kscarrol

Member, my apologies on the high horse comment, just getting a bit hot under the collar with this discussion. You are correct, ANWR will not solve the supply problems, but it will definitely help. And it is totally misleading to point to statistics like ANWR would only supply the US for 60 days. Yes, if we were looking for ANWR to supply the entire 20 million barrels a day the US uses, that would be correct, but the added 100,000-200,000 barrels a day it would produce is enough supply at the margin to offset some of the growing demand elsewhere in the world like China or India. It would do a lot more to ease oil prices than releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would, which seems to be Kerry's only plan, other than to raise the taxes on the oil companies. Raising the taxes on the oil companies means less money goes to finding oil and gas, then prices go up further. Of course if the real agenda is more of an environmental one where you WANT to stop drilling, then you'd better go get the hybrid.

And we all need to keep in mind, at least in the US, where we have been spoiled by low oil prices for decades, that while the $50 a barrel we have today seems high, it is nothing compared to the what we saw back in the early 70's. While $50+ is a "record", the proper metric is to adjust the price for inflation, which would put oil prices back in the early 70's well north of $80 a barrel. Get used to it! The only way to bring down prices without adding meaningful supply, is to reduce demand and the only way that is going to happen is a worldwide recession or worse. The last time we saw oil prices dip was 1997-1998, when the Asian crisis destroyed enough demand to drive down prices. A repeat of that in the US, China and India is what will have to happen.

CRRobert

Eventually, if oil prices get higher, I think that the US companies will begin to look at extracting from Oil Shale Formations. AFAIK, there are large amounts of oil to be had, but prices for extracting it does not justify it at this point in time.

Iceman

Ouch! That IS high for the US.

Member545

There was a story in National Geographic a couple of months ago called "The End of Cheap Oil?" and they talked about the possibility of billions of barrels of oil in the Canadian Shale, but it takes tons of water to get it out and is basically like strip mining. Very hard on the environment, but like you said CCR, once it becomes financially worth it, they probably will.
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/

If we took 200,000 barrels a day from ANWR, the supply would be gone in one year. If it takes 10 years to get to that point, why bother. I am hoping in 10 years I will be driving something Hydrogen powered. Did you see the new BMW at the Paris auto show?
http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?in...article_id=8672

Member545

Here's a Billion Barrels down by you

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/04...ure5/zoom4.html

kscarrol

That's right, but it's OK to potentially damage our eco-system? Guess it's not as pretty as a herd of caribou. And by your math, that would only supply the US for 50 days, so I guess it's not worth developing it.

kscarrol

"If we took 200,000 barrels a day from ANWR, the supply would be gone in one year. If it takes 10 years to get to that point, why bother."

This is the Kerry math I'm talking about. 200,000 barrels a day equals 73,000,000 barrels a year. I think the reserve potential is a bit higher than that, more like the 1 billion barrel level, which at 200,000 barrels a day is a roughly 14 year supply. If that's all the industry really hoped to find in ANWR, they wouldn't be bothering.

Jimbo

Alternative power will come into play more if the prices keep going up.

kscarrol

Absolutely! But as long as fossil fuels have been less expensive relative to alternatives, they were not going to be developed in any meaningful way. These prices hold up and you will start to here a lot more about fuel cells, hydrogen powered cars and other alternatives.

RN123

sickening