White House officials are bracing for oil prices to surge past the $150-a-barrel mark as the Iran war stretches into its second month and the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, according to a new report.

In recent weeks, the average cost of a barrel of crude has hovered around $100, a figure that the Trump administration now sees as the new “baseline,” though a potential spike to $200 hasn’t been ruled out, a source familiar with the matter told Politico.

As a result, officials have entered “all hands on deck” mode, urgently evaluating options to tame soaring oil prices — which pushed gas above $4 a gallon this week and risks inflating costs across the broader economy.

  • BigMacHole@thelemmy.club
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    1 day ago

    If ONLY Iran would OPEN up the Straight that was ALREADY Open BEFORE Trump bombed them for some Reason! WE wouldn’t be in This Mess! We NEED Trump to Fix Trump’s Fuck Up! Iran!

    -NOT Sheep Republicans!

  • HulkSmashBurgers@reddthat.com
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    If only in the decades since the oil embargo of the early 1970s we kept investing in alternative energy sources we could have been in a much better place energy wise.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yeah, but windmills cause cancer and solar is basically gay. And EVs - I’m pretty sure if you drive those when you are male, your penis shrivels up, falls off and you grow a vagina.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof. Reagan took them down. Pretty succinct summary of the past 40 years.

      • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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        before anyone says “those solar panels didn’t work very well” THAT’S NOT THE FUCKING POINT. they represented a commitment to invest in the technology. the presidency is the bully pulpit. a person can change a lot about the direction of the country there without making meaningful change in the moment. Grant and Carter are probably the two presidents who tried the hardest to do something positive with that power

        • Nate Cox@programming.dev
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          Let’s not idolize Carter too much. I like a lot of what he did, and I obviously love his “old man building houses for the needy” golden years, but Carter was also the beginning of the dismantling of antitrust which is the primary reason we have wealth consolidation and market capture as the de facto norm today.

          He started the ball rolling with a bizarre policy of “big businesses are good for everyone” which meant antitrust laws–while still on the books and our official policy–simply stopped being enforced. Regan capitalized on this but Carter started it.

          • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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            1 day ago

            oh for sure. and Grant wasn’t great for indioenous people. America has never had a good president. just a limited selection who qualify for “most least worst”

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          Exactly.

          Grant and Carter are probably the two presidents who tried the hardest to do something positive with that power

          I would say both Roosevelts did too. Admittedly, my Grant knowledge isn’t super deep, what was it that he did that you think puts him in that group?

          • The D Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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            he had this crazy idea that the treasury department should give money to poor people and that someone should kick the KKK’s ass

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    TIL oil is only half the input cost of making gas.

    Crude oil is the main ingredient in gasoline — accounting for roughly half the cost of a gallon of gas — so when oil prices rise, gas prices typically follows suit.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    They’re gonna nationalize our oil aren’t they? Required sale to the government at a set rate and then government will turn around and sell into the domestic and international markets to balance prices at our pumps.

    It’s about the only option other than stop bombing Iran and that’s not happening.

      • zarkony@lemmy.zip
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        That would bring the price of gas down here.

        I’m doubtful of that. Oil is a globalized commodity, and international prices will still affect local sales, even if none of our oil actually comes through the strait of Hormuz.

        I’m convinced the strait being closed is the whole point of this mess. It’s just an excuse to charge more despite local production costs not changing. If export were banned, I think they’d just lower production to keep their margins high.

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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        The oil refineries we have in the US attention equipped to handle the type of oil we can actually produce here. We export just about all of our oil, and just about all of our oil product are refined from foreign oil.

        If we didn’t export US oil, we wouldn’t be able to do much with it.

        • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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          I’m nowhere near an expert, but that’s solely a cost issue. We certainly have the tech and the oil companies would be happy to retool with taxpayer dollars. What’s another trillion or three between friends?

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        Oh Undoubtedly. I look forward to all the explanations as to why it’s Capitalism when we do it and Socialism when Venezuela does it.

  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    Oh hey, maybe if they didn’t dismantle all the green energy and EV initiatives then the impacts would be mitigated a little bit…

    Funny how that works…

    • VinegarChunks@lemmus.org
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      Automakers have billions of dollars in brand new EV manufacturing equipment and lines sitting around doing nothing since the new administration changed all the regulations and incentives.

      • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        they’re also putting some new programs on hold, so at least they’re not all outright cancelled yet

        but oh boy have a lot been cancelled. we built a huge cell that was shipped to the customer and scrapped the next year. the customer actually ended up taking apart the tools we built and shipping us back a bunch of the components to build them another cell for a different project. that was neat.

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          Gotta subsidise the undead oil economy or else the old farts might actually have to read a journal and try to figure where else to invest the money they don’t need!

        • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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          I think about this. Functionally he’s a puppet of Putin, but I don’t think that it’s an “active” stooging. Trump wants to BE a dictator and Putin is very intelligent, so he’s able to ply Trump to his will. Trump probably cares more about the pee-tapes than it’d actually affect him.

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    One idiotic move administration has made is to increase ethanol content of gasoline. Ethanol is corn based in US. Cost of corn is fertilizer based. The futures price of corn has only increased about 10%, while fertilizer costs are up 100%, and so no logical reason to plant corn that has been losing money for farmers for last 5 years.

    Easiest plan to bring down energy prices would be to import chinese solar tariff free, to use on ethanol corn fields in Nebraska. Leaving room for Corn between panel rows when it is viable to grow corn for food again. There’s even a path towards 0 cost electricity for 24/7 datacenters or other loads. https://lemmy.ca/post/59615557?scrollToComments=true

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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      Your linked AI slop post has a LOT of assumptions and it’s kinda expensive. If the total system capex is 50k for 1 kW load, it’ll be 500 million for a modern 10MW data center. Then covering the deficit off employee BEVs for peanuts a kWh: That assumes you have enough employees for that and that they’re willing to wear their batteries for this.

      But yes, the whole ethanol requirement is stupid for a country that has its own oil anyway

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        You’re right about cost assumptions of renewables. Like I said, tariff free Chinese costs + 30% local premium results in 0 electricity costs if $2/kg hydrogen revenue. Higher costs would still pay off at 10c/kwh from datacenter/other sales.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    West coast will run out of jet fuel in 2-3 weeks. US politics are so hateful, Texas will likely refuse to ship any by truck to say that this is “woke green policies” fault.

    • Andonyx@lemmy.world
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      Per an adjacent discussion on NPR, California is considered a “petrol-island”. Conventional shipping over land is both difficult and inefficient because they’re tucked on the other side of a mountain chain. Coming from Texas, willing or not, seems to have it’s own additional expense.

  • Kurroth@aussie.zone
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    Isn’t the US a net exporter of oil. Can someone explain to me why this wouldn’t benefit them? Sell oil an increased cost with increased demand globally, cover costs at home with supplying the locally refined stuff for the population.

    Anyone more in the know able to explain the gaps in my understanding?

    • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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      The more exports of US oil/lng the higher the price for Americans. It’s not as though oligarchy pays taxes, so when you say America makes money, there is no trickle down to Americans.

    • IamSparticles@lemmy.zip
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      Part of it has to do with the fact that most of the oil we extract in the US now is shale oil, which is lighter and thinner than what they pull out with traditional extraction. Most of the refineries in the US are not equipped to process shale oil, so we export most of it, and import what we can process.

    • Ashenlux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      My theory, it’s not the government that has the oil, it’s the oil companies. And because this is capitalism, the oil companies will charge as much as the can. So even if it is made here, the drastically reduced supply globally means the companies can change more, and so they will.

      • 8oow3291d@feddit.dk
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        2 days ago

        My theory, it’s not the government that has the oil

        That is not a theory, that is just a fact.

        In theory the government could and should impose price controls, for the common good. But Trump and Republicans are obviously not going to tell the oil oligarks that they can’t have lots of money.

        • Ashenlux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          Yeah, fair enough. I am just not very informed on the oil industry, so I didn’t want to sound like I did in case I was talking out my ass. Good to know I was correct in my assumption.

          • 8oow3291d@feddit.dk
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            I am just not very informed on the oil industry, so I didn’t want to sound like I did in case I was talking out my ass.

            No no, I am not criticizing. I am all for using the correct level of qualifiers when speculating about things you know you don’t know with certainty.

            If only the people talking out of their ass about the current conflict in the middle east would do the same…

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      When people are struggling to get by and exhausted from the news, they end up focusing on themselves. The reality is most Americans don’t have the energy, time, or resources to focus on something that’s disconnected from their lives - including attrocities on the other side of the planet.

      But gas prices hit HARD. When you’re spending 20-30% of your income on gas and the price of that gas doubles, it’s a problem even before it makes everything else skyrocket in price.

      • iegod@lemmy.zip
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        That excuse is honestly not acceptable. Americans have had ample time and opportunity to consider the impact of their voting decisions. This is their choice. Collectively, the country has failed.

        Too ignorant, selfish, or stupid.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      No one cares about victims of rape and pedophilia, that’s other people, caring about other people is un-American.

    • dan1101@lemmy.world
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      The only thing that keeps most people complacent is they can manage to scrape by with their meager salary buying crappy goods. Take that away and Americans might get more revolutionary.

    • innermachine@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      To be fair, once fuel prices go up the cost of EVERYTHING also goes up. So no it’s not just about pain at the pump, it’s pain at the grocery check out. Pain when the oil truck comes to deliver your liquid heat. Pain when you buy anything plastic, anything grown with fertilizers. People don’t realize petroleum is in almost everything! And if it doesn’t use a petroleum product in manufacturing, it certainly does in shipping.

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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        Youre right, but also if we weren’t using up as much for fuel as we do there would be much more left for other applications

        • innermachine@lemmy.world
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          No kidding. I think our world leaders have forgotten that there is only so much oil in the ground, once it’s all burnt up that’s it poof it’s gone. Makes it even more insane that their bombing oil fields and refineries. If u want a small example of how our billionaire rulers have boned us look at the racket from synthetic rope getting hemp banned. The tldr is DuPont made synthetic rope, but hemp which is sustainable and strong got outlawed due in part to them lobbying. We have a government that exists only to stuff rich peoples pockets from what it seems. There’s more examples than can be listed of private corporations creating rules to make themselves the winners at the expense of the people and the planet, and it’s been going on for over a hundred years and just getting exponentially worse. There’s a reason wealth just keeps consolidating.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        Exactly. Your house could be solar, you could be charging your EV from your solar, and so your house power and transportation costs mostly negated, but everything else would still have an increase.

        • innermachine@lemmy.world
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          I’m in northern New England, moved here from Southern New England. Moved there from Texas. Moved there from Italy. I’m not “from” anywhere so I picked up some odd sayings in my travels LOL. I also make stupid shit up on occasion, gotta keep people on their toes.

        • innermachine@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Yep and the same cart of groceries I spent 100 bucks on last year is about 200 now :( Trump was right. So much winning we’ll get sick of it. Trouble is only the billionaires are winning, at our expense. I’m not having fun anymore.