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Once industries transition away from tooling that uses gas/oil, there will be significant cost to re-tooling back to using oil or gas. At this point oil/gas losses value because there is a barrier to using it. If all cars on the road are electric cars, then oil refined into gasoline won't see much use and the price will drop (relative to the costs to harvest it). It's not like a rise in the price of electricity will send people with 100% electric cars running to the gas pump.



> It's not like a rise in the price of electricity will send people with 100% electric cars running to the gas pump.

And, with the cost of renewables continuing to drop, along with government incentives, I don't ever see the cost of electricity going back up. Ever.


Well, my point was that the 100% electric cars don't run on gas. They would have to purchase a new car to take advantage of the gas prices, which is a higher barrier than just choosing to fill up with "electric fuel" or "liquid fuel" when your car is running low.


Why do local utilities beg people to reduce their electricity usage?


Because the cheapest watt to generate is the one you didn't have to generate in the first place.

On the other hand, Texas has so much wind power locally that they can't ship out of the state yet that some utilities give power away for free at night:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/business/energy-environmen...

As more renewables come online (and they will, I assure you), this will further drive down the per kwh cost.




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