> since energy is a huge component in their cost

I want to see some data to back up this claim.

> It's pretty much a wash.

I guess you'd need energy to make up >90% of the cost to make it "pretty much a wash"?

> I want to see some data to back up this claim.

I'll try to get some, but do a thought experiment: What component of, say, a solar panel cost is not energy?

> I guess you'd need energy to make up >90% of the cost to make it "pretty much a wash"?

Yes, and it is.

Not in terms of you have to pay oil companies all that money, but rather that energy is the multiplier that all prices are based off of.

If oil costs go up, then your suppliers costs go up, all the way down the chain. Including salaries - since the workers need more money to buy stuff, they want higher salaries.

Think about what is costs to make something, every single thing, at it's endpoint costs energy.

You've forgotten all of the other sources we use to produce energy: coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, renewables, etc.. and a fraction also comes from oil.

So oil tripling overnight would not result in a tripling of energy prices. There would be a small increase as load is shifted to other sources.. and there would be an increase in transportation costs of solar panel delivery. But the cost of a panel would barely increase. And those factories near nuclear, hydro, etc plants would see a slight competitive advantage over those in areas where energy comes from oil (but again, coal is a big source of energy.. oil much less so).

> So oil tripling overnight would not result in a tripling of energy prices.

By the very nature of energy, oil prices CAN'T triple without all other energy sources also tripling.

If there was a shortage of oil then the price of oil simply could not go up unless there just wasn't enough energy from other sources. Oil (and natural gas) are the most flexible of all energy sources, most of them are pretty maxed out, but oil and gas can adjust to take up slack.

Oil was 19$ in 1998, and 107$ a decade later (inflation adjusted). That’s over 5x.

https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices...

Here’s retail energy prices: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.php?t=p...

Show me where it went up anything close to 5x

> By the very nature of energy, oil prices CAN'T triple without all other energy sources also tripling.

This is false. You can't freely substitute oil with nuclear-generation as price vary. There are a huge number of cars and airplanes and plastics production that depend on oil.