“When the inventory drops below 300 million barrels, the SPR loses its ability to pump oil at rapid speeds to address emergencies, Misra said. The system’s pipes and pumps could also get damaged as the oil layer thins at the top and sludge rises toward the extraction intake at the cavern ceiling, he said.
Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns, which dissolves the salt walls, Misra said. This “creates flatter, less stable roof and severely thins the critical salt pillars that separate adjacent caverns, greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in,” he said.
The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.
“Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said.
Energy Department officials told the GAO that they are “holding the SPR infrastructure together with ‘Band-Aids,’ and that it is uncertain how long they will hold.” More than a quarter of the SPR inventory was “not available for drawdown due to a combination of construction outages and cavern outages” as of December 2025, the GAO found.”
>Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns, which dissolves the salt walls, Misra said. This “creates flatter, less stable roof and severely thins the critical salt pillars that separate adjacent caverns, greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in,” he said.
I wonder why they can’t pump saturated brine down there instead, to keep from melting the walls. Cost?
Couldn't they just take salt water, run it through a turbine connected to a refinery or power plant processing the oil from the SPR to perform this function? Like boil off some of the water to concentrate the salt content
I asked the same question elsewhere here. The more I think about it, it's probably an issue of practicality. The point of saturation changes with temperature, so if the water temperature gets too low before reaching the cavern, salt would crystallize in the machinery.
I suppose they could use brine that just not that close to saturation, but that would still result in deposits and corrosion. If ships need a sacrificial anode to prevent hull corrosion at 3.5% salinity, I imagine a system pumping 20+% saline would need constant parts replacement.
And thus started the new American tradition of taking their post thanksgiving turkey brine out to the government collection truck to be given their voucher for one doctors appointment.
It's a logistics issue. Where are you getting and storing the hundreds of millions of barrels of brine? Fresh water can be easily diverted from the nearby waterway and rivers and is virtually unlimited and needs no storage space because nature does that.
The damage it causes to water pumps and casings and the problems with disposal are a whole other issue.
OMG, you have no idea about the logistics behind this.
First of all, the brine they're using is much much more saturated than sea water. Sea water is about 3-4% saturated while the brine is about 26-28%. That's almost 10x the amount. A barrel holds 42 US gallons (159L) which is about 350lbs of water so you need about 100lbs of salt to make the concentrated brine. That's for one single barrel. Peak drawdown was about 4 million barrels a day meaning you would need 400 million pounds of salt just for one single day. They've released 172M barrels so far. That's >17 billion pounds of salt.
Second, think about the delivery. 2000 pounds is equal to one US ton, so 400M pounds of salt means 200,000 tons. A standard train hopper can carry a 100-ton payload so you would need 2000 train cars worth of salt every single day.
Third, the US is the second largest salt producer in the world at 42M tons per year, (China is #1 at 53M tons/year.) 17B pounds of salt is 8.5M tons. You're going to consume 20% of all the salt the US makes just for these caverns. Snow-belt cities will not have enough salt to cover their roads for the winter season and food-grade salt prices will increase.
Fourth, you just can't dump salt into water and make instant brine. You would need industrial-grade water-injection pumps, massive dissolving agitators, slurrying basins, filtration plants, etc., the scale of which it would make it equal to or larger than the world's largest industrial plant.
No, I don't. I'm assuming there's a good reason that I haven't thought of, and I'm wondering what it is. I speculated cost might be it. Other possibilities discussed under my comment were the difficulties of pumping corrosive brine, and the fact that saturation changes with temperature. Neither of which I had thought of, both of which are also reasonable explanations.
Honestly it would be very good for the long term survival of the species of the SPR suffers a significant collapse and causes oil prices to spike hard.
Yea, it would suck in the short term. But it would create significant forward momentum towards a post fossil fuel economy, and that would be very good for us. We usually need a crisis to get our lazy asses up and moving, and this could be it.
he is gonna suck it down until it collapses, while blaming obama for not taking care of the infrastructure.
Then he is gonna build a new one, buying all the oil from his buddies companies at a high price, all while saying he did the greatest thing for the US since he scared away the dinosaurs.
If there's one thing to be certain about this particular president, who started this war on a whim and is using it for personal profit, it's that he will absolutely drain that reserve to the last drop possible even if it means destroying the ability to ever use it again.
It really is quite unbelievable that people voted for this orange moron a second time. This country has a literacy crisis. What could’ve been prevented with a five minute Google search…
Not entirely true. You could promise to make it better through math and science and they're not gonna vote for you. He promised to make it better by making minorities physically suffer. That's why I they voted for him.
They're not just simpletons. They're hate filled simpletons.
You forget the most important part. Every Republican wants to see people they don't like being punished for the crime of existing or erased from existence entirely.
The people that don't pay attention to politics until the week of voting look at the candidates see one says he's going to make everything amazing and the other is talking a lot about something called a... Plan? Idk I'm voting for the guy that says he will make it better and then going back to my celebrity drama news.
I guess what’s confusing to me is there have always been these fringe, lunatic candidates that made insane promises everyone capable of rational thought were able to dismiss.
Hell, he was ONCE one of those people who ran with any affiliation he could. He didn’t change tactics. It just all of sudden … began to work in 2015. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not saying everyone is retarded or that foreign countries rigged the election or that it was all rigged from the inside (although maybe some combo of those things played a role plus Cambridge analytica) …. But something changed about a decade ago. I am still trying to understand it, I think anyone selling you an easy answer to explain this change is themselves deluded and coping with the fallout out of this insane world we are forced to live in since then.
Sorry if that doesn’t make sense or sounds agressive toward you … this shit is just so confusing to me.
have you read about about the internet research agency in Russia? was more relevant about a decade ago, but I think you might find the topic fairly interesting and mebbe a lil related possibly, if you hadn't heard of it before. but this group may have had a lot to do with the original orange oval-official occupation. 🤷
As someone else more intelligent said "Imagine there were no Russian election meddling, all the racist vitriol and bigotry of the voters would not exist!"
that's a cute pipedream, but we both know it's untrue so not sure what you're getting at here.
all I was saying was that a well-documented Russian campaign of misinformation, social engineering/manipulation, and openly hostile and extremist rhetoric was shown to have actively been supporting trump. are you questioning that...?
Their point was, even without Russian disinformation campaign, the country still has too many racists, bigots, and uninformed idiots.
It's overly convenient to blame the idiocratic regime on "Oh, we got 'hacked' by Russians!". (Hah reminds me of people who use a similar excuse when caught being bad online.)
I think that people didn't hear the fringe candidates - they didn't generally have name recognition. Trump was a celebrity, a reality TV show host and someone who almost everyone could name even before the primaries. That had a two-fold impact - first, because that already had a lot of weight in a crowded field, but also, because he got a lot of free media from Fox and other TV who would air him just for the celebrity spectacle.
I think these policies were always popular, it's just that serious politicians (and the party benefactors who decide who to give money to) didn't think they could win on them, so it was only the fringe. It wasn't a surprise to me at all that Trump won the Republican primaries. That he won the 2016 general was sort of surprising, but it is hard for the same party to win three times in a row, he barely managed to eek out a win, etc
From the outside, it looks like they want someone that will punish their perceived "enemies" and unfortunately, no one hates Americans more than other Americans.
Things were getting so damn good under Obama (especially at the end of his term), then Republicans fearmongered over health insurance premiums and taxes going to sick people who "don't deserve it."
Now everything's tripled in price and supposedly that's Biden's fault.. meanwhile all the tax legislation has happened under both Trump presidencies under republican supermajorities. You can't make this shit up.
Okay but hear me out. A lot of people don't make any attempt to understand anything at all, they simply go through life with it being scary and confusing. They don't know and they don't feel empowered to know things, knowledge is something for other people.
The kind of person who, during a storm, wonders why lightening happens and gets a quick AI explanation delivered at a level they can understand is going places. Obviously it can't replace traditional education but it can absolutely supplement it.
They already had access to instant information by googling something. Now, even Google will throw an AI response out before showing you the real responses.
My roommate is a total moron. I don’t why but when I read any of his writing, I can tell that he used AI to generate it, and it pisses me off. He’s just a lazy, fat slob.
Someone I know from hs said they voted for him both times, apparently not realizing he ran for president 3 times (well 4 technically). That was just sad to hear cuz they just shows they care very little about the whole situation to not remember something that big
The unbelievable part is that they're still supporting him. Even after the blatant corruption and market manipulation, all while fucking them over. All of them got so fucking rich off this. They're the fucking swamp.
It took me far too long to realize the truth… Most of America is full of ignorant narcissists. We are a sick society that deserves every horrible thing that happens to us. And bad things are coming.
Lets be honest, his first presidency is nothing like the second one at all. The first one was chaotic indeed, but the second one is a complete disaster. Plus, the DNC had nothing to offer with Kamala, and destroyed the electoral engagement in the process.
Why? The alternative was someone with (more obvious than Trump's) dementia, or someone who couldn't even point out a SINGLE thing different she would have done during her administration in MULTIPLE interviews. And the Biden presidency was far from flawless.
Trump had surrounded himself with eloquent speakers and a lot of moderates that crossed over. He didn't get in any new wars during his first presidency. Yes he was a buffoon, but a lot of people thought that a president (controlled fully by their own neocon staffers) would be worse, especially for foreign wars.
It's obvious that the Republican party is controlled by Israel fully, and the only legislation they can actually get through is a tax cut mainly for the wealthy. But to say the Dems didn't hand him the last election is not true.
Sure he is, but only for himself. Shit is really simple; he literally only cares about whats good for him, and having NPD + dementia + being geriatric, he wants adoration from everyone because he considers the country his supplicants. Everyone who is riding on his coattails is doing it for the grift, or, as a Fox News/New Max audition, period, full stop.
I believe this is partly why Iran is playing hard ball.
They want Trump and Americans to truly feel this pain and remember this for a generation. At some point, Trump can no longer draw down from the SPR without permanently damaging it structurally. And China is recommencing the buying of oil to put upwards pressure on oil prices.
Either Trump completely capitulates or the pain will be extended further.
That's actually exactly how SPR was supposed to be used. Each cave was designed to stay completely filled in peacetime and then drained down all the way (with just a tiny bit of oil sludge remaining at the top) in case of a war or a huge natural disaster, and then fully refilled again. The constant small drawdowns and refillings are much more damaging to the salt caves than a single full cycle.
The article even mentions exactly that:
> The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.
>
> “Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said.
The caves only get damaged when new water is pumped in and dissolves the salt walls. It doesn't really matter if a cave goes from 30% oil to 10% oil or from 90% oil to 70% oil (the rest being brine), the important thing is that 20% of it is now fresh water which will pull salt from the surrounding cave to became saturated brine. If anything, the narrower the water layer is and the more often it's refreshed, the more concentrated the damage gets.
The idea that SPR is like a giant partially filled cavern that will collapse under it's own weight when all the liquid inside gets pumped out is just straight up wrong.
I have to assume that if I thought of it, many much smarter people also thought of it. I guess I didn't realize that adding salt would be that expensive compared to the potential cost of losing a cavern.
The caverns were designed to be completely emptied five times. The assumption at the time was that the reserves would only be drawn down in exceptional circumstances and each cavern fully emptied. For some reason, that assumption wasn't carried into actual operation, and in the intervening years no one in a position to influence operational policy has suggested retaining brine to, you know, stop jeopardizing the structural integrity of the strategic containment.
I can't estimate how much it would cost to retrofit the injection system to handle brine instead of water, but given the land holdings the cavern surface facilities are situated on, the only barrier to retaining saturated brine is poor planning.
Each cavern is roughly 10 million barrels, or 1.6 million cubic metres. For comparison, the Pembina Redwater facility outside Fort Saskatchewan has ~2.2 to ~2.5 million cubes of surface brine storage capacity. Bryan Mound has more than enough area. The complete lack of foresight is staggering.
What's wrong with that? You elected a major builder who can't even fix an unbroken reflection pool. Lol. Bunch of dummies running crazy for the next 2 1/2 years. You ain't seen nothing yet. Lol
He’s running the country like a business; one quarterly earnings report at a time. The fact that he’s (historically) terrible at running a business notwithstanding, This is a consequence of “capitalism” as a political system, rather than just an economic model. Every decision is made with the shortest term benefit at the cost of long term stability.
Maybe don't drain a strategic reserve just to keep your political party in power.
I can handle expensive gas. We already get some of the cheapest gas on earth to begin with. If it bothers you that excessively then I don't know what to tell ya.
Ah yes, dear leader cannot fail, he can only be failed. Wars are bad, unless dear leader starts them, then wars are good. Losing is bad, unless dear leader is losing then dear leader is actually playing 4D chess and losing wars we just started to radical Islamic terrorists is good. Withdrawing from the strategic reserve to stay in power 3 years before an election is bad, unless dear leader does it 2 months before an election then it's good. Epstein is bad release all the files, except dear leader was raping those kids so cover it all up and it's a hoax now. Corruption is bad, but dear leader taking bribes from everyone on the planet is good. Free speech is good, except if it hurts the widdle feel feels of dear leader free speech is treason.
Hopefully, someday, you get your balls back from dear leader because it's getting really pathetic.
What a terrible day to be able to read. When I came into this, I thought the oil reserve was something like a pile of barrels or big tanks. To now understand that we have a massive underground salt cave filled with millions of gallons of oil is terrifying added onto the fact that it's not designed for what we are using it for...
They did provide the us with a huge advantage in trade throughout 20th century. Now the world has changed and the fucking moron in charge has no clue how to stand aside and let the country adapt
Yeah, I mean Trump is an idiot and a fascist, but the whole idea of storing an emergency reserve of an essential natural resource in a basically inaccessible, unrepairable natural formation that is made of dissolvable material that actively dissolves when used normally is such an incrediblely fucking stupid idea.
Like there's at least 170 million barrels of oil that the federal government bought that will NEVER be used because the caverns would literally collapse before they would be able to pump it out.
It's just such a short-sighted system whose fucking idea was this?
Pretty sure it was created after the oil embargo in the 70s so Ford. Our most famous alcoholic president and after eight beers it sounds like a solid idea so that tracks
Why worry? Trump’s not worried. The economy for the wealthy has never been better and Trump himself has never been nearly this wealthy. The wealthy will be able to afford it no matter what it costs. Trump’s not worried and neither should you be*. (**If you’re wealthy.)
March 18th 172mb of oil started flowing at 1.43mb /day based on the DOE own statement that it would be completed in 120 days. No oil added to the reserve.
June 19th it was declared to the world that we are “4 weeks to bedlam”, so ~93+28 additional days or July 17th. That aligns with 121 days and 200mb mark remaining in the spr.
August 6th the world was told again we have 43 days remaining, and August 17th will put the reserves at ~150mb on that same draw down.
September 17th based on his numbers, we hit rock bottom if not before.
… not only will gas, diesel, motor oil, and other things in the automotive department increase in prices quickly next month (as long predicted) but so will US made plastics eventually
Secondly price increases effects on everything that depends upon transportation, which is, umm, most everything in stores or online
Many plastics are made from ethane which is a free byproduct of methane aka natural gas production (shale gas) - not always related to oil production. There is a plastic recycling crisis because new plastic is too cheap due to high production of natural gas meaning more ethane byproduct than we can consume.
There are still private inventories and the futures market is still liquid. There's no reason to price shortages until there is actual doubt that every contract will be fulfilled on time.
Traders aren't just holding contracts for the delivery dates they actually need. Right now there are probably a lot of traders who bought contracts for Aug/Sep/Oct 2026 a long time ago at a lower price, and to the extent they don't need more inventory at the moment, they are probably making huge profits while providing market liquidity.
edit: looking at price history, just about everyone who bought futures before 2026 for delivery after March 2026 is sitting in profit. Unless they need actual barrels of oil soon, they are sellers.
Trump doesn't care about the United States. He is on a revenge tour to make us all pay for his loss in 2020 and the subsequent court cases. It is sad that his ego is so inflated that he puts his own needs above that of the nation. Trump wouldn't have this power if it weren't for the Republican Party giving it all the green light. Our representatives are no longer representing us but only make themselves richer.
The good news is that the republicans can be voted out. And they would deserve it for absolutely doing nothing to stop this from happening in the first place.
I am worried that this will not happen and that voting machines will be confiscated or Trump is coming up with some kind of lie to nullify the elections. I have lost all trust in the Republican Party.
One would think that most people have lost faith in the Republican Party. Ever since Regan, they have offered nothing except failed policies and handouts to the rich and corporations.
Agreed; now I realize that when Republicans touted “trickle-down economics”, they meant that “wealth trickles down from billionaires to millionaires”. And believe me, some people in government now are wealthier than they could never have imagined a decade ago.
Republicans smash and grab. Democrats piece it back together—people complain that it’s not fast enough. Annnnd then elect a Republican to begin the whole cycle over again.
The GOP love to whine and cry about every goddamn thing when it’s a dem in charge, but refuse to lift a finger when it’s some drooling child molester.
The conservatives will weaponize your own goodwill against you. They and their voters deserve nothing but mockery. You morons got us into this mess, you should shoulder the burden to get us out of it.
I’m tired of republicans leaving a mess for others to clean up. Take the funds from rural grant programs, not like they ever gave us credit anyways. And not like they have done fuck all with all the aid we send them. All they do is hold this nation back.
I’m surprised Trump hasn’t created an electric car company named Trump Motors and profited off the incoming oil/gas catastrophe. The cars would be produced in China with fake gold trim everywhere while he tells his illiterate and lukewarm IQ followers that they’re produced by hardworking Americans.
Well he was selling Tesla's for Elmo on the White house lawn. Remember "it's all computers!"? It's really amazing we went with this moron again. You'd thing after covid and the insurrection attempt and all the crimes/felonies, people would wise up. With Harris we could be so bored right now. Biggest drama would be her wearing a tie at one event and hugging the Pope while laughing about a Chicago joke
It would be hilarious if the Trump EVs were BYDs or rebranded Xiaomi SU7
Trump will probably hire some company that will go in to make repairs and damage it more.
If it isn't clear Trump is an enemy to the West and open market systems yet to people, I don't know when they will get it. The goal of Trumpuppet is depleting margin, infrastructure/maintenance, support, logistics, flexibility, operational readiness and more.
I mean look at the White House, it looks like a bomb hit it. The Russian Tsar Bomba was their Trump card in Trump. More effective than any operation including sparrows. Bigger traitor than Talleyrand and Chamberlain combined this Benedict Donald.
Wake up cons before you kill Western markets and get everyone killed. For once be woke and better to be DEI then die. C'mon man!
I’m ready for hard times because I don’t understand what else will finally get Americans to wake up to what a shitshow this orange nazi fuck has caused. And even then, 30% will support him to the end of time, but hopefully the 70% will vote for the actual candidates that care about the population during midterms. Why people only learn through suffering will never make sense and why they’re so brainwashed into believing Trump is a good president and that MAGA is something worth supporting will be beyond me
I heard about this a couple of weeks ago, I think on the FT morning podcast so it's something the U.S. government should have been aware of for months.
If your reserve holds 800m barrels but the last 300m ($30000000000 worth) is not usable then it does not hold 800m barrels and maybe you need to dig a new one that does hold 800m barrels.
Why can't they just refill it with salt water until they are ready to refill it with oil? Oil water separators certainly exist and the oil would generally stay clean above the water is pumped in from below.
That’s how they get the oil out, pump water in. It’s also why it’s a risk to keep doing that.
“”The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.
“Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said. “”
Trump admin wants to clear drawdowns all the way to 70 million capacity. That’s what they are floating as acceptable which means that’s what he’ll do if he has to. He’ll compromise the cavern if it’s his only option, which Iran is well aware of. He walked into a trap and they aren’t going to let him out of it.
wapttn | a day ago
“When the inventory drops below 300 million barrels, the SPR loses its ability to pump oil at rapid speeds to address emergencies, Misra said. The system’s pipes and pumps could also get damaged as the oil layer thins at the top and sludge rises toward the extraction intake at the cavern ceiling, he said.
Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns, which dissolves the salt walls, Misra said. This “creates flatter, less stable roof and severely thins the critical salt pillars that separate adjacent caverns, greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in,” he said.
The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.
“Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said.
Energy Department officials told the GAO that they are “holding the SPR infrastructure together with ‘Band-Aids,’ and that it is uncertain how long they will hold.” More than a quarter of the SPR inventory was “not available for drawdown due to a combination of construction outages and cavern outages” as of December 2025, the GAO found.”
Seicair | a day ago
>Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns, which dissolves the salt walls, Misra said. This “creates flatter, less stable roof and severely thins the critical salt pillars that separate adjacent caverns, greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in,” he said.
I wonder why they can’t pump saturated brine down there instead, to keep from melting the walls. Cost?
AnAttemptReason | a day ago
They probably dont have several 100 million litres worth of saturated brine just sitting around.
Adept-Priority3051 | a day ago
Couldn't they just take salt water, run it through a turbine connected to a refinery or power plant processing the oil from the SPR to perform this function? Like boil off some of the water to concentrate the salt content
Like an infinite money glitch 😏
Edit for more detail
AnAttemptReason | a day ago
Saltwater is 3.5% salt.
Saturated brine is 28 % odd salt.
So you need to boil and reduce seawater by almost a factor of 10.
Yikes.
Salt water is very corrosive, so you probably don't want to destroy your power plants or refineries with it.
gravescd | a day ago
I asked the same question elsewhere here. The more I think about it, it's probably an issue of practicality. The point of saturation changes with temperature, so if the water temperature gets too low before reaching the cavern, salt would crystallize in the machinery.
I suppose they could use brine that just not that close to saturation, but that would still result in deposits and corrosion. If ships need a sacrificial anode to prevent hull corrosion at 3.5% salinity, I imagine a system pumping 20+% saline would need constant parts replacement.
personman_76 | 23 hours ago
But man that does make a case for having a desalination plant system and pipeline system leading to a variety of smaller SPR sites
AnAttemptReason | 23 hours ago
I don't think Americnas would be willing to pay the tax neccisary to fund such a system to be honest.
juggett | 20 hours ago
AZ would like to desalinate some water and would love to provide some brine!!
AnAttemptReason | 20 hours ago
How dont they feel about taxes ;)
Techters | 18 hours ago
And thus started the new American tradition of taking their post thanksgiving turkey brine out to the government collection truck to be given their voucher for one doctors appointment.
CauliflowerDaffodil | 22 hours ago
It's a logistics issue. Where are you getting and storing the hundreds of millions of barrels of brine? Fresh water can be easily diverted from the nearby waterway and rivers and is virtually unlimited and needs no storage space because nature does that.
The damage it causes to water pumps and casings and the problems with disposal are a whole other issue.
Seicair | 21 hours ago
I was thinking of making it onsite, delivering salt. But the issues with pumping corrosive brine are well taken.
CauliflowerDaffodil | 20 hours ago
OMG, you have no idea about the logistics behind this.
First of all, the brine they're using is much much more saturated than sea water. Sea water is about 3-4% saturated while the brine is about 26-28%. That's almost 10x the amount. A barrel holds 42 US gallons (159L) which is about 350lbs of water so you need about 100lbs of salt to make the concentrated brine. That's for one single barrel. Peak drawdown was about 4 million barrels a day meaning you would need 400 million pounds of salt just for one single day. They've released 172M barrels so far. That's >17 billion pounds of salt.
Second, think about the delivery. 2000 pounds is equal to one US ton, so 400M pounds of salt means 200,000 tons. A standard train hopper can carry a 100-ton payload so you would need 2000 train cars worth of salt every single day.
Third, the US is the second largest salt producer in the world at 42M tons per year, (China is #1 at 53M tons/year.) 17B pounds of salt is 8.5M tons. You're going to consume 20% of all the salt the US makes just for these caverns. Snow-belt cities will not have enough salt to cover their roads for the winter season and food-grade salt prices will increase.
Fourth, you just can't dump salt into water and make instant brine. You would need industrial-grade water-injection pumps, massive dissolving agitators, slurrying basins, filtration plants, etc., the scale of which it would make it equal to or larger than the world's largest industrial plant.
HowdyDiarrhea | a day ago
Do you really suppose engineers simply overlooked your idea?
Seicair | a day ago
No, I don't. I'm assuming there's a good reason that I haven't thought of, and I'm wondering what it is. I speculated cost might be it. Other possibilities discussed under my comment were the difficulties of pumping corrosive brine, and the fact that saturation changes with temperature. Neither of which I had thought of, both of which are also reasonable explanations.
HowdyDiarrhea | a day ago
Got it. You were just wondering aloud. My bad.
wapttn | a day ago
Healthy debate 💚
Trextrev | 16 hours ago
Because if we had tank storage large enough to hold that much brine we wouldn’t need the caves in the first place.
pagerussell | 22 hours ago
Honestly it would be very good for the long term survival of the species of the SPR suffers a significant collapse and causes oil prices to spike hard.
Yea, it would suck in the short term. But it would create significant forward momentum towards a post fossil fuel economy, and that would be very good for us. We usually need a crisis to get our lazy asses up and moving, and this could be it.
No_Effective4784 | 16 hours ago
he is gonna suck it down until it collapses, while blaming obama for not taking care of the infrastructure.
Then he is gonna build a new one, buying all the oil from his buddies companies at a high price, all while saying he did the greatest thing for the US since he scared away the dinosaurs.
ThePensiveE | a day ago
If there's one thing to be certain about this particular president, who started this war on a whim and is using it for personal profit, it's that he will absolutely drain that reserve to the last drop possible even if it means destroying the ability to ever use it again.
anonymousasu | a day ago
It really is quite unbelievable that people voted for this orange moron a second time. This country has a literacy crisis. What could’ve been prevented with a five minute Google search…
mancubbed | a day ago
They don't want solutions, they want someone that says they will make it better.
The only thing trump does is promise to make it the bestest it's ever been and when someone asks how he calls them an idiot.
austinwiltshire | a day ago
Not entirely true. You could promise to make it better through math and science and they're not gonna vote for you. He promised to make it better by making minorities physically suffer. That's why I they voted for him.
They're not just simpletons. They're hate filled simpletons.
formerly_gruntled | 18 hours ago
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land—the common clay of the new West. You know, morons."
absat41 | 15 hours ago
That is such BS!!
Efficient-Youth-6985 | 20 hours ago
> That's why I
hmmmmm
mancubbed | a day ago
A lot of them are, but I think a large amount of people that voted for him trusted that the system presented them the best options available.
So when one promises to make everything the bestest they go that guy can do it.
smashinjin10 | a day ago
And they're fucking idiots for thinking he was the better option out of the two presented.
mancubbed | a day ago
Literally no one said they weren't idiots.
Resigned1431 | 21 hours ago
> a large amount of people that voted for him trusted that the system presented them the best options available.
Again, 5 minute Google search lmao.
tupacsnoducket | 20 hours ago
“If you vote for me all your wildest dreams will come true” standing ovation
ThePensiveE | a day ago
You forget the most important part. Every Republican wants to see people they don't like being punished for the crime of existing or erased from existence entirely.
mancubbed | a day ago
That is his hardcore supports.
The people that don't pay attention to politics until the week of voting look at the candidates see one says he's going to make everything amazing and the other is talking a lot about something called a... Plan? Idk I'm voting for the guy that says he will make it better and then going back to my celebrity drama news.
absurdamerica | a day ago
Yep. A good chunk of this country is actively excited to be lied to and coddled with simple nonsense solutions to our problems.
thomasscat | 22 hours ago
I guess what’s confusing to me is there have always been these fringe, lunatic candidates that made insane promises everyone capable of rational thought were able to dismiss.
Hell, he was ONCE one of those people who ran with any affiliation he could. He didn’t change tactics. It just all of sudden … began to work in 2015. That’s the part that doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not saying everyone is retarded or that foreign countries rigged the election or that it was all rigged from the inside (although maybe some combo of those things played a role plus Cambridge analytica) …. But something changed about a decade ago. I am still trying to understand it, I think anyone selling you an easy answer to explain this change is themselves deluded and coping with the fallout out of this insane world we are forced to live in since then.
Sorry if that doesn’t make sense or sounds agressive toward you … this shit is just so confusing to me.
absurdamerica | 22 hours ago
No man I don’t take you as aggressive at all. I’m also confused and mystified. I used to think the average person was somewhat intelligent.
ccbmtg | 22 hours ago
have you read about about the internet research agency in Russia? was more relevant about a decade ago, but I think you might find the topic fairly interesting and mebbe a lil related possibly, if you hadn't heard of it before. but this group may have had a lot to do with the original orange oval-official occupation. 🤷
thaway314156 | 19 hours ago
As someone else more intelligent said "Imagine there were no Russian election meddling, all the racist vitriol and bigotry of the voters would not exist!"
ccbmtg | 18 hours ago
huh?
that's a cute pipedream, but we both know it's untrue so not sure what you're getting at here.
all I was saying was that a well-documented Russian campaign of misinformation, social engineering/manipulation, and openly hostile and extremist rhetoric was shown to have actively been supporting trump. are you questioning that...?
thaway314156 | 6 hours ago
Their point was, even without Russian disinformation campaign, the country still has too many racists, bigots, and uninformed idiots.
It's overly convenient to blame the idiocratic regime on "Oh, we got 'hacked' by Russians!". (Hah reminds me of people who use a similar excuse when caught being bad online.)
just_helping | 8 hours ago
I think that people didn't hear the fringe candidates - they didn't generally have name recognition. Trump was a celebrity, a reality TV show host and someone who almost everyone could name even before the primaries. That had a two-fold impact - first, because that already had a lot of weight in a crowded field, but also, because he got a lot of free media from Fox and other TV who would air him just for the celebrity spectacle.
I think these policies were always popular, it's just that serious politicians (and the party benefactors who decide who to give money to) didn't think they could win on them, so it was only the fringe. It wasn't a surprise to me at all that Trump won the Republican primaries. That he won the 2016 general was sort of surprising, but it is hard for the same party to win three times in a row, he barely managed to eek out a win, etc
steveaustin1971 | 21 hours ago
From the outside, it looks like they want someone that will punish their perceived "enemies" and unfortunately, no one hates Americans more than other Americans.
lopix | 19 hours ago
> They don't want solutions, they want someone that says they will make it better.
And they want someone who will hurt people they don't like.
FeelingPixely | 16 hours ago
Things were getting so damn good under Obama (especially at the end of his term), then Republicans fearmongered over health insurance premiums and taxes going to sick people who "don't deserve it."
Now everything's tripled in price and supposedly that's Biden's fault.. meanwhile all the tax legislation has happened under both Trump presidencies under republican supermajorities. You can't make this shit up.
IArgueForReality | a day ago
Well damn Kamala should have maybe positioned herself better based on their own internal polling showing they will lose.
MiddlePermit193 | 4 hours ago
I think she actually won. Too many rummies about Elons voting changing.
IArgueForReality | 3 hours ago
Well perhaps she should have done messaging where she wins with better margins?
No_Mercy_4_Potatoes | a day ago
> This country has a literacy crisis
That's by design.
Ghoulius-Caesar | a day ago
And AI is just going to make it worse.
dogthatwonthunt | a day ago
literally had someone on here tell me how they get AI to explain everything to them.
They were proud of that
ugotmedripping | a day ago
Hey! When I switched to getting advice from AI instead of my youth pastor, my sodomy problem cleared up like that! snaps fingers
Worth-Lead-5944 | a day ago
Okay but hear me out. A lot of people don't make any attempt to understand anything at all, they simply go through life with it being scary and confusing. They don't know and they don't feel empowered to know things, knowledge is something for other people.
The kind of person who, during a storm, wonders why lightening happens and gets a quick AI explanation delivered at a level they can understand is going places. Obviously it can't replace traditional education but it can absolutely supplement it.
dust4ngel | a day ago
these people voting makes me cry
heyheyhey27 | 20 hours ago
They already had access to instant information by googling something. Now, even Google will throw an AI response out before showing you the real responses.
anonymousasu | a day ago
My roommate is a total moron. I don’t why but when I read any of his writing, I can tell that he used AI to generate it, and it pisses me off. He’s just a lazy, fat slob.
xole | a day ago
ai could run the country better than trump is.
061826heart | a day ago
Agree. Lowest literacy = highest fertility. Cattle for breeding.
DeArgonaut | a day ago
Someone I know from hs said they voted for him both times, apparently not realizing he ran for president 3 times (well 4 technically). That was just sad to hear cuz they just shows they care very little about the whole situation to not remember something that big
LessInThought | a day ago
The unbelievable part is that they're still supporting him. Even after the blatant corruption and market manipulation, all while fucking them over. All of them got so fucking rich off this. They're the fucking swamp.
snoogins355 | a day ago
Some voted for him 3 times!
Living-Dimension7798 | 23 hours ago
60% or higher than the US cannot read at 6th grade level.
Hopefully ‘AI’ LLM web 3 search engines gets Text to speech as default on phones. Or we may actually just die by collective idiocy
HunterFeeFee | 23 hours ago
"I love the poorly educated".
rudefruit99 | a day ago
At least they owned the libs though.
KingDaveRa | a day ago
They did their research on Facebook. Everybody knows that's where the real truth is!
bsfurr | 11 hours ago
It took me far too long to realize the truth… Most of America is full of ignorant narcissists. We are a sick society that deserves every horrible thing that happens to us. And bad things are coming.
TheInevitableLuigi | a day ago
More people voted for someone else every time he ran.
la-fours | 23 hours ago
They can read (mostly) but you’re assuming they’ll accept the truth of what they read.
JojoRicardo | 13 hours ago
Dude ran on no more wars and releasing the Epstein files then U turned.
The problem was a lot of people took him on his word tgere
d88k41t | 12 hours ago
Lets be honest, his first presidency is nothing like the second one at all. The first one was chaotic indeed, but the second one is a complete disaster. Plus, the DNC had nothing to offer with Kamala, and destroyed the electoral engagement in the process.
FeelTheH8 | 3 hours ago
Why? The alternative was someone with (more obvious than Trump's) dementia, or someone who couldn't even point out a SINGLE thing different she would have done during her administration in MULTIPLE interviews. And the Biden presidency was far from flawless.
Trump had surrounded himself with eloquent speakers and a lot of moderates that crossed over. He didn't get in any new wars during his first presidency. Yes he was a buffoon, but a lot of people thought that a president (controlled fully by their own neocon staffers) would be worse, especially for foreign wars.
It's obvious that the Republican party is controlled by Israel fully, and the only legislation they can actually get through is a tax cut mainly for the wealthy. But to say the Dems didn't hand him the last election is not true.
chasingjulian | a day ago
This. There is absolutely no concern for the future. Trump is incapable of seeing consequences. He does not have our best interests in mind.
Edit: the—>our
0o0o0o0o0o0z | a day ago
> Trump is incapable of seeing consequences
Sure he is, but only for himself. Shit is really simple; he literally only cares about whats good for him, and having NPD + dementia + being geriatric, he wants adoration from everyone because he considers the country his supplicants. Everyone who is riding on his coattails is doing it for the grift, or, as a Fox News/New Max audition, period, full stop.
dust4ngel | a day ago
> There is absolutely no concern for the future
he’s 80 years old and fat as fuck - there is no future for him
ElectroMagnetsYo | a day ago
après lui, le déluge
basquehomme | a day ago
He must do this because his goose is cooked in the midterms if gas prices go up still higher or explode.
1491Sparrow | a day ago
Bold of you to assume there will be midterms.
hoowins | a day ago
Have to win midterms so the Epstein files don’t get released.
MassiveBoner911_3 | a day ago
All it takes is like a $100 and a call from Putin and he will completely destroy it.
Derebeare | a day ago
And then he will blame it on biden.
No-Space937 | a day ago
The irony of this comment.
Derebeare | a day ago
I bet you think that "biden was just as bad when he drained the SPR". Except he did it because he had a global pandemic and a war that russia started.
Trump chose to do it after a war he started. But "wHaT aBoUt bIdEn?!!?!"
Whaddduptho | 15 hours ago
Biden did it to score political points. Did it primarily in an election year.
Derebeare | 4 hours ago
Youre just wrong.
Whaddduptho | 4 hours ago
Did it because their policy was crap and they had an incoming election.
So they decided to use EMERGENCY RESERVES to lower the price of gas to gain approval.
God forbid you pay a dollar more for gas.
Derebeare | 4 hours ago
Lol what do trumps boots taste like?
ratbearpig | 21 hours ago
I believe this is partly why Iran is playing hard ball.
They want Trump and Americans to truly feel this pain and remember this for a generation. At some point, Trump can no longer draw down from the SPR without permanently damaging it structurally. And China is recommencing the buying of oil to put upwards pressure on oil prices.
Either Trump completely capitulates or the pain will be extended further.
lopix | 19 hours ago
> At some point, Trump can no longer draw down from the SPR without permanently damaging it structurally.
Or, you know, it's frickin' EMPTY
kirime | a day ago
> drain that reserve to the last drop possible
That's actually exactly how SPR was supposed to be used. Each cave was designed to stay completely filled in peacetime and then drained down all the way (with just a tiny bit of oil sludge remaining at the top) in case of a war or a huge natural disaster, and then fully refilled again. The constant small drawdowns and refillings are much more damaging to the salt caves than a single full cycle.
The article even mentions exactly that: > The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said. > > “Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said.
The caves only get damaged when new water is pumped in and dissolves the salt walls. It doesn't really matter if a cave goes from 30% oil to 10% oil or from 90% oil to 70% oil (the rest being brine), the important thing is that 20% of it is now fresh water which will pull salt from the surrounding cave to became saturated brine. If anything, the narrower the water layer is and the more often it's refreshed, the more concentrated the damage gets.
The idea that SPR is like a giant partially filled cavern that will collapse under it's own weight when all the liquid inside gets pumped out is just straight up wrong.
gravescd | a day ago
Is there some reason they don't use water that's fully saturated with sodium, to prevent dissolving the cavern walls?
oregon_coastal | a day ago
Cost
gravescd | a day ago
I have to assume that if I thought of it, many much smarter people also thought of it. I guess I didn't realize that adding salt would be that expensive compared to the potential cost of losing a cavern.
oregon_coastal | a day ago
It is a double storage issue also. If the caverns are full of oil, where does the water go to be stored to evebtually draw down the oil?
The other problem is the level of salinity. The ocean is 3.5%. Red Sea is something like 4%. It would need to be 26 to 28% to not degrade the caves.
The solution is to draw down in emergencies only.
Instead we draw down for minor price stabilization.
silicondali | a day ago
The caverns were designed to be completely emptied five times. The assumption at the time was that the reserves would only be drawn down in exceptional circumstances and each cavern fully emptied. For some reason, that assumption wasn't carried into actual operation, and in the intervening years no one in a position to influence operational policy has suggested retaining brine to, you know, stop jeopardizing the structural integrity of the strategic containment.
I can't estimate how much it would cost to retrofit the injection system to handle brine instead of water, but given the land holdings the cavern surface facilities are situated on, the only barrier to retaining saturated brine is poor planning.
Each cavern is roughly 10 million barrels, or 1.6 million cubic metres. For comparison, the Pembina Redwater facility outside Fort Saskatchewan has ~2.2 to ~2.5 million cubes of surface brine storage capacity. Bryan Mound has more than enough area. The complete lack of foresight is staggering.
Worth-Lead-5944 | a day ago
Where are you sourcing your saturated saltwater?
sickdanman | a day ago
It wasnt on a whim i am sure the israeli powerpoint had some really good points about this sensational war
sibilischtic | 23 hours ago
Then he will pay his buddies a couple of billion to fix it....
Apprehensive-Ad9523 | 18 hours ago
What's wrong with that? You elected a major builder who can't even fix an unbroken reflection pool. Lol. Bunch of dummies running crazy for the next 2 1/2 years. You ain't seen nothing yet. Lol
wizard2009 | a day ago
He’s running the country like a business; one quarterly earnings report at a time. The fact that he’s (historically) terrible at running a business notwithstanding, This is a consequence of “capitalism” as a political system, rather than just an economic model. Every decision is made with the shortest term benefit at the cost of long term stability.
lopix | 19 hours ago
> He’s running the country like a business; one quarterly earnings report at a time.
More like private equity firm running it into the ground before chopping it up and selling it off.
BunnySprinkles69 | 22 hours ago
It doesnt matter, it will be destroyed and bidens fault
Suspicious_Dog4629 | a day ago
Drain the reserve, raise prices crash the stock market, while he front runs those trades and 2x his net worth.
idkmyotherusername | 18 hours ago
I absolutely, positively believe this also.
Kiyae1 | 17 hours ago
We’re not gonna leave any for the DEMOCRAT party that’s for sure.
snoogins355 | a day ago
If Putin had influence over Trump to cause the most damage to the US without going full dictator, what would be different?
Chippopotanuse | a day ago
And his base won’t understand this or give one F
memphisjones | a day ago
Trump is making Putin very happy
Whaddduptho | 15 hours ago
We'd be fine if Biden had replaced what he used.
December 2020: 638 million barrels
December 2024: 398 million barrels
The idea that Trump wants it to be depleted is idiotic considering he had it higher than anyone else.
ThePensiveE | 12 hours ago
>if Biden had replaced what he used.
Maybe don't start a new war until after you begin refilling it again, or I don't know, unless you're sure you won't immediately lose.
Whaddduptho | 12 hours ago
Maybe don't drain a strategic reserve just to keep your political party in power.
I can handle expensive gas. We already get some of the cheapest gas on earth to begin with. If it bothers you that excessively then I don't know what to tell ya.
ThePensiveE | 11 hours ago
Ah yes, dear leader cannot fail, he can only be failed. Wars are bad, unless dear leader starts them, then wars are good. Losing is bad, unless dear leader is losing then dear leader is actually playing 4D chess and losing wars we just started to radical Islamic terrorists is good. Withdrawing from the strategic reserve to stay in power 3 years before an election is bad, unless dear leader does it 2 months before an election then it's good. Epstein is bad release all the files, except dear leader was raping those kids so cover it all up and it's a hoax now. Corruption is bad, but dear leader taking bribes from everyone on the planet is good. Free speech is good, except if it hurts the widdle feel feels of dear leader free speech is treason.
Hopefully, someday, you get your balls back from dear leader because it's getting really pathetic.
craigathan | a day ago
What a terrible day to be able to read. When I came into this, I thought the oil reserve was something like a pile of barrels or big tanks. To now understand that we have a massive underground salt cave filled with millions of gallons of oil is terrifying added onto the fact that it's not designed for what we are using it for...
gimmebanter | 22 hours ago
They did provide the us with a huge advantage in trade throughout 20th century. Now the world has changed and the fucking moron in charge has no clue how to stand aside and let the country adapt
EidolonLives | 19 hours ago
>They did provide the us with a huge advantage in trade throughout 20th century
Only the last quarter, as they were created in 1975 in response to the oil shock.
kinkofparadise | 21 hours ago
Yeah, I mean Trump is an idiot and a fascist, but the whole idea of storing an emergency reserve of an essential natural resource in a basically inaccessible, unrepairable natural formation that is made of dissolvable material that actively dissolves when used normally is such an incrediblely fucking stupid idea.
Like there's at least 170 million barrels of oil that the federal government bought that will NEVER be used because the caverns would literally collapse before they would be able to pump it out.
It's just such a short-sighted system whose fucking idea was this?
dadofadisaster | 21 hours ago
Pretty sure it was created after the oil embargo in the 70s so Ford. Our most famous alcoholic president and after eight beers it sounds like a solid idea so that tracks
sweatboxy | a day ago
Why worry? Trump’s not worried. The economy for the wealthy has never been better and Trump himself has never been nearly this wealthy. The wealthy will be able to afford it no matter what it costs. Trump’s not worried and neither should you be*. (**If you’re wealthy.)
Bruiser76 | a day ago
March 18th 172mb of oil started flowing at 1.43mb /day based on the DOE own statement that it would be completed in 120 days. No oil added to the reserve.
June 19th it was declared to the world that we are “4 weeks to bedlam”, so ~93+28 additional days or July 17th. That aligns with 121 days and 200mb mark remaining in the spr.
August 6th the world was told again we have 43 days remaining, and August 17th will put the reserves at ~150mb on that same draw down.
September 17th based on his numbers, we hit rock bottom if not before.
WhereDidAllTheSnowGo | a day ago
Meaning, since this is an Econ sub…
… not only will gas, diesel, motor oil, and other things in the automotive department increase in prices quickly next month (as long predicted) but so will US made plastics eventually
Secondly price increases effects on everything that depends upon transportation, which is, umm, most everything in stores or online
CrayonUpMyNose | a day ago
Many plastics are made from ethane which is a free byproduct of methane aka natural gas production (shale gas) - not always related to oil production. There is a plastic recycling crisis because new plastic is too cheap due to high production of natural gas meaning more ethane byproduct than we can consume.
WhereDidAllTheSnowGo | a day ago
Good point
content_enjoy3r | a day ago
If markets are forward looking and all this info is publicly available, why is it not already priced in?
gravescd | a day ago
There are still private inventories and the futures market is still liquid. There's no reason to price shortages until there is actual doubt that every contract will be fulfilled on time.
Traders aren't just holding contracts for the delivery dates they actually need. Right now there are probably a lot of traders who bought contracts for Aug/Sep/Oct 2026 a long time ago at a lower price, and to the extent they don't need more inventory at the moment, they are probably making huge profits while providing market liquidity.
edit: looking at price history, just about everyone who bought futures before 2026 for delivery after March 2026 is sitting in profit. Unless they need actual barrels of oil soon, they are sellers.
AdventurousLet548 | 23 hours ago
Trump doesn't care about the United States. He is on a revenge tour to make us all pay for his loss in 2020 and the subsequent court cases. It is sad that his ego is so inflated that he puts his own needs above that of the nation. Trump wouldn't have this power if it weren't for the Republican Party giving it all the green light. Our representatives are no longer representing us but only make themselves richer.
Fundamentals-802 | 23 hours ago
The good news is that the republicans can be voted out. And they would deserve it for absolutely doing nothing to stop this from happening in the first place.
AdventurousLet548 | 22 hours ago
I am worried that this will not happen and that voting machines will be confiscated or Trump is coming up with some kind of lie to nullify the elections. I have lost all trust in the Republican Party.
Fundamentals-802 | 22 hours ago
One would think that most people have lost faith in the Republican Party. Ever since Regan, they have offered nothing except failed policies and handouts to the rich and corporations.
MessageOk239 | 20 hours ago
Agreed; now I realize that when Republicans touted “trickle-down economics”, they meant that “wealth trickles down from billionaires to millionaires”. And believe me, some people in government now are wealthier than they could never have imagined a decade ago.
Live-Organization912 | a day ago
Republicans smash and grab. Democrats piece it back together—people complain that it’s not fast enough. Annnnd then elect a Republican to begin the whole cycle over again.
Rattus_NorvegicUwUs | a day ago
The GOP love to whine and cry about every goddamn thing when it’s a dem in charge, but refuse to lift a finger when it’s some drooling child molester.
The conservatives will weaponize your own goodwill against you. They and their voters deserve nothing but mockery. You morons got us into this mess, you should shoulder the burden to get us out of it.
I’m tired of republicans leaving a mess for others to clean up. Take the funds from rural grant programs, not like they ever gave us credit anyways. And not like they have done fuck all with all the aid we send them. All they do is hold this nation back.
Stuckinthesandbox | a day ago
I’m surprised Trump hasn’t created an electric car company named Trump Motors and profited off the incoming oil/gas catastrophe. The cars would be produced in China with fake gold trim everywhere while he tells his illiterate and lukewarm IQ followers that they’re produced by hardworking Americans.
Nuzzleface | a day ago
Be serious. There's a bigger chance he would make a coal powered car.
The Beautiful Clean Coal Car.
jiggajawn | 17 hours ago
Made in China
snoogins355 | a day ago
Well he was selling Tesla's for Elmo on the White house lawn. Remember "it's all computers!"? It's really amazing we went with this moron again. You'd thing after covid and the insurrection attempt and all the crimes/felonies, people would wise up. With Harris we could be so bored right now. Biggest drama would be her wearing a tie at one event and hugging the Pope while laughing about a Chicago joke
It would be hilarious if the Trump EVs were BYDs or rebranded Xiaomi SU7
drawkbox | 17 hours ago
Trump will probably hire some company that will go in to make repairs and damage it more.
If it isn't clear Trump is an enemy to the West and open market systems yet to people, I don't know when they will get it. The goal of Trumpuppet is depleting margin, infrastructure/maintenance, support, logistics, flexibility, operational readiness and more.
I mean look at the White House, it looks like a bomb hit it. The Russian Tsar Bomba was their Trump card in Trump. More effective than any operation including sparrows. Bigger traitor than Talleyrand and Chamberlain combined this Benedict Donald.
Wake up cons before you kill Western markets and get everyone killed. For once be woke and better to be DEI then die. C'mon man!
vand3lay1ndustries | a day ago
>Hochstein said a hurricane in Florida or Louisiana could put the U.S. in a tough position at current SPR levels.
Why in the holy hell did we decide to place most of our SPR's in Louisiana then?
Cattywampus2020 | a day ago
The oil is there, the caverns are there.
wrldruler21 | a day ago
Is there a reason we are trying to use natural caves and not just building giant tanks?
Cattywampus2020 | a day ago
They are gigantic and generally protected from natural disasters and attacks.
Paradoxjjw | a day ago
And way WAY cheaper than building and maintaining that much storage.
kirime | a day ago
There are giant tanks, for example, in the Cushing oil reserve.
The caves hold 10 times as much oil as all the tanks there do.
vand3lay1ndustries | a day ago
Didn't we build those caverns in the first place? Why choose such a hurricane prone area?
Comprehensive_Toad | a day ago
Logistics
adeniumlover | a day ago
We didn't think US voters could be this stupid and sink this low.
ILoveTheAtomicBomb | a day ago
I’m ready for hard times because I don’t understand what else will finally get Americans to wake up to what a shitshow this orange nazi fuck has caused. And even then, 30% will support him to the end of time, but hopefully the 70% will vote for the actual candidates that care about the population during midterms. Why people only learn through suffering will never make sense and why they’re so brainwashed into believing Trump is a good president and that MAGA is something worth supporting will be beyond me
MrFrode | 22 hours ago
I heard about this a couple of weeks ago, I think on the FT morning podcast so it's something the U.S. government should have been aware of for months.
lmaccaro | 22 hours ago
If your reserve holds 800m barrels but the last 300m ($30000000000 worth) is not usable then it does not hold 800m barrels and maybe you need to dig a new one that does hold 800m barrels.
Sea_Dawgz | a day ago
Obviously most stuff trump does is to very specifically enrich himself.
But the amount of stuff he does to very specifically damage all of America is so mind boggling it’s hard to say it’s only stupidity.
smythy422 | 22 hours ago
Why can't they just refill it with salt water until they are ready to refill it with oil? Oil water separators certainly exist and the oil would generally stay clean above the water is pumped in from below.
Frozen_North_99 | 20 hours ago
That’s how they get the oil out, pump water in. It’s also why it’s a risk to keep doing that.
“”The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.
“Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said. “”
Acceptable_Taste9818 | a day ago
Trump admin wants to clear drawdowns all the way to 70 million capacity. That’s what they are floating as acceptable which means that’s what he’ll do if he has to. He’ll compromise the cavern if it’s his only option, which Iran is well aware of. He walked into a trap and they aren’t going to let him out of it.