b'which is largely relied upon to heat homes in the Northeast, because there isnt a pipeline that brings it from other parts of the U.S. In Alaska, home to what could be the largest as-yet-unproven petroleum reserves in the country, LNG is being brought in from neighboring Canada as the states oldest gas field is drying up, and federal barriers have made new drilling impossiblefor domestic use in a state with less than a million people. This is self-inflicted pain, and the solution boils down to our governments political will to just fix itnone of it is that complicated. Leading up to the 2024 election, voters writ large began to accept the direct connection be-tween U.S. energy production and how peaceful and prosperous the country, and the world, will be. They had been living with it for four years.SINCE 1901, WHEN SPINDLETOP NO. 1 EXPLODED with 75,000-barrels-a-day of black goldequal to the production of a modern offshore drilling platform to-dayTexas has stood at the center of the American petroleum industry, and is where the most advanced exploration and drilling methods have been tested and perfected. In the 1980s, following a crash in prices that led to the bust of the Texas oil industry, it became clear that we had to find more product if we were to control our economic fate, in any way whatsoever. A man of great distinction and generosity, considered by many whose opinions matter to have been the last great Texas wildcatter, C. C. Charlie Winn, was credited by Texas Land Commissioner Gary Mauro for saving Above: Map of Europe depicting sources of natural gas, the continents primary energy source; Belowthe Texas oil industry when his company pioneered horizontal drilling, which lead in Descending Order: Cheniere Corpus Christi LNG plant located on the La Quinta Channel in Santo hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking. Winn got his start hitch-hiking to his first deals Patricio County; Cheniere LNG terminal located on the Louisiana side of Sabine Pass; Enbridge Energyfrom Alice, Texas, as a young man in his 20s, then went to San Antonio, and then Dock crude oil facility located on Ingleside Point, at the former Naval Station Ingleside military port. to Eagle Passwhere half the town is named after himand ending his illustrious career in Corpus Christi, having opened the door to U.S. energy dominance.EPIC pipelines and others that have been constructed over the past decade now pumpalmostfour-million-barrels-per-day(mbpd)ofWestTexasIntermediate crude, more traditionally referred to as Texas Light Sweet, from Permian Basin oil fields in West Texas to refineries and export docks located on the Port of Corpus Christi. Since the 40-year ban on U.S. crude exports was lifted on January 1, 2016, oil exports from our port have grown 17-fold, now almost 2.5 mbpd, making it the third-largest by volume in the entire world, #2 being Iraqs single offshore terminal, and #1 being the largest in Saudi Arabia, Ras Tenura, out of which 5.5 to 6 mbpd are shipped. Enbridge Energy operates the largest oil export facility on the Port of Corpus Christi, at the site that used to be Naval Station Ingleside.Beyond the growth potential for crude oil exports, the big opportunity for the Amer-ican petroleum industry is in Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), which is natural gas that is condensed to 1/600 its original mass by cooling it to -260f, rendering it efficient for shipping overseas in specially-designed tanker ships. The LNG is re-gasified at its destination and then distributed through local pipelines. More so than crude oil, natural gas and the capacity to transport it across the world as LNG, is at the core of the energy dominance strategyEurope pays the highest energy prices in the world and is struggling to meet electricity needs following a generation of closing nuclear and coal power plants, and American/Texan LNG is the answer.In 2024, the American public voted in favor of fossil fuelsboth with their ballots and their wallets over the course of the prior four years, rejecting EV mandates. For those who genuinely care about the health of earths atmosphere, a notion formerly known in shorthand as climate change, the cleanest, safest, and most efficient en-ergy production takes place in the United States, and always has. Over the past two decades, we have lowered our carbon emissions while that of China has doubled, as they approve an average of two new coal power plants per week.The Texas Coastal Bend sets at the epicenter of American energy dominance, as a prime transportation hub, the home to billions of investment in LNG, and soon home to the deepest port on the Gulf Coast, with the tallest, longest cable-stay bridge on the continent. Americas new Golden Age runs through our own backyard.54THECOASTALBENDMAGAZINE TheCoastalBend.com'