Fact or Fiction?
1
To achieve energy security, the U.S. must become oil independent
Not necessarily. In fact, the U.S. is unlikely to become truly energy, or oil, independent. Even as the U.S. seeks to secure its supply by investing in alternative energy technology and bolstering domestic oil production, much of the developing world remains dependent on big oil producers in the Middle East. According to the National Intelligence Council’s “Global Trends 2030” report released in December 2012, a significant increase in U.S. oil production could “push global spare capacity to exceed 8 million barrels per day, at which point OPEC could lose price control and crude oil prices would drop, possibly sharply.” Furthermore, as it increases domestic production, the U.S. forces its main suppliers – Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and parts of Latin America and Africa – to seek out alternative markets.
A sharp deviation in oil prices combined with a drop in demand in some parts of the world “certainly has a revenue impact on all producer nations, not only on the ones supplying the economically depressed region,” according to a 2012 International Studies Perspectives article on Global Energy Security. “The 1998 price drop in oil, for instance, was partly triggered by a regional economic depression in Asia, but eventually translated into globally depressed crude prices.”
Relying on viable alternatives to imported foreign oil, such as natural gas or shale oil from the formations in Texas and North Dakota, may help secure U.S. energy supply, but it will not lead to true energy independence.
- By Elizabeth Bunn