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Yeah but we can afford to have them burn fossil fuels until the end of time, their population is relatively tiny.

• labster 5y ago
  I think that depends on what happens with plastics. If the rest of the economy moves away from petrochemical extraction, fossil fuels become scarce. You’ll still get methane from landfills, of course, but SpaceX needs it too. We can afford it environmentally but I can easily see hydrocarbons tripling in price.
  • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    If we stop using plastics, the existing oil wells don't magically disappear. We can use it for fuel, and it should be cheaper, because there's less competition for it.
    • labster 5y ago
      Not if the regulatory environment becomes very unfavorable to oil. Cheaper is another way of saying less profitable. If you’re not selling as much, all of that infrastructure for hydrocarbon processing becomes more expensive to maintain. An oil well doesn’t give you fuel, it gives you crude which goes through a pipeline which goes to a refinery to split fuel, plastic ingredients, and tar. Then the fuel must be transported. And you have to operate the oil well, but water, and then the well eventually runs dry. People don’t really like wells near them, nor do the like the waste water from hydraulic fracking. Without a big industry to back it up, people will want to ban oil extraction. All of which is to say that supply and demand only go so far when an industry collapses from lack of demand. Look at camera film. Shouldn’t it be cheaper because no one is buying it and it’s a niche product? Nope, the economies of scale no longer work.