RISE early, work hard, strike oil.” The late oil baron J.
Paul Getty’s formula for success is working rather well for America,
which may already have surpassed Russia as the world’s largest producer
of oil and gas (see article).
By 2020 it should have overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest pumper of
oil, the more valuable fuel. By then the “fracking” revolution—a clever
way of extracting oil and gas from shale deposits—should have added 2-4%
to American GDP and created twice as many jobs than carmaking provides
today.
All this is a credit to American ingenuity. Commodities have been a mixed blessing for other countries (see our leader on Argentina).
But this oil boom is earned: it owes less to geological luck than
enterprise, ready finance and dazzling technology. America’s energy
firms have invested in new ways of pumping out hydrocarbons that
everyone knew were there but could not extract economically. The new
oilfields in Texas and North Dakota resemble high-tech factories.
“Directional” drills guided by satellite technology bore miles down,
turn, bore miles to the side and hit a target no bigger than a truck
wheel. Thousands of gallons of water are then injected to open hairline
cracks in the rock, and the oil and gas are sucked out.
READ MORE: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21596521-energy-boom-good-america-and-world-it-would-be-nice-if-barack-obama-helped
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