By the numbers

In his ridiculous and embarrassing press conference today, the former governor of Texas said the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge contains "27 million gallons of diesel and gasoline from crude oil." That's as much gasoline as American's burn during a single 5 o'clock rush hour. But even if he meant to say 27 billion barrels of oil, that's still far from reality based. According to ANWR.org, a website that promotes the exploitation of the national wildlife refuge, "Studies of the ANWR coastal plain indicate it may contain between 6 and 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil." The 27 billion figure is wildly optimistic estimate of the oil "in place", that could be recovered if the higher estimates are correct, and if oil companies think it is profitable to invest in new technologies to suck the last drops of oil from the Earth's crust before the human race returns to its hunter gatherer roots.

How can Bush even pretend to be serious about a national energy policy if he can't even get the numbers right?