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by mason240 3585 days ago
I wouldn't call a 10-15% increase in the price of gas "little effect."
2 comments

It's nowhere near enough to meaningfully affect demand. The EIA estimates[1] that gasoline has to get 25-50% more expensive to reduce demand by even 1%.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=19191

The article linked to an Economist article on British Columbia's $30/ton carbon tax, where it seemed to have a much more significant effect:

>BC’s fuel consumption is also down. Over the past six years, the per-person consumption of fuels has dropped by 16% (although declines levelled off after the last tax increase in 2012). During that same period, per-person consumption in the rest of Canada rose by 3%. “Each year the evidence becomes stronger and stronger that the carbon tax is driving environmental gains,” says Stewart Elgie, an economics professor at University of Ottawa and head of Sustainable Prosperity, a pro-green think-tank. At the same time, BC’s economy has kept pace with the rest of the country.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2014/07/british-...

I'm not sure I trust future projections much from the EIA; they are extremely conservative in terms of being unable to imagine non-fossil fuel energy. They've been consistently wrong on renewable technology as well:

http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/15/us-eia-responds-cleantec...

I don't mean to diminish the excellent work they do. But for projections like this they must necessarily embody lots of opinion, and there's a good chance that their opinions embody the slow-change mindset of the energy industry.

This is comparing miles traveled to fuel costs when it really should compare fuel consumed / person to fuel costs since MPG is not static.

I would bet with hybrid (and arguably electric) cars being as usable as their ICE cousins that the demand for transportation fuel will become far more elastic.

>It's nowhere near enough to meaningfully affect demand.

That's because gas is inelastic. That doesn't mean a price increase wouldn't have a negative effect.

OTOH, most carbon capture schemes need a carbon price about triple of that to break even (IIRC).