I also do wonder if oil prices would actually stay high even if the Strait of Hormuz stayed closed for years. Many analysts think that as a planet we're already past peak oil demand, and the price spike has turbocharged the transition to EVs (where I live, every EV dealer is flat out and waiting times are months). High prices also spur more production from everybody else. The tricky bit is specialist fuels like jet fuel, where you can't just turn a tap to make more.
EVs were only going to grow in popularity anyway, but this feels like it's jumped the adoption curve up a peg or two immediately.
What I'm interested in seeing is whether infrastructure can scale with the additional interest. And I don't think it will because the the current government is already planning to add an "EV tax" to make up for the fuel excise, and the opposition government (if/when it gets back in) is owned by the fossil fuel lobby, and so they'll be doing whatever they can to slow it down.
A gas station just needs a tank and a pump. You can put it anywhere and can operate with a small generator if 110V electricity is not available. Even as a country you don’t need infra. Just some trucks to import from the closest refinery/ port
My understanding is that much of the grid already exists if there is a town or even just a rest stop present, it likely has grid power. I will grant that this doesn't speak to the suitability of said existing infrastructure for running one or a number of a high voltage / high speed chargers.
> Just some trucks to import from the closest refinery/ port
Driving thousands and thousands of miles.
I do not try to claim that trucking fuel over long distances is efficient. Just stating that gas stations themselves need no additional infrastructure.
Obviously there's work to be done on charging in apartments and highways, but this is a more tractable problem than (say) trying to double hydrogen or even gasoline filling stations overnight.
What I meant to say was the kind of infrastructure that defeats some of the FUD around EVs, such as chargers at rest stops along highways, in parking lots, hotel/motel car parks, etc. Chargers could/should become a value-add for businesses that survive on servicing road-trip transient customers.
> Anybody with a house can charge at home, using cheap off-peak power at night and/or solar panels during the day.
Yes! This is decentralised, existing infrastructure, and that should neither be forgotten nor understated: the ubiquity of 'the lowly power point' is greater than that of the fuel nozzle (in complete awareness of the relatively large disparity between charging time and refueling time, which is a whole can of worms on its own).
Everyone else is, to a greater or lesser extent, at the mercy of the DCFC infrastructure, and it is sorely lacking in many places - even ones you'd expect it to be pretty good.
I'm in the privileged position that I have solar panels and can charge in the garage. I only just had a conversation with someone who was considering an EV, but their 'housing configuration' doesn't support it, it just wasn't feasible purely from a charging perspective in their situation.
More public infrastructure, and knowledge of the presence of said infrastructure would open up EVs to a wider set of use cases. It's almost the 'confidence' in the suitability of EVs that needs to be worked on.
- Qatar produces 20-33% of the world's helium;
- The supply chain for ~30 of the world's fertilizer relies upon supply chains going through the Strait of Hormuz. How do you feel about 10-20% food inflation?
- ~20% of the world's LNG passes through the STrait. Let's see how that bites come (NOrthern Hemisphere) winter;
- Many Asian countries are wholly reliant on Gulf oil for electricity and fuel; and
- Roughly ~20% of California's oil comes from Iraq. The US is the world's largest single oil and gas producer but that doesn't really matter when California has blocked any pipelines into the state such that ~75% of their oil arrives by ship.
Oil demand to a point is fairly inelastic but once you get beyond about $120-130 you start getting into destructive demand. Fuel prices really spike and in many places, it's going to severely disrupt electricity.
There are many fuel usages for which we have no alternative, namely shipping and aviation. Oh and a lot of heavy machinery and industrial uses of diesel.
Additionally, there are significant (at least 25% of the total) non-energy uses. Construction, plastic, roads, etc.
Weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels is a decades-long project and only China really is trying to do that. I suspect only China has the long-term supply chains, willpower and commitment to pull off that kind of national project.
There are service stations in rural Victoria that have run out of petrol[0]. If farmers can't run their machines, I don't want to continue that train of thought. I would hope that governments would obviously prioritise food production and distribution over, kinda everything else, but logic and government seem to have a strange relationship.
[0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-24/victorian-petrol-stat...
[0]: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
[1]: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/oil-demand-by...
[2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/307194/top-oil-consuming...
The biggest non-consumer transportation usage is trucks, and I expect them to electrify relatively quickly. Trucking is a low margin business and fuel is their biggest expense.
> there aren't really any feasible alternatives here
It's not feasible yet, but I really hope that carbon sequestration comes into play here. Plastic lasts a really long time, so turning CO2 into plastic is one way to go carbon negative.
Even if his officials are ideologically stable and consistent, he himself isn't.
The statement about oil prices is probably a public statement to Trump to "get this situation resolved ASAFP, I've told you what will happen!".
r0fl•2h ago
Expensive oil has a lot of repercussions
hedora•1h ago
The oil interests will do everything they can to fight it. (Like buying off Trump, which probably had a lot to do with us starting the Iran war, and is certainly why we're cancelling many affordable energy build outs in the face of widespread shortages.)
Less corrupt economies will pull ahead, and technological progress will bifurcate. The US will probably be on the wrong side of this. China will probably be on the right side.
adi_kurian•1h ago
adrianN•1h ago
fy20•15m ago
Europe started implementing these initiatives a couple of decades ago, it makes sense there as they are a net importer, with residential prices around 3x higher than the US. In my country a newly built house (very low energy demand) is often cheaper to heat with a heat pump than natural gas, especially if combined with solar PV - but that's still more expensive than a home in the US.
The most impactful usages are transportation, as everywhere basically everything is transported by road, and renewable electricity generation, so fossil fuels can be used elsewhere (residential, industrial, etc).
eucyclos•1h ago
samaltmanfried•1h ago
Oil companies have actually not benefited from America's middle-eastern wars. America's regime-change wars have made the region less profitable for US oil companies. Why invest in infrastructure in countries with unstable regimes, or risk of infrastructure becoming a target?
If anything, energy companies would benefit from the sanctions on Iran being lifted, so they could invest in infrastructure there, or buy gas from Iran.
I hope one day this silly 'war for oil' meme will disappear.
BLKNSLVR•1h ago
rayiner•14m ago
That’s a weird thing to say considering that the Iran hostage crisis helped swing an election almost half a century ago. It’s not like nobody thought about going to Iran until someone bribed Trump to do it.
The far more rational theory is that Trump did it to deflect from his failure to combat inflation domestically. They made an entire movie about his. (Wag the Dog.)
jmyeet•47m ago
China, Iran and Russia look to the the big winners here. Everyone else is a loser, the US the biggest loser of them all. In history books I think this will go down as the biggest geopolitical miscalculation and mistake in US history of anything to date and it's not even close.
The Middle East consists of a bunch of US client states where arms are used to maintain fealty. The US gives arms to a despotic regime who enrich themselves off of their country's natural resources and they use those arms to stay in power.
This last month has shown the US security guarantee to the Gulf to be a paper tiger. This is a seismic potential rift between the US and Israel. This war of choice has undermined relationship with long-term allies (eg in Europe) who were never consulted and never approved of this war and may suffer with significantly higher electricity prices as a result.
This is a Napoleon invading Russia level of blunder.
vasco•45m ago
rayiner•13m ago
Bigger than Iraq?
bryanlarsen•31m ago