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posted by martyb on Wednesday September 04 2019, @05:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the instead-of-batteries-just-use-a-very-long-extension-cord dept.

Forbes:

The future is not looking bright for oil, according to a new report that claims the commodity would have to be priced at $10-$20 a barrel to remain competitive as a transport fuel.

The new research, from BNP Paribas, says that the economics of renewable energy make it impossible for oil to compete at current prices. The author of the report, global head of sustainability Mark Lewis, says that "renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero, is cleaner environmentally, much easier to transport and could readily replace up to 40% of global oil demand".

[...] The report, Wells, Wires, And Wheels... Eroci And The Tough Road Ahead For Oil, introduces the concept of the Energy Return on Capital Invested (EROCI), focusing on the energy return on a $100bn outlay on oil and renewables where the energy is being used to power cars and other light-duty vehicles (LDVs).

"For a given capital outlay on oil and renewables, how much useful energy at the wheel do we get? Our analysis indicates that for the same capital outlay today, new wind and solar-energy projects in tandem with battery electric vehicles will produce six to seven times more useful energy at the wheels than will oil at $60 per barrel for gasoline powered light-duty vehicles, and three to four times more than will oil at $60 per barrel for light-duty vehicles running on diesel," says Lewis.

As fossil fuels phase out, will battery technology improve quickly enough to support the transition to renewables?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Z-A,z-a,01234 on Thursday September 05 2019, @07:01AM (2 children)

    by Z-A,z-a,01234 (5873) on Thursday September 05 2019, @07:01AM (#889903)

    Yeah, all western countries want to use more electricity, but the production capacity is not being increased.

    Here in Germany they are decommissioning the nuclear power plants. The stupidity of it is amazing: close the safest means of power generation and go all in on Russian gas + some renewables + imports from Poland (which has plenty of coal power plants).

    The whole e-auto thing is just a ruse to prop up the auto industry. There is no sense in doing it.

    If we wanted to be green for real, we'd invest in public transport - (trolley-)buses and (light-)rail. Make sure that you have good coverage, short intervals between vehicles, good connections and make it cheap.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @08:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @08:13AM (#889920)

    Here in Germany they are decommissioning the nuclear power plants. The stupidity of it is amazing: close the safest means of power generation and go all in on Russian gas + some renewables + imports from Poland (which has plenty of coal power plants)

    You forget Germany is largest producer of Brown Coal in the world.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignite#Production [wikipedia.org]

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:18PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday September 05 2019, @03:18PM (#890060) Journal

    Maybe as an incentive to get out of coal, they should allow to transfer remaining runtimes from coal to nuclear (just as they allowed to transfer runtimes from older to newer nuclear reactors when deciding to end nuclear). Yeah, I know, won't happen.

    Of course the ideal solution would be fusion, but then, that's always 30 years in the future.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.