Gas prices are still high, diesel is at a record high, and the reserve has shrunk more than 30% in six months. While the reserve held around 415 million barrels of oil in February, it now holds less than 285 million barrels of oil — lower than it has been since the early 1980s.

These rapid drawdowns of oil threaten the salt caverns’ structure, says Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan policy think tank. As the reserves get lower and lower, the physical facilities can get degraded, Gross says: " You can damage them by pumping too much out of them."

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    3 hours ago

    Article didn’t mention, but as reserves get lower, there is a forced slowdown in withdrawals, and some of the caverns are in danger of collapse which not only creates a massive restoration costs, it also make 50m (1/5th or so) barrels of reserves just disappear.

  • BilSabab@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    it’s almost as if it would’ve been a good idea to figure out some alternate energy sources beforehand

    • blackberry28@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      And the average dumb American will fall for it and Trump will be elected president again in 2028 lol (yes, he will find a way around the 2 term limit law).

      • Exatron@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Presidential term limits aren’t a law, they’re a constitutional amendment. And there really isn’t a way for him to get around it.

        • smeenz@lemmy.nz
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          13 hours ago

          He’s also signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship, which is also a constitutional amendment. Currently with the courts to see who wins.

          He’s spent and redirected funds without congressional approval, in violation of article 1.

          He’s ignored the 4th and 5th amendments by deporting people without due process.

          He’s in stark violation of the emoluments clause.

          He’s started and continued to wage war against Iran without congressional approval, in violation of article II.

          What makes you think that he’ll suddenly pay attention to the 22nd amendment, limiting him to two terms ?

  • zd9@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    MORE MORE MORE

    Let’s collapse the oil energy system, so we can finally all be forced to transition to a cheaper, efficient, cleaner, and self-contained energy system like with solar.

    Thanks Donny for helping the renewable energy movement!

    • normalentrance@lemmy.zip
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      22 hours ago

      I mean… maybe. I like clean energy, but people will starve too. I don’t see Trump’s government hopping on clean energy as a solution. They will blame and deflect. They will destroy all our national parks scavenging for resources. It will be bad.

      • zbyte64
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        2 hours ago

        I mean private planes will still fly and there will still be food that goes to waste. People starving isn’t because of oil shortages but because the rich won’t eat the cost and rather kick people onto the street. Now the fertilizer shortage on the other hand…

    • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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      18 hours ago

      If it were possible, why did it take fossil fuels for humanity to reach 8 billion people?

      Reminder: all of human history and technology up to 1850 was solar and wind powered.

      • zbyte64
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        19 minutes ago

        I think nitrogen fertilizer made that possible more so than oil

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        14 hours ago

        Keep in mind that most energy at the time was mechanical, not electric. Electrification as we know it, even in factories had not taken place yet. We didn’t even know how to use solar panels for electricity generation, so at best solar energy was used to heat water. Windmills ran water pumps but were not powerful enough to run any kind of industry. If you wanted heaps of energy you needed to build next to a river and use the flowing water to drive water wheels or similar.

        Fossil fuels - oil, coal, gas - are comparably easy centralised energy. Easy to dig or drill for, easy to store and transport and then convert into mechanical and later electrical energy. You could have a coal mine in one place and the refining industry in another, power houses and industry in remote places even. Trains could run on coal and made long distance and large scale transport possible.

        While dirty, the industrial revolution would not have been possible without easily accessible coal.

        • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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          3 hours ago

          Electrical energy is 90%+ efficent at converting to mechanical work. Combustion is 25% efficient or so.

  • HubertManne@piefed.social
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    yeah he pretty much does not care about prices after the election so they are pumping out as much as possible to keep prices from skyrocketing.

        • JustPlainDave@lemmy.zip
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          When Trump took office this time around I was paying around $2.00 a gallon. Today it was 4.19. I don’t know if I can afford much more.

          • HubertManne@piefed.social
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            14 minutes ago

            oh wow. I can’t remember the last time I saw two bucks a gallon. Im lucky though in that I have only begrudgingly had a car so don’t use a whole lot. like gas going up is such a drop in the bucket vs other things. I can’t not eat.

    • FirstCircle@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 day ago

      “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody" - Epstein Files star

    • JandalsAweigh@lemmy.nz
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      18 hours ago

      This is the fault of Regan, Bush Snr, Bill Clinton, Bush Jnr, Obama, The DNC, GoP, billionaire media owners… can’t be bothered typing more

  • we are all@crazypeople.online
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    1 day ago

    what a stupid design that can’t pump out emergency fluid like it was supposed to do. “has to provide emergency fluid slowly or it fails” lol wow

    way to go team.

    • RamRabbit@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The salt caverns are a consumable storage medium. You pump in water to remove the oil, which damages the salt caverns.

      The more you pump oil in and out, the more the salt caverns degrade.

    • cybervseas@lemmy.world
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      I think it’s more about the structural challenges of suddenly having that much volume pumped out of the reserves. Like at such a high rate. But I don’t know much of anything about geostability!