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Tuesday September 11, 2001
We could only have two more weeks.
Soon, land could be broken to begin drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
As you read this, you think that you fit into one of two categories - either an environmentalist or a conservative, right? The truth is no matter what your political affiliation, we are all in the same group - oil consumers.
The western United States is facing an energy crisis, and Washington worries about America's dependence on foreign oil reserves. So, what's the solution? Rip into the last 5 percent of Alaska that hasn't been opened to oil excavation?
No.
Many think that using the oil reserves in ANWR would help our precarious situation. All it takes is a bit of simple mathematics to prove this wrong. I might have dropped Calculus 124 once already, but it doesn't take a math graduate student to understand this equation.
Evar D. Nering, a math professor at Arizona State University, recently explained the situation in an article. If someone from ASU thinks it's obvious, it can't be all that hard to understand.
Exponential functions can be used to describe our oil resources. Here's a hypothetical situation: Although scientists have been arguing about how much oil Alaska holds, let's use a minimum prediction. Say there is a 100-year supply of oil in the ANWR. That means if our consumption rate remained constant, the supply would be exhausted by 2101.
But that isn't realistic. Our national consumption rate increases each year, usually by a modest 5 percent. Okay. This is easy.
If we consume that "100-year" supply at a 5 percent growth rate, how many years will it take for it to run dry? Thirty-seven.
But wait. Say we underestimated that supply and there really is a 1,000-year reserve. We're still not in the clear because using that amount with our consumption growth rate would give us only a 79-year supply.
Just to please you optimistic Republicans, what if the amount of oil in ANWR turned out to be an enormous 10,000-year supply. Would it still be worth it if that amount only lasted us 125 years?
So you ask, "What's the point of this extra math outside of class?" It is a way to demonstrate that drilling for more oil or building extra nuclear plants is exactly the wrong thing to do. America's energy and oil security problems can't be solved by a supply-side attack.
Exponential functions are used to describe the behavior of any chosen quantity whose rate of change is proportional to its size. So, producing more energy is not the solution to the crisis. Rather, it is conservation and reduction.
Now, let's pretend that Americans drive half as much, thus cutting the growth rate in half, to 2.5 percent. This will almost double the life expectancy of the supply, no matter what the prediction. On the other hand, doubling the supply would only increase its life span by about fourteen years.
Drilling the ANWR will not cure us of our energy-consumption craze.
Our politicians aren't doing the math.
While Democrats would rather reduce consumption, Republicans remain gung-ho about tapping into the terrain of coastal lagoons, polar bears, arctic tundra, barrier islands, porcupine caribou, musk oxen and boreal forests - not to mention the home of the Gwich'in natives. The ANWR drilling legislation has already passed through the House, and now it is up to the Senate. It is expected that it will land on the Senate floor sometime within the next few weeks.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., has already announced that she will vote for it. Yep, ANWR really is in trouble.
It is time we write our Senators. It is time to tell them to do the math.
In the words of Edward Abbey, "A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, power lines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to go there."
Most of us will probably never visit the pristine ANWR. But, we should all be grateful that it is there - untouched.
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