While some folks desperately cling to the belief that oil is a renewable resource, others hold on to the equally delusional idea that tapping the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve will solve, or at least delay, this crisis. While drilling for oil in ANWR will certainly make a lot of money for the companies doing the drilling, it won't do much to help the overall situation for three reasons:

1. According of the Department of Energy, drilling in ANWR will only
lower oil prices by less than fifty cents;

2. ANWR contains 10 billion barrels of oil - or about the amount the US
consumes in a little more than a year.

3. As with all oil projects, ANWR will take about 10 years to come
online. Once it does, its production will peak at 875,000 barrels per
day - but not till the year 2025. By then the US is projected to need
a whopping 35 million barrels per day while the world is projected to
need 120 million barrels per day.

Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash