throwaway473825

Neither Norway nor Saudi Arabia will ever voluntarily kill its oil industry. That will only happen when other countries stop buying.

However, Saudi Arabia needs higher prices than Norway to balance the budget, so Saudi Arabia will likely cut first.

I don't think it's a coincidence that China has developed batteries that neuter the advantage that gas had over coal, but I can't stop wondering if we'd already have solved long-term storage if China hated coal as much as oil and gas.

There's no 3.8 Pro. However, there's a 3.8 Flash that's only available with Pro or Ultra subscription.

As opposed to Trump, who actually won an election after an attempted coup?

I'll give you credits for emphasizing electricity, because Europe isn't against air conditioning. Basically all cars sold in Europe, or made by European companies and sold elsewhere, have air conditioning - but they're powered by oil.

The EU ETS - Europe's flagship carbon market program - specifically exempts gas for heating and oil for transportation, but not power generation, which incentivizes oil and gas over electricity:

https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2025/06/many-building-r...

Unfortunately, air conditioning in buildings runs on electricity, and thus it's discouraged. But that's more due to a dislike of electricity than of air conditioning itself.

As I said, coal makes electricity cheaper if it can eliminate gas, like in China and India. Poland uses a lot of coal, but it doesn't help because it also uses a lot of gas nowadays.

Of course, there are geopolitical considerations. Germany thought that it could cut military spending by buying Russian gas, and Poland believes that it needs to buy American gas for protection. But none of them can compete with China.

Just for your information, the AfD doesn't want to have cheap energy either. Nobody in Germany does, and that's the problem.

While the AfD wants to keep German lignite (half as cheap as any imported gas), it also wants gas. The point of coal is eliminating gas. Otherwise you're just polluting for no gain.

> We do, after all, also want to rapidly shift a few hundred gigawatts of power supply (mostly for heating and transport, but also electricity) away from fossil fuels and towards something less prone to global geopolitical nonsense like Hormuz.

If this was the case, electricity wouldn't be taxed much higher than gas and phasing out coal wouldn't be the number one priority. You describe China's energy policy, not Europe's.

Iran is actually fair game since it doesn't want to be part of the ICC. The same was true for Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no rights without obligations.

However, this isn't the case with Palestine, which is why Netanyahu has problems - and obviously Putin as well.

Yes, but in an indirect way. Direct carbon capture (DAC) is so energy intensive that it's only viable in places with 100% clean electricity, like Iceland. It's a non-starter in most countries.

However, places that have 100% clean electricity are often isolated. You need to ship in all equipment, which is made elsewhere, and fly in all personnel. This quickly adds up:

https://heimildin.is/grein/24581/climeworks-capture-fails-to...

Capturing carbon from the source, like a coal power plant, is much easier. But the capture rate is only 50% on average, so a coal power plant with carbon capture is still horrible while also ridiculously expensive, so it doesn't really make sense.

I both agree and disagree. The EU isn't worse than others. For example, it's basically the only place that's willing to replace coal with imported gas, which is a major economical sacrifice.

On the other hand, with the money the EU spends on climate measures, the results leave a lot to be desired. The EU has prioritized things like hydrogen, biofuels and carbon capture, which all have very little to show for.

If Europe had spent all that money on EVs and heat pumps, emissions would have decreased drastically while prices woundn't even go up. But that's not possible if you want to preserve old jobs. Then you have to do those stupid things that aren't viable, like e-fuels for cars.

I'm also not sure if replacing coal with gas did actually decrease emissions on the whole. The gas lobby is a large reason why electrification has stalled in Europe, while China's coal lobby helped electric trucks to reach 50% share last month.

Europe's strategy has indeed been stupid, but not for the reasons you write.

Some parts of the energy transition are profitable, like EVs and heat pumps. This is where Europe dropped the ball.

Other parts are unprofitable, like hydrogen. This is what Europe has prioritized, without anything to show for it.

Then there are the ugly parts, like most carbon capture or importing virgin palm oil mislabelled as used cooking oil. Those things don't even decrease emissions. Again, Europe has focused too much on this.

If Europe would simply have banned combustion engines and gas boilers, emissions would have decreased drastically while prices would also decrease. Alas, Europe prioritized bad stuff instead.

It's not particularly surprising. China wants people to use electricity. Germany wants people to use gas/oil. The rate of electrification in respective country reflects that preference.

How do you explain that basically all European countries tax electricity much higher than fossil gas? Countries like Germany and the UK make the US look good when it comes to heat pump adoption.

More ironically, air conditioning is tolerated if powered by oil (like in cars), but not by electricity (like in buildings). At least Europe is better at EV adoption, but still far behind many parts of Asia.

If there's little left, why does it need to be banned? This is like the German argument against nuclear - it's supposedly expensive, and yet it needs to be banned because otherwise there would be plenty of it.

You'd have a point if those countries had followed Europe in replacing coal with imported gas, but few countries outside of Europe have done that. Without imported gas, electricity is generally cheap.

The countries with the cheapest electricity in the EU all have nuclear:

https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/price_average_map/char...

Furthermore, old nuclear is already paid for, and hence often the cheapest option where available:

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/EUROPE-ENERGY/NUCLEARPOWER/...

Note that you didn't mention any such country, and for good reason - there is none.

You'd need a dictatorship where people's voices don't matter, but then there's no right of ownership either.

The places that have outdated buses also have outdated cars. This isn't the case in the US. The outdated buses have to compete with modern cars.

I don't think so. American buses are ridiculously outdated, while having to compete with some of the most well-equipped cars in the world. If Europe had such buses, they wouldn't be popular either.

That's not true. For example, France is rapidly automating its metros. The US is quite unique in viewing public transport as a jobs program rather than a public service.

That's a feature, not a bug. Public transport is viewed as a jobs program in the US.

Buy America Act makes buses roughly three times more expensive, and then they use decades-old technology due to a lack of competition.

The MTA in NYC has two-person subway crews, which is almost unprecedented in this day and age. BART could be driverless if unions wouldn't revolt.

There's an irony that American unions are strong enough to prevent automatization, but weak enough to fear it (unlike say Denmark or France).

There is a reason why the US is special - Buy America Act. New Flyer and Gillig would collapse almost immediately if they were exposed to global competition.

That's a de facto ban since nobody has achieved a capture rate of 90 percent, and not for lack of trying:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-does-the-world-need-carbon-ca...

My point is that there's no party in the UK that wants to drill as much as possible as well as burn as little as possible. It's either one or the other, never both like in Norway.

It's really sad comparing the UK with Norway. The latter did "drill baby drill" before it was cool, but almost exclusively for exports. Some of that money has been invested in rapid electrification - so that Norway can export even more!

Meanwhile, the left in the UK doesn't want to drill (so less money for electrification) while the right in the UK doesn't want to electrify (so less money due to more imports). Why doesn't anyone want to copy the Norwegian model?

There's a difference between electricity and energy. Last year, fossil fuel usage fell for power generation, but not as a whole.

This year, oil and gas are projected to fall as a whole, although coal is still expected to grow:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-fossil-fuel-emis...

Isn't it better to allow a few luxury cars that are taxed to oblivion? As long as there aren't too many cars, the city can be pleasant, and it's a nice source of revenue.

While this isn't the best way to address the issue, the US is way too dependent on gasoline/diesel for transportation. It's not sustainable.

Here's the list:

1 Fable 5.1 38.8%

2 GPT-6 Astra 33.8%

3 Gemini 3.8 Flash 31.2%

4 GLM 5.3 28.8%

5 Grok 4.6 23.8%

5 Muse Spark 1.3 23.8%

7 Kimi K3 18.8%

8 GPT-5.6 Sol 16.2%

See number 4, 5 and 7.