'Biggest' or 'best' is easy is the cost doesn't matter

Becoming “the best” or “the biggest” at anything is easy if you are prepared to pay the cost.

Maybe this looks like a
slice of cake, but it is an
image of fracking.
 

The United States oil industry is ready to stride past Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest oil producer, but the cost will be measured in ruined communities and countless lives left in disarray.

Energy independence, or oil self-sufficiency at least, hinges on the recent development and arrival of hydraulic fracturing that has allowed the U.S, to extract oil previously economically unavailable.

The lure of “energy independence”, and of course massive profits for just a few, has overridden the short-term benefits and costs, that include among them the long-term potential pollution of aquifers, the inordinate use of water upon which communities depend and the fact that if could be all over in just few years.

The Huffington Post writes about this development in a story headed: “U.S. to be world’s top oil producer by 2016, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia, IEA predicts”.