ANWR: Understanding Sen. Ted Stevens' Connection to US Forces

[pattylou]

Drilling in ANWR has been postponed. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the recent developments on this.

I was puzzled by this quote from a proponent for drilling:

Arguing that a vote against ANWR was a vote against the US forces in the field, Sen. Ted Stevens (R) of Alaska tried to muster the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1223/p01s01-uspo.html

The only way this makes sense to me, is that Stevens must be saying that we are in Iraq for oil.

?

Can you give me another take on this strange connection Stevens is making between drilling for oil in Alaska, and US forces?

 

[daveb]

Um, he's a tad loopy? After all, this is the guy that went into hysterics about a proposed amendment to eliminate some pork in the national budget simply because said pork was a bridgethat led to nowhere that would be named after him.

 

[russ_watters]

Regardless of why we went into Iraq, I don't see what ANWR has to do with it, unless he's arguing that Alaskan oil reduces the need for Mid-East oil - so voting for ANWR means our troops can come home. But that's pretty thin.

Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either.

 

[russ_watters]

And for the record - few people (Republicans included) would claim that our overall interest in the Middle-East is not because of the oil. If they didn't have oil, we'd pay about as much attention to them as we do to Africa.

 

[BobG]

Drilling in ANWR has been postponed. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the recent developments on this.
I was puzzled by this quote from a proponent for drilling:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1223/p01s01-uspo.html
The only way this makes sense to me, is that Stevens must be saying that we are in Iraq for oil.
?
Can you give me another take on this strange connection Stevens is making between drilling for oil in Alaska, and US forces?

It probably is directly related to the fact that Stevens is a Senator from Alaska and Alaska receives a lot of money from oil drilling. In fact, instead of paying state taxes, Alaska residents get free money from the state's share of oil proceeds.

In other words, it's a case of 'who cares if it makes sense or not - I'll say anything that keeps money rolling into Alaska'.

 

[deckart]

Why do people have a problem with opening ANWR for drilling? At this point I think it's just political bs that the left wants to push for no other reason than that they have been able to for several years and losing that would be bad for the party. Other than that I don't understand why we wouldn't open it up. I've lived up there for ten years of my life and it might as well be a freakin desert because there is virtually nothing up there. It would do nothing but help ween us off of M.E. oil, create jobs and help our economy.
A little off topic, but it's a situation I just don't understand.

 

[standing lenticular]

... It would do nothing but help ween us off of M.E. oil, create jobs and help our economy.
A little off topic, but it's a situation I just don't understand.

ANWR would not ween us off ME oil. ANWR at it's peak projected output (1 million bbl/day) would supply the US with 5% of our current daily consumption. if all of the projected oil is used it gives the US tops 2 years of oil, if we were able to recover it all spontaneously. ANWR would do little to help the US in it's quest for energy independance, and does nothing to "ween us off of M.E. oil".

who knows maybe the extra 600 days is seen as worth it for most americans, but then that scenario begs the question. where the next two years after that?

 

[Skyhunter]

Didn't he attach the measure to the defense appropriations bill?

I expected to hear this type of rhetoric as soon as I heard that the amendment was part of the defense spending bill.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Didn't he attach the measure to the defense appropriations bill?
I expected to hear this type of rhetoric as soon as I heard that the amendment was part of the defense spending bill.

Yes, it was attached to the defense spending bill, but a Dem made fuss and had it changed, IIRC.

 

[deckart]

ANWR would not ween us off ME oil. ANWR at it's peak projected output (1 million bbl/day) would supply the US with 5% of our current daily consumption. if all of the projected oil is used it gives the US tops 2 years of oil, if we were able to recover it all spontaneously. ANWR would do little to help the US in it's quest for energy independance, and does nothing to "ween us off of M.E. oil".
who knows maybe the extra 600 days is seen as worth it for most americans, but then that scenario begs the question. where the next two years after that?

The North Slope currently accounts for 25% of our current domestic production and geologists agree that ANWR could rival or exceed that http://www.anwr.org/backgrnd/potent.html . Where do you get 5% for 2yrs? I don't believe those are valid projections.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

From your link

U.S. Department of Interior - 1987. After several years of surface geological investigations, aeromagnetic surveys, and two winter seismic surveys (in 1983-84 and 1984-85), the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI), in its April, 1987 report on the oil and gas potential of the Coastal Plain, estimated that there are billions of barrels of oil to be discovered in the area. DOI estimates that "in-place resources" range from 4.8 billion to 29.4 billion barrels of oil. Recoverable oil estimates ranges from 600 million barrels at the low end to 9.2 billion barrels at the high end. They also reported identifying 26 separate oil and gas prospects in the Coastal Plain that could each contain "super giant" fields (500 million barrels or more).

From a previous thread

Summary

In anticipation of the need for scientific support for policy decisions and in light of the decade-old perspective of a previous assessment, the USGS has completed a reassessment of the petroleum potential of the ANWR 1002 area. This was a comprehensive study by a team of USGS scientists in collaboration on technical issues (but not the assessment) with colleagues in other agencies and universities. The study incorporated all available public data and included new field and analytic work as well as the reevaluation of all previous work.

Using a methodology similar to that used in previous USGS assessments in the ANWR and the National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska, this study estimates that the total quantity of technically recoverable oil in the 1002 area is 7.7 BBO (mean value), which is distributed among 10 plays. Most of the oil is estimated to occur in the western, undeformed part of the ANWR 1002 area, which is closest to existing infrastructure. Furthermore, the oil is expected to occur in a number of accumulations rather than a single large accumulation. Estimates of economically recoverable oil, expressed by probability curves, show increasing amounts of oil with increasing price. At prices less than $13 per barrel, no commercial oil is estimated, but at a price of $30 per barrel, between 3 and 10.4 billion barrels are estimated. Economic analysis includes the costs of finding, developing, producing, and transporting oil to market based on a 12 percent after-tax return on investment, all calculated in constant 1996 dollars.

The amounts of in-place oil estimated for the ANWR 1002 area are larger than previous USGS estimates. The increase results in large part from improved resolution of reprocessed seismic data and geologic analogs provided by recent nearby oil discoveries.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.htm
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/

As can be seen here and as is usually the case, the republican claims are ludicrous. This is about making a buck. The fox now guards the hen house.
http://energy.senate.gov/legislation/energybill/charts/chart8.pdf
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:...ll/charts/chart8.pdf+oil+consumption+US&hl=en

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=67562

 

[standing lenticular]

i'm sorry if it sounded confusing. i have seen projections of 1 million bbl/day peak production from ANWR (from a 10.6 billion bbl reserve). the US consumes 20 million (domestic and international) bbl/day so 1/20 is 5%.

if we were able to extract all that oil at one time those 10.6 billion / (365 days * 20 million bbl/day) = 1.45 years = 529 days of oil independance.

sorry if those figures confused you. the second case is an impossibility. at peak production it would supply 5% of US usage for about 30 years and that extra 5% probably would only offset the declining production of the north slope (in decline since 1988) and the US's trend of increased annual usage.

hope that clears it up.

 

[deckart]

Clear as mud :) I just spoke with an ex-coworker that lives in Fairbanks, AK and he says that they aren't as hopeful for ANWR as they are for a new natural gas pipeline. That would give the Alaskan economy several billion dollars with the construction project alone.