New Data on ANWR

The US Government has just released a report estimating the amount of oil that would be available from drilling in the Alaskan Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The report is interesting from a number of perspectives.

They have cut their estimates of the amount of oil available by more than 50% from the previous estimates they released in 1998.

"Between 2018 and 2030, cumulative additional oil production is 2.6 billion barrels for the mean oil resource case, while the low and high resource cases project a cumulative additional oil production of 1.9 and 4.3 billion barrels, respectively."

The 1998 report projected 5.7 billion barrels of production from ANWR for the mean oil case. The trend suggests that the more we know about ANWR, the more we lower the initial very rosy estimates for the amount of production.

The most recent report includes projections on the impact that ANWR will have on the price of oil.

"The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 for the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high oil resource case, relative to the reference case."

This means that when ANWR hits peak production in 2026 (if drilling was approved this year) the impact on the price of oil at that time will be less than half of one percent.

Bottom line, you will never notice the difference in the price of oil.

We would be much better off taking the same investment dollars and using them to create new renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind and fuel cell technologies.

We would be much better off taking the same investment dollars and finding ways to make our cars more efficient.

The oil from ANWR will be depleted in 30 years. Investments in wind and solar will still be generating energy for many, many years after the last drop of oil in ANWR is gone.