I believe that Americans are the smartest and most innovative people in the world. If we weren’t how could we become the greatest economic, cultural, social and military superpower the world has ever seen? It puzzles me though why we sometimes refuse to learn from our mistakes.
Case in point; energy independence; the oil embargos of the 1970s crippled our economy. Apart from creating the Strategic Petroleum Reserves, we did painfully little over the last 40 years to make sure that oil could not be used as a weapon against us. If anything, we made oil a more powerful weapon. In 1972, we imported 28% of our oil from foreign countries. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest figures (from 2009), 62% of the oil we consumed that year came from other nations.
In July 2008, OPEC reminded us of the power of oil as a weapon when the price of a barrel of oil reached $147. The tactics had changed from the 1970s – OPEC manipulated the supply to jack up the price versus imposing an outright embargo – but the results were eerily the same; Americans struggled to pay high gasoline and home heating oil prices, and America’s economy teetered on the brink of recession (our weakened economy would eventually be pushed over into the Great Recession by the collapse of the subprime housing market).
What was America’s response to the crisis? Nothing; or to be fair, we did nothing to increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. In fact, the Obama Administration recently made oil an even more powerful weapon by banning oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico thereby shutting down another 11% of our domestic oil production. So, here we are in 2011 more heavily dependent on foreign oil than ever before and watching helplessly as the price of oil climbs towards $100 a barrel thanks to the unrest in Egypt.
Oil’s threat to our economic security, however, pales in comparison to its threat to our national security. If we want proof of that, let’s remember that Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 was met with lukewarm resistance from Western Europe largely because of fears that Russia would turn off its flow of natural gas to Europe. At the time, Russian gas imports accounted for 26 percent of overall EU consumption. In comparison, the Persian Gulf region produces about 28 percent of the world’s oil (and accounts for 24% of the oil imported into the United States). But the threat to our national security goes beyond influencing policy decisions. The threat actually affects our troops in the field. Tanks, Humvees, trucks, aircraft, power generators, everything that makes the modern, high-tech, military function requires energy and that energy largely comes from oil. How long can our military remain in the field if the oil runs dry; my guess is not long.
Nothing has happened yet in Egypt to cut down on the availability of oil from the Middle East. Yet the mere increase in the risk of that happening has sent oil to $100 a barrel. If the situation in the region should escalate or spiral out of control and disrupt oil shipments through the Straits of Hormuz, the Suez Canal or both – even for a short time – the consequences for our economy and our national security would be devastating.
We must become energy independent, or as independent as possible, NOW because we are already in grave danger. I believe in renewable energy, it should be part of our energy mix, but like it or not, our current economy depends upon oil and natural gas and we need to keep our factories running, our homes, schools and businesses heated, and our cars and trucks on the road. For the sake of our national security, that oil, and natural gas, should come from domestic sources.
Our dependence on foreign sources of energy is not due to a lack of domestic resources, but to decades of political pandering to radical environmental special interest groups. The United States has vast oil and natural gas deposits sitting untouched in Alaska and off the Continental Shelf. We have the largest reserves of coal in the world which, if utilized through currently available coal-to-liquid technology, would equate to 5 million barrels of oil per day by 2030. We have been called the Saudi Arabia of oil shale because we have oil shale deposits which could yield between 1.8 trillion and 8 trillion barrels of oil. The only thing standing in the way of using these resources is partisan politics.
I say enough is enough! The crisis is now, the danger is real, and we can no longer allow the partisan pandering to special interest groups to keep us from accessing our own oil, natural gas and coal resources and reduce our dependence on others while we get the new energy technologies online.
We are reliving history today again and if we do not wish to keep reliving history, for the sake of our economy, and even more for the sake of our national defense, we must finally learn from the past and become energy independent now.
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