It seems that perhaps the main reason why people believe the US has an energy revolution and/or independence on its hand is that they don't understand and/or care what for instance an annual 40% depletion rate means. True, more and more wells are drilled, but the pattern is that they deliver even less and deplete even faster than earlier wells (oil engineers will always go for the best stuff first, and they're good, they know where the best stuff is).