A new, landmark report shows that hopes of a long-term golden era in American oil & gas production are unfounded.
America’s energy landscape has undergone a dramatic shift over the last decade—literally and figuratively—as a result of the widespread use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). Whole areas of the country have been transformed in a matter of months, while the fossil fuel industry has reversed the decades-long decline in crude oil production and increased natural gas production to record highs. Thanks to shale gas and tight oil (“shale oil”), by 2013 annual crude oil production was 24% higher and natural gas was20% higher compared to just ten years earlier.
While this achievement is impressive, it pales in comparison to the sea change that has been triggered in “conventional wisdom” about our energy future. In a few short years we have gone from President Bush warning that the U.S. was addicted to oil and dangerously reliant on Middle East imports to fears of a production glut, as a recent New York Times article stated:
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