[anovikov]

One thing is true: U.S. natural gas production was critical for EU survival after Russian gas cuts and is still critical for survival of EU support for Ukraine. If not the increase in U.S. supplies, EU won't hold out for long having to buy gas elsewhere as prices won't at all be affordable.

I don't think it makes sense intentionally suppressing fossil fuels production. The way renewables are developing now, they'll start seriously displacing fossil fuels by themselves. The green mania must be over, renewables are at a point they can survive and grow by themselves without being artificially propped and prioritised.

>“Renewable sources have a role to play, but oil and natural gas will be needed for decades,”

Which is true. Coal won't. It's time to end coal. It is possible and beneficial both economically and politically. Oil will stay around for decades no matter what; natural gas for the time being is even beneficial for energy transition and suppressing it is the last thing we need to do.

>“But [the industry] is trying to expand the fossil fuel system, expand pipelines, expand fracking, and make more of our economy and our existence dependent on fossil fuels, even though clean energy is advancing at a rapid rate.”

So good, let them both advance at a rapid rate and see who wins.

[NickC25]

>renewables are at a point they can survive and grow by themselves without being artificially propped and prioritised.

Yet oil was at that phase over a hundred years ago.....and we still to this day prop up O&G companies with massive tax breaks and other benefits.

I'm all for cutting resources to Green Energy to make it more able to stand on its own economically. But we MUST do that for Oil as well, and thinking that we don't spend insane amounts of money securing oil (think wars) and developing its efficiency is just crazy. I'm all for spending the same amount $$-wise on Green energy as we have oil.

Oil was given plenty of time and money to develop into the industry it is. Green energy should be given the same.

[abdullahkhalids]

> Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $7 trillion in 2022 or 7.1 percent of GDP.... Differences between efficient prices and retail fuel prices are large and pervasive, for example, 80 percent of global coal consumption was priced at below half of its efficient level in 2022. [1]

Fossil fuels will die a lot quicker if we stop subsiding them to the tune of 7% of global GDP, i.e. 7% of all economic activity globally is redirected to make fossil fuels cheaper. To put it yet another way, if you work 250 days/year (50 weeks, 5 days/week), then 17.5 days of your work is redirected to make fossil fuels cheaper.

[1] https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2023/08/22/IMF...

[Aunche]

> fossil fuel subsidies were $7 trillion in 2022

Nearly all of that "subsidy" is the lack of taxation of the negative externalities of fossil fuels. Even fossil fuel propaganda isn't this disingenuous with the way it frames things. That's like saying that fossil fuels are under-subsidized by trillions of dollars because they are used to power hospitals and can be used to power hospitals in Africa.

[abdullahkhalids]

Depends on your political values. Many people think it is mandatory for governments to directly tax products with large negative externalities enough to price in those externalities. If a fossil fuel extraction system poisons a river, that needs to be priced in. If the government fails to tax what is mandatorily society's due, then it is a subsidy. Because we have to pay for the poisoned river in other ways.

> fossil fuels are under-subsidized by trillions of dollars because they are used to power hospitals

Nope. Governments/patients pay hospitals for their services, then hospitals pay power companies the market price for their services.

[two_handfuls]

That seems fair to me. Negative externalities are part of the cost we all pay (not the oil companies), just like other forms of subsidy.

[toomuchtodo]

Renewables can lose subsidies when fossil fuel externalities are baked into their prices. Until then, full steam ahead until the last gallon or BTU is burned.

[bdcravens]

The issue isn't the role oil plays in society, but the financial effect changes have on publicly traded oil companies.

After all, horseshoers still exist, but that career path was mostly obliterated by the automobile.