question: Do the oil exploration companies make any money just from test drilling? Or do they bear the cost totally? That is, is there any economic benefit to anyone UNTIL oil is discovered?

BillD: I DON'T REALLY KNOW but I suspect it is along the lines of tax breaks possibly given for exploration by the state and of course capital losses go against profits and result in reduced taxes. But I believe for the most part exploratory drilling is money 'down the hole'. ARCO was losing its shirt when it drilled hole after hold in the 60's and it was an executive decision at the very top out of their LA office which resulted in one last hole which discovered the Prudhoe 'elephant'.

In reference to some of the posts from last month, I can't see why we are not doing more with wind power and hybrid/electric cars. Even if they WON'T run 500 miles on a charge, 250 miles would cover an immense proportion of the daily trips by most Americans. This dancing and flirting and dodging with better alternatives MUST relate to someone's money and vested interests.

Someone's got to put up the research money or get it out of the government. Some other governments have done a lot of work with wind power, and steady progress is being made with solar power. They will be larger factors in our future but right now the big power generators are: Hydro, nuclear, oil, gas, and coal.

I went on a tour of the North Slope drilling sites about 12 years ago. It was with a group of staffers from Republican offices. I worked for a Denocratic state senator so I don't know why I was included. I do know the language from our tour guide was a lot different on this tour than it was on another tour a friend took. That on was was meant for Democrats. Those people know their audience. I heard a lot about burdensome regulations and what was going to happen "When Anwar comes on line."
The point is regulations in effect now may be changed when people who regard them as burdensome have been in power a little longer. Pumping the oil is all that matters to many.
And I know of unreported or underreported spills which have already happened. In the meantime damage from the Exxon Valdez spill continues.
Anytime oil is pumped from the ground and transported there will be risk of spills and other damage.
The only reason we are so eager to open the wildlife refuge is that we are unwilling to change our wasteful ways. The US already uses a huge and disporportionate share of the world's energy. There is a finite supply of oil and generations to come who might need it.
A few simple measures implemented now would save more oil in a few years than ANWR will produce. We all know them; reduce speed, make sure tires are properly inflated, car pool, walk, ride bikes, stay home, quit driving large heavy vehicles. (Driving from my home about 40 miles outside Anchorage, I always see truck after truck, after SUV, after Hummer with one person in each. At least we are in a fuel-efficient 5-year-old Toyota Corolla.)

Pretty much all the cars in my extended family are small Toyotas. That's one great car-making company. But Americans to this day are responding to advertisements about powerful engines and big cars. Ford hasn't been marketing the Excursion for nothing, GM hasn't been hawking the Hummer to noone. We will learn when the prices go up and stay up.

I still remember in the late 90's when the price of oil was about $9 a barrell and the popular news was quoting experts who said the price could stay like that for years.

If you read the earlier messges in this thread you will see that no one is claiming that ANWR oil will do anything other than defray the pain and cost to some extent, IF THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT DEPOSIT up there which we don't actually know. But when you're in pain, you take pain medicine if only to make the pain less while you work for recovery. At $50 a barrel, 10 Billion barrels of recoverable oil is a nice piece of change, and it's all in the United States and we already have the big pipeline to do most of the transportation.