I’m guessing their solution is for us to be even more dependent upon oil?
The issue here is that we based our entire economy around a substance that is incredibly price-volatile, run by a cartel, and is plentiful mostly in places that are unstable or hostile to us. I think it’s crazy that we’ve completely normalized the idea that fuel needs to have prices listed outside a gas station because it changes so frequently. Imagine if supermarkets had to list the price of a loaf of bread outside because it kept changing so often.
And it’s really our own fault (or at least the fault of politicians bought by oil companies) because the dangers of oil dependence were obvious at least back in the 70s.
Braess's/Pigou's Paradox that more car lanes cause more traffic was found in the 1920's. We massively overbuilt for the car regardless and keep getting worse traffic to this day.
> Braess's/Pigou's Paradox that more car lanes cause more traffic was found in the 1920's.
The paradox is that it _can_ cause worse traffic, not that it always does. American cities are built like shit for transport, but it's not as simple as "roads too big, therefore traffic". Sprawl is a much bigger (and more difficult to do ~anything about) issue.
Faster CPUs cause people to run larger programs. Egad! Nobody needs more than 100 MHz! Ban FLOP inflation now before Big Silicon makes us burn any more electricity.
The enmity between "the West" and "the middle east" goes back to the islamic colonisation era which created a religious incentive to "fight the infidels" and/or plunder and enslave them.
I challenge you to find one time period or some states/tribes which did not plunder and enslave each other throughout history. I'm fed up with all this "oh but they did it first" - everybody did it first and that's still no reason to continue doing it with the children of their children.
In ancient times everyone plundered each other unless they were allies, it was just how the world operated at the time I think it was probably more of a survival tactic "plunder or get plundered".
OK you got 4 years of tenure to rebase economy on something else.
First step - you'll need copper so we can have enough generators, power for DCs, EVs, etc. Current world capacity 23 million tones per year and supplies are shaky due to concentration in rocks going down, but we need additional 10 million tons of capacity by 2035. How many copper mines are you opening? Are you going to subsidize the workers to a tune of $100 per hour?
Really. When answering the "Qui Bono?" question the lion's share of the profits go to ... the governments of countries where the oil is sold (ie. EU governments, US, ...). 2/3 of the price is pure taxes, (of those taxes 1/3 producer country, 2/3 oil using country) which adds nothing to the product.
Pretty sure at the moment their solution is to shout about this far and wide so when it actually happens they don't get lynched by the crowd.
This has never worked before. Why not? Because the government, who are responsible this time and previous times, are going to blame them because they "set the price" (except of course they set the last 1% or so of the price, which makes them a very nice profit, the 99% is the government, for example, there isn't a single EU country that doesn't levy a 80% tax on fuel, so the government could just halve the price. Could ... but won't.
This is disregarding that obviously one way to look both wars, in Ukraine, the problem is EU governments failing to come to a workable relationship with Russia, and Iran and Trump, well does it even need to be said? Despite the news, I will say that the Ukraine war in Europe is by far the bigger factor. Obviously both wars fundamentally are failures of politicians to do what they're supposedly good at, come to acceptable solutions for everyone. And this accounts for ~60% of the price of oil before any other tax ...
These taxes are part of the reason Russia and Iran are making war and every other oil nation complains constantly. They find this unfair, given that it's their oil that's being sold. They're still bound by market forces, meaning the price is determined by supply and demand like any other product, BUT supply is artificially and drastically made more expensive than it really is, and that money doesn't benefit who it benefits for every other product (ie. not the producer, not even the producer country's government). Per liter the costs are about:
~€0.25 exceptional current refining/product scarcity spread
~€0.05 ethanol/blending/product logistics/etc.
€0.23 Belgian distribution
€0.014 strategic stocks
€0.60 excise
€0.382 VAT
Who profits?
Saudi government (much better than almost all other producers): 0.46 euro per liter (of that, you can never be absolutely sure, but arguably about 0.3 euro per liter is due to EU and US politicians not managing to prevent wars with oil producers)
Oil companies REVENUE (of which 6% or so is profit): 0.25 (this 0.25 is ENTIRELY due to the wars as well, not because supply is limited but because oil companies are forced to start from inferior products) + 0.23 + 0.05 = 0.52
The total amount of the 2 above is constant, because global market, but the split between oil companies and governments varies, and is generally much worse to oil producer governments.
Standard EU government cut, taking Belgium example (because Brussels = Belgium): 0.60 + 0.382 + 0.014
The "real" oil price RIGHT NOW (with the war price hikes) is about 0.5 euros per liter. That includes the massive oil company profits. 0.46 (or less) goes to governments of oil producing nations, 0.99 goes to the government where the oil is sold as fuel. And this is being nice, counting the 0.05 ethanol as oil company revenue when this is only done because of government demands.
A great gesture would be to, say, limit the excise tax to 0.4 (which is still more than the government got 1st Jan 2023, before the governments' failures)
On the plus side, this is probably the "last hurrah" for the oil market. If/when these wars end, oil price will halve (gas prices will only come down to like 1.6, 1.7 per liter though, because excise tax never goes down). Despite that, this will still kill the energy tax for governments ... which they'll need to make up.
Hence an obvious but counterintuitive prediction: when the Ukraine war ends, EU and US governments will start taxing solar power.
Okay, you want my frank opinion on that? The job of EU politicians is to either:
1) "suck up to Russia" (or let's put it politely: have a working economic relationship with Russia)
2) actually END THE WAR, as in honestly say to people that we're going to war, because that's exactly what EU sanctions are going to accomplish, and understand that this is what 10% or more of the economy will be dedicated to that for let's say a decade, and of course, missiles will be coming in for that time.
I would even go so far to say that it seems to me likely in the extreme that Germany, and by that I mean Schroeder and Merkel, promised Russia they would be allowed to conquer Ukraine (look at their UN votes after the Crimea annexation for example) ... and obviously they didn't deliver, and that, combined with Ukraine actually managing to save themselves against German wishes, is what's making the Ukraine war happen.
The reaction of Germany to this? To prepare for war, of course. Note: war, as in marching German soldiers into war. NOT defending Ukraine.
Like in any war I've ever seen, all actors in the Ukraine war have despicable behavior. They're not "equal" morally in any shape or form, but none of the actors are behaving morally, even judged by their own morals. Russia is by far the worst, then Germany, and Ukraine is mostly a victim (but that hasn't stopped them from making a few very questionable decisions either)
My problem with sanctions is the following. Russia, when push comes to shove, is trading oil with the EU because it economically benefits them. Why do they go to war? Frankly, to avoid these taxes. If you look deep down, that's the reason.
Let's assume sanctions aren't more than Russia can handle (as in, strong enough to bring the Russian state down), and EU sanctions aren't, then what do sanctions actually do?
They increase Russia's reasons to go to war with the EU while still allowing Russia's army to become stronger. Increasing both the ability and the appetite of the Kremlin to attack. Hence, why I'm saying the sanctions are effectively trying to get Russia to start a war with the EU.
And you're not telling me anyone who's good enough of a negotiator to get into parliament or government doesn't understand this DAMN well.
Germany is purposefully causing a war between the EU and Russia because
1) it doesn't require a budget item to be approved. It's cheap.
2) they don't look like that's what they're doing. Especially not to young Germans (who will be doing all the dying), in fact they look like they're doing something to end war and get to peace
And the worst of it is: Ukraine might actually save Germany's ass, and do the dying for them. That was never part of the plan, but they'll take it, of course (while STILL saving on the expense of supporting Ukraine, of course)
How is Russia's army becoming stronger? They have lost so much people and equipment. Why would they attack EU when they can't defeat Ukraine after so many years? Are you suggesting they will perform a suicide attack against EU, cause as much damage as they can, and get absolutely destroyed in return?
> guessing their solution is for us to be even more dependent upon oil?
They're competent enough to be able to model the demand destruction occuring globally.
In the meantime, given "Canada supplied the U.S. with more than 60 per cent of its crude oil imports last year," Canada's oil bonanza may not only make up for their tariff losses but actually put them into a net surplus [1].
> run by a cartel, and is plentiful mostly in places that are unstable or hostile to us.
If by "we" you mean the United States, it's worth noting that the US is a net exporter of fuel products and our net imports of crude oil have dropped a lot.
> Imagine if supermarkets had to list the price of a loaf of bread outside because it kept changing so often.
This actually happens when prices become volatile. Not long ago I could see the prices of eggs posted outside different stores on my drive home.
There is no apt response other than for the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation to all suddenly change their minds about gay frogs and space lasers and stolen elections. I can’t see it happening.
> There is no apt response other than for the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation
Single-digit percentage points of turnout changes would swing the House and Senate. Double-digit percentage changes in voter turnout, as in 15 to 30 percent of unlikely-to-vote registered voters turning out for Democrats in deep-red Republican stronghods like Alabama and Mississippi, gives Democrats a Congressional supermajority.
MAGA voters aren't dropping their identity for a while. Possibly never. Most voters who aren't registered or don't vote are lazy and nihilstic and worth ignoring. But a tenth should be pitchable. In a reach, a third of them could find motivation.
I'm excited to see all the nutty takes about oil prices from the same people who don't belive in vaccines.
I kinda hope they bring back the old idea that oil is actually formed out of non-biological matter and so that means its just basically infinitly seeping up from the earth, we just have to drill a bit deeper. But I think that's a little too nerdy for them
When I was a kid in the 1980s, the scientific shows and authors all agreed that petroleum was made of dinosaurs. Triceratops and Brontosaurus had died ?? MYA and got compressed into the oil we're drilling for today.
It was only about 3 years ago when I learned that petroleum comes from almost anything organic. So, ferns and trees and moss, in addition to Velociraptor and Triceratops, I guess?
Perhaps the more accurate description would be that as a kid, you misunderstood descriptions that petroleum was from decayed organic material from long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
You realize that vaccine hesitancy isn’t new and wasn’t a right wing thing? The right wing only has a disbelief about the covid vaccine and probably rightfully so. It went from: you can’t get it if youre vaccinated; okay you can get it but you can’t spread it; okay okay you can get it and spread but maybe the severity is reduced.
Measles was eliminated in the US by 2020. Texas had an outbreak last year with 2289 confirmed cases. They’re up to 2900 cases this year. The right-wing readily laps up all the misinformation it spews.
> the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation
Small nitpick: while Trump won the popular vote, he did not earn over 50% of the votes. There were enough third-party votes that he won with only 49.8%.
> Even Saudis couldn't have stopped them. That's not particularly American election issue
Energy prices are absolutely an American election issue. Variations in real personal disposable income growth and inflation predict a vast majority of the variation in election outcomes after accounting for incumbency.
And Iranian proxies seizing the Bab el-Mandeb–and the U.S. being unable to help Saudi Arabia respond militarily while Iran cements control of the Strait of Hormuz–is the direct result of an American foreign policy choice to, once again, blunder into a war in the Middle East.
Uh... and Iran and the Straight of Hormuz?? Did you forget to mention that? Is that an election issue? And who funds the Houthis? And why would they want to close the straight to us? Is it something to do with supporting Israel? No? Ok.
There won't be. Anytime the environment becomes a leading issue there are suddenly price issues which make people vote for short term solutions.
Gas is expensive. Food is expensive. Insurance is expensive. People will vote for whoever claims they'll lower prices, which usually means deregulation in the United States.
We have been borrowing against the environment for generations. Every burger we eat is a loan on the future. Every excessive piece of plastic that makes our lives more convenient is a loan on the future. No way in hell the average consumer chooses to give up anything while the rich and the politicians do nothing. Social media has convinced too many people that others are to blame and it's not their fault. Nobody will sacrifice their privilege while others carry on.
The time to take meaningful action was 40+ years ago. We are long past voters making a difference. Society needs to change drastically and now. That simply is not going to happen.
There will probably be a lukewarm response, delaying a reckoning in either direction. That's what keeps happening. Though that's assuming the election results aren't nullified somehow.
How much land, time, and money, per citizen, would it take to put down enough solar cells to generate each person's basic electrical supply? Is it less than $5K?
It looks like solar can already power about a third of American household demand, and is on track to get to two thirds within five years [1]. (Commercial and utility is leading the acceleration, even into Q2 2026.)
That said, we're hitting 2030 with ~20% of American electricity coming from solar and wind versus 40 to 60% under the IRA baselines. We may wind up in a long-term spiral where our adversaries have not only more manufacturing capability and structurally lower labour costs, but structurally cheaper energy, too.
I looked into this living in Japan and tired of the electric bill after running AC 24/7 for three months when it's 35 degrees at 65% humidity.
$5500 in solar panels including a battery would be just enough to keep the AC on all summer, and that's being fairly high on the temperature, around 26.
So based on cost alone and not power draw, with the AC off you could comfortably power a fridge, PC, and water heater, I guess? But I'm talking out my ass here
I live in a 160m2 (1700 sqft) house in Northern Europe (54N). 10kWp of solar on my roof generates around 1/3 more than I consume over the year. Everything is electric, I don't have natural gas. I have a heat pump for heating and cooling (rarely gets above 30c here). If I had a battery April - September could all be local consumption (I pull around 5kWh from the grid each day).
The issue is winter: It gets down to -25c and there is very little sun (not that it would help due to snow on the panels). In January and February this year I generated a grand total of 5kWh :D
However my house is a new house, it's designed to modern building standards and has 30cm of PIR insulation in the walls and even more in the roof. There's just no way to properly renovate old buildings to be like that without basically rebuilding the whole thing. The actual cost of materials is not expensive though (for the west). In milder climates (UK I'm looking at you) there's really no reason all new houses cannot be net-zero.
Modern building standard constantly changes. Time will show, how good they are.
Meanwhile, we have, in Europe a lot of buildings from late 19, early 20th century that are perfectly habitable today and often are ruined by modern standards that not respect old standards. For example basement addition that prevents the apartments from “breathing” and causes them to become damp.
I have done a grid based setup at my house in India and it cost us close to 3k for a 5kw setup with 4 acs. Planning for a complete off grid solution once the efficient panels like hjt and sodium cells become common place. Right now we have acid batteries and they are not very comfortable to handle.
Converting Sun to electricity to power a water heater is suboptimal. The water can be heated directly by the Sun. If you can put a water tank above the solar panel, you don't even need a pump.
From a purely efficiency standpoint, yes, but practically, electricity->heat is a lot cheaper to install. Plumbing is messy, and bolting on a water circulation system to a roof is harder than delivering more joules over the wires.
Having gone through one ice-dam related roof leak in the past, I'm also not thrilled with the idea of superheated liquids hanging out casually above my bedroom while I sleep.
Our house is all-electric. We have a 60 panel, 24 kw array that would probably cover all of our needs if it weren't shaded in the afternoon, and we have a real winter here, so the heat pump runs hard, and we use a substantial amount of electricity. About 1250 square feet of panels in total. Equipment costs about $20k-$30k in the US, not including batteries or electrician install. The actual array was pretty easy to set up.
On the global market, you can get the equipment for much less, the same inverter is a fraction of the cost that the UL listed American company version costs, the panels are a good bit less. But in the US, this stuff gets marked up pretty hard.
If your main load is for summer A/C, with a mild winter, the generation and usage line up much better.
Yeah things are very frugal here (my wife is especially frugal) so without AC it's pretty much just PC, two fridges, water heater, knickknacks like toaster, foodprocessor, etc. Stove and grill is gas, and kerosene heaters for when it drops below 10c. We could easily get by with a grid well below 10k usd I'm guessing
Electrical generation is largely separate from imported crude oil (what the article is about).
It takes a lot more than $5K to build a system that can replace a household's energy use. For 24 hour coverage you need substantial battery capacity, too.
To cover theoretical EV charging it gets even more expensive.
Prices continue to come down, but it still takes a lot to actually replace all of a household's energy usage with solar.
Such a shame the US didn't switch at least some of the fleet to electric years ago when it had a chance. Total stupidity. Even to this day my local MAGA town balks at solar panels and just laughs at people who install them. Reality will smack them in the face sooner or later. Right now they are blaming the democratic governor because they only provided a tiny bill credit to citizens to help reduce rates but totally ignoring how the Republican promised nothing.
You are assuming the supply of diesel goes to 0. Instead there is a reduction, not elimination and as a result, demand destruction will happen in the US just as its been happening for months outside the US. (This is partially what allowed us to avoid a crisis in March)
Trucks will stop delivering trash (ex. China dollar store crap, lower margin non food items and a billion other nonessential items). Food prices go up, people will do without less desserts or fancy foods but enough deliveries continue with the fuel saved that no one starves.
Now imagine if we replaced only 10% of diesel trucks with electric. Hell just focus on the short haul trucks. That unburned diesel could have helped buffer the remaining fleet.
Civilisations will end before all oils underground is completely extracted, obviously. Because the harder to extract will remain were it stands, and civilisations will turn attention to other forms of energy.
I can't read the article either, but my understanding of the various factors is this:
* Houthis have taken control of all of the Yemeni coastline along the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (and an island in the middle of it), which gives them the ability to effectively interdict trade through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, just as Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
* Not that it matters that much, because the Saudi pipeline that lets it export crude via Yanbu, in the Red Sea, has been disabled, and current estimates suggest that the recovery time is in weeks-to-months. That's about 4-5mbpd of crude oil that's down for the near feature, or about 4% of global crude oil production.
* Now that the summer driving season is over, US refineries are starting to switch from summer blends to winter blends, and this is one of the periods that refineries go down for maintenance. So US refinery capacity is down.
* The supply shock has been mitigated for the past several months by drawing down reserves (note that reserves were relatively high when the war started). This includes both national strategic petroleum reserves, but also corporate reserves (e.g., tanks on-site at refineries). It seems some of these reserves are starting to hit effective 0.
* On top of this, Trump is making it more and more clear that he has no intention of actually doing anything to end to the crisis. For example, he's effectively said that he's not going to do anything before the midterm elections, two months away. Which means the market optimism that the war is going to be over, like, tomorrow is fading.
I’m guessing their solution is for us to be even more dependent upon oil?
The issue here is that we based our entire economy around a substance that is incredibly price-volatile, run by a cartel, and is plentiful mostly in places that are unstable or hostile to us. I think it’s crazy that we’ve completely normalized the idea that fuel needs to have prices listed outside a gas station because it changes so frequently. Imagine if supermarkets had to list the price of a loaf of bread outside because it kept changing so often.
And it’s really our own fault (or at least the fault of politicians bought by oil companies) because the dangers of oil dependence were obvious at least back in the 70s.
Braess's/Pigou's Paradox that more car lanes cause more traffic was found in the 1920's. We massively overbuilt for the car regardless and keep getting worse traffic to this day.
> Braess's/Pigou's Paradox that more car lanes cause more traffic was found in the 1920's.
The paradox is that it _can_ cause worse traffic, not that it always does. American cities are built like shit for transport, but it's not as simple as "roads too big, therefore traffic". Sprawl is a much bigger (and more difficult to do ~anything about) issue.
Faster CPUs cause people to run larger programs. Egad! Nobody needs more than 100 MHz! Ban FLOP inflation now before Big Silicon makes us burn any more electricity.
inFLOPtion?
> and is plentiful mostly in places that are unstable or hostile to us.
Plentiful in places we keep making unstable and hostile to us by bombing.
A little history goes a long way:
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-...
The enmity between "the West" and "the middle east" goes back to the islamic colonisation era which created a religious incentive to "fight the infidels" and/or plunder and enslave them.
I challenge you to find one time period or some states/tribes which did not plunder and enslave each other throughout history. I'm fed up with all this "oh but they did it first" - everybody did it first and that's still no reason to continue doing it with the children of their children.
In ancient times everyone plundered each other unless they were allies, it was just how the world operated at the time I think it was probably more of a survival tactic "plunder or get plundered".
OK you got 4 years of tenure to rebase economy on something else.
First step - you'll need copper so we can have enough generators, power for DCs, EVs, etc. Current world capacity 23 million tones per year and supplies are shaky due to concentration in rocks going down, but we need additional 10 million tons of capacity by 2035. How many copper mines are you opening? Are you going to subsidize the workers to a tune of $100 per hour?
Their solution is to drive demand for domestically-produced oil at ever increasing volumes and prices.
Really. When answering the "Qui Bono?" question the lion's share of the profits go to ... the governments of countries where the oil is sold (ie. EU governments, US, ...). 2/3 of the price is pure taxes, (of those taxes 1/3 producer country, 2/3 oil using country) which adds nothing to the product.
Pretty sure at the moment their solution is to shout about this far and wide so when it actually happens they don't get lynched by the crowd.
This has never worked before. Why not? Because the government, who are responsible this time and previous times, are going to blame them because they "set the price" (except of course they set the last 1% or so of the price, which makes them a very nice profit, the 99% is the government, for example, there isn't a single EU country that doesn't levy a 80% tax on fuel, so the government could just halve the price. Could ... but won't.
This is disregarding that obviously one way to look both wars, in Ukraine, the problem is EU governments failing to come to a workable relationship with Russia, and Iran and Trump, well does it even need to be said? Despite the news, I will say that the Ukraine war in Europe is by far the bigger factor. Obviously both wars fundamentally are failures of politicians to do what they're supposedly good at, come to acceptable solutions for everyone. And this accounts for ~60% of the price of oil before any other tax ...
These taxes are part of the reason Russia and Iran are making war and every other oil nation complains constantly. They find this unfair, given that it's their oil that's being sold. They're still bound by market forces, meaning the price is determined by supply and demand like any other product, BUT supply is artificially and drastically made more expensive than it really is, and that money doesn't benefit who it benefits for every other product (ie. not the producer, not even the producer country's government). Per liter the costs are about:
€0.02 Saudi lifting
€0.04 Saudi upstream investment
€0.52 crude resource/market value
€0.05–0.07 physical refining
€0.02–0.04 refinery capital/maintenance/compliance
~€0.25 exceptional current refining/product scarcity spread
~€0.05 ethanol/blending/product logistics/etc.
€0.23 Belgian distribution
€0.014 strategic stocks
€0.60 excise
€0.382 VAT
Who profits?
Saudi government (much better than almost all other producers): 0.46 euro per liter (of that, you can never be absolutely sure, but arguably about 0.3 euro per liter is due to EU and US politicians not managing to prevent wars with oil producers)
Oil companies REVENUE (of which 6% or so is profit): 0.25 (this 0.25 is ENTIRELY due to the wars as well, not because supply is limited but because oil companies are forced to start from inferior products) + 0.23 + 0.05 = 0.52
The total amount of the 2 above is constant, because global market, but the split between oil companies and governments varies, and is generally much worse to oil producer governments.
Standard EU government cut, taking Belgium example (because Brussels = Belgium): 0.60 + 0.382 + 0.014
The "real" oil price RIGHT NOW (with the war price hikes) is about 0.5 euros per liter. That includes the massive oil company profits. 0.46 (or less) goes to governments of oil producing nations, 0.99 goes to the government where the oil is sold as fuel. And this is being nice, counting the 0.05 ethanol as oil company revenue when this is only done because of government demands.
A great gesture would be to, say, limit the excise tax to 0.4 (which is still more than the government got 1st Jan 2023, before the governments' failures)
On the plus side, this is probably the "last hurrah" for the oil market. If/when these wars end, oil price will halve (gas prices will only come down to like 1.6, 1.7 per liter though, because excise tax never goes down). Despite that, this will still kill the energy tax for governments ... which they'll need to make up.
Hence an obvious but counterintuitive prediction: when the Ukraine war ends, EU and US governments will start taxing solar power.
That's a lot of math for blaming EU and the Ukraine for not sucking up to Russia.
Okay, you want my frank opinion on that? The job of EU politicians is to either:
1) "suck up to Russia" (or let's put it politely: have a working economic relationship with Russia)
2) actually END THE WAR, as in honestly say to people that we're going to war, because that's exactly what EU sanctions are going to accomplish, and understand that this is what 10% or more of the economy will be dedicated to that for let's say a decade, and of course, missiles will be coming in for that time.
I would even go so far to say that it seems to me likely in the extreme that Germany, and by that I mean Schroeder and Merkel, promised Russia they would be allowed to conquer Ukraine (look at their UN votes after the Crimea annexation for example) ... and obviously they didn't deliver, and that, combined with Ukraine actually managing to save themselves against German wishes, is what's making the Ukraine war happen.
The reaction of Germany to this? To prepare for war, of course. Note: war, as in marching German soldiers into war. NOT defending Ukraine.
Like in any war I've ever seen, all actors in the Ukraine war have despicable behavior. They're not "equal" morally in any shape or form, but none of the actors are behaving morally, even judged by their own morals. Russia is by far the worst, then Germany, and Ukraine is mostly a victim (but that hasn't stopped them from making a few very questionable decisions either)
My problem with sanctions is the following. Russia, when push comes to shove, is trading oil with the EU because it economically benefits them. Why do they go to war? Frankly, to avoid these taxes. If you look deep down, that's the reason.
Let's assume sanctions aren't more than Russia can handle (as in, strong enough to bring the Russian state down), and EU sanctions aren't, then what do sanctions actually do?
They increase Russia's reasons to go to war with the EU while still allowing Russia's army to become stronger. Increasing both the ability and the appetite of the Kremlin to attack. Hence, why I'm saying the sanctions are effectively trying to get Russia to start a war with the EU.
And you're not telling me anyone who's good enough of a negotiator to get into parliament or government doesn't understand this DAMN well.
Germany is purposefully causing a war between the EU and Russia because
1) it doesn't require a budget item to be approved. It's cheap.
2) they don't look like that's what they're doing. Especially not to young Germans (who will be doing all the dying), in fact they look like they're doing something to end war and get to peace
And the worst of it is: Ukraine might actually save Germany's ass, and do the dying for them. That was never part of the plan, but they'll take it, of course (while STILL saving on the expense of supporting Ukraine, of course)
How is Russia's army becoming stronger? They have lost so much people and equipment. Why would they attack EU when they can't defeat Ukraine after so many years? Are you suggesting they will perform a suicide attack against EU, cause as much damage as they can, and get absolutely destroyed in return?
> guessing their solution is for us to be even more dependent upon oil?
They're competent enough to be able to model the demand destruction occuring globally.
In the meantime, given "Canada supplied the U.S. with more than 60 per cent of its crude oil imports last year," Canada's oil bonanza may not only make up for their tariff losses but actually put them into a net surplus [1].
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-oil-prices-trump-ira...
They are just setting up for even larger profits this year than last.
> run by a cartel, and is plentiful mostly in places that are unstable or hostile to us.
If by "we" you mean the United States, it's worth noting that the US is a net exporter of fuel products and our net imports of crude oil have dropped a lot.
> Imagine if supermarkets had to list the price of a loaf of bread outside because it kept changing so often.
This actually happens when prices become volatile. Not long ago I could see the prices of eggs posted outside different stores on my drive home.
> Imagine if supermarkets had to list the price of a loaf of bread outside because it kept changing so often.
I don't think they'll post bread prices outside when the hyper inflation starts, they'll just use e-ink digital price tags.
But you won't have to wait long for food prices to become wildly volatile in the upward direction...
As the price of diesel fuel continues to skyrocket, so will the the price of bread (and every other physical item you buy).
People think inflation is bad now, later this year and in 2027 it is going to be so, so much worse on the current trajectory.
If there isn’t an apt response in the midterms, we’re far beyond the point of return.
There is no apt response other than for the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation to all suddenly change their minds about gay frogs and space lasers and stolen elections. I can’t see it happening.
> There is no apt response other than for the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation
Single-digit percentage points of turnout changes would swing the House and Senate. Double-digit percentage changes in voter turnout, as in 15 to 30 percent of unlikely-to-vote registered voters turning out for Democrats in deep-red Republican stronghods like Alabama and Mississippi, gives Democrats a Congressional supermajority.
MAGA voters aren't dropping their identity for a while. Possibly never. Most voters who aren't registered or don't vote are lazy and nihilstic and worth ignoring. But a tenth should be pitchable. In a reach, a third of them could find motivation.
I'm excited to see all the nutty takes about oil prices from the same people who don't belive in vaccines.
I kinda hope they bring back the old idea that oil is actually formed out of non-biological matter and so that means its just basically infinitly seeping up from the earth, we just have to drill a bit deeper. But I think that's a little too nerdy for them
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
When I was a kid in the 1980s, the scientific shows and authors all agreed that petroleum was made of dinosaurs. Triceratops and Brontosaurus had died ?? MYA and got compressed into the oil we're drilling for today.
It was only about 3 years ago when I learned that petroleum comes from almost anything organic. So, ferns and trees and moss, in addition to Velociraptor and Triceratops, I guess?
Perhaps the more accurate description would be that as a kid, you misunderstood descriptions that petroleum was from decayed organic material from long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
You realize that vaccine hesitancy isn’t new and wasn’t a right wing thing? The right wing only has a disbelief about the covid vaccine and probably rightfully so. It went from: you can’t get it if youre vaccinated; okay you can get it but you can’t spread it; okay okay you can get it and spread but maybe the severity is reduced.
"Hesitancy" about heliocentricity isn't new either, and yet we've sent out a solar probe. Willfully ignoring science will never get old, it seems.
Wow, it's almost as if science works by gathering data and then forming an informed opinion. Crazy, I know!
Measles was eliminated in the US by 2020. Texas had an outbreak last year with 2289 confirmed cases. They’re up to 2900 cases this year. The right-wing readily laps up all the misinformation it spews.
> the over 50% of Americans who voted in favour of their current situation
Small nitpick: while Trump won the popular vote, he did not earn over 50% of the votes. There were enough third-party votes that he won with only 49.8%.
or getting those that didnt vote off their arses to go effing vote.
i swear to gods, the australian method of mandatory voting is the benchmark best way to do it.
Houthis seized Bob-el Mandeb Strait. Even Saudis couldn't have stopped them. That's not particularly American election issue.
Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries. That's not particularly American election issue.
> Even Saudis couldn't have stopped them. That's not particularly American election issue
Energy prices are absolutely an American election issue. Variations in real personal disposable income growth and inflation predict a vast majority of the variation in election outcomes after accounting for incumbency.
And Iranian proxies seizing the Bab el-Mandeb–and the U.S. being unable to help Saudi Arabia respond militarily while Iran cements control of the Strait of Hormuz–is the direct result of an American foreign policy choice to, once again, blunder into a war in the Middle East.
Is it not clear that American election issues are directly related to those things?
Uh... and Iran and the Straight of Hormuz?? Did you forget to mention that? Is that an election issue? And who funds the Houthis? And why would they want to close the straight to us? Is it something to do with supporting Israel? No? Ok.
Even Russia would be better off today if we'd given Ukraine the tools to end the war two or three years ago.
Yeah, but the important question is where would Putin be after that?
There won't be. Anytime the environment becomes a leading issue there are suddenly price issues which make people vote for short term solutions.
Gas is expensive. Food is expensive. Insurance is expensive. People will vote for whoever claims they'll lower prices, which usually means deregulation in the United States.
We have been borrowing against the environment for generations. Every burger we eat is a loan on the future. Every excessive piece of plastic that makes our lives more convenient is a loan on the future. No way in hell the average consumer chooses to give up anything while the rich and the politicians do nothing. Social media has convinced too many people that others are to blame and it's not their fault. Nobody will sacrifice their privilege while others carry on.
The time to take meaningful action was 40+ years ago. We are long past voters making a difference. Society needs to change drastically and now. That simply is not going to happen.
There will probably be a lukewarm response, delaying a reckoning in either direction. That's what keeps happening. Though that's assuming the election results aren't nullified somehow.
I would not be shocked if nothing happens and pleasantly surprised if something does.
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Right after you get that DOGE check.
https://archive.ph/LmuUa
How much land, time, and money, per citizen, would it take to put down enough solar cells to generate each person's basic electrical supply? Is it less than $5K?
It looks like solar can already power about a third of American household demand, and is on track to get to two thirds within five years [1]. (Commercial and utility is leading the acceleration, even into Q2 2026.)
That said, we're hitting 2030 with ~20% of American electricity coming from solar and wind versus 40 to 60% under the IRA baselines. We may wind up in a long-term spiral where our adversaries have not only more manufacturing capability and structurally lower labour costs, but structurally cheaper energy, too.
[1] https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/
I looked into this living in Japan and tired of the electric bill after running AC 24/7 for three months when it's 35 degrees at 65% humidity.
$5500 in solar panels including a battery would be just enough to keep the AC on all summer, and that's being fairly high on the temperature, around 26.
So based on cost alone and not power draw, with the AC off you could comfortably power a fridge, PC, and water heater, I guess? But I'm talking out my ass here
I live in a 160m2 (1700 sqft) house in Northern Europe (54N). 10kWp of solar on my roof generates around 1/3 more than I consume over the year. Everything is electric, I don't have natural gas. I have a heat pump for heating and cooling (rarely gets above 30c here). If I had a battery April - September could all be local consumption (I pull around 5kWh from the grid each day).
The issue is winter: It gets down to -25c and there is very little sun (not that it would help due to snow on the panels). In January and February this year I generated a grand total of 5kWh :D
However my house is a new house, it's designed to modern building standards and has 30cm of PIR insulation in the walls and even more in the roof. There's just no way to properly renovate old buildings to be like that without basically rebuilding the whole thing. The actual cost of materials is not expensive though (for the west). In milder climates (UK I'm looking at you) there's really no reason all new houses cannot be net-zero.
Modern building standard constantly changes. Time will show, how good they are.
Meanwhile, we have, in Europe a lot of buildings from late 19, early 20th century that are perfectly habitable today and often are ruined by modern standards that not respect old standards. For example basement addition that prevents the apartments from “breathing” and causes them to become damp.
I have done a grid based setup at my house in India and it cost us close to 3k for a 5kw setup with 4 acs. Planning for a complete off grid solution once the efficient panels like hjt and sodium cells become common place. Right now we have acid batteries and they are not very comfortable to handle.
Converting Sun to electricity to power a water heater is suboptimal. The water can be heated directly by the Sun. If you can put a water tank above the solar panel, you don't even need a pump.
If it powers a heat pump water heater, it's pretty efficient, and much less plumbing involved.
From a purely efficiency standpoint, yes, but practically, electricity->heat is a lot cheaper to install. Plumbing is messy, and bolting on a water circulation system to a roof is harder than delivering more joules over the wires.
Having gone through one ice-dam related roof leak in the past, I'm also not thrilled with the idea of superheated liquids hanging out casually above my bedroom while I sleep.
This is true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_at_the_White_House...
It is also true that solar water heating has unpleasant failure modes.
Our house is all-electric. We have a 60 panel, 24 kw array that would probably cover all of our needs if it weren't shaded in the afternoon, and we have a real winter here, so the heat pump runs hard, and we use a substantial amount of electricity. About 1250 square feet of panels in total. Equipment costs about $20k-$30k in the US, not including batteries or electrician install. The actual array was pretty easy to set up.
On the global market, you can get the equipment for much less, the same inverter is a fraction of the cost that the UL listed American company version costs, the panels are a good bit less. But in the US, this stuff gets marked up pretty hard.
If your main load is for summer A/C, with a mild winter, the generation and usage line up much better.
Yeah things are very frugal here (my wife is especially frugal) so without AC it's pretty much just PC, two fridges, water heater, knickknacks like toaster, foodprocessor, etc. Stove and grill is gas, and kerosene heaters for when it drops below 10c. We could easily get by with a grid well below 10k usd I'm guessing
Electrical generation is largely separate from imported crude oil (what the article is about).
It takes a lot more than $5K to build a system that can replace a household's energy use. For 24 hour coverage you need substantial battery capacity, too.
To cover theoretical EV charging it gets even more expensive.
Prices continue to come down, but it still takes a lot to actually replace all of a household's energy usage with solar.
only a tiny portion of per-individual energy needs are currently electric. roughly guess, 10% or less.
diesel is widely used for things like shipping and other supply chain stuff, so expect knock-on price impacts.
Such a shame the US didn't switch at least some of the fleet to electric years ago when it had a chance. Total stupidity. Even to this day my local MAGA town balks at solar panels and just laughs at people who install them. Reality will smack them in the face sooner or later. Right now they are blaming the democratic governor because they only provided a tiny bill credit to citizens to help reduce rates but totally ignoring how the Republican promised nothing.
trains. semi-trucks. international cargo ships. airplanes.
semi-trucks might be viable electrically, none of the other options currently are.
My point was that switching the avenues that can be electrified to electric solutions improves supply to the remaining modes that require fuel.
we’re talking 1-2% of demand. it would help, but not a lot.
You mean electric trains are not viable in the US? In Europe most tracks are electric already.
generally no. the US has wide swathes of relatively undeveloped land, unlike Europe. Diesel electric is the norm for long haul.
it wouldn’t be impossible to electrify, but outside of a few specific intra-city corridors, no one has spent the capital to try.
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It's $(a lot) because only a tiny fraction of the population can live without goods delivered and produced by diesel fuel.
You are assuming the supply of diesel goes to 0. Instead there is a reduction, not elimination and as a result, demand destruction will happen in the US just as its been happening for months outside the US. (This is partially what allowed us to avoid a crisis in March)
Trucks will stop delivering trash (ex. China dollar store crap, lower margin non food items and a billion other nonessential items). Food prices go up, people will do without less desserts or fancy foods but enough deliveries continue with the fuel saved that no one starves.
Now imagine if we replaced only 10% of diesel trucks with electric. Hell just focus on the short haul trucks. That unburned diesel could have helped buffer the remaining fleet.
Diesel fuel at US$8.49 a gallon today. (Redwood City, California.)
That's around €1.96 per litre. Still cheaper than Europe
Wow, that climbed quite fast. But I guess it could keep on climbing if there's very little supply...
That’s cos of California. It used to hit 7 couple of years back as well.
Still cheaper than London, at £1.89/L
E10 petrol is £1.64/L, for ref.
In case anybody wondered that is $9.65 per US gallon.
The city with no redwoods?
wow how long for it to hit $10+
California Gas Station With $9.99 Diesel Exemplifies Fuel Crisis - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-12/californi... | https://archive.today/pLz0v - September 12th, 2026
US Sees Diesel Stocks Falling to 2003 Low Ahead of Peak Demand - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-09/us-sees-d... | https://archive.today/Dmnid - September 9th, 2026
Yup. And my only car is a Ram 2500 crew cab with 6.7L Cummins diesel.
I live in the east bay and my trips to the ocean and Tahoe have dropped to zero.
Buy a guzzler get guzzled I guess?
Note that this in no way means the end of oil in the ground or being extracted. "Peak" never meant The Erlich-Simons "we've run out"
Civilisations will end before all oils underground is completely extracted, obviously. Because the harder to extract will remain were it stands, and civilisations will turn attention to other forms of energy.
It's all fracked up
Melvin from Office Space: I was told that gas prices would fall below $2/gallon.
His name was Milton.
You're right. My bad. Shit.
paywalled in this economy, rek. someone hit me with the synopsis
I can't read the article either, but my understanding of the various factors is this:
* Houthis have taken control of all of the Yemeni coastline along the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (and an island in the middle of it), which gives them the ability to effectively interdict trade through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, just as Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
* Not that it matters that much, because the Saudi pipeline that lets it export crude via Yanbu, in the Red Sea, has been disabled, and current estimates suggest that the recovery time is in weeks-to-months. That's about 4-5mbpd of crude oil that's down for the near feature, or about 4% of global crude oil production.
* Now that the summer driving season is over, US refineries are starting to switch from summer blends to winter blends, and this is one of the periods that refineries go down for maintenance. So US refinery capacity is down.
* The supply shock has been mitigated for the past several months by drawing down reserves (note that reserves were relatively high when the war started). This includes both national strategic petroleum reserves, but also corporate reserves (e.g., tanks on-site at refineries). It seems some of these reserves are starting to hit effective 0.
* On top of this, Trump is making it more and more clear that he has no intention of actually doing anything to end to the crisis. For example, he's effectively said that he's not going to do anything before the midterm elections, two months away. Which means the market optimism that the war is going to be over, like, tomorrow is fading.
maybe this?
https://wixx.com/2026/09/11/chevron-ceo-says-depleted-crude-...
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What is not wet. Water makes things wet.
Now I'm fascinated by this...
A single molecule of water isn't wet. But wouldn't it be correct to say that a collection of them are? They're "wetting" each other...