oil moves the world around and creates powerful countries oil is such a vital commodity that it provoked Wars throughout the 20th century the few countries that produce it try to keep control of it to ensure its riches stay at home those who do not have it strive to get it in the 1930s Saudi Arabia was one of the poorest countries in the world but the discovery of oil transformed it and Saudi Arabia has amassed 515 point six billion dollars in sovereign wealth funds it has become the linchpin of a powerful cartel that sometimes rations oil
to push up prices the United States is now the biggest producer of oil and gas going to its shale revolution it is tapped abundant reserves through fracking a technology that uses high-pressure water and sand to fracture rock deep below the ground to extract hydrocarbons this shale revolution has helped the United States become less dependent on oil imported from Saudi Arabia Venezuela Iraq and other OPEC countries more oil and gas on global markets has also benefited the world's energy consumers by pushing down costs oil still remains the primary fuel supplying almost 1/3 of the world's energy
but its heyday may soon be over despite growing demand while 2014 the world's global energy use is set to increase by 30 percent that energy must be much cleaner if the world wants to prevent catastrophic global warming in the past coal and gas were less expensive than renewable technology but their costs have come down dramatically there is now a race among some nations to create more efficient renewable technologies to reduce pollution and be more energy self-sufficient China is the world's largest consumer of coal and the second largest of oil but it also now leads the
world in clean energy one third of the world's new wind power and solar panels is installed in China and it sells more electric cars than any other country the quest for energy self-sufficiency is a big motivation than many countries China is moving fast an America under President Donald Trump is securing its energy independence with oil and gas but unlike oil and gas renewables will not increase global warming the long term transition to clean energy will throw up new global challenges it will create tensions in unstable parts of the Middle East as oil revenue starts to
dry up another challenge is that wind and Sun are intermittent renewables may require vast shared electricity grids spanning borders to make them more efficient to stop global warming the world needs a huge collaboration over our shared energy future if we fail wars over scarce resources could be even worse in the 21st century than in the 20th
