Without fanfare, China passed the United States in December to become the world's leading importer of oil – the first time in nearly 40 years that the U.S. didn’t own that dubious distinction. That same month, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania together produced 1.5 million barrels of oil a day -- more than Iran exported.

As those data points demonstrate, a dramatic shift is occurring in how energy is being produced and consumed around the world – one that could lead to far-reaching changes in the geopolitical order.

U.S. policy makers, intelligence analysts and other experts are beginning to grapple with the ramifications of such a change, which could bring with it both great benefits for the U.S. and potentially dangerous consequences, including the risk of upheaval in countries and regions heavily dependent on oil exports. 

But many experts say the U.S. would be the big winner, in position to reshape its foreign policy and boost its global influence. 

"People already are looking at the U.S. differently, seeing the U.S. as much more competitive in the world,” said energy analyst and author Dan Yergin, saying that he first noticed the change in the world view of the U.S. at the World Economic Forum in January in Davos, Switzerland.

Slideshow: Drilling down and out in Texas

Jim Seida / NBC News

Watch a drilling crew at work near the small town of Garden City, Texas, as they drill an oil well that eventually will extend more than a mile deep and a mile sideways in the Permian Basin.

Launch slideshow

As detailed in the first two installments of Power Shift, an NBC News/CNBC special report, the United States is reaping the benefits of an energy boom created by new drilling technologies that have unlocked vast domestic oil and natural gas reserves. Coupled with decreasing demand due to energy efficiency and continued cultivation of alternative energy sources, an increasing number of experts believe the U.S. could achieve energy independence by the end of the decade – realizing a dream born during the gas crisis of 1973.

But who would be the global winners and losers in such a scenario?

Most U.S. policy makers and experts agree that the U.S. and its allies – particularly its North American neighbors -- would be the biggest beneficiaries.

Boom helps Iran sanctions stick
In fact, they say, the West already has realized one major benefit: the success of international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Carlos Pascual, the State Department’s coordinator for international energy affairs, noted last month at the CERAWEEK energy conference in Houston that increased U.S. oil production, coupled with a boost in exports from Iraq and Libya, has kept oil prices stable despite the loss, because of sanctions, of up to 1.5 million barrels a day in Iranian exports.

“What this has taught us, and helped underscore, is that within the world we live in today, hard security issues and energy policy issues have become fundamentally intertwined,” he said.

NBC News

Interactive map: Where the US produces its energy. Click to enlarge.

Yergin, who also is a CNBC energy consultant and author of the energy-focused nonfiction best-sellers "The Quest" and "The Prize," put it this way: "People talk of the future impact. The increase in U.S oil production has already had an impact: Sanctions wouldn't have been effective without U.S. oil production. …  We've added (within the last year) almost as much as Iran was exporting before sanctions.”

Hossein Moussavian, a former Iranian ambassador to Germany and nuclear negotiator who's now a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, said "the radicals" in Tehran failed to foresee the changing energy picture, believing that sanctions wouldn't be imposed and that, if they were, they wouldn't work because oil prices would surge.

"The Iranian mistake was to believe …  the threats of referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council, imposing sanctions, was just a bluff," he said.

In the longer term, observers say that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and many of its member nations are likely to be the biggest losers if the U.S. continues to cut oil imports, likely decreasing oil prices in the process.

"A dramatic expansion of U.S. production could … push global spare capacity to exceed 8 million barrels per day, at which point OPEC could lose price control and crude oil prices would drop, possibly sharply," the U.S. intelligence community's internal think tank, the National Intelligence Council, said in its “Global Trends 2030” report in December. "Such a drop would take a heavy toll on many energy producers who are increasingly dependent on relatively high energy prices to balance their budgets."

With some analysts predicting that oil prices could drop as low as $70 to $90 a barrel – down from the current price of nearly $110 per barrel of Brent crude oil – a “scramble” among OPEC members for market share could ensue, said Edward Morse, an energy analyst with Citigroup and co-author of a recent report on titled “Energy 2020: Independence Day.”

An International Monetary Fund analysis indicates that many major oil-producing states need more than that lowest price level to meet their budgets and would be forced to increase output or reduce spending, which could trigger unrest. Among them, according to the report: Iran, Libya and Russia, at $117 a barrel; Iraq, $112; Yemen, $237; and the UAE, $84.

Iraq, which has had production from its rich oil fields curtailed by war or sanctions for half of the 53 years of OPEC’s existence, poses another challenge to the organization.

Now that it’s finally free of such interference, its production is increasing by between 500,000 and 900,000 barrels a year, making it the second fastest growing oil-producing country in the world after the U.S. 

“And, by God, no one’s going to impose any quota limitations on them,” said Morse, referring to Iraq’s OPEC partners. “So part of the challenge to OPEC is internal as well as external.”

Can Saudis maintain market-maker role?
Analysts say OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia, which controls vast reserves of oil and needs $71 a barrel to meet its budget, according to the IMF, will do everything it can to remain the market-maker. But in that role, it will face new challenges, they say.

“Over time, it should become increasingly challenging for Saudi Arabia to ‘overproduce’ and bring down prices to punish wayward OPEC members; without this disciplinary mechanism, it is unclear whether OPEC can remain cohesive,” according to the Citigroup report.

For its part, OPEC professes to be not unduly alarmed by the U.S. oil and natural gas boom. It highlights the "considerable uncertainties" surrounding wells drilled using hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” and associated technologies.

Yergin said he believes that the Saudis will be able to withstand the turbulence, and that they will provide a buffer for the organization’s lesser producers.

“It's too quick to write the obit for OPEC,” he said. “… The Saudis will figure it out. They are re-orientated to Asian markets, turning left instead of right.”

But some members of the oil cartel -- particularly Nigeria and Angola -- already are feeling the impact of the U.S. production surge, according to the Citigroup report. U.S. imports from the two countries dropped to 700,000 barrels a day at the end of 2012, down from 1.6 million barrels in 2007. That’s because U.S. production of light, sweet crude -- the kind of oil the West African nations produce -- has burgeoned in recent years. Citigroup forecasts that by the end of 2013, the market for Nigerian oil at Gulf Coast refineries could entirely dry up.

Longer term, say by 2020, cheaper heavy oil from Canada, freed from the so-called oil sands by new recovery technologies, could push similar oil from Venezuela out of the U.S. Gulf Coast market,  (assuming the Obama administration approves construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to carry it), according to forecasts.

Mexico also is expected to increase production, offering the U.S. access to another convenient and friendly provider.

"The Eagle Ford formation in Texas extends into Mexico and if you look at the Gulf, you'll see thousands of black dots marking oil platforms on the U.S. side but nothing on the Mexican side,” said Yergin. “That's changing. There is a political consensus among the three major parties on energy. You will see less immigration from Mexico. Mexico could become more of a BRIC (the term used for fast-developing economies like Brazil, Russia, India and China) than Brazil."

Besides guaranteeing a stable domestic energy supply, those energy resources add tools to the U.S. diplomatic toolbox, said David L. Phillips, director of the Peace-building and Human Rights Program at Columbia University.

"Why permit ourselves to be held hostage to regimes hostile to our national interests and who give safe harbor to those who would do us harm?" he asked. "… The glaring example is Venezuela. (Hugo) Chavez was so strongly anti-American and he was providing energy to our enemies. They should pay the price for non-cooperation."

Current and former diplomats note that the U.S. also could use its increased natural gas production to weaken rival Russia’s near monopoly on natural gas exports to Europe, via its state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. Already, declining prices fueled by the U.S. boom have benefited the European market.

"What has emerged is a competitive market that allowed the utilities of Western Europe to renegotiate their contract with Gazprom, affecting both prices and financing terms," said the State Department’s Pascual.

Adding to the pressure, the U.S. firm Cheniere Energy last month signed a 20-year deal to export enough liquefied natural gas to the British utility Centrica PLC to heat 1.8 million homes starting in 2018 – the first pact of its kind.

Growth slowing in China, India
As for China and India, both of which are expected to import increasing amounts of energy for years to come, analysts see indications that economic growth is slowing in both countries.

“In a pattern similar to the abrupt slowdown in demand growth seen in the Asian Tigers in the 1990s, Chinese demand growth has slowed to a more tepid 3 (percent) to 5 percent rate as compared to the double-digit growth seen in the early 2000s,” said a Citigroup report by analyst Seth Kleinman released last week.

That slowdown is in part due to the diminishing competitive edge that China enjoys over the U.S., Yergin said.

“Chinese wages are going up 20 percent a year. U.S. energy efficiency and increased production helps the U.S. in the mix on the global competitive landscape, he said, noting that Dow Chemical recently announced it will invest $4 billion in U.S. petrochemical production. “…That doesn’t happen without the U.S. advantage in energy.”

Citigroup's Morse and other analysts said the slowing Chinese economy and energy insecurity could prompt China to more militarization in the Far East -- a dangerous development in a region already beset by nationalist disputes and where the U.S. is expected to focus increasing attention. But none suggests that the Chinese are likely to challenge the United States as a global power, saying Beijing has neither the military assets nor the desire. Its strategy remains regional and attuned to "short-range engagements," Morse wrote.

The impact of the rebalancing of global energy production could be more severe in other nations.

Trevor Houser, a former energy analyst in the Obama administration State Department, worries about the prospect of failed states.

"If you look at the consequences of more U.S. production and reduced sales from OPEC, some would see that as a benefit," said Houser, now a partner with New York-based Rhodium Group, a global market analysis firm. "But starving those economies of oil revenue will surely have disruptive effects. It is not necessarily a good development for U.S. foreign policy and geopolitical stability in general."

AP file/Hassan Ammar

A U.S. F-18 fighter jet, left, lands on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln as a U.S. destroyer sails alongside during exercises in the Persian Gulf in 2012.

Houser also said that U.S. energy independence could lead to isolationist policies, but will not insulate Americans from global price disruptions.

"The price Americans pay at the pump will still be determined by events in the global oil market, yet falling U.S. oil imports (are) going to reduce political support for safeguarding those global markets, and no one is willing or able to step up to the plate to replace us,” he said. “... The U.S. economy will still be vulnerable if someone blows up a Saudi port."

More from Power Shift, an NBC News/CNBC special report:

Part 1: Energy boom dawning in America

Part 2:  Oil, gas sector fuels US economy

That issue – specifically, “Do we leave the Middle East once our energy needs are secure?” – came up at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, said Yergin, recalling that “an oil minister came up to me and said, ‘Please don’t leave us.’”

Pascual, the State Department official, argues that such fears are overblown.

"These changes in no way change the U.S. commitment to global security, to peace and stability in the Middle East and to security in the transit lanes,” he said, referring to oil shipping routes. “Some people have asked is the United States going to become disinterested. The answer is no. It is absolutely in our self-interest to stay engaged.”

Richard Engel is NBC News' chief foreign correspondent; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer. 

Coming next Monday: Digging into the environmental consequences of 'fracking' 

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Hasan Mroue / AFP - Getty Images

Cypriot protestors outside the parliament in the capital, Nicosia, on Tuesday.

Banks in Cyprus will remain closed until Tuesday as the country tries to avert financial meltdown after rejecting the terms of a controversial bailout, turning instead to Russia for help.

An official said banks, which been shut for days amid fears of a run on savings, will stay closed on Thursday and Friday, CNBC and Reuters reported. Monday is a public holiday.

Earlier, Germany said the banks were effectively insolvent and might never open at all unless Cypriot political leaders accepted a bailout deal.

Thousands of Cypriots withdrew savings after the unexpected European Union announcement that it would provide $12.9 billion in exchange for up to 10 per cent of the value of all bank deposits – a move that would have thrown the Mediterranean island a lifeline but hundreds of thousands of citizens out of pocket.

Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said major Cypriot banks were "insolvent if there are no emergency funds,” according to a BBC report, meaning savers might lose all their money if no deal was reached.

Greek media reports suggested the Cyprus Popular Bank had been sold to Russian investors, but the Cypriot government denied such a deal, Reuters said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the ball was now in Cyprus' court. "I regret the vote of the parliament yesterday," she told reporters. "But of course we respect it and will now look to see what proposals Cyprus makes.

"From a political point of view, I say that Cyprus needs a sustainable banking sector. Today's banking sector is not sustainable," she added.

Alexander Nemenov / AFP - Getty Images

Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris outside the Russian Finance Ministry in Moscow on Wednesday.

Even before the deal was rejected, Cypriot Finance Minister Michalis Sarris was already in Moscow working on an alternative plan to extend loans by using the island’s natural resources as a guarantee, according to English-language Cyprus Mail newspaper.

The crisis leaves the 17-nation Euro currency zone in uncharted territory: Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy have all accepted austerity cuts in return for aid.

Cyprus’ parliament rejected the deal late Tuesday when 36 lawmakers voted unanimously against it and the ruling party abstained, Reuters reported. Outside the parliament, hundreds demonstrated, chanting: "They're drinking our blood."

"The voice of the people was heard," jubilant 65-year-old retiree Andreas Miltiadou told Reuters after the vote.

Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist at Renaissance Capital, told CNBC that Russia, which was enraged by the unexpected European deal, could step in to save Cyprus from total financial collapse.

"This situation presents a fantastic opportunity for Russia and even President Putin to take moral high ground and to extend another loan to Cyprus and to become a savior of Europe," he told CNBC in Moscow.

"At the end of the day we're only talking about an additional seven to eight billion dollars of additional money that is needed to have a complete package for Cyprus, this is small change for Russia.”

Russian citizens account for the majority of the billions of euros held in Cypriot banks by foreign depositors.

Russia wasn’t the only critic of the deal, which was greeted with widespread dismay among global money markets. In an editorial, Bloomberg said it was the “worst” decision of the entire regional financial crisis, while the Economist panned it as "unfair, short-sighted and self-defeating."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

Cyprus bailout backlash poses little wider risk - for now

Photoblog: 'Hands off' say Cypriot protesters to EU bailout plan

Full business coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:16 AM EDT

(Editor's note: This story includes a correction.)

An aircraft carrying three men went missing in Antarctica on Wednesday and the plane’s emergency locator beacon was activated, according to the National Science Foundation.  

The status of those aboard remains unknown, NSF spokesman Peter West said. The Toronto Star reported that the three men are Canadian.

West said those aboard were likely a pilot, co-pilot and a flight engineer carrying or picking up cargo. They had been contracted to support a branch of the Italian Antarctic Program that focuses on new technology and energy – specifically nuclear fusion and fission.

The aircraft, a de Havilland Twin Otter, was returning from the South Pole to Terra Nova Bay, where the Italian Antarctic Program is based, when contact was lost as the plane flew over a remote area of the Transantarctic Mountains.

The plane was contracted out by Kenn Borek Air Ltd., a Canadian company based in Calgary that charters aircraft to the U.S. Antarctic program.

Rescue crews, based at the New Zealand Rescue Coordination Center, know generally where the beacon is coming from, but cloudy and windy conditions have prevented rescue planes from attempting a landing near the downed plane.

“There are not as many weather stations, so it’s difficult to find out what the weather is,” West said. “There was low cloud, limited visibility in the air in the area where they were looking for the aircraft -- some blowing snow and issues with cloud.”

www.nsf.gov

A Twin Otter aircraft, photographed here in 2006, at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

West said he didn’t know whether the flight crew carried cold weather survival gear. At the U.S. station, protocol demands that anyone leaving the base must have protective gear – typically a parka, wind pants, insulated boots, a tent, food and a stove to melt snow into water.

He said that he doesn't recall a similar crash in his 14 years as a spokesman for the Antarctic program.

Antarctica, the size of U.S. and Mexico combined, is vast, white and isolated. There are about 50 research stations, some of them year-round, others open during research season, which runs roughly between October and early February – summer in the Southern Hemisphere. During those months, the largest is McMurdo Station, the U.S. Antarctic station on Ross Island, with about 1,100 people.

“It’s a harsh continent,” West said. “People take extra care if they can.”

Three Americans were among dozens of foreign nationals kidnapped by heavily armed militants who attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, U.S. officials said.

A militant group claimed the raid was launched in retaliation for France's military intervention in neighboring Mali, Reuters reported, citing local media.

The hostage situation, described as a "terrorist attack" by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, was unfolding at a gas operation at In Amenas — a joint venture including oil giant BP, the Norwegian oil firm Statoil and the Algerian state company Sonatrach.

BP said in a statement that the site was "attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people."

Reuters said that according to regional media reports, the raiders killed three people, including a Briton and a French national, but there was no way to confirm the account. Reuters did not report the citizenship of the third person.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates across borders in the Sahara desert, claimed it had captured the workers in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, Reuters reported, citing regional news agencies.

France has been using Algeria's air space for attacks against al-Qaida linked militants in Mali since last week.

Western government officials had not yet linked Wednesday's attack to the conflict in Algeria's southern neighbor. Algeria and neighboring Mali are former colonies of France.

"The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate,'' Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted as saying by Algeria's official APS news agency.

One of the kidnappers, reportedly contacted by Mauritania's news agency ANI, warned that any attempt to free the hostages would come to a "tragic end." The militants had placed mines around the site of the kidnapping, according to that unconfirmed report.

The U.S. government is in contact with Algerian authorities, the British Embassy in Algiers, BP's security office in London and the Diplomatic Security office in Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a briefing on Wednesday.

French President Francois Hollande said he was also in contact with Algiers and other governments about the attack.

A picture of who was being held hostage — with various reports that the total number was 41 — remains incomplete, but citizens of at least six countries are in the group.

There are three Americans in the group, a senior U.S. official told NBC. An earlier report had put the number at seven.

The State Department’s Nuland confirmed that Americans were among the hostages, but she would not release names, numbers and other details "in order to protect their safety."

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference that 13 Norwegian citizens were among the hostages. Three Algerian Statoil employees and one Canadian were in the hostage group, the company said. Statoil is a minority shareholder in the venture.

One Irish national was abducted, an Irish government official said, and British Prime Minister David Cameron said "several" British citizens were among the hostages.

A spokesman for the Japanese government said it had set up a task force to investigate reports of Japanese hostages.

A reporter for Japan's NHK television managed to call a Japanese worker in Algeria, Reuters reported. The worker said he got a phone call from a colleague at the gas field.

"It was around 6 a.m. this morning. He said that he had been hearing gunshots for about 20 minutes," the worker said. "I wasn't able to get through to him since."

The U.S. government issued an emergency message to Americans in the country through the embassy in Algiers, warning them to avoid large gatherings, protests or demonstrations.

"U.S. citizens should review their personal security plans, remain aware of their surroundings, including local events, and monitor local news stations for updates," it read, in part. "Maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security and follow instructions of local authorities.

The Amenas gas field is about 800 miles southeast of Algiers and about 35 miles west of the Libyan border.

Oil major BP said it believed the operation had been shut down after the attack, which took place at about 5 a.m. local time. The company said the field had been producing about 160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day — more than 10 percent of the country's overall gas output, Reuters reported.

Related content:
France launches tough ground offensive against Mali's Islamist rebels 

Jim Miklaszewski, Courtney Kube, Ian Johnston, Arata Yamamoto and Alastair Jamieson of NBC News, and Reuters, contributed to this report.

Iran is to build a second nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, by early 2014, state television reported Sunday, according to news reports.

"Iran will build a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in Bushehr next year," state television quoted Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, as saying, according to a report on Afghanistan news site Tolo News.

He was referring to the Iranian calendar year, running from March 2013 to March 2014, the site said.

The current Bushehr nuclear plant was started by German engineers in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic Revolution, and was completed by Russia, which continues to help keep it running and provides fuel for it, Tolo News said.

Iran has repeatedly said in recent years that it is planning to build more nuclear power plants but nothing has been offered to show that any work is under way, according to a report by The Associated Press.

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The chief of the U.N. nuclear agency said Tuesday that he had reached a deal with Iran on probing suspected work on nuclear weapons and the agreement would "be signed quite soon." 

Yukiya Amano, of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said some details still needed to be worked out. But he told reporters that Iranian officials say that those will not stand in the way of signing the deal. 

"(A) decision was made to conclude and sign the agreement ... I can say it will be signed quite soon," he said.

Amano spoke Tuesday on returning from Tehran, after talks on resuming a long-stalled probe into suspicions that Iran secretly worked on developing nuclear weapons. 

Israeli military chief: I doubt Iran's 'rational' leadership will make nuclear bomb

The investigation has been stalled for more than four years, with Iran saying it has not carried out such experiments.

Clash with Iran could see use of huge, new U.S. bomb

Iran denies that it is interested in developing nuclear weapons, saying it wants nuclear power only to generate energy and for medical use.

Robert Wood, the acting U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tuesday that Iran should act swiftly to allow the IAEA to carry out its work.

"While we appreciate the efforts (by the IAEA) to conclude a substantive agreement, we remain concerned by the urgent obligation for Iran to take concrete steps to cooperate fully (with the agency)," Wood said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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TOKYO -- Japan shuts down its last working nuclear power reactor this weekend just over a year after a tsunami scarred the nation and if it survives the summer without major electricity shortages, producers fear the plants will stay offline for good. 

The shutdown leaves Japan without nuclear power for the first time since 1970 and has put electricity producers on the defensive. Public opposition to nuclear power could become more deeply entrenched if non-nuclear generation proves enough to meet Japan's needs in the peak-demand summer months.

"Can it be the end of nuclear power? It could be," said Andrew DeWit, a professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo who studies energy policy. "That's one reason why people are fighting it to the death."

Slideshow: Then-and-now: Tsunami cleanup

AP

View side-by-side the progress that Japan has made since the tsunami and earthquake in March 2011.

Launch slideshow

Japan managed to get through the summer last year without any blackouts by imposing curbs on use in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. Factories operated at night and during weekends to avoid putting too much stress on the country's power grids. A similar success this year would weaken the argument of proponents of nuclear power. 

"They don't have the polls on their side," said DeWit. "Once they go through the summer without reactors, how will they fire them up? They know that, so they will try their darndest but I don't see how."

Rock Center: One year after Fukushima disaster, town remains frozen in time

The last one running, the No3 Tomari reactor of Hokkaido Electric Power Co in northern Japan, is scheduled to shut down early on Sunday. Anti-nuclear activists will celebrate with demonstrations over the weekend.

'Mass suicide'?
The last time Japan went without nuclear power was in May 1970, when the country's only two reactors operating at that time were shut for maintenance, the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan says.

Nuclear power provided almost 30 percent of the electricity to keep the $5 trillion economy going before the March 11, 2011 disaster that killed almost 16,000 people and left more than 3,000 missing.

A year on, the level of public concern about the safety of the industry is such that the government is still struggling to come up with a long-term energy policy, a delay having a profound impact on the economy and underlining just how costly it will be to contemplate a nuclear-power-free future. 

Having boomed in recent decades on the exports prowess of big brands like Sony, Toyota and Canon, the economy suffered its first trade deficit in more than three decades in 2011 as power producers spent billions of dollars on oil-and-gas imports to fuel extra generation capacity.

Water leaks found at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant

At the time of the Fukushima crisis, then Prime Minister Naoto Kan called on Japan to wean itself off of nuclear power. Up to that point, Japan had been planning to lift the share of nuclear generation to over 50 percent by 2030 from about 30 percent. 

The government of current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has softened Kan's call. Noda says Japan cannot afford to be nuclear free, although he still holds that as an ideal. 

But the government has no clear timetable for getting nuclear power back up and running as it tries to navigate the public opposition -- rare in Japan -- and the demands of business that wants a stable supply of power. 

Cabinet ministers last month rushed to try to win over the public to allow the restart of two nuclear power reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi plant in western Japan, in what experts said was a recognition of the implications of a nuclear-free summer. 

The public remained unconvinced. A poll by Kyodo news agency last weekend showed about 60 percent of the public opposed to restarting the two reactors. 

Most mayors and governors whose communities host nuclear plants want safety assurances beyond government-imposed stress tests before agreeing to restarts, a Reuters poll showed in March. 

Slideshow: Triple tragedy for Japan

Kuni Takahashi / Kuni Takahashi

An earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown -- residents of Japan's northeast coast suffered through three intertwined disasters after a massive 9.0 magnitude temblor struck off the coast on March 11, 2001.

Launch slideshow

To overcome the opposition, some politicians have been more forceful. Yo@!$%#o Sengoku, the acting president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, on April 16 called an abandonment of nuclear energy the equivalent of "mass suicide," Kyodo news reported. His comment was criticized by Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, indicating internal divisions over how to handle the issue.

Trade Minister Yukio Edano - the government's point man for energy policy - walks a fine line, saying both that safety must come first while trying to win the support of local communities for restarts.

Kansai Electric Power Co, the utility most reliant on nuclear power, and some other electricity producers have warned of power shortages this summer but have largely avoided lobbying publicly for restarts for fear of a backlash.

Global shift on nuke power 
Ultimately, some argue Japan's economy, already weakened by years of deflation, would suffer if reactors are not restarted.

"It's not an option Japan should take. There will be less employment and the economy will be on a shrinking trend," said Takeo Kikkawa, a professor at Hitotsubashi University.

Japan's liquefied natural gas imports climbed 18 percent in volume and 52 percent in value to 5.4 trillion yen ($67 billion) in the year through March. 

Renewable energy, although given emphasis in energy policies being formulated, is not expected to be much of an immediate salve. Energy from renewable sources account for about 10 percent of Japan's power generation, most of that from hydroelectric dams. Wind and solar together contribute about 1 percent. 

Worldwide, there has been a shift with Germany, Italy and Switzerland moving away from atomic energy, prompting the International Atomic Energy Agency to revise down its forecast for growth in the industry.

Greenpeace 'bombs' French nuclear reactor -- could it happen in US?

The United States, China and India are still planning to increase the number of reactors.

In Japan, a delay in setting up a new, more independent Nuclear Regulatory Agency due to deadlock in a divided parliament is further clouding the outlook.

Some analysts say the government is not going to turn public opinion unless it admits that nuclear power is never going to be absolutely safe.

"The debate needs to be recast," said Bob Geller, a professor of geophysics at Tokyo University. "They have to come clean, and say, in effect - look we know they're not perfectly safe but we've made a careful evaluation of the risks, which we'll make public." 

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Spain threatened economic retaliation against Argentina Tuesday after Buenos Aires took control of an oil company said to be worth $18 billion.

Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner replaced the chief executive officer of oil firm YPF -- the country's biggest firm -- and said she would send a bill to congress to take a 51 percent stake in the company, the Bloomberg news agency reported.

Spanish oil firm Repsol is the major shareholder in YPF and it said it would seek compensation on the bases that YPF was worth $18 billion. However, its shares dropped by more than eight percent Tuesday, Reuters said.

"With this attitude, this hostility from the Argentine authorities, there will be consequences that we'll see over the next few days. They will be in the diplomatic field, the industrial field, and on energy," Spanish industry minister Jose Manuel Soria said, according to Reuters.

He added that the government would take "clear and decisive" measures, according to Bloomberg.

Madrid called in the Argentinean ambassador in a rapidly escalating row over the nationalization order, Reuters said.

Fernandez: I'm 'not a thug'
Fernandez's move delighted many of her compatriots but alarmed some foreign governments and investors. 

"This president isn't going to respond to any threats ... because I represent the Argentine people. I'm the head of state, not a thug," she said, according to Reuters. 

Fernandez said the government would ask Congress, which she controls, to approve a bill to expropriate a controlling 51 percent stake in the company by seizing shares held exclusively by Repsol, saying energy was a "vital resource." 

"If this [the YPF's] policy continues -- draining fields dry, no exploration and practically no investment -- the country will end up having no viable future, not because of a lack of resources but because of business policies," she said. 

Repsol described Argentina's move as "clearly unlawful and seriously discriminatory." "This battle is not over," Repsol chairman Antonio Brufau said. 

Spanish media condemned the Argentinean action, which Reuters said was believed to be the biggest nationalization in the natural resources field since the seizure of Russia's Yukos a decade ago. 

Right-wing newspaper La Razon carried a photograph of Fernandez on its front page in a pool of oil with the headline: "Kirchner's Dirty War", referring to her full name. The business newspaper La Gaceta de los Negocios branded the takeover "an act of pillage". 

On the left, El Periodico spoke of "The New Evita", pointing out that Fernandez had announced the nationalization in a room decorated with a portrait of Eva Peron, the actress who was married to a president and revered by many Argentineans for her populist politics. 

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