Senate rejects drilling in Alaska wildlife refuge

[FlaSoxxJim]

I'm just sick of dependance on oil in general.  Emissions from vehicles are destroying the air we breath and accelerating global warming.  It's the entire environment I am worried about, not just Alaska's.

 

EDIT:  And before anyone points their finger at me and calls me a hyprocrite, I sold my car earlier this year and ride my bike to work or take the bus/train.  Also a member of the NRDC.

 

Global Warming is a Myth.

 

Oh yeah, and We Don't Torture.

 

Now Get Back in Line.

[kapkomet]

Global Warming is a Myth.

 

Oh yeah, and We Don't Torture.

 

Now Get Back in Line.

Or,

 

WE TORTURE, STFU AND GET BACK IN LINE NOW BEFORE I SHOVE THIS CARBON DIOXIDE DOWN YOUR THROAT!!!

[Balta1701]

Seriously, what is the problem with drilling in ANWAR?  Might disrupt some caribu?  SO WHAT? I agree that we should be trying to find some kind of alternative fuel.  I would love to tell OPEC to shove their oil where the sun don't shine.  But in the mean time, we need oil, it is there, and I don't give a f*** about caribu.

I had this post 95% complete last night...and my damn computer crashed! Arrghhhhh! Here we go again.

 

I fully agree with you that I really don't care about the environmental conditions up in the Arctic wildlife refuge. The only reason I'll ever see that place is if the tundra melts, and suddenly the geology becomes mappable an interesting. It's frozen. Very little actually lives up there compared with most "Wildlife" refuges. Yes, it's nice to keep it pristine, but at some point, you do have to pick and choose which refuges you keep "Pristine". If I had to choose between allowing drilling in ANWR and drilling in the Rocky Mountain Front of Montana, I'd choose ANWR in a second.

 

That said...I believe you're partly wrong when you say the "we need oil, it is there" part. And this is the thing which really frustrates me about this issue...very very few people are actually informed on what is actually up there. In fact, there are several huge concerns with the oil which is actually up there.

 

First of all, let's talk about the estimates. The estimate for the amount of oil up there is somewhere between 5 and 15 billion barrels of oil. As far as I know, this number is based on a very limited number of seismic surveys done in the late 90's, but also based on assumptions as to the maximum amount of oil which could have been produced by the known source rock in the area.

 

The key point here is this...there has not been a real detailed survey of what is actually there. Based on the data we have, we can estimate the maximum yield from the field, but that is assuming that everything goes right. (i.e. we know the size of the reservoir, we basically are assuming the reservoir is totally full and easily recoverable.)

 

Both of these have the potential to be bad assumptions, and here's why.

 

When oil comes out of the ground in Saudi Arabia, it takes roughly $1.50 or so to process that barrel into useable fuel. That's what's called Saudi "Light Sweet Crude". Easily refined stuff. Low phosphorus, not degraded at all, etc. It's a snap to refine that stuff.

 

The stuff we know about from Alaska, however, is not. If we were to pump from ANWR, we'd almost certainly be looking at costs between 5 and 20 times the cost of refining a barrel of Saudi oil just to turn that oil into gasoline. Why? Because there are things which do damage to oil fields, and we know they've been active in Alaska. The oil up there is not of high quality. It's heavy oil. Lots of stuff dissolved in it which needs to be removed during refining. This reduces the total yield of the field (as it takes more energy to refine the stuff) but more importantly, it also makes the field far less cost effective.

 

Secondly, there is a major issue with transportation. We're not just talking about driving down the road and finding an Amoco refinery here like you do in the Chicago area...we're talking about having to ship and transport this stuff hundreds of miles through fragile ecosystems. You have to be careful when you do that, it takes a lot of equipment, and the costs are through the roof.

 

Furthermore, there are also major issues with developing and setting up that large of an operation. You have to transport an enormous amount of equipment up where no man has gone before basically. You have to provide workers up there. These are harsh conditions, they are harsh on equipment, and they cost a ton more money.

 

Finally, there are major issues with the amount of oil there itself. I mentionned a moment ago that the cost of refining the stuff is very high...that's a symptom of a major problem...the oil fields up there have been highly degraded by bacteria and other processes which can eat away at these high energy fluids. What does this produce? Well, basically it produces oil which is non-recoverable or non-useable. What you end up with when this happens is an oil reservoir which doesn't yield nearly as much oil as it could, and that is almost certainly what is happening up there. It is quite possible that the recoverable amounts of oil from that reservoir will be far less than the amounts that officials quote, which is important because there has to be enough oil up there to pump out of the ground in order to justify the expenditure of moving up there and setting up all that equipment. It's quite possible that there won't be enough.

 

Based on these reasons, a huge number of the oil companies which were once interested in drilling up there have already pulled out. Right now there is basically only 1 or 2 companies that are left with any real interest in drilling up there, and most of them only seem to want to do so for political reasons (i.e. they're closely tied with high ups in the Republican Party.) The odds are very, very long against those fields being profitable, even at current oil prices.

 

One of the reasons I hate this issue, however, is that people keep making such a big deal about it. The Democrats and the Republicans both fight over it, and when people hear that they're fighting about it, they assume that it must be a valuable issue, and they assume that it must be a big reservoir in a wonderfully sensitive area. Neither is the case.

 

Drilling in ANWR has become almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Republicans at this point seem like they want to drill there almost solely because they don't want to let the environmentalists win, and the environmentalists don't want drilling up there because they don't want to let the Republicans win. The people hear this, aren't told anything about the actual conditions, and you wind up with 1/2 of the population thinking that those oil fields will mean that we can put Saudi Arabia totally out of business, and you wind up with the other half of the population thinking that ANWR is the most beautiful place on Earth. Neither is true.

[kapkomet]

I had this post 95% complete last night...and my damn computer crashed!  Arrghhhhh!  Here we go again.

 

...

 

Drilling in ANWR has become almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The Republicans at this point seem like they want to drill there almost solely because they don't want to let the environmentalists win, and the environmentalists don't want drilling up there because they don't want to let the Republicans win.  The people hear this, aren't told anything about the actual conditions, and you wind up with 1/2 of the population thinking that those oil fields will mean that we can put Saudi Arabia totally out of business, and you wind up with the other half of the population thinking that ANWR is the most beautiful place on Earth.  Neither is true.

Good post.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

OK, I'm convinced.  If a wonk from Joe Coors' Heritage Foundation says this is the right (Right?) thing to do, then absolutely let's do it.  I mean, if this works out half as well as the Foundation's Reagan era advocacy of SDI and the arming of Afghanistan and Nicaragua it should be just fine.   

 

 

Not to hijack the thread but Reagans SDI efforts are widely credited as the final straw that broke the Soviet Union's back and were the basis for the current and nearly operational missile defense systems we have going into place right now.

 

As for arming Afghanistan it achieved its purpose of engaging the Soviets in their own Vietnam which ended up being a crushing blow to their military. Its too bad Bush Sr walked away from them entirely during his administration.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Or,

 

WE TORTURE, STFU AND GET BACK IN LINE NOW BEFORE I SHOVE THIS CARBON DIOXIDE DOWN YOUR THROAT!!!

Sure, there is something to be said for the Wolfram and Hart approach to honesty in evil.

[Balta1701]

Some rebuttals for traditional arguements...

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/...91756-3971r.htm

Actually, I think I'd say that those rebuttals are pretty darn traditional too.

 

The current version of the bill limits the surface disturbance to 2,000 acres, a small piece of a big coastal plain in a very big wildlife refuge in the biggest state in the Union.

This of course is a complete distortion of the truth, but it's one that the Republicans love because it sounds nice. The bill does limit the surface disturbance to 2000 acres, but that only means that there cannot be permanent development on more than 2000 acres. The real key is what they mean by permanent development or whatever the term they use is...roads are not counted. Parking space is not counted. The large areas inbetween drilling rigs where animals won't go because men are there are not counted. That 2000 acre thing is one of the most annoying bits of spin around, because it's such a pointless limit.

 

Oil development harms local wildlife. An extensive track record proves otherwise.

The piece spends a fair amount of time talking about other developments. Of course the problem with this argument is that you can never apply lessons from 1 ecosystem to another. Just because you can build a dam in 1 river without making a fish population go extinct doesn't mean that you can do so in every river in the country. Just because you can drill or build a pipeline in 1 area doesn't meant hat if you drill in the breeding grounds for many of those animals, you won't see a negative reaction. There's no guarantee you will, but to pretend that other drilling sites are evidence that drilling doesn't harm the environment is simply wrong.

 

Alaskans oppose ANWR drilling. In fact, polls regularly show 75 percent or more of Alaskans support drilling.

Of course, the Washington Times conveniently leaves out the reason why Alaskans so strongly support drilling...that state is incredibly wealthy thanks to oil dollars, and almost all of the citizens pay no taxes and in fact receive refund checks from the state government each year based on the petro dollars. If you paid each American $1000 or so a year to support drilling, I bet you'd get 75% support in every state in the union. (By the way, why can't the Alaskans use some of that money to build their bridge to nowhere? Damn you Ted Stevens!)

[Balta1701]

Not to hijack the thread but Reagans SDI efforts are widely credited as the final straw that broke the Soviet Union's back and were the basis for the current and nearly operational missile defense systems we have going into place right now.

On the point about Reagan I will agree with you, as his offer to share the technology with the Soviets totally removed the possibility of strength in the Soviet system.

 

However, to pretend that the system we have now is anything other than a joke is simply wrong. You give me a bunch of styrofoam and I'll design a dozen ways to defeat that system.

[Cerbaho-WG]

10 billion barrels of oil won't do anything to help decrease foreign dependence. There's over 180 billion barrels of oil in Canadian shale alone and no one ever thinks of drilling that. Well, people do, but those people usually start yelling "PEAK OIL" and then start crying in their underground bunker while watching Mad Max.

[Balta1701]

10 billion barrels of oil won't do anything to help decrease foreign dependence. There's over 180 billion barrels of oil in Canadian shale alone and no one ever thinks of drilling that. Well, people do, but those people usually start yelling "PEAK OIL" and then start crying in their underground bunker while watching Mad Max.

Actually, people do think about accessing those canadian oil shales/tar sands, but there are some severe problems with them. In fact, tehre are at least 2 major companies who have operational plants mining those oil shales.

 

What are the problems? Well, first of all, it costs a ton of money to bring that stuff out of the ground and process it into a usable form. We're talking something on the order of $100-$125 a barrel before it even becomes close to cost effective. So the price of gasoline basically needs to double before they become cost effective. $5 a gallon or more in the U.S. That sort of thing. (The 2 companies that are working up there now are gambling that the process will become cost effective in the near future, and if they have the technique mastered beforehand it will give them a competitive advantage then.)

 

Secondly, those 180 billion barrels of oil? Well, they're not all recoverable. Why? Because it takes an enormous amount of energy to refine and process that stuff. So what they actually end up doing is consuming a significant portion of the recoverable energy just to keep the plant and the process running.

 

Third, those plants are ungodly polluting monsters. The oil shale coming out is dirtier and more polluting than Coal. And you have to burn a ton of the stuff just to generate the energy it needs to process it. Think about this...if we were to supply the entire world's supply of oil based on oil shale...you'd have to increase emmissions by something like 25-50% just because of the fact that it takes so much energy to process the stuff. You'd be dramatically increasing the amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, you'd be dramatically increasing the amount of soot/other pollutants pumped into the air, and you'd be dramatically worsening the health of a lot of people.

 

It is a last resort. But it's not a pleasant one.

[jasonxctf]

Didn't we already pretty much send this BS to the grave last time?  Why post it again when it was blown out of the water the first time?  Basically you just took all of the poorest and least densely populated states and put them on a bad list.  It has nothing to do with red/blue states and everything to do with the progressive tax system that takes from the rich and gives to the poor, well shock upon shocks, it has the same effect on poor/rich states as it is poor/rich people.  Poor people tend to recieve more in tax benefits than they pay, boy what a shock.

 

 

 

we did??? or you did?

[southsider2k5]

we did??? or you did?

 

Trust me, there were others who saw through this load of crap too.

[Cknolls]

Yeah...who cares about medicare and the like?  We need to keep tax breaks for the rich during a time of war.

 

I own stocks, hence receive dividends. I do not consider myself rich. Try another talking point.

[Cknolls]

Ted Stevens is a douche.

 

Ditto the other 99 senators.

[Cknolls]

Earmark=entitlement. Didn't think so. Anyway, I think the earmarks are a joke. And stevens should be put on that island before they build the bridge so he can't get off.

[Cknolls]

copier

 

  Dec 17, 2005 -> 02:59 AM Post #11 

Winston-Salem (High A)

Group: Members

Posts: 542

Joined: December 30, 2002

From: Saint Charles, IL

Member No.: 8

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Dec 16, 2005 -> 09:23 PM)

 

The government should be made to do with less before it asks the people to pay more.  Why should you, me and everyone else subsidize wasteful government spending?

agreed. and that biggest douche in Alaska, Ted Stevens is the worst of them all.

 

I want all Republicans here to look at who is the problem of "big government spending"

 

The Tax Foundation has released a fascinating report showing which states benefit from federal tax and spending policies, and which states foot the bill.

 

The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) that are "winners" -- receiving more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000. Indeed, 17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the most federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Red States. Here are the Top 10 states that feed at the federal trough (with Red States highlighted in bold):

States Receiving Most in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid:

1. D.C. ($6.17)- D

2. North Dakota ($2.03)- R

3. New Mexico ($1.89)-D in 2000, R in 2004

4. Mississippi ($1.84)- R

5. Alaska ($1.82)- R

6. West Virginia ($1.74)- R

7. Montana ($1.64)- R

8. Alabama ($1.61)- R

9. South Dakota ($1.59)-R

10. Arkansas ($1.53)-R

 

In contrast, of the 16 states that are "losers" -- receiving less in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes -- 69% are Blue States that voted for Al Gore in 2000. Indeed, 11 of the 14 (79%) of the states receiving the least federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are Blue States. Here are the Top 10 states that supply feed for the federal trough (with Blue States highlighted in bold

 

States Receiving Least in Federal Spending Per Dollar of Federal Taxes Paid:

 

1. New Jersey ($0.62)- D

2. Connecticut ($0.64)- D

3. New Hampshire ($0.68) R in 2000, D in 2004

4. Nevada ($0.73)- R

5. Illinois ($0.77)- D

6. Minnesota ($0.77)- D

7. Colorado ($0.79)- R

8. Massachusetts ($0.79)- D

9. California ($0.81)- D

10. New York ($0.81)- D

 

Two states -- Florida and Oregon (coincidentally, the two closest states in the 2000 Presidential election) -- received $1.00 in federal spending for each $1.00 in federal taxes paid.

 

This post has been edited by jasonxctf: Dec 17, 2005 -> 03:08 AM

 

Party in power controls the purse strings.

[Cknolls]

f*** yea!  Let's increase taxes so you poor f***s can have some more government handouts!

 

Right on Kap.

[Cknolls]

Seriously, what is the problem with drilling in ANWAR?  Might disrupt some caribu?  SO WHAT? I agree that we should be trying to find some kind of alternative fuel.  I would love to tell OPEC to shove their oil where the sun don't shine.  But in the mean time, we need oil, it is there, and I don't give a f*** about caribu.

 

They (greenies), said the same thing when the Alaska Pipeline was being planned. And lo and behold the number of caribou has increased since then. Some say it may be due to the warmth of the pipeline itself. Nobody knows how much oil is underground there; but it seems the consensus is anywhere from the low two digit billions to the mid twenty billion barrels. That amount of oil, if available, would have eased the burden on the suppliers in the Gulf after the hurricane.

[kapkomet]

That amount of oil, if available, would have eased the burden on the suppliers in the Gulf after the hurricane.

That is absolutely not a fair comparision. Supply of oil had nothing to do with that - it had to do with refinery capacity at that point.

[Cknolls]

I am overwhelmed by the staggering profundity of your artfully crafted retort.

 

:headshake

 

For anyone who thinks this is solely about some Caribou, then I think you've got your head in the sand.  Unfortunately, the way the environmental lobby comes off in the media (in great part because of their own poor marketing tactics), you'd think the only reason we protect open space was to avoid killing off some specific wild animals.  It's about a heck of a lot more than that.

 

And by the way, if you read a previous post of mine, it refers to the Goldman Sachs report (which I am now going to see if I can dig up) that basically says the positive economic impact of that oil on the average US consumer would be so small on a per-gallon of gas basis, that they wouldn't even notice it over an entire year.

 

Use the money to do something useful - reduce our dependence on non-renewable resources.

 

 

Like windmills off the coast of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Oh, no, I forgot the surly drunk from Massachusetts lives there and that would ruin his view of the water from his burka lounger on Hyannisport.

[kapkomet]

Like windmills off the coast of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Oh, no, I forgot the surly drunk from Massachusetts lives there and that would ruin his view of the water from his burka lounger on Hyannisport.

Yea, I find that a bit interesting as well. GREEN GREEN GREEN friendly... but it better not effect ME!

[Cknolls]

Actually, people do think about accessing those canadian oil shales/tar sands, but there are some severe problems with them.  In fact, tehre are at least 2 major companies who have operational plants mining those oil shales.

 

What are the problems?  Well, first of all, it costs a ton of money to bring that stuff out of the ground and process it into a usable form.  We're talking something on the order of $100-$125 a barrel before it even becomes close to cost effective.  So the price of gasoline basically needs to double before they become cost effective.  $5 a gallon or more in the U.S.  That sort of thing.  (The 2 companies that are working up there now are gambling that the process will become cost effective in the near future, and if they have the technique mastered beforehand it will give them a competitive advantage then.)

 

Secondly, those 180 billion barrels of oil?  Well, they're not all recoverable.  Why?  Because it takes an enormous amount of energy to refine and process that stuff.  So what they actually end up doing is consuming a significant portion of the recoverable energy just to keep the plant and the process running.

 

Third, those plants are ungodly polluting monsters.  The oil shale coming out is dirtier and more polluting than Coal.  And you have to burn a ton of the stuff just to generate the energy it needs to process it.  Think about this...if we were to supply the entire world's supply of oil based on oil shale...you'd have to increase emmissions by something like 25-50% just because of the fact that it takes so much energy to process the stuff.  You'd be dramatically increasing the amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, you'd be dramatically increasing the amount of soot/other pollutants pumped into the air, and you'd be dramatically worsening the health of a lot of people.

 

It is a last resort.  But it's not a pleasant one.

 

This is similar to the argument of using oil and gas to refine ethenal to use less gas. It is not very cost effective, but it helps the farmers, and we all love to help subsidize our farmers.

[Cknolls]

Actually, people do think about accessing those canadian oil shales/tar sands, but there are some severe problems with them.  In fact, tehre are at least 2 major companies who have operational plants mining those oil shales.

 

What are the problems?  Well, first of all, it costs a ton of money to bring that stuff out of the ground and process it into a usable form.  We're talking something on the order of $100-$125 a barrel before it even becomes close to cost effective.  So the price of gasoline basically needs to double before they become cost effective.  $5 a gallon or more in the U.S.  That sort of thing.  (The 2 companies that are working up there now are gambling that the process will become cost effective in the near future, and if they have the technique mastered beforehand it will give them a competitive advantage then.)

 

Secondly, those 180 billion barrels of oil?  Well, they're not all recoverable.  Why?  Because it takes an enormous amount of energy to refine and process that stuff.  So what they actually end up doing is consuming a significant portion of the recoverable energy just to keep the plant and the process running.

 

Third, those plants are ungodly polluting monsters.  The oil shale coming out is dirtier and more polluting than Coal.  And you have to burn a ton of the stuff just to generate the energy it needs to process it.  Think about this...if we were to supply the entire world's supply of oil based on oil shale...you'd have to increase emmissions by something like 25-50% just because of the fact that it takes so much energy to process the stuff.  You'd be dramatically increasing the amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, you'd be dramatically increasing the amount of soot/other pollutants pumped into the air, and you'd be dramatically worsening the health of a lot of people.

 

It is a last resort.  But it's not a pleasant one.

 

I just read an article a couple of weeks ago that said there may be in excess of 100 billion barrels of oil in the shale deposits of colorado,utah and wyoming.

[NorthSideSox72]

Yea, I find that a bit interesting as well.  GREEN GREEN GREEN friendly... but it better not effect ME!

 

What do you find interesting in that post? Perhaps I missed some news snippet about Martha's Vineyard. Did they pitch a fit about offsore wind turbines or something?

 

Actually, a lot of power alternatives will make things much more pleasant, if you ask me (though that's just a nice side effect). Every one of the new generation of alternative energy producers (wind, solar, hodroelectric, hydrogen cells, etc.) has drawbacks of course. That's why a combination of them is ideal. The payoff would be huge, in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, reducing our needs in the Middle East, cutting polution and the problems that causes, etc.

[Cknolls]

That is absolutely not a fair comparision.  Supply of oil had nothing to do with that - it had to do with refinery capacity at that point.

 

How do you think they refine the oil from prudhoe bay? Pipe it down to New Orleans?