Anyone concerned about imported energy should find useful the simple proposition that raising production lowers imports unless consumption rises by the same amount.It would seem, in fact, that politicians overtaken by hope for energy independence, which means no imported energy at all, should lead crusades for domestic oil and gas production.Yet most of them use energy independence mainly as a marketing slogan for conservation mandates and subsidization of nonfossil energy. Energy independence is, in any case, unachievable. It’s useful as a concept only as a test for the presence of an adult sense of proportion.To acknowledge the futility of energy independence, however, is not to d...