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First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport; second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil used

First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport; second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil used in transport to ramp down.

glibgil 9y ago
> over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport But doesn't transport have the biggest need for power density? Once renewable power density is solved for transport, I would expect the same applications will quickly be applied to the other places oil is used
- sigstoat 9y ago
  it is used as a precursor in chemical synthesis, plastics and a variety of other products. you're not going to replace that with solar.
  - diafygi 9y ago
    Sure you will, but maybe later. Super cheap energy makes bio-plastics competitive. Massive solar farms passively making carbon chains when the sun is up. The reason no one is talking about it is that the transportation transition is lower hanging fruit.
    - Gibbon1 9y ago
      There is an interesting line of research into catalysts that use electricity to create stuff like methanol, acetic acid, etc from CO2 and water. Often when you see people comment on this they automatically assume synthetic methanol --> green washed automotive fuel --> yay and I can keep my F150 pickup. But more seriously, pure low weight hydrocarbons --> chemical feed stocks.
- pilom 9y ago
  Plastic production requires oil and improving power density of batteries doesn't help that. Heating houses to a US standard requires astronomical amounts of energy that will be provided by fossil fuels because they are cheap per BTU. Sure we could design better houses and use more efficient heating technologies like heat pumps, but those are being adopted a couple orders of magnitude slower than electric cars are.
monodeldiablo 9y ago
The author isn't saying that all uses for oil would be eliminated. It doesn't need to be. It will take far less impact to ruin the oil industry. They've made huge investments in production -- with 25+ year timelines -- that they'd be unable to make payments on if their incomes fall a mere 20%. And if the market for refined oil shrinks by even 10%, the glut of excess supply will drive prices down enough to put a number of companies deep in the red. Oil is currently profitable because of its huge scale, high demand, and generous government subsidies. Upsetting any of those variables threatens the industry's already thin margins.

First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport; second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil used in transport to ramp down.

glibgil 9y ago

> over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport But doesn't transport have the biggest need for power density? Once renewable power density is solved for transport, I would expect the same applications will quickly be applied to the other places oil is used

sigstoat 9y ago
it is used as a precursor in chemical synthesis, plastics and a variety of other products. you're not going to replace that with solar.
- diafygi 9y ago
  Sure you will, but maybe later. Super cheap energy makes bio-plastics competitive. Massive solar farms passively making carbon chains when the sun is up. The reason no one is talking about it is that the transportation transition is lower hanging fruit.
  - Gibbon1 9y ago
    There is an interesting line of research into catalysts that use electricity to create stuff like methanol, acetic acid, etc from CO2 and water. Often when you see people comment on this they automatically assume synthetic methanol --> green washed automotive fuel --> yay and I can keep my F150 pickup. But more seriously, pure low weight hydrocarbons --> chemical feed stocks.
pilom 9y ago
Plastic production requires oil and improving power density of batteries doesn't help that. Heating houses to a US standard requires astronomical amounts of energy that will be provided by fossil fuels because they are cheap per BTU. Sure we could design better houses and use more efficient heating technologies like heat pumps, but those are being adopted a couple orders of magnitude slower than electric cars are.

monodeldiablo 9y ago

The author isn't saying that all uses for oil would be eliminated. It doesn't need to be. It will take far less impact to ruin the oil industry. They've made huge investments in production -- with 25+ year timelines -- that they'd be unable to make payments on if their incomes fall a mere 20%. And if the market for refined oil shrinks by even 10%, the glut of excess supply will drive prices down enough to put a number of companies deep in the red. Oil is currently profitable because of its huge scale, high demand, and generous government subsidies. Upsetting any of those variables threatens the industry's already thin margins.