Showing posts with label ANWR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ANWR. Show all posts

Monday, February 9, 2009

Sarah Palin is Right About Drilling in the ANWR

by Janet Crain

How much longer are we going to keep shooting ourselves in the foot? In both feet? In the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades with no promise of relief in sight, our leaders are imposing severe hardships by cap and trade legislation, new automobile emissions and fuel standards, higher taxes on coal production and refusal to tap into the richest resource available.

I consider this an emergency and in an emergency ou do whatever it takes to survive. If you want to win a race you don't encumber yourself with shackles and weights and restrict fluids or deny them all together. Because if you were so insane as to do this, you would not only lose the race, you would most likely die.

Read what George Will has to say on this insanity:

Iowa's caucuses, a source of so much turbulence, might even have helped cause the recent demonstration by 10,000 Indonesians in Jakarta. Savor the multiplying irrationalities of the government-driven mania for ethanol and other biofuels, and energy policy generally.

Indonesians, like most Asians, love soybeans, the world price of which has risen 50 percent in a month and 125 percent in a year, partly because of increasing world population and incomes, but also because many farmers have switched land from soybeans to crops that can be turned into biofuels. In 2005, America used 15 percent of its corn crop to supplant less than 2 percent of its gasoline use. In 2007, the government-contrived U.S. demand for ethanol was more than half the global increase in demand. The political importance of corn-growing, ethanol-making Iowa is one reason that biofuel mandates flow from Washington the way oil would flow from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if it had nominating caucuses.

ANWR's 10.4 billion barrels of oil have become hostage to the planet's saviors (e.g., John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama), who block drilling in even a tiny patch of ANWR. You could fit Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware into ANWR's frozen desolation; the "footprint" of the drilling operation would be one sixth the size of Washington's Dulles airport.

Clinton has an alternative to drilling: Oil should be released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve—which exists to protect the nation against major interruptions of supply—as "a signal to the market." A signal of what? Readiness to release more? All 698 million barrels? Then what?

Americans can still drill for … water. Water rights (T. Boone Pickens has bought 400,000 acres of them in the Texas Panhandle) are becoming more valuable as ethanol production, which is extremely water-intensive, puts pressure on supplies.

To avoid drilling for oil in ANWR's moonscape, the planet savers evidently prefer destroying forests, even though they absorb greenhouse gases. Will ethanol prevent more carbon-dioxide emissions than would have been absorbed by the trees cut down to clear land for the production of crops for ethanol? Be that as it may, governments mandating the use of biofuels are one reason for the global rise in food prices, which is driving demand for more arable land. That demand is driving the destruction of forests—and animal habitats. In Indonesia alone, 44 million acres have been razed to make way for production of palm oil.

Cont. here:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/107575

© Janet Crain

Click here to view all recent Sarah Palin in 2012 posts

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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sarah Palin: The case for drilling in ANWR

Last update: January 31, 2009 - 5:07 PM

Let's not forget: Only six months ago, oil was selling for nearly $150 per barrel, while Americans were paying $4 a gallon and more for gasoline. And today, there is potential for prices to rebound as OPEC asserts its market power and as Russia disrupts needed natural gas to Europe for the second time in three years.

As I traveled throughout the country campaigning for vice president, I was glad to hear politicians, including Barack Obama, promise that "everything was on the table" to address America's great challenges. I also found that when Americans were apprised of the facts, most people became supporters of responsible oil and gas drilling in Alaska. So, I want to remind our national leaders of this promise and make the case against this legislation:

•Oil from ANWR represents a huge, secure domestic supply that could help satisfy U.S. demand for more than 25 years.

ANWR sits within a 20 million-acre refuge (the size of South Carolina), but thanks to advanced technology like directional drilling, the aggregated drilling footprint would be less than 2,000 acres (about one-quarter the size of Dulles Airport). This is like laying a 2-by-3-foot welcome mat on a basketball court.

•Energy development is quite compatible with the protection of our wildlife and their habitat. For example, North Slope caribou herds have grown and remained healthy throughout more than three decades of oil development. Most of the year, our coastal plain is frozen solid and thus characterized by low biological productivity.

ANWR development would create hundreds of thousands of good American jobs, positively affecting every state by providing a safe energy supply and generating demand for goods and services.

Cont. here:

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/38719737.html?elr=KArks:DCiUBcy7hUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

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© Janet Crain

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