I’ve long thought about “energy independence.” You know, putting the U.S. in the position of not having to depend on anyone else for anything. Not having to owe anyone anything, either. Goodbye to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iraq.
You’ve probably wanted the same thing, too. And no wonder. Every American president clear back to Richard Nixon has set “energy independence” as a goal. Of course, beginning with Nixon, they’ve also all set peace in the Middle East as a goal. (So much for goals.)
But there’s a difference between the stated objectives of energy independence and Middle East peace. Peace is desirable — good for our federal budget, for our military burnout, for our national security. The trouble is, it’s next to unachievable.
Energy independence, on the other hand, is achievable. Depending on how you measure it, the United States today is either the biggest or second biggest energy producer on Earth. (We are neck-and-neck with the Saudis.) Colorado’s contributions from the newly expanded fracking industry, while controversial, have played a role in getting us there. So energy independence is achievable — but the trouble is, it’s not desirable. It’s a deceptive dream.
I’ve come to that conclusion after five years of moderating a conference called “Energy Moving Forward,” put on again last week by the Global Energy Management program of the Business School at the University of Colorado Denver. In doing my homework each year about energy — what we have, what we use, what we’re working on — I’ve learned more and more about the consequences of true energy independence.
In its purest form, being energy independent would mean nothing in, nothing out. We would consume whatever energy we produce — oil, gas, coal, renewables, and everything else — but export none of it. Likewise, we wouldn’t import an ounce of energy from outside our borders. But here’s the catch. Energy is the single biggest sector of the American economy. We either buy it or sell it (including Colorado’s) from or to literally dozens of other countries. Can you imagine what the purest form of energy independence would do to America’s financial system? Not to mention unemployment.
What about the political ramifications? Sure, it sounds plenty appealing to break the bonds to governments with which we wouldn’t otherwise deal but for the commerce of oil and gas. But can the United States really afford to disengage from regions like the Middle East because we no longer have the oil-based motives that got us there in the first place? Yes, that would have its upside, but besides the manifest motive of national security, the other reason the U.S. is politically — and often, militarily — involved in the Middle East is that if we aren’t, someone else will be. Would we be better off if Russia replaced us as the go-to nation trying to play an influential role in every event? Or China? The world they’d shape would be worse than it is now.
It hurts to admit that we are better off with the status quo. For years I covered the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The representatives from the major producers strutted around like they owned the world. Which, in a way, they did. When OPEC’s Arab members imposed an embargo on us in 1973, the price of oil almost quadrupled, and the world’s economy took a huge hit. It hurt.
But today’s status quo is better than it was. We have reduced our petroleum purchases to the point where, if they cut us off, we’d hardly notice. We import more oil these days from Canada and Mexico than we do from the combined members of OPEC.
As one panelist said at last week’s conference, we now have options we didn’t have before. And, as renewables grow — especially solar — we’ll have even more. That is all the independence we need.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years, then for HDNet television’s “World Report.”
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