In 1973, an embargo by Arab member states of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sent a shock through world oil supply and prices that would set the stage for the national energy portfolio that we still have today. The result was the doubling, then quadrupling of the per barrel price of oil over the course of a few months. With increased reliance on oil consumption and minimal domestic reserves, shortages at gas stations and among electric producers were commonplace.
Project Independence was a Nixon administration effort to address the energy crisis through negotiations with OPEC nations and domestic energy conservation. Energy conservation efforts included gasoline rationing as well as further developing domestic fuel sources. Several policy initiatives prompted by the 1970s energy crisis are still enforced today, including fuel economy standards and building efficiency requirements.
In the years following the energy crisis, a cultural shift changed the public perception of foreign-produced goods. Racist caricatures of “greedy” and “violent” Arab oil producers became increasingly commonplace and fed into anxieties of foreign economic domination and loss of national assets. These depictions not only focused on the energy industry but also extended to foreign-made vehicles and other manufactured goods. Both supporting and driving this cultural shift was a strong narrative across many forms of media: the fear of the loss of the middle-class, American way of life.
Black activists continuing their work from the early 1960s challenged this discourse. The NAACP highlighted the inaccessibility of middle-class lifestyles (including personal vehicles and larger homes with high energy use) for most of the American public. Mobilization around energy policy at the time challenged the notion of mass conservation and stressed the irony of asking energy-poor households struggling to pay for basic needs to turn off their lights for the greater good. The reforms that followed the energy crisis placed a further disproportionate burden on Black, Brown, and low-income households by entrenching pre-existing inequities in housing and employment.
Lessons learned from the 1970s energy crisis depend on who is asked. For some, it demonstrated the value of substituting energy supply with efficiency resources to conserve. Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, advocated eliminating all U.S. oil imports, stating: “if we spent as much to make buildings heat-tight as we now spend in one year on the military forces meant to protect the Middle Eastern oil fields, we could eliminate the need to import any oil from the Middle East.”
Overall, the 1970s energy crisis serves as a critical lesson in how fuel-price volatility can drastically affect energy supply and household energy costs. As more states pursue economy-wide decarbonization, processes like electrification and renewable energy generation can hedge against future price volatility. With lessons learned from this historical crisis and modern options like renewables and storage, future energy shortages can be managed proactively and more effectively.
