I live in bush Alaska. From my house, it's about 300 miles by air to Fairbanks, and there isn't any road for most of that distance. All of our fuel comes by barge down the Yukon River during the summer months when it isn't frozen solid. Gasoline cost about $4.50 at the pump, or $3.89 in bulk, and the prices will go up radically as soon as the first barge arrives next June. Without diesel this summer, we won't have electricity next winter. The opinions about ANWR seem to be divided between two extremes--
Dollar signs--more oil is cheaper oil, and
Treehuggers--no development nowhere, especially in the wilderness.
Personally I don't agree with either one.
Let's try to take a longer term view than fuel prices next summer or next election. What's going to happen to our world in our lifetimes?
First, the era of cheap oil is rapidlly coming to an end. Deny that if you can. I'd really like to see anyone claim differently.
Second, we really do need petroleum, and will continue to need for a long time in the future. It's much more than just fuel. So where are we going to get it in the future? And why should we squander a valuable resource now for the minor convenience of cheap commuting and inefficient housing?
Just as an exercise, close your eyes and think about the time, probably 30 years from now, when the Saudi Arabian oilfields are substantially depleted. Most of the others will be running down by then too. How much will oil cost then, with a larger and more technologically advanced world population than we have now?
Jerome a Paris has said a lot that I agree with, including his warnings about $100 oil, and his calls for a serious oil tax in the US. Price increases are necessary to reduce worldwide oil consumption to match the supply. The oil economy has to change, whether we like it or not, and it's going to be hard for a while. The only way I see to make it easier is a serious federal tax on oil to start increasing the price now, to help build the technology, attitudes, and infrastructure we will need to get by with a reduced and declining supply.
After the shit hits the fan, and after we come to the realization that oil is not there just to burn, we're still going to need oil, and it will be worth a lot of money and we will wish that we hadn't wasted so much of it when we had the chance. That's when I would hope we can start to develop ANWR.
One of the long term considerations is how will ANWR oil get to market. Right now we have the trans Alaska pipeline. That's getting less economically viable every year as production declines and corrosion problems accumulate. The vested interests that are pushing to develop ANWR have the pipeline very much in mind. They want to clean out all of the economically produceable oil in Alaska and move their business on somewhere else. Except there isn't anywhere else. Not in the US. And someday, there won't be anywhere else in the world either. It stops here. I still want to save it as long as I can.