Reply #17: Do you really beleive that

[Viking12]

drilling in Alaska will lead to oil independence???? Not so according to the USGS (http://energy.usgs.gov/factsheets/ANWR/ANWR.):
Using the updated report and recent oil prices, the USGS estimated in 2000 that, assuming a price of $24 per barrel, there is a 95% chance of finding 1.9 billion barrels (BBO) of economically recoverable oil in the Arctic Refuge's 1002 Area; a 5% chance of finding 9.4 BBO; and a 50% chance of finding 5.3 BBO. (Present oil prices are ranging between $20 to $25 per barrel). Nearly 1 million barrels of oil a day are produced from the existing oil fields in areas west of the Arctic Refuge, and new production would compete with current production for space in the Alyeska Pipeline’s 1 million barrel per day carrying capacity.
Americans currently use 19 million barrels of oil each day. There is, therefore, a 50% chance of finding a 9-month's supply of oil in the 1002 Area, at $24 per barrel. The Department of Energy, estimates that daily consumption will rise to 24 million barrels per day. As of 1999, we imported roughly 11 million barrels per day or about 60% of our total daily oil. By 2020 that figure will rise to more than 17 million barrels per day or about 72% of our total daily oil. If the highest estimations were met, 11.8 billion barrels of ANWR oil were to be both technically & economically recoverable and transportable, oil production in ANWR could meet only 7 percent of the United State’s daily oil demand at projected 2020 consumption rates. The more probable production figures suggest that ANWR would generate a mere 1.5 percent of the nation’s daily oil needs by 2020. Even under the most optimistic ANWR scenario, the evidence shows that oil production in ANWR could not significantly reduce the United States dependence on foreign oil. The only way to reduce dependence on foreign oil is to reduce consumption in real figures.