ENVS 149: Introduction to Environmental Science

Exercise: Comparing the Effects of Drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Increasing Average Vehicle Fuel Efficiency

The Bush administration suggests to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to cover part of the Nations growing demand for oil.  The following exercise lets you calculate how long ANWR oil will last if it is solely used for transportation. You will then compare the savings Americans could make by upgrading to moderately more fuel efficient cars.

How much oil is there?
The following links lead you to resources concerning the estimated oil reservoir of the ANWR.  Read through these websites or documents and come up with a reasonable estimate of how much oil is economically recoverable from the ANWR. As always, you should check out the original source and find out who pays for putting all this information on the web.

• American Petroleum Institute
  (this site is unfortunately no longer available, but here are two links that might help you out. how do you find something in a 60 page pdf, you ask. Use the "find" command.)
  ANWR means tanker jobs - has an indirect estimate of how much oil the API thinks there is at ANWR
  Worldwide Liquids Capacity Outlook 2010 has a brief chapter on Alaska's North Slope
   

• ANWR.org

• The National Resources Defence Council: Oil and the National Wildlife Refuge

• The Sierra Club ANWR fact sheet

• USGS fact sheet (pdf file)

How much oil are we likely to get from the ANWR?

How many cars are there in the United States, how much gas do they use?
Go to the US dept. of Transportation's website and find out how many cars are curently registered in the United States. Assume that each car is driving an average of 10,000 miles/year and has an average fuel efficiency of 20 mpg.

USDOT vehicle fleet website

How many miles do we drive in the U.S. every year?
How much gasoline is used in the U.S. for driving every year?
Don't like the numbers: Come up with your own! But tell me why you chose them.

How long will the oil last if it is only spent for driving purposes?
By now you know how much oil there is and how much we use every year. So, dividing one by the other should tell you how long it will last.

How long will ANWR oil last?

How much can we save by improving the fuel efficiency of our cars?
Oil from the ANWR cannot be pumped out of the ground within one year.  Experts estimate that it will take approximately 10 years to pump most of it.  So lets assume we will enjoy it for 10 years.  Lets also make a very conservative estimate that:
a) the number of cars doe not increase
b) the number of miles driven stays at 10,000 miles / year.

Now increase the average fuel efficiency by a reasonable amount and recalculate annual fuel consumptions. What is reasonable? Check the fuel efficiency of other countries to find out.
Check how much gasoline we will save per year and multiply it by 10.  Compare it to the total amount of oil stored in the ANWR.

How much oil can we save over 10 years by improving fuel efficiency?

Extra Credit (2.5 points)
This is an extremely simplistic estimate.  Is it likely to over or underestimate how long we can drive around on ANWR oil? As always: justify your answer!

This exercise is not designed to show that it makes absolutely no sense to drill the ANWR.  As a pessimist I am convinced that we will drill the ANWR sooner or later. But, our present government seems to be all excited about drilling and proclaims that it is the only way to gain some independence from foreign oil.