example: https://www.zurnal24.si/slovenija/bralec-v-soku-mirne-vesti-...
I mean... we also have a huge factory making toilet paper here, and we had the same toilet paper crisis during covid... everyone suddenly needed 10 packs of toilet paper for some reason.
That definitely sounds like something that happened.
As if "multiple gas cans" wouldn't still be well under the 50 liter/day limit.
>In Slovenia, this has resulted in so-called "fuel tourism", as drivers from neighbouring countries, particularly Austria, take advantage of the lower, regulated prices here.
And i'm saying that as a guy who drives to italy to buy pasta, booze and parmesan cheese. Two bottles of jack daniels and the cost of gas is covered by the price difference (well... not anymore).
https://svet24.si/novice/slovenija/gorivo-dizel-bencinski-se...
https://sobotainfo.com/novica/lokalno/foto-video-neverjetna-...
https://sobotainfo.com/novica/globalno/video-avstrijci-k-nam...
https://www.prlekija-on.net/lokalno/40253/ponekod-zmanjkalo-...
And it's not the first time:
https://vecer.com/slovenija/izredne-razmere-zaradi-navala-na...
Canada is a country of 35 million bordering a rich country of 350 million.
That isn’t true of US borders.
I'm skeptical this happens in such numbers as to strain national infrastructure.
Tellingly, the ration put in place applies to Slovenian citizens, not just foreigners. Which should tell you something about "who is being blamed" vs "what solves the problem".
At 2.2 EUR / liter, 75 liters is 165 EUR so I was blocked at 150 EUR.
50 liters I definitely cannot fill my car entirely.
I think it's just what a reasonable "full tank" was a while back.
You can just restart if you need more.
Seems like the obvious solution is to raise prices so people stop driving to your country (wasting fuel, ironically) to take your cheap fuel instead of just paying for the fuel in their own country. More than that it's a solution the free market would actually find on its own...
Why not raise the prices? Sure, but then don't complain about the inflation, revolt, and stoning of elected representatives.
So if the regulations were to suddenly be lifted, this would have a domino effect on not only truckers but also regular commuters, which would then mean companies would have to compensate for the increased labour costs by raising the prices of their products/services even more.
https://www.racunovodja.com/clanki.asp?clanek=232/kilometrin...
A few years ago (or last year? not sure) they were deregulated on the highways (i.e. to make tourists pay more) but then the government changed their mind (several times, IIRC).
Somewhere in between, a feud started between the largest provider Petrol and govt, and govt started regulating the highway prices too for no good reason.
There are things you can do to try and even things out. Etherium has been considering “quadratic voting” to solve a similar problem (in this case, that would look like tracking consumption and increasing the unit price of fuel as you consume more fuel, so that cost goes up quadratically with consumption). That seems hard to enforce, though, and doesn’t help with foreign opportunists.
Ethereum has the weird issue where "votes" and "money" are different things and they only want to redistribute votes and not money, but that's not a problem here...
The prices will go up soon, that's why everyone is panicking and filling up canisters of gas.
This is the worst energy crisis in modern history, and little of the western world has really started feeling the effects yet:
https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-energy/iran-war-...
Petro is pretty much upstream of everything: plastics, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cooking oils, lubricants, cosmetics. Dow chemical just doubled the cost of polyethylene as of April 1st. Taiwan relies on LNG for 40% of its energy production and has 11 days of LNG storage--meaning it may have to consider limiting industrial electricity use if things persist. I will clarify based on a reply, this doesn't mean they'll run out in that time, but that they have limited runway that will have deleterious effects as time goes on:
> Yeh Tsung-kuang, a professor in the Department of Engineering and System Science at National Tsing Hua University, 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.
Even if the Strait saw normal traffic today (and Iran is incentivized and well-positioned to keep it closed for a while), it would take quite a while to recover lost supply. Iran continues to employ a tit-for-tat strategy and Israel just targeted steel industry in the country -- I'm not even taking into account more deliberate damage to energy infrastructure in the Mid east.
This is a scary crisis wherein the most movable actor (the US) is not going to accept Iran's terms. It could collapse the global economy, and that crucially includes the AI industry this forum loves to focus on almost exclusively. The US and the majority of the west has essentially no fiscal room compared to the comparably lesser 1970s crises either. This could easily spiral out of control and cause a level of suffering across the world (esp the global south) most of us on this forum have not lived to see.
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.
Renewable investment would solve/would have prevented this crisis.
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).
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.
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.
Renewables are amazing and I’m all for them. Let’s keep that train rolling.
Oil isn’t going away, pretending otherwise is willful ignorance.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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...
You can't make insulin, brake fluid or PVC out of electricity alone.
Surprise Solar Uptake in Pakistan Cushions Mideast Energy Shock - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-17/surprise-... | https://archive.today/QdgdQ - March 17th, 2026
> Millions of factories, farmers, and households have switched to cheap solar panels from China, driving a 40% drop in Pakistan’s fossil fuel imports between 2022 and 2024, the researchers found. Additionally, the country is estimated to have saved $12 billion through reduced LNG imports in the past five years as cumulative imports of Chinese photovoltaics soared past 50 gigawatts, the report said.
Daily anxiety attack thanks. As a european I think we are way too vulnerable. Countries divided, rich getting richer, more and more poor people who can barely afford food, and that's in Europe let alone talk about what happens with the poor in Africa and Asia.
Sooner or later we will need a global reset but that sounds worse than everything else
It's an apocalyptical mind-bug. All times have an eschatology - ours seems to be climate collapse. It used to be nuclear war.
The media is selling a story. In reality everything is still getting better. People are healthier, richer, and better off in almost every measurable way, all over the world, including Africa and Asia.
Yes, there are some dark clouds. A long list. But the problems - even a long war in the middle east, are bumps in the road, not a cliff. If the clouds turns out to be a really bad storm, people will buckle down and sort it.
<ducks for cover>
I hear diesel is running out in NSW and Queensland Australia. Good thing you don't need diesel to run mining operations. Oh wait..
The "10 days left" thing seems to be a hoax(?)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/international-relations/m...
https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2026/03/26/is-taiwan-ru...
> Yeh Tsung-kuang, a professor in the Department of Engineering and System Science at National Tsing Hua University, 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
EDIT: updated comment to be more specific.
And, looking at the scenario you’re describing, it could be the most sane thing to do at this point.
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.
Someone could say the risk is financially worth it, but you are not going to have many takers. Also might find few crew who want to sign onto your vessels.
There are a lot of human beings on those ships. It strikes me as awful that their lives would be risked under these circumstances, and that happening wouldn't really be a proper solution to the overarching problem. It would be something of a tragedy if things got so severe that the risk was assumed worthwhile and presumably, people on board were exposed to it outside of their will or control. I suspect many of them don't have a lot of options.
The US and Israel are rapidly running out of munitions, while Iran is being resupplied by Russia (https://www.ft.com/content/d5d7291b-8a53-42cd-b10a-4e02fbcf9...) which is much more tooled out for munition production compared to NATO. The US also relies on both rare earths and Chinese supply chain for a lot of its munitions (which it is running low on).
IMO the best option is for Trump to TACO, take the major L, and cede Iran its demands, but this would partially mean an alignment shift from Israel which still feels unthinkable based on the US political realities.
The price to secure the straight militarily is a full ground invasion of Iran.
This would be done against a country four times bigger (in population and size) than Iraq, with the kind of terrain that makes Afghanistan look easily accessible, done without the help of a coalition of fools, because this isn't 2003, and nobody in Europe is very eager to send their kids to die for a war that Trump's ego started. His 2025 attempts to 'ingrate' himself with Europe are paying dividends now.
Also, if you think the war is unpopular now (nobody but the 40% of the country that's MAGA-brained supports it - and those guys will support anything), imagine what the popularity would be like with a full mobilization and invasion.
The GOPniks aren't that eager to become a 31-seat party this November.
Options are to either un-regulate the prices, or ration the fuel sales.
Say I live in Austria and it is a short ride to a Slovenia Station. Can buy as much gas as I want, but citizens in Slovenia are limited ? That does not seem right.
https://fuelo.net/cheap/where?lang=bg&order=cheap&fuel_type=...
come here, the water is fine :)
mlinhares•1h ago
rwyinuse•1h ago
callamdelaney•1h ago
argsnd•1h ago
There may still be good arguments to do so anyway, such as it being less carbon intensive than importing oil, but there is absolutely no magic lever we can pull that would fix this problem that we're just not pulling due to renewables legislation.
calvinmorrison•1h ago
callamdelaney•38m ago
varispeed•1h ago
kypro•1h ago
rwmj•1h ago
Nice visualisations of the current status: https://grid.iamkate.com/
Electricity is only a part of the whole energy sector, but it's relevant to this thread about EVs.
zejn•1h ago
ZeroGravitas•21m ago
And now the same people are saying that the answer is more oil and gas.
drnick1•1h ago
toomuchtodo•1h ago
haunter•1h ago
toomuchtodo•1h ago
Cheaper than the total cost of ownership of a combustion vehicle at $150-$200/barrel for prolonged periods of time.
Are We Approaching an Unprecedented Energy Crisis? - https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/dispatch-energy/iran-war-... - March 26th, 2026
France confirms oil crisis, says 30-40 percent of Gulf energy infrastructure destroyed - https://www.france24.com/en/france-confirms-oil-crisis-says-... - March 25th, 2026
Even the best-case scenario for energy markets is disastrous - https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/03/22/e... | https://archive.today/5OhRI - March 22nd, 2026
7952•1h ago
Also, the Electric polo is supposed to be released at around 25k Euros. Given the lower running costs that seems like a good deal relative to legacy designs. For all those people will to spend 40k on a car you could put the money into solar panels instead.
Lio•1h ago
You can buy a brand new Dacia Spring for only £12,240. Personally I don't think it's a great car but it's certainly doesn't cost 40K.
If it were my money I'd spend a bit more on either a used Jag ePace or a Renault 5 but some people prefer new cars I guess.
zejn•1h ago
b65e8bee43c2ed0•1h ago
philipkglass•1h ago
https://www.electrive.com/2026/02/12/lithium-mining-commence...
This week, the first spodumene vein was blasted from the rock at the open-pit mine in western Finland, marking the occasion with a ceremonial event attended by invited guests and media.
helsinkiandrew•1h ago
b65e8bee43c2ed0•1h ago
MattGaiser•1h ago
zejn•1h ago
It's really hard to quickly replace millions of vehicles.
lostlogin•33m ago
lostlogin•34m ago
It’s revealed a fair bit about America too. And this oil crisis is a fairly incredible screw up too. What did the US think would happen?
strken•19m ago
leonidasrup•19m ago
The past Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck famously once sad: “Nuclear power doesn’t help us there at all,” “We have a heating problem or an industry problem, but not an electricity problem – at least not generally throughout the country.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/12/german-says-nuclear...
leonidasrup•1h ago
"As a direct result of the 1973 oil crisis, on 6 March 1974 Prime Minister Pierre Messmer announced what became known as the 'Messmer Plan', a hugely ambitious nuclear power program aimed at generating most of France's electricity from nuclear power. At the time of the oil crisis most of France's electricity came from foreign oil. "
"Work on the first three plants, at Tricastin, Gravelines, and Dampierre, started the same year and France installed 56 reactors over the next 15 years."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Messme...
mono442•1h ago
leonidasrup•30m ago
Usually the capacity factor of European nuclear reactors is higher than 60%.
olkiluoto-3 nuclear reactor, had capacity factor 70% in the year 2024: https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-reactor-database/details/o...
Mochovce-3 had capacity factor 74% in the year 2024: https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-reactor-database/details/M...
In the U.S. they really try to get maximum from nuclear reactors. https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-reactor-database/details/W...
ZeroGravitas•36m ago
leonidasrup•10m ago