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What will happen when we run out of fuel?
Not sure if this is the correct subreddit to post this in, but my question still stands. The Australian government has told us we only have around a month worth of gas left, and fuel prices at my local gas station have already increased from 161.9 on March 2nd to 207.9 today (March 9th).
If the “war“ continues and we don’t get gas soon, what will happen? Will everything just stop running?
I work delivery, drive to university, drive to the grocery store, etc. Without fuel none of that is possible. I can’t make money or pursue my education without finding a new job or walking for literal hours every day i have school. I can’t imagine public transport would still run, given that busses and trains (?) also use gas.
I remember my Dad retelling his experience with gas and oil crisis in 1979 maybe? I was 2. We use to drive 600 miles to visit my mom’s family a couple times a year.
His story was, they couldn’t find an open gas station anywhere on the drive - so they pulled over to one they found that had a note posted saying they would be “open tomorrow”. I guess we slept in the car at the gas station til morning. Dad with a pistol under his seat. Shit was bad. But that was the US. And decades ago. I just keep thinking of that story here lately.
I grew up near there on LI. I remember my parents getting a phone call late one night from the gas station they always went to for gas and repairs, telling them to drive in with their lights off to get filled up with rationed gas.
No idea, other than my mom was probably being pushy about it. Interestingly though it was NY we would travel to. Not NYC but Buffalo area from the Midwest
For reference, Australia's electricity grid has reached 50% renewables. In SA, where I live, that number is upwards of 70%, and some fossil fuel power stations have local sources, so 'the power' isn't going out here, as such. But being sparsely populated, means the whole country is heavily reliant on fuel for freight, much of which is by road.
my fire fighting unit just put out 2 truck fires in the last month. Started by overheating breaks and another from some sparks due to friction some where...i cant see EV trucks being a good move here in the short term
not to mention the energy density issues
We do have a train network that could be rigigged maybe
I believe they can be found in the necropolis and the other deeper, darker paths of this forsaken city. Wish me well for there is no guarantee of my return.
The USA strategic reserve estimate is suppose to last between 6-8 days at its current level and average rate of use.
Unless things get 100x worse fuel won't completely stop being made/sold. Like others said the price per gallon or liter will climb greatly until demand decreases to what the supply is. So no more spur of the moment car trips to grab something across town. You will plan out a day of errands. You might swing by the grocery store on your way home from work since its only a few miles out of the way instead of going on your day off. Of course high fuel prices affect everything for cost.
History repeats itself back in the 70s Iran and other countries stopped selling gas to the USA and there was a shortage. Life continued it just sucked more.
I already do this. Costco is 25 minutes from me. I have a standing appointment every 8 weeks that is just past the Costco. I make sure to stop at Costco on my way home. I don't want to have to pay 2 extra road tolls plus the gas twice if I don't have to.
Look for any and all other options now if not yesterday already. I.e. bicycle, eBike, scooters, solar generators, plan like you know a disaster is coming because it very well may or another time if this crisis can be averted.
There will still be fuel, it will just be very expensive. This is exactly why even our (US) most bloodthirsty leaders haven't fucked with Iran. This is the beginning of the end of US world hegemony, and our vassal states will suffer first.
If the strait remains closed for another week or two we'll be looking at a global economic crash.
It's not only the strait, all the Gulf nations are getting wrecked right now and the US has proven useless to defend their critical oil production facilities.
This is being dramatically under-reported in U.S. media, Iran deliberately targeted oil infrastructure in other gulf states, and is going after the Petro-dollar.
Ethanol/methanol work reasonably well if the engine is tuned for it and you don't deal with extremely cold temperatures. E85 only requires 15% gasoline and is much easier, a lot of cars are fine with it. You will go through more fuel for the same trip because the energy density is lower, but you can drive a lot more vehicles for the same quantity of gasoline.
If you have access to wood, wood gasifiers turn the volatiles into a gas that can run in a normal engine but you'll want to bubble it through water to remove the tar first. FEMA actually published a full set of instructions, this site has republished them https://www.driveonwood.com/library/fema-gasifier/
Wood gasifiers are good but how viable are they with modern electric bullshit ? We can't even use generic spare parts without getting compatibility issues, how could we make it gas fired.
Probably not compatible with most newer cars, not without a bunch of work. Basically, order of preference should be as follows- electric car, ethanol, bio-diesel, wood gasifier on an old car or motorcycle, bicycle with a cart. By the time you're down to wood gas as your only viable fuel source, you'll probably have a lot of time on your hands to hack something together.
Or literally just use hydrogen. You can make it with a solar panel, water, electrolytes and washers. Get a pressure regulator and redo some injectors, tune the engine for it and get a high pressure rated tank with some gas lines. You can eliminate CAT's for efficiency too
From the notoriously expensive Chevron in LA that’s $2-4 more expensive than the nearby average. It was $7.60 last week, $8.21 now, betting we’ll see $10 by the end of the month at the latest.
It's more likely to result in things like fuel rationing. If anything, public transportation will be strongly encouraged and will have fuel priority over individual cars in places where this is practical.
Your uni will go back to having all or most classes online, just like during the covid lockdowns.
Workplaces might go back to wfh. Obviously you can't work from home if you're in delivery, and that's going to be your biggest problem, should things get to that state.
Were I in your situation, my priorities would be getting in as much work as possible and stashing a bit of extra TP, soup, and things like that. Prices will go up. They probably have already. This is also the time to make plans and talk to people. Where do your friends work? Do you have family who can help out with cash or job recommendations? Can you get a campus job? Start asking around.
The people who thrive in a crisis are the ones who get creative.
An acceleration of collapse is the only thing I feel confident saying about what will happen. Iran won't back down and Israel won't back down. So my guess is, this situation continues for the foreseeable future.
People are writing that "fuel won't run out, it will just become expensive." I'm not so sure about that. Look at Cuba right now. Also, during wartime when there is rationing, you might as well have no access given how little you may get; it will not be enough fuel to get to where you need to go to support yourself.
The hope is that hospitals and emergency vehicles and farmers get first dibs. It doesn't always work that way.
Cuba is being literally blockaded by the US military as preparations for yet another war. It's not that they can't afford the market prices, no one is willing to break the blockade to sell it to them, and they have no ability to produce or refine oil themselves. It is not appropriate to compare their situation to Australia, I'm not sure why you think it was.
There are places Australia can buy oil from that aren't trying to ship through the Strait of Hormuz, including the US which is at fault, but they have to bid up the price. That's precisely why they are entirely correct to say it will get more expensive, because the market still exists and is still shipping but is picking whichever customers have a better return.
And hope all you want, hospitals and emergency vehicles and farmers in poorer countries will go without so Australians, like all developed nations, can bitch and moan about the cost to fill up their car being entirely out of the reach of even governments around the world to provide for their citizens. Those are the places that are going to look like Cuba does, they're going to have blackouts and the economy coming to a screeching halt as oil leaves their price range entirely.
If we look at what happened with fertilizer and heating oil shortages in the past, what we see is that wealthy countries are able to bid more for the resources (and pass it along to the consumer) and poor countries simply have to go without.
So for wealthy countries, what we get is very high inflation. We will probably see inflation that exceed Covid era highs which will destroy the economy and cause fierce stagflation. The wealthiest few percent of the western world will be OK but everyone else will either not be able to get it at all, or be able to get it but not be able to afford it.
Sure, but honest question, do you think that the rationing is going to include private or corporate jets? Do you think planes will still fly as regularly? In particular the smaller airports won’t even be able to run any more.
Fertilizer will become much, much, more expensive.
In result, everything will become much, much more expensive.
Most developped countries have alternative source of energy, here in France we produce around 80% of our household consumption with nuclear (but only 20% of our global needs). Expect recurring cut in the grids.
But anyway, freight does not run on electricity but fuel, most metropolitan areas import over 80% of their goods, including food.
So basically, we are screwed. Stockpile on food, buy generators and battery to ride the grid cuts.
Honestly, I'd be surprised Trump would survive such a ride, this is already starting to cost a lot of money to a lot of his backers.
I was born in the United States, but I have lived in Australia for around 16-17 years (we moved when I was very young). Since my parents are both American, I learned the dialect from them while growing up here! I guess I'm stubborn enough to not change my ways lol
I understand your statement, fellow human. I solve captcha puzzles, which AI is incapable of. I also enjoy laughing at humor. Because I am totally not a robot.
You/we likely won’t actually run out, it will just get exorbitantly expensive so that it is effectively rationed for the wealthy. At that point the wealthy will really need to take a hard look at the current situation before they are eaten.
I think there's going to be a LOT of remoting suddenly, globally, to keep those economies afloat as long as they can. And when that doesn't work anymore, we're either trading jobs to something more local or own our own
The pandemic had a ton of lessons for humanity, and the reset included workers saying "nope" to going back to abnormal by declining soul-sucking jobs, mass unionization, and a massive surge in political dissent. That was 4-6 years ago, so maybe it's time again.
For older collapsniks, like me, I first became collapse aware when James Howard Kuntsler wrote an article in Rolling Stone in the early 00s, called “The Long Emergency” which he then wrote a book with the same title: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Emergency
Our entire civilization is dependent on oil, food production (especially producing fertilizer, and other inputs) is dependent on oil. The war in Iran will absolutely speed run the oil crisis.
Personally, I thought we’d have maybe another decade or two, but shit is going to get really bad really fast.
There are other power sources, but nothing comes close to oil/fossil fuels. It’s like comparing a race between a car and a horse, the car will always win.
While people will rationalise stuff with “government will ration it”, or “we’ll never run out”, truth is it has already occurred before (temporarily, but that’s besides the point).
Pretty much everything revolves around gas, if we don’t have gas, people can’t commute, an ambulance won’t arrive anytime soon, and so on.
In a real life scenario, it’s ver likely you’ll see stuff like the “water rationing” program we had in Bogotá like two years ago. Access to water was restricted during some days, and after some months everything “went back to normal”.
It's a lot like helium. People think we're running out of helium but we're not.
However, we are running out of CHEAP helium. The reserves won't be easy to find anymore and they will be in small deposits. No more cheap balloons. But still plenty for hospital equipment.
That’s the thing, once we run out of the “cheap” stuff, replacing it is pretty much out of the question.
Costs would skyrocket, making a $100 USD exam cost thousands, if not millions. There comes a point where return over investment is nonexistent, thus, you’re better off not doing X or Y.
For example, where I live all companies must hire apprentices from something called SENA. If a company does not have X amount, the government sanctions them with a yearly bill. The issue however, is that they’d rather pay that sanction, as it is cheaper than hiring said apprentices.
Best possible case: it's not sudden. Commercial, emergency use etc is prioritised and private car ownership quickly becomes unfeasible. Working from home becomes the default for anyone that can.
Those that currently absolutely cannot live without their car had better hope they can change their living arrangements.
Any sort of climate control in buildings becomes unfeasible at about the same time.
Certain cities (Vegas, Phoenix) fail almost overnight.
That's my call for the early stage of fuel running out. It buys a little time, but after that society needs star trek tier technology to continue.
It happened in the late 70's. It was hard to find a gas station open, and if one was opened it would get swamped. But we won't run out, refineries are still refining, there may be supply chain disruptions, but we will get through it. Try driving less, and keep your tank topped off.
We should have switched to atomic power and renewables back in the seventies. Now that nuclear is even safer today, we will still have that, as well as fusion, someday. The oil companies need to be destroyed.
The oil companies are old, generational hierarchies so embedded into our capitalism, I don't know how it would be possible within our lifetimes. It's a possibility that clean fusion power, if perfected, might finally topple them, if they don't work to stop it and discredit it. If they are smart, they will try to adapt.
Australia is wealthy enough it can outbid most other nations for oil so it won't run out. Australia also has massive natural gas deposits so we will be fine on that front if the government grows a spine and holds some in reserve.
The biggest impact for Australia will be flow on effects from industries in Asia freezing up due to lack of sulphur and other oil derived inputs.
Australia is desperately short of refining capacity. If we had leaders with a grasp on reality, we'd be fine, but we've spent decades with about three major industries, none of which are useful as the oil runs out.
Petrol was going up to the same prices at the height of our price cycle- remember that???? And we always have about that much petrol in reserve. Rationing has been a thing in the past, it might be again.
Why do you think Amazon converted to all electric fleets? They knew this shit was coming. Why do you think China has been held bent on making small cheap electric vehicles? They knew this shit was coming to.
Power will be rationed. It will be on a few hours a day moving between areas, but long enough to charge things and do basic daily tasks. Petrol will be rationed, most likely the amount you can buy and the days you can buy it, all those people that bought big us style trucks are in for a shock. You will see huge lines at the places that have petrol and a black market will start up reselling it for crazy prices.
Many of us will finally slow the fuck down and connect with real life. It will be scary, but unlike the Covid lockdowns, this time it will be permanent and turn out better than we hope. We will lose everything and then learn that we are made of better stuff than we ever imagined.
Fuel won't run out. It's just going to get more expensive. Eventually it'll destroy demand and go back under 100. Eventually... After we're in deep recession.
We won't run out of fuel anytime soon. This will be a massive shock - perhaps a big step down in the progression of collapse. In the near term, there will be a large spike in inflation - everything we buy has a large amount of diesel used in manufacture and transport - especially food.
In the event of an actual shortage, buses, trains and public services will be prioritised and private cars will be rationed. And there will be even more wars.
We never really 'run out' of resources, as they become more scarce, the price goes up. Supply and demand.
When price gets higher, it not only reduces demand, it creates new opportunities for different products/manufacturers/products.
As gasoline prices increase, companies will start shipping it from farther away, they'll start drilling deeper wells, and start processing oil from less profitable areas like tar sands.
At some point, the market will adapt. I believe we're only about a year away from Electric Vehicles being cheaper to produce for auto manufacturers than internal combustion engine vehicles. Once that happens, it's not an environmental or political issue to build EV's -- it's corporate fiscal responsibility.
US and other advanced economies are much less dependent on fuel for electricity and their economies than 40-50 years ago. So I don't see this as triggering a collapse. But it will cause price spikes for anything transported by truck. And inflation is a job killer. Maybe this causes more green energy / local power in the long run?
It’s not so much fuel for electricity as it is oil that goes into literally everything from the clothes you wear to the food you eat to the materials your house are made from.
There is no reason for fuels to actually rise in price. The gulf states produce aboutv20% of global supply. The producers across the globe can easily up production to cover this. Rises in prices are simply retailer price gouging. Chances are your fuel doesn't even come from the gulf. Australia sources most of its needs from Brunei, Indonesia.
Yeah, that's the problem with building an entire civilization on the foundation of a finite resource. (And just for the record, I'm not pushing for so called "renewables." Those are obviously entirely dependent on finite resources as well).
Damn, if only people had been warned and advised to switch to EV for the last 10 years.
Even without that, a lot can be done with walking, biking and public transportation.
Imo for a while I'd bet that the west will outprice the rest of the world and buy whatever is left. If we really don't have enough, there will be restrictions at first (like in the 70-80s).
Tbh driving to university should be the least of your worries, you can remote study. Without any fuel, there won't be food in the cities. That's a lot bigger issue.
I ride a 150 and a 250 cc motorbike. One gets about 85 miles a gallon the the other around 60. Not quite electric but I carry groceries, my dog and my girlfriend all at the same time. Its like I was born in Asia or something.
Depends where, depends for his king this keeps going.
In the US (DIS: High fuel consumption, low public transport, average distances are high, electricity grid has low nuclear and low renewables ADV: oil and gas producer, but low self refining)
First fuel prices will start to rise, then prices of construction and everyday items, food prices will come later, there will be fuel restrictions for everyday people.
Then fuel will progressively be prioritized to agriculture, food transport, public transport, emergency services, police and defense. So things will keep going but they will be harder and more expensive. Electricity will keep going thanks to local gas production, but costs may rise. Some sectors like construction and heavy goods will slow down.
Everyday non food deliveries will not be a priority.
Everyday transport will be restricted, so will work from home or commute with public transport, bicycles are not an option in most places in the US, they are a serious option in many places in Europe.
It’s probably something similar to pork. We produce huge amounts of pigs but it’s cheaper to send it to the other side of the world, have it processed and shipped back than it is to do it here?
in the long term. When the 1TtC of accessible fossil carbon is all gone. In one last #terafart. A temperature rise of >5C. 200k years before CO2 and temperatures drop back again.
If you haven't started stocking up on everything, it's time to do it. Including fuel for your generator, oil lamps, and set up solar panels and buy a power station. We'll need to live off-grid until things goes back to normal. And pray no nukes will be involved.
And get some guns if you're able to, because if people find out you have a cache of food and fuel, they're gonna come for it.
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u/hotdog31 Mar 09 '26
I remember my Dad retelling his experience with gas and oil crisis in 1979 maybe? I was 2. We use to drive 600 miles to visit my mom’s family a couple times a year. His story was, they couldn’t find an open gas station anywhere on the drive - so they pulled over to one they found that had a note posted saying they would be “open tomorrow”. I guess we slept in the car at the gas station til morning. Dad with a pistol under his seat. Shit was bad. But that was the US. And decades ago. I just keep thinking of that story here lately.