Home Discussion Topics Dictionary Almanac

Signup Login

U.S. energy independence

Overview

U.S. energy independence is a political agenda whereby the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

would eventually, through shifts in its energy policy

Energy policy of the United States

The energy policy of the United States is determined by federal, state and local public entities in the United States, which address issues of energy production, distribution, and consumption, such as building codes and gas mileage standards...

and technology development, approach self-sufficiency in its energy needs by producing close to the amount of energy that it consumed. If total energy is looked at, the U.S. is over 70% self-sufficient. Energy independence is espoused by those who want to leave America unaffected by global energy supply

Supply

Supply may refer to:*Supply and demand theory*Supply for a Government budget, in the Westminster System*Materiel, the goods and equipment that a military unit needs to fulfill its mission*The amount of good or services a business provides...

disruption

Disruption

Disruption is the interruption of normal work or practice.*In Scotland, the Disruption of 1843 refers to the divergence from the Church of Scotland of the Free Church of Scotland...

s, and to restrict a reliance upon politically unstable states for its energy purposes.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'U.S. energy independence'

Start a new discussion about 'U.S. energy independence'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

U.S. energy independence is a political agenda whereby the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

would eventually, through shifts in its energy policy

Energy policy of the United States

Supply

disruption

Disruption

Disruption is the interruption of normal work or practice.*In Scotland, the Disruption of 1843 refers to the divergence from the Church of Scotland of the Free Church of Scotland...

s, and to restrict a reliance upon politically unstable states for its energy purposes. Energy independence is highly concerned with oil, being perhaps the most important imported energy sources for purposes of both transportation and electricity. The United States is the world's third largest producer of oil, but it also relies on imported oil. More oil is imported from Canada than any other country. 19% of imported oil comes from the Middle East. Such resources are finite and decreasing, despite an increase in demand. World-wide demand for oil is projected to grow 60% over the next two decades.

The U.S. currently produces about 40% of the oil that it consumes; its oil production peaked in 1970 and its imports have exceeded domestic production since the early 1990s. Since the U.S.'s oil consumption continues to rise, and its oil production continues to fall, this ratio may continue to decline. Greater energy self-sufficiency, it is claimed, would prevent major supply disruptions like the 1973 oil crisis

1973 oil crisis

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC proclaimed an oil embargo" in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war; it lasted until March 1974...

and the 1979 energy crisis

1979 energy crisis

The 1979 oil crisis in the United States occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Amid massive protests, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled his country in early 1979, allowing the Ayatollah Khomeini to gain control. The protests shattered the Iranian oil sector...

from recurring. Proponents argue that the potential for political unrest in major oil suppliers, such as Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south...

(15% of domestic consumption), Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially titled Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It is a continental mainland with numerous islands located off its coastline in the Caribbean Sea...

(13%), and Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal Capital Territory. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger...

(10%), is abundant, and often cause great fluctuations in crude oil prices (especially in the short-term), despite the risk-potential being factored into market prices.

About 35% of America's oil reserves lie under the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska. The oil was discovered in the 1970s, and the question of whether the national park should be opened up to oil exploration is a very controversial issue in American politics. Environmentalists have raised many concerns about the impact that drilling would have on wildlife, and point out that the expected oil production would only temporarily decrease, not eliminate, America's dependence on foreign oil. Drilling proponents argue that drilling would create many jobs in Alaska, (250,000 to 735,000; Alaska's current population is about 625,000) give America more time to develop alternative energy sources, and that by using modern technology, the environmental effects would be minimal.

Approaches

In the beginning, proponents of energy independence looked to the United States' largely untapped domestic oil reserves, either known or potential. Those who favor increasing domestic oil production often suggest removing many of the limitations on oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico

The Gulf of Mexico is the ninth largest body of water in the world. Considered a smaller part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United...

, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge...

(see Arctic Refuge drilling controversy

Arctic Refuge drilling controversy

The question of whether to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been an ongoing political controversy in the United States since 1977...

) and the Outer Continental Shelf

Outer Continental Shelf

The Outer Continental Shelf is a peculiarity of the political geography of the United States and is the part of the internationally recognized continental shelf of the United States which does not fall under the jurisdictions of the individual U.S...

.

More recently, proponents of U.S. energy independence are looking to the wider use of alternatives such as ethanol fuel

Ethanol fuel

Ethanol fuel is ethanol , the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. It can be used as a fuel, mainly as a biofuel alternative to gasoline, and is widely used by flex-fuel light vehicles in Brazil, and as an oxygenate to gasoline in the United States. Together, both countries were...

, methanol

Methanol

Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical with formula CH₃OH . It is toxic: drinking 10 ml will cause blindness, and as little as 100 ml will cause death...

, biodiesel

Biodiesel

Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil- or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting lipids with an alcohol....

, plug-in hybrids and other alternative propulsion. The United States currently imposes an import tariff of 54 cents a gallon on ethanol fuel (there is no such import tariff on oil). In Brazil, ethanol is produced from sugarcane

Sugarcane

Sugarcane, or sugar cane, is any of six to thirty-seven species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to warm temperate to tropical regions of Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six meters tall...

, which yields much more energy per acre than the corn used for ethanol production in the United States.

In the United States, oil is primarily consumed as fuel for cars, buses, trucks and airplanes (in the form of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel). Two-thirds of U.S. oil consumption is due to the transportation sector. A national strategy designed to shift all transportation to a combined use of alternative fuels and plug-in hybrids would free the U.S. from dependence on petroleum. The cost of American Energy Independence would be less than the costs of protecting Middle East oil and defending the USA from terrorism.

If alternative fuels are desired at any cost, then the U.S. could also make Synthetic fuel

Synthetic fuel

Synthetic fuel or synfuel is a liquid fuel obtained from coal, natural gas, or biomass. It may also refer to fuels derived from other solids such as plastics or rubber waste, or from the fermentation of biomatter. It may also refer to gaseous fuels produced in a similar way...

from its abundant coal reserves. Methanol, synthetic diesel and gasoline made from U.S. coal can replace petroleum derived fuels for the next hundred years, which is long enough to develop sustainable domestic renewable fuels such as cellulosic ethanol

Cellulosic ethanol

Cellulosic ethanol is a biofuel produced from wood, grasses, or the non-edible parts of plants.It is a type of biofuel produced from lignocellulose, a structural material that comprises much of the mass of plants. Lignocellulose is composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin...

or methanol.

Variation

Since Americans may primarily object to oil imports from certain regions rather than in general, sometimes it is proposed that all of North America as a unit should be energy independent, but that the US could still import energy from Canada and Mexico.

Criticism

Though many American politicians have recently spoken out in favor of working toward energy independence, the discussion among proponents often overlooks the trade implications, focusing more on means and ends. It is rarely discussed whether the effort would be to make the United States into a net neutral/net exporter of energy, wherein the U.S. would produce and consume equivalent or less energy than it produces, or instead to make the United States completely self-feeding, wherein U.S. consumers would purchase energy solely from U.S. producers, enforced by wide embargos/autarkies or tariffs. The conversation among proponents also often disregards macroeconomic factors, such as incentives for American companies to produce in other nations, which offer access to the other ¾ of global demand and an estimated 97% of global fossil fuel reserves.

Opponents of U.S. Energy Independence argue that a major supply disruption has not occurred for more than two decades, and contend that the movement promotes isolationism

Isolationism

Isolationism is a foreign policy which combines a non-interventionist military policy and a political policy of economic nationalism...

and protectionism

Protectionism

Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states, through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other restrictive government regulations designed to discourage imports, and prevent foreign take-over of local markets and companies...

.

Critical perspectives of US energy independence argue that despite all popular political rhetoric, it is actually impossible and not beneficial to wean the country from all foreign energy sources. It may be best to rely on a broad and varied spectrum of global energy resources. The structure of the argument of critics is arranged as follows:

Energy independence will not decrease US involvement in the Middle East:
1. Interests in the Persian Gulf, including the protection of worldwide energy security upon which the global economy is dependent, will remain a US priority. The oil reserves and the stake the US has claimed upon them by building up such a strong military presence in the region is an investment that will not quickly be abandoned for illusions of independence. Even if someday the country isn’t interested in Middle Eastern oil, the political and economic power that it wields by maintaining strong ties in the area is of sufficient size that abandoning the Gulf entirely would be unlikely.
2. In addition, terrorism will not be reduced in the Middle East if the US ceases to buy oil, because terrorism is not funded by oil money.
3. Although vast oil supplies are found in an unstable region which foster difficult games of geopolitics, these geopolitics will continue to be fueled by other large consumers of oil, such as China, whether or not the US achieves energy independence. US energy independence will not cause a US pull-out from the Middle East, it will not decrease terrorism, and it will not foster stability or reform in the region.
4. The US is unable to produce enough energy to fuel its growing economy and energy use, due to the unreliability of renewable resources and the limited supply of domestic energy reserves.
Renewable energy sources can be extremely inefficient, as in the case of corn-based biofuels, which requires massive government subsidies and also enormous amounts of water and chemicals to grow, and causes significant air pollution when combusted. Other renewables, namely wind and solar power, are expensive and intermittent, and lack the infrastructure and technology needed to properly store the energy they harness from the environment:
1. Natural gas is not a viable portion of US energy since we may have peaked in domestic reserves: US imports of natural gas from Canada have tripled since 1973.
2. Nuclear power plants aren’t a solution to energy independence either, since uranium must be imported: currently, 80% of US uranium is imported, mainly from Russia and Canada.
3. Although the US enjoys massive coal reserves able to power our country at current rates of energy consumption for 200 years, the hope that the country could use this resource as a liquid to fuel our transportation sector is unlikely. Although currently the US remains a net coal exporter of lower-quality coal, a large and increasing portion of coal is being imported due to the cheaper, high-quality, low-sulfur foreign coal needed by power plants coping with air-quality regulations.
4. US oil reserves cannot be relied upon: American oil production has been steadily declining since 1970.

Benefits of Oil Dependence

Roger Howard has argued in the Wall Street Journal that oil dependence has significant benefits for the US and other oil-importing nations. First, the world's major oil exporters are highly dependent on their oil revenues, and fear rapid drops in the price of oil, such as occurred in late 2008. Second, this fear restrains destructive actions by exporters: Howard cites the example of Russia

Russia

Russia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

's 2008 invasion of Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...

. Russia's stock market plunged, and "within a week capital outflow reached a massive $16 billion, suddenly squeezing domestic credit while the ruble collapsed in value." He also gives the example of Libya

Libya

Libya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa...

, where Moammar Gadhafi gave up his Pakistani nuclear weapons in exchange for the US lifting its economic sanctions

Economic sanctions

Economic sanctions are domestic penalties applied by one country on another for a variety of reasons. Economic sanctions include, but are not limited to, tariffs, trade barriers, import duties, and import or export quotas...

, which had prevented Libya from increasing its oil production.

Energy Resilience

Andy Grove argues that energy independence is a flawed and infeasible objective, particularly in a network of integrated global exchange. He suggests instead that the objective should be energy resilience: resilience goes hand in hand with adaptability, and it also is reflected in important market ideas like substitutability. In fact, resilience is one of the best features of market processes; the information transmission function of prices means that individual buyers and sellers can adapt to changes in supply and demand conditions in a decentralized way. His suggestion for how to increase the resilience

Resilience

Resilience is the property of a material to absorb energy when it is deformed elastically and then, upon unloading to have this energy recovered. In other words, it is the maximum energy per unit volume that can be elastically stored...

of the U.S. energy economy is to shift use from petroleum to electricity (electrification

Electrification

Electrification refers to the modification of a system so that it operates using electricity.- Electric grid :A more specific usage of the word refers to the act or process of building the necessary infrastructure to supply electric power to homes and businesses, especially in rural and isolated...

), that is sticky and can be produced using multiple sources of energy, including renewables.

All electricity from renewable sources (AERS)

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. is an American environmental activist and former politician who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He is an author, businessperson, former U.S. Senator and former journalist...

, challenged the United States to commit to producing all electricity from renewable sources (AERS) like solar and wind power in 10 years.

Center for Resource Solutions supports Al Gore's AERS goal.