We have much more than 100 years of oil in the U.S. So natgas is great in electrical generation and heating applications, but for motor vehicles petroleum is and always will be king.
Probably not.
The problems in the US economy are so large and so systemic, that there’s no single sector solution to the problem.
Nothing can save us until the government stops choking the life out of us.
Unfortunately every two years there is a chance that those chokers will take right back over.
It would help under a centrist to conservative Republican, it’ll do no good under a modern Democrat. No one thing will “save’ us from our decline. We need to shut down the public education system and switch to a homeschool/Internet/private/parochial system and redeploy the teachers and administrators to the private sector.
No.
Resource extraction is not a one-trick pony. Drilling for oil, mining and logging are wealth multipliers.
Mining iron, gold, coal and copper fueled the industrial revolution.
Logging white pines built Chicago, St. Louis and other cities in the Midwest.
Just cleaning out the mess made by the loathesome eco-fascists in the national forests will employ millions of people for years.
I love how the media is stuck trying to "inform us" that fracking is "new", and thus unknown/mysterious/dangerous. We've been fracking in this nation since the 1940's.
The short answer: Yes.
A longer explanation: The U.S. economy is like a cork in a tub of water. Unless the heavy thumb of government pushes it down sufficiently it pops to the surface. Even when government does push the cork under water, it finds it difficult to keep it there. The cork twists (in this case due to fracking) and slips out from under the thumb.
Cheap energy always drives economic growth. It makes the production of everything else cheaper, and makes heating and cooling your home cheaper. This yields a two-fer plus. Not only are goods cheaper, but the amount households spend on subsistance goods (food, heating and cooling, transportation fuel) drops. This frees up the money for consumption or investment. Both of these further fuel economic growth by increasing consumer demand or increasing investment capital.
Since natural gas is becoming so cheap, electric rates will drop as well as consumer natural gas. So will plastics that use natural gas for feedstock. So will petroleum products, as there is less demand for petroleum in electrical generation and other places where natural gas can substitute for petroleum. (Note that if the price drops below that of production, some oil wells will stop producing, but eventually an equalibrium — at a lower aggregate price — is reached.
While gluts of other goods can harm a national ecomomy, energy gluts never seem to hurt a diversified aggregate national economy. (Texas got hurt by the oil glut of the 1980s, but it was boom times for the rest of the nation.) And many of the major energy-producing regions (Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania) all have more diversified economies than they did in the 1930s or 1980s. (The Dakotas do not, but they still will benefit, even if there is an energy bust.)
Assuming that the Obama Administration (with its “All-of-the-Above-Ground” energy policies) goes poof in 2012, then the period from 2013-2023 could be like the 1980s for economic growth. Even if the American people repleat their folly of 2008, we should see solid growth, regardless — due to falling energy prices. I do not see how even Obama can recork the fracking genie.
Nuclear energy, shale oil and gas, crude oil, a huge supply of coal in the US could save it. It isn’t a matter of supply, it is a matter of liberal madness and control.
Government doesn’t produce anything but a goddam bill for worthless services most don’t need or can tolerate. Government Worker is an oxymoron in my book. Under control of Obama, this entire government is our natural enemy.