[HN Gopher] Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel ...
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Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing
Author : measurablefunc
Score : 92 points
Date : 2026-03-27 20:51 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| mlinhares wrote:
| Hope that gets Europe to invest in renewables and leave oil
| behind.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| I agree. Ironically ones complaining the loudest about fuel
| prices are be far-right populists, who tend to be against
| renewables.
| callamdelaney wrote:
| Yeah as if Europe doesn't have Oil it isn't exploiting because
| of renewable legislation..
| argsnd wrote:
| Europe simply does not have enough known oil reserves to put
| a dent in current prices even if it exploited them all.
|
| There may still be good arguments to do so anyway, such as it
| being less carbon intensive than importing oil, but there is
| absolutely no magic lever we can pull that would fix this
| problem that we're just not pulling due to renewables
| legislation.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Sure just send the continental german army straight for the
| oil fields, worked out great last time.
| callamdelaney wrote:
| Britain could start extracting oil from its European fields
| instead of just buying the same oil and gas from Denmark.
| Sanctions could be lifted on Russian oil. Duties could be
| dropped. There are levers.
| varispeed wrote:
| How do you put renewables into the petrol tank?
| kypro wrote:
| Hasn't Germany and the UK been investing in renewables for
| years now? They must be feeling pretty happy about that
| decision right now unlike oil obsessed countries like the US.
| rwmj wrote:
| For electricity generation, the UK is currently generating
| 50% via renewables. It goes up and down each day of course,
| storage is _not_ a solved problem yet.
|
| Nice visualisations of the current status:
| https://grid.iamkate.com/
|
| Electricity is only a part of the whole energy sector, but
| it's relevant to this thread about EVs.
| zejn wrote:
| Yes, but it is not enough. It helps a lot when sunny, and
| weekend mid-day gross market prices for electricity hover
| just above zero, but there's not enough batteries,
| flexibility, and other renewables to avoid price spikes in
| the morning and evening peak, when hydro and gas plants are
| still covering a lot.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Partly, though both have had periods of right wing
| governments trying to make this problem worse to benefit
| their oil and gas industry backers.
|
| And now the same people are saying that the answer is more
| oil and gas.
| drnick1 wrote:
| Electric cars aren't cheap, and electricity prices are very
| high in Europe.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| BYD EVs are affordable. Electricity will get cheaper with
| more renewables, oil will not.
| haunter wrote:
| Define affordable. A EUR40k Seal is anything but
| affordable. Eastern Europe (and I don't put Slovenia in
| this case here, they are much closer to Western Europe in
| every sense) will not mass change to EVs suddenly when
| everyone is shopping for 10 years old diesels from Western
| Europe for maximum EUR10k
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Cheaper than the total cost of ownership of a combustion
| vehicle at $150-$200/barrel for prolonged periods of
| time.
|
| _Are We Approaching an Unprecedented Energy Crisis?_ -
| https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-energy/iran-
| war-... - March 26th, 2026
|
| _France confirms oil crisis, says 30-40 percent of Gulf
| energy infrastructure destroyed_ -
| https://www.france24.com/en/france-confirms-oil-crisis-
| says-... - March 25th, 2026
|
| _Even the best-case scenario for energy markets is
| disastrous_ - https://www.economist.com/finance-and-
| economics/2026/03/22/e... | https://archive.today/5OhRI -
| March 22nd, 2026
| 7952 wrote:
| New cars have questionable affordability for most people.
| Particularly when you factor in dubious design choices
| and expensive marketing. Cars and driving are expensive.
| If that was a barrier there wouldn't be many people on
| the road.
|
| Also, the Electric polo is supposed to be released at
| around 25k Euros. Given the lower running costs that
| seems like a good deal relative to legacy designs. For
| all those people will to spend 40k on a car you could put
| the money into solar panels instead.
| Lio wrote:
| If you think the Seal isn't affordable then don't buy
| one.
|
| You can buy a brand new Dacia Spring for only PS12,240.
| Personally I don't think it's a great car but it's
| certainly doesn't cost 40K.
|
| If it were my money I'd spend a bit more on either a used
| Jag ePace or a Renault 5 but some people prefer new cars
| I guess.
| zejn wrote:
| Not true. No new car is cheap, and electricity is now cheaper
| than gas or diesel.
| b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote:
| Europe has no (meaningful amounts of economically viable to
| extract) lithium either.
| philipkglass wrote:
| "Lithium mining commences in Finland"
|
| https://www.electrive.com/2026/02/12/lithium-mining-
| commence...
|
| _This week, the first spodumene vein was blasted from the
| rock at the open-pit mine in western Finland, marking the
| occasion with a ceremonial event attended by invited guests
| and media._
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Europe has massive lithium reserves in Germany, Serbia,
| Portugal and ukraine but perhaps more importantly it also has
| friendly relations with other countries with reserves
| b65e8bee43c2ed0 wrote:
| if those reserves were _economically viable_ to extract,
| they would be already being extracted.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Eh, the war in Ukraine has kind of proven that the Europeans
| are not all that capable of action. There has been an enormous
| incentive to have been getting rid of oil dependency for 4
| years now.
| zejn wrote:
| The problem with getting rid of oil is that cars currently in
| use will be usable even when over 20 years old, replacing
| them with EVs is expensive, and the good enough and
| economically accessible EVs are only now starting to get to
| market.
|
| It's really hard to quickly replace millions of vehicles.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Raising the price of fuel will do wonders for solving that.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > the war in Ukraine has kind of proven that the Europeans
| are not all that capable of action.
|
| It's revealed a fair bit about America too. And this oil
| crisis is a fairly incredible screw up too. What did the US
| think would happen?
| strken wrote:
| The US is a net exporter of crude oil and is positioned to
| meet an oil crisis better than nearly anyone else. What do
| _you_ think the US government expected from this?
| leonidasrup wrote:
| Germany has switched from one gas supplier to different gas
| suppliers.
|
| The past Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck famously once sad:
| "Nuclear power doesn't help us there at all," "We have a
| heating problem or an industry problem, but not an
| electricity problem - at least not generally throughout the
| country."
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/12/german-says-
| nuclear...
| leonidasrup wrote:
| Europe would be better served by doing, what France did in
| 1974.
|
| "As a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis, on 6 March 1974
| Prime Minister Pierre Messmer announced what became known as
| the 'Messmer Plan', a hugely ambitious nuclear power program
| aimed at generating most of France's electricity from nuclear
| power. At the time of the oil crisis most of France's
| electricity came from foreign oil. "
|
| "Work on the first three plants, at Tricastin, Gravelines, and
| Dampierre, started the same year and France installed 56
| reactors over the next 15 years."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Messme...
| mono442 wrote:
| The way the EU forces the electricity market to operate makes
| them completely unprofitable. Renewables are always given
| priority in the market, which results in other power plants
| operating at a capacity factor of 30-40%. Since nuclear power
| plants are mostly capital expenditure-intensive, this makes
| the electricity they produce absurdly expensive.
| leonidasrup wrote:
| Because the way how the EU electricity market operates
| first to supply electric power are the power plants with
| the lowest operating costs. This are usually renewables and
| nuclear power plants. Both are capital expensive and cheap
| in operating costs.
|
| Usually the capacity factor of European nuclear reactors is
| higher than 60%.
|
| olkiluoto-3 nuclear reactor, had capacity factor 70% in the
| year 2024: https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-reactor-
| database/details/o...
|
| Mochovce-3 had capacity factor 74% in the year 2024:
| https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-reactor-
| database/details/M...
|
| In the U.S. they really try to get maximum from nuclear
| reactors. https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-reactor-
| database/details/W...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Sounds like a good plan unless we've invented 2 much cheaper
| and faster to deploy methods to generate electricity.
| leonidasrup wrote:
| You probably mean 3 much cheaper and faster to deploy
| methods to generate electricity. In Germany, Poland,
| Balkans it's solar, wind, coal.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| The local farmers came with 1000l+ tanks for diesel, foreigners
| with multiple gas cans, etc., and the local logistics couldn't
| handle the pressure.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Could also be that they didn't have sufficient reserve and
| would rather blame hijackers?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| They're blaming the lack of cisterns to transport gas from
| storage to individual gas stations, because everyone went to
| get gas, and some hoarded a lot of it
|
| example: https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/bralec-v-soku-
| mirne-vesti-...
|
| I mean... we also have a huge factory making toilet paper
| here, and we had the same toilet paper crisis during covid...
| everyone suddenly needed 10 packs of toilet paper for some
| reason.
| trinix912 wrote:
| Yes. When people saw that some stations were out of it
| everyone and their mom brought out their old beaters and
| canisters and refilled those too, just in case.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Rest assured the toilet papers fiasco didn't only affect
| this corner of the world.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Foreigners were coming to Slovenia just to buy gas? In such
| quantities that it strained infrastructure?
|
| That definitely sounds like something that happened.
|
| As if "multiple gas cans" wouldn't still be well under the 50
| liter/day limit.
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| No numbers provided, but from TFA:
|
| >In Slovenia, this has resulted in so-called "fuel tourism",
| as drivers from neighbouring countries, particularly Austria,
| take advantage of the lower, regulated prices here.
| margalabargala wrote:
| "Drivers" doing this isn't solved by a 50 liter limit.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Well, Slovenia is a small country and has land borders with
| many others. Imagine that gas in New Jersey was $1 per gallon
| cheaper than in New York and Pennsylvania. I guess a lot of
| people would drive to NJ gas stations.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Yep
|
| And i'm saying that as a guy who drives to italy to buy
| pasta, booze and parmesan cheese. Two bottles of jack
| daniels and the cost of gas is covered by the price
| difference (well... not anymore).
| lostlogin wrote:
| A European buying American booze? I thought that had
| stopped?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Yes, mostly italians and austrians
|
| https://svet24.si/novice/slovenija/gorivo-dizel-bencinski-
| se...
|
| https://sobotainfo.com/novica/lokalno/foto-video-
| neverjetna-...
|
| https://sobotainfo.com/novica/globalno/video-avstrijci-k-
| nam...
|
| https://www.prlekija-on.net/lokalno/40253/ponekod-
| zmanjkalo-...
|
| And it's not the first time:
|
| https://vecer.com/slovenija/izredne-razmere-zaradi-navala-
| na...
| iammjm wrote:
| Slovenia is a small country with 2 million people, bordering
| countries with a total of over 82 million people. The
| neighbors are also relatively rich countries, such as Austria
| and Italy
| margalabargala wrote:
| Those are just statistics and don't have anything to do
| with gas.
|
| Canada is a country of 35 million bordering a rich country
| of 350 million.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Driving over a border in Europe happens without you
| necessarily noticing.
|
| That isn't true of US borders.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Yes and if (1) gas in Canada were cheaper than in the US,
| and (2) the border between the countries was completely
| open, then you'd indeed see people going to Canada to buy
| gas.
| margalabargala wrote:
| I'm sure there's plenty of border crossings for cheaper
| goods.
|
| I'm skeptical this happens in such numbers as to strain
| national infrastructure.
|
| Tellingly, the ration put in place applies to Slovenian
| citizens, not just foreigners. Which should tell you
| something about "who is being blamed" vs "what solves the
| problem".
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Did they not have rationing based on odd/even number plates in
| 1980s?
| amarcheschi wrote:
| Also
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/slovakia-die...
| bhokbah wrote:
| 50 liters per day...
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Those limits also do exists somehow in other countries. In
| France for example it's been a very long time some petrol
| station say _" 150 EUR maximum"_. People are going to say it's
| not a "real" limit but I did hit it once or twice while going
| on vacation: 80 liters tank, near empty / car only taking 98
| octane fuel (more expensive than 95) / ultra-pricey fuel at
| petrol stations on the highway (so pricey it's usually cheaper
| to just get off the highway, fill the tank in a village, and go
| back to the highway).
|
| At 2.2 EUR / liter, 75 liters is 165 EUR so I was blocked at
| 150 EUR.
|
| 50 liters I definitely cannot fill my car entirely.
| kpil wrote:
| The 150EUR is a reservation on your debit card before filling
| up, since the banks or the station doesn't want the credit
| risk. It's released when the actual sum is booked.
|
| I think it's just what a reasonable "full tank" was a while
| back.
|
| You can just restart if you need more.
| reader9274 wrote:
| Ah yes, shared fuel resources controlled by the government.
| Sociafluel
| gpm wrote:
| So... why is fuel 25% cheaper in Slovenia than in the
| neighbouring country while Solvenia is simultaneously having
| issues with running out of fuel?
|
| Seems like the obvious solution is to raise prices so people stop
| driving to your country (wasting fuel, ironically) to take your
| cheap fuel instead of just paying for the fuel in their own
| country. More than that it's a solution the free market would
| actually find on its own...
| trinix912 wrote:
| We can barely afford it at the current price. The solution
| would be charging foreign transit the non-regulated price but
| that would be considered discriminatory.
| SirHumphrey wrote:
| There was an election recently and it's possible there will
| soon be another... That's why the fuel is so cheap.
| zejn wrote:
| It's not a free market. Off-highway prices are regulated and
| were adjusted by the executive govt branch on biweekly basis,
| now switched to weekly. Slovenia is small and "gas tourism" is
| common since fossil juices in neighboring countries are priced
| higher.
|
| Why not raise the prices? Sure, but then don't complain about
| the inflation, revolt, and stoning of elected representatives.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| This BBC article does a really poor job of explaining the
| context of this situation or why fuel would be so much cheaper
| in Slovenia, so I had to look around. Slovenia apparently
| introduced fuel price regulations last year (for motorway
| service stations; off-motorway stations have been regulated for
| longer), as a means of reducing costs for consumers[0]. These
| price caps were, in fact, removed a week ago[1], and prices at
| some stations rose considerably in the aftermath, closer to the
| Austrian prices across the border.[2] I won't speak to the
| wisdom of the Slovenian government in trying to cap fuel
| prices, but however well-intentioned the policy was, it didn't
| last long in the face of a global energy crunch. [0]
| https://sloveniatimes.com/43824/fuel-price-regulation-expand...
| [1] https://www.brusselstimes.com/2037901/slovenia-imposes-
| fuel-... [2] https://sloveniatimes.com/47009/prices-at-the-
| pump-up-substa...
| trinix912 wrote:
| One thing you have to keep in mind is that in Slovenia, your
| employer is required to cover your commuting expenses. If
| there's no viable public transit option (which is the case
| for most of Slovenia outside of bigger cities), they have to
| pay you for gas per km.
|
| So if the regulations were to suddenly be lifted, this would
| have a domino effect on not only truckers but also regular
| commuters, which would then mean companies would have to
| compensate for the increased labour costs by raising the
| prices of their products/services even more.
| tomp wrote:
| I'm not sure about that. AFAIK it's just _per km_ and not
| impacted by gas price.
|
| https://www.racunovodja.com/clanki.asp?clanek=232/kilometri
| n...
| trinix912 wrote:
| Which is adjusted to compensate for inflation of fuel
| prices every few years, so they would eventually have to
| raise that to cover the increased prices.
| tomp wrote:
| In Slovenia, fuel prices have been regulated since, like,
| forever.
|
| A few years ago (or last year? not sure) they were
| _deregulated_ on the highways (i.e. to make tourists pay
| more) but then the government changed their mind (several
| times, IIRC).
| zejn wrote:
| They were deregulated on highway for a very long time.
| Deregulation came to off-highway in 2020 as the loss of
| demand due to covid made the prices drop. Rusian invasion
| of Ukraine and subsequent price hikes made the govt
| regulate the prices again.
|
| Somewhere in between, a feud started between the largest
| provider Petrol and govt, and govt started regulating the
| highway prices too for no good reason.
| msteffen wrote:
| Price increases tend to be regressive--the poor person who
| needs a little fuel to get to their job is hurt more than the
| large business that uses a lot more fuel but has much, much
| more money overall.
|
| There are things you can do to try and even things out.
| Etherium has been considering "quadratic voting" to solve a
| similar problem (in this case, that would look like tracking
| consumption and increasing the unit price of fuel as you
| consume more fuel, so that cost goes up quadratically with
| consumption). That seems hard to enforce, though, and doesn't
| help with foreign opportunists.
| gpm wrote:
| I'm totally ignorant as to Slovenia, but as a general comment
| on taxation regressive price increases/externality taxes/sin
| taxes are easily made up for by simply giving everyone a
| fixed sum of money (that can either be gathered specifically
| through the regressive tax or just through the normal non-
| regressive tax pool).
|
| Ethereum has the weird issue where "votes" and "money" are
| different things and they only want to redistribute votes and
| not money, but that's not a problem here...
| seydor wrote:
| its usually differences in taxation, they vary a lot across
| europe
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Fuel prices are regulated here, and we had an election right
| now and a huge gas price hike would be bad for the current
| government (not decided yet if they stay or go). The government
| basically lowered the gas tax for a bit to keep prices stable
| (they also raised the gas taxes during covid to keep the prices
| "stable").
|
| The prices will go up soon, that's why everyone is panicking
| and filling up canisters of gas.
| SirensOfTitan wrote:
| Scanning some of the early comments here, and acting as-if the
| oil and LNG disruptions is just a question of renewable
| investment is naive.
|
| This is the worst energy crisis in modern history, and little of
| the western world has really started feeling the effects yet:
|
| https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-energy/iran-war-...
|
| Petro is pretty much upstream of everything: plastics,
| fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cooking oils, lubricants,
| cosmetics. Dow chemical just doubled the cost of polyethylene as
| of April 1st. Taiwan relies on LNG for 40% of its energy
| production and has 11 days of LNG storage--meaning it may have to
| consider limiting industrial electricity use if things persist. I
| will clarify based on a reply, this doesn't mean they'll run out
| in that time, but that they have limited runway that will have
| deleterious effects as time goes on:
|
| > Yeh Tsung-kuang, a professor in the Department of Engineering
| and System Science at National Tsing Hua University, said
| Taiwan's maximum LNG inventory is only 11 days but that does not
| mean the island will run out of fuel or face outages within that
| time period.
|
| Even if the Strait saw normal traffic today (and Iran is
| incentivized and well-positioned to keep it closed for a while),
| it would take quite a while to recover lost supply. Iran
| continues to employ a tit-for-tat strategy and Israel just
| targeted steel industry in the country -- I'm not even taking
| into account more deliberate damage to energy infrastructure in
| the Mid east.
|
| This is a scary crisis wherein the most movable actor (the US) is
| not going to accept Iran's terms. It could collapse the global
| economy, and that crucially includes the AI industry this forum
| loves to focus on almost exclusively. The US and the majority of
| the west has essentially no fiscal room compared to the
| comparably lesser 1970s crises either. This could easily spiral
| out of control and cause a level of suffering across the world
| (esp the global south) most of us on this forum have not lived to
| see.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > Petro is pretty much upstream of everything: plastics,
| fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cooking oils, lubricants,
| cosmetics. Dow chemical just doubled the cost of polyethylene
| as of April 1st. Taiwan relies on LNG for 40% of its energy
| production and has like 10 days of fuel left--semis are
| implicated.
|
| This is, on the high end, 20% of the use of fossil fuels. We
| overwhelmingly burn oil and gas. If we displaced the burning,
| Hormuz would not matter (or would minimally matter for a few
| molecules) and the world would be awash in abundant supplies.
|
| Renewable investment would solve/would have prevented this
| crisis.
| mono442 wrote:
| You can't provide heating in winter using renewables.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| ...you can? Electric heaters exist?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Always worth mentioning we should be using heat pumps,
| not straight resistive heating.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| For sure. Heat pumps aren't the best option everywhere
| (though modern heat pumps probably function acceptably at
| lower temperatures than most people realize), but if you
| need to do electric heating, they are the best option
| most places.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| For "human" temperatures don't they just degrade back to
| the efficiency of resistive heating? Or are some places
| actually cold enough to push the factor below 1?
| gpm wrote:
| You can, and should, over the entirety of europe apart from
| the northern parts of the nordic countries electric heat
| pumps are now simply more efficient than gas powered
| furnaces. This is true even if powered by gas based
| electricity - but obviously makes it possible to power them
| via renewables as well.
|
| People in Quebec (Canada), which is colder than just about
| all of Europe, have been providing heating in winter using
| renewables for decades (thanks to an excess of renewables).
| mono442 wrote:
| most of the countries don't have enough hydro to make it
| feasible
| gpm wrote:
| Yeah, but now wind and solar have made it feasible just
| about everywhere.
| lostlogin wrote:
| And geothermal, biogas and tidal.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Wot?
|
| Solar makes a fair bit where I am. Hydro works fine.
| Geothermal works fine. Wind works fine. Aircon is very
| efficient.
|
| This is harder in plenty of regions but a blanket 'can't be
| done' is way off the mark.
| irishcoffee wrote:
| You're choosing willful ignorance if you think petrochemicals
| will be replaced by renewables in your lifetime.
|
| It isn't going to happen. Planes don't run on solar. Boats
| don't run on renewables. The lubricant needed for wind
| turbines comes out of the earth. Dams need the same
| lubricant. Building roads, oil. Installing renewable
| infrastructure, oil. Running combines to harvest vegetation,
| oil. Building renewables requires massive amounts of oil.
|
| Renewables are amazing and I'm all for them. Let's keep that
| train rolling.
|
| Oil isn't going away, pretending otherwise is willful
| ignorance.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Did you read the comment you replied to?
|
| > This is, on the high end, 20% of the use of fossil fuels.
| We overwhelmingly burn oil and gas. If we displaced the
| burning, Hormuz would not matter (or would minimally matter
| for a few molecules) and the world would be awash in
| abundant supplies.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| You missed the point of my comment.
|
| > It isn't going to happen. Planes don't run on solar.
| Boats don't run on renewables. The lubricant needed for
| wind turbines comes out of the earth. Dams need the same
| lubricant. Building roads, oil. Installing renewable
| infrastructure, oil. Running combines to harvest
| vegetation, oil. Building renewables requires massive
| amounts of oil.
|
| All of this? About 30% of oil usage on the high end. You
| are listing the small uses for oil.
|
| May some oil always be needed? Yes. But nowhere near as
| much as we produce today.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Ships are starting to become electrified. Currently for
| fixed routes.
| OgsyedIE wrote:
| Strictly speaking, the oil in the Earth's crust is both
| finite and more than 50% already extracted.
|
| However, a closed cycle of renewable-powered vehicles and
| processing sites growing crops for biorefineries which are
| then hydrocracked into the various petrochemical additives
| to maintain the infrastructure with surplus left over for
| the rest of society has been proven to be viable going back
| to the early 2010s.
|
| Leong et al has a great survey of how the entire market of
| irreplaceable petrochemical uses (e.g. medical grade
| plastic) and their upstream steps (e.g. metal smelting for
| making agricultural vehicles) can theoretically be made to
| work from wind alone, with total immunity to peak oil when
| it does eventually happen. Although the carbon molecules
| are essential, having a no-oil well industrial civilization
| is just a matter of long and arduous implementation and
| negotiation with vested interests.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Oil isn't magic, you can just make it, and the reason we
| don't is merely that it's _expensive_ to do that, whereas
| it 's just there under the ground - as a fossil fuel.
|
| But because you can just make it from ingredients everybody
| already has, this puts a ceiling on its actual price _if_
| you have energy independence. If you need to burn oil, you
| can 't make oil because that's a vicious circle which would
| need even more oil. But so long as the only you want oil is
| for its other properties that's fine.
|
| Hydrocarbons are _incredibly_ simple, the clue is in their
| name, a bunch of Hydrogen (literally the most common
| element in the whole universe) and Carbon (also extremely
| common). The only reason _not_ to make any particular
| hydrocarbons you need (e.g. to make JetA for a airliner) is
| it 'd be very energy intensive and instead you can just
| distil some crude oil to get the hydrocarbons you want...
| OgsyedIE wrote:
| You could visit an alternate timeline where you have as much
| renewable investment into energy as you'd like going back
| decades and while it would help with the fertiliser situation
| massively it wouldn't solve the problem of needing a supply
| of carbon atoms to make the carbon-based substances in the
| list.
|
| You can't make insulin, brake fluid or PVC out of electricity
| alone.
| RealityVoid wrote:
| Yes, but all those things, combined, are 20% of the usage.
| I'd say if you remove about the 50 % used for cars, that's
| a pretty large improvement.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| You don't have to get carbon from oil extracted from
| underground and you don't have to get oil from the middle
| east. That's merely where the bulk of it happens to come
| from at present for price and historical reasons.
| WastedCucumber wrote:
| I think the point is that a world with renewable
| electricity wouldn't need as much oil, thereby making
| smaller sources of carbon sufficient.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Pakistan saves $6B/year with their recent surge in solar,
| for example.
|
| _Surprise Solar Uptake in Pakistan Cushions Mideast
| Energy Shock_ - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2
| 026-03-17/surprise-... | https://archive.today/QdgdQ -
| March 17th, 2026
|
| > Millions of factories, farmers, and households have
| switched to cheap solar panels from China, driving a 40%
| drop in Pakistan's fossil fuel imports between 2022 and
| 2024, the researchers found. Additionally, the country is
| estimated to have saved $12 billion through reduced LNG
| imports in the past five years as cumulative imports of
| Chinese photovoltaics soared past 50 gigawatts, the
| report said.
| baxtr wrote:
| Hormuz might not matter that much in the future since Saudi
| and the other countries will build even more pipelines and
| ports which are on the other side. Short-term is dire though.
| skybrian wrote:
| Before calling it "the worst", I'd like more detail on how to
| do the comparison with the oil crises of the 1970's. My guess
| is that modern economies might be somewhat less oil-dependent
| than they were then, because the alternatives are more
| developed.
| jddj wrote:
| How many days' fuel does Taiwan keep in reserve outside of this
| type of situation?
| thrownawaysz wrote:
| >This could easily spiral out of control and cause a level of
| suffering across the world (esp the global south) most of us on
| this forum have not lived to see.
|
| Daily anxiety attack thanks. As a european I think we are way
| too vulnerable. Countries divided, rich getting richer, more
| and more poor people who can barely afford food, and that's in
| Europe let alone talk about what happens with the poor in
| Africa and Asia.
|
| Sooner or later we will need a global reset but that sounds
| worse than everything else
| 01100011 wrote:
| On the plus side, Trump is helping Europe and Asia meet their
| climate goals.
|
| <ducks for cover>
|
| I hear diesel is running out in NSW and Queensland Australia.
| Good thing you don't need diesel to run mining operations. Oh
| wait..
| WastedCucumber wrote:
| I was just talking to a kiwi yesterday about diesel. The
| price has more than doubled already there. So there goes
| large chunk of the US beef supply.
| codethief wrote:
| > Taiwan relies on LNG for 40% of its energy production and has
| like 10 days of fuel left--semis are implicated.
|
| The "10 days left" thing seems to be a hoax(?)
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/international-relations/m...
|
| https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2026/03/26/is-taiwan-ru...
| SirensOfTitan wrote:
| Oh I'm sorry, that was actually my mistake, I should have
| been much more specific, and I will update the comment if I
| still can. My intention was to emphasize that Taiwan may have
| to start limiting electricity to its industrial sector based
| on its current runway. Per the article you listed:
|
| > Yeh Tsung-kuang, a professor in the Department of
| Engineering and System Science at National Tsing Hua
| University, said Taiwan's maximum LNG inventory is only 11
| days but that does not mean the island will run out of fuel
| or face outages within that time period
|
| EDIT: updated comment to be more specific.
| baxtr wrote:
| If the price of the blockade is as high as you outline, the
| price to secure the strait military might look comparatively
| lower.
|
| And, looking at the scenario you're describing, it could be the
| most sane thing to do at this point.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| It is asymmetrical warfare. A hundred plus ships went through
| the straight daily. Attackers only need to occasionally
| damage a ship to make the crossing look deeply unappealing.
| No military intervention can promise 100% defense to passing
| vessels.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Whatever Iran wants is the cheaper course to resolution.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| As the value of the oil goes up it becomes worth it to risk
| the ship. Even if you're paying to insure it there's an
| equilibrium point between odds and value.
| SirensOfTitan wrote:
| The problem is that Iran can defend the strait against the
| world's most advanced military with drones built with
| commercial hardware for 30-50K per drone. And that doesn't
| even take into account escalation, as if the US escalates
| then Iran will likely start targeting critical infrastructure
| in the region, making the crisis worse.
|
| The US and Israel are rapidly running out of munitions, while
| Iran is being resupplied by Russia (https://www.ft.com/conten
| t/d5d7291b-8a53-42cd-b10a-4e02fbcf9...) which is much more
| tooled out for munition production compared to NATO. The US
| also relies on both rare earths and Chinese supply chain for
| a lot of its munitions (which it is running low on).
|
| IMO the best option is for Trump to TACO, take the major L,
| and cede Iran its demands, but this would partially mean an
| alignment shift from Israel which still feels unthinkable
| based on the US political realities.
| vkou wrote:
| > the price to secure the straight military might look
| comparatively lower.
|
| The price to secure the straight militarily _is a full ground
| invasion of Iran_.
|
| This would be done against a country four times bigger (in
| population and size) than Iraq, with the kind of terrain that
| makes Afghanistan look easily accessible, _done without the
| help of a coalition of fools_ , because this isn't 2003, and
| nobody in Europe is very eager to send their kids to die for
| a war that Trump's ego started. His 2025 attempts to
| 'ingrate' himself with Europe are paying dividends now.
|
| Also, if you think the war is unpopular now (nobody but the
| 40% of the country that's MAGA-brained supports it - and
| those guys will support _anything_ ), imagine what the
| popularity would be like with a full mobilization and
| invasion.
|
| The GOP isn't _that_ eager to become a 31-seat party this
| November.
| perching_aix wrote:
| 50L/day - with no other limits - sounds like a lot. Are there
| really fuel tourists coming in en masse and taking more than
| this? With zero tracking of enforcement whatsoever, people will
| just hit up a few different nearby gas stations instead of one
| anyways and that's it.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Well if you have regulated fuel prices, _and_ free trade and
| travel with neighboring countries (the whole point of the EU),
| you 're gonna see arbitrage if those countries aren't regulating
| fuel prices.
|
| Options are to either un-regulate the prices, or ration the fuel
| sales.
| jmclnx wrote:
| I do not understand this rationing scheme.
|
| Say I live in Austria and it is a short ride to a Slovenia
| Station. Can buy as much gas as I want, but citizens in Slovenia
| are limited ? That does not seem right.
| trinix912 wrote:
| No, as of now, you can't pump more than 50L. Doesn't matter
| whether you're a citizen or not.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| Bulgaria.. today.. 95 gasoline , on nearest OMV station = ~~
| 1.42E/liter (more prices at [0] : 1.26-2.15E)
|
| https://fuelo.net/cheap/where?lang=bg&order=cheap&fuel_type=...
|
| come here, the water is fine :)
| dismalaf wrote:
| I bet everyone around the world is glad that Canada decided
| virtue signalling is more important than exporting LNG and oil.
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