THE BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN ENERGY - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 18

daily barrels, and Canada and Mexico had emerged as major suppliers.
Beginning in 1975, the United States developed Strategic Petroleum
Reserves, massive stockpiles of oil designed to help the country ride
out any supply cutof , and l exible global markets had emerged in the
place of previously rigid systems for allocating crude. h e U.S. automo-
bile sector made big leaps, too: ei cient cars, once purely the province
of Japanese and European manufacturers, were increasingly being built
in Detroit.

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Yet the political bat le lines barely shit ed. h ey remain the same today
and consistently lead the same outcome: a bat le between enthusiasts
for promoting traditional fuels and supporters of a new energy path—
and, ot en, a more fundamental accompanying i ght over the right role
for government in American society. Just as they did in the 1970s,
Americans appear to face a stark choice. h ough proponents of each
path agree on lit le else, they largely concur that the nation must now
decide i rmly one way or the other.
h is view is mistaken. h e world has changed fundamentally since
the bat le lines in the i ght over American energy were i rst set. It is
no doubt possible to push too hard on any particular energy source:
to expand oil and gas production so blindly and rapidly that it entails
massive environmental damage outweighing any economic, security, or
(for natural gas) climate gains, or to push so quickly into new cars and
trucks and alternative energy that the economic costs overwhelm any
economic, security, or climate benei ts. But the fact that there are wrong
ways to pursue each energy source does not mean there aren't oppor-
tunities to gain from all of them. h e United States can strengthen its
economy, improve its national security, and confront climate change
if it intelligently embraces the historic gains unfolding all across the
energy landscape.
To see why and how, we need to dive deep into the transforma-
tions sweeping American energy. It's useful to keep three questions in
mind as we do so. Does each energy source that has recently thrived
of er important opportunities to improve the U.S. economy, strengthen