THE ENERGY OPPORTUNITY - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 196

also reduced U.S. carbon dioxide emissions and forestalled construction
of new coal-i red power plants. But natural gas isn't without l aws: shale
gas development, done wrong, entails large environmental risks, and
even if done right it could deter deployment of zero-carbon energy in
the long run. Yet with solid environmental rules, and policy that steers
investment toward zero-carbon energy over the long haul, encouraging
natural gas is a clear win.
h e benei ts from increased oil production are more modest: pro-
ducing more oil at home can boost U.S. economic fortunes when oil
prices are high, creating near-term jobs and long-term wealth while ulti-
mately pushing down oil prices at the margin. But despite some security
benei ts, it won't deliver the energy independence that many seek. To
be sure, producing more oil will also lead to slightly more U.S. oil use,
but this won't fatally undermine the benei ts of greater oil production;
similarly, a boom in U.S. oil production would have surprisingly lit le
impact on the ultimate fate of ef orts to avoid dangerous climate change,
so long as the oil industry isn't heavily subsidized. h e biggest challenge
for oil production comes from its impact on the local environment, a
tradeof that will need to be confronted one development at a time.
Meanwhile high oil prices and improvements in car and truck tech-
nology have made continuing declines in oil use possible at ever more
modest cost. h e benei ts of adopting ever-more ei cient vehicles
include a stronger economy, greater resilience in the face of oil market
turmoil and hence improved national security, and fewer greenhouse
gas emissions. (Ef orts to cut demand are a far more powerful weapon
against climate change than direct curbs on oil supplies are; if the United
States and others slash their oil use, production of costly U.S. oil will
fall.) To be certain, the benei ts from cut ing oil consumption come at
a price: more ei cient vehicles are more expensive than less ei cient
ones. But the premium they command is falling, steadily expanding the
opportunity for smart moves toward more ei cient cars and trucks.
Renewable energy is also gaining extraordinary ground, and over
time it has a good shot at being a big part of a zero-carbon energy sys-
tem. Both sides in the i ght over renewable energy have overstated some
of their boldest claims: wind and solar, pursued properly, are neither
huge economic risks nor world-changing economic opportunities. But