What if Iran and Russia exhaust their reserves? Or come close?
So much better for us, as they would lose much of their geopolitical power when they do. John McCain described Russia as "a gas station masquerading as a country". Iran is not much better.
Unfortunately, that is not likely to happen anytime soon. Iran has more than 100 years of both oil and gas at current production.
What if while Iran and Russia sell their oil, the rest of the world moves away from fossil fuels?
That would be the best case scenario. Keep their production as low as possible since we produce a lot and make as much of their reserves stranded assets.
The fact is that most of the easily accessible oil in the US has been pumped and sold.
Easily accessible oil has been pumped and sold everywhere, not just in the US. All oil producers use advanced techniques to maintain production levels.
Fracking, of which you are so fond, causes trenendous environmental damage.
Yes, I am very fond of it. And I am very opposed to those who want to ban it for spurious reasons.
The environmental damage due to fracking is overstated. We have discussed all that in detail before.
Environmental damage is the reason we need to move away from fossil fuels.
I agree we need to move away from fossil fuels. And we need to start with coal, the by far the most polluting fossil fuel. It is not just the most carbon intensive fossil fuel, but it also emits huge quantities of other pollutants like sulfur dioxide, mercury, particulates, and even uranium.
Oil and natural gas will also take decades to phase out. Vast majority of cars still use gasoline. Trucking still uses diesel. They can be electrified, but it will take time. Planes use jet fuel. They can't be easily electrified, but they can use synfuels like butanol - but making that also requires a lot of energy.
Combined cycle gas power plants are very efficient and clean. No reason to decommission them prematurely just because of politics.
It's not that easy to completely reform the energy system of the modern society.
The US does have reserves and it is using its oil supply and also exporting oil—the US is currently a net exporter of oil. This seems to me to be a wise policy from a standpoint of energy needs and also economic needs and geopolitical needs.
I agree.
The rest of the world IS moving away from fossil fuels. The sooner, the better.
US is also moving away from fossil fuels. It's not like we are doing nothing while other countries are busy transitioning.
In fact, if you want to single out countries for shaming, it should be China and India, not the US.
And the shale revolution played a role in this, as fracked gas was able to displace coal.