Americans should thank U.S.-based shale producers for the economic bounce seen as gas prices plummet and the country looks inside its borders for more of its energy resources, a
Wall Street Journal opinion piece asserts.
While oil-rich nations around the globe now struggle, the U.S. is relying on its own resources. Under the headline "The Progressive Case for Fracking," the opinion penned by James Bloodworth also notes that America's gain takes power away from some ruthless regimes.
"The shale-gas and hydraulic-fracking revolution is lighting a figurative bonfire under the world’s petrocracies," Bloodworth wrote. "Dictatorships that for years blackmailed the West in the knowledge that we would come crawling back for the black stuff are now catching a glimpse of a bleak future."
Bloodworth added of the boon to freedom from repression — and to American wallets: "As the American people and companies shift more of their consumption to cheaply produced domestic energy, the geopolitical leverage of oil-rich autocrats diminishes. A barrel of crude on Monday sold for less than $60, down nearly 50 percent since June when it went for $115. Take that, ayatollah."
While Saudi Arabia did not reduce its oil quotas last month, American shale producers have simply gotten busy producing as much as they can,
Bloomberg Businessweek said.
"All (OPEC) can do is gape at the falling price of crude and contemplate the destruction of their cartel at the hands of the Americans, whom they thought they had supplanted for good 40 years ago," Bloomberg wrote, describing the new world energy order as "shale is to OPEC what the Apple II was to the IBM mainframe" — a game-changer.
Bloodworth, the editor of the blog Left Foot Forward, noted that the energy drawn from shale should make those from several political aisles happy — "not only free-market economists, but liberals and progressives, too."
He added: "The relationship between oil wealth and autocracy is well-established, with a number of studies showing that democracy is less likely in oil-rich nations. Oil wealth helps keep dictators in their palaces by allowing vast military expenditure to repress dissent and providing a ready pool of money with which to co-opt their populations through generous welfare stipends."
According to
CNBC, oil production within the U.S. should experience unprecedented growth with "levels not seen since the 1970s." Actions by OPEC would not be able to stop the resurgence, it said.
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