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Comment by blago | Hacker News Reader

This is not just the US but also China, India, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. It's serious enough that OPEC+ is threatening "response".

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Hmmmm. Why are we needing to get oil from the reserves? Is this due to politics or demand or both? Could this lead to global conflict?

We already have global conflict. Multiple.

True. I can't help but wonder when/if WWIII will begin or if it already has...

It almost feels inevitable to be honest. Am I wrong?

You aren't necessarily wrong, but IMHO maybe too pessimistic. I don't see a global conflict starting anytime soon due to MAD. Baring another Trump-like person with zero regard for international norms, relations and basically anything, most world leaders at the highest level aren't complete idiots and understand the risks involved.

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 counter that a Trump like person would lead to less chance of war. Countries tend to toe the line better if there is a measuarble chance at retaliation. A Biden like person who's demonstrated incompetance (Afghanistan pullout) and placation (weak stance on China relations) would lead to contries rolling the dice on whether we would retaliate or not. We'll see what happens with China and Taiwan or Russia and Ukraine.

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.

1) The afghanistan pullout is the country keeping a promise that Trump failed to keep that was made long before either Trump or Biden, and it would have been a quagmire to whoever had the guts to actually follow through on it

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

I don’t disagree with keeping the promise at all. Where he completely demonstrated his competence was in the implementation. I am an IT guy and I would have done a much better job.

We’ll see on China. Proof is in action not talk.

You’d have done a better job? How so? You have expertise in strategic retreats after 20 years of war?

I don't think it takes a military strategic expert to say get civilians out first, then the military and equipment. If you can't take the equipment, destroy it.

As far as I can remember - one thing that our military personnel are taught, especially in the field, is how to render equipment inoperable. Which in fact is one of the things we've done with left over equipment there. Source: family of veterans.

The Taliban paraded driving US military vehicles through the streets, so I don't think we did that. I am sure it is normal procedure to disable equipment in this situation, but nothing about that exit was normal.

Those vehicles were left behind by the Afghani armed forces and were no longer US assets.

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.

You can’t tell me with a straight face though that there wasn’t a report on someone’s desk that predicted exactly that - the Afghani military collapse. It was likely buried because it didn’t support whatever narrative was required at the time. So.. well funded? Absolutely and with a cherry on the top. Best? Nope. Way too infused with agendas and politics. No offense to the great people who work there.

They knew it would collapse, just not so quickly.

>Of course, our failure to predict the afghani military's collapse...

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.

>Second, every intelligence estimate predicted the Taliban would eventually win post-withdrawal (since they still got a state to support them)

Which state would that be?

Pakistan, duh. Pakistan-Taliban links were widely known for decades.

My point being that the bar was so low on the implementation that anyone with a shred of intellect could have done a better job. But for the sake of discussion I would have for starters left the military on site until the civilian component was safely out of the country. Don’t need a diploma in strategic retreats to see that.

Every non ideological person would have done a better job. There wouldn't have been a hasty evacuation or the bombing in Kabul, if the army kept Bagram until the withdrawal was done, or if the US had accepted the Taliban's offer to retain Kabul until the withdrawal was done - and that's just the smallest of the tactical failures...

Those are both poison pills. The army didn't want to be responsible for the security of the entire Kabul area and Bagram to Kabul is not a next door situation.

> I am an IT guy and I would have done a much better job.

I'm sure you're a very nice and competent person, but that's a quote for the ages.

Or - Dammit Jim I’m an IT guy not Military Strategist! Lol

WWIII already began. Using carefully-cut video clips, intentionally misleading articles, and social media platforms increasingly encouraging unrest to pad their bottom line, decreasing their users' attention span, and spying into their users' devices, the factions only need to fight for public opinion in this day in age.

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.

This gave me chills. Sometimes California feels more pro-China than pro-US. “But man, China is so impressive. They’re so good at governance.” - verbatim quote from a professor I met at UC Berkeley.

I've long felt that WWIII will not be fought (initially, anyway) with tanks and bombs and such, but with computers.

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.

We don't _need_ to. It is to lower prices that are fairly high and OPEC doesn't want to increase supply. So governments are doing what they can to increase supply and retaliate against OPEC.

Depleting reserve capacity does not increase the long term supply curve. When the reserves are depleted, you are back where you started because the supply shocks are real. Production possibilities are down globally due to the destruction wrought by measures where the sole concern is CYA by governments when it comes to COVID19.

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...

According to this[1]:

> 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-...

I don't know enough about the SPR to have opinions about it in particular, but the economic reasoning in this phrase is a little funky:

> 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.

According to AAA:

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...

> Depleting reserve capacity does not increase the long term supply curve.

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.

On the one hand he’s closing pipelines which are safer than rail for oil transport. On the other hand he’s asking/telling OPEC to pump out more… Canada is willing but we’re closing pipelines. And then, we get into the business of telling Europe whether they should put up with higher natgas prices because we have an opinion about nordstream II.

On the one hand he’s closing pipelines which are safer than rail for oil transport.

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.

"what pipelines did he close?" then you say "A google search only comes up with the Keystone XL and Line 5 pipelines". There's 2 rite there. Oil prices go up, choke supply by closing down 2 pipelines, and then complain/blame trump that prices are going up. Please explain your thought process joebiden.info

The Keystone XL pipeline has never been operational; you can't close something that never opened. Enbridge Line 5 hasn't closed, and the closure order (which Enbridge has refused to follow) came from the Michigan Governor, not the Biden administration.

Keystone XL was (as the previous comment says) not a closure, but preventing new building.

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.

Keystone's construction was shut down. It was going to be operational and now it's not due to an executive order that biden signed day 1 in office. That's shutting down a pipeline.

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

The Trump administration shut down (denied permits and licensing) 3 times for a natural gas import/export Terminal that was going to be built in Coos Bay Oregon, to connect to the 4' pipeline the feeds Oregon and California.

I guess they hate energy too...

Line 5 would impact prices a few cents in Michigan- believe it or not most of the oil goes from Canada, across MI and back into Canada. I'm fine with shutting it down. Canada can run their own "landlocked" pipeline to Sarnia.

You really have no ability to differentiate between those things?

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.

Pipelines lower costs. To the extent that that's bad, it's because it makes fuel less expensive, so people buy less efficient vehicles that use more fuel. It's the same reason why a carbon tax is a means to reduce CO2.

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.

> And then, we get into the business of telling Europe whether they should put up with higher natgas prices because we have an opinion about nordstream II.

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.

I can understand the Polish opposition. Trump probably wanted to look tough in the face of ‘Russia’ accusations which so far have not been proven. Boris was just jockeying -a more energy source diversified Europe is less dependence on the UK. But US complaining about Nordstream makes as much sense as Russia complaining about the US building the XL pipeline or drilling in the ANWR. It’s meddling for kicks.

US oil supply dropped precipitously thanks to Covid and the Biden administration's drilling bans on federal lands, offshore drilling restrictions, cancelling oil pipelines and other blockades.

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 Colorado the incumbent Democrat legislature effectively banned most new oil drilling projects even after a plebiscite on that question failed to pass.

When I look at the SPR weekly levels at https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W... it doesn't show an increase of 77M barrels. During President Trump's term it fell from 695,118,000 (Jan 22 2016) barrels to 638,085,000 barrels (Jan 15th 2021)

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?

The drop in Jan 2017 was due to Hurricane Harvey which disrupted foreign crude deliveries. https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/31/us-taps-strategic-oil...

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...

The US supply dropped precipitously because the price was too low for fracing to be consistently profitable. Letting the price rise would help US-based producers invest in more production.

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