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Archaris t1_j8yz0iw wrote

Reply to comment by dontpet in Globally, the total cost of energy for households has likely increased between 62.6% and 112.9% since Russia invaded Ukraine, say international researchers. An additional 78–141 million people worldwide could be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of these increases. by MistWeaver80

> rising demand

limited demand... from what? a return to pre-pandemic production levels? The production was always there (no missing refineries afaik) they just have a few convenient reasons to gouge everyone unable to negotiate fair prices.

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Discount_gentleman t1_j901ara wrote

Speaking as someone who hates oil companies, I disagree. The energy transition is going to be very messy by definition. There are lots of factors and they all have different time scales, which makes it impossible to match them up. Oil and gas investments have minimum payback periods of 5-30 years, and so they can't respond to short term events, even intense ones. As global demand for fossil fuels falls, it will get even messier.

I'm not saying the fossil fuel companies are all acting in good faith, I'm saying it doesn't matter. They couldn't match supply to demand effectively even if they wanted to.

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The_2nd_Coming t1_j97ir5a wrote

I mean that's the whole reason why free markets are so powerful; it let's market forces eventually solve these supply and demand problems.

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