Another interesting article. In part... The shale-gas and hydraulic-fracking revolution is lighting a figurative bonfire under the world’s petrocracies. Dictatorships that for years blackmailed the West in the knowledge that we would come crawling back for the black stuff are now catching a glimpse of a bleak future. Last year the U.S. overtook Russia as the world’s leading energy producer; next year America is projected to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest producer of crude oil. This ought to put a smile not only on the faces of free-market economists, but liberals and progressives, too. As America becomes a net exporter of energy, shale could help topple some of the world’s worst regimes.The relationship between oil wealth and autocracy is well-established, with a number of studies showing that democracy is less likely in oil-rich nations. Oil wealth helps keep dictators in their palaces by allowing vast military expenditure to repress dissent and providing a ready pool of money with which to co-opt their populations through generous welfare stipends.Sitting atop large and valuable energy reserves also gives autocrats the luxury of keeping a tight lid on economic entrepreneurship. Winning the geographical lottery ensures that the oil money comes in regardless of how little revenue the rest of the economy generates. Some of the most vociferous opponents of fracking are liberals, yet the shale revolution has the potential to undermine some of the world’s most illiberal regimes, in the process freeing the U.S. from its bondage to Saudi Arabia, as demanded by progressives for decades. This is not to dismiss the environmental concerns regarding shale extraction in urban areas, nor to call for the abandonment of a long-term strategy in the West for the development of green renewables. Yet it is to recognize that American shale producers are engaged in a price war with some of the world’s vilest regimes. In that respect, the left should get on board the fracking revolution. wsj/…/james-bloodworth-the-progressive-case-…H/T Maura Kenary Barbato
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 14:40:02 +0000
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