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UN chief asks wealthy nations to impose windfall taxes on fossil fuel industry (arstechnica.com)
24 points by aenean 1365 days ago
3 comments

I’ll bite.

One impact here would be to reduce future investment in fossil fuels which will increase future prices. Because why would you invest?

So setting up for future higher prices.

Do you want people to invest in tools to extract and burn all fossil fuels as quickly as possible or alternatives to fossil fuels? I would prefer the latter which means high taxes on fossil fuels and/or subsidies on its alternatives to push investment.
What's the alternative? We've had renewable investments for a while now. People have been swearing up and down how renewables are cheaper and better alternatives and yet... We're in an energy crisis now, because we're not getting enough fossil fuels to burn.
Renewables are cheaper (and plentiful). If you choose to not build them, no one will shed a tear when you get punched in the face. How’s Germany’s “nuclear turndown and be beholden to Russian gas” policy working out?

Regardless, stop subsidizing fossil fuels. There is no reason not to resource an energy transition and electrification of everything effort as if it was a war effort. To not do so is, clearly, full of economic peril.

Renewables are only cheaper if you count nuclear as a renewable.

When people say solar is cheaper, they neglect to consider the supporting subsidies, or the fact that 76% on global average of solar power is actually natural gas in-fill.

At that rate, the whole grid could go solar and climate change would only be set back three years. It's a farce.

High level, fossil gas filling in when there are renewable shortfalls is acceptable in the short term due to the rapid energy transition occurring.

Australia is on track to hit 100% renewables with solar, wind, batteries, hydro, and transmission in the next decade for example.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewables-g...

Europe has equivalent wind potential to being able to power the world. As more renewables are deployed, this continues to push fossil gas to the margins.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/wind-power-in-europe-...

NextEra’s latest investor deck forecasts battery backed solar and wind cheaper than existing natural gas, coal, and nuclear in the US before the end of the decade.

https://cleantechnica.com/files/2022/06/lcoe-small.jpg?mrf-s...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Regardless of what is "really" cheaper in the market, we absolutely need renewables to be cheaper if we are to survive. We can do this by making them cheaper or by making fossil fuels more expensive. This is totally within the rules and is not "cheating." The market is "real" in some abstract sense but not in the same sense that emissions are. Nature and physics don't care about Exxon's profits, and they don't care whether we have food to eat or air to breathe.
Where does Germany get nuclear fuel from?
Same places as France, which are Kazakhstan (very nice), Canada, and Australia

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c....

If you can do it in every country then I am all for it.

If you do it in your country but your neighbouring country doesn't, then the companies will simply move and things will just get more expensive.

Pay a tax and cut more trees.