By Michael J. Graetz

Americans take without any consideration that after we turn a swap the sunshine will pass on, after we take place the thermostat the room gets hot, and once we pull as much as the pump gasoline may be ample and comparatively reasonable. in spite of everything of power, Michael Graetz indicates us that we have got been dwelling an strength fable for 40 years. till the Seventies, we produced locally all of the oil we wanted to run our energy crops, warmth our houses, and gasoline our automobiles. when you consider that then, now we have needed to import lots of the oil we use, a lot of it from the center East. And we depend on an excellent dirtier fuel—coal—to produce half our electrical energy.

Graetz describes greater than 40 years of strength coverage incompetence and argues that we needs to make greater judgements for our power destiny. regardless of hundreds of thousands of pages of power laws because the Seventies (passed through a Congress that tended to raise slim parochial pursuits over our nationwide goals), americans have by no means been requested to pay a value that displays the true expense of the strength they devour. until eventually americans face the evidence approximately fee, our strength incompetence will continue—and besides it the unraveling of our surroundings, defense, and independence.

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Extra resources for The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America's Environment, Security, and Independence

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In the same hearing room in the glare of the same kleig lights where the Watergate hearings had captured the attention of the American public the preceding summer, senators excoriated the executives for their inadequate supplies and their excessive profits. The oil executives soon became the nation’s scapegoats when their companies reported record profits for the first quarter of 1974. -negotiated cease-fire between Israel and the Arabs, OPEC lifted the embargo. Time magazine reported a month later that Americans had returned to their “heavy feet,” traveling more, routinely exceeding the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, raising their thermostats, and pushing conservation to the recesses of their hearts and minds.

At a January 7, 1974, staff meeting Henry Kissinger inquired, “If we wanted to intervene in the Persian Gulf today, what would be our capabilities? ” Kissinger’s advisors responded, “Yes, we can do it,” though they said it would “depend on the precise circumstances” of the intervention the United States wanted to launch. Kissinger ultimately decided against military intervention. Given the widespread dissatisfaction with the Vietnam War, it was clear that the American people had no taste for another military conflict.

The tinderbox of the Middle East became central to the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. For the United States, relationships with the shah of Iran, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Israel were critical. The Soviets’ major clients were Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. Each of the superpowers held an ace in the hole: its own ample reserves of oil. These reserves permitted both the United States and the Soviet Union not only to weather disruptions in the supply of Middle East oil that occurred occasionally during the 1950s and 1960s, but also to serve as an oil exporter when supplies elsewhere got tight.

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