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The price of oil produced in the United States, which reached a new all-time high of $50.47 a barrel on Sept. 28, won't drop back down to around $40 until at least summer 2005, according to University of Colorado at Boulder faculty member Jack Edwards.
"We may never see the $20 per barrel price of the mid-1990s again," said Edwards, an adjunct professor of geological sciences and a former chief geologist of Shell Oil. Edwards spent 37 years in the oil industry before joining the CU-Boulder faculty in 1992.
Edwards said the current predicament the United States faces is a combination of slowing domestic production, rising demand for oil from China and India, political unrest in Nigeria, Iraq, Venezuela, Russia and other areas, and also the effects of four hurricanes disrupting production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, an environmental and energy issue in this year's presidential election, would have little or no effect on the current situation, according to Edwards.
"Producing the resources in ANWR would make us a little less reliant on foreign oil, but it wouldn't affect the price and it wouldn't solve our looming energy crisis," he said. "ANWR isn't a quick fix, and it isn't a perfect fix, either."
Edwards predicts world oil production will peak between 2020 and 2040, and believes the United States' only way out of the fossil fuel "bear trap" is to encourage increased use of sustainable, alternative, non-polluting fuels, including nuclear, wind, solar, hydrogen, biomass and others.
To reach Edwards call (303) 492-2609 or contact Mike Liguori in the CU-Boulder Office of News Services at (303) 492-3117.