Drill Phobia.(oil exploration in Alaska)

Where will America's future energy come from?

The North Slope of Alaska in early June is infinitely less hostile than it is in January, but almost as featureless. The temperature is in the 30s, and the flat, barren plain stretches, brown and desolate, to the horizon in every direction but north, where it drops into the icy Beaufort Sea under cover of high white clouds. The ground is two inches of mud interspersed with scraggly vegetation and drifts of unmelted snow and ice. The birds have begun to return to the shallow ponds that dot the landscape, many still frozen, but they're the only immediately apparent evidence of life. The greening of the groundcover is still weeks away, as are two other prominent features of the brief summer season--the caribou and the hordes of mosquitoes. This time of year there is no night, no complete darkness, only several hours of twilight in the early morning.

Harsh winter reigns here nine months of the year, with roaring winds and brutal sub-zero temperatures. Despite the adverse conditions, winter is when the majority of the oil field work is done on the Slope, as the tundra is hard and ice roads can be constructed to ferry supplies and equipment to outlying satellite installations and new drilling sites. In a land where thermometers routinely drop to -60 degrees, portable heaters are everywhere, and the roustabouts and roughnecks scurry from warmth to warmth dressed in thickly insulated fire-resistant coveralls.

The DeHaviland Otter waiting to fly us to Phillips Petroleum's Alpine field has Spirit of Deadhorse emblazoned on its tail. Evocative of frontier Alaska, perhaps, but not especially inspiring as a motto. From the air, the Alpine field appears as an island in a brown tundra sea. In many respects it is, functioning much like an offshore drilling platform. At a total of 94 acres, it's the smallest oil facility on the North Slope, and the most technologically advanced. The drilling and production facilities are perched atop two gravel pads perched atop two gravel pads that insulate the equipment from the permafrost, and by virtue of new horizontal drilling techniques the entire 40,000-acre oil field can be accessed from 110 tightly spaced wells that will branch out from the tiny pads. Already, 20 wells are producing oil.

We land on the causeway joining the pads, which doubles as landing strip and access road, again to minimize the facility's footprint, and are ferried to the office and living quarters. After being issued insulated coveralls, hardhats, safety glasses, and steel-toed boots we step out across the gravel to the plant. Dave Earl, an Alpine manager, leads us through the entire production facility like a proud father, pointing out the next-generation technology with enthusiasm. "This stuff is so cool," he says with a chuckle. His pride is shared by other members of the Alpine crew, who are aware they're practicing the most advanced oil drilling and production in the world.

The Alpine field, which began production only this January, is estimated to contain anywhere from 800 million to 1 billion barrels of oil. Under current technical and economic conditions, Phillips expects to draw approximately 430 million barrels from the reservoir. The extracted petroleum is high grade--a single gravity above diesel fuel in its unrefined state. Earl holds a bottle to the light with a grin. "That's some sweet crude," he says. "You could almost just burn this right in your tank." And it's flowing out even faster than expected.

As we walk, we notice that the entire Alpine production complex is suspended above its gravel pad, to further insulate the tundra. Pilings sunk through the gravel into the permafrost are insulated with sleeves filled with liquid ammonia that dissipate ambient heat. The processing equipment is extremely compact, designed to minimize sprawl.