Comment on AI Electric Bills
obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 2 days agoExactly, so there’s never a reason to bring down the price. If anything you’d bring down the supply (e.g. Enron during the California energy crisis).
Comment on AI Electric Bills
obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 2 days agoExactly, so there’s never a reason to bring down the price. If anything you’d bring down the supply (e.g. Enron during the California energy crisis).
spongebue@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I mean… Gas prices are relatively low right now, at least here in 'Merica. I’ve seen them more than double what they are now, how did that happen?
obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Gas isn’t energy, it’s fuel. It’s a commodity with a global market. Producers have to physically store it. Refined gasoline has a shelf life and production is planned weeks to months in advance. If demand falls off their product depreciates and they have storage expenses. If a gas company cuts production below demand competitors can ramp up and eat that market share because consumers have options.
But electricity tends to be a captured, monopolistic market. There’s no scalable physical storage. The supply is whatever they are producing locally right now and they have some say in that. There’s no tanker of Saudi electricity coming to relieve the market and you’re not going to drive your house to a filling station to top off your electricity.
Liquid natural gas is similar, in that most people will just pay whatever is asked for what’s pumped into their homes, but less dramatic because it is a physical commodity that can be replaced or substituted.
spongebue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It absolutely is. Do I need to explain why that’s a ridiculous take, or have you had enough coffee by now to realize it?
obsoleteacct@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
It absolutely is not. It is a commodity fuel that can be converted into heat energy when vaporized and ignited by a secondary energy source. You can pour it directly into a combustion engine and nothing will happen until you provide a spark. It can evaporate without being converted into a significant source of energy.
Electricity is energy. It does not need a secondary source of energy to convert it into heat or light. Electricity arcs through the atmosphere it instantly and automatically converts to light and heat.
That’s why they are produced, transported, and sold in such radically different ways.