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Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

bbc.com

71–80 of 364 posts

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 like 10 days of fuel left--semis are implicated. This is, on the high end, 20% of the use of fossil fuels. We overwhelmingly burn oil and gas. If we displaced the bur…

You’re choosing willful ignorance if you think petrochemicals will be replaced by renewables in your lifetime. 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 requ…

You missed the point of my comment.

> 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.

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#72

Scanning some of the early comments here, and acting as-if the oil and LNG disruptions is just a question of renewable investment is naive. 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, cook…

>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.

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

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#73
post #60
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most of the countries don't have enough hydro to make it feasible

Yeah, but now wind and solar have made it feasible just about everywhere.

And geothermal, biogas and tidal.

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#74
post #18

So... why is fuel 25% cheaper in Slovenia than in the neighbouring country while Solvenia is simultaneously having issues with running out of fuel? 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…

This BBC article does a really poor job of explaining the context of this situation or why fuel would be so much cheaper in Slovenia, so I had to look around. Slovenia apparently introduced fuel price regulations last year (for motorway service stations; off-motorway stations have been regulated for longer), as a means of reducing costs for consumers[0]. These price caps were, in fact, removed a week ago[1], and pric…

In Slovenia, fuel prices have been regulated since, like, forever.

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).

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This BBC article does a really poor job of explaining the context of this situation or why fuel would be so much cheaper in Slovenia, so I had to look around. Slovenia apparently introduced fuel price regulations last year (for motorway service stations; off-motorway stations have been regulated for longer), as a means of reducing costs for consumers[0]. These price caps were, in fact, removed a week ago[1], and pric…

One thing you have to keep in mind is that in Slovenia, your employer is required to cover your commuting expenses. If there’s no viable public transit option (which is the case for most of Slovenia outside of bigger cities), they have to pay you for gas per km. 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 comp…

I'm not sure about that. AFAIK it's just per km and not impacted by gas price.

https://www.racunovodja.com/clanki.asp?clanek=232/kilometrin...

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#76

Scanning some of the early comments here, and acting as-if the oil and LNG disruptions is just a question of renewable investment is naive. 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, cook…

On the plus side, Trump is helping Europe and Asia meet their climate goals.

I hear diesel is running out in NSW and Queensland Australia. Good thing you don't need diesel to run mining operations. Oh wait..

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreigners were coming to Slovenia just to buy gas? In such quantities that it strained infrastructure? That definitely sounds like something that happened. As if "multiple gas cans" wouldn't still be well under the 50 liter/day limit.

No numbers provided, but from TFA: >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.

"Drivers" doing this isn't solved by a 50 liter limit.

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#78
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that in Slovenia, your employer is required to cover your commuting expenses. If there’s no viable public transit option (which is the case for most of Slovenia outside of bigger cities), they have to pay you for gas per km. 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 comp…

I'm not sure about that. AFAIK it's just per km and not impacted by gas price. https://www.racunovodja.com/clanki.asp?clanek=232/kilometrin...

Which is adjusted to compensate for inflation of fuel prices every few years, so they would eventually have to raise that to cover the increased prices.

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could also be that they didn't have sufficient reserve and would rather blame hijackers?

They're blaming the lack of cisterns to transport gas from storage to individual gas stations, because everyone went to get gas, and some hoarded a lot of it 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.

Rest assured the toilet papers fiasco didn't only affect this corner of the world.

Re: Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

#80
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreigners were coming to Slovenia just to buy gas? In such quantities that it strained infrastructure? That definitely sounds like something that happened. As if "multiple gas cans" wouldn't still be well under the 50 liter/day limit.

Slovenia is a small country with 2 million people, bordering countries with a total of over 82 million people. The neighbors are also relatively rich countries, such as Austria and Italy

Those are just statistics and don't have anything to do with gas.

Canada is a country of 35 million bordering a rich country of 350 million.

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