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In the 20-year timeframe that would be great (a decarbonized economy), but short-term, it's really important that the US doesn't depend on Saudi Arabia as a sol
by bpodgursky 6y ago
In the 20-year timeframe that would be great (a decarbonized economy), but short-term, it's really important that the US doesn't depend on Saudi Arabia as a sole oil producer, and that means maintaining some level of oil pumping infrastructure
SA, Russia, and Venezuela are not the international players you want to have leverage over US foreign policy. If we let a weird unexpected market rout (like covid) wipe the shale producers out entirely, we really screw ourselves into letting SA call the shots on the world stage. Cuz you know SA and Russia are NOT going to let their pumping capacity collapse.
(To be clear I'm not arguing for a bailout to prevent banks or investors from taking haircuts on the investments — those haircuts have to happen. But "letting all the jobs go" means letting the companies dissolve, vs reorganize, and that's not a good idea, IMO).
- __s 6y agoWhy not put heavy tariffs against those sources of oil? Voter resentment? Always neat seeing how much cheaper gas costs in the US compared to Canada, meanwhile the rhetoric would cause you to think otherwise
- throwaway1777 6y agoIt would crush the economy. Everything still runs on oil except the fraction of Teslas out there. Not to mention everything made of plastic and other oil derivatives.
- molszanski 6y agoNo. Most stuff runs on electricity. 60% or more is generated by oil + gas.
- gruglife 6y agoYou bring up a good point. My initial thought was that we would switch over to clean energy but to power the whole us is probably not feasible in the near term
- toomuchtodo 6y agoRoughly 70 percent of light vehicles can move from petroleum to electrification without any additional generation capacity in the US. Source is an NREL research paper I read ~7 years ago, can’t find the link at the moment.