Thanks to the shale boom natural gas has been effectively free in the US (as a byproduct of shale oil production) for the last few years. For various reasons the boom has reverted to the mean (although shale is still very much around), and as a result natural gas in the US has gone from "free" to "not free". Prices will go up, but we'll be fine. We still literally have more gas than we know what to do with.

It's the Europeans and East Asians who are being royally screwed by gas prices at the moment, and that pressure isn't likely to cease anytime soon, particularly with the destruction of Nordstream.

I'm not sure historical natural gas prices support this idea of "free". Would need to crunch the numbers but at a glance the price came down about 50% in the 2010s from the aughts. It's had a few big, temporary dips most recently during the start of the pandemic in 2020.

It certainly wasn't "free" in Feb 2021. We have about a 3% hike on our bills now to pay down the record profits gas producers received.

My bill last cycle was 20% higher than last year with near identical usage. UK has already seen incredible energy cost increases. European winter is going to drive energy prices even higher.

Yeah, "we" will be fine because computers. But lower income families are getting hit hard with this and inflation.

Even still there is the Applebee's effect; people with money are paying more attention to those commercials because a lunch for two is pushing past 50$ dollars these days! That's gonna dry up investment even more. In the UK Liz Truss comes in and immediately commits political suicide with these tax cuts. Putting aside critiques aimed at trickle down economics, the timing is TERRIBLE. Startups are laying off because investment is drying up; tax cuts on high earners are going into savings and low-risk market investments.

All this combined is, IMHO, going to lead to a massive global recession.

"Free" in the sense of free extraction. Obviously you still need to pay for distribution, but the shale fields to this day are flaring off natural gas that they otherwise have no way to sell. That 50% drop in the 2010s is the shale boom.

Now that shale has calmed down and global demand has spiked, there's now a cost for the actual natural gas itself. A doubling of prices may seem like a lot, but historically the price is still well below average. Much like we've gotten used to free money over the last ten years, we've also gotten used to free gas.

That's not to say it isn't a problem, but we aren't in danger of running out of gas or any runaway price spikes.