Simon Romero

Access to some of the most coveted oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere is at stake, with Venezuela exporting about 1.2 million barrels of oil a day to the United States, or nearly 15 percent of American imports. But the overtures to the Chinese, Russians and Iranians have added to worries among private oil companies that Venezuelan policies toward them are becoming increasingly unpredictable.

On Christmas Day, Cuban President Fidel Castro in the Gulf of Mexico in an area controlled by Cuba. Castro disclosed that the Canadian companies had discovered estimated reserves of 100 million barrels.

This is part of the world’s largest and most expensive filling station, the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve, where a large portion of the government’s nearly 700 million barrels of oil are stored in underground salt shafts that are supposed to be stable into the 2020’s.

A swamp near here is one of the most secretive places in America. There are no signs, just a 500-acre complex protected at all times by 30 armed guards in combat fatigues patrolling in sport utility vehicles.

Sure, coal sounds dirty and dated, the kind of energy source that went out of fashion with big Buicks and bell-bottom jeans. But a coal project here in northern Nevada is one of more than 100 coal-fueled plants that are vying for approval around the country, the largest increase in such projects since the 1970s.

Even though oil prices have risen 30 percent in the last year, the United States’ gusto for gasoline has not been shaken.