5 ms·

idk. Global oil consumption has been steadily ramping up 1-2%/year with little regard to renewables or climate crisis. The increasing penetration of renewables

by avip 7y ago

idk. Global oil consumption has been steadily ramping up 1-2%/year with little regard to renewables or climate crisis. The increasing penetration of renewables is dwarfed by increased population + raising living standards.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
Oil consumption has been increasing primarily because the price has been declining. If the price was higher then more people would use alternatives that are currently more expensive but wouldn't be against higher oil prices. If the Saudis are under-reporting their reserves, that's why. They don't want oil prices to be higher because it makes alternatives more competitive. It doesn't help them to sell oil for 50% more for a few years while that spurs everyone to buy electric cars and charge them with solar panels, only to have that demand reduction cause oil prices to decline below their current level and stay there forever. Or worse (for them), for consumption to decline to the level that consumers no longer strongly oppose a carbon tax, which would naturally cause consumption to fall off a cliff (as intended) as even more people switch to alternatives. On top of that, the alternatives need volume to build economies of scale which make them more competitive. This is already happening but would happen faster with higher oil prices, and as it does the result is a permanent reduction in alternative energy costs, making oil less competitive even at lower prices.
- avip 7y ago
  >Oil consumption has been increasing primarily because the price has been declining Not arguing, but here's the data that should be reconciled: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-crude-oil-price-vs-oil-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-crude-oil-price-vs-...
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    It's fair to say that oil consumption has been increasing both because the price has been declining and because of increasing industrialization. But you can see pretty clearly on that graph that whenever the price spikes, consumption then drops. Supply and demand is in effect. And for most of the period on that graph, we didn't have the alternatives we do today. When oil prices spiked in 1979, people bought smaller cars that got better mileage, but they still ran on petroleum and used gas stations, and then people started buying petrol SUVs when gas prices came back down. If that happens in 2020 then people buy electric cars rather than econoboxes, and then we get more charging infrastructure and more battery research and economies of scale, and there would be no obvious advantage in ever switching back even if oil prices subsequently declined to their current level.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Cars are only a part of oil consumption. Also, it's going to take decades to switch rich countries to electric cars, if that is even economically possible...
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Transportation is 71% of US oil consumption: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/use-of-oil.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... Moreover, you don't have to replace all cars to significantly reduce oil demand when each replacement with an electric vehicle reduces that driver's oil consumption by 100%, particularly when the vehicles most likely to be replaced as a result of higher oil prices would be the ones that drive the most miles. On top of that, the non-electric vehicles sold during periods of high gas prices would tend to be high fuel economy vehicles as well, and the vehicles in the existing installed base most likely to be junked would be the most inefficient ones.
    - BlueTemplar 7y ago
      How much of that is personal cars (probably the easiest to electrify after rail and city buses) ? And for the world, rather than just US ?
      - WorldMaker 7y ago
        The US is somewhat lagging "the world" right now in personal electric vehicle adoption. There are more brands/models/sales in both the European and Asian markets than the US is currently seeing. The Chinese market in particular is fascinating from an EV perspective. Particularly because it seems to indicate that non-personal vehicles (especially buses, delivery trucks, and semi-trucks) are either going to be not far behind in electrification or even possibly slightly ahead. It is starting to look like in the US it will be the case that commercial vehicles may electrify faster than the personal vehicle market (at least partly because manufacturers aren't really selling EVs for personal auto sales in a tautological fallacy that they think they won't sell in the US). Amazon's big recent deal with Rivian, for instance, should put a lot of commercial EVs on the streets. UPS' similar older, quieter deals with multiple companies pushing them to hybrid trucks only already and an entire EV fleet supposedly in the next several years. Proterra seems to be making great headwind in the US bus market, as another example.
- isostatic 7y ago
  Saudi has a lot of sun and a lot of room. You’d think they’d be investing heavily in solar, and large (TW) interconnects to Europe (via Iraq/turkey or via Egypt/med), or in large scale electrolysis to hydrogen
  - dagw 7y ago
    You’d think they’d be investing heavily in solar They are (kind of), or at least talking loudly about it. They just don't seem to be very good at pulling off these sort of ambitious large scale projects. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-16/why-saudi-arabia-isn-t-meeting-its-ambitious-solar-energy-targets https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-16/why-saudi... https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/saudi-outlook-remains-uncertain-after-softbank-pulls-out https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/saudi-outlook-r...

by avip 7y ago

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

Oil consumption has been increasing primarily because the price has been declining. If the price was higher then more people would use alternatives that are currently more expensive but wouldn't be against higher oil prices. If the Saudis are under-reporting their reserves, that's why. They don't want oil prices to be higher because it makes alternatives more competitive. It doesn't help them to sell oil for 50% more for a few years while that spurs everyone to buy electric cars and charge them with solar panels, only to have that demand reduction cause oil prices to decline below their current level and stay there forever. Or worse (for them), for consumption to decline to the level that consumers no longer strongly oppose a carbon tax, which would naturally cause consumption to fall off a cliff (as intended) as even more people switch to alternatives. On top of that, the alternatives need volume to build economies of scale which make them more competitive. This is already happening but would happen faster with higher oil prices, and as it does the result is a permanent reduction in alternative energy costs, making oil less competitive even at lower prices.

avip 7y ago
>Oil consumption has been increasing primarily because the price has been declining Not arguing, but here's the data that should be reconciled: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-crude-oil-price-vs-oil-consumption https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-crude-oil-price-vs-...
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  It's fair to say that oil consumption has been increasing both because the price has been declining and because of increasing industrialization. But you can see pretty clearly on that graph that whenever the price spikes, consumption then drops. Supply and demand is in effect. And for most of the period on that graph, we didn't have the alternatives we do today. When oil prices spiked in 1979, people bought smaller cars that got better mileage, but they still ran on petroleum and used gas stations, and then people started buying petrol SUVs when gas prices came back down. If that happens in 2020 then people buy electric cars rather than econoboxes, and then we get more charging infrastructure and more battery research and economies of scale, and there would be no obvious advantage in ever switching back even if oil prices subsequently declined to their current level.
BlueTemplar 7y ago
Cars are only a part of oil consumption. Also, it's going to take decades to switch rich countries to electric cars, if that is even economically possible...
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Transportation is 71% of US oil consumption: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/use-of-oil.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... Moreover, you don't have to replace all cars to significantly reduce oil demand when each replacement with an electric vehicle reduces that driver's oil consumption by 100%, particularly when the vehicles most likely to be replaced as a result of higher oil prices would be the ones that drive the most miles. On top of that, the non-electric vehicles sold during periods of high gas prices would tend to be high fuel economy vehicles as well, and the vehicles in the existing installed base most likely to be junked would be the most inefficient ones.
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    How much of that is personal cars (probably the easiest to electrify after rail and city buses) ? And for the world, rather than just US ?
    - WorldMaker 7y ago
      The US is somewhat lagging "the world" right now in personal electric vehicle adoption. There are more brands/models/sales in both the European and Asian markets than the US is currently seeing. The Chinese market in particular is fascinating from an EV perspective. Particularly because it seems to indicate that non-personal vehicles (especially buses, delivery trucks, and semi-trucks) are either going to be not far behind in electrification or even possibly slightly ahead. It is starting to look like in the US it will be the case that commercial vehicles may electrify faster than the personal vehicle market (at least partly because manufacturers aren't really selling EVs for personal auto sales in a tautological fallacy that they think they won't sell in the US). Amazon's big recent deal with Rivian, for instance, should put a lot of commercial EVs on the streets. UPS' similar older, quieter deals with multiple companies pushing them to hybrid trucks only already and an entire EV fleet supposedly in the next several years. Proterra seems to be making great headwind in the US bus market, as another example.
isostatic 7y ago
Saudi has a lot of sun and a lot of room. You’d think they’d be investing heavily in solar, and large (TW) interconnects to Europe (via Iraq/turkey or via Egypt/med), or in large scale electrolysis to hydrogen
- dagw 7y ago
  You’d think they’d be investing heavily in solar They are (kind of), or at least talking loudly about it. They just don't seem to be very good at pulling off these sort of ambitious large scale projects. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-16/why-saudi-arabia-isn-t-meeting-its-ambitious-solar-energy-targets https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-16/why-saudi... https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/saudi-outlook-remains-uncertain-after-softbank-pulls-out https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/saudi-outlook-r...