I seem to recall a bunch of stories in ~2008 about how the "Strategic Reserve" wasn't enough to affect market prices etc. Has it got bigger? Has the market got smaller? was the media reporting bullshit for an agenda then, or are they now?
In the last ten years, everyone and their brother bought vanity pickup trucks and SUVs. Now, suddenly, everyone is shocked, shocked that oil prices have gone back up. Will anyone ever learn?
The best selling cars for quite some time have been decently fuel efficient in the US.
Even when gas prices are expensive - the US has never been selling a lot of cars like the Fiat 500.
But in practice that sort of situation only applies during road trips. Most people's actual highway driving is driving in traffic, which is a lot less efficient.
The highway cycle is actually not all high speed driving.
Is that statistical, or anecdotal? It's counter to my personal driving patterns. Even in moderate congestion my Hyundai gets mileage closer to its "highway" MPG than "city" (when using cruise/distance control).
When I had cars I used them mostly to get out on weekends or for longer trips on vocations. May be I’m an outlier but during the pandemic time work from home is common and this allows to avoid driving in traffic.
My Toyota Yaris gets over 50mpg on motorways, so about 50% better.
All those sedans would be way more fuel efficient if they were motorcycles too, but I don't think you'd agree that they're comparable.
Honestly any time I have a larger item either being hauled to my place or away from it, it's someone else's vehicle, e.g. delivery of a new appliance or pricing it to move quickly on craigslist so someone comes and takes it away.
It's true for everyone I know who has children and owns a house in the burbs. The cost of taking delivery from everything from TVs, lawn mowers, dirt, mulch, Costco trips, adds up and SUVs aren't really more expensive than sedans.
Like I get you, I live a very privileged urban apartment dweller life and can afford to just pay for people to move things for me the few times I need it but renting tools and labor is expensive for a family.
People who specialise in it? Like moving vans or toe trucks?
> but renting tools and labor is expensive for a family.
Compared to the extra cost of the vehicle and gas? I mean how often do you buy new furniture? People ask how I manage without a car: simple I bus or take a cab. "cabs are expensive" per trip sure... but per year? Nothing compared to the cost of car ownership. If big cars aren't false economy yet, then they will be once we start paying for our carbon. Most of us could get around 90% of the time in a coupe.
2020 Honda Accord: $28k total cost of ownership [1] 30/37 mpg 282 g/m emissions rating [3]
2020 Honda CR-V: $28k total cost of ownership [2] 28/34 mpg 294 g/m emissions rating [3]
[2] https://www.edmunds.com/honda/cr-v/2020/cost-to-own/?style=4...
[3] https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=42071&...
According to [3] the yearly fuel cost difference is $50. For reference on the emissions numbers a 2010 H3 Hummer is 555g/m.
We don't need all this crap, and we don't need SUVs to carry it around.
Wow, that's not good... A large Sedan from early 2000s driven well can easily beat that..
I regularly hear about small cars doing 70 mpg == 30km/L
My Toyota Yaris is not fuel efficient at 130 km/h on the highway, but it still manages 40mpg = 17 km/L
Of course, it's not SUV.. I basically decided against buy a big car until EVs are ready -- they are now, but that doesn't mean I should throw out my existing car :)
But maybe that's only downhill -- I'm certainly not reaching it :)
But other mini cars like: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo
Or so I hear...
First off, if you're not in the US, make sure that you are converting from a US gallon, and not imperial gallon.
35 MPG (US gallons) = 6.72 Liters per 100 km
Any case, my car does roughly 17 megameters / meter^3 -- that's proper SI units :)
US cars are a bit bigger than european or asian models, so they are probably a bit heavier. Still, I think fuel efficiency is pretty optimized in all modern cars regardless of where you live.
SUVs existing _prevent_ me from buying a small to midsized truck so to me the view is "look at the efficiency gained compared to the Ranger or Tacoma" instead of "look at how inefficient the Outback or Escape is compared to a Civic".
I compared SUVs to sedans and trucks because those are more available by volume by a long shot when purchasing, and most wagons actually fail to meet most of the utility criteria I listed, and those that do are designed far more like a low-clearance SUVs than as a "wagonized" version of a base sedan model.
Enjoy your day and whatever agenda it is that you're pushing. Goodbye.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/25864/station-wagon-sales-are-...
Okay, and now go to each of these manufacturer's US websites and check how many are available in the US.
Also, consider that Mercedes and BMW only offer luxury models at luxury prices in the US.
Sure, however the F-150 was by far the biggest selling vehicle at least up until 2019. Over 3 times as many sold as the second most popular vehicle.
In order to get a meaningful reduction in consumption, you need to be driving a sedan or coupe.
----
Many of the bigger vehicles have unnecessarily large engines. However, that's not necessarily true across the board.
With the Golf Sportwagen (EU name Golf Variant) off the market in North America now, it leaves Volvos and Subarus as the only option.
I predict that in the next decade, station wagons will get rediscovered as manufacturers try to maximize range and reduce battery volume as electrification marches on.
Edit: forgot about Subarus
Are they not the same class of car?
Outback "competes" with the crossovers which are usually shorter in length and have taller interior space.
I purchased a base Golf Sportwagen with 4Motion back in 2017 for around $29k which was surprisingly nicely equipped (DSG, tunable engine, decent soundsystem). A similarly equipped Suburu would have been mid-to-high $30s.
If I had freedom to "flex", I would have gone for the Volvo because of the safety street cred.
Certainly a lot of these lil crossovers with natural-aspirated 4-cylinder engines can really strain to heft a bigger vehicle up from a stop (I'm looking at you, Subaru!), but once one is driving hwy speeds they are really quite fuel-sipping.
One reason why SUVs are as popular as they are is that car manufacturers are allowed to produce less efficient cars if they are larger and with off-road capability. This allows bigger, less efficient cars compete with the more efficient ones because the sale price ends up being close enough to the more efficient counterparts for this to not matter.
This was true like in the 1990s. It hasn't been true in a very long time (almost 20 years now). The only limit at which these standards don't apply is truly heavy duty (5000 pounds) and not even a hummer is over that threshhold.
Edmunds has the 2004 H1 at 7,608 lbs. [0] and the 2009 H2 at 6,614 lbs. [1] 2004 and 2009 are the newest Edmunds has for those models. Looks like the new GMC Hummer EV is going to be over 9,000 lbs. [2] The lightest 2022 Chevrolet Tahoe that I could find on Edmunds was 5,473 lbs. [3]
[0] https://www.edmunds.com/hummer/h1/2004/features-specs/
[1] https://www.edmunds.com/hummer/h2/2009/features-specs/
[2] https://www.motortrend.com/news/2022-gmc-hummer-ev-pickup-ed...
[3] https://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/tahoe/2022/features-specs/
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/why-dont-heavy-duty-trucks-have...
Now, keep in mind, I'm talking about actual fuel usage. Not "ideal testing conditions". For example, my Chevy Equinox is supposed to get 32 highway - but it really only gets 26 (cruising at 70mph with no traffic).
"Unnecessarily large engine" sure sounds like something that would have negative consequences, but Cylinder Deactivation (CDA) is a thing. Just like your CPU, your engine doesn't need to spin up every "core" if it's not loaded to 100%. And fewer concurrent explosions per second, means less gas needed to drive all those explosions. A V8 that's only driving 4 of its 8 cylinders in most situations, is likely going to be even less gas-guzzling than a V6 that always has to drive all 6 cylinders. (Well, other than the fact that the V8 has to work slightly harder to move a car that's heavier from the additional engine weight.)
Of course, not all vehicles have CDA. But more and more do.
And, relevant to the discussion — as of the 2021 model, the F-150 has CDA. (https://pickuptrucktalk.com/2020/10/2021-ford-f150-5-0l-v8-e...)
We also had ten years worth of truck and SUV purchases prior to inauguration day early this year, and I recall everyone paying almost a dollar and a half less per gallon during that time period.
You don't want people to respond to economic incentives? That means there is no point to adding gas taxes to incentivize fuel efficiency - or do you believe that people only respond to increasing gas prices and not decreasing prices?
How, in your view, would such an asymmetric response function work?
Which would make sense to me because there have been a ton of situations where some pandemic event has caused some previously generally stable thing to shift (up or down) to some new level, then we have chaos as other things try to adapt and find a new equilibrium. Then when the pandemic stops forcing that thing to an unusual level, it springs back toward its normal level, and again other things take time to adapt and find an equilibrium.
So actually we seem to get two edge-triggered periods of chaos where something shifts from value V1 to V2 (that's one edge trigger) and then shifts back from V2 to V1-ish (the other edge trigger).
And if you look at crude oil prices over the last few years, they were lower during 2020 than in previous years. Now they are higher. So that fits the pattern I'm describing.
There will be no stable equilibrium for a long time ahead. Governments around the world continue to introduce lockdowns on a short notice when cases rise and we are nowhere near COVID-restrictions free international travel. Any change in restrictions would change oil demand too.
No wonder people feel the pain when they have to pay like $200 to fill up and be able to drive ~400miles. I don’t have sympathy except for the ones that legitimately use it for work. Otherwise it’s massively wasteful and all that’s different now is they can feel how wasteful their car is.
It almost feels inevitable to be honest. Am I wrong?
There are and will still be many localised conflicts, even some which might impact lots of people ( e.g. if the US does end up attacking Iran, it will be a bloodbath with consequences through Europe, Asia and Africa at the very least). Ukraine-Russia, and everyone around ( Belarus, Baltics, Poland) will probably turn out to be an even nastier affair. Israel's apartheid will probably also result in another war.
But a global war is highly unlikely, at least until climate change and other ongoing environmental disasters wipe out too much resources and people ( e.g. poor communities relying on fishing for sustenance being decimated by dropping fish populations and/or deforestation draining major rivers and lakes).
I would also counter that the response to alleged climate change could also spark conflicts which could lead to more encompassing war for example some greenie gets elected to power in Russia and decimates their ability to export energy (similar to current U.S. situation). That would leave many angry people in the cold in the E.U. and lead to unrest and potentially war. That's kind of out there but still within the realm.
2) People keep repeating this weak-on-China meme but Biden seems a lot more hawkish on them than people seem to be giving him credit for
We’ll see on China. Proof is in action not talk.
Of course, our failure to predict the afghani military's collapse is a huge error but that just proves that even world's best and most well-funded intelligence agency is not foolproof.
It was obvious to people who had any inkling of Afghanistan.
First, the US created an Afghani army that was dependent on US weapons and logistics, but stopped helping to maintain it even before the withdrawal was done. What does one expect to happen to an airforce when one stops maintance?
Second, every intelligence estimate predicted the Taliban would eventually win post-withdrawal (since they still got a state to support them), and the Afghanis knew about those estimates. Why should a sane Afghani keep fighting, when they could switch sides and live? To make Biden look better?
Ultimately, there was a political decision to leave Afghanistan, and the intel was adjusted to the decision rather than the other way around.
Which state would that be?
I'm sure you're a very nice and competent person, but that's a quote for the ages.
You can convince someone to surrender to you out of spite for their own country, long before you have to point a gun at them nowadays.
What could be more effective for your enemy than taking out all your power stations and plunging your country into total darkness and chaos? Everything would run out in short order and people would turn on each other.
Saves having to mess the place up with bombs and you have plausible deniability within the international community.
An increase in supply would mean more oil available at every price. That can only happen by getting it out of the ground, transporting it to refineries, distributing the resulting product to gas stations etc.
Higher prices in the face of increasing inflation may just maintain the incentives for producers in non-OPEC countries. Releasing reserves, to the extent that it can have an effect, will tend to counteract that incentive.
If this is due to sinister plans of OPEC governments, one must realize that it is certainly within their capacity to wait for the temporary increase in quantity available to dissipate.
Current total U.S. reserves[1] are 605 million barrels. Of which 253 million barrels are sweet.
> In 2020, the United States consumed an average of about 18.19 million barrels of petroleum per day, or a total of about 6.66 billion barrels of petroleum. This was the lowest level of annual consumption since 1995.[2]
According to this[3],
>> Sweet crude oil contains small amounts of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide and it is commonly used for processing into gasoline, kerosene, and high-quality diesel. Before sour crude oil can be refined into gasoline, impurities need to be removed, therefore increasing the cost of processing.
Therefore, it doesn't sound like releasing the sour variety would do much to reduce gas prices.
Putting these facts together, if the U.S. depleted all its sweet reserves in this folly, it would cover about two weeks of consumption.
[1]: https://www.spr.doe.gov/dir/dir.html
[2]: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6
[3]: https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/glossary/sweet-vs-sou...
> President Biden announced Tuesday that his administration was releasing 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help combat rising gas prices — hours before millions of Americans are expected to hit the road for Thanksgiving.
[1]: https://nypost.com/2021/11/23/biden-approves-release-of-50m-...
> Putting these facts together, if the U.S. depleted all its sweet reserves in this folly, it would cover about two weeks of consumption.
The US doesn't need to deplete or even come close to depleting any reserve or resource to depress prices. The strategic timing of this announcement suggests that depressing prices is the real goal anyways: lots of Americans are going to be driving around for the December holidays, and 10-20% lower gas prices can make a difference.
Regular unleaded average price in NY state: $3.566/gal yesterday, $2.218/gal a year ago for a 61% annual increase[1].
If this temporary blip could cause prices to go down by 10% (during a time where demand for other uses for oil are also going up), then prices would be up only 45% from a year ago.
Assuming Biden is releasing the sweet variety that can be readily used to make gasoline, this first step is going to deplete about 20% of the SPR.
How many of those shots does he have?
People who think they can command and control the economy, regardless of the ideological banner they choose for themselves, have caused more misery, poverty, death, and destruction than anyone else. True to form, he is continuing with that.
For NY, this page[2] has figures going back a decade. These are nominal prices. Still, whether inflation adjusted or not, last year was an anomaly. Last October, prices were down 20% from the previous year in line with the depressed economy.
So, if you compare October 2021 with October 2019, nominal gas prices are 30% higher and real prices are 20% higher. On the other hand, in October 2012, gas prices were 43% higher in real terms, so there is that.
Except, in this case, consumers are facing a widespread sustained increase in all prices. 50 cents more for a latte may not mean much to a single person, but 100% increase in the price of fresh produce and almost 80% increase in the prices of meat & poultry have significant effects for a lot of families. And these are the predictable effects we are seeing. It is only going to get worse from here. In terms of historical reference, we are in the mid-60s. We have a long ways to go before we reach the mid-90s.
[1]: https://gasprices.aaa.com/?state=NY
[2]: https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/researchers-and-policymakers/ener...
The intent is not to “increase the long term supply curve”, it is to increase short-run supply and mitigate short-term pricing pressure on fuel, and therefore transportation, and therefore all goods and services that are either transported or require the transportation of other people or goods in their supply chain, which is, approximately, everything.
It is an immediate-term effort to prevent additional inflationary pressure from fuel prices. There’s other venues for intermediate and, if necessary, long-term measures to control general inflation.
By "he" I presume you're referring to the Biden administration. What "pipelines" have they closed? Biden pulled the permit for the Keystone XL, but that's not so much closing a pipeline as prohibiting a new one from being build (maybe you were including that under the umbrella of "closing"?). The other Keystone pipelines are still operating.
There is also news about possibility closing the Line 5 pipeline, but that hasn't happened and he recently indicated that he had no intention of closing it.
Is there another (or multiple other) pipelines that have been shutdown by the administration? A google search only comes up with the Keystone XL and Line 5 pipelines.
Line 5 is not something Biden closed. How are you counting a pipeline that Biden didn’t close and Biden has no plans to shutdown, as a closure? I don’t understand how you get to 2 closures.
Line 5 is very much still possible to be shut down due to the democratic party's goal of creating a false energy shortage. Whitmer keeps complaining about it and I'm sure that harris and pelosi will tell biden to cancel it and he'll just go "okay".
joebiden.info
I guess they hate energy too...
Preventing new pipelines from being built == long term effects
Nord Stream == long term effects
Asking OPEC to supply more gas for our current needs == short term effects
Building pipelines is a commitment to consume more fossil fuels in the future. Whereas, increasing production to lower prices in a time of global shortages of every kind, is not that.
Stop trying to equate two completely different things. They're not even in the same ballpark.
The fact that the pipelines are in the future makes them less effective at reducing CO2. You want people to buy hybrids and electric cars right now, not wait until years from now. Lowering the present day price of gas is the worst thing to do.
If people are struggling then cut some of the pork and send more stimulus checks instead. Heck, do a carbon tax and refund all the money -- the average person comes out ahead because some of the tax gets paid by corporations and all the money goes to individuals.
There are more than enough voices within Europe doing that already. The US simply adds to the mix, not in opposition to “Europe.”
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210119IP...
> Following years of deteriorating relations, MEPs stress the importance of critically reviewing cooperation with Russia in various foreign policy platforms and on projects such as Nord Stream 2. They call on the EU to immediately stop the completion of the controversial pipeline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream
> The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was also opposed by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, former U.S. President Donald Trump, the European Council President Donald Tusk and British foreign minister Boris Johnson.[179][180] Tusk has said that Nord Stream 2 is not in the EU's interests.
Many folks went bankrupt and US turned from a net Oil exporter to an Oil importer. The Biden administration recently started to reverse their policies in the last few months as oil prices surged. (There was also a court case loss on the federal drilling auction ban)
OPEC merrily took advantage of the state of affairs since high oil prices are good for them. Unfortunately, it will take some time for domestic supply to climb again. To tide over the state of affairs, it makes sense to open the strategic reserve. The Trump administration added 77 million barrels to the strategic reserve when the US was having an oil glut anyways, so its not as if the US doesn't have a safe buffer.
In March of 2020 it went from 634,967,000 to a peak of 656,147,000 in July of 2020, to then fall back.
Unless I did my math incorrectly, where can we find the information about the 77M?
You are right that it wasn't 77M barrels in 2020 - my bad. I didn't realise that Democrats had blocked funding for that proposed initiative of SPR increase. The Trump administration worked around this by reducing this to ~30 million barrels and awarding storage contracts. This appears to match your figures.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-25/trump-s-t...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/funding-t...
“ Of the total 32 million barrels will be an exchange over the next several months, while 18 million barrels will be an acceleration of a previously authorized sale “
So it’s a single day’s supply.
"This is equivalent to approximately 1,069 days of supply of total U.S. petroleum net imports."
Sounds like it might affect market prices if the government decides to use it to lower the price.
As for accurate media reporting... has that ever happened? On anything?
So, we get slightly more than half from domestic wells. (We could fully cover it if we choose not to export)
But either way, that means the SPR still covers ~500 days of consumption. Still sizable enough to impact the market significantly, I'd say
Yep: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_S...
Doesn't look like enough on its own to justify a change in reporting that much though.
he is pulling this trigger way to early if he expects to use it as a 2022 talking point as any positive price effects this causes will likely be exhausted by then, and he systemic failures of macro economic policies will likely make things much worse by 2022 elections anyway.
This is bad all the way around
Well it’ll maybe help the midterms but it will be something to reference during the upcoming election. This stuff plays out over years and no doubt Republicans will bring it up and Biden will say “I released the reserves” and if gas prices go down then he can claim a victory and action.
When the Presidential elections happen they reference things during the entire presidency not just like the last 6 months or so.
I get what you were saying but the emotion and anger are going to be what people remember not what he did or said.
He's tried to serve two masters and he can't. Either you stick to your guns on making climate change the priority and you accept the fact that the public is going to be pissed at you when energy prices are much higher, or you simply focus on reducing energy prices at the expense of the climate.
There is no middle ground on this. He's trying to find one and is going to fail. Prices will not be reduced and opening up the reserve will piss off the environmentalists.
Let's be honest here: He doesn't really seem to be all there does he? At moments he is fully lucid and clearly in command but then at others he is asked about the same things he just spoke about a day before and says completely different things that sound like they were cooked up by his advisors. It reminds me of the way George w Bush behaved when he was being manipulated and advised by Karl Rove and company. The one difference is Biden's advanced age has made him come off even weirder. At times he has that behavior of a confused old man who lashes out in anger.
Most of my family lives in Virginia and all of them except for my father voted for Biden and then voted for Glenn Youngkin as governor. They are working class people and have developed an increasing contempt for the Democratic party they voted for 12 months ago. They voted for him because they wanted normalcy and he's instead embraced the radicals who advise him. I have both Latino and Filipino in laws, and he has lost all of them.
I've been a member of the Democratic party for over 20 years and this man has destroyed the entire brand. He's allowed Florida to be completely taken over by the GOP. He never should have run and the party never should have engineered the primary to cement his victory. He's too old and we all know it even if many of us won't admit it.
> I've been a member of the Democratic party for over 20 years and this man has destroyed the entire brand
Idk if I'd lay the blame solely at his feat, but in my view the incestiuous nature of the Democrats (running both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden) speaks volumes. There's no doubt in my mind Joe Biden loses the next election no matter who the Republicans run. If the Democrats were smart they'd run someone else.
I used to do work in the Center for American Progress on a weekly basis. I know a lot of folks high up in the party (I did a lot of work for Obama's campaigns in 2008 and 2012), and let me be clear: NONE OF THEM think he's running again. And I'm talking about over a dozen people I know. If he runs again, it will be a shock to me. They were saying this before he even got elected. In the eyes of the Dem machine, he was always a one term option. They couldn't tell the public that, because like all party machines, they don't like or respect the voters.
Also agree with your point about incestuous nature and quite frankly the self-owns Democrats do. Attacking other democrats who aren't woke enough, while the GOP is masterful at uniting the voter base around a couple key issues like abortion and guns (though the GOP has seen a bit of internal divide with Trump). Biden had an EV summit and only invited the top UAW staffed companies leaving out TSLA. Think what you want about TSLAs valuation and Elon, but how can anyone in the US have an EV summit and leave them out? Stuff like this is what sours middle of the road democrat voters. It's like the democrats want to lose elections.
Not really, the "Never Trumpers" in the past were called RINO's by most of the base anyway, they did not see eye to eye on most issues with the conservative base of the republican party.
Infact I would say post trump the RINO / neocon wing if the Republican party LOST power, not gained any, as many of the would get an assist from libertarians that vote with republicans, however that wing of the part lost most of them as well.
GOP is probably more unified today than it has been in a long time from what I can see
I am genuinely curious here: What did he do wrong? Which radicals advice did he listen to?
To put this in perspective as far as it's futility, in 2019 the United States was producing over 12 million barrels of oil a DAY.
Opening up strategic reserves to reduce fuel prices undermines whatever reasoning he had to halt all new oil and gas leases on Federal land. My neighbor, a welder in the natural gas industry, was laid off early this year due to the freeze on new leases. Biden just does whatever his team tells him to do that minute. I voted for him, but I've never in my life felt more regret for voting for someone.
He was supposed to be a moderate Democrat which is what I've always voted for. He's a radical but with less conviction. The team around him oscillate between ivory tower detachment and radical activism that is out of touch with the public.
As a result he's going to undergo a policy which will succeed only in making the US less prepared for a disaster requiring the reserve. Fuel prices won't really be dented much. CO2 emissions will still go into the atmosphere so nobody wins except for activists who think it's okay if oil comes from another place but not from here. And my neighbor across the street is still out of work when there are numerous wildcatters who could employ him if they could start drilling with the now high prices making them very profitable. They can't due to the lease freeze and he's still out of work. And the CO2 is still going into the atmosphere one way or another.
All of it is just theater to please radical activists like my father who never heard a MSNBC talking point he didn't parrot.
It will take several months but I guess Oil prices should be sorted by 2022 elections.
(Please note that the US is fully capable of being a net Oil exporter at any time - it usually takes stupid policies to cause such a situation)
Do you happen to have sources for this? I am asking as a supporter of these policies, but I've never heard of this happening recently. I wanna know what to follow for future reference :)
* https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/biden-administration...
* The Line 3 pipeline will be able to carry 760,000 barrels a day of Canadian oil from North Dakota to Wisconsin
That's why gas prices are rising globally.
[1]https://www.newsweek.com/biden-admin-set-auction-off-over-80...