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Oh so we're going to start burning more oil ? That sucks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox (Note that

• AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  The current market situation with oil is very strange. My guess is OPEC sees the writing on the wall regarding climate change, i.e. that not all of the reserves in the ground can be used, and have decided that they're going to pump as much of theirs as they can before some law is passed that will turn what's left in the ground into a pumpkin. So now what we need is that law. A cross-subsidy would be perfect: Tax fossil fuels and use the money to subsidize fossil alternatives. Oil is cheap now, so the tax wouldn't pinch much, but it would make alternatives more attractive for anyone in a position to make that choice (e.g. buy an electric car). Which would then correspondingly reduce demand for oil, which would reduce the price of oil. Then we can keep oil prices from crashing by increasing the tax, which provides more money for the subsidy, which makes oil comparatively even less attractive, which reduces demand for oil, and so on until we're off of oil. But the price of gas never needs to go back above ~$3/gallon -- it's just that by the end the $3/gallon you're paying is $2.50 of tax and the tax is paying for everybody to get an electric car.