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United States energy independence

Open-knowledge reference entry

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ7892472 ↗
Source-derived summary

United States energy independence is the concept of eliminating or substantially reducing import of petroleum to satisfy the nation's need for energy. Some proposals for achieving energy independence would permit imports from the neighboring nations of Canada and Mexico, in which case it would be called North American energy independence. Energy independence is espoused by those who want to leave the US unaffected by global energy supply disruptions and would restrict reliance upon politically unstable states for its energy security.

In total energy consumption, the US produces more energy than it uses. In May 2011, the US became a net exporter of refined petroleum products. By 2014, the United States was the world's third largest producer of crude oil, after Saudi Arabia and Russia, and second-largest exporter of refined products, after Russia. In October 2019, the United States first became a net exporter of all oil products, including both refined petroleum products and crude oil. This was in the week ending October 18. During this week of "net exporter of all oil products, including both refined petroleum products and crude oil", "Weekly U.S. Commercial Crude Oil Imports Excluding SPR" were 5,857,000 barrels per day and exports were 3,683,000 barrels per day. In this week of "energy independence", the United States was still importing more crude oil than it was exporting.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “United States energy independence” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through United, States and energy, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011, 2014, 2019—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, United, States and energy is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “open-knowledge reference entry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7892472. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2014 and 2019.

Critical limits

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “United States energy independence” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.