<story><title>The Era of Cheap Natural Gas Ends as Prices Surge by 1000%</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-06/the-era-of-cheap-natural-gas-ends-as-prices-surge-by-1-000</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mbgerring</author><text>This is good, because this will make renewables more competitive with natural gas than they already are, which will provide leverage to people arguing for more renewable capacity instead of gas. Natural gas has already fulfilled its usefulness as a  “bridge fuel,” and here on the other side of the bridge, renewables are getting cheaper and more reliable by the day. It’s time to move on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gbrown</author><text>People look at me funny when I say I hope gas prices go up. It’s just basic economics - we’re running up ruinous externality debt, so just about anything that pushes us towards sustainability is good.&lt;p&gt;There should be some incentive not to drive an F350 to an office job…</text></comment>
<story><title>The Era of Cheap Natural Gas Ends as Prices Surge by 1000%</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-06/the-era-of-cheap-natural-gas-ends-as-prices-surge-by-1-000</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mbgerring</author><text>This is good, because this will make renewables more competitive with natural gas than they already are, which will provide leverage to people arguing for more renewable capacity instead of gas. Natural gas has already fulfilled its usefulness as a  “bridge fuel,” and here on the other side of the bridge, renewables are getting cheaper and more reliable by the day. It’s time to move on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fuoqi</author><text>&amp;gt;Natural gas has already fulfilled its usefulness as a “bridge fuel”&lt;p&gt;Seeing how Poland still gets approximately 70% of its electricity from coal, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t say so. Also until the grid-scale storage problem (at least on the level of storing several days of grid consumption) will not be properly solved (personally I am fan of underground pumped hydro storage built on top of artificially dug cavities), I don&amp;#x27;t think we will see large predominantly renewable grids not backed up by natural gas power plants.&lt;p&gt;And don&amp;#x27;t forget that natural gas consumption is not only about electricity. But also about heat generation (both in households and industry) and production of various chemicals.</text></comment>