The United States has been heralded around the globe for its incredible economic system. The growth of the United States started off small with minor discoveries and inventions, such as oil and electricity, and with those in place emergence of new technologies and innovations came underway.The railroads came about very slowly and became very popular. A man named Henry Bessemer came up with a way to make steel cheaply and efficiently. Key business magnates, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, cashed in on the demand for steel and oil, began their own firms, and later worked on a domination in their own area of commerce.
In 1870, John D. Rockefeller organized The Standard Oil Company along with his brother William, Andrews, Henry M. Flagler, S.V. Harkness, and others. It had a capital of $1 million.
Before long, the company’s production soared from 2000 barrels a year in 1859 to almost 5 million ten years later. He was successful, though it took longer than expected, then others were attracted to the area, and several came to unearth the oil (Klare, 2005).The U.S. military and foreign policies have been progressively maneuvered by the need to guarantee steadfast access to overseas oil, more than ever in the Middle East, and that as American imported oil dependence carries on to ironically strengthen our industries and conflict with some British-dependent Arab nations, the American forces will ever more find themselves waging war to guard oil-producing zones and supply routes.
Thus, oil is clearly the most important energy resource in the now highly industrialized world. But because of its makings to create conflicts between and among powerful countries and increasing value thanks to monopolization, alternative fuels are being sought today (Klare, 2005).Oil is not inexhaustible. Like any other resource, it is limited in quantity. While it is responsible for the growth of many Arab nations, it is also the source of quarrel and conflict in the international scene.
The oil weapon was used by Saudi Arabia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) against countries sympathetic to Israel. Because of the oil embargo, the oil prices rose up to more than 100% of the previous price. Rising oil prices hurt nearly all the industrial nations (Redman, 1999).Looking back, oil became an impetus for the exploration for and development of alternative energy sources like nuclear energy. The importance of oil in fueling the growth of industry was felt in the 1950s during the Cold War.
As the industries were revived following the devastation wrought by the Second World War, oil consumption in western countries increased during the Cold War (Hanson, 1996). During this time, American leaders had preferred to “securitize” oil. That is, to cast its continued availability as a matter of national security, and thus something that can be safeguarded through the use of military force (Klare, 2005).The development of nuclear energy is both a boon and a bane to civilization. It is a boon when one considers how western countries have gradually reduced their dependence on oil some by as much as 40% of their total energy requirements.North Korea, however, also believed to be capable of building a nuclear bomb.
Its refusal to allow itself to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency has spawned fears that North Korea has indeed developed the bomb. For its part, North Korea fears aggression by the United States and South Korean forces, which are regularly conducting war exercises every year (Klare, 2005).In Japan, their national policies are now geared towards reliance on nuclear energy production, to forestall trading in electrical power. As merely a commencement of an expansion strategy, the world has witnessed the plutonium consignment from to Japan coming from France. Then again, there exists a levelheaded quantity of local resistance to nuclear energy in Japan, and even with the government’s pro-nuclear promotion, it is yet to be established whether Japan will essentially be able to construct additional power stations (Redman, 1999).
In the United States, on the other hand, the energy industry argues that mining is providing immense gain for the mountain-bound province by crafting flat sites to developed commerce to this poverty-stricken region. Deep coal mining, where tunnels are burrowed into the ground, was supplanted in the 1950s by strip mining.Since then, huge machineries and detonation were used to claw their way to the core site of the coal. For the past 2 or 3 scores, corporations have been necessitated to retrieve and reinstate to the previous outline the site they have strip-mined. But even after such period, it has become uncommon to spot foliage growing on this refurbished terrain. However, only two percent of these areas have been utilized for any progress (Ambler and Summers, 1958).
