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Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

timharford.com

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Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#31

Post by themitigating »

luckylion wrote: post #28
kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

It's pretty much what environmentalists have done with dams, right? They buy them and then dismantle them to restore the natural flow of rivers. It's more effective than lobbying the government to pass legislation forcing the removal of the dam.

Has this happened frequently?

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#32

Post by oezi »

roenxi wrote: post #20
oezi wrote: post #11

Why buy coal mines if you could just by oil tankers and let them idle? This would drive up oil prices in many places, reduce demand demand for oil and make renewables and energy efficient technologies more competitive.

For starters that plan probably wouldn't work. The cost of taking that much much oil out of the market and sitting it idly would bankrupt the parties involved. For seconds if the plan did work, the group responsible would likely be designated as terrorists and get taken out by the US military.

Why would it bankrupt anybody? Letting it sit idle or scrapping it aren't too expensive when compared to the saved CO2.

The US would have certainly done something when they still were highly dependent on foreign oil.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#33

Post by KarlKemp »

kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

Not if environmentalists also managed to shut down or replace consumers of coal, such as power plants.

Since power plants are usually run by utility companies that often have governments as major shareholders and the general public (including environmentalists and people sympathetic to their goals) as direct customers, they are more likely to be receptive to pressure than coal mines, which are often privately held corporations that sell into the anonymity of bulk markets.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#34

Post by Sharlin »

themitigating wrote: post #31
luckylion wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty much what environmentalists have done with dams, right? They buy them and then dismantle them to restore the natural flow of rivers. It's more effective than lobbying the government to pass legislation forcing the removal of the dam.

Has this happened frequently?

A small-ish scale recent example in Finland: https://hiitolanjoki.fi/en/category/hiitolanjoki-river-resto...

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#35

Post by lucian1900 »

anamax wrote: post #18
Syonyk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And having been "grad school broke" during that era, it absolutely destroyed a decade's worth of cheap "runs and drives" grade cars that I drove and most of my friends drove. $100 cars were suddenly $1000 cars in a few months, which was fine if you owned one, bad if you were looking for another backyard project you could limp home and work on for a while. "Destroying the long tail of cheap resources for political poi…

Eggs, comrade, eggs. Specifically your eggs. No, there won't be omelets. What are you, some sort of kulak?

We communists frequently argue against such programmes and instead for cheap and rational transportation for the working class, like trains, light rail and biofuel cars for rural areas.

And kulaks had it coming, even my great-granddad. Destroying food during a famine is inhuman.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#37

Post by lkbm »

runnerup wrote: post #12
kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

Yes this is similar to China attempting to corner the market on Lithium, but then as soon as they squeezed prices, Chile suddenly built out a massive amount of Lithium production. You cannot "buy all the coal" any more than you can: - buy all the oil (OPEC vs. NA shale fracking) - buy all the lithium (China vs. Chile) - buy all the magnesium (Freeport, TX vs. China vs. get from any seawater anywhere)

People can still start new mines, but the price of coal will increase due to the capital costs that incurs (and the time it takes to ramp up production). This works the same as a tax on coal, or a subsidy on its competitors: some people will keep using it, but people on the margins will be pushed to the alternative.

The fact that the cost increase is likely front-loaded due to the time it takes to ramp up a new mine is probably extra beneficial in the case of coal, since it's on its way out as a technology. Mining coal might be worth it right now, but will it be worth it by the time your new mine is up and running?

With lithium, the answer would be yes, because lithium demand is growing. With coal, hopefully not so much.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#38

Post by FriedPickles »

To further develop the idea of letting EVs go to people who will drive them the most, the true bottleneck is batteries. So, the problem is to get batteries on the road in a way that they will displace the most gas miles as soon as possible.

This suggests a far more effective strategy of first replacing the fleet with plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), then in a second stage, replace those with full EVs. For most city vehicles, a PHEV will electrify the majority of the miles with a fraction of the battery capacity.

Driving an EV is a green status symbol now. I wonder if they could in the future be viewed as "battery hogs".

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#39

Post by freediver »

oezi wrote: post #11

Why buy coal mines if you could just by oil tankers and let them idle? This would drive up oil prices in many places, reduce demand demand for oil and make renewables and energy efficient technologies more competitive.

To take the idea a bit further, you make them into floating plantations, delivering fresh fruit/vegetables to any location in the world.

Re: Buy a coal mine, drive a gas guzzler, and other uses of reverse logic

#40

Post by nextplease »

runnerup wrote: post #12
kansface wrote: post #9

If environmentalists made major impact shutting down mines, the price of coal would go up incentivizing new ones or at least to increase the output of existing ones - demand hasn’t changed. Just the same with buying gas stations and shutting them down, too.

Yes this is similar to China attempting to corner the market on Lithium, but then as soon as they squeezed prices, Chile suddenly built out a massive amount of Lithium production. You cannot "buy all the coal" any more than you can: - buy all the oil (OPEC vs. NA shale fracking) - buy all the lithium (China vs. Chile) - buy all the magnesium (Freeport, TX vs. China vs. get from any seawater anywhere)

'Sodic aluminum oxide', anyone? Seems like... it is um winter !? (-;
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