3 ms·
People don't use energy because it's sexy, they use it because they need or want things that cost energy and they pay according to their need. The concern is n
by tinco 5y ago
People don't use energy because it's sexy, they use it because they need or want things that cost energy and they pay according to their need.
The concern is not importing carbon, the concern is countries using the energy themselves. For every Tesla there's a thousand little diesel trucks driving around on the african continent, and that number will only go up, especially if western demand for oil goes down.
I don't think the 'attractiveness' of decarbonization has any consequence at all. Just look at Texas, one of the most oil dependent, climate change denying anti-green states there is, yet they're also the largest producer of renewable wind energy, and are closing their coal plants. That's got nothing to do with attractiveness, it's just economics. Selling wind power is simply profitable.
Vice versa, no one cares more about the planet than the rich people of the world. You won't find more green movement startups, solar panels on roofs, high efficiency buildings, electric cars and even vegetarians in any other slice of the population. Yet those same nature lovers are also the ones who do the most international flights. With each round trip burning as much fuel as a regular person would in a year of commuting to work. It's got nothing to do with attractiveness, they want to, there's no other way, they can afford to, so they do it.
- Robotbeat 5y ago> For every Tesla there's a thousand little diesel trucks driving around on the african continent Nah, this isn't accurate. Tesla has sold over 1.5 million vehicles (probably will get over 2 million by the end of this year)[0]. There's only approximately 30-40 million cars in the entire continent of Africa[1]. (And expand this to "little diesel trucks" isn't going to change the math much, and probably there's fewer of those.) Tesla is also scaling up, producing almost a million vehicles per year right now... over 180,000 last quarter, and they have 1 new factory in China that is expanding and 2 totally new factories (in Texas and Germany). So Tesla will soon be producing about as many new vehicles as all the new car sales in Africa (which has ~1 million new car sales per year [1]). And Tesla is just one provider. More cost-optimized electric vehicles, like are super popular in China (the Hong Guang Mini EV is $4500 [2]), are likely to be the big sellers in Africa. [0] https://insideevs.com/news/499678/tesla-model-3y-million-sales/ https://insideevs.com/news/499678/tesla-model-3y-million-sal... [1] https://lmc-auto.com/news-and-insights/african-auto-market-maturity/ https://lmc-auto.com/news-and-insights/african-auto-market-m... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56178802 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56178802
- tinco 5y agoAlright, so you're right there's a good chance Africa will have a largely electrified car fleet by the end of this decade. It doesn't ease my heart on the entire oil industry though, as personal transport / commute is just one piece of the pie. We still have transportation of goods and materials, which is something that's hardly electrified at all (I suppose rail is? though I'm pretty sure the big heavy ones are still diesel powered). And they still need to generate that power, and if oil really does become cheap enough for them, wouldn't they still buy it to turn it into electricity?
- Robotbeat 5y agoFor countries without actual oil reserves, fossil fuels are pretty expensive. So I think it will really depend on where in Africa you’re talking about.