Arctic petroleum debate an unwelcome distraction

Winston Churchill is supposed to have remarked that you can always trust the Americans to do the right thing – but only after they have exhausted every other alternative. We certainly seem to be living up to that adage as far as the economic crisis related to the growing shortage of fossil fuels goes.

The current controversy over the proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to petroleum development is a perfect example. Not only do we propose to destroy the wilderness values of one of the world’s few remaining pristine areas, but the controversy itself distracts from what we should really be doing.

We concentrate attention on a largely artificial confrontation between elite preservationists and practical developers, when we should be addressing fundamental solutions to a growing threat to our economic infrastructure. Instead, we argue about the fate of the refuge while largely continuing business as usual.

ANWR is a huge area of essentially undisturbed Alaskan wilderness. In other words, a true national treasure at a time when most of the really wild places on earth are losing their wilderness values. The area proposed for development is the northwest part of the refuge, the so-called 1002 Area lying just east of the Prudhoe Bay oil field.

One of the fundamental values of the refuge is that its size allows the protection of an entire ecosystem, and the coastal plain area in front of the mountains is considered an essential part of the biome. The 1002 Area was included in the refuge because of its pristine condition, and because of its essential part in the regional ecosystem.

The protected status of the 1002 Area has prevented initial incidental intrusions, and leaves the area in a condition that is well worth preserving. The scars introduced by a few drilling pads and landing strips last for a long time.

Given the current fossil fuel shortage situation, how much oil might actually be present in the 1002 Area? Is there enough oil there to make a meaningful difference? We know for certain that the vast Prudhoe Bay oil deposit does not extend eastward into the refuge because the geologic strata that form the oil reservoir have been uplifted and eroded away in that area.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates of other oil deposits that may be found in the 1002 Area have a wide range of probability because the data is sparse, and because the small size of individual reservoirs makes the potential costs of development relatively high.

The bottom line is that there are probably somewhere between 3 billion and 12 billion economically recoverable barrels under the 1002 Area. If we accept the middle range of the USGS estimate and use the average national consumption rate of petroleum of a billion barrels a month, development of the 1002 Area could buy us a total of eight months of additional consumption. But maybe even less than that.

It is also important to recognize that failure to develop the 1002 Area oil deposits does not mean they are lost forever. Leaving these resources in the ground at a time when the value of petroleum is rapidly increasing makes a lot more sense than converting these assets to dollars in the treasury. The latter do not seem very likely to retain their value in an era of deficit spending that we suspect will eventually lead to inflation.

So let’s get over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge debate and get on with actually doing something about the very real problem of fossil fuel shortages that confronts the potential for economic growth in our future.

Fred Paillet is a research professor of earth sciences at the University Maine in Orono. He is a retired U.S. Geological Survey research scientist and an avid hiking enthusiast who has backpacked numerous times in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.