The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change

Re:The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change by tdees40 on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @11:34AM (#9765339)

My problem with all of this is that, as renewables get cheaper, people use less fossil fuels. But this drives the price of fossil fuels down. Eventually all you're extracting is the low-hanging fruit that can be pulled out of the ground very cheaply and running tight margins on it. So you have kind of a vicious cycle. Meanwhile most people just assume that fossil fuel prices will increase inexorably. I doubt it.

In other words, absent regulation keeping fossil fuel costs high (carbon tax!), I think the shift to renewables will take longer than the optimists think.

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Re:The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change by throwaway342526 on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @11:43AM (#9765401)

Only for some types of fossil fuels. Saudi light crude costs very little to extract -- a few dollars a barrel -- whereas shale oil has an extraction cost of around $70-$90.

You're right in that the Saudis will likely never stop extracting. But there are much larger deposits in the Americas that we quite likely will never develop if solar brings down the price of energy.

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Re:The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change by ZeroGravitas on Tuesday June 23, 2015 @06:50PM (#9768335)

This is a good thing, in fact lower prices/profits for oil is the only way to keep most of it in the ground.

Of course a carbon tax does the same thing, as does removing the tax breaks were still paying to corporations to prospect for yet more oil.

One nice feedback loop is that as countries shift to renewables they have more selfish reasons to introduce carbon taxes to try to stick it to other countries while looking progressive.

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