GR-related

[Doug Millison]

To oilmen and oilwomen--as well as their counterparts in the gas, coal,
atomic, and hydro industries--modern American history is about the control
of energy. The United States began its rise to national greatness in the
late nineteenth century, not long after the first oil well was drilled in
Titusville, Pennsylvania. In the early twentieth century, the country leaped
ahead of Britain, Germany, and Japan as the world's leading power by being
the first to exploit petroleum on a colossal scale; it fought across the
entire globe and won a world war for democratic survival partly through
mastery of oil. With peace assured, cheap energy paved the way for dramatic
improvement in the average American's quality of life. Today the United
States brings high living standards to more than 200 million people, a
historically unprecedented feat, and it does so in large measure because
energy is cheap and plentiful. 
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/060401/easterbrook060401.html