PolitiFact: “With time and money, US can replace banned Russian imports with domestic oil”

It should do more than just replace Russian with domestic oil 1 for 1.

Gernot Wagner, an associate professor of environmental studies and public service at New York University, said switching from Russian imports to oil produced domestically would be doable, but costly.

The price of oil is already on the rise, and Wagner said the full scale of the economic consequences “is anyone’s guess at this point.”

“Clean, lean, efficient firms will win, and fossil energy-dependent, inefficient ones will lose,” Wagner said, adding that the same will be true of households.

With rising prices, he said, “we will, of course, see energy conservation efforts ramp up quite a bit, and fast.”

“Business will seek out the cheapest possible source for their products. When Russians are willing to sell — and we to buy — that’s what’ll happen, assuming the price is right,” he said. “Now there is a clear moral reason not to.”

Quoted in: “With time and money, US can replace banned Russian imports with domestic oil” by Madison Czopek, PolitiFact, 9 March 2022.

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