What is anwr drilling

The Arctic Refuge is now facing a pivotal moment. Even as the climate crisis is causing the Arctic to warm at rates higher than any other place on Earth , the government is fast-tracking a lease sale that would lead to drilling.

Oil development would bring roads, airstrips, heavy machinery, noise and pollution. It would also contribute to the climate crisis with more oil production in a time when it is not needed and we should be thinking of alternative approaches to fuel our lives and our economy. While the threat to the refuge is higher than ever, the fight is not over. Working alongside Indigenous partners, we are making great strides by advocating for permanent protection of this special place, going to court against the administration, successfully applying pressure on major banks to reject financing for drilling, and building a huge base of public support.

We all have a moral obligation to stand up and keep it from being destroyed. While Congress has been busy greasing the wheels for drilling, the Trump administration has taken illegal actions to fast-track a lease sale and the start of drilling. Should the government get away with fast-tracking the steps for drilling, an important arm of our defense is to pressure oil and gas companies not to develop in the Arctic Refuge.

In so doing, we will end the threat of drilling once and for all. The Porcupine caribou herd's migration through the Arctic Refuge is one of the largest land migrations on earth. Arctic foxes and other wildlife call the Arctic Refuge home. This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city.

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Environment As the EU targets emissions cuts, this country has a coal problem. Government representatives are responsible for representing the interests of their constituents.

Thus, Alaskan local representatives will voice the support of their constituents, who support the drilling. This can be exemplified through Former Mayor Benjamin P. Non-Partisan Environmental Interest Groups:. Many non-partisan environmental groups such as the World Wildlife Fund WWF act to regulate, influence, and prevent government bodies from introducing policies that will be detrimental to the environment. Environmental groups are not policy or decision makers and only exert influence on governments by swaying opinions of American voters, who will in turn voice these opinions to their government representatives.

Similar to environmental groups, major oil companies can usually only lobby or campaign for favorable political conditions from the government. However, as many of these oil companies bring about considerable contributions to the American GDP, government decision-makers sometimes view their interests favorably. History has seen oil companies successfully bribe key government decision-makers to create favorable operating conditions. The ANWR oil drilling controversy is a wicked problem with several alternatives or courses of action that could be taken.

However, even these solutions present some degree of uncertainty. The first option relates to encouraging the development of renewable alternative energy sources through government programs. The second proposition includes improving energy efficiency in production. Renewable energies in particular are a viable alternative to oil production, and can reduce the increase in climate emissions.

Reducing CO2 emissions is not enough — there also needs to be legislative change as well as technological innovation, as well as economic incentive for investment in alternative sources of energy.

Renewable energies, like wind, solar, and hydro, are technologies that already exist today. However, in the U. Energy Information Administration, As oil reserves are running dry, it is becoming apparent that a shift towards renewable energy is necessary. Government bodies can encourage the growth of renewable energy through incentivized rebate programs or grants that mitigate the risk of significant start up capital.

No longer can our economic system be concerned with short term gains, as such a system will inevitably fail. With government programs that encourage renewable energy alternatives, both economic interests and environmental health interests can be satisfied. Corporations and individuals seeking to maximize profits will consider renewable energy alternatives as a profitable opportunity, while environmental interest groups can feel confident on the health of the environment.

There is a large amount of energy wasted on inefficient production methods. Government bodies should incentivize individuals and corporations to not only conserve energy, but also improve energy efficiency. This solution can slow down the inevitability of tapped oil reserves, but cannot act as a stand-alone solution. The most effective solution would combine the development of renewable energy sources with an effort to increase oil and energy efficiency.

Alaska oil was by far the least profitable due to its high cost of production. BP answered that question last summer by selling all its assets in Alaska—after 60 years in the state—to Houston-based Hilcorp, Inc. The only test well ever drilled in the refuge, in the early s, was on one of those leases, and the results of that test is one of the most tightly guarded secrets in the oil industry. BP executives certainly knew what was down that hole, and were on the cusp of being able to develop their leases there for the first time in 40 years, thanks to the Trump Administration—and they walked away.

Even more uncertain is how oil companies would finance a multi-billion-dollar development in ANWR, which has no infrastructure or pipeline to carry oil out of the refuge. More than 60 financial institutions around the world have pledged to restrict or stop financing Arctic oil exploration, including all five major U.

The financial challenges to drilling anywhere in the Arctic stem from the physical challenges—and those are increasing, thanks to fossil fuels themselves. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, turning rock-hard frozen permafrost into a land of lakes, sinkholes, and boggy peat in the summer. Last June, after weeks of record high temperatures that hit over degrees Fahrenheit, a giant diesel fuel tank in the Siberian city of Norilsk sank into the tundra and ruptured, spilling 21, metric tons , barrels of fuel—nearly half the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez tanker off Alaska in —and creating the largest spill in modern Russian history.

ANWR has the same geology. In the economically optimum solution, that would include all the super-expensive oil and gas in the Arctic. Russia, however, which gets a sizable fraction of its GDP and international clout from Arctic energy resources, is going in the opposite direction. In Alaska, the only state with neither an income nor a sales tax, the state budget depends heavily on oil industry taxes.

Meanwhile, oil companies have cut their workforce in Alaska by more than half, from 15, in to 6, in And that was before the pandemic hit, pushing 40, more Alaskans out of work. Despite enduring numerous booms and busts since oil began flowing down the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in , the state has yet to wean itself off oil.

Buckley has been tracking the financial and investment firms that have pledged to no longer invest in Arctic oil and gas projects.

When oil prices hit zero in April, they lost half of their market capitalization in just four months. It was BP, Total, Chevron. Profitability just evaporated in huge swaths of the energy market. Some of that demand will return after the pandemic, he says. But he believes the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels—and Arctic oil and gas in particular.