Oil going through Hormuz is 20%, not 80% of global supply. It's true that demand is pretty inelastic, but it's not like it can't be cut at all.

> ours seems to be climate collapse. It used to be nuclear war

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

Buckle down and sort it = wars around the world and mass (and I mean mass) migration

Is global economic collapse not an eschatological scenario?

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.

> If the clouds turns out to be a really bad storm, people will buckle down and sort it.

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?

> You’re getting worked up over nothing. Everything is going to be fine. So just relax, okay? You’re really overreacting.

> 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...

> 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.

And grown with fertilizer produced using energy provided by burning petroleum.

That’s a pretty amazing definition of upstream. I imagine you probably understand that plastics, pharmaceuticals, and fertilizers are made out of petroleum derivatives, right?

Since you seem pretty smart: are there petroleum based cooking oils?

> 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

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?

11 days of supply in the system. If they can afford it they can add to that with new shipments. It is not like Taiwan is blockaded. Just that global supply from single region is limited.

This might be lot bigger issue if China managed blockaded Taiwan during an invasion. Or destroy port facilities sufficiently.

I think the point is that a world with renewable electricity wouldn't need as much oil, thereby making smaller sources of carbon sufficient.

You don't have to get carbon from oil extracted from underground and you don't have to get oil from the middle east. That's merely where the bulk of it happens to come from at present for price and historical reasons.

Yes, but all those things, combined, are 20% of the usage. I'd say if you remove about the 50 % used for cars, that's a pretty large improvement.

> it wouldn't solve the problem of needing a supply of carbon atoms to make the carbon-based substances in the list.

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.

Nothing here challenges the assertion of the parent comment.

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.

That would require some super effective anti air. Otherwise such a pipeline is an easy target.

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.

As if those can’t be blown up with $300 FPVs or $10k Shahids…

Oil isn't magic, you can just make it, and the reason we don't is merely that it's expensive to do that, whereas it's just there under the ground - as a fossil fuel.

But because you can just make it from ingredients everybody already has, this puts a ceiling on its actual price if you have energy independence. If you need to burn oil, you can't make oil because that's a vicious circle which would need even more oil. But so long as the only you want oil is for its other properties that's fine.

Hydrocarbons are incredibly simple, the clue is in their name, a bunch of Hydrogen (literally the most common element in the whole universe) and Carbon (also extremely common). The only reason not to make any particular hydrocarbons you need (e.g. to make JetA for a airliner) is it'd be very energy intensive and instead you can just distil some crude oil to get the hydrocarbons you want...

Strictly speaking, the oil in the Earth's crust is both finite and more than 50% already extracted.

However, a closed cycle of renewable-powered vehicles and processing sites growing crops for biorefineries which are then hydrocracked into the various petrochemical additives to maintain the infrastructure with surplus left over for the rest of society has been proven to be viable going back to the early 2010s.

Leong et al has a great survey of how the entire market of irreplaceable petrochemical uses (e.g. medical grade plastic) and their upstream steps (e.g. metal smelting for making agricultural vehicles) can theoretically be made to work from wind alone, with total immunity to peak oil when it does eventually happen. Although the carbon molecules are essential, having a no-oil well industrial civilization is just a matter of long and arduous implementation and negotiation with vested interests.

Did you read the comment you replied to?

> This is, on the high end, 20% of the use of fossil fuels. We overwhelmingly burn oil and gas. If we displaced the burning, Hormuz would not matter (or would minimally matter for a few molecules) and the world would be awash in abundant supplies.

Don't forget that we need cadmium for batteries, asbestos for brake pads, and mercury for lightbulbs.

You missed the point of my comment.

> It isn’t going to happen. Planes don’t run on solar. Boats don’t run on renewables. The lubricant needed for wind turbines comes out of the earth. Dams need the same lubricant. Building roads, oil. Installing renewable infrastructure, oil. Running combines to harvest vegetation, oil. Building renewables requires massive amounts of oil.

All of this? About 30% of oil usage on the high end. You are listing the small uses for oil.

May some oil always be needed? Yes. But nowhere near as much as we produce today.

Ships are starting to become electrified. Currently for fixed routes.

You can, and should, over the entirety of europe apart from the northern parts of the nordic countries electric heat pumps are now simply more efficient than gas powered furnaces. This is true even if powered by gas based electricity - but obviously makes it possible to power them via renewables as well.

People in Quebec (Canada), which is colder than just about all of Europe, have been providing heating in winter using renewables for decades (thanks to an excess of renewables).

Wot?

Solar makes a fair bit where I am. Hydro works fine. Geothermal works fine. Wind works fine. Aircon is very efficient.

This is harder in plenty of regions but a blanket ‘can’t be done’ is way off the mark.

My wood pellet stove begs to differ.

...you can? Electric heaters exist?

According to Unusual Whales on Twitter, Australia just ordered an emergency fuel shipment from the US: https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/2037650368390144243

Why should the EU drop sanctions on Russian gas and oil – that’s just appeasing an aggressor and abandoning Ukraine?

Ukraine is completely dependent on arms from the US and Europe to sustain the war effort. Ukraine is running out of men to serve in the Army. Ukraine has no path to reclaim the territory it's lost.

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.

Once you get NREs set up you don't need a constant uninterrupted supply of replacements as fossil fuels do (we burn them after all).

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.

Once you have a sane people in charge of policy the building out of renewables quickly using Chinese panels and turbines can be accompanied by incentives do build up domestic manufacturing for them.

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.

US post colonial empire method was to create markets overseas, China was watching and learning!

Yes, it seems like the next logical move would be for the US to blockade the strait. Ironic.

What is "bad faith" here? I'd love to see an explanation.

Whatever Iran wants is the cheapest course to resolution.

As the value of the oil goes up it becomes worth it to risk the ship. Even if you're paying to insure it there's an equilibrium point between odds and value.

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.

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... and if Iran keeps raising it will eventually become the only choice available, at which point we'll do it (and can I just say the truly horrible part: ... which was going to happen at some point anyway with the islamists in power)