MONTCLAIR, N.J.

ACCORDING TO McGraw-Hill’s energy-research arm, Platts, every recession since 1973 has been preceded by sharp spikes in the price of oil. Now, as the price of oil sets records, predictably the nation is feeling economic pain again.

After each economic contraction over the last 35 years, the U.S. has vowed to cut its dependence on foreign energy sources by developing its own oil, coal, nuclear and various “alternative” resources. And each time we have squandered energy-development opportunities, in the process becoming more dependent on foreign oil. In 1980, 37 percent of the oil the U.S. used came from foreign sources, rising to 55 percent in 2001 and headed for 65 percent in 2016.

As the Platts report plainly states, without a growing energy supply, countries face “declining growth rates, diminished standards of living, and growing transfer of wealth from importing to exporting countries.” In other words the U.S. either enlarges its energy pool or just waits for accelerating gasoline and electricity prices to erode its global economic competitiveness over the next several decades.

There are some signs we are finally getting serious about becoming energy self-sufficient. Last year saw the first applications for new nuclear-power plant construction in the United States since the 1970s, with 31 new plant-license applications soon to come. Four to eight new U.S. nuclear plants should be in operation by 2016 or so, helping us to compete with China, India, and Russia, which plan over 50 nuclear plants by 2020.

The outlook for developing other energy sources is not as rosy. Several U.S. governors, purportedly concerned about “greenhouse-gas emissions,” have vetoed construction of coal-burning power plants in their states — at least 45 coal plants were abandoned in 2007. Meanwhile China, Germany and the Netherlands are busily constructing “clean-coal” power plants that will use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology that traps carbon-dioxide emissions and pipes them underground, not into the atmosphere. Are our anti-coal governors aware of this breakthrough?

The High Arctic region’s resources are also critical to U.S. energy independence. But if the government accedes to demands to classify that region’s polar bear as an endangered species, we cannot tap the estimated 10 billion barrels of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), equal to the next 10-15 years of oil imports from Saudi Arabia. A planned privately funded natural-gas pipeline to transport to the U.S. mainland some of the 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope would also be scrapped.

The list of such wasted opportunities is painfully long. We have cut funding for nuclear-fusion research. We refuse to drill for oil off the U.S. shore, or to build any new oil refineries that could process any additional oil. We are only slowly developing vehicles powered by hydrogen, electricity and compressed air. Many countries, but not the U.S., are seriously examining low energy nuclear reaction devices as a cheap energy source for homes, vehicles, and appliances.

Government and business leaders’ response to this emerging crisis is alarmingly sanguine. Influenced by concerns over global warming, presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain are offering plans to cap carbon emissions by 2050 by switching to green energy technologies, such as solar, wind and biomass — sources that experts say lack the muscle to power a globally competitive 21st Century economy. They are lukewarm on nuclear-power development. Clearly, neither party has a vibrant pro-progress wing able to pressure the candidates to emphatically demand a strong energy-production program. Is a new party built upon pro-progress principles the solution?

Not to be “out-greened,” PSEG, a big New Jersey energy company, ran an ad encouraging its customers to go on an austerity-style “energy diet,” and seems almost giddy about all the “green-collar” jobs to be created by the windmill and biomass industries. While voicing perfunctory support for nuclear power, the PSEG ad informs us that “the power plant that doesn’t need to be built is the cleanest [plant] of all.” Some economists and government planners are now telling Americans that slower economic growth is actually an “energy solution”—less economic activity, less energy use — omitting the fact such contractions also lead to higher unemployment and lower living standards.

More often than not it is politicians, corporate moguls and environmental organizations sitting together at hearings and legislative councils who are determining this “green” energy future for Americans. One might ask why such conclaves do not seat organizations representing the pro-progress, pro-development, “expansionary” vision of the future shared by most working Americans?

Without such a presence, laws that drastically affect Americans’ lives, such as the 2007 bill requiring all Americans to replace their incandescent light bulbs with 10 times more expensive “environmentally friendly” bulbs by 2012, pass with little public scrutiny or opposition.

Once America achieves energy independence, our next goal should be to become a net energy exporter! The U.S. economy would boom as those petro-dollars pour into the U.S. from abroad, instead of traveling from our pockets to Saudi and Venezuelan treasuries! And the world economy would thrive as we expand the world energy pool with our energy resources and technologies yet to be discovered.

We have the technology, the resources and the skills. Now all we need is the will!

Michael G. Zey, a sociologist and futurist, is author of Seizing the Future (Simon and Schuster), and a professor at the Montclair State University School of Business.