screw the carribou drill aslaska" The carribou will be just fine if we drill there so hush you overbearing animal rights nutjobs (no offense to those of you who like animals and don't take it to extremes.....

Answer 1

Wow.... I recognise that I might have a bit more insight into the oil field than your average person, but I'm amazed by how misinformed some of your other answers are. Firstly, I completely agree. We need to work hard, have a national initiative to become self reliant for our energy needs. This would involve three basic components. 1)conservation 2)increased petroleum production 3)alternate fuel research. The truth of the matter is we don't know how much oil we have in proven researves. We theorise that ANWAR may have between 8-15 billion of recoverable oil, but we don't know for sure. There is also the possibility of vast researves of the east coast. The Hibernia platform off the coast of Nova Scotia is producing around 350,000 barrels of oil a day. I doubt that the oil ceases to exist once we cross Canada'a southern marine border. There is also the chance for there to be vast researves off the coast of Virginia, Gorgia, Florida. We just don't know. There has been a moratorium on drilling, exploration, or even seismic studies off the east cost. As far as "earthquakes" being an issue, ANWAR is in the northern part of Alaska, away from any perminant human settlements and opposite side from Anchorage or the Pacific Plate Boundery. It isn't geologically active. The Carabou don't really mind or care about the rigs on the north slope, and seem to appriciate the lease roads so they don't have to walk through the marsh when the permafrost melts. Alaska has the best environmentally friendly drilling practices of any state I have drilled in, and I've worked in La, Ms, Al, Tx, Ok, Nd, Sd, Mt, Wy, Co, Ut, Nm, Az, Ak, and Ca. As far as the "rainy day" theory goes.. It doesn't help one lick to have these researves with no way to retrieve them. Even if we started a major push now to make these areas produce, it would be a minimum of 4 years till we would start seeing any signifigant oil to start to flow from these places because it would take time to drill them, set up the infastructure in the way of pipelines. We also need to build more refineries. All of this makes sense, and no one wants to see them in their back yards. I agree though, we need to start planning now for our energy needs. If we don't start now, we will continue to be bent over the barrel (bad pun, I know) by oil exporting countries, and continue to be mired by nessecity in the middle east.

Answer 2

To build on the factual things OilField says (and to differ a bit on the conclusions):

I agree that the caribou will do just fine either way. 3 weeks ago I was never out of sight of them for the last 30 miles approaching Prudhoe Bay.

The Alaskan North Slope has a bunch of oil and it is in big reserves that are economical to access and there is already a pipeline in place.

And, it would be drilled in a more enivronmentally sensitive manner than almost any oilfield work anywhere in the world.

BUT, currently oil is still a world commodity. It makes no sense to me to pull our oil out of our ground when the Middle East, Mexico, Venezuala, etc are all eager to sell theirs. Let's wait until it is truly a strategic material like metals and helium and rubber were in WWII. If there was a free way to put in infrastructure and then NOT use it, great. But in practice, the government doesn't build that stuff. Very large companies do in return for getting the oil for practically free (in AK, they do have pay the state a royality). And BP, etc are not going to spend $10 billion so that our country will be more secure 20 years from now. Only if they get to pump it right away.

Drilling more wells in Alaska won't reduce the price for gasoline in the US. It will marginally effect world oil prices and therefore only marginally effect US gas prices - a few pennies per gallon. Unless the lease holders are required to sell at only $XX/barrel and refiners are held to some price or profit limits. That won't happen with this administration and this congress and arguably never should.

The country with the most oil production capacity - Saudi Arabia - actually was trying to keep prices around $25/barrel. Both so other fields are not brought on line (as they become economically feasible) and because they have so much invested in Western economies.

So I don't see the point of sending them some message. This is not a two-party negiogation. It is a worldwide commodity market and we refuse to get out of our SUVs and China refuses to stop growing and so many other third world countires are just now getting to where we were in the 1950's. Oil and cement and steel and plywood and lumber, etc are not coming down in price. Sorry. The planet can support more than 6 billion people but not as easily as it supported fewer in the past. And not forever.

Rather than say "USA first, I want cheap gas next year.", I say, "My children first, let's leave them some resources so that the upcoming challanges and shortages (that we created) aren't as tough on them as they would otherwise be."

-David

Answer 3

Alaska oil hurts more than caribou. (No, I'm not an environmentalist, and definitely not a vegetarian.) Drilling for oil can ruin life in the sea as well, which would then, hurt the lives of the people there. Remember, the Alaskan natives have lived there longer than we have been a country. What we CAN do is loosen the restrictions on oil companies, and allow them to drill for more oil. Right now, the U.S. uses almost 50% of all oil consumed, worldwide. If we tapped into our own supplies, we would risk using them all up. We wouldn't be able to defend ourselves if we didn't have oil. That is why we import the majority of our oil. In a worst case scenario, if there was a 3rd World War, we might not be able to import ANY oil, and would deplete our supply pretty quickly. So, the government has implemented, basically, a "rainy day" policy to insure that won't happen.

Answer 4

There's not enough oil in Alaska for a long term solution. Also, it costs too much to get it right now. It's much cheaper to bid up the price on the open market. When oil goes up even more, it will make economic sense to drill in Alaska and elsewhere in the U.S. Coincidently, the same market forces that will make drilling in Alaska economically feasible also make alternatives feasible. That is, the energy created from 1 barrel of oil can be produced by wind power but that wind power facility currently costs $85 to build (per unit of energy) When oil reaches $85/barrel, then people will invest in wind power and ...voila our alternative has appeared.

Answer 5

The problem isn't so much specifically the caribou but rather the destruction of multiple animals to extinction. The caribou are food to many species including some humans. If they die, those who eat them die. There is also the seals, whales, bears, all kinds of animals that depend on each other for life. And we depend on them for life. We and all animals and plants form a symbiotic relationship with each other and with the planet and it is feared sooner or later we may just kill one animal too many and throw the entire ecosystem of the world off balance too far. Then life collapses and we enter a period of starvation and quite possibly climate changes (The oxygen level of the atmosphere is maintained by plants, that survive only when we provide them with carbon dioxide), by killing off too many species of life we will forever alter the atmosphere and that can change the climate.

Whether drilling in Alaska will accomplish that or not is questionable, but it might just be what it takes to do it. And even if it isn't, doing so brings us one step closer to that reality, and all for politics. Be careful of how far you are willing to take things just to get an upper hand on another person.

Answer 6

We need to stop using oil -- not find new sources. Get on google earth and see what's left of the North Pole. And you want to drill in Alaska. Did you know that Alaska has daily earthquakes. On My Yahoo there is a link for earthquakes and since I've had this link there hasn't been a day with out an earthquake.