Drilling Paradise DRY?

Ever think of polar bears when you drive past a gas station? If you're trying to make the connection, pass this through your pipeline: Gas, plastic, and other products you use every day are made in part from oil that flows from Alaska--home to some 5,000 polar bears, 1 million caribou, and other amazing wildlife.

Now a debate is raging over Americans' soaring demand for oil versus the future of Alaska's pristine wilderness. On one side, President George Bush wants to let oil companies explore and drill inside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (see map, p. 15). "We can explore without leaving footprints," says Joseph Hegna, an environmental manager at the oil producer ARCO Alaska.

On the other side : Environmentalists who claim the region's biodiversity (variety of living things) must be rigorously protected--and permanently off-limits to oil drilling. "There are scars to wildlife habitats even from the best technology," says environmental consultant Pamela Miller.

Soon the U.S. Congress may decide the outcome, but question lingers: Can Americans balance their thirst for oil with the need to preserve the fragile ecosystem (organisms interacting with their environment) of the Arctic refuge?

Q What is oil and where does it come from?

Oil is a fossil fuel, or "energy resource from decayed material of once-living plants and animals," says David Houseknecht, a research geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The black, sticky liquid consists of hydrogen and carbon compounds called hydrocarbons.

Roughly two miles below Earth's surface lies "source rock," where oil is generated, Houseknecht explains. Many scientists think oil deposits formed millions of years ago, when shallow seas blanketed much of Earth's surface; over time, sediment (mud and silt debris) buried ancient plants and animals. The weight of . accumulated sediment compressed the deepest layers at the sea bottom. This compression also created heat that hardened sediment into shale rock, and forced out the elements hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon--the building blocks of oil.

"An oil field isn't a huge cavern," Houseknecht says. Rather, oil droplets seep into pores or surface holes in rocks generally filled with water. Since oil is lighter than water, it floats upward and sometimes seeps up through Earth's surface. But nonporous rock layers also trap rising oil, creating an underground oil reservoir.

Archaeologists think the Persians used oil they discovered gurgling above ground as glue and building mortar 6,000 years ago. In the 13th century, Venetian explorer Marco Polo reported seeing geysers spewing oil--traded by merchants and used for burning lamps--on his travels through the Middle East. Not until the 1850s in Pennsylvania did prospectors use cranes left over from salt wells to drill for underground oil--fueled by consumer demand for kerosene, flammable lamp oil.

Q How do you find oil?

Usually prospectors locate oil by testing porous rocks a foot or two beneath the soil or along rock outcroppings: If the rocks contain a lot of carbon, oil is likely to be nearby but deep underground. Today, geologists use supercomputers and seismic mapping, or sound waves that reflect differently off porous and nonporous rock layers, to create maps of underground oil pockets (see diagram, above).

Q How do we get oil out of the ground?

Oil trapped beneath nonporous rock is under intense pressure, much like water inside a hose. Drill through the retaining layer--the nonporous rock blocking the flow--and oil gushes out, as if the ground has sprung a leak. But two decades ago, drilling for oil in remote places like Alaska involved dozens of exploration wells and waste pits inundated with mud, contaminated water, and often toxic chemicals. An intricate network of aboveground pipelines connected drilling sites.

Now, sensor-studded drills bore through stratified (layered) rock to pinpoint even small oil beds. Engineers build wells in compact sites that snake beneath the ground rather than relying on a web of surface pipes. Newer wells direct gushing oil so it spurts up into a single pipeline aboveground (see diagram, right).

Q What's the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

Set aside in 1980, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge spans 19 million acres--about the size of South Carolina. The refuge was established to protect a wide variety of wildlife, like polar and grizzly bears, musk oxen, arctic foxes, caribou, and roughly 135 species of migratory birds. "It's been compared to the Serengeti Plain in Africa in terms of the diverse wildlife it sustains," says Elliott Negin, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Q What are the environmental risks of drilling Arctic Refuge?

Oil companies want to drill in a small section of the refuge called the "1,002 Area"--1.5 million out of 19 million acres. But that swath happens to be the "biological heart of the refuge where wildlife live," Negin says.

"The total land area needed to produce oil is less than that of a typical large airport," claims Robert Porter of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy.

Not so, says Negin: "Drilling sites aren't in one place, so they'd have to be connected by roads and pipelines." Plus, oil companies would have to build facilities like worker housing. Trucks and roads--even if the roads are made of ice and melt in summer--can disturb animal habitats and migratory routes.

Q Do we need to drill inside the Arctic Refuge?

President Bush and his supporters believe the best way to satisfy our surging oil appetite is to produce more oil on our home turf. The U.S.--the world's top oil user--consumes 7 billion barrels of oil each year. The USGS estimates the refuge's coastal plain contains between 3 and 10 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil--oil that will turn a profit for companies after the cost of drilling, transporting oil through the 800-mile Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, then refining it. Without that profit, oil companies would have little incentive to drill inside the refuge. The recoverable amount of oil totals just over one year's worth of additional oil for the U.S. at best.

Q How do we use oil?

"About two thirds of the oil we use goes to make gasoline and diesel fuel for cars, trucks, and other vehicles," says Porter. "The rest is used to heat homes and businesses, and to make tires, ink, and plastics."

Fresh from the ground, crude oil is full of impurities like water and minerals. After cleaning, crude oil is refined by distillation--at 750 [degrees] F, short hydrocarbon chains change from liquid to gas; the gas rises and cools on the way up. Some gas keeps rising, but the rest returns to a liquid state, only this time with shorter hydrocarbon chains.

Now the liquid is gas oil, used to make diesel and heating fuel. Farther from the heat source, increasingly cooler forms of oil transform into kerosene (used in jet fuel and candle wax), naphtha (for plastics and chemicals), and finally gasoline.

THINK ABOUT IT

Should U.S. oil companies drill inside the Arctic refuge? Why or why not?

RELATED ARTICLE: HOW NEW OIL TECHNOLOGY WORKS

On Alaska's North Slope, oil-drilling companies now employ cutting-edge technology to lessen the industry's impact on the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

OIL TRANSPORT

A 14-inch-wide pipeline transports oil from Alpine Field to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

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OIL DETECTOR

Advanced drills are steerable instruments equipped with sensors in the drill bit, which detect properties of rock and pinpoint exact oil location.

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GETTING THERE

OLD: Paved roads take workers to drilling sites, disrupting animal habitats.

NEW: Temporary ice roads in the winter melt during the summer.

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WASTE DISPOSAL

OLD: Mud and drilling-debris, including toxic chemicals, are disposed of in reserve pits.

NEW: Rock cuttings are crushed, mixed with mud, and returned to where they came from--deep inside the earth.

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RIVER CROSSING

OLD: A system of pipelines sits aboveground, impacting animal migratory routes.

NEW: One section of pipeline to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline dips beneath the Colville River.

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RELATED ARTICLE: POWER TRIP: How the U.S. Measures Up

Americans have a huge appetite for energy in general. Here's a worldwide comparison of the average amount of energy used per person in 1999.

UNITED STATES   356.8
RUSSIA          176.9
JAPAN           171.6
BRAZIL           51.9
CHINA            25.1
AFRICA           15.0
INDIA            12.3

Figures in millions of British thermal units
(energy measurement: amount of heat needed to
raise the temperature of one pound of water
by 1 [degrees] F).

SOURCE: ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION

Note: Table made from bar graph.

RELATED ARTICLE: Earth Science: Oil Drilling * Energy

Cross-Curricular Connection

Social Studies: Why is oil such a valuable commodity? How does oil-supply effect your life?

Did You Know?

* In August, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an energy bill that would allow some oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The bill now goes to the U.S. Senate.

* Every summer, millions of migratory birds from four continents, every province in Canada, and every state in the U.S., nest and rear their young at the refuge.

* The modern petroleum industry began on August 27, 1859, in Titusville, Penn., when the world's first commercial oil well, powered by an old steam engine, struck oil.

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National Science Education Standards

Grades 5-8: populations, resources, and environments * understanding about science and technology * populations and ecosystems * risks and benefits

Grades 9-12: natural resources * understanding about science and technology * interdependence of organisms * environmental quality

Resources

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's Web site: www.anwr.org

"Hunting for Oil: New Precision, Less Pollution," by Andrew C. Revkin, The New York Times, January 30, 2001

The White House's National Energy Policy Web site: www.whitehouse.gov/energy/