OIL: Can You Handle the Truth, or are You a Republican. Part I

So what was the Energy Information Administration's final doom on the subject? At the end of their above report they had this to say:

"The projections of the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic and Eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2020."

Right - and so much for that particular fairy tale. Now let's take a brief look at the ANWR.

According to Cheney, that personification of veracity, drilling in the ANWR will only affect a mere 2000 acres. This, of course, represents the acreage the drill platforms will cover, not the infrastructure, pipelines, etc. His statement is like saying that a moving car only occupies a few inches of road - which is correct if your definition of "occupy" has been narrowed to count only the space the tires touch the pavement at any given second. Air Fleischer, one of the Bush administration's professional equivocators once said  the ANWR reserves are "so massive that they will last for an extended long period of time."

Apart from the fact that his statement contains a redundancy, it is, needless to say, complete bollocks. The most optimistic figures estimate the ANWR reserves to be in the 600,000 to 900,000 barrel-a-day range, but only after 7 to 12 years' development. That's 9 to 10 month's consumption at the US's current rate of 20 million barrels a day.

However, that figure represents only the total amount of "technically recoverable" oil. That's akin to my claiming I could "technically" be sleeping with Pamela Anderson tonight. Well, "technically," it's possible, but I leave it to you to run the figures on the chances of it actually happening.

The US Geological Survey has a second set of numbers on ANWR, calculating what it calls the "economically recoverable oil." This re-jigs the USGS figures on "technically recoverable oil" to a maximum of 5.6 billion barrels. This will only lower US import needs by 2% and only after a minimum of 7 to 8 years.
If the fuel efficiency of the average car were increased a mere 3 miles per gallon - which is easily within our capablility - the resultant savings in oil would be five times what ANWR at its most optimistic is capable of producing.

Pity for us the Bush administration bent over and dropped its trousers for the oil industry almost eight years ago.

Part Two to follow soon. Get'cher popcorn.

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