The United States is predicted to become a net energy exporter by 2020. This will be the first time since 1953 that the country exports more fossil fuels than it imports. For almost a century prior, the United States of America was the largest oil producer in the world. So how did the United States get hooked on foreign oil.
Every American president since Richard Nixon has pledged energy independence as a way to strengthen us geopolitically, make us more secure, or boost our economy.
The story of American oil begins in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Small amounts of oil had seeped from the ground for a long time, but no one knew how to extract it. Until, Edwin Laurentin Drake, a former conductor, was hired. After many failed attempts, he finally struck gold — black gold.
The next FEW decades, major oil finds in Texas, California and Oklahoma contributed to U.S. emergence as a major economic power. The 1901 Spindletop gusher in Texas nearly tripled U.S. oil production.
Henry Ford’s Model T invention in 1908 – the first mass-produced car – made America the most motorized country in the world. Other industrialized countries like France, Britain and Germany were ways behind.
Oil Industry Anticipates Day of Reckoning
Prospect of ‘peak demand’ prompts debate and long-term planning by global producers
.. The Hungarian company is rethinking its traditional focus on fuel supply and shifting investment to petrochemicals, the key ingredient of everyday plastic products and a sector where MOL believes growth will continue even when its fuel business falters... But that picture shifts radically if governments take further action to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius with more stringent policies like carbon pricing, strict emissions limits and the removal of fossil-fuel subsidies. If that happens, oil demand could peak within the next 10 years, the IEA says... BP says oil demand could fall by the late 2020s if tougher emissions laws are enacted... Others don’t see peak demand coming so quickly. Exxon expects consumption to grow through 2040, though at a decelerating pace. Likewise, OPEC sees demand continuing to grow beyond 2040, but acknowledges new technologies and efforts to curb climate change could mean consumption peaks within the next three decades... Peak demand “will be later than the common dates that are being thrown around, but if it does happen, because we’re building multiple engines for the economy and we’re planning for an economy beyond oil, we’ll be ready,” Saudi Arabia’s energy minister,Khalid al Falih, told a conference in Istanbul last month... Shell, Exxon and others are pouring money into natural gas—a less-carbon-intensive fossil fuel they bet will benefit from efforts to curb global emissions. In China, where growing oil demand has supported global markets for years, the state-owned energy giants are aggressively embracing natural gas as a fuel for use in everything from power generation to running cars... France’s Total SA has said it wants 20% of its portfolio to consist of low-carbon businesses within the next 20 years.