Guys, check out these ANWR calculations:

[UndergroundRadical]

Okay, DeLay is hellbent on opening up that refuge. But I decided to do the math myself and find out what would happen if we exploited and processed *100%* of the oil that is believed to be there.

Here goes:

According to this link(the bottom paragraph):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy

At best, according to that study, ANWR has 16 billion barrels of oil.

Now, our domestic oil per barrel consumption, according to this link:

http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/favorites/fcvt_fotw191.shtml

is about 20 million barrels per day. And that was in 2000. It's probably higher now.

Okay, let's do the math:

16 billion barrels/20 million barrels = 800 days of oil use

That means that ANWR *potentially* could satisfy all our oil needs for 800 days even.(approximately)

Now that's 800 days, which equals:

1 year = 365 days

365x2= 730 days or 2 years

800 days - 730 days = 70 days.

So, ANWR, assuming the absolute best, which it most likely is not, could only provide us with 2 years and 70 days worth of oil. And that's assuming we could get it up and out fast and processed.

What do we do after that? We need that oil in case we get in a big war and our foreign oil exports are somehow cutoff. We would be seriously fucked. That's why we need that oil up there.....in case of an emergency. Now 2 years of domestic use would be spread out and would only help us out for about 20 or so years.

After that, we're back to the same old game. The "ANWR solution" is a bandaid on a gunshot wound at best. We have to go hybrid. There is no other way.

Besides, Big Oil won't even touch those ANWR oil fields. They actually won't touch these fields because they won't make enough money off it to be worth their time. Only a few select Alaskan and Canadian oil companies would get a shot at that *potential* oil. This is just another Republican attempt to roll back environmental progress that we have worked and fought so hard for to retain.

[texpatriot2004]

1. Great post. Thanks for doing the math. n.t

[UndergroundRadical]

4. No problem friend, my pleasure

Anything to help save the country I love.

[texpatriot2004]

5. Can you see my big smile? I know how you feel. BTW Welcome

welcome to DU glad you are here :hi:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. Al Gore said..

there used to be almost 300 days of 'permafrost' (ground is frozen enough to drive on) last year there were 80. Let them try. :evilgrin:

drunken trees...
http://class.cldstar.com/engl102_spring2004/articles-to-use/alaska-warming/16ALAS.html

[UndergroundRadical]

3. They're probably introducing some chemicals to the permafrost....

I'm not there so I obviously can't prove it. But you never know what those oil corps are up too....

[Garbo 2004]

6. uh, hello: more likely a sign of global warming. n/t

[UndergroundRadical]

10. Perhaps

Or maybe a combination of the 2. :)

[Canadian Socialist]

7. Add to that the Canadian Parliament is not pleased.

Bagnell, Dion pledge to fight ANWR drilling
Last updated Nov 3 2005 06:38 PM CST
CBC News
Federal politicians held a news conference Thursday to pledge not to give up the fight to save the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

Earlier in the day the U.S. Senate defeated an amendment to the nation's budget bill that is designed to allow oil drilling on the North Slope refuge, calving grounds for the Porcupine Caribou herd.

The amendment was defeated 51-48. Later in the day the entire budget bill passed 52-47.

"Using backdoor tactics to destroy America's last great wild frontier will not solve our nation's energy problems and will do nothing to lower skyrocketing gas prices," said the defeated amendment's sponsor, Senator Maria Cantwell.

But drilling supporters say the stores of crude would raise $2.4 billion US in government leasing fees, reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil imports and create thousands of American jobs.

Federal Environment Minister Stephan Dion says he'll continue to lobby U.S. politicians to vote against the idea.

"To us it is not an internal issue for the Americans, it is an issue for the continent and for the planet because if we start to put at risk our ecosystems– because this drilling will only give oil 10 years from now for a very short period of time– it just doesn't make sense for six months of oil to destroy so fragile an ecosystem."
<snip>
emphasis is mine.

http://www.cbc.ca/north/story/anwr-passes-03112005.html

So, basically, the U.S. government is invading a sovereign nation (the Inuit). Good move, guys.

[UndergroundRadical]

20. As if those assholes ever gave a shit what the Canadians thought anyways

They only care about retaining and promoting 2 things:

1)Their power

2)The dirt money that the special interests grease their pockets with

[Roland99]

8. Ayup. I researched this about 6-7 weeks and found....

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html

Consumption
The United States consumed an average of about 20.4 million bbl/d of oil during the first ten months of 2004, up from 20.0 million bbl/d in 2003. Of this, motor gasoline consumption was 9.0 million bbl/d (or 44% of the total), distillate fuel oil consumption was 4.1 million bbl/d (20%), jet fuel consumption was 1.6 million bbl/d (8%), and residual fuel oil consumption was 0.8 million bbl/d (4%)l. Total 2005 petroleum demand is projected to grow by just 1.4% (280,000 bbl/d), to an average 20.7 million bbl/d, in response to the combined effects of somewhat slower economic growth and relatively high crude oil and product prices. All the major products (except residual fuel oil) are expected to contribute to this growth. Motor gasoline demand is projected to increase 1.8%, to 9.22 million bbl/d. Jet fuel demand is projected to post a growth rate of 3.1% in 2005 to average 1.67 million barrels per day, still below 2000 jet fuel consumption but sharply up from post-9/11 lows it reached in 2002 and 2003. Distillate demand in 2005 is projected to grow only 1.5% year-over-year as industrial growth slows. Demand for residual fuel oil is projected to remain about flat in 2005.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/ogp/analysis_summary.html

Surveys conducted by the USGS suggest that between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil8 are in the coastal plain area of ANWR, with a mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels, divided into many fields.

This is the right-winger response I received:

Lets use a more realistic extraction plan.

1 million barrels a day
10400 days of production=29 years of production. That is of course if their estimates fall exactly in the middle. It could be 8 billion or 16 billion.

To which I replied with this:

A quarter century of oil, eh? hmmm...1 million bbl/d is hardly "providing". That's less than 5% of our daily consumption. And, that assumes all oil coming out of ANWR will be used here in the U.S.

[UndergroundRadical]

11. Thanks for the stat info.

I just wanted to do the math and figure out what these bastards were trying to do to my environment and to my country. It's a sellout to business interests. It's not even Big Oil, it's smaller companies from the Pac NWest and some Alaskan and Canadian companies.

As for the Innuit, they're not really a sovereign nation. We would all like the think they are, as all Native Americans supposedly have - but that's the illusion. The federal government controls this country from top to bottom and there's really nothing anybody can do to stop their fascism.

[Roland99]

15. And there's a reason Cheney was up in Alberta visiting the oil sands

With oil at or above $60/bbl, oil sands becomes a viable resource (and means more $$$ in oil companies' hands)

[peacetalksforall]

9. $$$ for a few. ANWR has always been and always will be a

short term mining money maker for a very few. And a natural atrocity for all creatures.

[mrcheerful]

12. Why isn't anyone questioning the oil execs

about these so called oil numbers and the oil shortages they create? How can we be sure Exxon and the like are not pulling with oil what Debee's pulled with diamonds? Seems everyone reacts to the oil shortages without questioning if there really is an oil shortage. Funny, during the NOLA scam, Exxon and the rest had no troubles meeting the supply and demand of other countries oil needs. Yet here in the good old US of A they reaped insane profits. Doesn't anyone question that its up to the oil companies to put out oil numbers? How soon we forget that Halliburton siphoned off millions of gallons of crude since the Iraq war started and yet theres no records of how much oil they stole out of Iraq. How can we the people trust people that run Exxon and the like when they have lied and lied and lied just to drive the cost of oil up to record numbers? We talk about the freepers not willing to research and look into things yet here we are the thinkers accepting what oil execs have been telling us and not saying a thing about whats going on in the oil companies main offices behind closed doors. Think about it people, if oil was as rare as the oil companies are telling us, then why aren't they the front runners of alternative fuels? Think about how much money they stand to gain by coming up with fuels better then the ones we are using today. Everything the oil execs do smells of cover up, they get our minds off the issue by threatening to drill in places that they know will cause out rage, like Anwr or off the florida coast. Remember its been corporations that taught repiglikins everything about switch and bait tactics.

[SONUVABUSH]

13. Japan

Likely a lot of the oil will be tanked to Japan. But the oil companys will reap huge profits. With under the table kickbacks, Bush and Cronie...er I mean Cheney could reap more fortune.

[UndergroundRadical]

14. There was an a domestic oil shortage.....

That's a fact. The problem is they've developed international markets and they have oil going there because that keeps demand up here and thus the price up here. It's all about business and profit. Believe me, China is doing everything it can to get its dirty hands on our oil. As is India. So just give it time. Exxon has no borders, it is multi-national. That is why it is planning on surviving the fall of America.

[mrcheerful]

16. Funny thing about that shortage

it seems that the wells that were capped in 1974 and called exhausted are now producing oil. The real problem with americas oil numbers are they are controlled by the oil companies execs and if you check back you can see that what they are saying today is what they been saying every 10 to 20 years since 1901. America is out of oil. Whats really odd is in 1974 these same oil companies were saying that by 1994 the oil would run out world wide if they didn't raise the price and cut back. Well they raised the price and theres been no cut backs, in fact the world is using more oil today then ever before. Explain how that happened. Not the using more part but how we should have ran out of oil part. Remember there hasn't been any new oil finds in over 50 years. Like I stated this smells of DeBeer tactics supply and control the out put. Think about it, they said its not a matter of crude its a matter of refineries that causes these shortages yet they haven't built any new ones since Reagan deregulated the oil industry. I smell deceit.

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

17. Nice graphic representation from NRDC

I get their newsletter and saw it, so just found it online too at:

http://www.nrdc.org/land/wilderness/arcticrefuge/facts3.pdf

[Bushwick Bill]

18. Here Is Another Calculation

"If the Environmentalists Would Get Out
of the Way, Can't We Just Drill in ANWR?"

While some folks desperately cling to the belief that oil is a renewable resource, others hold on to the equally delusional idea that tapping the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve will solve, or at least delay, this crisis. While drilling for oil in ANWR will certainly make a lot of money for the companies doing the drilling, it won't do much to help the overall situation for three reasons http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4542853/:

1. According of the Department of Energy, drilling inANWR
will only lower oil prices by less than fifty cents;

2. ANWR contains 10 billion barrels of oil - or about the
amount the US consumes in a little more than a year.

3. As with all oil projects, ANWR will take about 10 years to
come online. Once it does, its production will peak at
875,000 barrels per day - but not till the year 2025. By
then the US is projected to need a whopping 35 million
barrels per day while the world is projected to need 120
million barrels per day.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

[UndergroundRadical]

19. It just goes to show you......

It's a only a drop of piss in the bucket. This isn't going to do anything. It may provide a little temporary relief, but like I said earlier, this is a band-aid over a gunshot wound. We have to diversify our fuel use. Hybrids, solar, hydrogen, whatever. Something has to be done now to help curb our automobile use. Curbing usage of supply is the only way to cut back on demand. And that will actually cause gas prices to go down because the oil companies want you to buy their shit. So, if you can afford it, buy hybrid.