Fear of catastrophic consequences from climate change is not the only reason so many business and international leaders dream of a post-fossil-fuel energy future for the United States and the world. The new oil production dust-up between Saudi Arabia and Russia is the latest of many incidents that have people envisioning a day when each country is capable of producing its own onsite renewable energy and distributing it through a series of interconnected and durable micro-grids.
First, the tyranny of the current situation: Petro-states headed by so-called strongmen such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Nicolás Maduro Moros of Venezuela, and Hassan Rouhani of Iran use their dominion over fossil fuels to bully other nations, and even bullied the United States for decades before America became energy independent.
Still, that has not stopped petro-states such as Saudi Arabia and Russia from causing problems in U.S. markets and around the
