Had no idea this was political at all or I wouldn't have posted it on here. Seems to me that the strategic reserve should be used to help America only seeing as how tax payers pay for it.
If an American oil company wants to sell their own production to China that would be OK. They shouldn't be able to use oil they procure from a release of the strategic preserve in my opinion. We store the oil to help buffer oil prices from interruptions in production.
The video linked by gp says the reason that's possible is that congress lifted a US crude oil export ban in 2015.
Since this is indeed a conservative talking point it's worth noting that the lifting of the ban was passed by a Republican-controlled congress over the objections of then-president Obama, who then signed it despite having previously said he'd veto any lifting of the ban, because the provision was tacked onto a "must-pass" omnibus spending bill. [1]
Of course the right thing here, if there is an actual problem, would be to have a debate about whether to put the ban back in place or make some law specifically about not exporting oil purchased from the strategic reserves, but apparently the Republicans would rather impeach Joe Biden for some reason.
> Of course the right thing here, if there is an actual problem, would be to have a debate about whether to put the ban back in place or make some law specifically about not exporting oil purchased from the strategic reserves...
If you want to debate that, sure. It won't work because oil is a commodity. If the US cuts itself off from the global markets that would be kinda stupid (because then it can't swap paper for oil, which is a great trade). If it doesn't then any oil it supplies will have knock-on effects making the market price cheaper in some sense. Foreigners would still get about the same benefit.
China tried to ban Australian coal the other day. It was hilariously ineffective. They bought coal from other countries, and we sold coal to the people who just had their coal redirected to China. Net effect, we continued to enjoy the coal boom.
They can try to put that ban in place, but it is meaningless and quite likely can't do anything unless America tries to go full autarky which, ironically, would probably raise the gas price they pay. It is unbelievably tricky to have a commodity market that has 2 different prices for the same good and has any sort of international trade happening.
PS Indeed, due to the magic of markets, if the politicians succeeded there is every change US citizens would be worse off, because they could have traded the oil for something they wanted and then they ended up with something of lower utility. Starve China of oil & the US gets less iPhones for example. If that special gas was used to drive to the Apple store, the scheme would look pretty silly.
> Had no idea this was political at all or I wouldn't have posted it on here.
This might be true, but a lot of people see that and think "yeah right!". The problem when topics become political is any intelligent discussion gets suffocated.
> We store the oil to help buffer oil prices from interruptions in production.
Sort of, but it's a bit more nuanced I think (right or wrong).
From evergy.gov:
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The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the world's largest supply of emergency crude oil was established primarily to reduce the impact of disruptions in supplies of petroleum products and to carry out obligations of the United States under the international energy program.
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You could easily argue that what they are currently doing is congruent with this mission by participating strategically in the global market.
I don't know that I agree with it being a good approach from my simpleton perspective, but I doubt it's being done as some sort of pro China move at least.
It isn't. The person above is trying to browbeat you for holding an opinion which is not advantageous to the election prospects of their preferred politician.
Ignore the other answers to you - they're referring to refined products, not crude. Straight from the strategic reserve FAQ, crude oil doesn't really degrade if stored properly: https://www.energy.gov/ceser/spr-faqs#Q14
Note that if it's not stored properly, it can degrade due to water intrusion and oxidation, and it can just evaporate.
Refined oil products (e.g. the stuff you put in your car) go "bad" because they evaporate. In particular, different substances within the fuel evaporate at different rates, so over time the "mix" degrades away from the optimal ratio. If you put old, degraded fuel into your car it can damage the engine.
You can make fuel last longer by storing it in a cool, dark, airtight place, and there are products you can add to make it last longer, but the general rule is that petrol lasts about 3 months and diesel lasts around 6, or at least that's what I've read.
Entropy, sadly, is an immutable and inescapable law of the universe.
Yes, but the time scale varies widely depending on how it's treated. Gas you get at the pump might start degrading as fast as in a few months, as it's meant for immediate consumption and thus treated less to keep costs down. Gas that's treated for long term storage can go for up to a few years, but that adds extra cost. The main sources of degradation are oxidation and contamination, both from air and impurities. If you can, it makes economic sense to rotate the oil like you might rotate a log file so it's always reasonably fresh.
This is the point which is overlooked - which of the enumerated powers granted by the people to the federal government allows the federal government to maintain a non-military oil reserve for the purpose of manipulating worldwide prices? Let companies and the free market supply oil.
I will save the room 5 minutes, the major points in this video seem to be (a) the speaker doesn't like Marjorie Greene and (b) points out roughly that oil is a commodity, and if released into the market is going to get sold to whoever pays the most. That might be anyone in the world.
I do agree - it is a mistake to focus on where the oil is being sold. What is more interesting is that the strategic reserve is not being used strategically. I would argue it is being used ineffectually, the problems here go a bit deeper than what the SPR could possibly cope with. At this rate it is going to run out and not even make a marginal difference.
passing the blame to the party that was in power 7 years ago, for allowing this to become law, vs blaming the current regime that’s unloading SPR to China… an expected coping mechanism from the modern democrat
Well.. what _strategic_ goals are we accomplishing with the "strategic petroleum reserve?" To sate the world market for a few days? Or, given the OPEC view, simply provide slight downward pressure on prices for a few weeks?
I don't understand your point; that factcheck article confirms the accuracy of the statement that the US is selling oil from the strategic reserve to China (among other countries). It provides more context, yes, but it confirms the statement.
If you need vital goods to run your day to day operations, you'll be willing to overpay off it means you don't have to shut everything down even more than you've had to do so already. Your net benefit as China might outweigh the cost, even if you must buy anyways. The alternative is shutting down the economy more than has already occurred.
Why downvote this comment? It's additive to the conversation... Why make it political when the comment is perfectly fine, stating another point of view?
Linking to something Ana Kasparian says as if it is insightful is the equivalent to linking to Rudy Giuliana’s podcast, or Donald Trumps twitter clone as if it’s insightful.
It’s just absolute hyper hyper hyper partisan nonsense.
Is there something wrong with this video? It seems pretty factual to me that oil is sold in an open market and companies just sell it to the highest bidder. Using the reserve like this is perfectly reasonable to avoid (more) chaos.
Ana Kasparian is a partisan left-wing hack. She’d be considered the partisan left-wing hack if her co-host, Cenk Uyghur, didn’t exist.
Granted, her video may or may not be factually correct but you might as well get your political coverage from Putin himself if you care this little about where it comes from.
Just because someone points out facts that happen to be bad for the current administration doesn’t make it a “right wing talking point.” Even in political terms, criticism of a democrat isn’t necessarily aimed at “the right wing,” because the plurality of the population identify as independents.
But that is what happens when you watch MSNBC and CNN, and the vice versa when you watch Fox. An entire generation now exists incapable of having intellectual arguments thinking beyond party line just because the people they follow in the media (social and news) continues to drive the argument in terms that is very close to derangement syndromes.
Both sides are responsible but one one side is more amplified due to their majority presence in HN.
> TCP/IP and HTML became dominant because they were open standards. Should they have been proprietary, they would have floundered and something else would have emerged instead.
This article reminds me of how critics said Carlin was getting dark and cynical and unfunnny in his last few specials. Now I see clips from these same specials celebrated daily on Twitter.
Leaving aside "sitting for an hour" (?), isn't it much safer to charge 99% of the time in your own garage and never have to regularly step out of your car alone at a dark gas station on the corner?
Even on a long drive you leave home with a "full tank" without having that first stop to gas up.
To put it another way, people charging EVs tend to look out for each other and help each other. At Tesla chargers, since they have multiple plugs in one spot, there are often other friendly people there charging so you feel safer and more secure. So even without security guards it is a good setup for leaving your car or for being there in a strange parking lot.
A charging station costs an order of magnitude less than a petrol station
Why would cities need to pay a dime for charging infrastructure? There are commercial vendors doing just fine.
Which do you think is the hardest to get a permit for? 1) underground tank for thousands of gallons of explosive liquid that's bad for the environment if it leaks 2) overground tank of pressurised explosive gas known for its ability to leak out of every container 3) a big-ass electric socket
As for labor, you need an electrician with a high voltage certificate. Not a exactly rare, hard to train, commodity. Maybe a dude with a backhoe to dig the wires.
Local transformer capacity is highly variable, some areas might have issues, others might not. A charging station can bring stability to unstable networks if paired with a battery bank to offset the load. (And maybe even make $$ by charging it during low load and feed back during peak hours).
Depends-- If I'm in the sell-things-for-a-million-dollars-at-a-huge-profit business, this is great news for me.
Or if I live in a people-that-didn't-just-get-a-million-dollars-go-instantly-homeless-with-their-entire-family community, this is another big win for me. What a boon to the economy, and man we all just dodged a massive bullet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2zIOMp0RSA
She addresses additional related misrepresentations from conservative media.
One source she cites is here:
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/07/u-s-selling-oil-from-the-s...