Oil Provides Options
This Is What Energy Security Looks Like

Boosters of the shale boom like to highlight is the idea of energy independence—that, thanks to fracking, the US won’t need to rely on foreign sources of oil for much longer. It’s a nice-sounding story, but unfortunately it’s a myth. Even if the US produced all of the oil it consumed, the price we pay for oil will still be vulnerable to shocks from supply disruptions abroad. Barring a kind of oil isolationism—a difficult undertaking that would alienate our allies—or a complete transition away from oil as an energy source, that’s the reality we have to live with. But while energy independence is fantasy, there’s no question that fracking has improved America’s energy security, and that’s being borne out in the global price for oil.

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