The article in the Christian Science Monitor was very
helpful in that it provided a sort of "probability
analysis" of the amount of recoverable oil, from both
a technical and an economic point of view. However, it
failed mention that it WILL TAKE TEN YEARS TO GET ANY
OF
IT INTO USE, a critical issue which gains even greater
significance when national security is considered.

Jim Fleming

P.S. About 45 people heard U of I Prof. David
Osterberg give an excellent talk on global warming
last night in Fairfield. Phil Scott, Leopold Group
Political Chair then led a lively discussion on taking
action. More signatures were gathered for the petition
letter to Grassley, urging him oppose Arctic drilling
and to support a more responsible energy policy.
Have any of the other groups sent the letter?
Let me know if you need another copy of it.
JF
--- Jane Clark <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Today, Senator Murkowski threatened repeatedly on
> the Senate floor that he
> would attach Arctic drilling provisions to every
> bill that comes up for
> debate on the Senate floor.  Earlier this fall,
> Murkowski himself took to
> the Senate floor to deny that he was even
> contemplating offering such
> amendments, but he is definitely intent on
> exploiting recent events (and
> bills such as the economic stimulus package and the
> farm bill) to advance
> his own partisan political agenda.
>
> We need to contact our Senators about these
> persistent threats.
> Jane Clark
>
>
> Published on Monday, November 26, 2001 in the
> Christian Science Monitor
>
> Going Backwards: New Push to Pump Oil from Alaska
> Refuge
>
> by Brad Knickerbocker
>
> An important side conflict in the war on terrorism
> is the political battle
> over whether or not to drill for more oil in the
> United States. The Bush
> administration and its friends in Congress are using
> the recent terrorist
> attacks and war in Afghanistan to push for more
> domestic oil drilling -
> especially in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
> (ANWR) in Alaska and other
> public land.
>
> Supporters say drilling there is necessary to lessen
> reliance on foreign
> imports, which are projected to increase by 57
> percent over the next 20
> years.
>
> Opponents say national wildlife refuges and other
> protected areas never were
> intended to include oil wells and all the disruptive
> development and
> pollution they bring. The Senate could see a
> filibuster on the issue, which
> is attached to the economic-stimulus package.
>
> Some lawmakers and energy analysts say the lesson of
> the past 10 weeks is
> that the United States needs to become more energy
> efficient rather than
> scramble for more oil.
>
> Citing EPA figures, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) says, "In
> seven years, we could
> save the same amount of oil available in the Arctic
> Refuge by requiring
> light trucks and SUVs to meet the same efficiency
> standards as regular
> cars."
>
> But Vice President Dick Cheney, who wrote the
> administration's
> production-dominated energy plan earlier this year,
> told the US Chamber of
> Commerce recently that for national-security reasons
> it would be "foolish in
> the extreme" not to increase domestic oil sources.
>
> For years, environmentalists have wrangled with
> oil-industry supporters over
> the 1.5 million-acre coastal plain of the Arctic
> refuge, which lies just
> east of the North Slope drilling facilities that
> pump oil south to Valdez
> through the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
>
> "The ANWR is simply not just a place to drill oil,
> it is the largest
> potential domestic source of oil," Interior
> Secretary Gale Norton told an
> oil producers' association in Houston recently.
> "This is a matter necessary
> for security and also to enhance economic recovery."
>
> As she frequently does, Ms. Norton also noted that
> the US imports 700,000
> barrels of oil a day from Iraq. "It's time to start
> investing that money in
> our own backyard and not in the back pocket of
> Saddam Hussein," she said.
>
> Republicans and a few Democrats on Capitol Hill are
> emphasizing the same
> point. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R) of Alaska calls ANWR
> "our nation's best hope
> for new domestic exploration," and he says, "it can
> replace the oil we buy
> from Saudi Arabia for the next 30 years."
>
> But critics assert that these kinds of projections
> are based on questionable
> estimates of the amount of oil beneath ANWR's icy
> tundra. Senator Murkowski
> cites the more optimistic oil production estimates
> of 16 billion barrels of
> oil.
>
> According to the US Geological Survey's most recent
> analysis, there is only
> a 5 percent chance that that much oil could be
> recovered.
>
> The "mean value" of recoverable oil is 10.4 billion
> barrels, reports the
> USGS. There is a 95 percent chance that it could be
> far less than the figure
> Murkowski cites, the USGS says, or as little as 5.7
> billion barrels. That
> number could fall further if state and native lands
> are not included.
>
> All those numbers refer to "technically recoverable"
> oil. A more relevant
> figure may be "economically recoverable" oil -
> meaning oil that would be
> worth the cost of extracting it from the ground.
> This means that the fight
> over ANWR - one of the most important environmental
> issues today - is
> complicated by the ever-changing price of oil.
>
> As the price drops - as it's been doing lately - so
> too does the amount of
> economically-recoverable oil. Using a 12 percent
> return on investment, the
> USGS estimates that at a market price of $24 per
> barrel there is a "mean
> value" of 5.2 billion barrels available.
>
> But at last week's price of $15.35 per barrel, the
> Wilderness Society, an
> environmental organization in Washington, estimates
> only about 1 billion
> barrels would be economically recoverable from
> beneath the refuge.
>
> According to a USGS fact sheet, no oil could be
> profitably recovered from
> ANWR at prices less than $13 per barrel.
>
> The economic debate over ANWR centers on jobs as
> well as barrels of oil.
>
> A 1990 study commissioned by the American Petroleum
> Institute projected
> 750,000 new jobs created as a result of oil
> production in ANWR.
>
> But a September study by the Center for Economic and
> Policy Research in
> Washington cites updated world oil supplies, the
> likely response to falling
> oil prices by producing nations, and the sensitivity
> of employment to oil
> prices, to assert that just 46,300 jobs would
> result.
>
> Oil industry supporters insist that drilling can be
> compatible with
> preserving the environment.
>
> But earlier this year, the US Fish and Wildlife
> Service, which manages the
> national wildlife refuge system, reported that
> refuges in Alaska "are not
> impervious to contaminant threats [caused by oil
> development], and many of
> them have significant and regrettable contaminant
> histories."
>
> Copyright © 2001 The Christian Science Monitor.
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> - - - - - -
> To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message
> to:
> [log in to unmask]


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT
to [log in to unmask]