U.S. Energy Dept approves release of 2 mln bbls of oil from SPR to Exxon

To put this into context [0], the US consumes 20.5 million barrels of oil per day. Two million barrels is equivalent to 2.4 hours.

The entire strategic oil reserve, as of September of this year, held 621.3 million barrels, or about 31 days at current consumption rates.

In other words, this is a failed short term strategy. It simply isn't sustainable. While I understand that lots of people want to leave petroleum and fossil fuels in the past, this simply isn't supported by our reality. Oil is part of every fiber of modern life. From plastics, to lubricants, manufacturing and, yes, transportation. My guess is we would devolve into the middle ages if we stopped using oil's myriad derivative products.

Simply stated: The strategic oil supply isn't a strategy at all and modern life has an absolute dependency for oil, even if we eliminate that which is used for transportation.

Given this reality, shutting down oil pipelines and, in general, being hostile to the oil industry is, without a doubt, nonsensical. It's a formula for mayhem at all levels. Proper long term planning would support oil while heavily investing in nontrivial research and development projects to find as many alternative paths as possible.

The timeline for replacement of a small percentage of oil's byproducts could be as long as 25 to 50 years. You can't kill oil until you replace what we use it for. And no, electric cars won't do that. In fact, pretty much everything used to make, run, charge and service an electric vehicle requires oil byproducts.

In other words, we really need to stop playing politics with oil and have a sensible hundred-year plan rooted in reality rather than fantasy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve_(U...

This is interesting, but the linked article doesn’t delve into the potential effects that decreasing gas prices might have on either the supply or demand sides, nor does it inform the reader about potential knock-on effects of such a move.

How does this affect an alleged move to a greener energy economy?

Are there deleterious effects for oil producers in the US? Or internationally?

Is the US energy reserve in a potentially worse position by releasing this amount?

I appreciate the statement of fact, but this particular article leaves me with more questions than answers.

Perhaps I’m just not well-versed enough in this particular area of the global economy.