I don’t understand why there’s no secondary option if Strait of Hormuz goes down. Obviously there are alternative routes out there but why big gas companies even governments did not see this coming. Are they okay losing billions? Or do they actually have a plan that ordinary people don’t know about?

    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      Another way of saying it is that some things are so expensive you don’t do them even if they could be useful one day. Do you have a second house? Your first one could burn down. You don’t? I guess you must be a greedy capitalist thinking only about short term money.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
    43·
    10 days ago

    these corps are run by humans who have sold out. they only care about the next quarter… the next bonus check.

    the world is far more fragile than those in nice comfy cities could ever imagine

    to mitigate real disaster on a global scale would take solving for human greed. good luck.

  • Grail@multiverse.soulism.netEnglish
    27·
    10 days ago

    The backup plan is switching to solar. Which JD Vance called a scam. But China’s about to make absolute bank selling solar panels to the rest of the world.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
    20·
    9 days ago

    They’re not losing billions. They’re just selling less for more.

    The price increase is working for them, because it’s pretty certain that oil consumption is already decreasing with more cars and industries turning to electricity in the future anyway and supply is going to decrease as well. So this way, they already have customers accustomed to higher prices. Isn’t that neat…

  • randomdeadguy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    10 days ago

    Renewable energy sources are purposefully unsubsidized to keep the world dependent on coal, oil, and fossil gas (they market it as natural gas) If they allowed for alternative energies, they’d lose footing as part of the interconnected system of ruling families known as the oligarchy. No progress will be made in the current system. Even climate change won’t be reversible until we’ve been heat-blasted for decades. It’s shameful and infuriating.

  • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteEnglish
    13·
    10 days ago

    There is no entity called “the world” that can flick through contingency plans. You can bet those who benefit from oil that would have sailed through the strait with no problem hadn’t the orange toddler started a war have a plan B. Whether that’s reactivating a few old pipelines or just sending ships the long way around, fuck knows. I’m not swimming in petrodollars. None of these plans will cost the same. All contingency plans cost more money. They might be raising fuel prices too much but they couldn’t not raise them at all.

    No one foresaw this development because it is - and that’s the diplomatic term for it: fucking stupid. And that’s why there isn’t a plan B in place that can be used in the same way right away.

  • disregardable@lemmy.zip
    13·
    10 days ago

    If you look at a map, that’s the most convenient and direct way for the oil to get out of that area. That whole region is mountainous. There are plenty of other ways to get oil, but it would take more than a few months to increase their supply.

    It’s like, imagine your local grocery store burnt down, and everyone in your neighborhood had to go to the next grocery store over. That grocery store would sell out of goods almost immediately, and you would just have to wait until they adjusted to increase their supply.

  • Foni@piefed.zipEnglish
    13·
    9 days ago

    Don’t you remember the pandemic? It was something more or less predictable for which no government had anything like a plan, everyone panicked and started improvising like crazy.

    The explanation is very simple, we are idiots and we elected the most idiots among us to rule us

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    10 days ago

    There are backup plans, they are just more costly. Big Gas companies will just pass that cost down the line. Trust me, those companies were never in danger of losing money.

  • Karmanopoly@lemmy.world
    3·
    10 days ago

    Canada should have pipelines and port facilities for shipping oil and gas all around the world

    But for some strange reason we don’t

  • whaleross@lemmy.world
    2·
    10 days ago

    Because it is a collective problem for society to solve until it is profitable to invest and privatise and lock down.

  • starlinguk@lemmy.world
    2·
    10 days ago

    The oil companies made a backup plan, patented the hell out of everything and then shelved it. Source: I used to work for one.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
      9·
      10 days ago

      A patent means that a design is publicly published. If it was patented there would be designs that anyone could read and build for personal research. There would be YouTubers showing off their work. This happened 15 years ago when 3d printing was still under patent protection.

      China in general doesn’t care about US patents until they’re big enough to be sued. It would be on Aliexpress next to the retro game consoles that include hundreds of stolen roms.

      And Patents are only good for 20 years.

      So yeah, quit the bullshit. I’ve heard stories about miraculous inventions being patented and sat on by oil companies for 50 years. There’s no car that can run on water. They’re all scams that became urban legends.