$5 gas could become widespread as prices hit another record | Hacker News Reader

$5 gas could become widespread as prices hit another record

cnn.com

14 pointspaulpauper15 comments

In the short term this is harmful for consumers, hitting low income people the hardest. In the long run maybe it's beneficial because it incentivizes people and governments to transition to lower cost and more efficient (both from an economic and environmental perspective) forms of transit like walking, cycling, public transit, electric vehicles, etc. But maybe in the long run it is harmful to the climate change cause because it helps elect climate deniers.

IMO, in the long term it will be more harmful at all levels, because the reaction to price increases will be a political reaction (despite that being relatively irrelevant) and a longer lasting disdain for policies that were enacted or proposed too fast and too soon for a proper transition away to be feasible. The only solution I see is for fossil fuel prices to continue to rise regardless of political will or technology or any such thing, with accompanying mass disaster and die-off -- essentially a sacrifice to the poorly defined gods of environmentalism who demand an ironically conservative state of existence.

The most popular car in the US does half the MPG of popular cars in Europe, so petrol has been too cheap; especially when when you consider that the average person in the US drives nearly twice the distance per years compared to people in Europe. Having said that, most people in the US cannot simply reduce how much they drive as towns and cities have designed for cars as the primary mode of transport.

It’s also harmful to farmers and people who have to drive farther because they can’t afford condos downtown.

EVs are still too expensive, because the cars are too large and heavy.

We need more light electric vehicles with max speeds of 75mph. Bigger than a golf cart and smaller than a Tesla Model 3.

A Nissan Leaf is bigger than a golf cart but smaller than a Tesla Model 3. The max speed part is mostly irrelevant. Electric vehicles are expensive and heavy primarily because that's the only practical way to comply with safety regulations, as well as to meet consumer requirements for comfort and performance.

Electric costs will rise too.

Electric costs will only fall as renewables are deployed. Enough sunlight hits the earth in 30 minutes to power civilization for a year.

Electric costs will only rise as expensive storage systems and higher capacity grid ties are deployed. Renewable generation is great, but it's useless for much of the day when there's little wind or sunshine. So in order to prevent outages we need to either import the power from far away, or store enough to cover multiple days of generation shortfalls.

Don’t forget that transmission is a huge component of electricity cost and only going to increase with congestion and inflation.

Transmission isn’t necessary if local generation offsets local consumption.

Wow! Great stat, do you have a source so I can use that elsewhere?

I misspoke. It’s every 2 minutes.

> Every two minutes, the energy reaching the earth from the sun is equivalent to the whole annual energy use of humanity. All the energy … the cars, lighting, and air conditioning of the world … in one year is equivalent to two minutes of the sun,” said Dr Lamya N. Fawwaz, vice-president for Institutional Advancement and Public Affairs at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST).

https://www.energy.gov/articles/top-6-things-you-didnt-know-...

https://gulfnews.com/uae/environment/two-minutes-of-sun-enou...

JP Morgan is saying $6.20 or higher by Labor Day (September).

If this keeps the poors off the roads, maybe not such a bad thing. Less traffic benefits everyone.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com