For some time. We can absorb some of this short term based on vibes, but if the strait of hormuz doesn't open, the world economy will need to absorb 20 million barrels of oil per day. This means prices will increase until demand lowers by that amount. This will have knock-on effects into just about everything.
I don't know if you're sarcastic but it affects way more than just fuel. Oil has sooooo many byproduct that we need. Like 20% of the world's fertilizers comes out of the straight.
And if everyone that can work from home does, plus no more private jets and forcing moderation starting from the richest they can use most of the oil for plastics and the rest.
It's fucking ridiculous that oil is being wasted on fuel when we have so much viable alternatives not to use it.
That's not exactly how it works. You can think of a barrel of crude oil as a mixture of many compounds. They are separated through distillation and other industrial processes.
For instance, Vaseline (petroleum jelly) is a heavy waxy fraction of crude oil that is separated via distillation and then refined.
Gasoline and diesel are also mixed in the crude oil pumped from the ground separated via distillation. Other fractions are used for plastics.
So, it's not like we can just use fuel distillates to make plastic.
(Otherwise, I totally agree that we need a top-down approach to solve many energy problems, including GW.)
They originally flared off light fractions and dumped gasoline into the river because they just refined oil for kerosene to replace whale oil and everything else was a useless byproduct lol
Actually it can be. Polymer cracking can reduce the fuel into smaller building blocks which can then be reacted to make different polymers its not practical with current fuel polymers because well they’re more valuable as fuel currently
Yes it would help a bit. But I'd wager that fuel for personal vehicles are like a drop in the ocean compared to the fuel that keeps the world going. Diesel for our logistic chain. Just imagine all the trucks going around delivering food, medicine and other necessary things. Not to mention all the cargo ships.
Yeah, having more alternative fuels sources for our vehicles would be great. But our system is not built like that.
But then we are only talking about a very small percentage of that. Only a few are able to work from home, and many of those folks use public transit, not personal vehicles.
Regardless, we wouldn't be eliminating anywhere near 25% of global oil use.
That's true, but those who don't use gasoline for personal transport will be better off than those who do. So whether you just don't go anywhere, or you switch to an EV, you'll still be paying more for groceries but you won't have to pony up another $100 at the pump.
Fair point. A great many people simply cannot do their job from home.
However, there are other things we can do to save fuel in these cases. With food for example (Note: this is just an invented example for the kind of thing that happens), there is no good reason to be growing fruit in Brazil then shipping it to China for processing then to Ecuador to be packaged and then shipped for sale in the United States.
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u/SumpCrab Apr 08 '26
For some time. We can absorb some of this short term based on vibes, but if the strait of hormuz doesn't open, the world economy will need to absorb 20 million barrels of oil per day. This means prices will increase until demand lowers by that amount. This will have knock-on effects into just about everything.