The Democrats are setting up an ambitious legislative assault for their first hundred days. Among the planned actions is a bill declaring the coastal strip of the ANWR a protected wilderness area, which would make drilling there a no-no forever, or so they hope.
Look, y'all: The ANWR is going to get drilled. It can be done now in a deliberate and highly-regulated fashion, or it can be done in the future, in a blind and non-eco-friendly panic when Chavez shuts off the tap to back up his buddy Ahmadinejad. Which one do you think will be more likely to generate National Geographic photos of homeless musk oxen?
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ANWR. North shore Alaska coastal nothingness. Tundra as far as the eye can see.
Drill it, give Chavez the finger.
Move along.
What we really need to do is to not only take ANWR off the table, but most of the rest of the Pacific and Gulf coasts as well.
Then, let's refuse to increase our refining capacity for 20 to 30 years because they're so, you know, big and dirty.
All the while, let's continue to be the economic engine of the world, expanding our economy and population, along with the concomitant demand for fossil fuels. It'll be the "perfect storm" of reduced (domestic) input and limited output.
Oh, wait. We've already done that.
Never mind.
Brilliantly stated, as usual.
The Caribou currently florish along the alaskan pipeline
We need to mlose this NIMBY attitude
What's interesting is when you compare pictures of where the drilling would be, to the pictures that are usually shown in the media.
Here's a few pictures taken by Jonah Goldberg from a plane flying over the area where the drilling would be:
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg072701.shtml
Compare with the photo they use in this MSNBC article:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9984545/
Here's some more info on ANWR I found:
http://www.arcticgaspipeline.com/ANWR.htm
The silly thing about all this ANWR is modern drilling techniques permit drilling at an angle, or even horizontally. A drilling location can recover all the oil in a 50 mile radius, thus preserving all kinds of room for the musk ox, caribou etc.
Gound Caribou can be converted directly into burnable hydrocarbons with heat and high pressure in an oxygen-less environment.
Ground Eco-freak can be similarly utilized.
And I still want a nuclear powered SUV.
As a long time reader of your blogs, but never a poster before, I add this comment.
I have explored for oil in ANWR for nearly a decade of my career. I have been there and done that.
The amount of oil there is staggering. The impact to the environment would be minimal. If you have ever been out on the 1002 coastal plain, you would see it has no trees, no animals but mosquito's.
I contracted an aeromagnetics survey of north slope back in the early 90's as part of my exploration program. We covered the ANWR area from the peak of the Brooks out about 50 miles offshore. My pilots and observers were astounded at how desolation the 1002 area was. Nothing, absolute desolation. I watched the belly camera for every flight. Nothing, no birds, no animals, trees or nothing.
Remember the 1002 coastal plain is flat to rolling hills. Putting a rig up in the brooks range is expensive and not really profitable. So when you see pictures of mountains, that is not the 1002 coastal plain.
My opinion is no one should be allowed to express an opinion on ANWR and the 1002 coastal plain unless you have been there and stood on it.
Ok, now a question to the fifty of us who have been there, any one not want to drill it? Ok, lets get to work.
By the way, that oily stuff leaking into the Jago and Canning? That's crude oil, not some environmental spill. If we drill it and produce the stuff it will be less of a mess.
:snip:
Ok, now a question to the fifty of us who have been there, any one not want to drill it? Ok, lets get to work.
:snip:
I've only been to the current drilling site at Prudhoe Bay, not the ANWR side of things. Personaly: drill it. More people will see that country _because_ of the drilling then if we leave it alone. And frankly, there will still be alot of 'left alone' even after the drilling.
The north slope is one of the most impressive places I have seen, but another oil platform is not going to change that one bit. Hell, I might just drive up there again to see the new wells and see that country again.
AE
As one who has "been there" rafting on the Kongakut,Hula Hula, hiking both the North and South slopes of the Brooks Range, I have to say I am really ambivalent about drilling. I would be MUCH more in favor if we drove vehicles that had a sembleance of fuel economy. But when I see some suburbanite driving a huge 10 mpg suv to the 7 eleven (and coming over the center line at my Kawi while talking on a cell phone) I feel less inclined to drill to support that habit. . Yes, the coastal plain is a lowlaying miskito infested hell- but it is not the well head that is the problem- it is all the related infrastructure. For all it's utility, Deadhorse still seems like a big dump.
Please excuse my spelling and bear in mind this comment comes from a conservative, not a leftist A hole.
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