The North Sea was supposed to run out in the 1980s. Then in the 1990s. And now production is still on-line.

Clearly, the Chinese need the resources, but I don't think they want to clash with the industrial world which happens to be the market for their goods.

So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.

But that's not enough: To maintain energy security, one needs a supply system that provides a buffer against shocks. It needs large, flexible markets. And it's important to acknowledge the fact that the entire energy supply chain needs to be protected.

In the mid-1980s, operating problems took [nuclear] plants off-line so often that, on an annual basis, they operated at only about 55 percent of their rated total generating capacity. Today, as a result of several decades of experience and an intense focus on performance ... nuclear plants in the United States operate at over 90 percent of capacity. That improvement in operating efficiently is so significant in its impact that it can almost be seen as a new source in electric power itself.

Even Silicon Valley investors have put well over a $1 billion in new energy technologies.

According to one study by the United States Geological survey, 86 percent of oil reserves in the United States are the result not of what is estimated at the time of discovery but of the revisions and additions that come with further development.