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> Their market share will certainly be reduced for ground transportation And that alone will be enough. You're right that gas/diesel will never be completely

> Their market share will certainly be reduced for ground transportation And that alone will be enough. You're right that gas/diesel will never be completely replaced, but it seems that it doesn't need to be in order to suffer a serious decline in usage that radically transforms the energy landscape. Looking at this graphic [1], ground transportation is the biggest single use case of oil in the United States. 67% of oil consumption in the U.S. goes to the transportation sector, and ~80% of the transportation industry's oil use is for ground travel. A serious decline in that could really hurt the industry and cause the kind of disruption the author was talking about. (Granted, the graphic's from 2004 but I don't have a reason to believe the proportions have fundamentally changed). [1] http://afstrinity.com/images/data/oil-transportation.jpg http://afstrinity.com/images/data/oil-transportation.jpg

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Unless something comes along that halves domestic ground travel demand overnight it's not going to hurt the industry too bad. They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. Furthermore, if gas/diesel usage falls then other oil products become cheaper so while lost demand from transportation would not be close to fully compensated for elsewhere it will still be partially compensated for. It's not the change that hurts, it's how fast the change happens. Think about the kinds of things that have hurt the industry in the past. They've all been very quick.
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  >They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. So China will stick with gasoline even though it will be more expensive, has to be imported, and the country has terrible air pollution problems?
ac29 9y ago
This link says transportation uses about 3/4 of petroleum usage in the US [0] (2015), so that graphic isnt too far off. About 50% of the total is just in motor vehicle gasoline. [0]https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

Unless something comes along that halves domestic ground travel demand overnight it's not going to hurt the industry too bad. They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. Furthermore, if gas/diesel usage falls then other oil products become cheaper so while lost demand from transportation would not be close to fully compensated for elsewhere it will still be partially compensated for. It's not the change that hurts, it's how fast the change happens. Think about the kinds of things that have hurt the industry in the past. They've all been very quick.

woodandsteel 9y ago
>They'll just sell crude to China or whoever. So China will stick with gasoline even though it will be more expensive, has to be imported, and the country has terrible air pollution problems?

ac29 9y ago

This link says transportation uses about 3/4 of petroleum usage in the US [0] (2015), so that graphic isnt too far off. About 50% of the total is just in motor vehicle gasoline. [0]https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use