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Those are just some of the means to get the price of natural gas lower, which is still the only fundamental reason that reduces the amount of gas/oil/whatnot be

Those are just some of the means to get the price of natural gas lower, which is still the only fundamental reason that reduces the amount of gas/oil/whatnot being dug out.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The fundamental reason that fossil fuel is pumped out is because people buy it, and the price is a reflection of where supply curve meets the demand curve. People will choose to buy less if alternatives are cheaper and accomplish the same needs, but with something like fossil fuels where all the infrastructure is already setup and fossil fuels are convenient, the end user price going down almost certainly means demand going up. The only way less fossil fuel is consumed is if people cannot afford it (equivalent to prices rising) or if people prefer something else. Or if there are less people overall period.
- beefield 5y ago
  If people can't afford it, it means it is expensive, and only way for it to be expensive is that someone can afford it. And the more expensive it is, the more it is going to be extracted. In the end, it is very simple. You want to stop fossil fuel consumption, you need to get the price paid to the producer so low that the producer does not want to produce. Producer price can be high only if someone is willing to pay it. In economics terms, you do not only need to get price down, but the whole demand curve. That is, with any given price, there needs to be less demand than currently is. The supply side is fixed. Anything profitable will be extracted and burned. I do not see how anyone can disagree with that.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I believe you have cause and effect backwards. You move along supply and demand curves to come to the price. Prices move according to demand and supply curves, not the opposite. For example, if fossil fuels became 10x cheaper, that will flow into all economic activity that uses fossil fuel to be cheaper, which is basically everything. Which then means people will consume more of everything, because that is what people like to do. The supply side of fossil fuels is definitely not fixed. It is true that sufficiently low fossil fuel prices will cause some producers to not make a profit, who will then stop extracting fossil fuel. But due to the nature of fossil fuels being able to facilitate in almost all aspects of life and being a very fungible source of energy, eventually the steadily increasing demand will cause prices to eventually increase (unless sufficient alternative sources of energy are available at sufficiently cheap prices and convenience). The world has 8B people, with more than half who can easily consume far more fossil fuel as they gain more wealth and catch up to developed nations. Making fossil fuels cheaper just means more poorer people will gain the ability to buy bigger cars, air condition their homes, start flying to places, etc. Just look at fossil fuel consumption worldwide: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-fossil-fuel-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-fossil-fuel-consum... It has been 13 years since fossil fuel prices dramatically decreased, and consumption has continued to rise. https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-cha...
    - beefield 5y ago
      of course you can also shift demand curve. If you have current price P and demand D, and you slap a tax T on top of the price P, the demand at price P is going to be lower, thus the whole curve is shifted. Yes, ceteris paribus if you lower the price, there is going to be more demand. But you can't lower the price ceteris paribus because there is not going to be more supply. So in order to lower the price you need to figure out a way to lower the demand. Be it regulation, taxation or cheaper alternative products or something else. As long it is cheaper to run a solar panel than a generator in a developing country, it does not matter if the fossil fuels become 10 times cheaper, people will use the solar panel. Higher price means higher resource extraction and consumption, that is a fact that you can deduce by just looking a the supply side. If you double gas/oil price, for sure more is going to be extracted? (And by price I do not mean post-tax/regulation consumer price, but the price the gas/oil producer gets from the commodity in the market)

Those are just some of the means to get the price of natural gas lower, which is still the only fundamental reason that reduces the amount of gas/oil/whatnot being dug out.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

The fundamental reason that fossil fuel is pumped out is because people buy it, and the price is a reflection of where supply curve meets the demand curve. People will choose to buy less if alternatives are cheaper and accomplish the same needs, but with something like fossil fuels where all the infrastructure is already setup and fossil fuels are convenient, the end user price going down almost certainly means demand going up. The only way less fossil fuel is consumed is if people cannot afford it (equivalent to prices rising) or if people prefer something else. Or if there are less people overall period.

beefield 5y ago
If people can't afford it, it means it is expensive, and only way for it to be expensive is that someone can afford it. And the more expensive it is, the more it is going to be extracted. In the end, it is very simple. You want to stop fossil fuel consumption, you need to get the price paid to the producer so low that the producer does not want to produce. Producer price can be high only if someone is willing to pay it. In economics terms, you do not only need to get price down, but the whole demand curve. That is, with any given price, there needs to be less demand than currently is. The supply side is fixed. Anything profitable will be extracted and burned. I do not see how anyone can disagree with that.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I believe you have cause and effect backwards. You move along supply and demand curves to come to the price. Prices move according to demand and supply curves, not the opposite. For example, if fossil fuels became 10x cheaper, that will flow into all economic activity that uses fossil fuel to be cheaper, which is basically everything. Which then means people will consume more of everything, because that is what people like to do. The supply side of fossil fuels is definitely not fixed. It is true that sufficiently low fossil fuel prices will cause some producers to not make a profit, who will then stop extracting fossil fuel. But due to the nature of fossil fuels being able to facilitate in almost all aspects of life and being a very fungible source of energy, eventually the steadily increasing demand will cause prices to eventually increase (unless sufficient alternative sources of energy are available at sufficiently cheap prices and convenience). The world has 8B people, with more than half who can easily consume far more fossil fuel as they gain more wealth and catch up to developed nations. Making fossil fuels cheaper just means more poorer people will gain the ability to buy bigger cars, air condition their homes, start flying to places, etc. Just look at fossil fuel consumption worldwide: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-fossil-fuel-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-fossil-fuel-consum... It has been 13 years since fossil fuel prices dramatically decreased, and consumption has continued to rise. https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-cha...
  - beefield 5y ago
    of course you can also shift demand curve. If you have current price P and demand D, and you slap a tax T on top of the price P, the demand at price P is going to be lower, thus the whole curve is shifted. Yes, ceteris paribus if you lower the price, there is going to be more demand. But you can't lower the price ceteris paribus because there is not going to be more supply. So in order to lower the price you need to figure out a way to lower the demand. Be it regulation, taxation or cheaper alternative products or something else. As long it is cheaper to run a solar panel than a generator in a developing country, it does not matter if the fossil fuels become 10 times cheaper, people will use the solar panel. Higher price means higher resource extraction and consumption, that is a fact that you can deduce by just looking a the supply side. If you double gas/oil price, for sure more is going to be extracted? (And by price I do not mean post-tax/regulation consumer price, but the price the gas/oil producer gets from the commodity in the market)