Energy Independence Is a Myth: Fracking, Landmen, and the Global Price of Oil

For more than fifty years, Americans have been told that energy independence is just around the corner.

Drill more. Import less. Problem solved.

But the truth is more complicated.

In this episode of Confessions of a Gen-X Mind, I take a clear-eyed look at where the idea of “energy independence” came from, why it keeps getting recycled, and why it has never fully matched reality.

We start in the 1970s with the OPEC oil embargo and the gas lines that reshaped American life. We move through Nixon’s promises, Carter’s solar panels, Reagan’s reversals, and into the fracking boom that turned places like North Texas into ground zero for America’s latest energy gamble.

Along the way, we unpack what shows like Landman get right and what they conveniently gloss over. Yes, wind turbines require petroleum to build. Yes, fossil fuels still underpin modern life. But finite resources are still finite, no matter how you vote or what cable channel you watch.

We also talk about geopolitics. Why oil prices are global, no matter how much we drill at home. Why the United States still imports heavy crude while exporting the lighter crude we produce. And why recent U.S. actions toward Venezuela have far more to do with oil than with the long-failed war on drugs.

This isn’t an episode about ideology. It’s about logistics, history, and math.

Sources and influences referenced in this episode include:

• NPR reporting and historical coverage of the 1973–74 OPEC oil embargo
• Commentary and analysis from energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe of NYU
• Saudi America by journalist Bethany McLean
• Marketplace Morning Report interviews on fracking, shale economics, and energy markets
• Long-term environmental and economic discussions from college-level environmental science coursework
• Firsthand experience living in North Texas during the Barnett Shale fracking boom

Energy independence makes for a great slogan.

But slogans don’t power cars, stabilize prices, or plan for the future.

Context does.

Transcript

George TenEyck: 0:00

For more than 50 years, Americans have been told the same thing that energy independence was just around the corner. Drill more, import less, problem solved. It's a great slogan. It sounds strong. It sounds reassuring, but it's never really been true. In this episode of Confessions of a Gen X Mind, I want to slow that phrase down and take a real look at it. Where it came from, why it keeps coming back, and why it's never really matched the reality of how energy actually works. This isn't about ideology. It's not about climate belief systems or political tribes or what cable channel you watch. It's about logistics, history, and math. From the oil embargo of the 70s to fracking rigs in North Texas neighborhoods, to global oil prices we absolutely don't control. The story of American energy has always been much more complicated than the sound bites suggest. And if we don't understand that complexity, we keep repeating the same cycle. Panic, promises, short-term fixes, long-term amnesia. So let's talk about what energy independence really means. What shows like Landman get right, and what they leave out, and why planning for the future has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with reality. Because slogans don't power cars. Context does. I want to start with a phrase we've all heard for most of our lives: energy independence. It sounds strong, self-reliant, patriotic, like something you'd hear in a campaign ad or a presidential address right after the words, my fellow Americans. But like a lot of phrases we inherited from the 70s, it turns out to be a lot more complicated than it sounds. For context, the show Landman didn't just come out of nowhere. It's loosely inspired by the Texas monthly podcast, Boomtown, which digs into modern oil business, landman culture, and the shale boom. I haven't actually listened to the whole series, but I know the world it's pulling from because I lived right next door to it. I grew up and built my career right here in North Texas. And in the early to mid-2000s, the oil and gas business wasn't some abstract geopolitical concept. It was door knocks, yard signs, mineral rights paperwork, town halls at City Hall, and landmen and polos explaining why this was good for everyone. Fracking sites popped up everywhere, even in places no one expected, near neighborhoods, near schools, near places that had never smelled like diesel before. What landman gets right isn't every detail, it's the tone, the confidence, the certainty that oil has always been there and it always will be. And that tone felt familiar because I heard it long before Billy Bob Thornton's character ever delivered a monologue about wind turbines. To understand where that confidence comes from, you have to rewind. Way back to the fall of 1973. That's when the Arab members of OPEC caught off oil exports to the United States in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel. Gas lines formed overnight, prices spiked. People lined up before sunrise hoping fuel wouldn't run out before their turn. The automobile was king back then. Freedom meant mobility, and suddenly that freedom had limits. President Nixon went on TV and introduced two ideas that most Americans really never heard before: energy conservation and energy independence. In the short term, Americans were told to turn down the thermostat, turn off lights, carpool, and slow down. Literally. The national speed limit dropped to 55 miles an hour. People hated it, but it stayed on the books for decades. In the long term, Nixon promised something bigger, a future where the United States wouldn't rely on foreign oil. That future never quite arrived, but it did set the table. Fuel efficiency standards changed cars. Japanese manufacturers entered the market, and SUVs later exploited loopholes. Solar panels went up on the White House during the Carter administration. Then came the 80s. Oil prices dropped. Ronald Reagan took those solar panels down. Commitment faded, and America went back to sleep. Fast forward to the mid-2000s. Enter fracking. Or more accurately, enter capital. Because fracking wasn't just a technological breakthrough. It was a financial one. Billions of dollars poured into shale plays across Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and beyond. In North Texas, you couldn't miss it. Drilling rigs, compressor stations, lease offers, community meetings where engineers promised safety and landmen promised prosperity. Even in college environmental science classes in the late 90s, we talked about this future. Aquifer contamination, induced seismic activity, earthquakes. Nobody called it a conspiracy. It was just physics. Then something interesting happened. Natural gas prices collapsed. Suddenly, the math stopped working. The landmen disappeared, the town halls ended. The rigs slowed way down. Not because the resources ran out, but because the profit margin did. That part rarely makes the highlight real. And this is where the phrase energy independence really starts to crack. Because, yeah, the United States produces more oil today than ever before. But most of what we produce is light, sweet, crude. And most of our refineries are old, built decades ago, and they're designed to process heavy crude from places like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. So we export a lot of what we drill, and we import most of what we refine, which means the price of oil is still global, set by wars, embargoes, shipping lanes, and markets we absolutely do not control. That's not independence, that's participation. And this is where geopolitics comes roaring back into the story. When protesters say no blood for oil, they're often dismissed as being dramatic. But history suggests otherwise. Our foreign policy in oil-rich regions has rarely been accidental. And lately, Venezuela is a perfect example. Publicly, our involvement is framed around democracy, corruption, or the long-running and deeply failed war on drugs. But behind the curtain, Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves on the planet, heavy crude, the exact kind that our aging refineries are built to process. So when the U.S. seizes Venezuelan oil tankers or applies economic pressure, it's hard not to notice that the rhetoric sounds familiar, but the resource incentives are very real. This isn't about drugs. It's about supply chains, refinery compatibility, and leverage. Energy independence doesn't mean disengagement from the world. It just changes how and where the pressure is applied. That's the part that most sound bites leave out. Now back to Landman. There's a scene that went viral where Billy Bob Thornton's character explains why wind turbines don't really pay for themselves in the long run. Because steel, concrete, transportation, lubricants, and maintenance all rely on petroleum. And he's not wrong about that. Wind and solar do not exist in a vacuum. They're built inside of an oil-dependent world. But that argument usually stops right there. What it leaves out is the long view. Fossil fuels are finite. That's not politics, that's geology. Whether you believe climate change is existential or exaggerated, the reality is the same. Eventually, supply declines. Planning for a renewable future isn't about ideology, it's logistics. And pretending we can drill forever without consequences is how you end up back in gas lines at five in the morning. What Landman also glosses over is something the fracking industry learned the hard way. That business is fragile. Many shale companies never turned consistent profits. They burned cash. They relied on Wall Street's patience and survived largely because the money kept flowing. When it stopped, so did the boom. That's not independence either. That's leverage. And I don't say any of this as an outsider. I say it who's someone who watched this cycle up close. I was there when Landman knocked on my front door. I was there when the rigs arrived, and I was there when they quietly left. That lived reality matters more than any monologue, because it reminds us that energy policy isn't just about barrels and B2Us. It's about communities, jobs, environmental trade-offs, and honesty. If we'd stayed the course after the 70s, invested steadily, and planned patiently, we'd be in a very different place today. Instead, we lurched, committed, pulled back, repeated the cycle. So when someone says we're energy independent, I hear something else. I hear confidence built on volatility. And experience has taught me to be skeptical of that. Because the real lesson of oil isn't that it powers everything, it's that nothing lasts forever. And the smartest moves usually happen before the crisis, not after it. That's the part worth paying attention to. Not the chest thumping, not the mythology, but the math and the memory. I'm George Tenike. Dig into all of our episodes and tell a friend. Now available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.