SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Transportation accounts for a huge portion of US carbon emissions. As recently as 2014, it was behind the electricity sector — 26 percent of US emissions to electricity's 30 percent. But as the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) just confirmed, as of 2016, they have crossed paths. "Electric power sector CO2 emissions," EIA writes, "are now regularly below transportation sector CO2 emissions for the first time since the late 1970s."
This is happening because power sector "carbon intensity" — carbon emissions per unit of energy produced — is falling, as coal is replaced with natural gas, renewables, and efficiency.
The only realistic prospect for reducing transportation sector emissions rapidly and substantially is electrification. How much market share EVs take from oil (gasoline is by far the most common use for oil in the US) will matter a great deal.
[...] Today saw the release of a new study from the Grantham Institute for Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative. It argues that solar photovoltaics (PV) and EVs together will kick fossil fuel's ass, quickly.
"Falling costs of electric vehicle and solar technology," they conclude, "could halt growth in global demand for oil and coal from 2020." That would be a pretty big deal.
The "business as usual" (BAU) scenarios that typically dominate these discussions are outdated, the researchers argue. New baseline scenarios should take into account updated information on PV, EV, and battery costs. (The EIA doesn't expect inflation-adjusted prices of EVs to fall to $30,000 until 2030, even as multiple automakers say they'll hit that within a few years.)
[...] If these forecasts play out, fossil fuels could lose 10 percent market share to PV and EVs within a decade. A 10 percent loss in market share was enough to send the US coal industry spiraling, enough to cause Europe's utilities to hemorrhage money. It could seriously disrupt life for the oil majors. "Growth in EVs alone could lead to 2 million barrels of oil per day being displaced by 2025," the study says, "the same volume that caused the oil price collapse in 2014-15."
Source: http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/2/2/14467748/electric-vehicles-oil-market
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 04 2017, @03:06PM
That's funny.
I've been driving just a couple years longer than you. I learned on manuals - everything from farm tractors, and hay trucks, to family cars, to tractor trailers. Naturally, I've swapped from auto to manual many times. I can't count the times I've climbed into an automatic vehicle, and stomped on the clutch. I've never hit the brakes though - I just stomp a dent in the floor where the clutch should have been. You can imagine the looks I've got from passengers. ;^)