Hayes: Welcome to Saudi-America

>>> my story of the week, saudi america . they have a $300 signing bonus to new employees. you heard that right. with a 7.7% nationwide up unemployment rate , persist ant sluggish job growth and the labor market of one town in north dakota is so tight and employers are desperate, they're offering a signing bonus for a job slinging fries. unemployment in the entire state in north dakota is 3.1%. gdp growth in the rate is a whooping 7.6%, and housing there is in such short supply that one bedrooms rent for more than $1,000. what economic miracle has taken place to bring this about? the answer is the bacan formulation which has oil in relatively hard rocks. the revolution including fracking helped to unlock the oil, and some speculate the amount of extractible oil from one gjigeological formation could surpass the reserves of iraq and kuwait combined. this pushes u.s. oil production up for the first time in a generation and arresting what many believe was a permanent decline. this chart shows the comparative growth in crude oil supply among a number of non-opec countries. you see the u.s. obliterating the rest of the world . employment des moinin oil and gas surged to the highest level in 1992 . we still provide a tiny sliver just under 200,000. the net oil imports are craters and a now a number of analysts predict in the near future the u.s. is producing more oil than any other country in the world. by round 2020 a recent international agency reports that the u.s. is predicted to become the largest oil producer and starts to see the impact of new fuel efficiency measures and transport. it results in a continued fall in u.s. imports to the extend that north america is a net oil exporter around 2030 . yes, that's right. the united states , which is according to the spokes people from the coal industry already the saudi arabia of coal, which is now essentially tied with russia as the single largest producer of natural gas in the world could find itself the world's biggest oil producer on a consistent basis for the first time since the first half of the 20th century . in energy circles you hear the phrase saudi america used to refer to this future fossil fuel juggernaut. you might look at this and say fantastic. america is finally into sight of that promised destination, energy independence . not only can we cheaply supply our own power grid and vehicles and army, we can make money all over the world reversing the long trend toward ever wide trading imbalances. during the campaign this was more or less the argument president obama made.

>> we have increased oil production for the highest levels in 16 years. we're actually drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration. we're less dependent on foreign oil than any time in 20 years. we're moving in the right direction in terms of energy independent. we've built enough pipeline to wrap around the entire earth.

>> delighting in our carbon extraction boom is staggeringly almost psychopath thickally pre preverse. whim the carbon fraction is hurling the world toward the future, a celsius rise, crop failure and on and on. in other words, you cannot separate energy policy from climate policy . there are one in the same, and based on calculations by bill mckib bone, only one fifth of the fuel reserves that includes everything can be taken out of the ground and used without our planet passing the critical 2 degree increase threshold. in other words, 80% of the fossil fuels that we at this moment know we can take out have to stay in the ground. there's another related threat posed by the ramping up of our fossil fuel extraction, and that is as america begins to april saudi arabia 's productive capacity it closely resembles politics. they talk about the resource curse and the fact that countries tend to be developmental and governance basket cases. if you think that sounds foreign looshgs at the politics in places like west texas and west virginia . the promise of energy independence is a kind of liberation. it is a false promise. if history or a look across the globe tells us anything it's that the extremely lucrative industry of extracting carbon fuel offers all the actual freedom of the devil's handshake. how we escape it after this. [