this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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It seems to me that every major conflict (Russia, Middle East) spikes oil prices, relatively unpredictably (if you can call this unpredictable).
Maybe the world should look for alternative sources of energy, which are abundant, cheap, and can be deployed non centrally?
No. No thatβs insane.
These prices are literally controlled by price-fixing cartels.
But Europe is investing hundreds of billions in North Sea wind farms to generate hydrogen for heating, it was initiated by Putin's actions.
https://www.cip.com/projects/our-projects/hydrogen-island/
Now we just have to hope that people dont dig up this bullshit idea of using hydrogen to heat your own house.
There's really nothing wrong with generating hydrogen when power costs are negative.
Except that only happens like 500 hours a year.
And hydrogen will leak from any tank.
And it turns metal brittle.
And I wouldn't trust my neighbor with a propane tank, let alone hydrogen.
And its nearly impossible to transport through existing infrastructure.
But other than that, its great!
You forgot about the part where the possibility of generating hydrogen cleanly from electricity later is used as an excuse to build infrastructure and fuel-cell cars for it now, even though hydrogen now is dirty hydrogen produced by cracking fossil fuels.
I have no confidence that the second phase of switching to electrolysis would actually happen, and that "the hydrogen economy" isn't just a greenwashing scam perpetrated by natural gas producers.
What's that? I couldn't hear you over the nonstop greenwashing of gas cracking plants.
Wow! so glad we have clean coal now!
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The Gang Heat Their House With Hydrogen
Like, in place of natural gas?
Yeah
I always love the stupidity of this idea: You were able to generate pure hydrogen at high costs... Now what should we do with it? Well lets just do what we did since the middle ages and burn it!
Well, there are useful appliances for hydrogen, where you just burn it. Burning it to heat your own home isnt one if them.
Hydrogen has one of the highest energy densities by mass. It's a very reasonable energy storage
If you're launching a rocket, sure. If cost or difficulty matters in any way compared to raw mass, not really.
It was talked about for cars where density kinda matters, but you could put them in a fuel cell that way instead of just burning it, and I'm not sure if it was ever anywhere close to economical.
The cost probably will go down, and with any luck the cost of polluting will go up, but electricity is going to be more practical for most things.
But think of the fireworks! /s
Whatever comes next Iβm prepared to be deeply disappointed by my government and our European partners on this. βMake gas cheaperβ is probably at the very top of every leaderβs to do list tomorrow.
The pedofile parasite class says no
Yeah, but power sources that don't spew fumes are for limp-wristed queers. /s
Gas is not oil.
Why is this downvoted? This guy is technically correct.Β
Because Lemmy. Facts lose to feels.
Yes, then we will fight over Rare Earths.
I mean sure but if you already own an electric car then a spike in battery price doesnβt particularly affect your day to day like a spike in gas prices would.
Much of Europe uses gas for heating their houses. Much of industry uses vast amounts of gas for heating all sorts of materials from asphalt to bread.
Yeah fair, itβs mostly useless in my state, but very prevalent in other states I just forget it exists. But also swapping a stove, water heater, and AC is still a lot cheaper than a new car. (I mean the AC is the only one thatβs even close) are there other things people use gas for Iβm forgetting?
Heating. Swapping which is far above the price of a used car.
Edit: i realize now you said water heater, but switching off gas generally involves swapping the entire heatinf system, the costs of which are usually 5 digit for a single family home.
Fair, most buying an EV I assumed are new and not used so I was looking at like 30-60k (in America) for car vs like 10-20k for new AC/water heater/stove+new wiring (more expensive than the stove or water heater themselves.) but itβs a lot more comparable when looking at used (still like 10-20k). Also realize availability and pricing for cars is likely better outside the US.
Also I realize Iβm in hot world where AC=heating and cooling and in not-hot world heating and AC might not be interchangeable but I canβt imagine heating costs much more than an AC unit?
I think bombs dropping on heads will still affect daily life.
Rare earths are not geographically rare. There is just a lower % of them per sample.
They also are used in ICE catalytic convertors in every vehicle. But, unlike ICE, EV rare earths can be recycled.
You can recycle catalytic converters though, that's really not the big problem for combustion engines..
not very efficiently. There's a reason crackheads steal newer ones.
Yes, it is more so the efficient processing and refining that is rare.
You can make a T-shirt anywhere, but if you have to first build your own cotton farms and factories locally, construction will take years and your shirts will cost 10x more.
Sodium ion batteries are already in production. They're not quite at the energy density of lithium but it's close and also irrelevant for grid storage.
Rare earths aren't just used in batteries, lol
Are they? I haven't really been able to find any being offered.
https://electrek.co/2026/02/05/first-sodium-ion-battery-ev-debuts-game-changer/
Cool! I kinda meant "can I buy the cells", but if they're being produced in car scales, it'll probably be a yes pretty soon.
After a little more digging, yes you can!
https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/catl-sodium-ion-battery-cell.html