ANWR - The Facts

I continue to hear George Bush and big oil tout opening the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge as the answer to high oil prices. I've even heard this talking point from friends who should know better. But I understand how nearly impossible it is to know better when you're only presented with one side of the story. So I shall attempt to present the missing parts that may have been purposely kept from you.

First, some facts about common misconceptions regarding the outrageous price of oil that we are all enduring right now:

1. There ares no oil shortages causing the recent spikes in price. Repeat - there are no oil shortages. Yes, we are drawing close to the tipping point, but we're not quite to that point just yet.
2. American demand for oil is not driving the price upwards. Nor will conservation efforts by us have any real impact on prices. Demand from other nations, particularly in east Asia, has dramatically increased over the last 20-30 years. So, unless you can get China to kick it's newfound thirst for fossil fuels, our hands are tied.
3. Any way that the data is analyzed, experts agree that oil should be selling for around $65 per barrel right now. What has driven the price to it's record highs is futures trading. Oil has become the new "dot com" for speculators, and it's paying them off handsomely.

How much oil is there in ANWR and how long would it take to access it?

Actually, not that much. What would we gain by allowing heavy industry into the refuge? Very little. Oil from the refuge would hardly make a dent in our dependence on foreign imports, leaving our economy and way of life just as exposed to wild swings in worldwide oil prices and supply as it is today. The truth is, we simply can't drill our way to energy independence.

Although drilling proponents often say there are 16 billion barrels of oil under the refuge's coastal plain, the U.S. Geological Service's estimate of the amount that could be recovered economically, that is, the amount likely to be profitably extracted and sold, represents less than one year's U.S. supply.

It would take 10 years for any Arctic Refuge oil to reach the market, and even when production peaks the refuge would produce a paltry 1 or 2 percent of America's daily consumption which is roughly 20 millions barrels per day!. Whatever oil the refuge might produce is simply irrelevant to the larger issue of meeting America's future energy needs.

What impact would drilling in ANWR have on the environment?

Oil produced from the Arctic Refuge would come at enormous, and irreversible, cost. The refuge is among the world's last true wildernesses, and it is one of the largest sanctuaries for Arctic animals. Traversed by a dozen rivers and framed by jagged peaks, this spectacular wilderness is a vital birthing ground for polar bears, grizzlies, Arctic wolves, caribou and the endangered shaggy musk ox, a mammoth-like survivor of the last Ice Age.

Prudhoe Bay


For a sense of what big oil's heavy machinery would do to the refuge, just look 60 miles west to Prudhoe Bay, a gargantuan oil complex that has turned 1,000 square miles of fragile tundra into a sprawling industrial zone containing 1,500 miles of roads and pipelines, 1,400 producing wells and three jetports. The result is a landscape defaced by mountains of sewage sludge, scrap metal, garbage and more than 60 contaminated waste sites that contain, and often leak, acids, lead, pesticides, solvents and diesel fuel.

ANWR (Just 100 miles east of Prudhoe Bay)


While proponents of drilling insist the Arctic Refuge could be developed by disturbing as little as 2,000 acres within the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, a recent analysis by NRDC reveals this to be pure myth. Why? Because U.S. Geological Survey studies have found that oil in the refuge isn't concentrated in a single, large reservoir. Rather, it's spread across the coastal plain in more than 30 small deposits, which would require vast networks of roads and pipelines that would fragment the habitat, disturbing and displacing wildlife.

Green Day and the NRDC


The drive to drill the Arctic Refuge is about oil company profits and lifting barriers to future exploration in protected lands, pure and simple. It has nothing to do with energy independence. Opening the Arctic Refuge to energy development is about transferring our public estate into corporate hands, so it can be liquidated for a quick buck. We simply cannot let that happen.