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The country is already at the point where a single natural disaster can cause regional short-term fuel shortages and price spikes because refineries are located
by mywittyname 5y ago
The country is already at the point where a single natural disaster can cause regional short-term fuel shortages and price spikes because refineries are located in geographies susceptible to natural disasters.
It is not unreasonable to work under the assumption that temporary petrol shortages become a annual or semi-annual event in a future where the gulf coast is hammered with ever more frequent and powerful hurricanes.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoHarvey was parked over Houston for several days, and I don't really remember fuel prices being affected that much. The bigger thing to worry about is something like the pipeline hack (which will assuredly happen again).
- bradstewart 5y agoPrices didn't move all that much, but you literally couldn't get gas in Austin for a week or so, and gas stations would frequently run out for another few weeks after that. This is an area where small, distributed solar panel arrays and batteries (like on your house) can be much more robust. It's a lot harder to destroy thousands of small solar power systems than it is to take out a pipeline feeding an entire city.