Originally posted by hblair
That's why we need to drill in Alaska. Who keers 'bout the environment. Lil oil spill never hurt nobody.
Saudi Arabia has vast reserves that can be exploited for many decades at their current rate at the lowest exploration/drilling cost and extraction cost of about $1 per barrel.
The Alaskan oil reserves are very small in comparison and that oil will cost a lot to get and to pump. It looks like if we use the Alaskan oil to produce 7% of our (US) consumption, it will only last for a couple of decades.
Anyway, the concept of cheap oil is very deceptive. Once you factor in the cost of politics and military presence, ecology, etc - it may be much higher.
As for Alaska, we may just as well drill it and let the whole area go to waste. Nobody lives there and whoever does is likely to get filthy rich.
Russians method of oil extraction are nothing short of ecological disaster anyway affecting much greater area.
It would be nice to preserve pieces of the planet in the original state as a museum exibits, but with the Earth population growing towards 10-14 bil before it is hoped to stabilize, we will shortly not care about such trifles.
miko
