Energy & Security

“Natural gas is a manic-depressive industry” says David Victor in his essay The Gas Promise. Gas breaks the dependence on oil, but creates new problems. Fracking is a touchy issue here in the USA, and foreign producers could start a cartel. As OPEC tried to strangle the USA in the 1970’s, ONGEC, if such an organization ever happens, could do the same.

Energy & Security is a book of essays by foreign policy experts on the relationship between energy and the nation. William Reilly writes about how safety issues in the drilling industry and how they’re often ignored. He cites the 2010 Gulf of Florida accident as being preceded by others-one in the North Sea and another in Texas City, neither of which lead to any scrutiny of Deepwater Horizon. It’s clear that the energy-desperate USA lets the drillers do as they please.

Amy Myers Jaffe writes on how oil and gas drilling usually happens on Federal lands and waterways (all waterways are Federal property anyway.) When the drilling happens on Federal turf, there’s no state or local input, so that makes it easier on the drillers. Only the Feds can tax it, and since the Federal government is desperate for oil and gas, they’re not going to stand in the way, especially when it frees us from Venezuela’s hold on the oil supply. It’s the same thing in the Canadian Arctic.

The book offers no surprises, because anyone with a modicum of knowledge on the USA’s history in the last 50 years knows how much we depend on oil. But the book delves deep into the relationship between the energy producers and the government.