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What are you afraid of happening? This is such a perverse and anxious fear imo

by wyre 2mo ago

mschuster91 2mo ago
A reasonable scenario might be a cyberattack taking down large portions of the grid for a prolonged time. It's not impossible to achieve something like that, Stuxnet proved the concept of corrupting PLCs driving powerplants ages ago. Alternatively, even outside a cyberwar scenario, bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks.
- vel0city 2mo ago
  If they've taken down large portions of the grid for a prolonged period of time you're also not going to have much gasoline left. > bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks Once again, as someone who actually lived through those scenarios multiple times, when the gas pumps go down you're usually shit outta luck on getting gas. When the grid goes down for days, the gas you have in your gas car + any random fuel tanks you have in your garage is what you have. Don't expect anything else unless you plan to take it at gunpoint.
- jameshart 2mo ago
  Meanwhile the oil supply system is immune to outside threats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline_ransomware_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline_ransomware_a... https://shippingtelegraph.com/shipping-news/adnoc-reports-15-vessels-attacked-while-transiting-hormuz/ https://shippingtelegraph.com/shipping-news/adnoc-reports-15... https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168121 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168121
  - SideburnsOfDoom 2mo ago
    If you're talking about "outside threats to oil supply" then this has to be a major and current example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Russian_fuel_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Russian_fuel... We can find many examples of "Russian oil refinery damaged by Ukrainian drone strike" e.g. today https://www.kyivpost.com/post/82326 https://www.kyivpost.com/post/82326 > repairs potentially taking up to six months. The strike adds to Kyiv’s escalating campaign against Russia’s oil industry and a growing fuel crunch across the country. But search again tomorrow and there will be new examples. Refineries and other oil infrastructure are large, located in well-known fixed locations and are highly flammable. This campaign demonstrates what a weak spot they are for a petrostate.
- kalleboo 2mo ago
  > bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks Where I live, we have typhoons which depending on the direction they arrive in can result in all the gas stations being out of gas for 2+ days. Meanwhile the grid keeps on ticking.

What are you afraid of happening? This is such a perverse and anxious fear imo

by wyre 2mo ago

What are you afraid of happening? This is such a perverse and anxious fear imo

A reasonable scenario might be a cyberattack taking down large portions of the grid for a prolonged time. It's not impossible to achieve something like that, Stuxnet proved the concept of corrupting PLCs driving powerplants ages ago. Alternatively, even outside a cyberwar scenario, bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks.

vel0city 2mo ago
If they've taken down large portions of the grid for a prolonged period of time you're also not going to have much gasoline left. > bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks Once again, as someone who actually lived through those scenarios multiple times, when the gas pumps go down you're usually shit outta luck on getting gas. When the grid goes down for days, the gas you have in your gas car + any random fuel tanks you have in your garage is what you have. Don't expect anything else unless you plan to take it at gunpoint.
jameshart 2mo ago
Meanwhile the oil supply system is immune to outside threats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline_ransomware_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Pipeline_ransomware_a... https://shippingtelegraph.com/shipping-news/adnoc-reports-15-vessels-attacked-while-transiting-hormuz/ https://shippingtelegraph.com/shipping-news/adnoc-reports-15... https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168121 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168121
- SideburnsOfDoom 2mo ago
  If you're talking about "outside threats to oil supply" then this has to be a major and current example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Russian_fuel_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%932026_Russian_fuel... We can find many examples of "Russian oil refinery damaged by Ukrainian drone strike" e.g. today https://www.kyivpost.com/post/82326 https://www.kyivpost.com/post/82326 > repairs potentially taking up to six months. The strike adds to Kyiv’s escalating campaign against Russia’s oil industry and a growing fuel crunch across the country. But search again tomorrow and there will be new examples. Refineries and other oil infrastructure are large, located in well-known fixed locations and are highly flammable. This campaign demonstrates what a weak spot they are for a petrostate.
kalleboo 2mo ago
> bad weather has been shown to take down power grids for entire regions for days, sometimes weeks Where I live, we have typhoons which depending on the direction they arrive in can result in all the gas stations being out of gas for 2+ days. Meanwhile the grid keeps on ticking.