by John Brian Shannon

The world energy industry is suddenly transforming into something very different from the industry we have grown accustomed to over the past decades. In those previous decades, it was pump and burn more oil, mine and burn more coal and build more coal-fired burners to produce electricity. More, more and more smoke — that is!

Anti-nuclear protesters were a constant feature in the press anywhere a reactor was considered, built or commissioned into use. Urban residents held irregular anti-smog protests outside of City Hall in large cities like LA and Tokyo.

Small-scale and large wars, were fought over control of the world’s oil and gas fields — sometimes affecting the very economic health of those nations.

Welcome to 2013. The world is still reeling from President Barack Obama’s decision to wean America completely off of foreign oil, he also ordered oil and gas production to be dramatically ramped up in the U.S.A. – and he decided to make his country a net oil exporter of oil and gas. Not just any-old net exporter mind you, but the world’s number one exporter of both oil and gas by 2017! That’s in four years.

Heady stuff for a normally ambivalent world.

Remember back in February of 2006, when then-President George W. Bush famously stated in his State of the Union speech that “America is addicted to oil.” That of course, is true. The U.S.A. and the other industrialized nations wouldn’t survive without oil as the entire Western economy is based on petroleum and the products made from it. From transportation and energy fuels, to plastics, medicines, agricultural fertilizers, residential and commercial buildings – virtually everything we live in, drive, wear, buy or use, is a product or by-product of petroleum.

Both Presidents — Obama and Bush, foresaw the importance of lowering overall energy use to improve the health and quality of life for American citizens, to lower international tensions by sourcing oil and gas domestically and to invest in clean technology to improve conservation and efficiency.

It turns out that conservation, green energy and domestic energy extraction is not a Democrat or Republican thing — it’s a leadership thing. And all over the world, it is catching on. Welcome to 2013, indeed!

Related Articles:

• George W. Bush: The Hero of US Wind Energy (oilprice.com)
• America’s Sudden Energy Pivot (jbsnews.com)
• US to become world’s top oil producer by 2017 – IEA (arabiangazette.com)
• Energy Year Ahead: Energy Lobbyists Gird for Tax Overhaul Fight (bloomberg.com)
• 10 Big Energy Statistics From 2012 (cleantechnica.com)
• U.S. to Become Top Gas and Top Oil Producer in the World by 2017, According to IEA; Special Report by Leading Financial e-Letter Investment Contrarians (prweb.com)
• U.S. to become biggest oil producer – IEA (money.cnn.com)
• U.S. to overtake Saudi as top oil producer by 2017: IEA (business.financialpost.com)