Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve

RUNNING HEAD: DRILLING IN ANWR

James M. Reska

ENGL112

Professor Williams

December 17, 2008

Drilling in ANWR

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) would be a step in the right direction toward supplying our own oil, counteracting our dependency on foreign oil, and also bringing the prices of gas and oil down. ANWR is a tract of land on the North Slope of Alaska, and is known as the" Coastal Plain" consisting of 19 million acres. It was designated in 1981 by Congress to be studied to determine what the natural gas and oil development potential is. It is estimated that there are 3 to 9 billion barrels of oil in this area (ANWR. "Background-Making-the-Case-for-ANWR", 2008).

It is believed by geologists that enough oil and gas reserves exist there to warrant exploration. They believe this because of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields/deposits to the west and the Canadian oil fields to the east. These fields are representative of approximately 25% of the domestic production (ANWR. "Background-Making-the-Case-for-ANWR", 2008). That ANWR should be opened to oil drilling is controversial, although Alaska has waited for a long time to share its wealth of oil and natural gas with the lower forty eight states. Many believed that tampering with America's last frontier would do nothing to solve the nation's energy problems (ANWR:"Basics/Top-ten-to-support-ANWR-development", 2008).

The people of Alaska, or at least 75% of them, really support the coastal plain gas and

oil development (ANWR. "Basics/Top-ten-reasons-to-support-ANWR-development", 2008). Our veterans definitely support this effort primarily because of the threat of war and terrorism (ANWR:"People/Alaskans-Support-Development, 2008), ("Faces of Veterans", 2008). Their theory is that during times of crisis, we should not have to depend on foreign sources for this most precious commodity.

There are many reasons to drill including economic, technological and national security reasons. The security reasons being the concern regarding the threat of war and terrorism due to dependence on foreign oil as stated in the previous paragraph. There are opponents; they mostly consist of the native tribes, two of which live near the exploration areas. One of the tribes basically favors it and the other is diametrically opposed. Generally though, this land is thought of as somewhat sacred to them, plus the fact that they are not very well informed regarding the real issues. (ANWR:"Latest News: Drill Here Drill Now", 2008)

Historically there has been some drilling in this area, for instance in Prudhoe Bay, about 60 miles west of ANWR, approximately 10 billion barrels of oil have been produced in the last twenty years. The current output is about 1.4 million barrels per day, and is declining each day (ANWR. "Background-Making-the-Case-for-ANWR", 2008). There is also some testing going on at Gwyer Bay just west of Prudhoe Bay, but they have not upgraded to the latest technology, simply because that they are using what equipment they have accumulated over time, therefore it is not state of the art equipment with conventional facilities (ANWR. "Techno/techno, 2008). One of the tools that would make this testing more efficient is the seismic tool which actually reduces the amount of drilling that has to be done during this testing, in fact all the newer tools and technology lower the cost of drilling dramatically, as well as not disturbing the eco-system as drastically as would have been the case prior to these technological advances (ANWR:"Technology", 2008). Having this oil and gas drilling facility in ANWR would help the American economy by lowering its dependence on imported oil. In addition, this would supply many new jobs, not just in the drilling field but in all the supporting fields.

It is estimated that ANWR has 6 - 16 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. One of the main advantages of drilling is that the price of oil and natural gas should be drastically reduced, which should lead to an economic upturn. This would create many new jobs, which would help strengthen the economy, in Alaska as well as in the lower forty eight states.

The opponents of drilling for oil in ANWR say that we are addicted to oil and are not looking for alternatives, they say, that drilling there would only give the impression that there is more oil to be had. It is their opinion that drilling will not meet the country's energy needs for very long and that it would not be worth the possible devastation caused by drilling. In addition, there are concerns regarding global warming, extinction of plant and animal species found nowhere else on earth, along with many natural disturbances and environmental degradation and destruction (An Argument Against Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 2008).

These 1.5 million acres are only about 8% of ANWR, which are located in a flat, boggy, treeless place where temperatures can get as low