Fossil Fuels or Nuclear Power?
There are two ways to read the title of the well-argued and optimistic piece “America Is Petroleum-Independent, for Now” (April 5), by Nicholas Eberstadt, Derek Scissors, and Evan Abramsky.
Under the first, intended, reading, America is indeed exporting more oil and gas than it is importing. Our production exceeds consumption, on average, over the course of a year, even at a time when coal consumption is dropping rapidly owing to substitution by natural gas in electricity generation.
But the Texas blackouts of February 15–18 support a darker reading in which an inversion of the title would be more …
Something to Consider
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