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http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175297/
That the northeastern region of the young United States was richly endowed with waterpower and coal deposits was critical to the country’s early industrialization as well as to the North’s eventual victory in the Civil War. It was the discovery of oil in western Pennsylvania in 1859, however, that would turn the U.S. into the decisive actor on the global stage. Oil extraction and exports fueled American prosperity in the early twentieth century -- a time when the country was the planet’s leading producer -- while nurturing the rise of its giant corporations.
China’s growing emphasis on renewable energy would be good news, if it resulted in substantial reductions in coal use. At the same time, the country’s drive to excel at these techniques could push it into the forefront of a technological revolution, just as early American dominance of petroleum technology propelled it to the front ranks of world powers in the twentieth century. If the United States fails to keep pace, it could find the pace of its decline as a world power quickening.
At present, China obtains most of its imported oil from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Angola, Oman, Sudan, Kuwait, Russia, Kazakhstan, Libya, and Venezuela. Eager to ensure the reliability of the oil flow from these countries, Beijing has established close ties with their leaders, in some cases providing them with significant economic and military assistance. This is exactly the path once taken by Washington -- and with some of the same countries.
If these predictions prove accurate, the United States and China -- the world’s two leading oil importers -- could become trapped in a zero-sum great-power contest for access to diminishing supplies of exportable petroleum.
It is not hard, then, to picture a future moment when the United States and China are locked in a global struggle over the world’s remaining supplies of oil. Indeed, many in official Washington believe that such a collision is nearly inevitable.
Conflict over planetary oil reserves is not, however, the only path that China’s new energy status could open. It is possible to imagine a future in which China and the United States cooperate in pursuing oil alternatives that would obviate the need to funnel massive sums into naval and military arms races.