Title: The Arctic Oil & Wildlife Refuge
Author: W.Wayt Gibbs
A:
B:
This Service Report, Potential Oil Production from the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Updated Assessment, was prepared for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources at the request of Chairman Frank H. Murkowski in a letter dated March 10, 2000. The request asked the Energy Information Administration to develop plausible scenarios for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge supply development consistent with the most recent U.S. Geological Survey resource assessments.Each caribou herd has its own, discrete calving area. Prudoe Bay and other operating oilfields on the North Slope are within the calving grounds of the Central Arctic Herd. This herd was quite small (only about 5,000) when oil development first started in the mid-1970s (Cameron and Whitten 1979), but impacts from development were soon noted. Calving within the Prudoe Field had already largely ceased by the time oil first began flowing south (Whitten and Cameron 1985), and the dense network of pipelines, r oads, oil wells and production facilities at Prudoe blocked mid-summer movements along the arctic coast (Whitten and Cameron 1983). Cow and calf caribou also avoided the Trans Alaska Pipeline Corridor (Cameron et al. 1979) but continued to cross it succes sfully from late summer through spring, when calves were older and the herd was south of the intensely developed oilfields (Whitten and Cameron 1983).
C:
Established as the Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960, the refuge is unique for its mandate to protect wilderness values. The original wildlife range encompassed 8.9 million acres, but its size was expanded to its current 19.6 million acres by President Carter in 1980, and it was renamed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. At that time, much of the refuge was also designated as wilderness – a federal designation that requires an area to be left in a natural state, undisturbed by human activity. The 1980 legislation also prohibited oil and gas development on the coastal plain in the northeast corner of the refuge along the Beaufort Sea–a habitat vital to polar bears, caribou, wolves and more than 300 other species of animals and birds–but allowed the opportunity for Congress to reverse this action in the future. Drills shouldn't be created because it will harm the wildlife and can harm us humans too. Some of these wildlife animals can be keystone species in the environment. If we harm those species, the whole ecosystem in that area may unbalance balance and the consequences of the destruction of the ecosystem can negatively effect society and the economy. That's why I think that we should stand up, and do what's right. The best we could do is educate and spread the word.
So What?
Brad Griffith of U.A.F's Institute of Arctic Biology found two important patterns in the distribution since 1985 of the 130,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd.
Say Who?
W.Wayt Gibbs
What If?
Bird's group concluded that thorough exploration would most likely yield seven billion barrels of economically recoverable oil. $24 a barrel
This Remind Me Of?
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) suggests that if the USGS estimate of 7 bbo is correct, then the 1002 Area will generate fewer than 200,000 barrels a day for the first five years and petroleum consumption will go from 19.5 million to 23 million
Author: W.Wayt Gibbs
A:
- Alpine is the newest westernmost of the North Slope Oil Fields in Deadhorse, Alaska
- Valves open November 2000, crude oil flowed the 50 miles back to Pump Station 1 near Deadhorse
- By February, Alpine's production has hit maximum output of 90,000 barrels a day
- Build with the future in mind. The Alpine hydrocarbon industry heads in three directions at once.
- The future may lead southward
- Soaring gas prices spurred North Slope companies to commit $75 million to plan a $10-billion gas pipeline.
- Eastern terminus of North Slope is called 1002 area.
- Named for section of Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 that set aside 1.5 million acres of fed property in deference to geologists' guesses that region entombs billions of barrels of oil
- Same act placed 1002 Area inside the 19-million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in deference to biologists' observations that the coastal plain provides a premium Arctic habitat.
- Congress instigated one of the longest environmental turf wars of the past century.
- Sen. Frank. H. Murkowski introduced S. 389 which would open 1002 to oil and gas exploration.
- The bill allows the Bureau of Land Management to restrict activities to ensure that they will result in no adverse effect on fish and wildlife, habitat and environment
- 245 biologists signed open letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to bypass Congress and declare the area a wilderness.
- Petroleum geologists asserted that the oil industry could move without causing more than cosmetic damage.
- Eight groups of Geologists relied on a single set of data from a seismic survey made in the winters of 1984 and 1985 to see amount of oil and gas that sit below 1002 Area
- Source rocks, trap formations and extent of migration all must be estimated based on analogies and prior of experience.
- Using pictures to look at formations used to estimate amount of oil
- Size of formation, thickness and porosity each has an error bar.
- 8 studies arrived at widely divergent estimates
- Best assessment is from Kenneth J. Bird from the U.S Geological Survey (USGS)
- Results were more than one estimate, relevant figure is not how much oil but how much can be recovered.
- At seven billion barrels, it would hold half as much profitable petroleum as Prudhoe Bay in 1977.
- Industry says that 10 years would pass between decision to open the refuge to development and first flow into Alaskan pipeline.
- Companies would have a year or two to do more intense seismic surveys to prepare bids on leases
- Problem with seismic survey: terrain
- Wide, low-pressure tires of seismic trucks leave little trace on flat, frozen snow
- Seismic surveys generate clues, not discoveries.
- For petroleum geologists, truth emerges only from holes in the ground.
- Once the supercomputers have spit out their images, exploration teams would fan out across 1002 to drill wells.
- Mobile drill rig weighs 2.2 million pounds
- If oil is recovered, plants must be built
- Oil development could affect animals in many ways.
- Drilling is injected deep into wells or burned, which reduces impact of foxes and bears.
- There are other emissions though.
- Scents up to 700 workers and noise of numerous trucks, turbines and engines waft over tundra.
- How animal inhabitants of 1002 area would react is a puzzle to which biologists have only pieces of a solution.
- Wildlife is displaced around oil fields. Tundra swans for example
- 1st pattern: calf survival with amount of high-protein food in the calving area.
- 2nd: caribou cows with newborns have consistently concentrated in the most rapidly greening areas.
- Patricia Reynolds of Fish and Wildlife Service who monitors 250 muskoxen that live in 1002 area point out that animals survive brutal winters.
- If oil workers mine gravel, the muskoxen will bolt and upset the balanced energy budget and jeopardizing young
- If drill pads are served by short airstrips rather than long networks, caribou may fear them less and suffer little displacement.
- All things considered, wildlife will cope
- If global climate is changing, its effects will be magnified in northern latitudes
B:
This Service Report, Potential Oil Production from the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Updated Assessment, was prepared for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources at the request of Chairman Frank H. Murkowski in a letter dated March 10, 2000. The request asked the Energy Information Administration to develop plausible scenarios for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge supply development consistent with the most recent U.S. Geological Survey resource assessments.Each caribou herd has its own, discrete calving area. Prudoe Bay and other operating oilfields on the North Slope are within the calving grounds of the Central Arctic Herd. This herd was quite small (only about 5,000) when oil development first started in the mid-1970s (Cameron and Whitten 1979), but impacts from development were soon noted. Calving within the Prudoe Field had already largely ceased by the time oil first began flowing south (Whitten and Cameron 1985), and the dense network of pipelines, r oads, oil wells and production facilities at Prudoe blocked mid-summer movements along the arctic coast (Whitten and Cameron 1983). Cow and calf caribou also avoided the Trans Alaska Pipeline Corridor (Cameron et al. 1979) but continued to cross it succes sfully from late summer through spring, when calves were older and the herd was south of the intensely developed oilfields (Whitten and Cameron 1983).
C:
Established as the Arctic National Wildlife Range in 1960, the refuge is unique for its mandate to protect wilderness values. The original wildlife range encompassed 8.9 million acres, but its size was expanded to its current 19.6 million acres by President Carter in 1980, and it was renamed the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. At that time, much of the refuge was also designated as wilderness – a federal designation that requires an area to be left in a natural state, undisturbed by human activity. The 1980 legislation also prohibited oil and gas development on the coastal plain in the northeast corner of the refuge along the Beaufort Sea–a habitat vital to polar bears, caribou, wolves and more than 300 other species of animals and birds–but allowed the opportunity for Congress to reverse this action in the future. Drills shouldn't be created because it will harm the wildlife and can harm us humans too. Some of these wildlife animals can be keystone species in the environment. If we harm those species, the whole ecosystem in that area may unbalance balance and the consequences of the destruction of the ecosystem can negatively effect society and the economy. That's why I think that we should stand up, and do what's right. The best we could do is educate and spread the word.
So What?
Brad Griffith of U.A.F's Institute of Arctic Biology found two important patterns in the distribution since 1985 of the 130,000 caribou of the Porcupine herd.
Say Who?
W.Wayt Gibbs
What If?
Bird's group concluded that thorough exploration would most likely yield seven billion barrels of economically recoverable oil. $24 a barrel
This Remind Me Of?
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) suggests that if the USGS estimate of 7 bbo is correct, then the 1002 Area will generate fewer than 200,000 barrels a day for the first five years and petroleum consumption will go from 19.5 million to 23 million