RYAN MAURO: IS ENERGY SECURITY CLOSER THAN WE THINK?
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11195/pub_detail.asp
Nothing would more shift the world’s strategic balance in our favor than energy security. From Russia to Venezuela, Iran to Saudi Arabia, our dependency on foreign oil sustains our adversaries while sending money overseas that could be spent here at home. The last eight presidents have made empty promises to achieve energy security so many people have given up hope that it’ll ever happen, but it may be closer than you think.
I was inspired to write about this after I saw a hopeful video by political analyst Dick Morris. He explained that the U.S. and Canada are producing more oil and contrary to common opinion, our dependency is decreasing, not increasing. It is believed that the expected drilling of up to 3,000 oil wells in Texas by 2013 will increase production by one-fourth by the end of the decade, equal to Venezuela or Kuwait. Five years ago, North Dakota’s Bakken oil field produced nothing. Now it produces 400,000 barrels per day.
In the 1990s, we imported two-thirds of our oil. We are down to about half and in the coming years, it will only be one-fourth. Of the oil we currently import, about half comes from our adversaries. By 2015-2016, Morris says, domestic production will be able to replace the 3-4 million barrels of oil per day we import from these enemies.
This optimistic picture gets even better because of two countries: Israel and Iraq.
Thanks to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has a chance to actualize its full potential. The Iraqis aim to increase their production of oil from 2.5 million barrels per day to 12 million barrels per day by 2020. The Oil Minister thinks this could happen by 2016, though that may be an overconfident projection. The Russian oil company LukOil that won a contract to help make this happen says that will increase the amount of oil on the market by 20 percent. One shareholder recalled, “A top manager at a leading Western firm said the modern history of the oil business will be split into the pre-Iraq and post-Iraq periods. I agree.”
At the same time, Israel has made some exciting discoveries of natural gas fields that allow its own energy needs to be taken care of for 20-25 years and exports to be made to Europe. It is reported that recently-discovered oil deposits in the Shefla Basin could have up to 250 million barrels of oil. Economist Dr. David Caploe writes, “Israel could indeed become the world’s largest exporter of shale oil — hence the comparison to Saudi Arabia.”
Israel is simultaneously paving the way forward for alternative energy. Last year, I visited the demonstration center of a company named Better Place when I was in Israel. It has designed an infrastructure for electric cars based on charging stations and battery switching stations. A car can drive for 100 miles without needing another charge. That doesn’t sound like much, but at least half of the cars in the U.S. are driven 20 miles or less per day. In 2005, a group of national security experts put forth recommendations in a book titled, War Footing. According to them, “a plug-in with a twenty-mile range battery would reduce gasoline consumption by, on average, 85 percent.” That’s a game-changer.
If a driver must go further than 100 miles, he can swap out his depleted battery for a charged one at a switching station in two minutes. Better Place aims to have an infrastructure set up across Australia by 2014 and Tesla plans to have a “super charger station” between Los Angeles and San Francisco to service its electric cars. Better Place recently opened its first experimental battery switching station in China and in mid-2012, will have ones up and running for customers in Israel, Denmark and Australia. It is also hard at work in California, Ontario, Hawaii and Japan.
Energy security, hopefully a prelude to energy independence, would do more to advance the interests of the free world than any invasion. The state sponsors of radical Islam would be bankrupt. Chavez and his allies would be stopped. Putin would be in serious trouble and the West’s economies as a whole would roar. And this seismic shift could happen by the end of the decade.
Ryan Mauro is the National Security Analyst for Family Security Matters. He is the Founder of WorldThreats.com, a national security analyst at Christian Action Network, a Strategic Analyst for Wikistrat and a national security commentator for FOX News.
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