What higher, volatile energy prices mean for clean energy transition

After Russia invaded Ukraine, energy prices spiked. U.S. crude oil prices reached as high as $130 on March 6, the highest since July 2008. About a week later, U.S. gasoline prices hit a record high price of $4.33 per gallon. Around the same time, natural gas futures in the European Union hit a record high of €345 per megawatt-hour.

In the time since, gas prices and natural gas have come off their highs and gas prices should come down eventually, though slower than President Joe Biden would like.  

Higher and more volatile energy prices will be a catalyst for individual and global efforts to decarbonize energy grids, critical for meeting climate change goals. But energy prices alone aren’t going to be a tipping point that gets society to embrace cleaner energy sources, experts say. Government intervention and widespread education are also critical.

If oil prices remain elevated, that could lead to a rush to drill more oil, as hydrocarbon companies look to cash in on the higher price, according to John Larsen, a partner at the Rhodium Group where he leads the firm’s US energy system and climate policy research.

In turn, that could flood the supply and eventually bring prices back down.

That’s exactly what Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm called for when oil was $109 a barrel and gas cost $4.25 at the pump.

“We are on a war footing — an emergency — and we have to responsibly increase short-term supply where we can right now to stabilize the market and to minimize harm to American families,” Granholm said, speaking to an industry of energy executives in Houston earlier in March. She went on to call on executives to produce more oil and gas.

Ramping up fossil fuel production runs counter to urgent calls to decarbonize to slow global warming. But it’s temporary, and therefore reasonable, according to Larsen. “I personally don’t think that’s going to jeopardize meeting long-term climate targets, so long as there is double-down serious commitment to getting from here to that transition,” he told CNBC.

Also, the oil and gas industries are facing the same tight labor market that the rest of the nation is, and so they may face challenges to ramping up oil well digging and production as fast as they’d like.

“Just like almost everything else in the U.S., labor is really scarce. It’s hard to hire people, it’s hard to get equipment. Supply chains are really strained,” Ryan Kellogg, a faculty affiliate at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC) and a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, told CNBC. The overall unemployment fell to 3.8% in February, according to the Labor Department.