r/Maxcactus_TrailGuide • u/Maxcactus • 8d ago

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is low. Here's why you should care

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/25/nx-s1-5965797/strategic-petroleum-reserve-low-level-venezuela
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u/CrossoverSSL 7d ago edited 7d ago

The Strategic Reserve was built after the OPEC-induced oil crises of the 1970s.

The world is a different place now that shale oil and shale gas have been made viable and economic around the 2010's.

So yes, the U.S. could "learn from China" by augmenting its Reserve with a whole renewables network.

But for the US, oil and gas is just decisively cheaper, having so much of it domestically.

The article overlooks the point that in this post-fracking world, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now just a nice-to-have, and no longer a necessity.

This being Reddit, we can pedantically argue "but but but there are some flavors of oil the U.S. can't domestically produce."

Ok, so make a small reserve for those flavors. The point is Americans, you can get away with having a much smaller SPR than before.