Re:TC Energy scraps Keystone XL pipeline project after Biden...
by munk-a on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @05:53PM
(#27453753)
Hrm, my wording might have been a bit off itself but I mostly just wanted to highlight and rebut what could be worded in your original statement as a sort of fatalist "Even if we reduce what's coming from Canada it won't effect overall production". I do agree that the impact won't solve global warming or potentially cause a reflection in gas pump prices, but the supply is definitely elastic and while the demand is inelastic in the long term short term price fluctuations do actually cause short term fluctuations in demand so there is a fair bit of elasticity there as well.
People will find ways to reduce their car commute when prices spike and, especially, oil power plants will defer operation to cheaper (possibly less clean :sigh:) alternatives.
Re:TC Energy scraps Keystone XL pipeline project after Biden...
by eloff on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @06:08PM
(#27453914)
Given how large the oil market is and how generally inelastic the demand is, I would wager any overall reduction in demand will be marginal. There won't be no effect, but I don't see there being a large effect either.
Given strongly inelastic demand, I would say very marginally less.
> Whenever a cheap source of a good is eliminated the average production price of that good is increased (assuming there is an exhaustible supply of that good at that price) so the removal, or even inconveniencing of access, to tar sands extract will cause an up-tick in prices overall and a likely unnoticeable dip in supply.
I think we're saying the same thing?
> Additionally, as a Canadian myself, the Alberta oils sands have recently contributed strongly to an economic crisis in Calgary as extraction profitability has sharply declined. There is a lot of oil still left up there but Alberta needs to act now, while it has the funds to do so, to transition their economy. It is not a feasible long term revenue source.
Yes, they had better get serious about transitioning the economy away from oil before Calgary becomes a ghost town. People sure aren't there for the weather.