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Most of your reasoning hinges on spread of electric cars and electric planes. If that doesn't come to pass, oil will still be in huge demand. EVs have been in

Most of your reasoning hinges on spread of electric cars and electric planes. If that doesn't come to pass, oil will still be in huge demand. EVs have been in existance for almost a decade and now and they're still only 1% of US car sales: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/us-electric-vehicle-sales-increase-by-81-in-2018 https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/us-electric-veh... If you extrapolate their upward line forward, it'll take an extremely long time before % of EVs becomes greater than 50%. And as for electric air travel, as far I know it's not even happening yet in the commerial passenger planes and the air travel industry moves even slower than the automative industry. In 100 years ago, I would agree with you. But, for now, we're stuck with using oil for quite a long time.

clomond 7y ago
Discussion around if something that is in the works "may not happen" and therefore negates a particular thesis is wishful thinking. It is a real risk which should be considered, particularly if one's livelihood is dependent on the continued market dynamics of Oil & Gas. Re: Your point on electric car adoption. Your notion of linear adoption is not backed by history. Any kind of breakthrough technology follows adoption in the form of an 'S-Curve'. Example: http://www.foresightguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Scurvesofmasstechnologyadoption.gif http://www.foresightguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Scu... In addition to that: everyone is so focused on % of the installed fleet being electric. The key metric that is more important is "what % of passenger car kilometers driven are electric". A relatively small electric car fleet run by a ridesharing service, driving around 80% of the time can displace lots of ICE passenger car miles. When you factor in that fleets use TCO for purchases rather than purchase price / monthly payments (like most consumers do) electric vehicles become economical sooner due to the economics of operating electric vehicles.
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  That S-Curve your talking about is mostly for software and other technologies that have low barriers to entry. Cars are far harder than software and thus will take much longer for adoption. I mean just look at the production number projections for electric cars. It's not spiking like an S-curve. this is gonna take some time.
cptnapalm 7y ago
Electric vehicles have been around for over 100 years: https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car
greglindahl 7y ago
> If you extrapolate their upward line forward Extrapolations are a bad idea for "tipping point" kinds of curves. Electric vehicles are steadily improving, and as they become better in niches (like high performance cars) the curve can change to be nothing like the extrapolation.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Look at it a different way. How many years is the average car on the road? Even if we banned the sale of new ICE vehicles today, it would still take well over a decade for them to filter out of operation.
  - WorldMaker 7y ago
    But there are very real, very possible existential crises that could massively impact the ICE fleet and filter out existing vehicles faster the usual replacement rate. To obvious examples: the cost of gas rises fast enough, and/or entire gas chains go out of business making stations hard to find.
ryanmercer 7y ago
>EVs have been in existance for almost a decade and now EVs have been in existence for nearly as long as ICE vehicles have. The 1867 World Exposition had an electric cycle and you had electric taxis in London in 1897 [1] and by 1912 there were 33,842 electric cars registered in the United States [2]. In the 50's you had Deutsche Post of the GDR using electric delivery vans (I believe an electric vehicle was being used in either London or Paris much earlier than that for postal use but I'm having a hard time finding a link, I swear I've read about it before though). Even Anderson Electric Car Company produced something like 13,0000 'Detroit Electric' cars int he early 1900s. Even the Apollo-era LRVs (lunar roving vehicle) were EVs (for obvious reasons). EVs are old-school, the only new-school thing about them is lithium battery chemistry. I genuinely don't think EVs are going to catch on any time soon. - They're far more expensive than ICE vehicles as there aren't a whole lot of used EVs but there are tons of used ICE vehicles at vary price levels. - John Q Public can't do much to repair an EV and has to take it to a mechanic, yet even something like an engine rebuild can be done in someone's garage if they are so motivated. I've never taken a single minute of mechanic training yet I've helped 4 different friends pull engines with borrowed hoists and do major work to them and without YouTube, only printed manuals for vehicles, I've done plenty of other work to my own vehicles (dropped the gas tank, replaced ball joints/pitmans/idle arms/electrical work/replaced most of the stuff under the hood in various vehicles). - People like me, in an apartment, can't charge at home and you're not going to see property owners rushing to install EV powering (even if they get to recover their costs by taking on a few % fee) any time soon, probably not even for new-construction. I can go to the gas station and fill a nearly empty tank in 2~ minutes which will last me 2 weeks of commuting and then some, for the same range in an EV I'm going to have to park somewhere and sit for 30+ minutes. Two of those three things keep me from having an electric vehicle (can't charge it, can't afford it) and the third, the fact I can't do any major repairs, is a big turn off. Even my 2013 Impala I can repair/service basically everything, and if I don't have the tools I can go rent any specialized tool I need for a nominal fee from the 3 big part store brands. I think these things are going to keep EV adoption pretty low for the foreseeable future. Even in my own experience here in Indianapolis I've only seen one tesla on the road (I actually see it most days on the way to work) in the wild and only know one person here that owns one (and he's stated it's impractical for anything other than driving to work and back). [1] https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-surprisingly-old-story-of-londons-first-ever-electric-taxi/ https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-surprisingly-old-story... [2] https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile/Early-electric-automobiles https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile/Early-elect...

clomond 7y ago

Discussion around if something that is in the works "may not happen" and therefore negates a particular thesis is wishful thinking. It is a real risk which should be considered, particularly if one's livelihood is dependent on the continued market dynamics of Oil & Gas. Re: Your point on electric car adoption. Your notion of linear adoption is not backed by history. Any kind of breakthrough technology follows adoption in the form of an 'S-Curve'. Example: http://www.foresightguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Scurvesofmasstechnologyadoption.gif http://www.foresightguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Scu... In addition to that: everyone is so focused on % of the installed fleet being electric. The key metric that is more important is "what % of passenger car kilometers driven are electric". A relatively small electric car fleet run by a ridesharing service, driving around 80% of the time can displace lots of ICE passenger car miles. When you factor in that fleets use TCO for purchases rather than purchase price / monthly payments (like most consumers do) electric vehicles become economical sooner due to the economics of operating electric vehicles.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
That S-Curve your talking about is mostly for software and other technologies that have low barriers to entry. Cars are far harder than software and thus will take much longer for adoption. I mean just look at the production number projections for electric cars. It's not spiking like an S-curve. this is gonna take some time.

cptnapalm 7y ago

Electric vehicles have been around for over 100 years: https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car

greglindahl 7y ago

> If you extrapolate their upward line forward Extrapolations are a bad idea for "tipping point" kinds of curves. Electric vehicles are steadily improving, and as they become better in niches (like high performance cars) the curve can change to be nothing like the extrapolation.

0xffff2 7y ago
Look at it a different way. How many years is the average car on the road? Even if we banned the sale of new ICE vehicles today, it would still take well over a decade for them to filter out of operation.
- WorldMaker 7y ago
  But there are very real, very possible existential crises that could massively impact the ICE fleet and filter out existing vehicles faster the usual replacement rate. To obvious examples: the cost of gas rises fast enough, and/or entire gas chains go out of business making stations hard to find.

ryanmercer 7y ago

>EVs have been in existance for almost a decade and now EVs have been in existence for nearly as long as ICE vehicles have. The 1867 World Exposition had an electric cycle and you had electric taxis in London in 1897 [1] and by 1912 there were 33,842 electric cars registered in the United States [2]. In the 50's you had Deutsche Post of the GDR using electric delivery vans (I believe an electric vehicle was being used in either London or Paris much earlier than that for postal use but I'm having a hard time finding a link, I swear I've read about it before though). Even Anderson Electric Car Company produced something like 13,0000 'Detroit Electric' cars int he early 1900s. Even the Apollo-era LRVs (lunar roving vehicle) were EVs (for obvious reasons). EVs are old-school, the only new-school thing about them is lithium battery chemistry. I genuinely don't think EVs are going to catch on any time soon. - They're far more expensive than ICE vehicles as there aren't a whole lot of used EVs but there are tons of used ICE vehicles at vary price levels. - John Q Public can't do much to repair an EV and has to take it to a mechanic, yet even something like an engine rebuild can be done in someone's garage if they are so motivated. I've never taken a single minute of mechanic training yet I've helped 4 different friends pull engines with borrowed hoists and do major work to them and without YouTube, only printed manuals for vehicles, I've done plenty of other work to my own vehicles (dropped the gas tank, replaced ball joints/pitmans/idle arms/electrical work/replaced most of the stuff under the hood in various vehicles). - People like me, in an apartment, can't charge at home and you're not going to see property owners rushing to install EV powering (even if they get to recover their costs by taking on a few % fee) any time soon, probably not even for new-construction. I can go to the gas station and fill a nearly empty tank in 2~ minutes which will last me 2 weeks of commuting and then some, for the same range in an EV I'm going to have to park somewhere and sit for 30+ minutes. Two of those three things keep me from having an electric vehicle (can't charge it, can't afford it) and the third, the fact I can't do any major repairs, is a big turn off. Even my 2013 Impala I can repair/service basically everything, and if I don't have the tools I can go rent any specialized tool I need for a nominal fee from the 3 big part store brands. I think these things are going to keep EV adoption pretty low for the foreseeable future. Even in my own experience here in Indianapolis I've only seen one tesla on the road (I actually see it most days on the way to work) in the wild and only know one person here that owns one (and he's stated it's impractical for anything other than driving to work and back). [1] https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-surprisingly-old-story-of-londons-first-ever-electric-taxi/ https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-surprisingly-old-story... [2] https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile/Early-electric-automobiles https://www.britannica.com/technology/automobile/Early-elect...