Did we miss the other revolution?
We can all recogise a revolution – it’s when overwhelming numbers of people overthrow a government through force of combined will. We saw it last year across the Middle East. But another revolution has been going on, and foreign correspondents like me who cover conflicts and demonstrations have scarcely noticed.
According to the New York Times, “In the last five years, the United States and Canada combined have become the fastest-growing sources of new oil supplies around the world, overtaking producers like Russia and Saudi Arabia.”
According to some sources, US shale oil reserves are three times greater than Saudi Arabia’s conventional oil reserves.
That means Saudi Arabia is rapidly losing the geo-strategic hold it has enjoyed since the 1950s. The US tolerated the House of Saud’s repressive form of government because it needed the energy.
Hence the arms-for-oil exchanges, and the cosy relationship European and American leaders cultivated with Gulf kings and princes.
After it emerged that the jihadis who blew up the World Trade Center in 2001 were Saudis, schooled in the strict Wahabi form of Islam, the US government started a concerted effort to diversify oil supply, looking to West Africa and Latin America. Now they have found what they’re looking for at home.
The change is rapid. By 2020 – that’s just eight years away – North American oil production is expected to double, and the USA won’t need to import except from Canada.
Environmentalists protest about “fracking” to produce shale oil and gas, and deep water production in the Gulf of Mexico, especially after the BP oil spill in 2010. But the news is not all bad for the environment – gas fired power stations produce less carbon than coal, and fuel-efficient cars have reduced demand.
New energy sources could revive the US economy, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs.
As the US reduces its dependence on oil imports, demand from China and India is increasing. The Saudis are not going out of business – rather, they’re looking east. The relationships which have defined geo-politics for more than half a century are rapidly shifting – that’s what I call a revolution.
Following Lindsey on Twitter via @lindseyhilsum