Cast your mind back to about 2008 or 2009, when Democrats and the media mocked Sarah Palin for leading the chant “drill, baby, drill” as a remedy for our dependence on foreign oil. All the smartest people—like Obama and John Kerry!—told us that it was impossible for us to “drill our way out” of out oil and natural gas dependency: the U.S. simply didn’t have enough produceable oil and gas reserves, etc.
Well, ten years later where are we? The world’s largest oil and gas producer. We’re now exporting both energy commodities. As recently as 2005 the Department of Energy was still projecting that by 2020 the U.S. would need to import as much as 20 percent of its natural gas needs. So we started building LNG terminals to handle the imports. Handy that turned out to be—now they are serving as export terminals.
Here’s the Bloomberg headline from yesterday:
U.S. Oil and Gas Output Surges the Most Ever for a Single Country
U.S. natural gas and crude oil production increased last year at the fastest pace ever for a single country.
U.S. gas output soared 86 billion cubic meters in 2018, the largest annual increase by any country ever, according to statistics published Tuesday by BP Plc. That’s roughly equivalent to consumption in the U.K., one of the oldest users of the fuel, and almost 40% more than the previous record set by Russia in 2010. And in a twin first, U.S. oil output jumped 2.2 million barrels a day — also the largest amount ever by a single country in a year.
The data for this comes from the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy, just out this week. This is one of my favorite data geek-out events of the year. If I can find the time, I hope to dive into the data and produce some “gee-whiz” highlights. (The data about China and India are usually interesting—and not accurately reported.)
There’s a bright side to this story if you are a liberal, as the Bloomberg story hints at the end:
The figures will stoke angst in those continuing [UN climate] negotiations, where countries are seeking to collaborate and tighten greenhouse-gas targets ahead of the Paris climate deal to limit the risk of runaway heatwaves, drought and flooding after next year. As part of the talks, they’re discussing historical responsibility for the climate crisis.
Translation: The main theme of the UN climate gathering was already understood—blame the United States! Our surging hydrocarbon production makes that job easier. Trump will grin. As will American motorists at the pump.
But what, there’s more!
This week is the one-year anniversary of the end of “net neutrality.” Liberals warned that it would be the end of the internet! My God, it will be like going back to dial-up at 9,600 baud! Senate Democrats sent out this Tweet:
The reality? FCC commissioner Brendan Carr notes the following today:
But never fear. I’m sure that liberals will get socialism right the next time they try it out on us. It’s not like we have to worry that they might learn something from their epistemic closure.
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