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Kinda ... The external dependency of the petrol car is the production of petrol. Huge amounts of global state focus goes on making sure there is a garage near

Kinda ... The external dependency of the petrol car is the production of petrol. Huge amounts of global state focus goes on making sure there is a garage near you selling petrol at a "reasonable" price. I mean wars, repression, pipelines that have their own countries and armies, vast ships across oceans, bending millions of people globally to the needs of us users - "the spice must flow" is a very apt phrase. Something I do not hear much about but must be hitting military thinkers around the world is ... what happens when EV really takes over. A tesla powered off my roof can take me to the local supermarket but can you drive a main battle tank on Lithium ? How long does the recharge take from solar cells? How do we fly a helicopter when the only people doing fracking are doing it for military? Who runs a oil refinary just for the US Navy? And what if the US Navy decides not to sell you their oil from the only working refinary? The impact on mechanised warfare of the change to EV is something I don't hear much about. The point is that once everyone is in an EV car, your traditional car hits all those problems. At some point the western world will think "phew we can stop paying Saudi and just drive EVs from our solar cells" - and the whole fucking thing collapses. That's somewhere around 75% of cars being EV.

simmerup 4y ago
Surely once energy is practically free due to harnessing solar, wind and ocean energy it’ll be cheaper to create hydrogen. Surely military vehicles can be transformed to run on hydrogen.
- rcxdude 4y ago
  More likely synthesized fuels at that point. Hydrogen is a bitch to handle, I don't think I'd want to use it in a military context.
  - Valgrim 4y ago
    Any liquid fuel is cursed by the tyranny of the wagon equation (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32735688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32735688 ). At the price a liter of any fuel gets at the end of the supply chain, a lot of things become economically viable: beamed energy from space, for instance. One advantage of this is that, contrary to liquid fuel or solar panels or even portable nuclear reactors, the enemy cannot capture your source of power (unless the war reaces space, of course) Edit: found a source https://afresearchlab.com/technology/space-power-beaming/ https://afresearchlab.com/technology/space-power-beaming/
rossmohax 4y ago
Oil refineries will still be around to produce fuel for aviation and cargo ships.
- lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  Why? I mean apart from the vast costa of such installations they are really flammable targets. Imagine a world where oil stops being sold to the Western world - we have enough EV and solar to keep ourselves happy. Say 2040. And then imagine how Saudi and Iranian armed forces will think - those armies have petrol powered tanks and aircraft. And they have oil wells and refineries in their countries borders. If we blow up the refineries then they won't threaten us anymore. Now add in domestic resistance to the regiemes who see the same calculus. Once the money stops flowing in the oil will be blown up by someone and quickly.
  - rossmohax 4y ago
    We can imagine anything, but there is no alternative in sight to fossil fuels when weight (aviation) or total energy capacity (freight naval fleet) are decisive factors. We are yet to see EV trucks adoption, it is too early to talk about other more demanding uses.
    - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
      This is kind of my point. We can see a future where domestic transport (on domestic roads) and domestic heating and cooling and light industrial power is solar / wind. I mean it's a lot of solar cells on a lot of roofs but it seems to be a snowball right now. And that accounts for something like 50% of western energy use or more. And yeah there is no replacement for a fuel burning jet engine for an F35. Right now or even decades out. So what happens to global oil production if half the customers just go away. I don't think the answer is "same as previously just double the price to compensate". The issue is that the supply chain can / might / will collapse, become more fragile, less reliable etc. States will accept interruptions in oil production if their hospitals can keep running and their citizens keep warm. So that means that the hyper focus on armed support of the global oil industry goes away - and that changes global politics. Predicting what happens after this 50% ish tipping point is a fools game but something big happens - and that leads to all sorts of effects. More drones? More missiles and less fighters? I don't know. But there is a new equilibrium and we are probably only guessing what the levers are
itsoktocry 4y ago
>"phew we can stop paying Saudi and just drive EVs from our solar cells" Umm, there are many other components to solar, wind and EVs that don't magically start getting produced in your backyard. Not having to buy crude from Saudi Arabia is something the US could do tomorrow, if they wanted to. There are tons of reserves in the US and Canada.

simmerup 4y ago

Surely once energy is practically free due to harnessing solar, wind and ocean energy it’ll be cheaper to create hydrogen. Surely military vehicles can be transformed to run on hydrogen.

rcxdude 4y ago
More likely synthesized fuels at that point. Hydrogen is a bitch to handle, I don't think I'd want to use it in a military context.
- Valgrim 4y ago
  Any liquid fuel is cursed by the tyranny of the wagon equation (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32735688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32735688 ). At the price a liter of any fuel gets at the end of the supply chain, a lot of things become economically viable: beamed energy from space, for instance. One advantage of this is that, contrary to liquid fuel or solar panels or even portable nuclear reactors, the enemy cannot capture your source of power (unless the war reaces space, of course) Edit: found a source https://afresearchlab.com/technology/space-power-beaming/ https://afresearchlab.com/technology/space-power-beaming/

rossmohax 4y ago

Oil refineries will still be around to produce fuel for aviation and cargo ships.

lifeisstillgood 4y ago
Why? I mean apart from the vast costa of such installations they are really flammable targets. Imagine a world where oil stops being sold to the Western world - we have enough EV and solar to keep ourselves happy. Say 2040. And then imagine how Saudi and Iranian armed forces will think - those armies have petrol powered tanks and aircraft. And they have oil wells and refineries in their countries borders. If we blow up the refineries then they won't threaten us anymore. Now add in domestic resistance to the regiemes who see the same calculus. Once the money stops flowing in the oil will be blown up by someone and quickly.
- rossmohax 4y ago
  We can imagine anything, but there is no alternative in sight to fossil fuels when weight (aviation) or total energy capacity (freight naval fleet) are decisive factors. We are yet to see EV trucks adoption, it is too early to talk about other more demanding uses.
  - lifeisstillgood 4y ago
    This is kind of my point. We can see a future where domestic transport (on domestic roads) and domestic heating and cooling and light industrial power is solar / wind. I mean it's a lot of solar cells on a lot of roofs but it seems to be a snowball right now. And that accounts for something like 50% of western energy use or more. And yeah there is no replacement for a fuel burning jet engine for an F35. Right now or even decades out. So what happens to global oil production if half the customers just go away. I don't think the answer is "same as previously just double the price to compensate". The issue is that the supply chain can / might / will collapse, become more fragile, less reliable etc. States will accept interruptions in oil production if their hospitals can keep running and their citizens keep warm. So that means that the hyper focus on armed support of the global oil industry goes away - and that changes global politics. Predicting what happens after this 50% ish tipping point is a fools game but something big happens - and that leads to all sorts of effects. More drones? More missiles and less fighters? I don't know. But there is a new equilibrium and we are probably only guessing what the levers are

itsoktocry 4y ago

>"phew we can stop paying Saudi and just drive EVs from our solar cells" Umm, there are many other components to solar, wind and EVs that don't magically start getting produced in your backyard. Not having to buy crude from Saudi Arabia is something the US could do tomorrow, if they wanted to. There are tons of reserves in the US and Canada.