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Comment by danny_codes | Hacker News Reader

I would argue it’s a waste of resources. Fossil fuels will be phased out over the next 50 years. If China is an indicator it can be done quite a bit faster than you’d think.

It’s already questionable to build fossil fuel capacity at today’s prices. In 10 years it won’t make any financial sense. In 20 you’d be laughed out of the room.

Why waste money on a dying technology? It’d be like mining bitcoin

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(Based on AI research) fossile fuel production takes a few years to recoup investment. Only refineries seem quite long term (15-20 years). I'm sure the companies have projections about future demand to decide which projects are worth pursuing. If they miscalculate, the oil companies loose money (oh no! /s). Anyway, you won't loose money on this.

There is of course also an argument about national security, not being at the whim of some Iranian dictator. So some form of government investment would be justified, but not necessary IMO.

I do lose money on this. I (and you, and the rest of the world) have to both clean up emissions and pay for climate change. The more we emit the worse the effects.

Right, but that negative externality is on emissions. For emissions it doesn't really matter who is producing the oil.

Or we could invest in renewables. Renewables get cheaper than oil when you do that. Then nobody produces oil.

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