[slashdev]

You're talking about electricity, so I assume your answer is directed to the natural gas fields at Groningen. The EU imports a lot of natural gas. Don't you think it would be better to have a domestic supply? It's better for the environment too.

Heck right now, Europe is still burning coal (and worse yet - lignite coal) for electricity. Natural gas would be a huge improvement on that.

Note that drilling for oil in the North Sea is a completely different subject, because that's not used for electricity generation, nor is electricity a substitute. EV market share in Europe is still far too low for that to be a conversation for a long time.

Your comment is wishful thinking and ignores the current reality of how Europe imports and uses energy.

But even if your best case scenario were somehow possible (and it really isn't) there's still money to be made exporting fossil fuels to the developing world. So your assertion "inefficient use of capital to support more fossil exploration" is just flat wrong.

[toomuchtodo]

No, everything can move to electricity, China is doing it, Europe can too. You are free to your opinion, but the facts and evidence are clear. If you would like an hour of time with an expert from Ember Energy to explain this, happy to pay for that hour of time for you to update your priors and mental model on the topic of Europe's energy transition trajectory.

> Note that drilling for oil in the North Sea is a completely different subject, because that's not used for electricity generation, nor is electricity a substitute. EV market share in Europe is still far too low for that to be a conversation for a long time.

Europe's EV uptake will speed based on the price of oil increasing and remaining high for the foreseeable future.

> But even if your best case scenario were somehow possible (and it really isn't) there's still money to be made exporting fossil fuels to the developing world. So your assertion "inefficient use of capital to support more fossil exploration" is just flat wrong.

The developing world is leapfrogging fossil fuels and going straight to solar, batteries, and EVs. What will expensive LNG do to this market? It will force them to renewables and electric mobility faster. Ethopia's uptake of EVs after they banned combustion vehicles is an example of this. Why did they ban combustion vehicles? Because they have no domestic fossil fuel supplies and the import cost was crushing them; their EVs are powered by domestic hydro electricity production.

Citations:

Surging Gas Prices Reignite EV Interest - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-14/iran-war-... | https://archive.today/BkAfR - March 14th, 2026

Global EV sales hit 1.1 million – Europe surges while the US slides - https://electrek.co/2026/03/12/global-ev-sales-hit-1-1-milli... | https://archive.today/nhIbF - March 12th, 2026

EVs Avoided the Use of 2.3M Barrels of Oil per Day in 2025 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47420092 - March 2026

Electric Vehicle Sales Boom as Ethiopia Bans Fossil-Fuel Car Imports - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47068567 - February 2026

How we made it: will China be the first electrostate? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44101275 - May 2025

Massive global growth of renewables to 2030 is set to match entire power capacity of major economies today, moving world closer to tripling goal - https://www.iea.org/news/massive-global-growth-of-renewables... - October 9th, 2024

The World Hit ‘Peak’ Gas-Powered Vehicle Sales — in 2017 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-30/world-hit... - January 30th, 2024

[slashdev]

I agree that it can. I won't live to see it, and I hope I live 50 years more.

You're living in a fantasy world that doesn't exist.

Global consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas all rose in 2025. We've not even peaked yet.[1]

[1] https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/record-fossi...

[randerson]

Doesn't the world only have about 50 years [0] worth of oil remaining in the ground? Climate change and war aside, it seems like that should be a major reason to accelerate the change to renewables.

[0] https://www.worldometers.info/oil/

[slashdev]

No I don't think so. The oil industry is very good at discovering and developing resources previously thought to be out of reach.

People have been talking about peak oil for decades, as long as I can remember, and it never happened.

I think we're technologically capable of extracting more oil, coal, and gas than we would ever want to. We would cook ourselves with the damage we'd do to the climate. I think that's the real constraint - and I hope we pay attention to it.

[fsterneder]

Conventional oil actually peaked around 2005–2006, but the shale oil revolution in the U.S. and technological advances have certainly postponed peak oil itself.

Here comes the kicker, though: we obviously extracted the easy-to-access resources first. While there may be counterexamples, looking at ore grades makes it clear that this is not particular to oil.

What happens next is that the economics of the wells are getting worse, which means we need a higher oil price for them to be viable. This also results in a lower energy return on energy invested (EROI), which reduces the surplus energy available to transform our environment. Consequently, this implies slower growth in the economy. Which I think is pretty obvious in the west and would explain the explosion of debt.

[slashdev]

I think your analysis is US-centric. I don't think non-shale oil has peaked yet globally.

What you say about the economics getting worse and lower EROI may be true. It certainly seems like common sense. There are some counter-examples though.

The inflation adjusted cost of extracting oil from the oil sands in Alberta, Canada has actually decreased over time, not increased.

But generally I'd expect increasing cost of extraction to be the norm.

[toomuchtodo]

I've done my best to educate with facts and citations. Appreciate the discussion regardless. My offer stands to pay for you to talk to a subject matter expert.

Edit (to respond to your edit):

> Global consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas all rose in 2025. We've not even peaked yet.

Do you think global LNG consumption will peak considering a material amount of production has been taken offline for the next five years as of today? If I am an LNG consumer on the global market, am I re-evaluating my options today for the next half decade of energy needs? And we are not even done yet with additional potential attacks on Middle Eastern fossil infrastructure as long as the conflict continues; there are more targets available, and more capacity that could be diminished for the foreseeable future.

Oil and gas prices jump after Iran and Israel attack gasfields - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47441351 - March 2026

Iran attack wipes out 17% of Qatar’s LNG capacity for up to five years, QatarEnergy CEO says- https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2026/03/19/iran-attack-... - March 19th, 2026

From your citation:

> Renewable energy continues to expand rapidly, but not fast enough for a total reduction in fossil fuels. Emissions from burning oil are projected to rise by 1% in 2025, while gas emissions are set to increase by 1.3%, and coal by 0.8%.

These increases are not material in a world where 1TW/year of solar PV is being deployed. Global solar capacity doubles every three years [!!] at current rates. If that rate holds, without accounting for increases of that rate as more PV manufacturing capacity comes online, it will replace all fossil energy globally (not just fossil electricity, all fossil energy use) in under twenty years when you consider the efficiency gains of not burning fuel for energy.

Highlights of the global energy transition in 2025 - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/highlights-of-the-g... - December 17th, 2025

> Solar and wind are now expanding fast enough to meet all new electricity demand, a milestone reached in the first three quarters of 2025. Ember’s analysis published in November shows that these technologies are no longer just catching up; they are outpacing demand growth itself. Together, solar and wind supplied 17.6% of global electricity in the first three quarters of 2025, up from 15.2% over the same period last year, pushing the total share of low-carbon sources to 43%.

> For the first time across a sustained period, renewables, including solar, wind, hydro and smaller sources such as geothermal, generated more electricity than coal. At the heart of this shift is solar, whose growth was more than three times larger than any other source of electricity so far in 2025, confirming its role as the dominant force reshaping the global power system. Another analysis showed that the world is set to add 793 GW of renewable capacity in 2025, up 11% from the 717 GW added in 2024. At this pace, only a modest increase in annual additions is needed for the world to stay on track to triple global renewables by 2030.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-installed-wind...

The exponential growth of solar power will change the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40746617 - June 2024 (66 comments)

[slashdev]

We're making great progress, this is true. But we're also still increasing our consumption of fossil fuels.

Let's put a number on it. When do you think we reach 50% of today's consumption of fossil fuels? IEA seems to think it continues to grow until 2050. https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/iea-energy-outlook-2025-9.69...

If that's true, I don't think we reach 50% of current levels by 2100. That's my very non-scientific WAG. I'll be long dead by then. Europe, if they continued drilling in the North Sea and Groningen would have long since exhausted them - a great capital expenditure and investment to bring things back to the original subject of conversation.

What do you think? That would give me a good window into how realistic your view is.

I think where you're going wrong is perhaps not taking into account continued increases in per-capita energy usage worldwide. But of course that will happen, not just because of population growth, not just because of the rest of the world rising slowly towards Western standards of living, but continued technological progress which depends on energy (or at least it has been that way historically.)

Doomberg (the green chicken) correctly observes that when we add a new energy source to the mix, we don't tend to decrease our consumption of previous energy sources.

For example: global wood consumption for energy is at or near all-time high levels, with approximately 2 billion cubic meters (m³) of wood fuel consumed in 2023, up from 1.5 billion m³ in 1961. While the percentage of global energy provided by wood has plummeted from over 90% in the early 19th century to around 3-6% today, the total volume burned has increased, driven by population growth in developing nations and increasing bioenergy use in developed ones.

[nandomrumber]

Those people, and the world in general, would be better off burning natural gas for heating and cooking, rather than wood.

But environmentalists in the west deny them that option because they don’t give a fuck about poor people, they can just freeze in the dark or choke on the fumes of whatever plant fibres / dung they can scavenge from the local environment.

I don’t know how else to frame it.

I spent, more like wasted, two decades of my live in the cult of environmentalism, and they literally just out and say it: some people are going to die in the transition away from fossil fuels, oh well.

That’s easy to say when it’s not you who’s going to freeze in the dark.

[nandomrumber]

> Why did they ban combustion vehicles? Because they have no domestic fossil fuel supplies and the import cost was crushing them

Your closing argument is that some far away land with no nat gas / oil reserves of their own isn’t convincing anyone with nat gas / oil reserves of their own.

Europeans need inexpensive fuels to power their existing fleet or vehicles now.

Ethiopia’s plan doesn’t generalise.

[toomuchtodo]

Europe has no choice but to lean into low carbon generation and EVs now, their hand is forced by geopolitical energy events outside of their control. These options are objectively cheaper than attempting to develop new domestic fossil resources.

China will build every cheap EV Europe will buy if the EU cannot build them fast enough (citations on EU EV sales are in my comment you replied to), so buy them or experience economic pain and ongoing energy inflation from choosing to continue to burn fossil fuels for energy. These are straightforward choices to make. The clean energy path is the cheaper path, based on all available data as of this comment.

(from your profile, "They force us to use extremely expensive renewable energy to run our energy efficient extremely disposable appliances," so I'm unsure how effective facts and data will be in this discussion, but I am trying very hard to share the relevant facts as a shared foundation to discuss from)

Citations:

Germany's Solar Boom Eases Power Costs as Gas Price Jumps - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47323028 - March 2026

Lazard LCOE+ 2025 [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184980 - March 2026

Wind power slashed 4.6B euros off electricity bills in Spain last year - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46622463 - January 2026

France's 2024 Power Grid Was 95% Fossil Free as Nuclear, Renewables Jumped - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42770556 - January 2025

[slashdev]

I am 100% bullish on both solar energy and EVs, and I share your optimism around the technology.

But I think you're being too optimistic about what this means for global fossil fuel usage. Definitely over the next decade, but potentially over much longer periods than that.

[nandomrumber]

> Europe has no choice

I’ve been following you for 13 years in this site, and I really expect more intellectually honest comments from you.

You’re trying to tell us that developing new battery technology, new storage technology, deploying more wind / solar and replacing the entire European vehicle fleet, is cheaper than building new oil / gas infrastructure.

I’m not buying it.

Regarding the comment in my profile, I’ve done warranty repair work on home appliances. Some manufacturers have moved to assembly methods that render appliances uneconomical to repair, or impractical. Also, in Australia, electricity price increases have been double or triple that of general inflation.

The comment in my profile is an objective assessment of the facts, not an ideological screed.

[toomuchtodo]

> I’ve been following you for 13 years in this site, and I really expect more intellectually honest comments from you.

I believe the failure is on your part, not my part, as I am simply providing facts. Whether you agree with facts is beyond my control. They remain facts. You keep stating, inaccurately, that renewables and batteries are expensive, when they are the cheapest combined generation technology. This is widely proven, and again, I am sorry if for whatever reason you are ignoring that fact.

> Also, in Australia, electricity price increases have been double or triple that of general inflation.

The facts do not align with your assertion. I have provided citations below to assist you in updating your mental model on the price and carbon intensity trajectory of the Australian power markets.

Power prices expected to fall by up to 10% from July, bringing ‘welcome relief’ to Australia’s east coast - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/19/power... - March 19th, 2026

> Power prices on Australia’s east coast are predicted to fall from July because of increased output from wind generation and batteries, and falling electricity contract prices, with potential savings up to $1,320 for some small businesses. In a draft decision on Thursday, the Australia Energy Regulator (AER) proposed a price reduction for customers on standing electricity plans – known as the “default market offer” – of between 1.3% to 10.1% for residential customers, and between 8.5% and 21.2% for small businesses, depending on the region. Savage said reduced wholesale prices were the “biggest driver” behind the draft decision for 2026-27. “We’ve had lots more renewables come into the market. We’ve had good wind, solar and battery performance.” The draft determination also introduces the “solar sharer” offer, an opt-in plan that includes three hours of free power in the middle of the day to take advantage of abundant solar energy. The energy minister, Chris Bowen, said the idea was designed to share the benefits of Australia’s solar success. “For households that can shift some of their usage into the free power period, this can mean real savings on bills, whether that is running the dishwasher, doing the washing, or heating hot water during the day.”

Solar is so cheap and plentiful (as there is not yet enough battery storage on the network to time shift this power), they plan to give it away for free for ~3 hours/day in parts of the Australian NEM system.

Australia's renewables boom delivers coveted power price payoff - https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/australias-renew... - February 10th, 2026 ("Australia's wholesale electricity prices fell to the lowest in four years in 2025, bucking the rising price trends seen elsewhere and validating claims that renewables-heavy power system overhauls can help lower consumer power costs.")

Near 100 pct renewable electricity for Australia’s main grid is achievable and affordable: Year 4 update - https://reneweconomy.com.au/near-100-pct-renewable-electrici... - January 29th, 2026

Big batteries oust gas in ‘transformational’ grid overhaul - https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/big-batteries-... - January 26th, 2026

Australia becomes world’s third-largest utility battery market - https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/10/21/australia-becomes-wor... - October 21st, 2025

Further data can confirm this at https://openelectricity.org.au/ (which has both carbon intensity and price data for all Australian electrical grids except the Northern Territory)

[nandomrumber]

I’m an Australian living in Australia connected to the eastern grid.

I have the invoices from my electricity bills to prove my assertion.

I used to pay 12 cents per kilowatt hour, now I pay 36 cents or more. That’s a 300% increase for electricity prices vs, if I recall correctly, 26% for general inflation over the same 25 year period.

And you’re trying to tell me I’m wrong.

Why?

I’ll believe a drop in electricity prices when I see it.