T-Rump lies to Americans claiming we are "Oil independent"

We are not "Energy Independent" as lying Republicans, T-Rump and Fake Fox News claim. It is another Big Lie.

We export 1/2 of our expensive light oil because we can't refine enough of it, then turn around and import 1/2 of "their" low cost foreign heavy oil because that is more cost efficient for us to refine. We get more product variations and sellable yields from foreign oil.

For 40 years, the U.S. only increased our refinery capacity from

18.5 mbpd in 1980 to

19 million barrels per day (mostly due to expansion of existing sites).

... and we are now at the very top of our refinery capacity. That is a flat line for most or all of your lifetime.

We pump and consume 20 million barrels of oil per day, We actually can't use most of it because we don't have the refineries to refine it, plus it is too expensive. So we export it to countries that can refine our oil and use it in their countries at a high price.

We still end up importing almost 1/2 of our oil from other countries (mostly Low Cost Heavy Sour Crude Oil about 10 million barrels per day) because it is low cost.

It makes no economic capitalistic sense to "Refine" much of our own Expensive Sweet Light Oil we pump out of the ground here.

We export about a little over 1/2 of our production or 11 million barrels per day because we make more money that way. Therefore, we are a "net exporter" of oil for the first time.

It provides jobs, but this "net" does not mean we are independent.

One major refinery disaster will wipe that "net" out.

No politician has ever put forth a proposal to refine more of our oil here instead ...but they always want to pump more. We have not built a new refinery in about 45 years because it would be too expensive and too risky according to the oil companies (think "capitalism"), unless the Federal Government wanted to subsidize it.

We can't force our own light crude through our slow heavy crude refineries fast enough to meet our demand. If all imports were cut off, we would see gasoline prices either go through the roof and we would have to ration. We are not independent, and may never be. Our biggest user of oil is cars.

Best current solution for independence is to use natural gas (got plenty, and it is hard to export and transport) fired power plants to power electric cars.