“GAME OVER” - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 96

h ere may be one exception to the logic that says U.S. restraint in
oil production probably won't be reciprocated by anyone else. China
has massive reserves of coal and has l irted with converting large quan-
tities to liquid fuels (though without following through so far). Any
decision on such a move would neither make nor break the Chinese
economy; as such, it comes down to Beijing's discretion. h ere is a
chance that a U.S. embrace of massively expanded oil production could
undermine ef orts to persuade China to forgo converting coal to liquid
fuels, multiplying the climate impact of the U.S. move. On the other
hand, though, because greater U.S. production would push down world
oil prices, it would make the already forbidding economics of Chinese
coal-to-liquids ef orts even less promising. 27
But we're not quite done yet. If, at some point in the future, countries
have deeply cut their greenhouse gas emissions, the relative impact of
U.S. oil production would be higher. If the world were able to cut its
emissions in half by midcentury, a target ot en discussed at diplomatic
gatherings, the relative contribution of U.S. oil emissions would double.
If, by the end of the present century, the world brought its emissions
down even more deeply, the relative U.S. contribution could become
huge. In either of those worlds, though, oil demand would be deeply
reduced as part of the ef ort to curb emissions. Oil prices would fall
along with it, undermining the economics of U.S. oil production. Lower
oil output would be the result, not the cause, of ef orts to combat cli-
mate change.
h e last dynamic to keep in mind is one that we encountered when
investigating oil prices: a massive increase in American production
could prompt conl ict among OPEC countries and temporarily l ood
the market with oil. h is would magnify, rather than reduce, the impact
of greater U.S. oil production. But the resultant price crash would be
short-lived or would wipe out the i nancial viability of massive American
oil production. Either way the climate impact would be limited.
All of this, many scientists and advocates argue, misses something
important: carbon emissions from new sources of oil are unusually high.
h e Canadian oil sands have come in for acute criticism on this front,
and many fear U.S. oil shale could have similar problems too. Former
Vice President Al Gore claimed for several years that “gasoline made