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>Oil consumption has been increasing primarily because the price has been declining Not arguing, but here's the data that should be reconciled: https://ourwor

• 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.