The head of the International Energy Agency has warned that both Europe and the United States could face fuel shortages this summer, in a scenario worse than the oil crisis of the 1970s, as demand for travel ramps up.
"When the main holiday season starts in Europe and the U.S.," Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, told Der Spiegel, "fuel demand will rise. Then we could see shortages — for example, in diesel, petrol or kerosene, particularly in Europe."
Birol added that the current energy crisis could be worse and more long-lasting than the shocks of the 1970s. As a result of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 as well as the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, oil prices spiked.
But "back then," Birol said, "it was just about oil. Now we have an oil crisis, a gas crisis and an electricity crisis simultaneously."
And in 2022, the New York Post reports, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the prices of an already limited supply of oil and other energy were pushed even higher. Since then, gas prices have soared nationwide, striking record highs over the Memorial Day weekend. According to AAA, consumers paid a national average of $4.62 a gallon on Monday — a record high.
California motorists were hit the hardest. In parts of Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Yosemite region, gas prices topped $7.25 per gallon, a price on par with the federal minimum hourly wage.
Although President Joe Biden has said the U.S. is going through a state of "incredible transition," he did not elucidate, at the time of that statement, where the U.S. was in transition toward. But as former White House press secretary Jen Psaki touted in August, Biden has plans in his Build Back Better Agenda to make electric vehicles 50% of all new car sales by 2030.
"The President believes," she said, "it is time for the U.S. to lead in electric vehicle manufacturing, infrastructure, and innovation."
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