Energy security experts Kevin Massy and Govinda Avasarala write that the Republican Party’s long-vaunted goal of domestic energy independence may be little more than a pipe dream in economic terms.
In a lengthy and detailed piece written for CNN Massy, an associate director for the Brooking Institution’s Energy Security Initiative, and Avasarala, a senior research assistant with the Energy Security Initiative, say that although US energy independence is technically feasible it is far from a desirable outcome for economic reasons.
In order to achieve true energy independence Americans would have to insulate themselves from global markets by forgoing all overseas oil trade, which would have a distorting effect upon the economics of domestic oil production and cause a “. . . potential net cost to the overall economy.”
“It would come at a very high price…In a truly ‘energy independent’ scenario, in which imports are cut off, U.S. consumers would have to pay prices high enough to justify domestic production to cover all domestic demand – prices likely to be far higher than those in the global market,” writes the authors of the study.
Massy and Avasarala’s piece is published just a day after the Republican Party released its 2012 Party Platform reaffirming a commitment to domestic energy independence and the development of local resource reserves.
Comments
JJ Butler
I’ll suggest all references to energy independence have net energy independence as their meaning. Further, net energy independence is not necessessary; just get close! Balance of payments, fungability and such…