What's the real story with US oil/gasoline supply security

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LTLFTcomposite

Well-known member
Joined
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Location
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With Iran ratcheting up tensions in the Strait of Hormuz it seems like a good time to reexamine this question. One of the hater arguments against EVs has always been "I can fill up in two minutes and go another 300 miles". Most people now are too young to remember the 1974 oil embargo when filling up wasn't two minutes, it was more like sitting in line for three hours with an 8 gallon limit.

I've always thought a good old fashioned supply panic on gasoline would change the calculus on EVs in buyers' minds. My understanding is with fracking we are close to being a net zero importer of crude, but it seems like a disruption in world supply would at least trigger some regional shortages. Plus considering fungibility if someone else's supply gets disrupted, market forces will raise prices in the unaffected areas as supply shifts from unaffected areas to affected areas.
 
You know what's funny/suspicious - the day before the tankers were mined, I read a report that gasoline was going to go down to a $2 per gallon average. Guess what's NOT going to happen now?

Edit: Here you go, the original report from was from 6/12 and then I guess they updated it on 6/14, after the tanker incident.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/12/economy/gas-prices/index.html

And why blow holes in tankers above the water line? Are Iranians so worried about the environment all of a sudden?

Now off to buy tinfoil - I need a new hat. :mrgreen:
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Most people now are too young to remember the 1974 oil embargo when filling up wasn't two minutes, it was more like sitting in line for three hours with an 8 gallon limit.

I don't remember it being that early in the UK. One of my college jobs during 1976-1977 was pumping gas, so my tank (and those of my chums) was always full. It was the only damn thing that made the job worthwhile. Hated it otherwise, and the absolute worst part was telling regular customers that we were out.
 
WetEV said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
With Iran ratcheting up tensions in the Strait of Hormuz

Who ended the nuclear agreement with Iran? And want to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia?
(Not Iran)
Are you referring to the agreement to enable proliferation instead of deter it and fund Hezbollah?

Not that it matters. The topic was not US foreign policy but rather the security of the US petroleum supply in the face of adverse geopolitical events and the possibility a supply disruption or price spike could cause a marked increase in demand for EVs. Did you have anything to contribute to that other than orange man bad?
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Are you referring to the agreement to enable proliferation instead of deter it and fund Hezbollah?

“Do you think the right question will get you the truth?” Anatoly Dyatlov (played by Paul Ritter), the engineer who oversaw the safety test that led to the disaster and later became the regime’s designated fall guy, says to a scientist trying to find out what happened the night of the accident. “There is no truth. Ask the bosses whatever you want and you will get the lie. And I will get the bullet.”

In fact, Dyatlov got 10 years (and served three). But the line captures the essence of a system in which every official lie is a noble one and truth is whatever happens to serve the party at a particular moment in time. And it works — until it doesn’t.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/opinion/chernobyl-hbo-lies-trump.html

Selling nuclear technology to the Saudis isn't proliferation?

https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/04/if-you-cannot-trust-saudis-with-bone-saw-says-us-lawmaker-you-should-not-trust-them-with-nuclear-weapons-jessica-corbett-04-01-2019/


LTLFTcomposite said:
Not that it matters. The topic was not US foreign policy but rather the security of the US petroleum supply in the face of adverse geopolitical events and the possibility a supply disruption or price spike could cause a marked increase in demand for EVs. Did you have anything to contribute to that other than orange man bad?

When you start out pounding the war drums on behalf of Trump and Fox News, don't expect much slack.

If you don't want a US foreign policy topic, don't start with US foreign policy.
 
Interesting you would have interpreted the original question as "pounding the war drums on behalf of Trump and Fox News". It's indicative of acute TDS.

Since you're insisting on changing the subject I hope they have you on suicide watch in 2020, cuz Sleepy Joe and Bernie Marx aren't getting it done.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
Interesting you would have interpreted the original question as "pounding the war drums on behalf of Trump and Fox News". It's indicative of acute TDS.

Since you're insisting on changing the subject I hope they have you on suicide watch in 2020, cuz Sleepy Joe and Bernie Marx aren't getting it done.

If you plant ice you're gonna harvest wind.
 
mwalsh said:
LTLFTcomposite said:
Most people now are too young to remember the 1974 oil embargo when filling up wasn't two minutes, it was more like sitting in line for three hours with an 8 gallon limit.

I don't remember it being that early in the UK. One of my college jobs during 1976-1977 was pumping gas, so my tank (and those of my chums) was always full. It was the only damn thing that made the job worthwhile. Hated it otherwise, and the absolute worst part was telling regular customers that we were out.
There were apparently two oil crises: in 1973 and 1979 per https://www.britannica.com/topic/oil-crisis.

I wasn't born yet for the 1st but but have vague memories of the 2nd one: rationing, odd/even plates and flags. My dad mentioned to me how he had to let technicians go line up for gas early in the morning.

I recently watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7SnaMphvug from 1979.

From chatter on TivoCommunity (IIRC), some regions had the bad lines and others didn't.

I started https://priuschat.com/threads/remembering-the-1973-oil-crisis.90757/ and pointed to https://blog.sfgate.com/parenting/2011/03/02/remembering-the-1973-oil-crisis-bay-area-photos/. I quoted some stories from TCF at https://priuschat.com/threads/remembering-the-1973-oil-crisis.90757/#post-1276469.
 
I wasn't born yet for the 1st but but have vague memories of the 2nd one

Yikes!! I thought you were a Geezer like me. I was about 13 years old for the first one. I remember hanging out with an older friend with a small van, and spending a lot of time in line for gas with it, playing Beetles 8 tracks. That was when we weren't being chased by dinosaurs, of course...

The Senate just killed Trump's multi-billion deal with Saudi Arabia.
 
I definitely remember folks in Florida freaking out in 1974. There were lines, odd/even days, etc. It was pointed out just having everyone start topping off their tanks was enough to create a shortage, not to mention the additional traffic at gas stations as they tried to keep them topped off.

There was some talk of electric cars back then, and a few "science experiments" trotted out, of course with lead batteries. There wouldn't have been any meaningful supply to throw at panic-induced demand, and unlike today's EVs were nowhere near comparable to the gas cars of the day.

More fuel efficient cars were another matter though. Quite a few folks took an interest in them and as I recall that was about the time Honda and Toyota got a foothold in the market. People were talking about MPG maybe for the first time. I guess they figured if you were only going to be able to get 8 gallons getting 30mpg was a huge advantage over getting 7mpg.
 
^^^
On that, note, I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar would've been one of those science experiments. I hadn't heard of the Comutacar until someone else posted about it here on MNL. I'd previously seen pic of it elsewhere (like as someone's avatar on another forum, possibly Priuschat) but had no idea what it was.

We had the GM EV1 here in Cali and I recall the TV ads and even a display of it I think at Disneyland. Unfortunately, timing was wrong for me back then and I had absolutely no money back then.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The Senate just killed Trump's multi-billion deal with Saudi Arabia.

The resolution passed, 53-45, which is not a veto-proof majority. The legislation would require 67 votes in the Senate to override the veto.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-votes-to-block-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-despite-trump-veto-threat/
 
My father lived through both gas crisis and said it didn’t affect him

He wondered why the idiots would go wait in line for gas every time they were down a couple gallons, he just went when he needed fuel and usually called ahead, his 250cc motorcycle only held 3 gallons anyway
 
I remember both gas crises.. In 1973, cars were BIG and got 10 (or less) miles per gallon And there was a limit of 8 gallons, The real problem was not the waiting in line (which some times were for miles). The problem was to be at the FRONT of the line because at any time the gas station would run out, and the miles of cars (waiting for hours) waited for nothing. Most common was passing gas stations with signs of "NO GAS".

This can, and will happen in the future, because more and more people in the world are able to afford cars, and there is only a finite amount of easily available gas in the earth... That is why the EVs are the true answer to these political problems on the straits of Hormuz.. Hormuz has always been a hot bed of problems, and will ALWAYS be a problem.

So the best thing is for Trump to not get in a war over this, and let Japan and China step up to the plate to protect THEIR gas supply..
 
powersurge said:
So the best thing is for Trump to not get in a war over this, and let Japan and China step up to the plate to protect THEIR gas supply..

Trump is preventing Japan and China from buying oil from Iran.

So what should Japan and China do?
 
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