4 ms·

By all accounts, battery technology sure looks like it's about to hit the fastest-growth portion of the usual "S" adoption curve -- "gradually then suddenly," t

by cs702 4y ago

By all accounts, battery technology sure looks like it's about to hit the fastest-growth portion of the usual "S" adoption curve -- "gradually then suddenly," to paraphrase Hemingway. By implication, demand for fossil fuels sure seems to be at risk of falling, also "gradually then suddenly," in a mirror "Ƨ" curve.

runako 4y ago
Odd Lots did an episode on what happens to fossil fuel demand as we go through the transition to renewables: https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/what-so-many-people-get-wrong-about-the-energy-tra https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/what-so-many-people-get-wrong... They also cite the Jevons paradox in a discussion of the possible counterintuitive outcomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- cubefox 4y ago
  As an aside, EV doesn't mean renewable. In Germany the nuclear reactors have been turned off due to the influence of the Green party, and natural gas transfer from Nord Stream I was stopped by Russia due to the Ukraine war. As a consequence, more energy is now created from coal, since renewables like wind and solar are too volatile to replace nuclear and natural gas.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    By this logic, using diesel-powered haul trucks to Mike uranium, and building nuclear reactor facilities with massive amounts of steel rebar and concrete, both of which we don't even know how to decarbonize, means that nuclear is not low emissions either. The only valid argument is a quantitative one, and in that regime, EVs powered with a tiny fraction of coal, like the grid in Germany, are a massive win. But I will say that I'm not surprised to see yet another pro-nuclear, anti-other-clean-tech take. These two things seem to go hand in hand.
  - bob_theslob646 4y ago
    I'm not sure why this comment is being down voted. All it is stating is facts. Most of the lithium needed for electric vehicles is going to be mined and that is not an environmental friendly process. No one's talking about how they're going to power electric vehicles in the United States... It's a ticking time bomb for energy infrastructure in the United States. They should be pursuing everything all at once,not reducing because you always need a backup.
    - epistasis 4y ago
      None of this is true. Coal is a minor component of Germany's power, and even if it were bigger, EVs are a big win on pollution even when largely powered by coal. And as for lithium being "dirty" have you bothered to even compare it to other sources of mining? Such as for the massive amount of stew that goes into cars? Or the absolutely massive amounts of waste and destruction that happens to extract oil to power cars? Citing "environmental damage" but not acknowledging right away that it's far far far less than the alternatives is simply playing rhetorical games. We must be far more logical and realistic and pragmatic if we want to take care of the environment. Above all, factuality is important.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - cameldrv 4y ago
        Coal is about 35% of electricity in Germany.
        cubefox 4y ago
        Yeah: > More than a third (36.3%) of the electricity produced and fed into the grid in Germany in the third quarter of 2022 came from coal-fired power plants (third quarter of 2021: 31.9%). https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/12/PE22_518_433.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/12/PE22_518_433.html And that number is from before the last nuclear reactors were turned off.
      - 4y ago
cubefox 4y ago
Could this lower oil prices, or would cartels like OPEC just reduce oil production to keep the price stable?
- dd36 4y ago
  That’s what they’ve been doing.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Depends on how supply performs relative to demand… price is just a function of the balance between these two. Fossil fuel consumption is still growing globally, and faster than production. So prices currently look set to rise. Higher oil prices make renewables look relatively more attractive though, so its a bit reflexive
- abathur 4y ago
  Would be interesting to see expert analysis, but I imagine it's really hard to know how every player will react. As (if?) likelihood of a demand collapse increases, I imagine some fraction of potential suppliers with ~easy/cheap oil left would have a healthy incentive to open up the supply for as long as it takes to force everyone with ~hard sources to wind down, leaving them to price-set the long-tail? Hopefully the price of any PoW crypto is sufficiently low that it doesn't make marginal economic sense for any players to extract-and-mine?
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  OPEC only produces about 30% of the world's oil.
- toss1 4y ago
  They will try, and it'll work for a while, but they won't be able to maintain it, and doing so would speed the death of oil As EVs get cheaper to buy, and more importantly, to run, the petrol-fueled vehicles start to become uneconomical. As use declines, availability of fuel declines, as petrol stations become more unprofitable. Further encourages EV adoption. Range anxiety now comes to petrol-powered vehicle owners as it is now for EV owners, further incentivizing the switch. While the general impression is that this will be gradual, I think it will be a gradual decline, then sudden, as the overall inconvenience and cost levels cross. Then some minor precipitating event changes the overall mindset, and petrol-powered cars become a perceived liability, and those still stuck with them will barely be able to unload them. As the decline happens, OPEC will surely try to manage the price of oil, but with demand declining, one of two things will happen. To the extent that they keep the price high, they speed the transition away from oil. They are also much more likely to fail, as the US is now a major producer, and has every incentive to work against OPEC. Plus, their friends are gone. Teh car companies figured out in the 2008 price spike that the oil industry is NOT their friend as that economic crash and oil price spike forced them to look over the cliff of doom as auto sales nearly stopped dead. Then we saw Russia's blatant attempt to use their oil & gas supply to blackmail the world into yielding to their genocidal invasion of Ukraine. No rational businessman now thinks that the oil industry is a reliable supply partner, and will cut them out of the equation at the first opportunity. The oil industry and countries may have some good days ahead, but beyond the intermediate term, they are absolutely screwed.
seydor 4y ago
So, brownouts are about to happen?

by cs702 4y ago

runako 4y ago

Odd Lots did an episode on what happens to fossil fuel demand as we go through the transition to renewables: https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/what-so-many-people-get-wrong-about-the-energy-tra https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/what-so-many-people-get-wrong... They also cite the Jevons paradox in a discussion of the possible counterintuitive outcomes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

cubefox 4y ago
As an aside, EV doesn't mean renewable. In Germany the nuclear reactors have been turned off due to the influence of the Green party, and natural gas transfer from Nord Stream I was stopped by Russia due to the Ukraine war. As a consequence, more energy is now created from coal, since renewables like wind and solar are too volatile to replace nuclear and natural gas.
- epistasis 4y ago
  By this logic, using diesel-powered haul trucks to Mike uranium, and building nuclear reactor facilities with massive amounts of steel rebar and concrete, both of which we don't even know how to decarbonize, means that nuclear is not low emissions either. The only valid argument is a quantitative one, and in that regime, EVs powered with a tiny fraction of coal, like the grid in Germany, are a massive win. But I will say that I'm not surprised to see yet another pro-nuclear, anti-other-clean-tech take. These two things seem to go hand in hand.
- bob_theslob646 4y ago
  I'm not sure why this comment is being down voted. All it is stating is facts. Most of the lithium needed for electric vehicles is going to be mined and that is not an environmental friendly process. No one's talking about how they're going to power electric vehicles in the United States... It's a ticking time bomb for energy infrastructure in the United States. They should be pursuing everything all at once,not reducing because you always need a backup.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    None of this is true. Coal is a minor component of Germany's power, and even if it were bigger, EVs are a big win on pollution even when largely powered by coal. And as for lithium being "dirty" have you bothered to even compare it to other sources of mining? Such as for the massive amount of stew that goes into cars? Or the absolutely massive amounts of waste and destruction that happens to extract oil to power cars? Citing "environmental damage" but not acknowledging right away that it's far far far less than the alternatives is simply playing rhetorical games. We must be far more logical and realistic and pragmatic if we want to take care of the environment. Above all, factuality is important.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - cameldrv 4y ago
      Coal is about 35% of electricity in Germany.
      - cubefox 4y ago
        Yeah: > More than a third (36.3%) of the electricity produced and fed into the grid in Germany in the third quarter of 2022 came from coal-fired power plants (third quarter of 2021: 31.9%). https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/12/PE22_518_433.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/12/PE22_518_433.html And that number is from before the last nuclear reactors were turned off.
    - 4y ago

cubefox 4y ago

Could this lower oil prices, or would cartels like OPEC just reduce oil production to keep the price stable?

dd36 4y ago
That’s what they’ve been doing.
adam_arthur 4y ago
Depends on how supply performs relative to demand… price is just a function of the balance between these two. Fossil fuel consumption is still growing globally, and faster than production. So prices currently look set to rise. Higher oil prices make renewables look relatively more attractive though, so its a bit reflexive
abathur 4y ago
Would be interesting to see expert analysis, but I imagine it's really hard to know how every player will react. As (if?) likelihood of a demand collapse increases, I imagine some fraction of potential suppliers with ~easy/cheap oil left would have a healthy incentive to open up the supply for as long as it takes to force everyone with ~hard sources to wind down, leaving them to price-set the long-tail? Hopefully the price of any PoW crypto is sufficiently low that it doesn't make marginal economic sense for any players to extract-and-mine?
bryanlarsen 4y ago
OPEC only produces about 30% of the world's oil.
toss1 4y ago
They will try, and it'll work for a while, but they won't be able to maintain it, and doing so would speed the death of oil As EVs get cheaper to buy, and more importantly, to run, the petrol-fueled vehicles start to become uneconomical. As use declines, availability of fuel declines, as petrol stations become more unprofitable. Further encourages EV adoption. Range anxiety now comes to petrol-powered vehicle owners as it is now for EV owners, further incentivizing the switch. While the general impression is that this will be gradual, I think it will be a gradual decline, then sudden, as the overall inconvenience and cost levels cross. Then some minor precipitating event changes the overall mindset, and petrol-powered cars become a perceived liability, and those still stuck with them will barely be able to unload them. As the decline happens, OPEC will surely try to manage the price of oil, but with demand declining, one of two things will happen. To the extent that they keep the price high, they speed the transition away from oil. They are also much more likely to fail, as the US is now a major producer, and has every incentive to work against OPEC. Plus, their friends are gone. Teh car companies figured out in the 2008 price spike that the oil industry is NOT their friend as that economic crash and oil price spike forced them to look over the cliff of doom as auto sales nearly stopped dead. Then we saw Russia's blatant attempt to use their oil & gas supply to blackmail the world into yielding to their genocidal invasion of Ukraine. No rational businessman now thinks that the oil industry is a reliable supply partner, and will cut them out of the equation at the first opportunity. The oil industry and countries may have some good days ahead, but beyond the intermediate term, they are absolutely screwed.

seydor 4y ago

So, brownouts are about to happen?