Do downsides of U.S. energy independence outweigh upsides? I think so

The more I think about the US being energy independent and the world's top oil and natural gas producer the more destabilizing I believe it will be to world balance if there in fact is such a thing.

Let's start at home. I do not like fracking one bit. There is nothing good about it except for the energy companies and their interests and Politicians and their interests. Once again despite the lies as to how good this is for you and the country there is nothing in this for the people.

From what I have seen already we are destroying peoples food and water sources making them dependent on who? and grossly destabilizing the ground. Everywhere fracking goes on earthquakes are showing up regardless of the fact that there was no earthquakes in the past and it is no ones fault of course, it is natural my rear.

To me for the people to think there is any plus at all at our becoming energy independent they would want to see the price at the pump go down. That you know will never happen because it is not in the interest of oil companies. As they do now, whenever something good or bad happens that may or may not even affect the industry they raise prices.

So self sufficiency is not to our benefit it is to the benefit of the energy industry alone in the long run.Politicians of course will take credit and for what is anyone's guess. Just imagine the change to the world's current energy leaders.

In a nutshell, the US will no longer need Africa's or the middle east oil or what little natural gas we get there. So what you say, they will just sell it to India and or China who are more than happy to get it. The middle east, China, and the entire world energy balance is changing as we speak.

 The US will be off the market as a user and will be an ever growing supplier competing with the world's top natural gas producer Russia along with the middle east, Africa, and the rest of the world for oil.

The downsides of U.S. energy independence: What is more appropriately defined as North American oil independence – since the United States will continue to depend on Canadian and Mexican crude for decades to come – is almost unanimously hailed as a positive development that will enhance American security. 

 What gets mentioned less are the downsides of energy independence. Rising U.S. and Canadian oil production could well destabilize petro-states in the Middle East, Russia, Africa and beyond, sparking regime changes unfavourable to U.S. interests and creating an even riskier world.

Just think of the monumental changes that have already begun: Japan to build LNG terminal for US shale gas

*Japan to build LNG terminal for US shale gas imports-media: A local government in western Japan is planning to build a liquefied natural gas terminal to import shale gas from the United States and help reduce reliance on nuclear energy, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Saturday.

Nuclear power supplied nearly 30 percent of Japan's electricity needs before a massive earthquake and tsunami nearly two years ago sparked nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima plant in the northeast. Japan switching from nuclear power to natural gas?

*US to be top oil producer by 2017, report says, America will be self-sufficient by 2030, study finds: The consequences are ‘‘potentially far reaching’’ for global energy markets and trade, the report said. Birol noted, for example, that Middle Eastern oil once bound for the United States would probably be rerouted to China. US-mined coal, facing declining demand in its home market, is already heading to Europe and China instead.

There are several components of the sudden shift in the world’s energy supply, but the prime mover is a resurgence of US oil and gas production, particularly the unlocking of new reserves of oil and gas found in shale rock. The widespread adoption of techniques such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling has made those reserves much more accessible, and, in the case of natural gas, resulted in a vast glut that has sent prices plunging. The report predicted that the United States would overtake Russia as the leading producer of natural gas in 2015.

I do not like Fracking or horizontal drilling but imagine the United States as the worlds leading gas And oil exporter? A headline on an old newspaper reads: Oil Shale Development Imminent,". That edition of the defunct Grand Junction News, was published at the dawn of the 20th century.

More than a hundred years later, instability is roiling world oil markets, and Americans are paying $3.50 a gallon for gas. And oil shale fever is again rising in the geologic region known as the Piceance Basin, part of the Green River Formation that stretches across the rugged plains of northwestern Colorado and parts of Wyoming and Utah.

There is no dispute that a thousand feet below the isolated ranch country here on Colorado's western slope lie almost unimaginable oil riches. It's locked in sedimentary rock -- essentially immature oil that given a few million years under heat and pressure would produce pools of oil easy to extract.

The Energy Department and private industry estimate that a trillion barrels are here in Colorado -- about the same amount as the entire world's known reserves of conventional oil. The entire Green River Formation might hold as much as 2 trillion barrels.

Supposedly secretly Pushed by the Bush administration and legislation from Congress , and spurred by oil prices above $70 a barrel, the energy industry is mobilized to unlock the secret of oil shale. Now Obama has made retrieving shale oil a priority. 

As it has before, shale oil holds out the hope of a USA no longer dependent on foreign oil. Shell Oil is engaged in a multi year test of a new technology for extracting the oil. Previous efforts that were uneconomical and environmentally destructive entailed mining the rock, crushing it and heating it above ground to release the oil.

Shell's new process involves sinking heaters deep underground, cooking the rock at 700 degrees and recovering the oil and natural gas with conventional drilling.

For a decade, Shell has been ramping up its research on private property here. It is also one of a handful of companies vying for research and development leases on larger tracts of federal land nearby. That could lead to full-scale development across 1,200 square miles of western Colorado.

Early results are promising, says Terry O'Connor, a vice president in the oil giant's unconventional resource division. But, he admits, "no one has been able to develop oil shale on a commercially sustainable basis.

That is $3.50 to $4 fuel that is here now. My question is have the oil companies purposely been driving up the prices in order to justify retrieving this huge reserves at our expense? Also at the expense of the environment and alternative fuel sources! What about world balance? I would prefer we stay status quo and keep our own ability to be independent active but as a big stick. What say you?

James Joiner
Gardner Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com