With the United States, being the leader in oil consumption at 20 million barrels per day, there needs to be more onshore drilling in case of emergencies to prevent economic scares. According to an article in USA Today, the Libyan protests alone could cause gas to reach nearly $5 per gallon by summer.
Recently, onshore drilling has been on the rise, creating jobs in Montana, North Dakota, California, Colorado and Texas. A new technological advance called hydraulic fracturing is helping oil companies dig into oil wells that were trapped in shale formation, and were not able to be tapped five or 10 years ago.
To access the oil, the rock is drilled into vertically and horizontally, then water, sand and chemicals are pumped into the hole to crack the shale and allow oil to flow up. According to oilprice.com, the new technology could raise U.S. oil production 20 percent by 2015. New oil fields will be able to produce 2 million barrels per day, which is more than the entire gulf coast is producing now.
The national unemployment rate has decreased to 8.9 percent, but is still far from the ideal full employment rate of about 5 percent. If this new technology will create jobs for these 13.7 million Americans, why not try it?
Energy in Depth’s Lee Fuller is in full support of the new technology.
“With this technology, it’s possible that literally quadrillions of cubic feet of clean-burning natural gas can be rendered available for American consumers in the future, resources that would otherwise be too deep and diffuse to access,” Fuller said in a statement. “It’s a technology that’s been around a long time, stretching all the way back to the Truman administration. But it’s also a technology that’s never been more important to our nation’s economic and environmental future than it is today.”
Americans seem to be onboard with the idea as well. March 15, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told Congress applications for federal permits to drill on public and American Indian lands are expected to increase by 50 percent.
Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other Republicans are speaking out against the Obama administration for the increasing gas prices. Drilling at home would provide more jobs and prevent imports. The U.S. needs to take full advantage of what we already have to offer.
The U.S. does not have a coherent energy plan. With every new president comes a new policy or a new way of looking at the problem. We cannot keep living from one disaster to the next and one gas price jump to the next; there must be some consistency.
Although importing oil helps the economies of the peripheries, the U.S. needs to have less dependence on oil consumption. Yes, moving away from the dependence of fossil fuels is ideal, but there is a problem that needs to be fixed before we fully convert to renewable energy. We have the resources, and we need to use them.
