551–560 of 1001 posts
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The petrochemical industry is huge we've yet to find alternatives for it. Half the stuff around you was made with something derived from oil, and you can't replace that with wind or sunlight in the foreseeable future.
We should also note that wind turbines require huge amounts of petroleum derivatives to operate.
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Yeah but at least the byproducts produce a solid that can last for years vs treating it as a consumable. I'm fulling expecting someone will reply to me and say that making plastic wastes 75% of the oil or something during production, and that it's just as wasteful amortized across the lifespan of a wind turbine. I'm tired, man.
You can compare material intensity of different electricity generation technologies. https://davidturver.substack.com/p/material-intensity-electr... According to International Energy Agency mineral demand for clean energy technologies would rise by at least four times by 2040 to meet climate goals, with particularly high growth for EV-related minerals. https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in...
If you keep burning gas you will never stop mining.
People often call this war "dumb". IMO: this war is just the next step in the 1200-year old Shia-Sunni conflict. The Sunnis hate the Shia, and vice versa. Ever since 1979 when Khomeini came to power, the Sunnis have been on edge. The terrorist attack on Mecca shortly after made matters worse ( https://www.brookings.edu/events/terrorism-in-saudi-arabia-p... ). At first they thought they'd get Saddam to take out Iran;…
US and Israel attacked Iran because of Shia-Sunni issues?
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Self-sufficiency is a myth. Even if you wanted to try and be energy independent, for the short and medium term (and maybe longer, who knows?) you will be dependent on China and all the baggage that they bring because of their dominance of rare earth mineral processing. Need a new solar panel? Don't make a certain country mad (whether that's your local Ayatollah or CCP official). And that's just energy. What about pha…
There is a huge difference between buying a solar panel once and having it generate energy for the next 30 years vs. buying a barrel of oil now and consuming it by next week. It's the same difference as buying a house now and owning it until it collapses vs. renting a house and being at the mercy of your landlord, or buying a piece of shrink-wrapped software and using it for the next 18 years vs. renting a SaaS subsc…
I always take issue with the expression "buying a house now" when you actually mean "pay a mortgage for a house now". With a mortgage, you are at the mercy of the bank and whatever contract you signed. With a rent tenancy, you are at the mercy of the landlord and whatever contract you signed. A landlord will wake up tomorrow and tell you to leave, you have some notice period. Your fixed period deal ends and you can only get a deal that triples your rate.
It's like when people say that self-employed people have no boss, your customer becomes your boss. And you always have one. Everyone that exchanges services/products for money has one.
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Why do you have to go to absolutes? If 90% of countries can be 80+% self sufficient, that’s still an amazing thing
These 20% will still make you dependent on foreign country. For example Germany was dependent on Russian gas (before year 2022), which they later swapped for dependency on US LNG. In addition, Germany is dependent on China for PV panels.
This is gas brain thinking.
Panels aren't burned to make electricity. If literally everyone stops selling you panels (nearly impossible) you continue generating electricity the old way. Nothing bad happens. The panels you already have continue working.
Other countries make panels too. India has a glut right now.
https://solarmagazine.com/2025/08/india-solar-supply-chain-f...
It's not a war in Iran. It's an unprovoked war by the USA and its handler, Israel, against Iran. People are being killed, by choice, by the USA and Israel, and the USA and Israel are irreversibly destroying their own personas on the world stage. Even US hostage Merz is starting to stutter about it. Everywhere that isn't the USA or a USA vassal, they call the USA and Israel "The Epstein Coalition". That's how it is vi…
>Even US hostage Merz is starting to stutter about it. Is he stuttering into an iron dome? "Volkswagen may turn car factory into Iron Dome hub with Israel partnership" https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/volkswagen-isra...
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That used to be plausible. But what new revelation about Trump could hurt him? Misuse of office for personal gain? Trump Tower Moscow? Inciting an insurrection? Harassing young women? Adultery? Rape? Hanging out with a pedophile? Blowjob from a 13 year old girl? [1] Those are all on the record. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct...
That last one isn’t in the article you linked, at least not that I can find.
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Israel does not want functional moderate goverment in Iran. It would bomb and kill anyone who tries that. Israels plan is to periodically bomb and keep Iran failed state. It is working on making itself larger cleansing whole areas around it and settling it.
> Israel does not want functional moderate goverment in Iran Israel would probably be fine with a moderate government in Iran. A moderate Tehran doesn't encourage Hamas and Hezbollah to randomly lob rockets into Israel. Even if Israel disagreed, a moderate Iran balances Israel in the region. An Iran that has beef with literally every single one of its neighbors other than Turkmenistan cannot provide that balance.
A core trait of my personality can be summed up as "always look on the bright side of life". To that end: This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable. Optimistically then, perhaps this…
this misses the fact that petroleum is incredibly useful outside of the burn it to make electricity and burn it to make car move use cases.