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The Changing Geopolitics of Energy

November 1, 2017

The Changing Geopolitics of Energy

In 2008, US policymakers worried that increasing dependence on energy imports, together with rising prices, would severely constrain American geopolitical influence. Instead, the revolution in shale energy has brought about a tectonic shift in international relations, one that promises to boost US global power in the long term.

TOKYO – In 2008, when the United States’ National Intelligence Council (NIC) published its volume Global Trends 2025, a key prediction was tighter energy competition. Chinese demand was growing, and non-OPEC sources like the North Sea were being depleted. After two decades of low and relatively stable prices, oil prices had soared to more than $100 per barrel in 2006. Many experts spoke of “peak oil” – the idea that reserves had “topped off” – and anticipated that production would become concentrated in the low-cost but unstable Middle East, where even Saudi Arabia was thought to be fully explored, with no more giant fields likely to be found.

The NIC analysts did not neglect the possibility of a technological surprise, but they focused on the wrong technology. Emphasizing the potential of renewables such as solar, wind, and hydro, they missed the main act.

The real technological breakthrough was the shale-energy revolution. While horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing are not new, their pioneering application to shale rock was. By 2015, more than half of all the natural gas produced in the US came from shale.

The shale boom has propelled the US from being an energy importer to an energy exporter. The US Energy Department estimates that the country has 25 trillion cubic meters of technically recoverable shale gas, which, when combined with other oil and gas resources, could last for two centuries.

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