Source:
"It’s not always easy to illustrate the effect of energy independence, but this chart from the EIA helps to do so.
It also shows how these imports kept increasing until around 2005.
The widening gap between production and consumption reflected the increase in imports.
These imports were mostly oil, but, in 2005, we were beginning to also import natural gas.
In the early 2000s, there was an effort to build import terminals for natural gas, because we were running out of domestic supplies.
This divergence between energy consumption and production has many ramifications.
For example, we used our money to pay for energy.
This money could have been spent in the US for economic development and jobs.
It also meant we were more vulnerable by having to rely on other countries for the energy we needed.
We had to spend money to protect our supply lines.
Then, in 2005, there was a remarkable turn around.
Suddenly we were producing oil and natural gas.
We no longer needed to build import terminals for natural gas or spend our money importing oil.
Fracking was the technology that allowed the United States to become energy independent.
None of this was because we started to use wind and solar for energy.
In fact, it’s impossible to depict wind and solar’s share on the graph because their share is so small, only 3.8%.
The United States is blessed to have abundant supplies of fossil fuels.
The danger confronting our country today isn’t our ability to supply our country with energy.
It’s the unnecessary net-zero carbon policy being imposed on the country to fight the fictitious dangers of climate change"