In the article I talked about how micro-organisms accumulated over hundreds or even thousands of years in the ancient world. The micro-organisms would partially decompose in low-oxygen environments and over a period of millions of years would be compressed under such great pressures they would be broken down into their component hydrogen and carbon, forming long chains of complex hydrocarbons. These long chains of hydrocarbons are what comprise petroleum, or crude oil, and natural gas. The crude oil forms in "pockets" in the rocks. Coal was formed in a similar process involving decomposing plant material. This is, of course, a very simplified description of what takes place.
Because petroleum, natural gas and coal are formed over periods of millions of years, we must realize this makes fossil fuels a non-renewable source of energy. We simply cannot make more fossil fuels because the process would take millions more years.
With the current energy crisis the United States and other countries are experiencing, I cannot emphasize this fact enough: fossil fuels are a non-renewable source of energy. Even though plans are currently being discussed to go into ANWAR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to pump out the petroleum that lies under the earth's surface, we must realize that petroleum, too, will run out.
The U.S. Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.), using seismic data, has assessed the amount of oil that could be recovered from ANWAR as being between 4 to 12 billion barrels, with a 95% probability of the recovery of the 4 billion barrels and only a 5% probability of recovery of 12 billion barrels. After considering the cost of getting that oil to market, the amount of oil that might be profitably recovered would probably fall between 3.2 and 5.6 billion barrels, the USGS estimates. Only one million barrels of oil can be extracted per day. The U.S. consumes petroleum at the rate of 19.4 million barrels per day, so you can see that the amount of petroleum that would be extracted from ANWAR would only be a small contribution to our current needs.
This means we are still going to run out of petroleum. Going into a wildlife refuge and damaging the ecosystems to pump out a quantity of petroleum that will last such a short time is merely putting a band-aid on the spurting wound of our energy crisis. Even with the petroleum industry's abilities to minimize their environmental impact on the Wildlife Refuge, damage will be done to the ecosystem.
