Alaskan Oil Drilling

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how the issue of the Alaskan oil reserves and their potential for the economy of the United States has become extremely contentious. The Bush Administration and the corporate sector are of the opinion that the Alaskan oil reserve offers a potentially large resource and a possible solution to the energy needs of the country. However, there are also contending voices which see the usage of the reserves as ecologically unsound. Another perspective, which is explored in this paper, is that the Alaskan reserves will make very little difference to the overall energy problems and economy over the next decade.

From the Paper:

"The National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska (NPR-A), is situated between the foothills of the Brooks Range and the Arctic coastline, and is about 120 miles from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). (Rosen, Y. 2003. ) The Bureau of Land Management ( BLM) estimates the area will"... supplement production from the Alpine fields, which hold 429 million barrels and have a daily oil output of about 100,000 barrels." (US OKs Commercial Drilling in Alaska Oil Reserve) In terms of geography the oil in the petroleum reserve" lies in reservoirs only about 50 feet thick, stretched across an area 300 miles wide and 200 miles from the coast inland to the Brooks Range. In ANWR, the oil is largely concentrated in reservoirs as thick as 300 feet." "

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