U.S. energy independence is no longer just a pipe dream

— -- Williamsport, Pa., used to be celebrated for its past — as the 1938 birthplace of Little League Baseball and host of its annual World Series. Then the city found natural gas.

Now this once-sleepy chunk of north-central Pennsylvania is a big star on the map of an emerging national energy rush. Six hotels are new or being built, and about 100 companies have moved to town, sometimes so fast that the head of the local Chamber of Commerce has told executives wanting guided tours to wait.

"I've said, 'Look sir, get in line,' " says Vince Matteo, chief executive of the Williamsport/Lycoming chamber. "Now I know people in their 20s with high school (diplomas) making $120,000 a year."

Much of Wall Street and Washington is seized by the hope that the U.S.'s energy future will be as bright as Williamsport's. As Americans heave a sigh of relief at gasoline prices falling back from near $4 a gallon, big new discoveries of domestic oil and natural gas hold the promise of more substantial benefits for the U.S. economy for decades to come — even the possibility of energy independence.

Every president since Richard Nixon has called for the U.S. to wean itself from needing oil from unstable or unsavory countries. The nation's new-found energy riches are likely to bring that ambition closer to reality in the next two decades, according to many forecasters.

It's no pipe dream. The U.S. is already the world's fastest-growing oil and natural gas producer. Counting the output from Canada and Mexico, North America is "the new Middle East," Citigroup analysts declare in a recent report.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency says U.S. oil imports will drop 20% by 2025. Oil giant BP projects the U.S. will get 94% of its energy domestically by 2030, up from 75% now, as oil imports fall by half. Energy billionaire T. Boone Pickens, a major investor in oil and natural-gas companies, said the U.S. can at least end oil imports from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, about half its total, through new drilling and by shifting diesel-swilling trucks to natural gas. Any other oil needs should be from politically stable allies such as Canada, Pickens said.

Most enticing, a team of analysts and economists at Citigroup argues that the U.S., or at least North America, can achieve energy independence by 2020, as more domestic production and doubling down on conservation produce a virtuous cycle. The U.S. can make itself a net exporter of hydrocarbons — meaning the sum of crude oil, refined products and natural gas — says Citigroup energy strategist Seth Kleinman.

"The notion of the U.S. getting to zero net imports of oil is obviously a sexy notion, but it's not necessary for it to mean the world will change," he says. "We are seeing a dramatic collapse in U.S. net imports of oil as we speak, to the tune of almost 1 million barrels a day each year over the last four years."

If anything like that happens, an improbable-sounding litany of good things can result.