How casually the environmentalists dismiss ANWR's oil potential (OGJ, Feb. 26, 2001, p. 19) in the Feb. 15, 2001, study by World Resources Institute (WRI). Using the USGS estimate of 10 billion bbl for the mean recoverable oil at ANWR, the current value (@$30/bbl) is $30 x 10 billion = $300 billion or $300,000 million. Hardly an insignificant amount. This could fund US Social Security/Medicare for all Americans or provide funds to fight foreign wars for oil from other nations' fields. At least it would save the money rather than being spent for OPEC oil. If we buy the oil from the Persian Gulf fields, we shall be pushing the poverty stricken oil-less developing nations towards starvation. We have no inalienable right to burn up other nation's oil-especially when we have the ANWR prospect in our own back yard!
L. F. Ivanhoe
Consultant
Ojai, Calif.
