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floatrockyesterday at 8:20 PM1 replyview on HN

It's a cute ideal, but you can't disentangle government from the energy sector. It's too big.

How do markets build infrastructure as large as an LNG terminal without the government tipping the scales with various guarantees? How do you build a literal coastline of refineries without government clearing the way with permissive regulations? How can you say "let markets figure it out" when the US military is the acquisition department of Halliburton's Iraqi joint venture?

Pretending "markets can figure it out if we just remove government subsidies" is hopelessly naiive. Geopolitics is mostly energy policy.


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JumpCrisscrossyesterday at 8:29 PM

> you can't disentangle government from the energy sector

Nobody argued as much. My point is the net effect of social pressure on the energy transformation has been costly—financially and politically—for relatively little bang.

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