Sphagnum: What happened to strawman, anyway?

There is this strawman argument floated around that because ANWR doesn’t solve our dependency on foreign oil 100%, it’s not worth it…

For one, we really dont’ know what is up there yet. We’ve just begun now and we may find there is way more than what we thought. Secondly, this is a drop in the bucket, but if we combine it with off-shore drilling off the coasts of Florida and California and oter explorations that we should open up across the country, it may severly help our woes…

Not only that, but it really doesn’t take much to ease times of crisis. When Katrina hit, we were so close to the tipping point (being mid summer and stretched to the breaking point as far as consumption goes) that it caused huge flucuations. If we had other sources, even relatively small ones, it would go a long way to smoothing out that “crisis”

&heellip; Second, I wonder if it’s ever occurred to Senator Dorgan that a better way to fix the problem of our dependence on foreign oil is to allow for the development of domestic petroleum reserves. Recently our Senate voted to allow drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, yet Senator Dorgan opposed it. &heellip;

&heellip; The left’s desperate scramble to tar-and-feather oil executives over high gas prices is nothing short of astounding. I’ve been chronicling North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan’s push behind this “windfall profits” legislation (here, here, and here, with ND State Rep. Tom Brusegaard’s op/ed on the issue here) and I can’t help but feel that Dorgan, and the legislators who are with him on this issue, either don’t understand simple economics or are pretending like they don’t for some ulterior motives. &heellip;

Currently all of the oil from the Alaska pipeline stays in the US.

But really what difference would it make.

Suppose we were to sell Alaskan oil to Japan. We’d sell it at the world price.

We then would take the same money and buy oil from Saudi Arabia, or Mexico at the same price.

If we use it ourselves or trade the dollars for some other oil we get the exact same benefit! It makes no difference!!!

Mary Ann said, That would have the effect of reducing the price of oil by up up to 50 cents per barrel and reducing our oil imports from 70% of our total use to 66%.

So what? The reasons for drilling in ANWR have nothing to do with lowering the price of oil. It has to do with ensuring supply. The price argument of yours is a red herring.

So 11 Billion Barrels at a million barrels a day would be supplying us for 11,000 days or 30 years.

In North Dakota they wish to build two canola biodiesel plants which would make 80 million gallons a year (2 million barrels). In two days ANWR would bring more oil than these two plants produce in a year.

This would use up 2/3rds of North Dakota’s canola. ND is a leading grower of canola. More can be planted but at some time we’ll reach capacity of how much renewable energy can be created.

If ANWR isn’t the answer it’s the biggest potential source we have right now. (Until the cost of oil becomes high enough to extract oil from shale.)

and you’re probably going to hear something you didn’t know you’d be interested in. From Unpartisan’s links to news about the Senate’s approval of the budget bill including the ammendment to open ANWR to oil drilling, I got drawn into commenting on Say Anything where Rob says: What I don’t understand about Democrats is, while they’re very concerned with America’s dependence on foreign oil, they’re not willing to allow for the exploitation of domestic petroleum resources.

The North Slope is a unique and fragile natural area containing a modest amount of oil. Drilling for oil there would permanently damage the area

No it isn’t and no it won’t. And if it does nobody (including any animals) won’t know and won’t care.

There was a commenter here who called himself “strwman,” but he hasn’t posted since September.

As for the environmental impact of drilling in ANWR, I’m not at all convinced Mary. I’m from Alaska. I’ve been to ANWR. There is nothing where they’re planning to drill outside of frozen tundra.

And this is the first I’ve about any significant damage going on at Prudhoe Bay. You mention that recovery rates are slower, and that’s true, but I’ve never once heard that the land up there won’t be able to recover fully once the oil drilling up there is done.