People have had several decades of cheap gas. It’s normally much cheaper than oil, but is geographically constrained by transport (hence LNG). We are currently exporting gas to Europe from LNG, hence it is actually a bit cheaper here at the moment, but not much.
Holland have all but shut down Groningen due to little subsidence earthquakes, and that combined with the Norg storage was the backbone of the grid in western Europe. We are currently sending power to France, which is not normal. People campaign in the UK to shut down domestic production without building a replacement first. It’s all a bit of a clusterfuck.
Gas is way cheaper in the US (as an example) at the moment, so if we expose industry to these prices for long they are pretty screwed. I know people focus on the low paid, but that is not really where the big damage will happen.
If you believe that we will cease burning fossil fuels by 2050 then people had better get used to paying a lot more. There are no cheap options given the basic need for either storage or nuclear. Storage costs more than building windmills.
www.fisherhopper.com
