This day in 1973 the Arabs turned the oil taps off and held the west hostage in an attempt to get the western democracies to force Israel to back down in the Jom Kippur war.
OPEC supplied five percent less oil in the so-called "Oil embargo" and it was enough to raise the price per barrel from three dollars to five dollars, seems like happy days now.
We in Germany had Autofreie Sonntage, car free sundays, it was fun to ride a bicycle on the Autobahn, but the embargo cut deeper wounds, it brought a turn to Keyneism, a rise in unemployment and (just learnt the word) Stagflation of the western economies from which they have never recovered to this day, the embargo is seen by some as the reason "the economy" is in trouble today and why the west (read the US) reacts so allergic with all the consequences to a threat to the worlds oil supply.
The weaponization of oil in 1973 brought the world to the brink, imagine what would happen now!
On the plus side it held the mirror to our faces and showed us that there will be an end to the age of oil.
The US is much less reliant on oil from potentially hostile nations these days: what it can't produce itself, it gets from Canada, Mexico or Venezuela - and the Venezuelans need American dollars more than the Americans need Venezuelan oil!
Russia has its own oil, and nobody else has the balls or the capability to do anything about a shortage of Arab oil should they decide to play silly buggers again.
I'd be more concerned about a hop shortage...
Ahh... before anyone cared a whit about oil, there were hops...
Maybe I should have phrased that differently, I meant to say that the US reacts allergic to any disruption to the oil supply, it is not so much that the US is dependent on Arab oil but the de-stabilizing threat shortages would bring to democratic states that do depend on it.
What Arab oil ? the only Arab countries with significant oil supply and (semi) functioning governments are Saudi Arabia & Gulf states. They have not interest to stop the only real export they have.
Yeah, that Arab oil.
And you're right. They need their customers more than most of their customers need them - and they know it.
Bring on the fracking!
Bring on cheap, safe & efficient solar power.
You can't make plastic out of sunlight.
Yes you can, the traditional way takes sunlight, millions of years and an oil pump.
Never been a huge fan of tradition.