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  3. Is there enough oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (保护区) (ANWR)

Is there enough oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (保护区) (ANWR)

游客2023-07-28  38
问题     Is there enough oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (保护区) (ANWR)to help secure America’s energy future? President Bush certainly thinks so. He has argued that tapping ANWR’s oil would help ease California’s electricity crisis and provide a major boost to the country’s energy independence. But no one knows for sure how much crude oil lies buried beneath the frozen earth, with the last government survey, conducted in 1998, projecting output anywhere from 3 billion to 16 billion barreis.
    The oil industry goes with the high end of the range, which could equal as much as 10% of U.S. consumption for as long as six years. By pumping more than 1 million barreis a day from the reserve for the next two to three decades, lobbyists claim, the nation could cut back on imports equivalent to all shipments to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. Sounds good. An oil boom would also mean a multibillion-dollar windfall (意外之财) in tax revenues, royalties (开采权使用费) and leasing fees for Alaska and the Federal Government. Best of all, advocates of drilling say, damage to the environment would be insignificant. "We’ve never had a documented case of an oil rig chasing deer out onto the pack ice," says Alaska State Representative Scott Ogan.
    Not so fast, say environmentalists. Sticking to the low end of government estimates, the National Resources Defense Council says there may be no more than 3.2 billion barreis of economically recoverable oil in the coastal plain of ANWR, a drop in the bucket that would do virtually nothing to ease America’s energy problems. And consumers would wait up to a decade to gain any benefits,  because drilling could begin only after much bargaining over leases, environmental permits and regulatory review. As for ANWR’s impact on the California power crisis, environmentalists point out that oil is responsible for only 1% of the Golden State’s electricity output-and just 3% of the nation’s. [br] We learn from the second paragraph that the American oil industry______.
选项 A、shows little interest in tapping oil in ANWR
B、expects to stop oil imports from Saudi Arabia
C、tends to exaggerate America’s reliance on foreign oil
D、believes that drilling for oil in ANWR will produce high yields
答案 D
解析 从文章第二段得知，石油工业界人士预测，在以后的20或30年间，每年从石油储量中抽吸一百多万桶，国家就会减少石油的进口量，石油的增长也意味着在税收、开采权使用费以及租用费方面的一大笔意外之财；更为重要的是，对于环境的损坏几乎是微乎其微的。选项 A、B、C都不符合题意，D项“(美国石油界相信)开发北极地区国家生物保护区的石油将会产生很高的效益”，符合题意，故选D)。
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