Challenge: America an oil exporter

Start in the early 1900s with severe taxation on automobiles, reinforce it during World Wars I and II with strict gasoline rationing and higher fuel taxes, do not build the Interstate Highway System and instead concentrate improvements on the rail system. That's a start.

Yup. You hit the nail on the head.

A good starting point is to make affordable housing and infrastructural upgrades into primary initiatives of the New Deal.

This could provide the means to rebuild much of the urban north's deterorating housing stock, as well as laying down the ground work to insure that the emerging suburbs will be zoned in a denser more mass transit friendly manner. While suburbanization is more or less inevitable traditional zoning restrictions will do much to halt the endless sprawl witness by OTL.

As for infrastructure, inter-urban rail could always stand for some subsidized upgrades. Likewise, federal funds could finally allow cities such as Detroit, Los Angles, Baltimore, or Cleavland to get long desired subway systems. Said infrastructure would provide a major incentive for denser post-war growth and likely further blunt suburbanization and white flight.
 
70 percent of the oil used in the United States goes for transportation. About 25 percent is used by industry, so making the U.S. less industrialized won't have a significant enough impact to achieve the OP's goal. Reduce the dominance of the car for personal transportation and the truck for commercial transportation, electrify the railroads, and restore/preserve public transportation systems like trolleys, plus the early introduction of land use policies that discourage suburban development.

Start in the early 1900s with severe taxation on automobiles, reinforce it during World Wars I and II with strict gasoline rationing and higher fuel taxes, do not build the Interstate Highway System and instead concentrate improvements on the rail system. That's a start.

But what happens to the prosperity induced by the auto industry from 1920-1970? Without the US Auto industry you don't have then motor based military that provided the mobility of all the allies in WWII. You also don't get the prosperity of the 50s. I'm not sure if you would get the aviation industry without the technology basis that the auto industry provided.

Without a major shift in the development of the great open spaces in the 1800s you can't stop the need for good individual transportation. That means changing things like the homestead act of the 1860s which required the homesteader to live on his land. That kept the farm areas from developing as outlying production areas of villages.
 
^ The auto industry was too much a part of America's 20th Century prosperity to be washed away, but the suburban movement didn't really begin until after WWII in any case. I don't you'll ever be able to make America completely an oil exporter, but you can certainly make it possible for them to import oil and export finished fuels.
 
But what happens to the prosperity induced by the auto industry from 1920-1970? Without the US Auto industry you don't have then motor based military that provided the mobility of all the allies in WWII. You also don't get the prosperity of the 50s. I'm not sure if you would get the aviation industry without the technology basis that the auto industry provided.

Why? Certainly other nations developed motor-based militaries without a U.S.-sized auto industry. The money that flowed into and out of automobiles didn't have a label on it -- it could just as easily have gone into interurban rail, mass transit, or some other industry entirely. And rather than talk about the "prosperity of the '50s," what about the prosperity that could be generated by not sending untold billions of dollars overseas for foreign oil?
Without a major shift in the development of the great open spaces in the 1800s you can't stop the need for good individual transportation. That means changing things like the homestead act of the 1860s which required the homesteader to live on his land. That kept the farm areas from developing as outlying production areas of villages.
I guess I'm not seeing your connection here. The agricultural and rural areas of the U.S. were well settled long before the automobile became a common mode of transportation.
 
Why? Certainly other nations developed motor-based militaries without a U.S.-sized auto industry. The money that flowed into and out of automobiles didn't have a label on it -- it could just as easily have gone into interurban rail, mass transit, or some other industry entirely. And rather than talk about the "prosperity of the '50s," what about the prosperity that could be generated by not sending untold billions of dollars overseas for foreign oil?
I guess I'm not seeing your connection here. The agricultural and rural areas of the U.S. were well settled long before the automobile became a common mode of transportation.
Most 1950's oil used in the US was from the US

And those other militaries used guess what US made trucks, at least during WWII

What he means is that the pattern of settlement in those areas means that mass transit is impractical and once the automobile is invented it will be used there to a great degree
 
I am not sure how feasible a total ban is, but limiting immigration is a possibility. In the long term though, I think that would only hurt the US economy, not exactly help oil production and export.

Most PODs that led to the US consuming less oil would hurt the economy.
 
Most 1950's oil used in the US was from the US
True, but the OP wants the US to be a major oil exporter. To do that, the U.S. has to use less oil domestically.
And those other militaries used guess what US made trucks, at least during WWII
You might want to inform the Germans, French, Italians, British, Austrians, Greeks, and other WWII participants of that. They thought they were using domestically built trucks, as well as tanks, tractors, staff cars, and other vehicles.
What he means is that the pattern of settlement in those areas means that mass transit is impractical and once the automobile is invented it will be used there to a great degree
Naturally. But that would be nowhere near the level of personal transportation and thus petroleum consumption in OTL. I don't think anyone is suggesting that all personal transportation would be via public transportation. Only that cars and trucks would be far less common and far more expensive due to lack of public support and need, given a comprehensive mass transit system within and between urban areas.
 
Most PODs that led to the US consuming less oil would hurt the economy.

The other question is -- if the U.S. is a significant oil exporter, who is it exporting oil to? Europe? Does this mean that the cheap oil of the Middle East isn't developed or doesn't exist?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The other question is -- if the U.S. is a significant oil exporter, who is it exporting oil to? Europe? Does this mean that the cheap oil of the Middle East isn't developed or doesn't exist?

Almost no one. The oil in the Middle East is $1 to $5 per barrel to produce. Offshore production for the USA is near to $60. In reality, as the USA approaches zero imports, the amount of exploration plummets. Once the cheap Saudi oil comes on line in the 1950's, it is impossible for the USA to export much. Maybe a little to places like Cuba and Panama. Then as the Texas oil fields peak out about 1970, the USA move into an oil importer instead of developing Alaska or Louisiana offshore.

Part of what has been left out is that it requires both demand depression in the USA along with an exploration subsidy to make the USA an oil exporter. Now in the ATL, assuming oil prices still went to $100 by the middle of last decade, the USA would be beginning the 25 year process to develop the Alaska oil fields, and we we be developing the technology to drill at more than 100 feet of water.
 
Synthetics

Suppose that the USA developed economical fusion power. (I know, it's been 20 years away for decades...)

With that, it would become feasible to "unburn" oil--take water and carbon dioxide, and make it into whatever hydrocarbons are desired, at least to a certain point.

Until someone else is doing the same thing, the USA may well export oil to whoever wants it.
 
You might want to inform the Germans, French, Italians, British, Austrians, Greeks, and other WWII participants of that. They thought they were using domestically built trucks, as well as tanks, tractors, staff cars, and other vehicles.
The Germans were less mechanized than they were in WWI even after stealing other countries trucks, the British used mostly American Trucks, ditto the Free French, the regular French weren't truly motorized, ditto for the Italians

There is a difference between "slightly more motorized/mechanized than WWI" (almost all the forces mentioned by you) and "an actual modern motorized force" one relies mostly on horses the other can use vehicles for everything

Besides the US only a few Commonwealth countries produced all the motor vehicles they needed to be a true motorized force
 
The Germans were less mechanized than they were in WWI even after stealing other countries trucks, the British used mostly American Trucks, ditto the Free French, the regular French weren't truly motorized, ditto for the Italians.

I'd love to see the sources for that paragraph. The Germans were less mechanized than they were in WWI? They had more tanks and trucks in WWI than they did in WWII? Seriously, however did they reach Paris? Certainly the Germans used horses to a considerable extent within Europe. Not so much in North Africa. The British (and Soviets) used American trucks in addition to their own only after the U.S. joined the war.
There is a difference between "slightly more motorized/mechanized than WWI" (almost all the forces mentioned by you) and "an actual modern motorized force" one relies mostly on horses the other can use vehicles for everything

Besides the US only a few Commonwealth countries produced all the motor vehicles they needed to be a true motorized force
Motorized by whose standards?

We're getting off track here, but the point remains that a gigantic American auto industry is not needed if different roads are taken (no pun intended) in the development of transportation networks in the U.S.
 
I'd love to see the sources for that paragraph. The Germans were less mechanized than they were in WWI? They had more tanks and trucks in WWI than they did in WWII? Seriously, however did they reach Paris? Certainly the Germans used horses to a considerable extent within Europe. Not so much in North Africa. The British (and Soviets) used American trucks in addition to their own only after the U.S. joined the war.
Motorized by whose standards?

We're getting off track here, but the point remains that a gigantic American auto industry is not needed if different roads are taken (no pun intended) in the development of transportation networks in the U.S.
Mostly forum posting (especially by Snake Featherston PM him if you want precise sources), though according to Wikipedia Germany infantry units (ie the bulk of the Wehrmacht) were almost completely dependent on horses, and horses in logistics outnumbered trucks by 10 to 1

They reached Paris against a completely disorganized foe with low morale and no reserves

Motorized as in able to fully phase out horses in logistics save for very special circumstances, move all infantry by truck over distances greater than 5km and tow all artillery with motorized vehicles, something only the US and Canada were able to do without help

A huge US auto industry is not needed but is a very likely outcome
 
^ The auto industry was too much a part of America's 20th Century prosperity to be washed away, but the suburban movement didn't really begin until after WWII in any case. I don't you'll ever be able to make America completely an oil exporter, but you can certainly make it possible for them to import oil and export finished fuels.

Not necessarily, America became a car intensive society in the 1920's. The big changeover comes with the process of suburbanization, and the direct federal subsidies for roads and highways which made car ownership a necessity. If suburbanization is halted, it will reduce car ownership to a degree, but it will also mean by and large that the American auto manufacturers produce more city friendly vehicles.
 
Develop Thorium-salt reactors and use the energy not only to make electricity but to turn water into H2 gas and use that to power cars.
 
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