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U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Falls to Lowest Level Since 1982

182 points · 234 comments · thelastgallon

  1. brightball · · focus · HN ↗
    Chart of strategic reserve levels since 1982, for context

    <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.macromicro.me&#x2F;charts&#x2F;41674&#x2F;us-strategic-petroleum-reserve" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.macromicro.me&#x2F;charts&#x2F;41674&#x2F;us-strategic-petroleum...

    1. mahboi · · focus · HN ↗
      Beware the Y axis not starting at 0. But it&#x27;s still an insane drop.

        Highcharts.charts.forEach(chart =&gt; { if (chart) chart.yAxis.forEach(axis =&gt; axis.update({ min: 0 })); });
      1. hedora · · focus · HN ↗
        Though note that, for some reason, the last 250M barrels are not physically extractable from the SPR, and the red line has dropped to 284M.
        1. marcosdumay · · focus · HN ↗
          Not exactly &quot;not physically extractable&quot;, but extractable only slowly, probably contaminated by water, in a way that is very expensive to refine.

          People jump over the details in normal times, but then times get abnormal and impossible things start to happen.

          1. fsckboy · · focus · HN ↗
            i don&#x27;t think extracting water from gasoline would be difficult at all, but probably plenty of other contaminants possible.
            1. marcosdumay · · focus · HN ↗
              Mix a spoon of oil in a couple of glasses of water, add salt, put it a few minutes in a blender, and tell me how easy it is to retrieve the oil.

              Now scale that to millions of barrels of oil every day.

              1. IAmBroom · · focus · HN ↗
                1. Wait one hour.

                2. Harvest.

                In fact, a common further down in this thread says that&#x27;s exactly how they harvest all of the oil: they pressurize it with (salt)water.

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