toffler3energy

This article is extracted from the RMI website...
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http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/art1051.asp

Frozen Assets?
Alaskan Oil's Threat to National Energy Security
by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins
"We must continue, I believe, to safeguard the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last truly wild places on Earth�the Serengeti of the Americas." �President Clinton, January 17, 2001

As you read this issue of RMI Solutions, Congress is debating whether the oil potential beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska is worth the environmental damage caused by extracting and burning it. Largely unexamined so far are more basic questions: Is it profitable? Is it necessary? Is drilling a good idea? Is there a better way?

The rationale for drilling in the Refuge is to find a domestic oil supply, income for Alaska, and profit for private firms. The debate focuses on the environmental cost, the human rights of the threatened Gwich�in people, and opposition from Canada, which shares the migratory wildlife. Yet that energy-vs.-environment debate overlooks important reasons why drilling in the Arctic Refuge would not improve but compromise national energy security and economic vitality.

DEPENDENCE ON OPEC OIL?
The second rationale for drilling in the
Refuge�relieving dependence on OPEC oil�has also
waned. OPEC's percentage of the oil the U.S. imports
has dropped by a third since the high-water-mark of
imports in 1977. Only one-fourth of U.S. oil now comes
from OPEC. Most imports come from more stable Western
sources, and are so diversified that a full-scale war
in the Persian Gulf in 1991 caused no gas lines at
home. We're not as dependent on OPEC as some imply.

Nor are we short of fuels. A White House aide on
January 21 provoked merriment in energy circles by
claiming that Arctic Refuge drilling was urgent
because, as California's electricity crisis showed,
the nation "desperately needs more fuel." How much of
California's electricity is in fact made from oil? One
percent. Of the nation's electricity? Two to three
percent. How much of the nation's oil makes
electricity? Two percent. California isn't short of
fuel. What California is short of is cheap
electricity.

EFFICIENCY: ENERGY WITHOUT RISK
Better buys aren't hard to find. In fact, we've already bought a lot of them, though far more remain untapped. Specifically, the past quarter-century's efficiency revolution is now "producing" over four times as much energy as the entire domestic oil industry (and ten times the oil the U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf) simply by using less energy to do
more work in smarter ways. More than half the nation's energy services now come from efficient use. Each barrel of oil supports three-quarters more GDP than it did in 1975�and that's just for starters.

Efficiency cut oil imports from the Persian Gulf by 87% during 1976�85 alone. Yet efficiency is strangely invisible in today's Refuge-oil debate.

The energy policies of the early '70s and the
mid-1980s painfully demonstrated how quickly energy
gluts happen when customers seek efficiency.

All this sets the stage for a rerun of a very bad
movie�the 1986 price crash that ruined so many energy
producers. That crash was caused by mixing two
ingredients: an underlying efficiency trend plus a
Federal supply stimulus. The first ingredient is now
here; the second is promised by President Bush.
There's no reason to expect a result different from
the past couple of times we've tried the same recipe.

AUTOMOBILE POTENTIAL
Let's suppose that a compliant Congress, steady high
oil prices, and successful exploration did find the
hoped-for 3.2 billion barrels of profitably
recoverable oil beneath the Refuge. Over a typical
30-year field life, that averages 292,000 barrels per
day, enough to produce about 156,000 barrels of
gasoline per day. That would run just two percent of
America's present fleet of cars and light
(non-commercial) trucks. That much gasoline could be
saved by making those vehicles a mere 0.4 mpg more
efficient.

Even with no improvement in vehicle efficiency, just
adopting aftermarket tires as efficient as the
originals would save several Refuges' worth of oil.

The average new American car last year might have been the highest expression of the Iron Age, but its 24-mpg efficiency rating tied for a 20-year low. The auto industry can do better, and is starting to. Briskly selling hybrid-electric cars now include a Corolla-class 48-mpg five-seater and a CRX-class 67-mpg two-seater.

THE INSECURITY OF NORTH SLOPE OIL
A further argument for drilling in the Refuge has been to make full use of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), likely to keep running at half-capacity through at least 2008 as declining Prudhoe Bay output is offset by new oil from other North Slope fields
outside the Refuge. If you'd spent $8 billion (in 1977 dollars) for an 800-mile-long, four-foot diameter pipe over some of the most rugged terrain on the planet, you'd want to see it kept busy for as long as possible too.

TAPS'S RETIREMENT PLAN?
Even if a kinder, gentler world were assured, TAPS's clock is still ticking. The 23-year-old pipeline�now well into middle age and nearing its originally intended retirement age�hasn't aged gracefully. Corrosion, erosion, and the sheer stress of pumping gooier oil are taking their toll. Accidents seem to be rising. Last April, a pressure hammer moved the pipe
23 inches, a serious event that went unnoticed for almost a month.

If any oil exists under the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, its best, safest, and most economic use will be
forever holding up the ground under America's last great wildland.

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