How to ration fuel
I hope this post is never useful...
With the failure of the Islamabad peace talks, energy prices have risen again. The current break from active war is, at best, uncertain, and it could easily go wrong again. Neither Iran nor the US nor Israel have given the others much reason to believe that their word is their bond.
It is possible, therefore, that the UK could face a shortage of petrol later this year. I don’t think that is likely, but even fear of shortages can create actual shortages - if everyone decided to fill up their car today, we would run out of petrol for a few days at least. In fact, fuel stocks held at petrol stations fell by a fifth at the start of operation Epic Fury, as motorists decided to fill up “just in case” or (more sensibly) to beat likely imminent price rises.
We had exactly that sort of crisis in 2012. The tanker drivers threatened to go on strike, and people rushed to fill up in case it happened. Petrol stations did run out of fuel, even though the strike never happened.
I have a policy idea to make petrol shortages less bad.
