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Comment by briantakita | Hacker News Reader

> Natural gas is a slightly different story. It is not as much a global commodity. A decline of 3 to 4 percent in American production would raise prices by as much as 10 percent.

> In terms of carbon emissions, nothing much would happen at all, he concludes

There's no mention of fracking or other environmental damage encouraged by these subsidies

It goes without saying that these subsidies cost all Americans money & channels focus away from renewal energy.

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Fracking does not exist because of subsidies. The concept itself existed since the 60's or so, but it never become economical until $100 oil (natural gas is also produced as a byproduct). Currently American production is declining year over year due to low prices, subsidy or not. Furthermore, one needs to separate the subsidies that go to the oil industry - not like it all goes to fracking companies.

Natural gas wouldn't just increase by 10%. That statement alone makes me not click on the article. Gas is still under half of global prices in the US (due to poor transport), despite this summer's runup. A decline in production, meaning supply balance, would wildly swing prices higher. It wasn't long ago that prices were $4-5 per mcf.

Yes. Natural gas is absurdly cheap in most of the US, most of the time due to the facts that (as you say) most of it is landlocked, or stranded, or some form of can't get it to market because of the pipeline network; and that Aubrey Mcclendon leased up half the damned country and frac'ed it all as fast as he could, flooding the markets. We see periodic rises when the Northeast has a cold winter, but unless LNG exporting becomes a thing we'll be in the low single digits for another five or ten years or more.

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