Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

For years now there has been heated debate over Anwr, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Proponents and opponents throw out statistics all day, in many cases these numbers are skewed. For instance, analysts will take the lowest expected yield from anwr, and the highest demand from the united states and throw out a statistic that says it could only support the United States for 6 months. ( Source 1) This would be true if the U.S. relied solely on North Slope crude oil to operate but currently the U.S. runs on about 53%, we will call it 50/50 imported oil. That is 53% from other countries and 47% from within; this 47% to be split up amongst our oil producing states.

If these same practices were applied to the 1968 discovery of prudhoe bay, which was originally quoted to yield about 11 billion barrels of oil, and applied that to the U.S. consumption of oil at that time, there would have only been enough oil to last about a year. (Source 2) Obviously, these estimates are not true, as Prudhoe bay has since passed estimates and has now produced over 15 billion barrels of oil.

These stats seem to be ploys to sway the uninformed 'voter' in a certain direction, something not uncommon. The thing to remember is that Alaska is home the the trans-alaska oil pipeline, which once moved around 2.2 million barrels in a day (with drag reducing agents). Production is now slowed to around 700,000 barrels a day. When first constructed the pipeline was thought to only be able to move 1.5 million barrels a day. Suppose we open up anwr, with estimates between 5 and 16 billion barrels of oil, around 10 billion being recoverable. (Source 3) This is potentially enough oil to run the pipeline at 2 million barrels a day, for what is around 5,000 days, or 13.6 years.

I realize i have done an extreme amount of rounding here, but the numbers i used to calculate are accurate and up to date. The point is, There is a large amount of oil up there in anwr, Ive got no stance on whether or not it ever gets drilled, but I do get annoyed when I read statistics that have been so heavily skewed that they are virtually worthless. I mean if we are to make an informed decision about something as large scale as this, we should know the true facts, correct?

I think its also important to keep in mind that this is not an argument of whether or not we should drill anwr.



Sources.
1.) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_22_17/ai_75435167/

2.) http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-10390810.html

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