Drill in Alaska Wildlife Preserve

It is true we already do get oil from remote Alaska - Prudhoe Bay accounts for 17% of U.S. domestic production. What's more, since the U.S. produces 5 million barrels of oil a day, if we could pump an additional 1 million barrels from ANWR it would represent a 20% increase in domestic production.

However, even the most hell-bent-for-leather program would require exploration, test wells, building of infrastructure and more. It would probably take about 10 years for oil from ANWR to start reaching consumers. I think we'll either be well on our way to electric cars and trains or a Mad Max-esque dystopia by then. In other words, ANWR isn't a short-term solution to high gasoline prices.

Also, we don't know the size of the recoverable oil reserves in ANWR. Estimates vary, but the mean recoverable estimate is 7.7 billion barrels. That sounds like a lot ... when you're talking about olive oil. The U.S. uses 20.6 million barrels of petroleum per day. So, the recoverable reserves in ANWR would give us 373 days of supply, or slightly over a year.

And it wouldn't be cheap - far from it. ANWR defines "remote," and the winter conditions in ANWR could pretty much be described as "an icy slice of hell."

Finally, there's no guarantee that the oil would go to the U.S. Some Alaskan oil now goes to Japan - oil companies can sell to whoever they want.