Thursday, May 22, 2008

ANWR = MA+NJ+RI+CT+DE; Footprint = 1/6 Dulles

ANWR's frozen desolation looks like:
ANWR's 10.4 billion barrels of oil have become hostage to the planet's saviors (e.g., John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama), who block drilling in even a tiny patch of ANWR. You could fit Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware into ANWR's frozen desolation (see bottom picture); the "footprint" of the drilling operation would be one sixth the size of Washington's Dulles airport (see top picture above, click to enlarge).

~George Will

HT:
SBVOR Blog (for the images)

12 Comments:

At 5/23/2008 12:17 AM, Blogger Ken Braun said...

Let's ditch this messy election thing and have "Survivor: ANWR" instead.

McCain and Obama forced to live in this "pristine wilderness" in an igloo of their own making and a strict limit on their carbon footprint(i.e.: one campfire per week.)

It's reality TV, and every night American viewers get to vote on three things:

1. Is this a place that you plan to personally ever visit?

2. Is $4 gasoline a small price to pay for keeping every inch of this hellhole protected from oil drilling?

3. Which presidential candidate do you want to come back and run the country?

I'm guessing the overwhelming winning answers would be: no, no and neither. Growth and prosperity would be the only survivor.

 
At 5/23/2008 12:23 AM, Blogger SBVOR said...

Dr. Perry,

I think maybe you’re reading my blog (which combined both of your images).

If so, I’m both pleased and honored!

Seriously!

 
At 5/23/2008 12:30 AM, Blogger Mark J. Perry said...

Yes, thanks for the images, I added the link to your blog on the post.

 
At 5/23/2008 2:43 AM, Blogger SBVOR said...

Dr. Perry,

1) Thank you. Just tonight, I’ve enhanced that blog entry, including a new link associated with the frozen wilderness image (taking it back to the root source of the image). I also added a new image and link just below that one. And, in paragraph 4 (“blocking every effort”), I included a link back to your blog.

2) Keep up the good work. I enjoy your blog tremendously and find it very educational.

Best Regards,
sbvor
P.S.) Tell Kudlow to check me out! :-)

 
At 5/23/2008 6:30 AM, Blogger juandos said...

ken braun, step on down!

Excellent idea sir!

 
At 5/23/2008 12:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am so glad that this is bringing out the truth! The federal government should absolutely build roads and infrastructure for the oil industry to begin exploration up in ANWR. The CEOs of Shell and other oil companies say that ANWR is not worth it, but what do they know? Congress should decide this and then give the oil companies more incentives to drill on ANWR for free on federal lands. Congress is so good at Farm policy, they should definitely continue to try to do more about energy.

Then when drilling in ANWR makes no difference to the price of oil and our dependence on foreign oil, the government should increase the subsidies for the oil companies even more.

Another idea - oil is subsidized a lot more than ethanol and so Congress should take all of the ethanol subsidies and just transfer them to oil.

Just as long as the government gets bigger and protects our way of life and our choice to drive less and less efficient vehicles (for free on the greatest socialist project ever - the federal highway system), us conservatives will be happy. Because it seems that is what we stand for now, protectionism, big government, etc.

 
At 5/23/2008 1:10 PM, Blogger Greg Loutsenko said...

I think US government should discourage any drilling on its territories. The oil reserves are finite and will start dwindle soon enough, I remember 2040 was date suggested by The Economist.

Through discouraging oil use and with a combination of Pigovian tax on petrol, the consumers should be forced into buying more fuel-efficient cars and using more renewable resources and energy firms will be more vigorous in their search for more efficiency and developing new sources of energy.

High oil prices are certainly a burden right now to most people(although petrol prices is USA are VERY low compared to EU countries, so I don't think its fair for Americans to groan too much). However in the longer term it will be beneficial to society.

In any case a pristine is very valuable and ought to be protected because in the future we may not have much left.

 
At 5/23/2008 5:18 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

Greg,

Sometime in the last 6 months or so, I heard an NPR journalist (not a charter member of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy) accurately describe the current most promising “alternative energy source” as “WT” (Wishful Thinking). Dr. Perry’s most recent post illustrates that fact.

The private sector will provide the next generation of energy soon enough. We don’t need government bureaucrats overindulging in political Social Engineering in a misguided attempt to get us there. Increasing gasoline taxes will only serve to drive down the economy and result in less capital available to provide the technological breakthroughs that will secure the next generation of energy.

What we need now is some pragmatic solutions which provide National Security buffers and economic buffers for our transition to the next generation of energy.

What we need right now is to make better use of our own ENORMOUS “Domestic Energy Potential”. Domestic Oil Shale deposits dwarf (by FAR) everything I have described in that previous link.

We have no shortage of domestic energy and we have no reasonable environmental concerns. As further evidence, examine this chart from this EPA report. What we have is a lot of purely political propaganda clouding the vision of far too many people.

 
At 5/24/2008 4:30 AM, Blogger Greg Loutsenko said...

what you need to do is stop buying inefficient cars like hummers, not investing in good and robust public transport, thinking better about your zoning laws and stop thinking that if one takes away one of the only incentives (high fuel costs) to go to the next generation of energy production, then still some how people will still be motivated to develop the next generation of fuels and energy production.

i regularly read in publications like Financial Times and The Economist (that NPR guy was not speaking for NPR, which i would certainly trust more than FoxNews, one journalist's opinion hardly implies fact) renewable energy is coming of age. right now what is holding it back is its quite high start up costs and running costs. however these costs have been tumbling. already we see some interesting developments where solar and wind energy is actually becoming big business (GE for example, a big producer of wind turbines is selling billons worth every year for example).

the biggest motivation for this is in fact high fuel costs.

Its interesting to note that high fuel costs have already pushed more efficiency on the agenda:
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/05/22/hot-fuel-high-oil-prices-make-every-drop-count/

also if you look at the most standard Solow growth model, very long term output (income) growth does not come from capital accumulation. it comes from technological innovation, which by most accounts, developing new energy sources is! in any case, i fail to see how slightly slower capital accumulation will significantly reduce technological progress. in fact i think it will accelerate it. its a motication to make more effecient use of what we have.

 
At 5/24/2008 9:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

$5.00/gal, %6.00/gal, $7.00/gal?

At some point These become more ubiquitous than Johnson Grass.

Big Oil will hate it; Big Oil Investors will hate it; Some Mass Media that's funded by Big Oil Advertisements will hate it; but, it will come.

In a Nation of Moonshiners
Ethanol is Cheaper than Blood!

 
At 5/24/2008 10:50 PM, Blogger happyjuggler0 said...

I can't believe we, and by we I mean the morons in Congress who are sucking the lifeblood out of America, refuse to drill in ANWR so that we may preserve a lifeless hunk of frozen nothingness in its pristine pointlessness.

Stupidity in DC knows no bounds.

Mark Perry, you ought to bring that photo with you next time you go on Kudlow's program on CNBC to illustrate how absurd it is to "protect" that. With any luck the mainstream media will finally pick up on just how stupid not drilling there is.

 
At 5/28/2008 11:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The U.S. uses roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day. So ANWR has about 1.4 years of oil. It's hardly worth setting up shop...

 

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