Oil as measured in dollars reached a multi-year high on Tuesday. Some are no doubt wondering how this could be. Fracking enthusiasts have assured us for years that innovative oil extraction techniques would render the cost of crude a yesterday worry.
Except that at $70/barrel, oil presently trades at a price that is seven times what a barrel fetched in 1998. What’s the story? Wasn’t fracking supposed to put a virtual fence around the U.S. such that its citizens no longer needed to fear expensive gasoline again? Weren’t we supposed to become the Saudi Arabia of North America, swimming in oil so abundant that we'd become the world's supplier? Wasn’t fracking supposed to put other energy-exporting nations out of business, or at least clip their margins?
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