AEB

Energy Independence: It's About Demand, Not Supply

Whenever a politician talks about energy independence as something possible in the next 25 years or less, you know he/she is a liar (or hopelessly misinformed). The U.S. is the most mature petroleum province on earth (and still the 3rd biggest oil producer!), and there is just not much probability of finding huge new reserves here.

What's wrong with being energy dependent anyway? I don't hear anyone calling for coffee independence. The whole nature of trade is that I have something that you need, and you have something that I need. This is good and healthy.

The perception that imported oil is mostly from the Middle East is not really correct. We import 20.3% of our oil from Canada, 20.1% from the Persian Gulf countries, 12.3% from Saudi Arabia, 10.8% from Mexico, 9.4% from Nigeria, 8.2% from Venezuela, and 6.2% from Iraq.

Even if you take the most optimistic view possible of areas in the U.S. that are currently closed to exploration, they still won't make us energy independent. Don't misunderstand me--I think we should drill in these areas. Just don't expect that we will find something so big that we won't have to import oil.

ANWR has been evaluated over and over by oil companies and it doesn't look that good (the USGS estimate of 15 billion barrels is limited to "technically recoverable" and not commercial oil--if it is scattered in many smaller pools none of it will be commercial).

The offshore East Coast has been drilled before it was off-limits and was considered a dog by the industry. Offshore California has some promise as does the eastern Gulf of Mexico but the probable reserves are not enough to make the U.S. energy independent.

Conservation makes great sense but it won't make us energy independent because we use so much energy. Alternate fuels make great sense but none of them are ready commercially for at least 25 years. Building more fuel efficient cars is great (I think we already do a lot of that but people have preferred SUVs, etc.) but it takes a long time before we get all the less efficient cars off the road.

So, let's stop this energy independence talk. We should do anything and everything to be smarter about how we get and use energy, but let's be practical and realize that energy independence is not real in the near-term, as much as we want it to be!