BIDEN: “The United States is targeting the main artery of Russia’s economy. We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy. That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at US ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine”
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) March 8, 2022
US import ban on Russian oil takes effect immediately but govt will allow 45 days to wind down purchases already under contract, a Biden official tells reporters. The official declined to say if purchases from Venezuela could make up for lost Russian barrels.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) March 8, 2022
Nancy Smash, not afraid to play the bad cop…
Pelosi told her fellow Democrats this morning that the White House had repeatedly told her Biden would do a ban on US imports on Russian oil (then didn’t).
The White House will announce action today. But Pelosi is pursuing congressional action anyway.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) March 8, 2022
“America can produce enough oil for everything we need. We shouldn’t rely on oil from foreign countries. But Generic Repub Congressman voted to let international oil companies keep selling Russian oil in America.”*
Gee, why would the House take this vote?
*Rhetoric, not policy https://t.co/b1LciNLAk6
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 8, 2022
How to support Ukraine in one easy step:
1. Don’t complain about higher gas prices.
— Daniel Schultz (@pastordan) March 8, 2022
zhena gogolia
Last tweet is correct
craigie
Gas still costs less than milk, depending on which kind of either you are getting.
phdesmond
this seems disappointing. it’s from the Guardian’s live warblog:
US Government Rejects Polish Plan
A Polish plan to provide fighter jets to Ukraine will not go ahead as after the US government described it as “not tenable”. …
different-church-lady
The first few days of this I would drive by gas stations and get anxious about where prices were going to go.
Then I’d remember that prices were going up because a madman was killing a lot of innocent people for not even a good excuse. And that would help me get my head straight.
Ken
@craigie: Maybe we need to provide subsidies to oil producers based on their distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
bbleh
@zhena gogolia: Whaaaaat?!? Don’t complain about gas prices?! Why that’s … un-American!!
geg6
I have to say, in regard to the last tweet, that I just watched a relatively long segment on local news (CBS owned) with lots of interviews with “people on the street” about the high gas prices. Almost all the interviewees seemed resigned to higher prices and knew exactly why the prices were so high. Several mentioned using more public transportation, buying an electric vehicle and just downsizing from an SUV to a car. No real anger or blaming Biden or Democrats. I was pretty taken aback that they couldn’t find anyone willing to be an asshole about the whole thing. Glad to have seen it. Gives one a little hope in this crazy timeline we’re in.
Baud
@geg6:
Wow. That’s amazing.
geg6
@Baud:
Inorite?!?!?!
different-church-lady
@geg6:
Yeah, that’s my sense of of the zeitgeist. A rare moment when we’re putting aside our relentless self-interest, because the moral imperative is so crystal clear.
delk
Good thing I didn’t drive my truck cross country to make pointless circles around the capital.
different-church-lady
@delk: For so many reasons!
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Figures. I just finished my 10 week course on How To Succeed as an American Asshole.
Baud
@delk:
Some say they are still driving in circles to this day.
Old Man Shadow
Maybe it’s time to get that transition to clean energy going with gusto.
And maybe it’s time to start patching things up with Venezuela and Iran.
Martin
@geg6: Having options to gas makes attitudes toward gas prices change pretty substantially.
I for one welcome higher gas prices, as its a necessity to make real progress on climate change. $5.69 across the street from me. We buy gas to go visit the kid, and that’s nearly it. I take my bike almost everywhere.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Really, that’s a skill that one never stops learning.
Yarrow
Now it’s getting serious.
Link.
Old Man Shadow
@geg6: Small sample size, but that’s good news.
I honestly wasn’t sure if we were capable of making that connection or making that sacrifice for the cause of liberty.
mrmoshpotato
@delk:
You mean good thing you didn’t drive to California, and then drive cross country to make pointless circles around the capital.
Ken
Taking it, or preparing to teach it?
NotMax
Russian crude oil is particularly high in sulfur content, which requires additional specialized steps at refineries. Dunno how many U.S. facilities are designed to deal with that but I’d expect it’s a small minority.
China, south Korea and Japan have refineries geared to process Russian oil received via the Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline.
VeniceRiley
@phdesmond: Very disappointing. Are they trying to crush their hopes? Maybe they just can’t do it from Ramstein and the Poles can’t shut their pie holes?
Baud
@Ken:
Both. That’s the beauty of multilevel marketing.
Ken
@geg6: Now I’m wondering how many diner safaris were being bankrolled by the Russians.
Ken
Which is also a way to be an American asshole.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
People today are willing to accept higher gas prices to support Ukraine, but there’s no guarantee they will continue if we let the Republicans blame it all on Biden uncontested. We need to make sure it is contested by continuing to talk about exactly why gas prices are so high. Mentioning that Trump not only blocked attempts to send arms to Ukraine, but that his attempt to extort Ukraine over arms shipments was the basis for his first impeachment would also be a good idea. Oh yeah, and the rest of the Republican party protected him when he was caught.
phdesmond
@phdesmond:
from the same source, but encouraging:
bonessy
Stupid question from someone who never took an economics class. Isn’t oil a fungible commodity? Russia will still want to sell its oil but will have to get a lower price from the countries without sanctions (China & India). The countries with the sanctions will have to pay more to buy from less convenient supplies. If the total world supply doesn’t decrease, why the huge rise in oil prices?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
At least you made your money while the going was good. At least I assume you were the instructor, not the student.
CaseyL
@geg6:
It comes as a very pleasant surprise to not only hear from Americans who understand what’s going on, and can manage not to be ignorant self-centered assholes about it, but also to see that a major TV news outlet (albeit a local one) actually ran the story.
Cacti
Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church says that Russia had to invade Ukraine because gays.
Not joking.
Neutering the church was one of the things the Commies definitely got right.
Ken
@phdesmond: Now I’m wondering how being a McDonald’s franchisee works in Russia. Do they send the flash-frozen burger patties all the way from the U.S., or is there local production?
Martin
This shouldn’t really be felt on the east coast. AFAIK, almost all Russian oil/gas comes to the west coast. Hawaii in particular is going to feel this. Because of the Jones act, getting oil/gas from California is MUCH harder than getting it from Russia. My guess is that congress is going to have to actually address the Jones act here, or Biden does an executive order to waive it temporarily.
Roger Moore
@phdesmond:
Sadly, the media missed a perfect opportunity to make some kind of joke about a no fry zone. ETA: I only wish I could claim credit for this pun.
Martin
@Cacti: If that were true, Florida would have invaded Ukraine long ago.
phdesmond
@VeniceRiley:
it was a very short article, hot off the press.
Old Man Shadow
@Cacti: Gods, the church disgusts me. So many of them have sold their souls to the devil in exchange for money and power.
And they’re all convinced they’re paragons of virtue and righteousness. Fucking hypocrites.
Sebastian
@different-church-lady:
That’s exactly what it is. The room for spin has disappeared overnight. My (excellent) therapist told me, abusers operate in the grey.
There is no grey. That’s why Cruz, the truckers, et al suddenly look so pitiful.
The Ukraine people are the tip of the spear in the fight of Light against Darkness. It is not too much to ask to grab the spear’s shaft and lean in.
The moral imperative as you said, the clarity of convictions, disarms all tools Russia and GOP has (ab)used on us: gaslighting, whataboutism, mocking, coercion, violence, you name it.
The phenomenal thing is the omnipresent Zeitgeist, the nonverbal understanding what is at stake and what must be done and that the hour has come. For all of us.
phdesmond
@Roger Moore: awoo! who committed that gem?
Jackie
Republican Congress has started their campaign blaming Biden for the sticker shock. Knew it was coming.
smith
Prepping for 2024, eh? Didn’t realize you were going to try to outflank the Rs on the right.
VeniceRiley
@Roger Moore: I made a no fry zone joke on my social media already.
Cacti
Today being International Women’s Day, J.K. Rowling took time out of her busy schedule to rant about and punch down at trans folk again.
What a loathsome person she’s become.
MomSense
@geg6:
Your experience was much better than the one I had driving home today. I listened to the Maine Public Broadcasting coverage of our kickass governor announcing her reelection campaign and I wanted to break things. They actually cut to Trump audio from a rally with LePage from the summer of 2020. It was such fucking bullshit.
Mike in NC
@Cacti: I wonder who gave him that €30,000 wristwatch?
Roger Moore
@bonessy:
It isn’t as fungible as you might naively think. There are two big issues. The simplest one is that refineries are connected to transportation infrastructure to get the oil there. If you cut of the supply legally, you’ll need to figure out how to get whatever your replacement supply is to the refinery. Shipping oil isn’t free, so that will add to the cost.
There also isn’t really a generic substance called “oil”. Oil is actually a complex mixture of different substances, and different grades of oil are different mixtures. The simplest kind of refining is just separating the oil into its components, and you obviously get a different mix of outputs depending on your input. There are more complex kinds of refining that convert one constituent into another, but they are more expensive, and the refinery has to be equipped with the right kind and amount of equipment to do the conversion. A refinery that’s designed for one grade of oil won’t be efficient at refining a different grade; it may not even be capable of doing so, at least without an expensive refit.
IOW, oil is somewhat fungible, but it takes time and effort to make it happen. If you disrupt the distribution network, there will be a short to medium term loss in overall output of refined oil, even if the total supply of crude oil is steady.
Baud
@MomSense:
You do have a great governor. I hope Mainers do the right thing.
delk
McDonald’s is planning to still pay all of its Russian employees. FWIW.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@geg6:
I’m sure it’s just a matter of days before FTFNYT finds some upstanding ‘Murkins having breakfast at a diner on a weekday in Ohio who will bitch about prices and blame “Sleepy Joe”.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
Local production. The Economist famously chose to use the Big Mac as their goods basket for comparing real prices across economies, at least in part because it’s made using local ingredients and local labor.
Spanky
@Baud:
I’m betting that I’m not the only one to assume you were teaching it.
“First lesson: You were overcharged, suckers!”
dr. bloor
@phdesmond: There are at a minimum two generations of Russians who have no idea what life under the Soviet Union was like in terms of the marketplace. They’re not going to be happy with where Putin is trying to take them.
Roger Moore
@phdesmond:
I saw it retweeted on Twitter, and I sadly don’t remember the source. It wasn’t someone I recognize, which makes it harder to remember.
bbleh
@Baud: Offered by Trump University, only $1395 for the Intro level, $2295 for the Masters, and $3195 for the Doctorate. Comes with certificate suitable for framing! Online only, no refunds.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I think that if sanctions continue or increase, after a time people will expect for Russia to feel more pain than the US.
Roger Moore
@Cacti:
I suspect she’s always been that way, but her particular form of loathsomeness has just become more visible.
Dan B
@Martin: We’ve leased a Nissan Leaf for 6 years. We never want to drive a gas vehicle again although we own a little truck that gets driven twice a month. I read about gas prices and feel sad for poor people who live in the distant suburbs because Seattle is expensive.
More charging stations please!
Mike in NC
I still remember staring in disbelief at the TV when they showed scenes of thousands of refugees in camps during the Yugoslav Civil War in 1991. Never in a million years did I expect to relive such a horror.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I think that expectation is being met. The Ruble has collapsed, and the Russian government is refusing to allow their stock exchanges to open for fear of what will happen when they do. And that’s mostly in anticipation; things will really suck when the sanctions start to bite directly.
Dan B
@Martin: That would be nice. My partner’s family charter, the Schooner Zodiac, sails from Bellingham only a few miles from Canada. Trips up the Inside Passage or to Victoria are very rare because of the Jones Act. Fortunately the San Juan Islands are incredible.
lowtechcyclist
This would be an ideal moment to bring back Build Back Better.
different-church-lady
@bonessy:
Because “Fuck you, pay us.” That’s why.
different-church-lady
@CaseyL:
As hard as it might be to believe, Ukraine might be a clarifying moment for the whole world.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Unfortunately, Manchin is still a dick.
NotMax
@Martin
The company (based in Texas) which runs the refinery on Oahu previously announced (last week) cessation of purchase of Russian oil. Roughly a quarter to a third of the crude which enters the state is sourced from Russia. Any spot shortages can be covered (at prevailing world market prices) from South America, Canada and possibly Indonesia.
AFAIK gasoline runs second in the state’s only refinery’s output, trailing behind production of jet fuel.
What will be heavily impacted for us residents is already high electricity costs.
The Jones Act was temporarily waived by the Biden administration last year during the Continental pipeline interruption, little reason it can’t be waived again.
@bonessy
Fungible up to a point, providing the facilities to process it are in place. Besides Europe and the countries mentioned above at #22, India and Thailand and Cuba also already have refineries capable of handling the particular properties of Russian crude.
different-church-lady
@Ken:
[PLACES SIGN ON CHEST]: “FOR A BOXFULL OF MC NUGGETS”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: NPR’s Marketplace did a segment on different kinds of oil and refining capacities last night. As a casual listener to market wrap-ups I’d of course heard of “light, sweet crude” and thought it an odd phrase. I wasn’t surprised to hear that “heavy” oil, is a thing, I did chuckle involuntarily at “heavy, sour crude”.
I believe (?) they said the US exports light, sweet crude and imports heavy sour because the Texas refining industry made a bet on heavy and sour about twenty years ago. The tar sands oil from Keystone would be heavy and sour, no?
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: honestly the President has a lot of leeway Rt now if he declares an emergency and pedal to the metal to transition to EVs etc. Fuck Joe Manchin.
Gin & Tonic
On a, uhm, point of personal privilege, I think it’s called – my DIL got an e-mail today that her visa has been issued. I think she’ll be picking it up tomorrow.
Only 932 days after applying….
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
One presumes you were teaching?
different-church-lady
@Sebastian:
But the stunning part is how quickly the grey disappeared. We’ve gone through five years of Stalinesque manipulation erupting internationally and suddenly it disappears because the grand manipulator takes it one step too far? I didn’t think there was one step too far anymore. I thought they had manipulated all out of existence.
“Abusers operate in the grey.” I shall remember that — it will be part of my armor.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Fuckin A!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ksmiami: can nickel and microchips be created by Executive Order?
Jim Appleton
@dr. bloor: At least the USSR had state industries which “produced”. Today’s Russia depends heavily on imports, many of which are fast drying up.
Their new austerity will likely be much harsher in some ways than good ol’ three-“c”-“p”-one.
HeleninEire
Ireland has agreed to take 80,000 Ukrainian refugees. Ireland’s population is 4.5 million. Anyone want to do the math to figure out how many refugees the equivalent to 335 million Americans is? Not me. Cuz we’re not gonna come close.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He didn’t even try.
different-church-lady
@Mike in NC:
In Russia, wrist watch you.
zhena gogolia
@Roger Moore: I’ve tried it. They’ll tell you schiff lied about the transcript. Tfg did nothing that other presidents don’t do. They don’t know who Gordon sondland or vindman or Marie yovanovich are. They heard no testimony. They just know that schiff paraphrased the transcript once.
JMG
Light Sweet Crude would be a good rock band name.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
That is impressive. Kudos to Ireland.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator: I think we’re already there but they have a higher tolerance
Bill Heaps
Soon. Trucks wont need gas….or drivers.
different-church-lady
@Roger Moore:
To my eye, Biden is finally waking up to the fact that he has to contest. That was the huge “failure” of the Afghanistan withdrawal — not the withdrawal itself (although that was probably flawed) but the failure to realize that if you don’t contest the narrative someone else will take it and run. They’re learning from that.
Suzanne
@Cacti: Rod Dreher responded to that by saying, “It was wrong for the dude to say that but he has a point because TRANNIEZ OOGA BOOGA.” Conservatives are just the worst people.
I DGAF about gas prices. I buy small cars because I am able to see the future. The FTFNYT ran a story today about gas prices, and they interviewed the proverbial dude in a diner. He has many sadz about the high cost of gas and is looking to blame someone. He drives a Ford Expedition.
All out of fucks.
Dan B
@HeleninEire: 600,000 refugees
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It would certainly be heavy; I’m not 100% sure if it would be sour, but that seems like the expectation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
on MSNBC just now, Michael McFaul sheds some interesting light on the Polish MiG issue: It’s not clear Ukraine still has an airport with runways long enough for MiGs to take off (if I heard correctly)
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: too bad the clarity comes at so high a price
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In Vermont they used to call it “Grade B”
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady: Some of us prefer the Grade B syrup to the Grade A that you effete liberals demand.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady:
In my family, we called it Aunt Liz
oh, no, wait, that’s what we called her
HeleninEire
@Baud: Ireland knows oppression. And they are the most welcoming people on earth. My Irish friends are a bit worried about who is going to pay for this given that Ukraine is not in the EU. As EU countries go, Ireland is one of the poorest (or at least the most in debt because of the 2008 world economy crash; they borrowed boatloads from the EU to keep the economy going). I am assuming the EU will pay regardless. Hopefully.
HeleninEire
@Dan B: Thanks. I’ve had too many glasses of wine to figure that out. So will America take 600,000 Ukrainian refugees? I say no.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: Tar Sands is bitumen. It’s like asphalt. It must be mixed with something to pump it through pipelines, and it’s abrasive. It probably requires high temperatures to refine.
Time to Google.
MagdaInBlack
@different-church-lady: Ouch. ?
Steeplejack
@MomSense:
I presume that was because LePage is running for reëlection? Which is also bullshit.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
I hope so too.
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
She’s not heavy, she’s big-boned.
;)
Amir Khalid
@Ken:
If it works like it does here in Malaysia, there is one national franchisee in Russia, a corporation that runs all the restaurants in its territory, maintains standards, and sources all its beef, chicken, potatoes, bread, etc. from local suppliers. In fact, as understand it, that’s how Mickey D’s and indeed other American fast-food chains operate abroad.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
All RIGHT!!
gbbalto
@Gin & Tonic: Hurrah! Finally
Dan B
@Dan B: Tare Sand is like molasses or tar. It has a lot of carbon and metals. Three refining processes are required and it takes a great deal of heat. There’s a lot of pollution as a result.
Lovely. /s
NotMax
@HeleninEire
Never been to Ireland but in my time there the Scots would bend over backwards when it came to being welcoming.
Roger Moore
@Dan B:
High temperatures and a ton of cracking, at least if you want to convert it into the lighter hydrocarbons everyone actually wants.
Sure Lurkalot
@Gin & Tonic: I am thrilled for your family along with my profound sadness that it’s so long overdue.
Baud
@NotMax:
I think all the bad Scot-Irish immigrated to Kentucky and eventually elected Mitch McConnell.
Amir Khalid
@HeleninEire:
5.96 million. Or if you round it up, six million.
Dan B
@NotMax: Only been two days in Ireland and people were very wonderful although the day trip to a great garden near Belfast with kids holding machine guns at the border, while our clueless fellow traveler took pictures of the NO PHOTOGRAPHS sign…. And the black flags on the power lines.
The Guiness is much tastier!
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Someone is off by a factor of 10. Either you or Dan B.
Dan B
@Amir Khalid: Oops. Forgot the extra zero.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@HeleninEire: yeah, well, the Irish are bloody hypocrites (& i can say that being of Irish ancestry). They were always 100% pro-immigration because who ever wanted to immigrate into Ireland?
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they’re just going to have to suck it up and take it.
The silver lining is that every immigrant group, including the Ukrainians, will improve the food.
Ksmiami
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Emergency orders as per wartime are a whole level up from Executive Orders. So yes, Biden could commandeer factories to start making chips and mines for nickel…
Roger Moore
@Dan B:
The key point is that you need a specialized refinery to process the oil from tar sands. If you tried feeding it into a refinery designed for light crude, you’d be lucky if you didn’t gum everything up to the point it needed repairs. If you did the reverse and fed light crude into a refinery intended for tar sands oil, you might be able to refine some, but a lot of the specialized equipment would go idle and the refinery as a whole would operate at far below capacity. You need to feed a refinery with the kind of oil it was designed for, and if something comes along that shuffles the distribution, there will be a big disruption even if the total oil supply is constant.
Ksmiami
@Baud: and Frikkin West Virginia too
brantl
Chetan Murthy
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: Not that this should be a consideration, but from what I’ve been able to gather, UA isn’t exactly a technologically backward country. They seem to be able to produce a number of sophisticated products — jet engines, drones, even (in the past) jet fighters. I wonder if the receiving countries understand what a coup it could be to get these people to come and stay.
Not that that should be a goal — the goal should be restoring their country to them.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: The Google informed me that coking is necessary to remove the excess carbon. It’s not part of standard light crude refining. And the metals like copper. What refinery can deal with 108 times as much copper as light crude?
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: That is some very great news!
Mike in NC
@different-church-lady: Ah, good one. I think Yakov Smirnoff still works in that place in Tennessee or Kentucky.
Gin & Tonic
@Chetan Murthy: The overwhelming majority of the people fleeing the country right now are women with children or the elderly. Men aged 18-60 can’t leave.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I moved, twice in the last 9 yrs and both times to cut my distance to work. I now live 1 mile from what was my job, which I retired from last year. Walked unless it was actively raining, which of course it does daily here in SoCal. Not. The snow though…..
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: Ah, yes. I forgot that for a moment. Sorry, my bad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike in NC: Dood! even an old coastal (spiritually, at least) elitist like me knows Yakov’s theatre is one of the Crown Jewels of Branson MO
ETA: Yakov’s current show is “Laugh Your Mask Off!”
Roger Moore
@Dan B:
Interesting. I was assuming they would use something like partial oxidation steam reforming to generate lots of hydrogen that could then be used to crack the rest of the heavy hydrocarbons into something more useful. However they do it, it’s going to be a messy process because they’re so short on hydrogen.
CaseyL
@Gin & Tonic: Fantastic news! At long fucking last. I’m so happy for you both!
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: What a relief! Congratulations!
Mallard Filmore
Just in case it has not been nailed down here …
sweet crude —> low sulfer
sour crude —> high sulfer
I will try to find the YouTube video I saw yesterday about this.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Chetan Murthy: agreed, but that assumes facts not in evidence … namely, that the Irish want to improve.
HeleninEire
@Amir Khalid: That’s an old number. Can you tell me where you got it from? Hard to count Irish because so many emigrate to Canada, Australia, and America illegally and of course never renounce their Irish citizenship. Ireland counts them as still there.
EDIT
My bad I thought you were responding to me saying there were 4.5 million in Ireland.
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
I’m lucky, because there’s a L-line train that stops right across the street from my work. Well, right across the street from the far corner of our campus. It’s still a 10 minute walk from the station to my office, and most of that is on campus. If only it were quite as easy to get from home to the station on the other end. I can do it, but it’s an even longer walk to get to the station. I write it off as a chance to get some exercise and fresh air.
Sure Lurkalot
I remember the long gas lines in the 70’s…convinced my father to purchase a Mazda to complement his long ass Lincoln Continental. He was amazed he could pull off a u-turn whereas the Lincoln required several points to turn that boat around.
I have always purchased small cars with decent mileage m/l, currently we own a ‘Baru sedan and a Prius. That and no longer than a 10 mile commute, usually less. Gas prices have never been a big concern of mine but I feel for those whose circumstances aren’t so amenable.
dc
@Gin & Tonic: Women and olds can also be the engineers, scientists and other highly trained people.
brantl
@Dan B: Tar sands oil takes 3 barrels of oil worth of energy to refine 4 barrels. It’s wasteful and freaking stupid. It also creates even more pollution than lighter oil.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: I didn’t read the details of the three refining processes but coking was interesting. There may be a high temperature steam process but I didn’t notice. I did note that Tar Sand is very low hydrogen.
Mike in NC
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Branson! The name escaped me since I hadn’t thought of Yakov in 20 years. Branson is one of many places not on my bucket list.
HumboldtBlue
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s good news.
Elsewhere, here’s part 2 of There Is No Way Back, Molly McKew.
Love to know what youse think.
Gin & Tonic
@dc: Of course they can, but women with children in a country they are not citizens of and a husband hundreds or thousands of kilometers away will have, at the very least, issues with childcare and may have priorities other than programming or engineering.
Dan B
@brantl: It’s crazy that we still dig it up and refine it. How does it compare to Venezuelan crude.
It’s intermediate with lots of sulfur and napthene.
Taken4Granite
@bonessy: The oil prices you see quoted in financial reports are for particular kinds of oil (West Texas Intermediate and North Sea Brent are the two I remember seeing) which are relatively high quality to begin with, and now even more in demand because they are not Russian.
Couple that with Russia exporting less because, even without sanctions, they would need more oil for their war effort.
Ruckus
@bonessy:
Oil and gas is a necessity in modern life, even if you can cut down your usage you will still need some, at least until electric cars become cheaper, which they will once the production ramps up and people decide that it’s a better idea. Many already are but I’d bet it’s 20 yrs before the majority is electric. I don’t gas often and if I have to travel across LA there is a diesel/electric train a half mile from me that goes to downtown LA and there is an all electric that does as well but it’s 2 1/2 miles away. This is Los Angeles and it’s train rapid transit system is pretty damn good and getting better. If LA can do it…..
HeleninEire
@Amir Khalid: @Baud: @Dan B:
My friends. This is why I asked someone else to do the math.
So 600,000 is way worse that 6,500,000. I stand by my first response. America won’t take 600,000. 6,500,000. Lolololol. Nope.
Dan B
@Ruckus: And easier financing since maintenance and “fuel” costs are very low. Cheaper batteries is key.
Another Scott
I filled up my VW with diesel tonight. $4.899/gal in NoVA. It’s fine for me – fossil fuels have been too cheap for too long, but I know many people will be hurting. I wonder how my neighbors with their fancy Mercedeseses and giant SUVs are reacting though…
Cheers,
Scott.
Poe Larity
@Ruckus: How high is the fence around the La Brea tar pits? Asking for a friend.
Kayla Rudbek
@HeleninEire: and here’s another Irish response to the Russians: Through the gates
Omnes Omnibus
@dc: That’s crazy talk.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
?
HumboldtBlue
When do the Saudis get what’s coming to them?
Dan B
@Poe Larity: pedant: La Brea = the tar.
Tar tar, not for teeth either.
Don’t much remember the fencing but you could get over it.
Suzanne
@Cacti: Related to the disgusting message from that Orthodox Patriarch….
Has it occurred to anyone else that Orthodoxy and Catholicism are the religious equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons? Like, specifically designed for people who love meaningless arcana and complexity.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: ?
Here’s hoping your loved ones are all together with you soon.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: That’s good news, sorry it took so long. There’s no excuse for that.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: I am in Philly right now. Took the train from Pittsburgh yesterday. The train is great. Definitely my preferred mode of transport these days.
PJ
@HeleninEire: A couple of quibbles here.
1) I would disagree that Ireland is one of the most welcoming places on earth. If you are a white American, sure. If you are a person of color, or from Central or Eastern Europe with a blue collar job, it can be much less so. I have heard some of the most racist crap from Irish who have never met a black person in their lives.
2) By GDP per capita, Ireland is the second wealthiest country in Europe. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices#OverviewThis is misleading because of the number of multinationals with European headquarters there (their income gets counted towards GDP, but a lot of the profits go elsewhere), but certainly compared to a lot of Central and Eastern Europe, the average Irish person is better off financially than their counterparts. (If you were talking about Ireland up until the ’90s, on the other hand, I would agree.)
Anyway
@HumboldtBlue:
KSA is pure evil. Nothing redeeming about them.
Kay
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: Literal mountains of sulfur blocks…
TheWorld (from 2014)
Pretty sour if you ask me.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anyway
@Gin & Tonic:
Awright! ’bout time..whew!
whomever
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: When were you last in Ireland? I can say, having last been back to Dublin about 5 years ago that Ireland is a very different place now than it was 20 years ago, especially thanks to the EU. I ate some very good meals, and listening to Polish bartenders speak English in a mixed Irish/Polish accent was great…
whomever
@Martin: Ah the Jones Act. Every single Puerto Rican I’ve known has been able to go on extensively about how horrible it is for them; makes sense it’s a pain for the Hawaiians also.
Cacti
@Suzanne: For all the carping the right wingers do about virtue signaling, aren’t religious vestments the ultimate virtue signal?
HeleninEire
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: Hi “of Irish Ancestory” idiot. I am 1st generation American. My mother was born there.
I actually lived in Ireland. Can you read? Suck it up you say to the Irish? Fuck you. I said the Irish are welcoming the refugees.
And about the food. When was the last time you were in Dublin? The food and the restaurants are as good as they are in NY where I was born.
Oh did I say FUCK YOU? My bad if I didn’t say it 100 times.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady:
Gas prices are also going up because oil execs are greedy motherfuckers who are enabled by fascist fucks like Rafael Cruz and Steve Scalise.
PJ
@whomever: Ireland, despite itself, has become a lot more multi-cultural over the last 20 years, and the food has improved as well, and while it’s noticeable everywhere, compared to how it used to be, it’s most visible in Dublin, which has become, dare I say it, slightly cosmopolitan. It’s no longer the friendly village it used to be, but it’s also considerably less racist, which is a fair trade-off in my opinion.
Villago Delenda Est
@HumboldtBlue: We invaded the wrong country in 2003
Sebastian
@different-church-lady:
Like Adam, my therapist, not our Adam, would say: it takes two to tango. We accept the behavior, we consent to the game, we tolerate the micro-transgressions, until we don’t.
That’s why the abuser, who is unable to comprehend boundaries, is so shocked when things that worked a million times suddenly don’t.
Martin
@HeleninEire: Uh, that would be the population of Missouri.
Sebastian
@HumboldtBlue:
It was yesterday or the day before when I said we should kill MBS and then step in front of the UN and ask for forgiveness.
HeleninEire
@PJ: Trust me that all the money is in the corporations. Many companies moved to Ireland because there is virtually no corporate income tax. Don’t get me wrong. Ireland is doing fantastic since the 90’s but one of the reasons I came back is that I thought I could buy an apartment there for about what I paid here in Queens NY. Yes. The apartments are about the same price but I made $110,000 here and made €50,000 there doing exactly the same job. OOPS!!
Poe Larity
@PJ: I think it was a day after landing Dublin that I heard anything but Polish. Taxi, hotel, waitress, bartender… Great service though.
PJ
@Sebastian: What is happening now (and the unity of the Western world on this issue has, frankly, shocked me) is a sign of how interdependent we all are. What’s really interesting to me, as an American, is how the drying up of Russian funding for right wing groups (as well as the arts, which they used to launder their reputations) will affect politics here moving forward. (Obviously, we still have our own homegrown oligarchs and their dislike of democracy to contend with.)
Suzanne
@Cacti:
They also love cancel culture as long as they can do the canceling.
Mike in NC
We visited Dublin and Belfast in 2019 and thought they were both wonderful. Dublin looked like London without tall buildings. Belfast was peaceful and prosperous, but their was some simmering unrest.
PJ
@HeleninEire:
Yeah, Dublin real estate has skyrocketed compared to incomes.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Jeez! That’s in response to this—Kate Smith:
Washington Post story here.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s a lot of it. Looks like the Middle East autocrats have seen their opportunity and are going to try and squeeze the US for Yemen support. Guessing Biden will tell them to pound sand.
I mean, we don’t need any of it. We’re a net exporter (barely) but because of the law that says shipping between two domestic ports must be done with a US flagged ship, the exports out of Texas/Louisiana can’t be moved to Hawaii, so we import from Russia because it’s cheaper. That situation is under our control – we can fix that.
But overall, there’s really no material change to US supply/demand, so really a lot of this price increase is just speculators fucking with the futures market.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: Heh. Glad she got it. My (ex) in-laws had to wait forty years, because not the right color, war, and then not the right color.
Sebastian
@PJ:
I don’t know how this will shake out tbh
Martin
Regarding the side discussion we had a few days ago about the complexity of the semiconductor industry, the US is flexing their muscles some more, threatening to shut down the Chinese semiconductor industry if they don’t comply with sanctions against Russia, including the state-owned industry SMIC. It’s because of this interconnectedness between layers of the industry that the US has the power to do this. If all of your fabrication equipment comes from Japan and Netherlands, and both are on board, you’re shut down. If it’s control systems and software that comes out of the US, you’re shut down.
This is a VERY aggressive step, btw. I’m quite shocked they even suggested it.
coin operated
@Gin & Tonic: Good news…congrats!
HumboldtBlue
Dr. Peter Carrick-Adams will now report on the war in Ukraine, he’s a British historian and author, worth a read.
Calouste
@Suzanne: Last time I was in a Catholic church, for a wedding, I realized that part of the ritual is literally the priest washing the dishes.
Martin
Oh, and in todays episode of ‘first world problems’ my neighbor called and said she had some marijuana gummies she didn’t like and offered them to us, so I went over to pick them up, and got bit by her dog. I’m okay – no more blood than when I fight with the roses and lemon tree – but younger me would have gladly traded a dog bite for free weed, so I really can’t be upset.
Just a reminder there is no free lunch in this world.
coin operated
@Villago Delenda Est: Same. When 19 of the 21 attackers come from a particular kingdom, you have all the casus belli you would ever need for regime change.
HumboldtBlue
@Martin:
You and several others start speaking in indecipherable code at times when it comes to modern computing and the digital world, something of a translation into simple human would be more than welcome. And helpful.
I shall start a petition! And if necessary, build a barricade!
satby
@HeleninEire: Ireland continues to be about a million and a half people short of the population it had at the start of the Irish famine (8 million then, went down to 4, about 6.5 today). I hope the land of my ancestors never forgets and continues to welcome refugees, as my grandparents once were.
Lyrebird
@Gin & Tonic: Yowza, congrats!
and continued good wishes to all the Tonic folks here and there!
Sebastian
@Martin:
Yes, the more advanced a technology, the more advanced the suppliers become. At some point, the herd thins to only a few highly specialized, very profitable, niche companies driving innovation. They are all clustered in the same region because rely on certain universities or hiring pools. Semiconductor lithography is one example, but boots, of all things, are another.
Suzanne
@Calouste: Honestly, people that are really religious (not spiritual, but strong adherents to a religion) are honestly into it for the aesthetics, in my opinion. It has very little to do with what they genuinely believe. It’s being deeply invested into a specific set of signs and symbols because they make you feel something.
RSA
@different-church-lady:
Coming in late, but this is a great summary. I hope it’s true.
Poe Larity
@Steeplejack: Our current SCOTUS will surely enjoy citing Prigg v. Pennsylvania as precedence when that gets to their docket.
HeleninEire
@Martin: I can’t stop laughing at this. Please share your gummies.
coin operated
@Martin: I missed that and would love to read it…can you point to the thread where that occurred.
BTW…your explanation of how Apple Pay altered the digital payment landscape was still one of my favorite reads.
different-church-lady
@Sebastian: Based on my experience, one (of many) problems is that some abusers don’t realize they’re abusers. They rely on instinct, only dimly aware that they are manipulating. They operate in that grey area, but they’re not necessarily choosing to do so, they’re just unaware there’s any other way of being. It has a perverse way of making the grey even more grey, because there’s no clues about intent.
Sebastian
@HumboldtBlue:
In a nutshell, modern semiconductor manufacturing works like this:
Your chip-design is etched with acid onto a slice of pure silicon. Why does the acid (gas) not etch the whole surface? Because there is a protective layer onto which microscopic lines are shone with a special light, think film development, only a gazillion times more precise. Where the light pattern hits, the protective layer decays and the acid can etch.
We are talking about nanometer precision here. The companies that develop and manufacture that lithographic technology, without which you cannot manufacture modern chips, they all are in Japan, USA, and Europe.
Eolirin
@different-church-lady: Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it’s actually the vast majority of abusers that are like that.
It takes a very special kind of person to be able to put in the energy necessary to be genuinely manipulative as a strategy over a long period of time. I think most of those people are actual psychopaths, and very highly intelligent ones at that.
HeleninEire
@satby: They are doing well, my friend. No, we are doing well. I will go back forever soon. And we will always welcome refugees.
Cacti
I’d say that plus the social aspect.
Humans are social animals and like belonging to things.
Eolirin
@Cacti: Sure, but other than inertia, like from being raised into one religion, aesthetics are the primary way most of us choose between social groups.
Dan B
@Poe Larity: Just read Wikipedia about Prigg vs. Pennsylvania. Awful ruling supporting the Fugitive Slave Act.
Ruckus
@Poe Larity:
High enough to keep you out if have no ulterior motives….
Not high enough if you do….
HumboldtBlue
@Sebastian:
Thank you!
Citizen Alan
@Martin:
We should have started a Manhattan Project for renewable energy in the 1980s with the goal of making us 100% independent of oil from every barbarous hellhole on earth (whether Russia, Saudi Arabia, or Texas), but Jimmy Carter mildly suggested that everyone cut the thermostat down and put on a sweater which caused our national willy to shrivel up, and so here we are.
Kalakal
@Gin & Tonic: That’s great news, happy for you all
Mike in NC
@Citizen Alan: Jimmy Carter wearing a sweater was the worst thing our media could imagine until Obama wore a tan suit.
satby
@HeleninEire: ??
Better than the high profile diaspora here like (spit) Hannity or O’Liely to embarrass us. I wonder if there’s an Gaeilge translation of “a schande far di goyim”?
Martin
@HumboldtBlue: Sebastian has the nut of it. This is all very specialized stuff, so it becomes somewhat niche.
But unlike the Italian climbing shoe, semiconductors rely on multiple layers of this. In order to work, you’re taking disciplines from electrical engineering, materials science, applied physics, optics, software for automated layout, and so on each one of which needs to be absolutely best of class. It’s not one niche industry, it’s like 10 of them all stacked up like a Jenga tower. And those 10 are all pretty widely distributed across the globe. Pull one out and the tower falls down.
Here’s one example. The equipment that ‘prints’ the chips. This is just one step of the process, but one high end photolithography machine will cost you ballpark of $150M. They make about 1 a week. There is exactly one company that can make high end machines and it’s in the Netherlands. If you want a chip with the capabilities of anything made in the last 5 years or so, you have to make it with one of those machines. There are no substitutes. If Netherlands cuts you off, you’re out of business at that level of the market.
If you’re willing to go with something less advanced, Japan has two companies that will sell you machines to make less advanced chips. Basically, they chased the wrong technology a decade ago and lost. But the next transition may bring them back into the game. I’d be surprised if there was a computer controlled anything you could buy in the US today new that didn’t use at least one chip that could only be made by equipment from these two Japanese companies or the Dutch one. If those two countries cut you off, you’re toast. You can’t put ABS brakes in your car, you can’t make a digital radio.
To be clear, these companies don’t make semiconductors. They make machines that do part of the job of making semiconductors. There’s a whole bunch of other elements to making one. Let’s look at the other end of the process. The blank silicon wafer. Most come out of Japan. Then Taiwan, then South Korea, then the US. This is sort of the ‘chunk of steel’ layer of making a car, and yet China doesn’t have a major hand in it.
There are factories in China to make semiconductors, but they import about $350B a year just in semiconductors. China has a HUGE market in assembling devices that include semiconductors, and a HUGE market in other components that go into those devices – low end ICs, basic components like resistors, etc. They have a LOT of capacity for etching circuit boards. These are not small markets and the US is fairly dependent on China for all of this stuff, but semiconductors is not part of that. China has been trying but largely failed to break into that industry.
Apple announced a new chip today – 115 billion transistors. Engineers used to lay out chip transistors by hand. You don’t do that with 115 billion of them. Software does that. And China doesn’t produce that software. The US produces a lot of it. And without that software, you’re very limited. Without the wafers, you can do nothing. Without the production equipment, you’re very limited. There’s other specialized equipment that come out of completely different specialized companies. My son works as an engineer at a company that makes control systems for this stuff – how to get machine A from company A to talk to machine B from company B and C and D and the software that the engineers at the firm that puts the whole thing together program to do all of that. That’s literally all his company does. And there’s like 4 of them in the world.
All you need is for sanctions to lock you out of one layer of this and you’re pretty much done for. And China controls none of them. Russia none of them. They’re almost all controlled by the US and US allies. 50% of the global semiconductor market is US companies. Silicon Valley still lives up to its name – its where most semiconductors are designed. Production of semiconductors is largely spread across the US, Taiwan, and South Korea.
It is an industry that exists solely because of the global economy. Without that, you lose probably the last 20 years of progress. If you want access to semiconductors, you must be in good standing with the global economy. Period.
Martin
@Citizen Alan: We should start it today. I mean, every dollar you invest in renewables turns into a dollar of infrastructure. Every dollar you invest in oil/gas is literally set on fire when you use it.
And I’ve been saying this for a while, and recent events only reinforce this, but you cannot solve climate change with cars. Period. They have a role, but replacing gas cars with electric cars doesn’t solve it. You have to replace cars with buses, trains, bikes, more compact cities, and so on. I know it sounds expensive but it’s not. More land in the US is used for parking than for housing. You do it right and every dollar you spend on transportation shifts can turn into a dollar reduced in rent and housing costs, simply by freeing up land that is currently being wasted.
catothedog
@HumboldtBlue:
This is a good article to read to understand the lay of the land in the chip industry Covers almost everything Sebastian/Martin mentioned
Chip Wars
Josie (also)
@Gin & Tonic: That is wonderful!
Dopey-o
Who could improve on the classic Irish 7 course dinner: a potato and a 6-pack…….
evodevo
@Baud: You got it…almost all Appalachia and a good deal of the rest of the state were immigrant Scots Irish/Irish, carrying with them the alcohol consumption, chronic depression and bad attitude…outside of Louisville and Lexington, the rest of the state is predominantly MAGAt or country club Republican, with the GOP controlling the state lege and the AG’s office. THAT is why Moscow Mitch and libertarian asshole Rand Paul are easily elected, year after year.