Editorial 3.3, March 2001, by Deirdre Helfferich Editorial: Political Murk and Energy Owskis On Friday, March 30, Senator Murkowski and Secretary of the Interior Norton had a grand dinner at the UA Museum with a few senators, six or so, as part of a trip to convince them that not only is it in the national interest to allow exploratory drilling and seismic work in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it really won’t harm anything anyway, because there’s nothing up there but snow. And a lot of pregnant caribou. And the people who depend on them. Not to mention a few crucial nesting sites for the thousands of migratory birds that will start arriving in May. So our esteemed junior senator is doing it to us again. Quite a few people showed up at the museum at around 5:30 in the evening to stand outside in the snow and demonstrate their support of ANWR for what it is: a refuge. Others showed up to demonstrate their support of ANWR as an oil field. Murkowski snuck in the food service entrance, to the great annoyance of both camps. The fate of the refuge has been the subject of lively debate across the country lately, with people such as President-Select Bush crying "Energy crisis!" and clamoring for drilling as a solution to the problem. The situation in California seems to be handy to these folks for use as an example of what we are in for, and much has been made of how all that oil in ANWR could save those in California from their plight. California, of course, is suffering from mismanagement and deregulation of the wrong end of the power business, not so much a lack of fuel—although that may soon become an issue if conservation continues to be a dirty word. Besides which, the power companies there rely primarily on hydro and gas, not oil—oil generates only 1% of California’s electricity. And of course, even if development started now, oil, if it is in ANWR in economically recoverable quantities, wouldn’t be available for a good ten or fifteen years. It’s that "economically" part that’s the real stickler. According to Richard Fineberg, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Open File Report 98-34, a three-year study on the potential oil fields in ANWR, estimates that, if there is oil there, there is a one in twenty chance that there could be the 16 billion barrel figure that Murkowski has touted. This is about the same amount as the Prudhoe Bay oil field—with an important difference. Prudhoe oil is in one massive oil field, one of the two largest fields ever discovered on this continent, with several other fields nearby. The USGS study indicates that oil in ANWR would probably be in several smaller fields, four or five and probably more, spread across the Coastal Plain. Of course, we don’t really know—there might be more fields, or there might be less. There may be a lot of oil, or there might be very little. When Murkowski says there’s 16 bbl, he’s being optimistic. The 16 bbl that might be in ANWR is the best guess of what is only the technically recoverable amount of oil—if it’s there at all. The amount that is economically recoverable—i.e., worth the expense and trouble of getting it out—is estimated to be, depending on the price of crude, anywhere from 6 billion barrels on the high side, down to none. That’s right. All this fuss may very well be about oil that may not be worth the money to extract it. It depends on what’s there, where it is, and the difficulty of extraction. According to the National Resources Defense Council, the USGS estimate means that there would probably be less than a six-month supply total for the nation (roughly 3.2 billion barrels at best guess). But that oil couldn’t be extracted all at once—it would be over a long (perhaps 50-year) period, the life of the wells. Six months’ worth stretched out over the life of the project doesn’t add up to much oil in the national bucket. If we explored up there, the drilling advocates argue, we would have a better idea of what’s really there, and whether it is an economically viable proposition. As Gill Mull, a geologist who has been studying the area since 1963, pointed out to me, a one in twenty chance of oil is actually good odds. But, he added, exploration is done based on the possible, not the probable. Only one Exxon employee thought that there might be even a slim chance of a large oil field in Prudhoe, but the improbability of it didn’t prevent them from looking. So, the oil companies ask, why not check it out? The problem with this deceptively innocuous idea is that the exploration would be in a wilderness refuge. Being able to drill in ANWR, even if nothing came of it, would be an important symbolic victory for pro-development forces. ANWR is not a park, it is a wilderness, and drilling there would mean that no place is off-limits to development, no place can be valued for anything other than a buck. Does anyone in their right mind believe that if the exploration teams found evidence of massive quantities of oil that ANWR wouldn’t be turned into an oil preserve faster than you could say spit, never mind what its current legal status is? Why practice safe-cracking if you don’t intend to rob somebody? The energy crisis that Bush keeps jumping up and down about is not one that is caused by lack of fossil fuels, and drilling in ANWR isn’t going to cure it. In fact, there is a glut on the market. The problem is one of dependence upon foreign sources of oil. OPEC created an energy crisis in the U.S. in the ’70s by withholding oil, which led to higher prices for them and long lines at gas stations for us. Domestic oil production would, so the argument goes, help free us from the tyranny of foreign devils. But BP-Amoco manufactured a shortage quite recently, as revealed by the Portland Oregonian, by selling Alaska oil to Asian refineries at lower prices than to U.S. refineries on the West Coast, which leveraged up the U.S. prices—a satisfactory result for BP. If we are really concerned about dependence upon foreign suppliers, why are we exporting fossil fuels? President Clinton lifted the ban on export of crude oil from Alaska to other countries, but I don’t hear Bush saying we should reinstate it. Could it be that dependence isn’t really the concern, and profit for a powerful lobby is? Both the Democrats and the Republicans are proposing energy bills that would provide tax incentives for new drilling and exploration. As Alexander Cockburn of The Nation points out, ANWR is both a symbol and a distraction—what about all those leases on the rest of the Alaska coastline? They were held up during the Clinton years, but now? What about the deepwater sites in the Gulf of Mexico? Even Jeb Bush is complaining to his brother about the threat to Florida’s tourist-based economy that this passion for oil drilling poses, adds Cockburn. Murkowski’s energy security act has as its objective the reduction by 50% of dependence on foreign energy sources by the year 2011. To do this, the bill emphasizes new production and exploration, with tax incentives. His bill also emphasizes nuclear energy as an alternate fuel—which has proven to be very expensive, dangerous, and dirty (what else can you call an industry that produces waste that is toxic for thousands of years?). Why do this when we could conserve far more oil by simply improving gas mileage, turning off the lights, inflating our tires properly, and using public transportation? Why should Alaska pay with an irreplaceable wilderness for the right of U.S. citizens to leave their lights burning all night and to drive gas-guzzling SUVs? What’s wrong with supporting clean alternative energy with the same vigor that we support fossil fuels? Or with even more enthusiasm? I don’t see solar panels on the White House—they went out when Reagan came into office. What is this fascination with production over conservation? Maybe the problem is that if you burn less fuel, you spend less money, and the oil companies make less profit. Gee. Imagine that. The Murkowski bill purports to encourage conservation, but it does so weakly. Germany is committed to a program to be completely independent of nuclear fuels in ten years, and will phase out the use of fossil fuels in favor of clean alternatives. Murkowski is proposing a 50% reduction in dependence—on foreign countries, not on nonrenewable fuels. The United States is, like Germany, an economically powerful country with inventive and productive citizens. Why can’t we do the same? Think of all the jobs that could be created in alternate energy generation and research, in transportation, construction, education, and so on. Why do jobs need to be generated in oil exploration more than in, say, wind power, heat pumps, or the construction of efficient public transportation networks? Our dependence on nonrenewable fuels hurts us. Achieving a goal like Germany’s would give us true independence. So why aren’t we going for it? | ||
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