Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing
bbc.com
bbc.com
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.
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.
Probably some far north, but not that many. My Kaiteki 6600 has[1] a SCOP of 5.1 and a factory guaranteed COP at -25C (-13F) of 3.1.
[1]: https://mee.no/privat/produktkategori/luft-luft-varmepumper/...
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).
You can over provision solar as someone said.
There's geothermal, tidal, etc.
Long distance high voltage electricity transmission at scale.
Electricity is a marvel and we're just starting to scratch the surface of what we can do with it. Betting against it is like betting against electronics, a risky proposition.
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.
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.
> 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.
Nobody is sending construction boats out into the various seas on batteries and prayers, to construct turbines. The foundation on which these turbines rest, in the sea, were in no way constructed with renewable energy. The cables were not build, dragged across the sea, and connected, using renewable energy. The transmission lines from the land to a switching station were not built or maintained with renewables.
I'm in boss, I'm in on renewables. Lets fucking go. I'm just not ignoring the whole story.
> 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.
Oil will not be viable for transportation and heating very soon due to market pressure alone.
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.
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...
You can't make insulin, brake fluid or PVC out of electricity alone.
Surprise Solar Uptake in Pakistan Cushions Mideast Energy Shock - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-17/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.
Pakistan’s solar boom is bigger than official data shows - https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/03/19/pakistans-solar-boom-... - March 19th, 2026
> The policy paper Electrons In, Hydrocarbons Out: Pakistan’s Quest for Economic and Resource Efficiency found that up to $120 billion in future fuel imports could be avoided over the lifetime of the 48 GW of solar modules Pakistan had imported as of June 2025. The study’s co-author, Nabiya Imran, told pv magazine that with solar module imports into Pakistan now totaling 51.5 GW, around $180 billion in fossil fuel imports could be avoided. Imran added these solar imports could generate a total 1,730 TWh over their lifetime.
Pakistan says rooftop solar output to exceed grid demand in some hubs next year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46070915 - November 2025 (254 comments)
Pakistan's 22 GW Solar Shock: How a Fragile State Went Full Clean Energy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43620309 - April 2025 (35 comments)
How many of that could be substituted with biomass? We're already making natural gas replacements using feces, food and agricultural waste, and we're making diesel fuel replacements - in case of doubt, at least older diesel engines can burn straight olive, sunflower or rapeseed oil, just modern ones will possibly incur expensive damage in the high-pressure fuel distribution section.
> You can't make insulin, brake fluid or PVC out of electricity alone.
Insulin is made with GMO bacteria these days, so all we need is something to feed the bacteria with, IIRC it's glucose which you can easily create from any sort of starch-containing plant.
Fossil fuels are why climate change is occurring. Reducing FFs to near-zero would slow or stop climate change and allow the finite supply of oil to be used for the things you mention.
And even the most anti air protected place on earth - Negev plant near Dimona city got hit with a warning shot. And they have 3 or 4 layers of anti air, most of them doubled (both US and Isreaeli). It's impossible to protect multiple pipelines to that extent.
And Isreal just said that they will keep attacking Iran no matter any peace deals or armistice.
The only logical course of action for Iran is to go down swinging, taking the rest of the world with them.
Plant is far away from there.
I guess you might feel justified to hit civilian infrastructure once your enemies are vile enough to hit yours.
"Commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Force, Brigadier General Seyyed Majid Mousavi, says that every ultimatum given to Iran is an act of war. Adds that the Iranian strikes on the strategic points in Dimona and Haifa in recent hours were in response to the US' 2 and 5 day threats."
During the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo, the disruption removed approximately 4.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) from the market, which constituted about 7% of the global oil supply at the time. This disruption significantly impacted global supplies.
20% is a lot more than 7%. This could be worse than 1973-74. As a 10year-old in 1973 I remember spending a lot of time in the backseat of the station wagon as we were waiting line line for gas.
For context, during the first COVID spring (March-June 2020) oil demand fell by 20%. Because nobody was driving or flying anywhere. That's what it took to cut 20%.
That's completely incorrect.
Covid demonstrated that. We have optimized so strongly for profit (outsource everything, just in time inventory, etc.) that we have no robustness in the face of disruption. There are now single chokepoints everywhere.
Yes, we could retool. But nobody will retool without a check from somebody. Everybody will simply hold their breath waiting for the crisis to pass. Everybody held their breath for Covid; they will absolutely do so with the knowledge that the orange clown will disappear in two years.
There's a graph in today's (March 28/29) Wall Street Journal that does exactly that, and shows that what's happening now is both currently slightly worse than the 1970's, and the worst oil shock in history.
And remember that this isn't over yet.
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
It's an apocalyptical mind-bug. All times have an eschatology - ours seems to be climate collapse. It used to be nuclear war.
The media is selling a story. In reality everything is still getting better. People are healthier, richer, and better off in almost every measurable way, all over the world, including Africa and Asia.
Yes, there are some dark clouds. A long list. But the problems - even a long war in the middle east, are bumps in the road, not a cliff. If the clouds turns out to be a really bad storm, people will buckle down and sort it.
100% this. People need to understand this.
Why get out of debt? The country is a brazillian trillion in debt we’re doomed.
Why invest for retirement or save? The market is fraud anyway.
Why exercise and lose weight? The planet is doomed anyway.
When you say "everything is still getting better", what do you mean? Because the price of fuel and food, isn't getting better. It seems to be getting worse. Your version of "reality" doesn't seem to reflect the experience of a lot of people.
> people will buckle down and sort it. It's an interesting series of words that don't say a lot. There is much to wonder about.
Not really, no. In this case 20-25% of the world's oil disappearing doesn't sound like it should be an 'everything collapses' scenario, we still have >75% of the oil around and oil isn't the only energy source. Everyone has always seen a "worst economic collapse of my lifetime" and although this one looks like it is going to be unusually horrific it isn't going to cause the end of anything structural unless there are other causes already in place. For example in theory this might be the end of the US military's ability to maintain global order in the same way as the Suiz Crisis humiliated the British empire - it'd be a recognition of realities on the ground rather than the current crisis changing anything.
It means rich countries get the 75% while the poor countries get nothing and starve. What happens when a nuclear power like India starts to lack food?
Personally I think that actually seems a bit unlikely. Most of India's energy doesn't come from oil and doesn't go to agriculture. It seems plausible that the global economy will be able to overcome the food and fertiliser issues even in the short term, there is a lot of food out there.
I'm expecting the threat to be more complex economic goods like construction, manufactured goods, leisure and general logistics. I don't want to downplay the risk, famine in India is a scary thought, but I don't really see how we'd get there from closing the Strait of Hormuz without a lot of bad luck. The problem is it is going to materially impoverish a number of people and collapse complex supply chains rather than make it hard to get food to them.
Except climate collapse is actually happening already, gradually.
There were escalating tensions during the Cold War, but it wasn’t like there were actual nukes being dropped in slow motion
Here's a other analogy to avoid your criticism: if a plane runs out of gas midair, it doesn't immediately crash, but it's going to.
So tired of people trying to pass off pseudointellectual pedanticism as useful or additive insight.
(Feels like a Hemingway quote fits rather nicely here.)
> Trust me, it’s all going to work out perfect. Nothing bad is going to happen. It’s all under control.
> Why do you keep saying these things? I can tell when there’s trouble looming, and I really don’t sense that right now. We’re in control of this situation, and we know what we’re doing. So stop being so pessimistic.
> Look, you’ve been proven wrong, so stop talking. You’ve had your say already. Be quiet, okay? Everything’s fine.
https://theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mi...
That'd be cool if it were true, but it isn't. The people with the economic and political power to do anything about it are massively profiting off the storm and care more about that than the damage the storm will do.
Why do you think they are all literally building end-times style bunkers these days?
<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..
* https://theconversation.com/australia-has-plenty-of-diesel-f...
Lurion De Mello thinks (to the best of his human recall) that would be the first US shipment of processed fuel (bowser ready) in decades (although he factors in he might be wrong about that) but acknowledged that US shipments of crude (unrefined) are more common.
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...
> 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.
I guess I read that as "we've got 11 days supply of LNG and we won't face any shortages during that 11 days" - how is that a better situation?
So he's saying they've got an 11 day supply and that they won't face any shortages during that 11 days... but what about after 11 days? I guess I'm not sure how that's different, how it's a hoax?
This might be lot bigger issue if China managed blockaded Taiwan during an invasion. Or destroy port facilities sufficiently.
And, looking at the scenario you’re describing, it could be the most sane thing to do at this point.
Everyone in the DoD with triple-digit IQ knew that this would be the most likely outcome of starting a war with Iran, but all of those people got purged by Trump last year.
---
[1] The status quo was that Iran was not in control of the strait, and all shipping traffic could pass through it.
[2] Iran has so far accomplished it's objectives in the war, the US and Israel did not. It didn't get regime-changed, and its in now in control of the strait.
Obviously 50-50 doesn't pencil out at $100 or even $200 a barrel. But 1:50 might at $2xx. IDK I'm not a shipping expert.
Someone could say the risk is financially worth it, but you are not going to have many takers. Also might find few crew who want to sign onto your vessels.
There are a lot of human beings on those ships. It strikes me as awful that their lives would be risked under these circumstances, and that happening wouldn't really be a proper solution to the overarching problem. It would be something of a tragedy if things got so severe that the risk was assumed worthwhile and presumably, people on board were exposed to it outside of their will or control. I suspect many of them don't have a lot of options.
I also see false equivalence here in that the risk of death doesn't seem fungible. You're taking an aggregate death toll distributed across hundreds of millions of people, involving totally different voluntariness and causal structures.
Iran is not very nice to the ships, judging from videos and results of attacks.
There's a very noticeable difference. There are no parties, music videos, ship tours to abducted ships... with Iran, etc.
With Iran, the ships end up like this https://t.me/QudsNen/216170 or this https://t.me/presstv/179430
The US and Israel are rapidly running out of munitions, while Iran is being resupplied by Russia (https://www.ft.com/content/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.
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 GOPniks aren't that eager to become a 31-seat party this November.
The sane option would be to back down.
And no, not every adversarial regime can be taken down. The Soviet Union had to fall, nobody was going to invade it.
Really! What petroleum-based oil do you cook with?
Since you seem pretty smart: are there petroleum based cooking oils?
EDIT: corrected an autocorrection.
Instead I suggest that they will buy the fuel at higher prices, and sell less produce, and also milk and meat which are downstream from feed crops, at higher prices. More than that, in a bout of bitter irony, the West might need to lift sanctions from Russian oil, and maybe ask Russia to drill and sell more.
This, or the US should somehow defeat IRGC and defeat / appease the Iranian Army, and unblock the strait. I wonder if it's going to cost less even along the monetary dimension.
The US has already done this!
Truly, Iran turns out to be an invaluable ally to Russia.
Given that what we're talking about is disruptions caused by a shortage of petroleum, is there any other definition of "upstream" that is meaningful for the conversation?
Just in the form of a gas, not a liquid.
* https://www.andersonintl.com/understanding-hexane-extraction...
"Towards Substitution of Hexane as Extraction Solvent of Food Products and Ingredients with No Regrets":
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9655691/
> The extraction process is the same for all eight types of oilseeds subject to this rule (soybean, cottonseed, canola, corn germ, sunflower, safflower, peanuts, and flax). In each case, the seeds are crushed and mixed with the solvent. The oil then dissolves in the solvent. Following this step, the solution is separated from the seeds and heated to evaporate the solvent. The evaporated solvents are then condensed and reused in the process. […] This standard restricts plant-wide hexane emissions from each affected facility rather than requiring individual controls at each emission point.
* https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/solvent...
here is comparison on extraction physics vs chemistry for turning it into biodiesel - https://vectree.io/compare/biodiesel-chemical-engineering-vs...
The big winners are:
- China. They're already going renewable at a rapid pace. They have a massive stockpile of oil (~1.4B barrels) and they're still receiving oil from Iran. This diminishes US influence in the the world and increases China's influence;
- Russia: this crisis will probably force the West to make peace with Russia and they'll retain any current Ukrainian territory just to secure Russian energy exports, particularly natural gas;
- Iran: the sanctions are over. Prior to all this Iran was selling oil to China for below market rate, less than $50/barrel. Now? They're legally able to sell it and get market rates, which are more like ~$120/barrel. Iran may well still get a regime of charging ships to traverse the Strait after the war is over;
Who are the losers?
- Europe: this is going to massively increase energy costs for years;
- Ukraine: see above (Russia);
- The US: massively decreased influence, particularly in the Middle East;
- Israel: there will be no regime change in Iran, Iran will come out in a better position and this may well be the first crack in the US-Israel relationship because Israel dog-walked the US into this war. The Iron Dome has shown to be not as impenetrable as once thought;
- The Gulf states: they face a tough choice between remaining US client states or breaking free. Breaking free probably means their monarchies and despotic regimes will fall. The myth of the US security guarantee has been broken. These regimes will probably stick with the US for their own survival and we may see some of them fall anyway (eg Bahrain).
I agree with your main point: "just go renewable" is both naive and utterly useless advice. That's a decades-long project. Also, who makes all the solar panels (and probably windmills)? China.
It is a little different because the US is a net energy exporter now and definitely wasn't in the 1970s. Still, there will be higher prices for everything and the US can't realistically block exports to keep prices low because other countries will stop sending us stuff.
Were the president anyone else, they would be impeached and removed from office. That's how bad this is. But we live in a post-truth world the the president is the leader of a cult.
Now we have a president who hates the EU and Ukraine more than he hates Russia and China and he has Greenland ambitions.
He is currently dragging out the war and Rubio was in the EU to string people along yet again.
If he drags out the war long enough, the EU might need to make concessions on certain issues.
What the EU should do but is too stupid to do: It should immediately negotiate with China and Russia to create jealousy (that is what Trump does, he understands that) and say: While you are doing your extended Iran adventure, we'll drop sanctions on Russian gas and import LNG.
That is literally the only language Trump understands and then the deep state will put him on a leash. Trump would hate nothing more than EU overtures to Putin while he is left out of the negotiations.
Sometimes you have to use all options to get things done.
The West is not the only party in this war and Ukraine has shown many times that it can do its own thing. Ukraine was supposed to roll over and die in 3 days and it has just managed to liberate about 500sqkm of territory, 4 years after the start of the war. Plus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22xoretdhbm
I'm not making a judgment about whether or not this is right. This is just a sober analysis of the situation. And that is that the war is stalemated and the only way this gets resolved is to declare peace at the current borders. This grand misadventure by the US and Israel in Iran just made that more likely.
Ukraine has become probably the de facto #1 drone based military in the world right now.
It's made the first production use drone type that uses practically 0 Chinese manufactured components. It's making more types that use off the shelf components but are otherwise 100% Ukrainian made. Its drone types are getting more and more sophisticated and larger, with the biggest having a 3000km, 1 ton payload. That's besides the ground or sea drones.
Watch the video I linked (and several more from the same channel if you have time).
Also Russia's army is being attrited faster than reconstituted, at the moment. That's a long way to say that the Russian army in Ukraine is shrinking.
Ukraine is dependent on European finances. And the EU has guaranteed funding for at least 2 more years. The US isn't helping with any equipment, weapons. Every US weapons Ukraine uses is paid for, by Ukraine and its allies.
The real danger is if Europe flinches, which would be a monumentally bad decision as Ukraine is finally winning the war of attrition.
I think Iran may well have that crown. Ukraine certainly was a testbed for drone use, first starting with cheaper but still military grades drones like the Bayraktar [1] but now with more homegrown versions. But Russia has followed suite and adapted.
> Also Russia's army is being attrited faster than reconstituted,
Russia has a larger army and a larger population. It also has several knobs it can adjust with the biiannual draft [2]. Russia has oil, raw materials, can produce its own food, a history of conscription and what is basically a war economy [3]. And thanks to an unlucky spate of oligarchs falling out of windows and dying in car accidents, Putin is still in control of the country.
Zellensky on the other hand doesn't have most of those things and is subject to the changes in political winds in Europe and the US. He also has the added pressure of Europe's energy crisis.
I also believe that it was Ukraine who on their own decided to blow up Nordstream to prevent Europe settling with Russia to turn back on the gas supply.
> The real danger is if Europe flinches, which would be a monumentally bad decision as Ukraine is finally winning the war of attrition.
The West gets bored amd impatient. I remember thinking this in 2023: Putin is just going to hold on until the West gives up or mores onto some new crisis. There's a quote misattributed to Kissinger that goes "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
I also don't agree Ukraine is winning any war, let alone one of attrition. Weirdly, this has become a WW1 trench war basically but with drones. And look at how the Western Front changed from 1914 to 1917.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2
[2]: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/05/russia-planned-war-...
Do yourself a favor and ask your favorite chatbot about the Ukraine drone industry and their military use. Ask about FP-1, FP-2, FP-5 Flamingo, Ukraine's ballistic missiles, their ground drones, their naval drones, their Shahed interceptor drones (which the Gulf States want to buy!), fiber optic FPV drones, etc.
I'm actually following this war daily and have followed since it started.
Use your chatbot and if you want more look for Paul Warburg, Lines on Maps (both YouTube), UnderstandingWar.org, etc - also follow their sources.
Regular people have NO idea what kind of military Ukraine has built.
If Ukraine's economy is supported for 2 more years, their odds of bringing down the Russian military are probably 80%.
Ukraine has made some remarkable achievements lately in doing more with less while Russia seems to be perfecting how to do less with more.
This is the key point a lot of people miss, the vast majority of equipment needed to actually use renewables requires Chinese products. If you go 100% renewables, you're only replacing one form of dependence (oil) for another,
We'd need replacements as old infrastructure ages out but it seems much easier to wait out a supply disruption compared to oil since this just means using old equipment while the supply is cut; sure some might break after a while but electricity production wouldn't fall immediately.
Solar lasts so long, it is a one time purchase.
Solar and wind equipment lasts a long time so it is OK if it takes a decade or two to ramp up domestic production to the point that it can handle all our needs.
Solar and EV technology are advancing rapidly, and with investment in grid infrastructure and incentives for generators to go renewable we could be along with Europe and China in reducing FF dependence for power. Instead the current administration is actively sabotaging the US position on renewable energy.
Fossil fuels aren't risk-free. Even if you don't care about CO2, fossil fuels are extremely inefficient in the long run because they're not renewable. Once you extract them and burn them, they're gone, forever. This IS NOT the case with renewable energy, which means that, as time goes on, renewables will be much cheaper than fossil fuels. Already, today, solar is much cheaper than petroleum per unit of energy.
In addition, every country on Earth can make use of renewables. Most countries cannot use fossil fuels directly, because they don't have them. This means they expose themselves to geopolitical risk. Exhibit A: this.
If the transition is done slowly, you end up saving money, not losing it. That means less suffering, not more.
It was not bad faith, whatever that is, and it was not a straw man.
Try to remain calm and not make personal remarks.
There's no reason to assume it won't. It might not voluntarily but it looks a lot like it's either going to be forced to accept them, or it's going to become an irrelevant actor one way or another leaving Iran to set terms by default.
Other countries are switching to the yuan global reserve currency and petrocurrency in order to be allowed passage through Hormuz. The US has no counter to this (besides ending the war, which it won't) and with how much the US relies on these two things to be globally relevant, if this continues then oil prices will return to normal, will be traded in yuan, and there will no longer be a US. A complete own goal and possibly the fastest self destruction by unforced error in all of human history.
Europe will lag behind the trend because of its alliance with the US but it will turn eventually in order to get low oil prices. When the US attempted to force Europe to sanction Iran several years ago, Europe invented a system to evade them (INSTEX).
US bond markets have just locked up this week. The US found itself unable to borrow more money at any price - nobody wants to lend it. Banks turned off their automated trading systems because they can't work in this environment. This is a symptom of global dedollarization. While this shock may only last a few days the frequency of this sort of this sort of thing is rapidly increasing, and when a government can't borrow money any more it has no choice but to print it to pay its debts, and we know where that leads: Weimar-style hyperinflation.
Wait, what?
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...
Higher prices will drive EV adoption and busses.
In the EU, EVs or public transit is the only long term solutions we have.
Electricity is expensive here too.
Public transit wise, good luck. The bus system has only been getting worse (despite sustained usage), trains are not much better. There just aren’t any viable routes in many places — it would take me 6h to commute 80km to Ljubljana (3 transfers with waiting time in between), it takes 1h30 by car in peak traffic.
Both busses and trains are also much more expensive than just driving yourself unless you’re retired or in school and thus have a subsidized ticket. And this is with regulated gas prices.
Why not raise the prices? Sure, but then don't complain about the inflation, revolt, and stoning of elected representatives.
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.
https://www.racunovodja.com/clanki.asp?clanek=232/kilometrin...
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).
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.
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.
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...
The prices will go up soon, that's why everyone is panicking and filling up canisters of gas.
And if I gave a crap about western white collar standards for acceptable vehicle loading I'd have had to do it all twice or take a vehicle that uses twice the fuel lol.
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.
I'd rather freeze.
The Tories granted over a hundred licenses for exploration in the last ten years and so far it’s led to the supply of one months gas consumption
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/28/north-sea-o...
The Guardian’s report is based on someone else’s research, they didn't just make up the story… they’re not the Daily Mail…
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.
And now the same people are saying that the answer is more oil and gas.
Today we're lot more energy efficient†, and the renewables made more than 25 TWh, but nuclear is now less than 10 TWh, we of course no longer burn coal, which leaves 30 TWh of gas still and we have a lot more imports (because we have a lot more interconnect, which is also a form of energy security)
† For example back then we mostly used incandescent light bulbs! And a lot of people still used CRT televisions back then!
Oh, wait, they don't. At all
Most of the UKs recent renewables are on a fixed price supply basis and when the market prices goes over this the excess is eventually fed back into reducing consumer bills
I'm NOT against renewables. I'm NOT pro fossil fuels. I'm against the dishonesty in the discussion. Stop claiming direct reduction in bills if that's not going to happen [0]
[0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/time...
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
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.
You can buy a brand new Dacia Spring for only £12,240. 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.
Citation?
Fact is if you zoom out 20 years Spain's prices have trended up. Your link just proves my point that while there has been an increase in the blend, it hasn't reduced prices.
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/decoupled-how-spain...
> Decoupled: how Spain cut the link between gas and power prices using renewables
> Spain has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe, largely owing to the country’s strong solar and wind growth which reduced the influence of expensive coal and gas power on the electricity market.
I don't know how people can say electric cars aren't cheaper. It's a 5x difference!
And you have to pay interest on larger car loan.
But in practice, yes, when charging at home EVs are dirty cheap to charge.
The total cost of ownership (toc) for an EV is much lower. But you are paying it all upfront.
But there is are lots of people buying a used car for 10k
Regardless, I do a agree, EV is absolutely the way to go.
But I agree, operational costs of an EV can be much lower, if you can charge at home rates.
1) I have no garage and no parking space next to my home. I can't charge it.
2) We have no trustworthy garage for repairs. It turns out the garage regulations require a separate space for electrical forcsafety, and nobody has room to expand.
Apart from that, electricity in Belgium is expensive. I did the math on swapping our gas heater for a heat pump, but I'd pay more for energy even of the amount of watts is so much lower.
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.
Economic viability depends on many things, lithium prices have been pretty volatile in the past, battery production in Europe as customers are just scaling up.
It's really hard to quickly replace millions of vehicles.
It easily takes 11kwh to charge a Volt. It'll go about 35 miles in the summer on that charge, and more like 28 in the winter.
It also gets 35 mpg on gasoline, while providing free heat in the winter from the gas engine heat, and for most of the last few years was doing this for $3.50-$4 a gallon.
There are people on Southern California/San Diego that pay more. Over there people say the Prius Prime is WAY cheaper to operate on gas because it gets 50mpg gasoline.
I've even heard people running their home off gasoline because it's cheaper but that would require an impressive gas generator to do long term.
If my maths is correct, we are paying US$6.10 a gallon here in NZ.
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?
That they’d beat Iran and have some friendly dictator installed in short order.
Are you arguing that this is going how the US planned?
When was the last time the US had this much trouble getting its allies to follow it into war?
The administration would have been informed of the risks to the US, which are relatively minor in comparison since the US is a net exporter of crude, and ignored them. If the risks had been greater, they would not have ignored them, and would have at least had an actual plan to keep the Strait open. They might even have informed their close military allies using something other than Truth Social.
I am not arguing that they planned this, even though it should have been obvious that it would happen. I absolutely do believe they were warned it was a possibility and didn't care.
Datacenter investment is currently a noticable fraction of US GDP. That's as globalized as it gets, we aren't even remotely self sufficient on that front. What happens to our economy if that segment crumbles overnight?
That America is incredibly generous with resources in a conflict has no possible bearing on the security of their continent?
I don't see Europe sending billions of its taxpayer dollars to resolve conflicts in Africa and Asia. (It barely manages to do so for a conflict right next door!)
There was a delegation of Asian (I think?) leaders in Europe a few years ago, and when Europe pressured them to take action re Ukraine-Russia, they politely pointed out that when a war breaks out in Europe they are told it's an existential global crisis, and when a conflict breaks out in Asia or Africa, Europe just sort of yawns and issues a sleepy statement calling for international law to be respected (which is European for 'thoughts and prayers').
Personally, I care about Ukraine and want them to prevail. But the myopia and arrogance of Europeans on this is astonishing. If this were a conflict in Asia or Africa, Europe would never have given even a fraction of the support that America has given Ukraine. Not a million years. And then, having failed to provide for their own security, having profiteered from Russian oil and gas for decades, and having secured vast amounts of support from the rest of the world when faced with the consequences of their own failures, European leaders have the audacity to suggest they're not getting enough? That the rest of the world is failing them? How much money, exactly, is the average rice farmer in Asia supposed to owe for Europe's security? And why do much wealthier Europeans never seem to owe him back anything in return?
Not clear to me why some working mum in Idaho is obliged to pay for Hungary's security when even the Hungarians refuse to do so, but hey, enjoy this meme while it lasts. The US won't remain the world's policeman for too much longer, and we're all in for a much darker world without them.
The unnecessary expense of trillions of dollars being, of course, just so famously and fabulously profitable. I assume this is the same strand of 4D-chess-level thinking that posits that landlords like keeping rental properties vacant because they somehow make more money that way.
It's an age old epic: tell the privileged that "actually, you're being exploited of your hard work and innate intelligence". It let's you sleep at night.
The same way that a farmer considers it in his pecuniary interest to grow and sell vegetables, and we are vicarious beneficiaries in that we have access to affordable food we can eat.
People like you see conspiracies where there is actually nothing but fortuitous alignments of interest. Like all conspiracy theories, it's merely ignorance of the basic incentives that make the world work, leading to hare-brained theories that sound dramatic but make no sense, couched in an air of being super special in your ability to see how the world 'really' works, unlike all those normie sheep. Yadda yadda. Juvenile and boring.
But hey, the US is almost certainly going to retreat from the world after the unpopular missteps of the current administration, so we'll get to see with our own eyes whether that produces a more or less peaceful world. Won't that be a fun and costly experiment.
1. The USA has put up military infrastructure around the world by its own volition. 2. The USA is the richest country in the world.
> The same way that a farmer considers it in his pecuniary interest to grow and sell vegetables, and we are vicarious beneficiaries in that we have access to affordable food we can eat.
So what is the handout here, exactly? Your argument is an oxymoron.
Fair! Withdrawn.
> So what is the handout here, exactly? Your argument is an oxymoron.
I'm not sure how it's an oxymoron. I don't believe I called anything a handout. The fact that others have let themselves become dependent on your behaviour does not make your behaviour a handout to others. The US has made a strategic calculation that defending Europe is of security interest to the US, which has caused it to undertake vast expense on that continent between 1945 and now.
It is an open question whether the US was actually correct in that calculation. Perhaps it was a costly mistake with minimal security benefits for the US but positive externalities for others. Or perhaps it was initially correct, but ceased to be so after the end of the Cold War. Either way, the US may conclude that a continuing presence in Europe no longer serves its security interests going forward. In that case the confluence of interests will simply have ended.
The fact that Europe did not take the many decades it had to prepare for this moment is quite unfortunate, but not really something the US is responsible for. The US has done nothing but encourage Europeans to step up their security efforts for over fifty years. Ultimately it is Europe that faces the consequences of its own decisions, not the US or the rest of the world.
I realise the word 'eurocentrism' is not in vogue, but it is so very apt. If Europe managed to see itself as a region like any other, the way the rest of the world sees it, it may find it easier to understand why the rest of the world does not feel responsible for underwriting the cost of Europe's defense. Why is it America's job to fund the defense of Europe? Why it is not the reverse? Or perhaps Europe should be funding the defense of Southeast Asia? It's certainly got the money. There are far more people in SE Asia than in the EU. They are no less deserving of safety and security than anyone in Europe.
Of course, the reason this doesn't happen is that people cannot just expect free security umbrellas from countries on the other side of the planet. Except Europeans, that is, who for some reason not only do expect this, but also act absolutely outraged when anyone queries this assumption.
I do agree that there is a possibility that some defence deployment agreements may not longer be desirable for America, and that they are in no way obligated to perpetually defend Europe. NATO had specific goals, which could be considered fulfilled even, long ago.
So for example regarding the Ukraine invasion, there is (or has been lol) an expectation of support from America, both because of some vague NATO-proxy implication or simply due to historical ties. And the Idaho mum not wanting to pay for some far away war is valid, but... we must add two things into this equation. One, an implicit and practical part of the agreement has historically been that the protected allies spend a large amount of their budget on American suppliers. And two, that at least in the past, this was a huge deterrence against any communist-like regime changes that have directly ejected any American neo-colonialism wealth extractions.
Perhaps, today allies are spending less, and the threat of communism has more or less collapsed. So America might be much better off without paying for foreign security. But all this really was never in place out of some noble spirit of world peace, that's all I'm saying.
PD.: a hundred percent agree on Europe being too slow and incapable of reacting to any of this, and embarassing itself. As a European, I hope we can slowly get out of the whining and towards some kind of proper self-defence pact, as many member states actually do have very capable militaries, just individually and not coordinated. I'm not saying, as advanced or experienced as the USA, but if you'd make a "top list" we wouldn't be helpless near the middle or bottom.
More broadly, I don't think any of us arguing in this thread are really all that far apart. Nothing would please me more than if Europe got its act together. (Hell, I'd love to see a federal Europe. But I'm not holding my breath for that one.)
Russia is primarily a threat to Europe, but not only.
And what do you imagine will happen if Russia gets the gang back together? Ukraine, Belarus, Baltics, most of Eastern Europe. Do you think Soviet Union 2.0, now with more fascism, will be friendlier to the US?
I know Americans love to pretend they live on another planet, but now we have global trade, ICBMs and many more interesting ways to hurt humans on the other side of the world. We're no longer living in the 1800s.
Do I expect Russia to be 'friendly' to the US? No, not particularly. Can Russia successfully project military force into the US? Of course not, this is a country with an economy comparable to Benelux and an army incapable of even reaching the Dniester. It has extremely limited means for global competition. The Chinese don't live in fear of whether Benelux is 'friendly' to them or not, and if the Beneluxers went insane and started trying to invade their neighbours, I'm sure China would treat it much the same way as Europe treats every war in Africa or Asia. Much 'concern', many pleas to follow international law.
The US is protected from Russia by geography and prowess. It just doesn't matter how Russia feels about the US, any more than it matters how Benelux feels about China. The US has been extraordinarily generous to Europe in shouldering a conflict that doesn't affect them at all.
Do I want Russia to take over Eastern Europe? I think I was pretty clear on this point before, I support Ukraine. Its cause is just. But the only people who can ensure Europe's security are Europeans, and all these constant fits about how America 'hates' Europe because it won't raise the allowance this week are ludicrous. The question isn't why the US won't raise the allowance, the question is why America is paying Europe an allowance at all. Europe is not the world's disability pensioner, Europe just doesn't want to pay for its own defense and would much prefer it became the world's problem. That's why someone living in Dallas is supposed to live in fear of invasion by a declining kleptocracy from the other side of the Earth - it helps Europeans save on defense spending.
If Europe wants to defend its interests from regional bullies like Russia, it needs to build some power of its own. Europe's allies are in complete support of Europe getting its act together.
This is absurdly reductionist. Population matters (140 million vs 30 million). Location matters. Size matters. Industrial-military base matters. Legacy matters (there is a reason teams with a winning pedigree tend to win in tight spots). Nukes matter.
The US can't handle Iran. It couldn't handle Iraq. Afghanistan. Vietnam.
All of a sudden Russia is a total pushover handled through "prowess".
This kind of hubris is exactly why the American empire will end sometime this century.
And before you say it doesn't matter, look up what happens to global reserve currencies when they're no longer global reserve currencies. Go look up what happens with debt repayments in that case.
The American lifestyle will suffer some harsh adjustments at all levels, probably in a few decades, at most.
And FYI, Europe has already tripled its defense spending. I hope none of it gets spent on US tech of any kind.
But I'm sure Europe will rise to the occasion. I'm sure the same European countries that gave us the phrase "Pourquoi mourir pour Dantzig?" will be ready to send their sons to die for Narva.
I'm sure all this defense talk has produced European militaries capable of fighting a prolonged conflict. I'm sure all these societies that are not even willing to tolerate the increased cost of not buying Russian gas and oil, let alone financial support for Ukraine - I'm sure they'll be cheering the enormous expense of a direct shooting war with Russia.
The deep irony of all of this is that we're all actually agreed. The American empire will end, with NATO as its clear military dimension also ending, and you'll be on your own, as you've always wanted. Have fun.
What you wrote would make sense if Russian army would not be so woefully incompetent. Every day more Russians die in the Ukraine is a good day for European security.
The question is whether Europe is going to be capable of maintaining that level of defensive action on its own. I hope the answer is yes. Sadly, I'm left extremely sceptical from observing European politics.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian-occupied_territories_o...
That's not to diminish the bravery of the Ukrainian people. They're heroes. But bravery doesn't suffice without materiel. I'm not convinced the rest of Europe has good supplies of either.
It is you who are being absurdly reductionist when you contort 'Russia is not capable of threatening the US' into 'the US can't successfully mount a land invasion of Russia', or whatever strawman you're trying to build here.
The US has no need or interest in invading Russia. It has no need or interest in defending Ukraine, for that matter, but they've done so because they're doing a grand and noble thing. It is wild that Europeans expect and demand that the US funds the cost of the Ukraine war, which is happening in Europe, while Europe itself is not even willing to agree to stop buying Russian gas and oil.
The original point stands - Russia is not capable of being a threat to the US, and in as far as Russia is capable of being a threat to Europe, this is primarily a European issue, not a global one. At the very least, Europe should shoulder the lion's share of defending its own continent, rather than demanding everyone else does it for them for free.
>> This kind of hubris is exactly why the American empire will end sometime this century.
>> The American lifestyle will suffer some harsh adjustments at all levels, probably in a few decades, at most.
Cool. Since I've been pretty open about the fact I'm not American, I don't see what any of this has to do with me. And I certainly don't see what any of this has to do with international security. Seems like you're just venting some hatred for Americans. It's quite telling how every time someone takes the US side on anything online, Europeans bring out the greatest hits parade of anti-American tropes, fresh off 2004-era Reddit.
Maybe the Americans could invest in their own social net if they weren't spending trillions of dollars to defend you. Cutting US military spending in half, much of which could come from vacating the US presence in Europe, would give the US hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on their own country. Their own society. Their own healthcare.
And maybe when Europe realises it can't pay for its absurdly dysfunctional welfare systems and its own security, it will have the same hard choices to make that the rest of the world have been making since the dawn of time! Big changes are coming for European lifestyles, much bigger than anything coming for the US.
What does the US security presence in Europe actually get the US? Mollycoddled adult children, complaining on the online platforms that the US built, using the global economy the US protects, from homes that the US defends, about how icky those Americans are.
>> And FYI, Europe has already tripled its defense spending. I hope none of it gets spent on US tech of any kind.
Yes yes, we've all heard much talking about the Zeitenwende. Talking is what Europe does best, after all. Maybe German soldiers can stop running around with broomsticks instead of guns now? [0] So Europe is fine and dandy now, right? No need to NATO to continue, judging from all the fighting words coming out of folks like Kaja Kallas?
This is such an incoherent, Internet-pilled perspective. "The US empire is bad and should end, but also the Americans must stay and protect me on the other side of the world forever, but also I don't need them at all and I am actually perfectly capable of defending myself, thank you very much, but also them leaving is a huge betrayal and must be prevented at all costs -"
Good God, which is it? Either the US overseas presence is good and should continue to protect Europe, or it's bad and the Americans can go home and you'll take care of yourself.
Ironically, I think we're actually agreed on your future prediction. The US 'empire', to use your words, will end soon. Problem solved, Yankee go home, you kids have fun. I sincerely hope Europe doesn't get itself invaded, but that will really be a matter for Europe to figure out.
[0] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/natosource/german-sold...
America is generous with Americans money being funneled to the defense companies! This is all 100% middle class money, with the wealthy paying zero or negative taxes.
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...
"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...
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...
But nuclear power don’t want to shut down since that both increases wear and tear and makes them unable to capture revenue when the prices become higher again.
So they bid negative expecting to eat the losses and let more flexible plant shut down first.
https://docs.wind-watch.org/offshore-availability-costs.pdf
Hydropower and solar have much lower operating costs.
All thermal power plants experience wear and tear and have to be regularly repaired and maintained. Nuclear power plants can load-follow (within technical limits), but as the operating costs (maintance, repair, staffing, fuel) are much lower then capital costs it makes economic sense to run them at full power.
https://shs.cairn.info/revue-revue-deconomie-politique-2025-...
I’ve been googling and using LLMs and there’s no literature on the subject, but the companies owning them effectively treats it as zero.
In government models they seem to have landed at €1 per MWh.
The best estimates both Claude and ChatGPT came up with was both ”low single digit € per MWh”.
This report was linked, and ARUP the author did not get any replies when they asked the offshore wind companies this question.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6966a5c7e8c04...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
Nuclear power has problem with public perception.
One source of this media. Media loves to write and talk about nuclear incidents and really blow this out of proportion to real health hazards. For decades, newsrooms have operated under the premise that 'if it bleeds it leads'. If something happen infrequently and could have big impact on many people it makes more interesting news story.
Flight industry has similar public perception problem. Transport statistic shows that travel by airplane is safer the car, yet much more people fear flying then driving. A deadly airplane crash is reported in all newspapers, the daily deaths from the car crashes are not even mentioned.
Popular tv-series "The Simpsons" (three eyed fish, green radioactive goo), movies Spiderman (if I get bitten by a radioactive spider), Hulk (gamma rays make you super strong), China Syndrome, the german movie "Die Volke", etc., doesn't help much with education about nuclear power.
Deaths from burning coal don't get much attention in the media, because the happen continuously each year, over decades.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...
This is 2026. Doing things in 1974 isn't an option because time's arrow points the wrong way.
If you want Europe to do things now that it should have done in 1974 you'd need to explain how it'll stall on all the consequences for years. France, which you held up as a model says it can build a nuclear generator in about 5-6 years, but none of these optimistic projections came true this century, more typically the plant takes 10-15 years and it can be more.
So, suppose they start today likely they'll say the generator goes online in 2032. How does that help with the crisis Trump caused this month ? Worse, come 2032 the date is likely to be 2040 instead.
Now, renewables go a lot faster. For solar it's genuinely possible to get paperwork done in January and be selling electricity made with those panels by summer. It's not easy, plenty of projects will be delayed out a 1-2 years, particularly if local government don't want the project, but with a following wind it can really be the same year. Wind is slower, but still you will almost certainly build it and switch it on in five years, the optimistic guess France never hits for its nuclear plants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barakah_nuclear_power_plant
Nameplate capacity 5600 MW
Construction began
Unit 1: 19 July 2012
Unit 2: 16 April 2013
Unit 3: 24 September 2014
Unit 4: 30 July 2015
Commission date
Unit 1: 3 August 2020
Unit 2: 14 September 2021
Unit 3: 10 October 2022
Unit 4: 23 March 2024
Nuclear construction requires highly skilled workers doing very high quality work. One of the biggest problems with nuclear construction in U.S. and Europe is that last significant builds have been done around 1985, companies doing nuclear construction closed or moved to other products, or moved to maintenance, upgrades of power plants.
That trick does not work for smaller countries which can't afford/don't need to build a big number of reactors. Or you have to outsource to a foreign builder which does not seem to be a best idea in today's world.
Anyway, the original claim was "You can put up a plant in 5 years without erroneous regulation". It's simply not possible to do that. If you depend on continuous availability of highly skilled workers, you also have to account for their (initial and continuous) training. In addition you also have to maintain the staff which does the planning and permitting.
No, that is a terrible idea.
Nice transfer of wealth...
https://spectator.com/article/why-britain-is-building-the-wo...
https://fuelo.net/cheap/where?lang=bg&order=cheap&fuel_type=...
come here, the water is fine :)
Also for the naive people in the comments who say "invest in renewables" it's not that simple. You can buy electric cars but the car's whole manufacturing process had multiple steps that required oil. The same applies to everything, it's not a single layer issues, it's a multi-layer issue that needs addressing from the ground and takes years and years with full investment. The boats, the planes require fuel. The industrial machinery requires fuel. We need to address it from the ground up and it's not an easy feat.
We should 100% invest and diversify energy production, but the reality is that even if we had a surplus of renewable energy on the grid, that wouldn't save a country because there are too many cogs that need oil right now that need replacing.
Options are to either un-regulate the prices, or ration the fuel sales.
Pump prices of petrol and diesel in India are being kept the same by reducing taxes since there are some key state elections next month and the ruling party of the union government doesn’t want to hurt its chances.
Expect fuel prices in India to go up in May and the following months, even though procurement from Russia is increasing.
With a fertilizer shortage, the consequences of this war are making things tougher and tougher for common people everywhere.
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.
That definitely sounds like something that happened.
As if "multiple gas cans" wouldn't still be well under the 50 liter/day limit.
>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.
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).
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...
Canada is a country of 35 million bordering a rich country of 350 million.
That isn’t true of US borders.
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".
My friends living in Switzerland (near the border) always go to Germany to fuel up. And, even without a crisis, gas stations on the cheaper sides of borders are often way more crowded than on the other side.
Also, keep in mind that Slovenia is roughly the size of Los Angeles. Or not much wider than Long Island. If there fuel was 30% cheaper on one side of Long Island, than on the other, I'm sure plenty of people wouldn't think twice about that.
https://www.24ur.com/novice/gospodarstvo/bencin-nafta-dostav...
That means they transport 110-120 tanker trucks of fuel daily, and in "times of crisis", they can do approximately 200 tankers per day.
Now imagine just the people from gorizia going across the border to buy gas in nova gorica (the country border goes literally through the city, gorica = gorizia, nova gorica= new gorizia), and instead of eg. 1 tanker truck that day, they now need 4. Just in one small cizy.
Then there's trieste, a city of about 200k people, and just ~10km away is the city of sežana (13k pop and 6 gas stations).
Then there's villach in austria and gas stations in slovenia ~20km away.
Croatia? Zagreb (capital, almost 800k pop) is ~20km away form slovenia.
And then you get the news that there is no gas at this or that gas station, and all the locals pick up their gas cans, jump into their cars and go fill up their cars + 20, 40 liters of extra gas in cans.
To go back to the toilet paper crisis... we didn't even need foreigners coming, just the media showing the situation abroad was enough to cause a shortage of toilet paper locally.
In the UK there is currently a feels like temperature of -8C (early morning) and yesterday reached a dizzying high of 4c. Spring is stubbornly in hiding still.
The inflationary crisis will be immense as it's building off the previous one which didn't really go away
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.
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.
I think it's just what a reasonable "full tank" was a while back.
You can just restart if you need more.
> 23 March 2026