{"id":15730,"date":"2015-12-28T15:34:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T20:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15730"},"modified":"2015-12-28T15:35:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T20:35:14","slug":"the-crude-oil-export-ban-what-me-worry-about-peak-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15730","title":{"rendered":"The Crude Oil Export Ban\u2013What, Me Worry About Peak Oil?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Crude Oil Export Ban\u2013What, Me Worry About Peak Oil?<\/a><\/h3>\n

Congress ended the\u00a0U.S. crude oil export ban last week. There is apparently no longer a strategic reason to conserve oil because shale production\u00a0has made American great again. At least, that\u2019s narrative\u00a0that reality-averse politicians and their bases\u00a0prefer.<\/p>\n

The 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) that banned crude oil export was the closest thing to an energy policy that the United States has ever had.\u00a0The law was passed after the price of oil increased\u00a0in one month (January 1974) from $21 to $51 per barrel (2015 dollars) because of\u00a0the Arab Oil Embargo.<\/p>\n

The EPCA\u00a0not only banned the export of crude oil but also established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Both measures were intended to\u00a0keep more oil\u00a0at home in order to make the U.S.\u00a0less dependent on imported oil. A 55 mile-per-hour national speed limit was established to\u00a0force conservation, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) was founded to better monitor and predict global oil supply and demand trends.<\/p>\n

Above all, the export ban acknowledged that declining domestic supply and increased imports had made the country vulnerable to economic disruption. Its repeal last week suggests\u00a0that there is no longer any risk associated with\u00a0dependence on foreign oil.<\/p>\n

What, Me Worry?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tight oil\u00a0revolution has returned U.S. crude oil production almost to its 1970 peak of 10 million barrels per day (mmbpd) and imports have been falling for the last decade (Figure 1).<\/p>\n

\"Chart1_US<\/a><\/p>\n

Figure 1. U.S. crude oil production, net imports and consumption.\u00a0Source: EIA and Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.
\n(Click image to enlarge)<\/p>\n

But today, the U.S. imports twice as much\u00a0oil (97%) as\u00a0in 1974!\u00a0In\u00a02015, the U.S. imported 6.8 mmbpd\u00a0of crude oil (net) compared to\u00a0only 3.5\u00a0mmbpd at the time of the Arab Oil Embargo (Table 1).<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Crude Oil Export Ban\u2013What, Me Worry About Peak Oil? Congress ended the\u00a0U.S. crude oil export ban last week. There is apparently no longer a strategic reason to conserve oil because shale production\u00a0has made American great again. At least, that\u2019s narrative\u00a0that reality-averse politicians and their bases\u00a0prefer. The 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8195,184,416,617,2775],"class_list":["post-15730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-art-berman","tag-crude-oil","tag-iea","tag-peak-oil","tag-us-oil-export-ban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15731,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15730\/revisions\/15731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}