Bullchit. It is NOT a sheet of ice, it is a live tundra and a friggin' wildlfe refuge! Huge Caribou herds live there! Oil companies have been unwilling to spend the money required to drill for oil there without ruining the habitat and destroying the wildlife. Easy, (but costly) things like not building new roads and using horizontal drilling would work. Now that oil is $100 a barrel, they may be more willing. The North Dakota discovery also is not feasible to drill unless oil is $100 barrel and also requires horizontal drilling. North Dakota is not a wildlife refuge. There may be some sensitive areas, but there is plenty of land for drilling that does not negatively impact wildlife refuges. However there are some bloody huge Indian Reservations in the area. Some may not allow drilling on tribal land while others may demand huge royalties. Why do republicans have no respect for wildlife and advocate polluting the planet?
The oil companies have been such poor stewards of the land they drill on that I don't want them anywhere near ANWR or the Yukon Flats. Those unique habitats would be ruined in our lifetime. Horizontal drilling with an extremely minimal footprint is fine by me, but I doubt big oil is willing. Personally, I'd rather have $10 per gallon gas than give up the last vestiges of wilderness in this country. Drilling in the Dakotas is a fine by me, but I bet the Indians will play a large role in the discussion. Do they have mineral rights on reservation lands? I could see those dudes being like OPEC.
Dale Brown So what? Global warming will kill the Caribou anyway. Let's go in there and drill. I want the place to end up looking like Norco.
fella's ...they are digging in the Dakota's right now as we speak.This is just more oil than they thought was there ,and deeper.The USGS is supposed to add up their figures within 30 days to tell us how many BILLIONS of barrels are there.It will take some time to get that deep to drill,but drilling is taking place NOW ...so evironmentalists wacko's missed the boat on this one.This train has left the station.
Red ,Universally accepted? Not hardly.Most western ...i repeat ...western geologists go with the fossil fuel theory.The Russians don't think that...and have found oil 12,000 Feet DEEPER than any fossils have been found.Also, Russian oil from that deep contains no remnants of any biological material.These biological remnants are how Western scientists came to the conclusion that oil was a fossil fuel way back in the 1800's. That has never made sense to me.With all the oil we have used ,for it to be the remains of dead dinosaurs. Red ,you believe the US is right and the Russians were wrong.Who exports oil? Could it be ...uhhhh....the Russians?. Who imports it?Could that be ....uhhhhh....the United States?...hmmm that old school fossil fuel theory is about as accurate as the earth being flat,another one time ,Universally accepted theory .
Lol,i am really not a fan of Russia,and would politically be far ,far right of communism.The only deal I have with them is Sometimes their scientists are better than ours.they had a "theory" about the origin of oil and then sought to prove it.Our scientists also had a "theory "of the origin of oil...dinosaurs...We have clung to our "theory" like doctors clung to 'bloodletting" 200 years ago.Which "theory " makes more sense?Sorry,jurassic park ,but ,i have to go with Ivan and Vladimir on this one.
