ANWR Oil

Although not directly pertaining to ethanol, this post pertains to a recent study by the EIA. But, then again, what doesn't pertain to ethanol these days in one way or another. The EIA (Energy Information Administration), which are the same guys that come around every two weeks to tell us how much gasoline and diesel the US has so that prices can swing up or down, completed an up-to-date study using computer modeling to plot the maximum amount of oil that could potentially be recovered by drilling in ANWR (the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge). Their findings show that the oil production would peak in the year 2027 and would peak at roughly 780,000 barrels of oil per day. Although this is just a computer estimate, the EIA knows what they are talking about and 780,000 barrels per day is not a lot of oil. To put it into perspective, the EIA predicts that 780,000 bpd would lower the price of a barrel of oil by $0.75. That is 75 cents off of a $135 barrel of oil! And for even more perspective, Saudi Arabia agreed to increase their oil output by 300,000 barrels per day after President Bush's latest visit to the region and that hardly decreased the price of oil.
My point is that I firmly believe that if we needed to we could drill in the ANWR without harming any of the habitats or animals. I think a better argument against drilling there is that it probably won't affect our situation greatly and would be depleting a resource that, if anything, the United States should try to retain in terms of domestic proved oil reserves. Just my two cents on a pretty complex and contentious issue.

For more on the original study:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/pdf/sroiaf(2008)03.pdf