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What If There Isn’t Enough Energy Going Forward?
Currently the media is breathlessly cheering the record amounts of US oil production. Stories like this one get top billing on major news websites:
Texas Gulf Coast exports more oil than it imports for the first time (CNN)
It’s a big achievement that highlights a surge in US oil exports, and that shows how the shale boom can make America less reliant on foreign oil.
“It’s a definite milestone. Nobody saw this coming 10 years ago,” said Bob McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group and a former energy official under President George W. Bush. “It’s an unambiguously good thing. It diversifies our dependence from the volatile Middle East.”
Texas is the epicenter of the shale revolution, with soaring production in the oil-rich Permian Basin leading the United States to record output. Rapid technological advances in fracking, the process of unlocking oil and gas deep underground, have dramatically reduced the cost to drill oil in the Permian Basin.
Texas is now on track to produce more oil than either Iran or Iraq. That would make Texas No. 3 in the world if it were a country.
Sounds pretty wonderful, right? Technology advances in the fracking process have enabled the “shale miracle”, resulting in the US producing over 10 million barrels per day for the first time since the 1970s. Think of all the incremental GDP growth that excess oil will power!
If these trends continue, CNN goes on to tell us, the US will become an net energy exporter soon:
US on track to become net energy exporter
The United States still relies on foreign oil — but not as much.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
