The US might reconsider its ban on crude oil exports.

__________________
Eudaimonia

Another piece of short-timer madness. Next time the US is running low on fuel, who will ask why it was sent overseas to make the rich richer with no benefit to the rest?

__________________
Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

As Secretary Moniz pointed out, the current U.S. energy environment is considerably different from that of 40 years ago. The policies that are scarcity-based are unlikely to be appropriate for an energy environment that is now, with fracking technology having brought enormous supplies of both natural gas and new oil on line, flush with U.S. fossil fuels.

By allowing the price of U.S. crude to float to the world market price, the size of the subsidy needed to close the differential between renewables and oil can be reduced, and with continued development, bringing forward the day renewables become economically attractive.

Both the U.S. and (due to the size of the U.S. market) the world will probably benefit from having such a market distortion phased out.

Also, by allowing the price of U.S. crude to float to the world market price, exploration for and exploitation of what are uneconomical fields due to the export ban become attractive, as the North Sea oil became attractive following the increase of ME oil.

__________________
Eudaimonia

Damn, I thought that someone was handing out energy to those of us with a depletion of it...........

The well is not bottomless, jseal, and if the anti-frackers frack the frackers, status will quo like an avalanche. After this there is the possibility of conflict with Russia over the polar oil. I wonder how much oil there is in the Bering.

__________________
Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

Few wells are, Oldfart, and yet the "peak oil" scaremongers have yet to be correct, rather like those preposterous forecasts made (quite a) few years go by the Club of Rome. As for those political propositions - both are hypothetical.

__________________
Eudaimonia

I would be somewhat selective and if I allowed exports ... it would be limited to friends and allies. UN voting records my be a useful measurement for evaluating "friendship."