Consequences of the 2026 fuel crisis

[old man emu]

Every weekday morning during school term, two diesel-powered buses pass my place to begin their school runs, picking up kids from farms to take to teh schools in town. I don't know how long these pick-up routes are, but I suspect around 100 kms would not be too far wrong. Then in the afternoon they do the run in reverse direction. That's two buses, privately owned on a government contract. There are another three school runs for the local schools. There is also a run of 120 kms total or more to schools in Dubbo. 

 

The fuel mileage rate is no doubt a fixed amount in those contracts, and that amount would have been set at the beginning of the year. How will the bus company continue to operate with fuel prices rising as they are? The obvious thing is that the buses will stop running. That will mean that these kids will not be able to get to school. It is too inefficient for individual families to be driving their kids to and from school each day. I have a neighbour who lives "close" to town at about 25 kms. That's 100 kms per day taking the kids in the morning; coming home , and doing the same in the afternoon.

 

Will this fuel crisis spawn another generatiion of kids who miss out on a decent education, even though they might be home-schooled? Look at the current crop of under-18s whose education was disrtupted by COVID. Look at the social problems we got from that. 

[pmccarthy]

A friend who drives a big school bus found it is often empty or near empty, but the government contract does not allow a smaller bus nor to not run empty if there are no kids.

[old man emu]

Yeah, the buses run on pupil-free days, too.

[old man emu]

Just another consequence: I work in an OP Shop which gets a lot of its income from sales to caravaners. Last year we distributed $40,000 to local organisations. A lot of that money came from caravaners. If the fuel dries up, they won't be coming in to buy, so our ability to support the community will be less.

[old man emu]

Need and MRI? You might have to wait. MRI machines need Helium for their functioning. Guess where a lot of Helium comes from. The global helium supply is currently facing a significant, immediate disruption due to geopolitical conflict, with roughly one-third of global production halted after attacks on Qatar's Ras Laffan facility.

[onetrack]

Helium always was in short supply, this war is war driving home how little the Earth has, by way of Helium reserves. Because Helium is so light and inert, any Helium produced without capture, escapes into Space, and is lost forever.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

The spot Brent Crude price is still less that the peak post Covid and presumably from the Ukraine war.

 

 

As I understand, the issue is not the capacity to supply as much as the delivery because most of the ME oil comes out of the Persian gulf through Hormuz. So, it isn't even a case of turn around the ships and go another way. I am guessing there are no alternative ports/terminals they can use for transporting non-Iranian ME oil. According to Google. Iran is the 4th largest behind Saudi, UAE and Ira. These three could boost production and send the oil overland to ports/terminals in Saudi if there are any, and ship through the Red Sea., but the Houthis, who are Iranian backed, basically patrol the waters. 

 

The obvious conseuences of this energy crisis is a switch to renewabls and electrification. It may also put pressure on Ukraine as the west may well (as Chump has hinted) start taking on Russian oil - ooh.. wouldn't that bre great for his war chest. 

 

Recession is likely, and as the western governments have largely exhiaseted their reserves and debt ceilings, creating the soft landing as per the Covid/pre-Covd times is unlikely to be sustainable, but it may well hold off a full blown recession. 

 

Chump, though his alienation of his allies, and the growing resentment to the war at home maibkly because oif the inflationary and recessionary impact it will ahve, will put pressure on him to end it soon. He won't want to concede, so he will either find some "pallatble" story, or he will send the ground trrops in, which there are already reports. 

 

I can only see it ramping up at his stage.. Chump will want to end it ASAP and won't back down.  And one conseuence is it will hit a critical point where allies of both sides will need to get involved.

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Jerry_Atrick

[red750]

The Iranians don't know the meaning of surrender and will fight to the last man.