ANWR - The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge - generally considered to contain significant commercial sources of oil. Pronounced 'anwar'.

What the recent vote means - With the greater Republican count in the Senate, plus a couple Democrat cross-overs, makes it more likely that Congress will approve exploratory drilling in the reserve. The vote that just occurred was to include ANWR development in the budget. There needs to be another vote before drilling is actually approved. It is still not a sure thing to happen. And even if Congress approves, the big oil companies have to actually foot the bill to do exploratory drilling.

What is exploratory drilling? - A mobile drill rig has to be moved into place from which a series of exploratory drilling operations can take place. For an area the size of ANWR to be explored, several rigs would be used. Modern directional drilling allows each rig, from a single position, to make penetrations thousands of feet deep up to several miles horizontally. Mobile rigs move into position in the winter, do their drilling, and are moved off well before the ice melts. They leave no record of their passage except for the actual drill hole, which is a small pad something like 30' x 30'. If they don't find oil, not much else happens. A drill rig being used this way eats money at a phenomenol rate, on the order of 100,000 to 300,000 bucks a day.

What if they do find oil? In order to get oil out of the area, a large gravel pad is built. These are roughly the size of 1/2 to 2 x American football field 50 x 100 yards. Gravel is poured out to a depth of about 10' which insulates construction from the tundra. The tundra is 'protected' and inaccessible below the gravel. The idea is to insulate the tundra so it will not melt, hence provide a foundation for the oil well structures. A drill rig needs to be brought to the site to drill a number of wells (10 to 50 at 30' intervals)in order to maximize oil production. Some wells are 'injectors' meaning they actually pump fluids INTO the ground in order to 'herd' the subterranean oil to the optimum pick up points. Typically, a road must be built to access the well sites. There have been developments, most notably the Alpine field, where they do not have a road, they extend the gravel pad to make the site accessible to aircraft, they only move the rigs in the winter over ice roads. They also need to build pipelines, which are welded steel with insulation around them. The pipelines have nowhere near the environmental impact that the roads do because they are elevated above the tundra.

How quickly can oil be brought to market?
I've been seeing figures as high as ten years. Those figures must be including a long search time. Exploration is done in the winter, and duh, you get one winter per year. Exploration may take one two or three years depending on commitment, money, and luck. Once the exploration and seismic work has shown the petroleum engineers how much, where, and what kind of oil, development can be done pretty damn fast. Two years, no big deal. Remember the major pipeline is already there and operating well below capacity.

What are the environmental effects?
1) Loss of pristine environment. On the upside, this is not 'pretty' environment. This is the north coast of ANWR, it is flat, treeless, windblown, and hostile to most terrestrial life. On the downside, it has its own fierce beauty and once a drill pad is put there, that is lost forever.

2) Possible redistribution of animal herds. There are migratory birds which utilize the area and seem to be little affected by the developed areas to the East of ANWR. There are polar bears, grizzly bears, caribou, and foxes. All seem to compensate pretty well to existing development. There is concern on the part of Alaska natives to the South that the migratory routes of the caribou may be displaced requiring hunters to travel further to reach prey. There are other natives to the north who will directly benefit from development to their tax base. They are for the most part in favor of development.

3) Oil Spills. Oil Spills do happen, but there is a very rigorous definition of what constitutes an oil spill. I believe it is a single drop. When I was there, you couldn't refill a vehicle without putting an oil absorbent diaper pad below where the fuel nozzle pokes into the gas tank. For big breaks, there are safeguards to the system in the form of valves that can shut the pipeline down very quickly. There is no water table to be polluted. Crude oil is not very vaporous (compared to products like gasoline) and congeals at low temperatures. So an oil spill leads to an expensive cleanup, but not long term environmental damage. There are few of the large kind of oil spills and they are always a big deal and get reported in the papers.

4) Air pollution. I've seen a haze in the Arctic, but I'm not sure if it is from existing development or blown in from Asia. Developing ANWR will add some but not much compared to what's already there. Most of the energy used to produce electricity and heat comes from burning natural gas, which is a pretty clean burning fuel.

5) Environmentalists have a significant fear that allowing drilling in ANWR will make it more likely that the current government will allow more economic use of other reservation areas in the Lower 48, more visible and more prone to major cosmetic and structural impact not only in oil, but in forestry and mining. In other words, ANWR development is the 'thin end of the wedge' of irreversible development. This is probably a worthwhile concern

What are the economic effects?. There is nowhere near enough oil in ANWR to make the US close to energy independent. Those days are over. There (probably) IS enough oil there to save tens of billions of dollars that will otherwise go overseas.

Personally The big pipeline and the north south service road already exist. New development will be a small fraction of what is already there, and newer technology can reduce impact substatially. I don't have a problem with exploration in ANWR which will have minimum impact. If there is to be development, I think the government should link it to an increased efficiency / conservation drive throughout the country. Having additional locally produced oil AND more control over our consumption could lead to lower oil prices. Unfortunately, I think the Dems don't have enough power to force the link, and our President has shown little concern over conservation (along with the rest of the country).
It may be moot because the oil companies go where they can get the most bang for the investment dollar and for the last few years its been the Gulf of Mexico, and if the political situation stabilizes more, Indonesia. Alaska is a very expensive place to go to for oil, but the facilities in the North are top notch and heavily monitored.