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If the West could swallow it's pride for a while, it could go all out for fracking, reopen coal mines and build enormous gas to fuel plants etc., and buy itself

by an9n 5y ago

If the West could swallow it's pride for a while, it could go all out for fracking, reopen coal mines and build enormous gas to fuel plants etc., and buy itself time to go full carbon neutral. But it won't. Why not? Because the eco-zealotry overrides Ukrainian lives.

FpUser 5y ago
>"Because the eco-zealotry overrides Ukrainian lives." Do not be so dramatic. West never had problems with "overriding" human lives. It had killed millions without any repercussions.
pettusftw 5y ago
The following is US centric because that is the only resource extraction I'm personally familiar with. Coal should stay dead. It has no redeeming qualities except that the cost is largely in externalizations. Oil and LNG output is constrained by price. More and more shuttered/untapped wells will go online as prices rise and they become economically viable. This is already in progress at current prices. I'm not sure what you meant by pride, but we don't need to drill/frack protected areas because they're cheaper to get resources out of. If protected areas are not what you meant, rest assured that unprotected areas will be "gone all out" on based on the economic calculus of extraction and there are plenty of untapped areas[0]. Price is the better incentive because it's elastic in response to demand like that created by embargoes on Russian resources, and also incentivizes a move away from fossil fuels by nature of its high price. It will be costly to average consumers at an already precarious time, but at least it aligns incentives with a more sustainable future instead of sacrificing unreplaceable ecologies by "going all out" as you describe. [0] https://www.usgs.gov/centers/central-energy-resources-science-center/science/united-states-assessments-undiscovered-oil https://www.usgs.gov/centers/central-energy-resources-scienc...

by an9n 5y ago

FpUser 5y ago

>"Because the eco-zealotry overrides Ukrainian lives." Do not be so dramatic. West never had problems with "overriding" human lives. It had killed millions without any repercussions.

pettusftw 5y ago

The following is US centric because that is the only resource extraction I'm personally familiar with. Coal should stay dead. It has no redeeming qualities except that the cost is largely in externalizations. Oil and LNG output is constrained by price. More and more shuttered/untapped wells will go online as prices rise and they become economically viable. This is already in progress at current prices. I'm not sure what you meant by pride, but we don't need to drill/frack protected areas because they're cheaper to get resources out of. If protected areas are not what you meant, rest assured that unprotected areas will be "gone all out" on based on the economic calculus of extraction and there are plenty of untapped areas[0]. Price is the better incentive because it's elastic in response to demand like that created by embargoes on Russian resources, and also incentivizes a move away from fossil fuels by nature of its high price. It will be costly to average consumers at an already precarious time, but at least it aligns incentives with a more sustainable future instead of sacrificing unreplaceable ecologies by "going all out" as you describe. [0] https://www.usgs.gov/centers/central-energy-resources-science-center/science/united-states-assessments-undiscovered-oil https://www.usgs.gov/centers/central-energy-resources-scienc...