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Title: Cost of Oil Dependence: A 2000 Update

Abstract

Oil dependence remains a potentially serious economic and strategic problem for the United States. This report updates previous estimates of the costs of oil dependence to the U.S. economy and introduces several methodological enhancements. Estimates of the costs to the U.S. economy of the oil market upheavals of the last 30 years are in the vicinity of $7 trillion, present value 1998 dollars, about as large as the sum total of payments on the national debt over the same period. Simply adding up historical costs in 1998 dollars without converting to present value results in a Base Case cost estimate of $3.4 trillion. Sensitivity analysis indicates that cost estimates are sensitive to key parameters. A lower bound estimate of $1.7 trillion and an upper bound of $7.1 trillion (not present value) indicate that the costs of oil dependence have been large under almost any plausible set of assumptions. These cost estimates do not include military, strategic or political costs associated with U.S. and world dependence on oil imports.

Authors:
;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (US)
OSTI Identifier:
763234
Report Number(s):
ORNL/TM-2000/152
TRN: US0004669
DOE Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 1 May 2000
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
02 PETROLEUM; 29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY AND ECONOMY; COST ESTIMATION; ECONOMICS; IMPORTS; MARKET; SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS; PETROLEUM

Citation Formats

Greene, D L, and Tishchishyna, N I. Cost of Oil Dependence: A 2000 Update. United States: N. p., 2000. Web. doi:10.2172/763234.
Greene, D L, & Tishchishyna, N I. Cost of Oil Dependence: A 2000 Update. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/763234
Greene, D L, and Tishchishyna, N I. 2000. "Cost of Oil Dependence: A 2000 Update". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/763234. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/763234.
@article{osti_763234,
title = {Cost of Oil Dependence: A 2000 Update},
author = {Greene, D L and Tishchishyna, N I},
abstractNote = {Oil dependence remains a potentially serious economic and strategic problem for the United States. This report updates previous estimates of the costs of oil dependence to the U.S. economy and introduces several methodological enhancements. Estimates of the costs to the U.S. economy of the oil market upheavals of the last 30 years are in the vicinity of $7 trillion, present value 1998 dollars, about as large as the sum total of payments on the national debt over the same period. Simply adding up historical costs in 1998 dollars without converting to present value results in a Base Case cost estimate of $3.4 trillion. Sensitivity analysis indicates that cost estimates are sensitive to key parameters. A lower bound estimate of $1.7 trillion and an upper bound of $7.1 trillion (not present value) indicate that the costs of oil dependence have been large under almost any plausible set of assumptions. These cost estimates do not include military, strategic or political costs associated with U.S. and world dependence on oil imports.},
doi = {10.2172/763234},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/763234}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2000},
month = {Mon May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2000}
}