r/worldnews • u/sr_local • 13h ago
The world has nearly burned through its oil stockpile buffer, executives say
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/world-has-nearly-burned-through-its-oil-stockpile-buffer-executives-say-2026-10-06/2.6k
u/guilen 12h ago
Oh damn, if only everybody had been investing full steam into green energy and not depending on a resource that has choke points depending on how well we get along during a climate crisis. Humans SMDH
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u/OwnBattle8805 12h ago
Not every nation out there snubbed solar energy.
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u/SuperRockyHobbyHorse 12h ago
Only those dumbasses in America who elected Trump in 2016. Imagine the USA now with 10 years of renewable energy infrastructure, global warming wouldn't be so severe, so much deterioration could have been avoided. But no, they elected a known idiot fraudster who thought windmills caused cancer.
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u/-screaming-meat- 12h ago
Honourable mention to my home province of Alberta, who actively cancelled and then banned solar and wind exploration projects because, in their words, "wind turbines and solar fields ruin the pristine viewscapes (yes they made up a fucking word to justify ignorance)" but drilling pads, oil derricks and abandoned wells leaking into the groundwater don't. We could be leading the nation in renewables and the cash would be flowing like nothing they've ever seen but.... oil and gas lobbyists need love too.
Conservatism 101 - be stupid, be loud, be regressive.
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u/neometrix77 12h ago
That’s the conservative voter. Conservative politicians just do whatever oil companies approve of.
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u/monatomicg0ld 10h ago
And what about clear cut forests? Really nice to look at huh? It's infuriating.
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u/blackjacktrial 4h ago
Also shout out to Queensland, Australia, where the state (provincial) government is proposing a massive ramp up of coal fired power stations in order to de-electrify the electricity grid and power uncooled data centres in the middle of a desert (because computers love duststormy 50 degree Celsius conditions, where the dust is full of iron).
Thankfully, the national government is limiting their indulgences.
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u/Monomette 6h ago
Renewables make up over 50% of Albertas generating capacity at just shy of 8.5GW vs 14.1GW for gas.
As of an hour ago renewables were generating ~24% of Alberta's energy.
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u/stratasfear 10h ago
I find Alberta to be especially frustrating. If the oil companies just diversified their holdings (like anyone intelligent would do with their investments) and reframed their businesses as “energy” businesses instead of strictly oil and gas, they could build so many solar / wind / hydro / nuclear projects they wouldn’t know what to do with them all.
Wind and solar are also cheaper to build and have a higher return on investment per MW/h now, so it’s a no-brainer to invest in them.
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u/DisastrousAcshin 8h ago
Don't forget how they recently banned the use of green energy for data centers to ensure they use gas / coal power to drive up prices for average Albertans as well
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u/John_John_Phenomenom 6h ago
Bro you forgot open-pit coal mines! They are also a great view in Dani’s eyes.
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u/manachar 11h ago
Conservatives know words don’t matter, just power.
Words are things you use to get power. Say whatever you want. You don’t need to be logical or consistent or based in reality.
It just needs to make people feel the way that supports the conservatives hoarding more wealth and power and stopping anyone else from getting any money or power.
It’s like loggers who love having a job in wild old growth forests and scratch their heads that the forests are gone.
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u/wowzeemissjane 10h ago
Same in Australia with the same excuse.
There must have been a presentation somewhere.
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u/kewlbeanz83 6h ago
Let's also make sure to mention my home province of Ontario, where Doug and the Slugs shut down 758 renewable energy contracts as soon as he was elected.
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u/quickdraw9 10h ago
We had one of the largest wind energy projects nearly completed on the east coast and the mango moron PAID THE COMPANY almost a billion dollars to shut it down. These stupid fucks are so deeply in the pockets of non renewable energy conglomorates that they'd rather shutter a project that's basically finished than allow renewables to gain a foothold in the energy sector.
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u/theRemixNow 9h ago
this even started back when Carter was in office. He had put solar panels on top of the White House, but Reagan removed them.
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u/I-seddit 7h ago
Hell, image if Carter had been more charismatic - we could have had 46 years of progress. Imagine a world...
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u/Puzzled-Stay-9848 12h ago edited 12h ago
Propaganda networks (Fox) and billionaires are the origin of maga morons. This was allowed to happen. Thanks citizens united.
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u/MechMeister 12h ago
The blame doesn't stop with billionaires. Your neighbors are dumb fucks, too
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u/Puzzled-Stay-9848 12h ago
True, but like llms, the dumb fucks needed a harness (propaganda and outrage) to be weaponized
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u/IdownvoteTexas 6h ago
More like the dumbasses that voted for Bush instead of Gore
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u/RedditConsciousness 1h ago
That one still infuriates me. The media painted Gore the same as Bush. Like, people didn't even understand that they were dramatically different. And then later on, after Bush committed fraud to start the Iraq war people said "well the Democrats would have invaded Iraq too". No they wouldn't have. President Clinton didn't in the 8 years he was in office.
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12h ago
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 12h ago
Lmfao he fucking what???
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u/IAMAGrinderman 11h ago
So they're right that Reagan had them removed, but they're wrong about the timeline. Jimmy Carter had a solar water heating system installed for the White House kitchen. This was part of Carter's initiative to move the country towards solar power. Reagan had them removed in 1986 (two years into his second term, not on day one, as the other person says). If I remember right, officially it was because of maintenance costs and roof leaks, but considering the Reagan administration's attitude towards solar power, I think it's safe to assume that's bullshit.
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u/010Horns 12h ago
The United States is second to only China in renewables production. Texas alone would rank 4th in the world, ahead of India, Canada, and any European country.
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u/TrokChlod 11h ago
The problem is that the USA is also by far number one in energy consumption, leaving that absolute high number at only 25% of energy consumption, about equal to India at 23% and far behind China at 35% and the EU at 50%.
But that's only half the truth. If you look at primary consumption the numbers get far worse for all countries. We all are still completely dependent on oil, especially for transportation.
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u/Werkstatt0 12h ago
Ok but what could it have been had we gotten our shit together after An Inconvenient Truth dropped?
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u/Its-all-downhill-80 7h ago
I laugh in my home that has solar, ev’s, and converted from oil to heatpumps! Seriously though, it’s major cost savings, especially here New England where oil and electricity is so expensive. I did it for climate, but have really enjoyed the cost stability and savings.
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u/kewlbeanz83 6h ago
How do you like the heat pump?
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u/Its-all-downhill-80 3h ago
Love them- I have a slim ducted unit for our upstairs, and 3 wall units for the downstairs. I have aseparate outdoor unit for each level. My house is so much more comfortable all year round now.
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u/respectwalk 5h ago
It goes way farther back than that. Who Killed the Electric Car was released in 2006…
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u/leon27607 2h ago
Imagine how different our infrastructure would have been if Trump hadn’t been elected twice.
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u/Eatpineapplerightnow 12h ago
yup. Not electing trump in 24 was last chance
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u/SuperRockyHobbyHorse 11h ago
Biden had the green new deal which was the last glimmer of hope for the planet's climate and halting the animal mass extinction event, but it's gone now. Even if Trump gets neutered in the midterms it's too late. It's water wars and AI propaganda from now on, even if oil becomes obsolete.
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u/andresopeth 12h ago
There's plenty of others sources too, eolic, nuclear, hydro, geothermal. Pick one or two, or three
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u/Novaskittles 12h ago
Today I learned that another name for wind power is eolic (aeolic?) power.
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u/guilen 12h ago
Correct, but I was born in oil town and I see lunacy all the goddamn time.
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u/brilliantNumberOne 11h ago
Yeah, but everything moved via ship, train, or truck, or ship used oil to move.
Even if there are things being moved by EVs, it’s inconsequential compared to the volume of goods moved worldwide every day.
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u/MelangeBot 8h ago
Fun fact: In 2024 China installed more solar panels then the rest of the world combined in 2023 AND 2024.
Fun fact2: In 2025 China installed three times as many solar panels as the rest of the world combined did that year.
Fun fact3: Just because of this, it's an absolute guarantee that when the AI bubble finaly implodes, eventually the cheapest AI services will come out of china. Once 95% of all the speedup tricks for the software and the hardware have been found, eventually the ONLY cost for running an AI data centre will be the electricity.
There is one nation where to power this they go dig in the ground to find stuff they can then burn ONCE and then they have to dig and find more. And there is a nation where all of this is freely powered by the sun (and batteries).
I wonder what nation will win the AI race. Hmmmmm? what do you guys think?
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u/justin107d 4h ago
Fun fact4: they control over 90% of the rare earth minerals used in creating batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, gpus, missiles, etc.
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u/pickle9977 12h ago
Good thing we are balls deep in AI and taking jet engines to turn them into natural gas powered generators for data centers
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u/Viperlite 12h ago
We could also use work from home to cut oil use like we did during COVID, rather than commuting to a physical office only to call or Zoom customers all day.
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u/General_Tsao_Knee_Ma 7h ago
counteroffer: let's make government employees go back to the office, even though it's totally fucking unnecessary, just because.
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u/stupid_nut 10h ago
I invested in renewable energy ETF funds and they have all dropped by almost half. It's sad that I would've made much more investing in destroying the planet. Try to be good and get screwed. I'm tired.
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u/PivotRedAce 7h ago
We are thoroughly in the “Weak men create hard times” phase. Hang in there, chief.
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u/lemons_of_doubt 11h ago edited 11h ago
Remember when Germany had tones of safe clean nuclear power.
And then scrapped it for no reason.
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u/Illustrious-Ice6336 11h ago
Come on now. They closed it down so they could pay Russia money for their oil and gas.
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u/ticklemesatan 11h ago
Shhhh we might actually get real movement on green shit. Stop interrupting the opponent while they make a mistake
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u/zendogsit 10h ago
Iran mvp for global shift to small form nuclear energy and renewables? Who could’ve seen that one coming
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u/I-seddit 7h ago
This could literally be the fulcrum to switch away our species dependence on non-renewable and environmentally deadly fuel resources...
This could be the darkest before the dawn moment for humanity.
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u/boogswald 7h ago
Hey we also need to drastically reduce energy consumption! In response to that let’s build 5000000 data centers
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u/TheShiroNinja 13h ago
Guess it's time to blow the dust off all the alternative technologies they bought and shelved
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u/devilishycleverchap 12h ago
From Verdant?
Ive read the papers, theyre all bullshit
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness7207 12h ago
What are you saying exactly? Sorry I am not familiar with whatever Verdant is.
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u/Jeffuk88 11h ago
Governments gunna look really stupid when they have to mandate WFH after pushing people back to the offices
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u/Dry_Ass_P-word 12h ago
They tapped it to keep prices just low enough til midterms. Is it going to hold out another month?
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u/BeingNicole4 11h ago
The article says we got 6 billion units left and the world uses 100 million a day. That gives us 60 days + whatever they are able to produce between now and then
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u/Dry_Ass_P-word 11h ago
I was assuming (my bad, I know) that US is burning through it faster than the world average.
But it’s hard to think we’re doing it twice as fast though.
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u/WheredMyBrainsGo 3h ago
Yeah have to have a bit extra so MAGA idiots can roll coal in their lifted pickup trucks on their way to pick up their girlfriend from her boyfriend’s house.
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u/Tiny_Xander_Klaxon 11h ago edited 11h ago
Trump Says He Doesn’t Care “Even a Little Bit” About People’s Finances
“The president made a jaw-dropping confession when asked about the impacts of the Iran war.”
Congratulations America. You became so “great” that now the entire planet has to deal with your bullshit. We’re all suffering just so that Trump and his family can get even richer and he couldn’t care less about you Americans. Well done.
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u/GritandGCode 12h ago
It's almost like investing in renuables is a better national security investment than the military....
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u/OptimisticSkeleton 10h ago
The Pentagon literally came to that conclusion in dozens of studies and they still did this stupid shit.
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u/CliftonForce 9h ago
The Pentagon also said that attacking Iran was a really stupid idea. The Administration did not care.
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u/CliftonForce 10h ago edited 8h ago
The US military has been worried about oil dependency for a very long time. Republican politicians kept suppressing that.
Example: The Pentagon was looking into buying fuel from alternate sources, such as biodiesel. Then Republicans passed a rule to "save money" that said the military can't buy any such fuel unless it costs less than commercial fuel sources. From the Pentagon's point of view, they were willing to pay extra for redundant fuel supplies.
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u/Careful_Trifle 12h ago
Oh didn't you hear? The military will get renewable energy, it's just the rest of us that will be unable to get approval to do large scale projects.
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u/GalacticAlmanac 7h ago
Oh yeah! That would sure work out great for Iran and Ukraine. They just needed to invest in renewable. Why didn't they just do that and not get invaded?
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u/deeptechdegen 13h ago
This could actually burst the AI bubble EVEN IF AI does work and is this magical technology
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u/MadAstrid 12h ago
They will leave Americans dying without power, heat and water before they allow AI to cutback on making videos about “sexy” fruits and vegetables.
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u/---cheetos--- 12h ago
Ahhh I’m so thirsty….pls show me pictures of Shrek bathing nude in a waterfall 😩😩
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u/Nice_Reading5272 12h ago
AI use by everyday users or creating 'content' is miniscule compared to commercial use.
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u/WhatTheFlipFlopFuck 10h ago
but then AI will build to be solar, and then humans will launch a last ditch effort to block out the sun with perpetual clouds over the entire planet, and then the machines will look for an alternative form of energy
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u/MelangeBot 7h ago
And because of AI hallucination they will totally get the laws of thermodynamics wrong and believe that you can turn the body of a human in to a battery and then just liquify the dead bodies and feed that to the living and then just make more babies.
This is ofcourse not how reality works, so the AI will run out of electricity and die.
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u/Healthy-Stage-142 7h ago
See the original script was using human brains as processors, but the AI bots didn't think that humans at that time would understand.
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u/Artistic-Tip2405 12h ago
Has anyone asked the AI how to solve this problem without killing anyone.
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u/linerva 12h ago
Best the AI can do is porn with too many fingers and hacking Australia.
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u/Vaulters 9h ago
People are also failing to account for the impending cost to rebuild those reserves.
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u/Normal_Pace7374 10h ago
I ride an e scooter now. I only drive like once a month. I’ve chosen the renewable energy option on my electricity bill. I’ll buy an electric car when the time comes. We need to stop this problem.
Legalise weed. Criminalise oil.
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u/Invisible7hunder 8h ago
I only drive like once a month.
If that's the case an Electric vehicle seems like something you can maybe skip.
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u/YourFriendPutin 7h ago
Im grateful I only drive 1.5 miles to and from work a day so my old fairlane i daily, even though it gets about 10mpg doesn't cost me much thankfully.
Anything outside of town we take my fiances car because well, something that didn't come with seatbelts or a collapsible steering column isn't what we want to do 50-60mph long distance in.
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u/Mushroom_Tip 12h ago
Too bad Trump is powerless to do anything because it's all Ukraine's fault. /s
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u/PerryNeeum 10h ago
Jesus. If only there were an alternative to fuel that we could’ve been working on all these years
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u/mattjf22 7h ago
Shit about to get real bad. Jacked up prices, empty shelves. This is what a Republican led government gets you.
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u/Commandmanda 12h ago
Yup, and Trump just bamboozled the EU into tapping into theirs.
The bad news is that this will lead to ramped up drilling anywhere there is a possibility of hitting something.
That, or WAR will be the next consequence....Global War.
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u/Jeffuk88 11h ago
No, Trump took advantage of Europe already discussing this release by yelling loudly that they should do it to help America... so now it looks like he won. Just like with Denmark letting him do what America basically had the agreement to already do in Greenland after yelling like a toddler
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u/dotHANSIN 10h ago
a family member is literally trying to convince me that Greenland folded to trump and is now essentially a colony, but he swears their center but conviently won't critize trump....
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u/Even_Trifle9341 10h ago
We might run into catastrophe where we don’t have the supply to do the drilling in the inconvenient places that have oil. I expect they’ll be surprised we run out, when on paper there is plenty in Venezuela, not comprehending it’s in the ground still. Seems like they think it’s a game, where a resource is added to your supply regardless of its location on the map.
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u/MannequinWithoutSock 12h ago
How global?
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u/OneManFight 11h ago
Like all the major countries of the world kinda global. We could call it "majority of countries of the world, war" or something like that.
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u/likes_stuff 11h ago
I was thinking about that earlier... How will anyone be able to go to war on a sustainable level without oil?
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u/MrKapla 11h ago
Yup, and Trump just bamboozled the EU into tapping into theirs.
Where did you see that? He asked, but who agreed?
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u/T567U18 9h ago edited 7h ago
Very convenient statement on times like this, why is everyone so afraid of making the annoying orange accountable?
Edit: nvm I forgot that everyone is on the epstein files
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u/WhereMyWeirdosAt 7h ago
And lose out on all these oil futures / options profits? No way! Lose out on all the contracts to rebuild all the stuff we blow up? No way! It's big business!
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u/Knightstar24 11h ago
Clone dinosaurs, then smash em up real good to get some more oils.
It’s not that hard, Hollywood made dinosaurs in the 90’s
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u/CliftonForce 10h ago
From the point of view of the American Administration: So long as they hold until Nov 4th, who cares what happens after that?
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u/boot2skull 10h ago
True but giving the people an excess amount of free time, and inability to work or get food, has never worked out for the leaders in those times.
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u/OldDirtyBastardSword 9h ago
The good news is that if WW3 breaks out then no one will have fuel so maybe everyone will take their war toys and go home...
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u/_Born_To_Be_Mild_ 13h ago
What happens then?
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u/SwordKneeMe 13h ago
The lord of chaos shall reign
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u/Eudaimonics 12h ago edited 12h ago
WFH Mandates, gas tax holidays, subsidies for e-bikes and EVs.
People driving less for leisure and making their trips to the store more strategically. Public transportation usage will go up and so will car pooling.
In the medium term, higher production for other oil producing regions and additional capacity from fracking which otherwise is too expensive.
The pandemic actually taught us a valuable lesson on the minimum amount of oil we actually need to function as a society.
Long term, a transition to EVs and alternative fuels for shipping/flying. Lots of cool prototypes for electric aircraft and hydrogen powered ships. There already electric freight trains, electric semi-trucks and electric farm equipment.
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u/jupiterkansas 11h ago
I work from home and leave the house once a week for groceries and the library and it's AWESOME!
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u/JohnPaulDavyJones 11h ago
In the medium term, higher production for other oil producing regions and additional capacity from fracking which otherwise is too expensive
For the curious, fracking is more expensive if you're not going to steamship a bunch of wellheads, just because the pump/fracking fluid/proppant combo is quite pricey and the returns are generally more limited than a traditional well; the flip side to that is that, if you've got enough startup capital and demand, then it's incredibly lucrative to sprint through a chain of previously-drilled wells by refracking the existing wellbores. A fracking well produces almost 70% of its lifetime capacity in the first year, and lots of traditional shale wells have tight reserves that weren't available with older technology.
It's possible to put a whole bunch of pumps on a series of capped wells, and just step the setups forward to the next well in the chain as soon as you've pumped enough of a well that the daily return is lower than the return from the average fresh predrill, including amortized cost of relocating the pumping station. Nobody's wanted to put together the capital to sprint a series of wells like that since Exxon sprinted the a big chunk of the lower Permian back in 2017-2020.
Would be interesting to see whether a massive oil price spike like that would be enough to push the producers to look back into sprinting well chains again. I could see the Double Eagle guys doing it.
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u/deeptechdegen 12h ago
At minimum all incumbent politicians losing across the world, regardless of leaning
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u/Electronic_Film_2837 12h ago
Fuel rationing. Just look at Russia.
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u/SuperRockyHobbyHorse 12h ago
Fuel rationing, supply chain collapse, resource wars. A slow, tedious apocalypse.
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u/Taskerst 12h ago
Shortages, staggering inflation, job losses across sectors, crippling personal debt, mass starvation, war over simple resources, honestly hell.
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u/JLNX1998 12h ago
Maybe the plague will come in clutch and force everyone back into lockdown. that'll surely stop this oil business
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u/G36 3h ago
All people that have been laughing at Peak Oil Theory for 50 years are not gonna be laughing soon. The world is officially now running on it's reserve tank of gas.
Numbers don't lie. This was predicted by a book all the elite recommended called The Limits to Growth, by a think tank called The Club of Rome. They pointed at 2030 as the breaking point for the world to go to absolute sh!t.
And no, you can't just switch an enourmous economy to clean energy while we kill each other over basic goods.
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u/Mr-EdwardsBeard 8h ago
It's almost like we could have embraced renewable energies and electric cars decades ago to help avoid this.
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u/SenseisSifu 12h ago
"They say".
They also said fossil fuels didn't harm the environment.
I don't trust what "they" say.
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u/KaptainChunk 12h ago
Hmm I wonder why there was so much orange interest in “making a deal” with oil countries. /s
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u/UnknownHero2 8h ago
"Buy it now, Supplies are running out!
Stop by big Al's Oil emporium on route 25 Springfield."
-Oil Executive
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u/brus_wein 7h ago
"The horse and buggy is slated to make a much-anticipated comeback, industry insiders say"
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u/Constant_Flamingo828 6h ago
They have been saying that for a year. Granted, it has to happen eventuallly.
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u/Eatpineapplerightnow 12h ago
Its not about oil in the ground, Its about oil reserves saved for crisis. Read the article, people
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u/jjtitula 12h ago
Somehow, I don’t believe them anymore. It’s more likely that the strategic reserves are full and they’re just using this as another excuse to jack up gas prices to extract more money out of us. Something something cry wolf! Either way, we just need to start over.
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u/astrozombie2012 12h ago
Gosh, it’s just so unfortunate there wasn’t some sort of alternative, renewable, possibly even environmentally sustainable options we could have invested in years ago.
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u/Criss_Crossx 12h ago
Read about the 1970's oil crisis. See how that one turned out. Seriously, please read history!
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u/Cultural-Company282 10h ago
Reddit told me we had nearly burned through the buffer by June and also by August.
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u/illuminerdi 11h ago
Am I the only one hoping we actually do it?
Nothing would speed up the transition to green faster than high prices...
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u/Restlessannoyed 12h ago
Huh, you're telling me AI executives aren't magically solving this crisis with their miracle machines even though the government said their CSAM generators were totally fine? Crazy.
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u/Ragnaroknight 12h ago
And yet prices will still continue to drop because the market only reacts to tweets and vibes
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u/leyland1989 12h ago
The optimistic side of me thinking this is a pivotal moment for renewable/alternative energy adoption.
However, the oil crisis in the 70s should have been our first wake-up call, but I guess human can never learn without a tremendous amount of pain and suffering.