United States Dependence On Foreign Energy Resources

Naturally the capitalistic world that we live in breeds competition, in turn leading to powerful private interests. This has resulted in powerful industrial partnerships with political figures. In order to bring our society forward we must act for change, to encourage modernization, overcoming the stacked odds. The only way to influence our country’s dependency on carbon-based energy is to make way for environmental advocates at all levels of policy. The Paris Climate Change efforts have us headed in the right direction, even though they hold no legal international clout. Individual countries are held responsible through the social pressures created by groups like the UNFCC, along with renewable industrial interests, has led to country social responsibility. Country social responsibility has been promoted by voluntary climate efforts, which resulted in ambitious goal allowing countries to claim leadership on a global issue. Our efforts would ideally result in net-zero emissions in developed and developing countries alike by 2050. The technology is available, but modernization has a social aspect as well. This is essential to promote environmental policy, in order to pressure industrial powers. We can only be successful if we change our current social patterns into virtuous environmental forms.

These statistics are current as of 2013 and are provided from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Since their emissions are larger than the rest of the countries in their continents than you have to assume their consumption is as equally large. The USA consumes petroleum at 19,034.8 thousand barrels per day annually (2014) and Brazil consumes 3,003 (2013). There is no statistical data for 2014 for Brazil. Again, statistics provided by EIA. Agriculture wise the USA produces wheat, corn, fruits, vegetables, cotton, beef, pork, poultry, dairy products, and fish. Industry wise the USA is highly diverse and has the second-largest industrial output in the world. We are second to China. The agriculture profile for Brazil consist of coffee, soybeans, wheat, rice, corn, sugarcane, cocoa, citrus, and beef. Their industrial output ranks 11 in the world. The profile of a countries agriculture and industry are important to understand in the sense to understanding the energy that goes into ensuring that agriculture and industry are meeting the needs of the populations. According to the EIA, the U.S. “industrial sector was responsible for more than 30% of total USA energy consumption in 2011.”(EIA, 2011) With this being said it takes a lot of energy to sustain industry. The USA and Brazil however different in overall size and population the similarities in their consumption of

Export and import are key to each country especially when referring to the top products produced. Specifically U.S exports and imports are critical to the economy growth and relations expansion within other countries. Exports and imports history demonstrates that the United States has been heavily dependent of exporting throughout years. It has played an important role in global trade as well. Therefore, I believe it is important to follow what has boost up the U.S economy. With that being said, I believe the U.S should export energy but, should always have a limit on how much it exports. Also, it is important to have on mind that the prohibition of crude oil exports will decrease imports.

The United States plays a significant role in world politics, and the United States is the most powerful nation in the world today. There are many facts that determine the U.S. is the most powerful country includes size, geographic position, population, technology, bureaucratic organization, military capacity, economic growth and popular support. The larger a country's size it is, the more nature resources it has. The U.S. is one of the biggest countries in the world. Also, it has a vast territory, abundant minerals, natural gas and oil. The U.S. locates in central North America between Canada and Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean on its

third largest partner in trading goods. ‘Also, Mexico is the seconds largest provider of agricultural imports to U.S. (Loss Angeles Times).’ If the 20% tariff becomes effective, it will disturb the American consumers. They would have to pay more for automobile and foods. U.S. biggest imports from Mexico is related to cars. In 2015 U.S. spends about $74 billion just for the imports of thousands of cars. Because the brand name cares such as Chevrolet, Ram trucks, Volkswagen, Ford, Honda, and Nissan are assembled in the Mexican based manufacturing facilities. In 2015 U.S. purchased about $4.8 billion vegetables from Mexico. Also, beer and wine $2.7 billion, snack food $1.7 billion and processed fruit and vegetables $1.4

World total consumption of natural gas in 2015 was 3.468.600.000.000 m3/year. United States ranked in first place with 78,000,000,000 m3/year of natural gas consumption, then follows European Union, Russia, Iran and China etc.

As the world’s top consumer of oil, how much of that consumption is the United States able to satisfy with its own oil resources and how dependent is it on imported oil?

Australia was the United States 35th biggest supplier of products imports in 2013. Unites States products imports from Australia totaled $9.3 billion in 2013, a 2.9% lessening ($277 million) from 2012, yet up 45% from 2003. Unites States imports from Australia are up 23% from 2004 (Pre-FTA).

Energy independence, in the US, means that there are global possibilities to duplicate its success. The United States consumes only 20 million barrels of oil each day out of the 85 million used in the world. That adds up to be 30 billion barrels at the end of the fiscal year. Averaging $100 a barrel, petroleum revenues rolls over or matches three trillion US dollars at years end.

Article Synopsis: “The new Geopolitics of Energy” is an overall synopsis of how energy is linked to geopolitics, and how the United States has emerged over the past decade as a major hydrocarbon producer and exporter, which has resulted in the changing the nations posture globally. Of note, Pascual highlights the point that the U.S. has found a new borne power that it can wield geopolitically, and can even further its international objectives. However, it must wield that control very carefully and with finesse, because if done poorly could have far reaching ramifications. Managing this power will not be easy and may take some formidable resources, and the U.S. is not well versed in the unique way that OPEC and the major oil producing nations conduct business. He stresses that energy markets and foreign policy are not static and that the U.S. has to fully understand the intricacies of both.

The four main key concepts this article covers is ; production cost, Unemployment, economic growth, and monopoly.

Figure 1 Left: US Natural gas production by source in the reference case (1990-2040, trillion cubic feet), Right: US Total Natural gas production consumption and import in reference case

Because oil is such an important resource worldwide, we must make ourselves able to negotiate without having to lose footing because we cannot produce oil. Oil gives other countries an edge when negotiating with us. Because other countries have oil, they can use that leverage to harm our economy. Foreign oil damages our domestic economy. If a country wants to harm us, all they need to do is flood the market with their oil. This drops the value of our oil and the value of the US dollar. If the United States wants to control the economy of their country and not let foreign countries determine how prosperous the United States will be, we need to gain independence from foreign oil.

The United States economy is highly dependent upon fuel. Fuel is a major source that come from fossil fuels from all around the world. Fossil fuels are used to fuel cars and airplanes, power electricity plants, and heat our homes. So this lies around the question, where does fuel come from? There are 3 forms of fuel, coal, oil, and natural gas. Coal is found in many of the lower 48 states of United States and throughout the rest of the world. Oil and natural gas is located under porous rock deep within the earth’s surface. Oil was formed millions of years ago. It is mined from the ground and is not as easy to find as coal. There is also as a higher demand of fossil fuels. Due to the high demand, oil is transported by pipelines and trains from around the world. In the Middle East, there are new discoveries of natural gas that is also known as Methane.

As you can see the United States is the top importer and this is partially responsible for our trade deficit and our attempt to search for not only a more eco-friendly way to fuel automobiles (a large use of our oil) but also to limit our import.