Because the United States is the largest oil producer in the world, despite the transition

At a time when the energy transition is accelerating and renewable energy is growing, oil production in the United States is not stopping.

One of Joe Biden's most important legacies, regardless of his successor, is the climate one:the United States has passed the most important climate law in its history.Yet in the same years they have become the world's largest oil producers.

However partial, in fact, theInflation reduction act Ratified two years ago, it was the first truly systemic climate measure and included a 40 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions. by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels).The goal was not enough to secure the Paris Climate Agreement, but it represented at least getting back on track American after the disastrous legacy of the Trump administration, which had taken the USA out of Paris.

The other side of the coin, however, is harder to digest and talk about, certainly for the Democrats:own under the Biden presidency the United States has in fact reached its historic peak in oil production, now close to 14 million barrels per day, becoming by far the world's largest producer of crude oil, surpassing both Saudi Arabia and Russia, left millions of barrels behind.

How was this peak production possible, at a time when the energy transition is accelerating, also in the United States, and has the Inflation Reduction Act brought billions of public dollars into the zero-emissions economy?The market of electric cars is taking off, with several car manufacturers seeing increases in sales between 50 and 80 percent compared to 2023, already the year sales record of electric vehicles, and which therefore no longer use any petroleum derivatives, such as petrol or petroleum.

Even the renewable energies they have seen a sharp increase in the last two years: in 2023 as much as 53 percent of all installed power came from new photovoltaics.

However, oil production never reached peaks so high.

Do oilmen prefer Democrats or Republicans?

The causes of this recent oil boom actually date back to previous years:in fact, after years and years of investments, also pushed by the federal government with the strategic objective of becoming energy independent, the financial results are starting to bear fruit.

Economic fruits, i.e. revenues, which have become gigantic with the global price crisis following the Russian invasion ofUkraine, after the shock and losses of 2020 following the first wave of Covid-19.

In the decade from 2011 to 2021, oil and gas wells in the 48 continental states were losing nearly $140 billion, according to Rystad Energy, a research and consulting firm.Only in the last three years however, from 2021 all these wells they brought in around 485 billion of dollars.Money that often among other things they financed the candidates in the elections, mainly Republicans but also Democrats, with millions of dollars.

Contributing to the current production peak is both hydraulic fracturing, so-called fracking, be the many technologic innovations introduced over the years which have greatly increased efficiency, and have now been economically amortized.Innovations that have often also made it possible to cut employment in the sector and reduce costs.

Production actually has reached its peak during Joe Biden's last government, but in words the Republicans have often been the greatest supporters offossil industry, Trump has in his motto Drill, baby drill the quintessence of this spirit.

Added to this is that the United States has been in 2023 also the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, called LNG.The United States now extracts so much oil and gas that it has greatly reduced the geopolitical importance and economic influence ofOpec, the group of Middle Eastern oil and gas producing countries, led by Saudi Arabia.

In reality, it is at least since 2010, under the Democratic administration of Barack Obama, which investments to find and exploit the new deposits at home, especially with the new fracking techniques, which several studies have proven to be harmful to people near extraction plants.

The initial idea of ​​freeing ourselves from coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels it was correct, but The USA has thus fallen back into a second fossil dependency, that from gas, which not only puts their ecological transition at risk but also that of many other countries to which they now export these sources.

Until?

After saying it many times in the last electoral campaign, if elected, Trump would again pave the way for oil and gas companies to “use the liquid gold beneath our feet to produce clean energy for America and the world,” he said.

Biden has instead pushed a lot in recent years, and the approximately 340 billion dollars from the IRA confirm this, on clean technologies, but he did not oppose all fossil expansion plans.And indeed:in the short term, the more stringent democratic laws and the limitation of production have paradoxically caused the price of fossil fuels to rise, guaranteeing greater profits for fossil fuel companies in recent years.

On the other hand, many producers see this golden period, politically bipartisan, as a signal to be able to go on for decades to come.At the New York Times, the CEO of the Permian Deep Rock Oil Company, Kyle Hammond, he has declared:“We will be drilling wells like this for the next forty years.”

The region of Permian, named after the geological era to which the deposit dates back, is at the center of the attention of large oil companies:Exxon, the largest producer in that region of Texas, aims to increase oil and gas production by fifty percent by 2027.However, it is not clear what the increase in extractions could be compatible with their theoretical plans to reach zero emissions just 23 years later.

What should be done?

According to the International Energy Agency, it is from 2021 that humanity no longer needs to explore new oil and gas deposits if it wants to reach zero emissions by 2050, because what we know is already sufficient.In their predictions, peak oil will arrive before 2030 due to the ever-increasing number of electric cars, the bulk of oil being used for transportation, and the rapid growth of renewable energy, particularly wind and solar.

In short, a lot of politics will be needed to try to get the USA back on track to limit fossil greenhouse gas emissions and try to stay below the +2°C increase in average global temperature compared to the pre-industrial period.The probable Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has expressed itself several times in favor of Green new deal, and has repeatedly brought fossil fuel companies to trial in her role as attorney general of California, as well as being an advocate for a ban on fracking.It is more difficult to understand whether Harris would be in favor of, or able to, push towards a sharp cut in production, the only truly effective measure in this scenario.

In short: in first place for cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases globally, over 25 percent until 2017, although in 2024 they could be a little less, in first place for global GDP, to the first place for oil production and for gas export natural liquefied.The planet's energy transition also decisively passes through the next government of the United States of America.Maybe, instead of always asking “And India?And China?” It would be time to start asking more often: “And the United States?”.