this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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If the electricity bill would be lower people would use more energy and switch to electric cars real fast. I'm sure some people would not change their habits, but I'm inclined to think a lot of people would just use more and care a bit less about trying to use it as efficiently as possible.
Just take cars as an example. Everyone wants low gas prices, but when gas prices are low, people are buying bigger cars that consumes more gas/energy. Another example are places with renewable energy powering the grid, having cheaper electricity, but also ending up using more per person.
Those places have super high percentages of cheap renewable energy being generated, but they also consume much more per inhabitant. Sure, if we cover the earth in solar panels, reservoirs, tap geothermal, and have enough energy to waste for everybody, and every manufacture. But this takes resources, space, batteries, and ends up polluting too. The less we need, the better it is for everyone.
I'm not saying we don't need renewable nor deserve lower bills. Just that the actual system of consumption cannot only be reduced to "more cheap renewable energy". I'm in Québec and energy is mostly renewable and relatively cheap here. But we also can't just continue to build giant reservoirs visible from space to quench our insatiable appetite for electricity. We'll have to learn to use less energy too; be more efficient with what we have. Not just convert everything to renewable and call it a day.
We don't just do it for cheapness sake. We mainly do it for sustainability. Cheapness and abundance is a bonus.
Let's spare the power grid by building AI datacenters instead, noted.
I'm just pointing out that cheaper energy means people tend to use more. I'm very much for renewable energy and against AI. Just that we also need to find ways to be much more efficient with it. I live in a place with "cheap" renewable energy and we use more per capita than most of the rest of the world. So it's just something to keep in mind. I'm saying it's excellent to have renewable energy, it's excellent to have it as cheap as possible, but it can also lead to waste and pollution in other ways.
You don't have to make a false dichotomy where it's either one or the other.
EDIT: Just to give you an example. People know here that our energy is "renewable" and cheap. So when we're asked to reduce usage during peaks, there's a few people yelling at the top of their lungs that we just have to build more dams, flood more land, and that "water will always flow in the turbines anyway".
How markedly do people stop caring because of price?
I don't think the source of the energy has a significant impact but have no data to back it up.
Hydro may be clean but it sure as hell ain't environment-friendly.
How does this article manage to say so many things about energy use in arctic tundras without even once recognizing that just maybe it takes more energy to heat a living space in an arctic tundra? Bafflingly stupid analysis.
Honestly, if anyone is talking the freaking arctic when discussing the energy transition, they're a bad faith actor and can be completely ignored. We care about the bulk of energy usage. The tiny little remainder is irrelevant. A few innuit can keep their gas generators for all I care.
Have you read it? Translated or in French? Because this is a list of facts, with a conclusion addressing what you are pointing out. It's literally from the government of the province.
Translated: The province of Québec, with its cold climate, has high energetic needs during the peaks of extreme cold periods, because the whole population has to heat their homes at the same time. Those periods, called power peaks, are only lasting for a few hours every year, but are putting pressure on the network.
Also, those places have summer. Most of the population in Québec and Norway don't live in an arctic tundra.
A few hours a year? That's what batteries are for.
I guess the issue I have is less the report itself, but the way you are trying to wield it to prove that the concept of induced demand which is not what the report is talking about at all.