Bp Says We'Ve Already Reached Peak Oil:
BP is saying the quiet part loud: In the 2020 Energy Outlook report the energy giant published this week, it said that the world may have reached peak oil.
The covid-19 pandemic has done a serious number on the oil industry, with demand falling to historic lows amid lockdowns and prices falling into negative territory. In a report on Tuesday, the International Energy Agency warned that for the oil industry, the "path ahead is treacherous," reducing its forecast for global oil demand in 2020 by 200,000 barrels per day. And on Monday, OPEC lowered its predictions of demand in 2020 by 400,000 barrels per day.
In BP's new report, analysts said the market may never recover from this damage. The authors lay out three possible scenarios for the world's energy usage between now and 2050, which illustrate a rapid, moderate, and slow transition to renewables. The first two scenarios show demand for oil steeply falling over the next three decades. But even under the firm's most "optimistic" scenario for Big Oil where climate action doesn't accelerate, oil demand will plateau at 2019 levels before declining in 2035.
This is a vastly different picture from the one the firm sketched in its last outlook report just one year ago, which predicted oil consumption would continue to grow over the next decade, peaking sometime in the 2030s.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:23AM (5 children)
I went to get covid tested and they took down all my personal info. Once I handed it in they said sorry they were out of some supply required for the test. Then two weeks later got a letter in the mail saying I tested positive. Two days later another one came apologizing for a "technical error".
/s
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:28AM (2 children)
A shitty cuntry you must be living in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:57PM (1 child)
Oh it's a total shit cunty, you better betcha. It's such of a shit cuntry that 53% of white women fucked the rest of us over and voted abortion and LGBT rights away. Frikkin white women are traitorous bitches!... 53% of them anyway but that's all it took to flush our rights down the toilet!
Disclaimer: the soap box is under active assault, the ballot box is actively being dismantled sorting machine by sorting machine, the jury box is still out of order (if a doctor is charged for providing an abortion, will we nullify?!), so finally the ammo box looms.... Fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live. At least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell the Nationalsozialistische Rethuglicanpartei and their Democrat patsies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our right to bodily autonomy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @05:52AM
Go paint yerself Blue with the Woad, you unreconstructed Pict! We Gaels an Scots will overrule you, and split from the Brexiteers. Nigel Farage is a French spy!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:01PM (1 child)
Dear ...A/C,
we understand you may be already dead from covid and technical errors, but you may rest in peace assured that your vote will be cast in favor of His orangeness God Emperor.
If you are not dead and wish to vote otherwise, please let us know and we'll rectify this last technical error immediately.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:34PM
By the time the test results arrived weeks later, from the test I never took, I was already fine anyway. Also they said act like it was covid no matter what the test result said.
And my phones been ringing off the hook since I signed up, I think they got hacked or sold my info to telemarketers.
/s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:48AM (3 children)
nomsg
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:16PM (2 children)
I own a T-shirt that has a huge bright BP logo, and says:
"We bring oil to American shores!"
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:28PM (1 child)
Oh, and so they do, [wikipedia.org], so they do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:12PM
I think that is why the T-shirt was printed and marketed.
Sort of like another T-shirt:
Once you drive a Toyota, you'll never stop!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by diaz on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:55AM (16 children)
I'm pretty sure "peak oil" means we've reached the peak of what can be produced. This article says that we've reached the maximum demand. It's reasonable that the supply and production capacity are still there and we're just not using it all.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:00PM
The availability of oil unlocked by the fracking revolution pushed the peak oil curve out by many decades. The USA has been the world's biggest producer since 2013 !
https://www.investopedia.com/investing/worlds-top-oil-producers/ [investopedia.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:01PM (3 children)
Peak oil (supply) means maximum oil that can be produced irrespective of the price. At least that's what it means originally - oil running out. You are correct here that this is peak demand and has little to do with the original notion of supply.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:15PM (2 children)
As a practical matter, 'irrespective or price' is just a theoretical idea.
Oil will never completely run out.
It will just get so expensive to find that fewer and fewer use it.
So as a practical matter, peak oil means when is is so hard to find that it is no longer in general use.
The situation BP is talking about, oil is cheap but still nobody wants it. A bogus use of 'peak oil' to grab attention.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aegis on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:39PM (1 child)
There are many way to make something too expensive to be worth using. Competition from cheaper energy sources, for example, can make the oil too cheap to extract. Or, demand could drop to the point where the oil is too cheap to extract.
"Peak Oil" doesn't need to follow your preconceived notions of oil valuation.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:26PM
The term has a specific meaning and it has nothing to do with renewables -- it references the maximum extraction rate. It also doesn't mean the end of oil extraction -- just the peak of extraction. For practical reasons (people go for the easy and cheap extraction first), extraction after peak is progressively more costly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Troll) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:01PM (4 children)
Exactly.
This is bull. There will be no peak oil until oil is available. That's unless we'll make a revolution - disband our capitalist system.
The US cut all the trees before starting new technologies. The US killed all the wales before switching to ground oil. The US killed all the fish... I can continue on and on. Why is that? Because if we are not, others will defeat us, or so the doctrine says.
The change required to stop using oil is orders of magnitude bigger that the silly oil climate issues. It'll not happen until we seriously undeniably damage the environment. I mean people dying if left alone outside level.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:32PM (1 child)
So what better course of action than to deny our defeat to others and defeat ourselves instead, right? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:01PM
I do not know. Consider a doctrine. One day space aliens will come to get us. What is more important - environment protection or our ability to defeat them? Perhaps we have to force technology no matter the costs.
Note that it was exactly how our planet evolved. For example, China decided to stay local. They destroyed all their mighty ships and just developed local economy on a sustainable basis. What happened? British cave dwellers evolved and came to China and almost destroyed it. Did Chinese learned the lesson? I bet they did.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:17PM
Do not worry. They'll migrate en masse to your neighborhood before conditions like that become much more common.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:05PM
Troll, aha. That was kangaroo who can't face issues. Yeah, put your head deeper into the sand and stay there. Make sure your arsehole is way up.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Aegis on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:12PM (5 children)
Make a graph of production.
The peak is just what is sounds like, the top of that graph.
Doesn't matter what cause the production to start dropping on the downward slope. BP is just saying they think it will keep dropping.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bussdriver on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:31PM (3 children)
WHAT chart decides the peak; for BP they are now admitting it for their kind of production.
For CHEAP easy oil, we peaked quite a while ago. We've been employing expensive, risky, and shady tactics (BP spills, dangerously polluting types of oil, fracking) to keep expensive oil costs down. We can still produce record shattering amounts of oil if COST does not matter. Tar Sands oil is plentiful but it costs a crazy amount to extract even when you ignore the environmental aspects. Saudi Arabia has been off shore drilling for a while now; which is odd if they have as much easy oil as they claim to have...
At some point, it will cost more $ than the oil is worth to produce it... but then it'll be rare enough that demand will drive up the price... eventually the price will be so high nobody will be willing to pay except some wealthy elite who will find some way to use it as a status symbol like owning a $1 million car.
Yes, the USA just forced those sitting on oil rights to drill or lose those rights (back during Obama) which has the USA producing a lot plus it's barely regulated fracking industry so it has some cheap oil for a while. That hasn't peaked yet... although the waste and lack of pollution controls makes me think they are not close to peaking (or not thinking ahead... they certainly don't like how Obama lowered prices on them and made them drill what they would make more sitting on.)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:59PM (2 children)
Fracking IS cheap and easy oil.
But that just moved the peak. It's a mathematical inevitability that at some point a peak will be reached (or has already been reached).
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday September 22 2020, @07:57PM
Fracking is not all that cheap. Many firms were barely breaking even before prices collapsed and now they are going bankrupt https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-bankrupt-2646407003.html [ecowatch.com]
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Friday October 02 2020, @07:44PM
Fracking isn't paying for all the damage they are causing and I'm not talking about the irreplaceable damage to the water supplies. They'd not be cheap with that overhead... plus I've heard they have not been doing well even with all the loopholes they have been using.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:23PM
I think BP is just politely suggesting that the price will go up. A lot. Forever ever up.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:58AM (5 children)
This is a warning to shareholders and should be viewed as due-diligence by BP. It doesn't actually mean anything. If you want to have real projections, you should look at the IEA (which actually has some derived blurb there). But all this is ignoring the 1-2 billion people in Africa. It *assumes* they will continue to live as they do and be excluded from being consumers of energy intensive products. This is a false presumption..
Anyway, the warning here is that the days of $100+/bbl oil are over and oil companies are going to have to compete on production costs. It doesn't mean end of oil is here.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:04PM (4 children)
Don't worry about them, the Chinese will get them solar panels aplenty in exchange for their cobalt and other stuff. They, the chinese, are already building the roads for some years now. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:40PM (2 children)
co0lio can chuckle, while China finishes buying up his country.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:57PM
Nope, they('ve been) stopped buying [abc.net.au] us [smh.com.au] and now they try to punish us [theguardian.com].
They will still need our iron for a while [abc.net.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:59PM
(BTW, tmb, I don't chuckle, only grin.
Very rarely, I might LOL in your face)
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:26PM
Chinese need lots of oil to produce those solar panels; just saying.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:01PM (39 children)
From my understanding, peak oil is the most amount of oil we can pump out before we start a downward trend in supply. It's seems they're saying they hit peak demand. As in how much people are willing to buy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @12:56PM (38 children)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:10PM (7 children)
Jesus, you are stupid. An economic downturn doesn't magically decrease the supply, but it sure as hell decreases the demand.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:26PM (1 child)
Speaking of stupid, you're conflating supply with reserves [investopedia.com]. Supply will almost mirror demand. A little will be lost to accidents and leakage. And there is some capacity to store oil. But that's it. Most oil that is extracted, which is supply, gets consumed, which is demand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:09PM
or inflating them, whatever the case may be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @01:41PM (4 children)
Jesus, you are stupid. An economic downturn does decrease the supply, but not magically. It decreases because the demand sure as hell has decreased. The supply doesn't magically produce itself, but rather requires great effort, time, and expense to produce. If the demand for that product drops, the suppliers will produce less.
If you map that onto comparative statics [wikipedia.org], the demand curve (D) will move left with a new equilibrium being found where the new demand curve (D') will lay. The initial supply curve (S) will have to follow to (S') to meet the new equilibrium, and the supplier losses will be the difference.
A putative supply of oil says nothing about its estimated raw quantity. For example, there might be endless forests in Canada, but none of it counts as a supply of lumber until it has been harvested and trimmed to standard dimensions.
PS, it's better to generally refrain from calling people who are not stupid, "stupid." It happens with embarrassing frequency that you don't actually understand what you think you know.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:20PM (3 children)
This thread is all a response to the statement about peak oil which is ultimately based on how much oil is left in the ground to be exploited, i.e., reserves.
Subsequent posters have tried to turn this into something else.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:29PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @06:03AM (1 child)
Khallow, listen, please, to the collective wisdom of SoylentNews. These Soylentils are pointing out basic economic facts to you, you should pay attention. Just because you may think, incorrectly, that they disagree with your conservative Austrian Circle Libertariantard economic theory, that is no reason for you not to reason out the actual relations between supply and demand. Reagan was in idiot, you know, and Bush was correct in his assessment of Reagan's economic policy: Voodoo economics. You do not want to be doing "Voodoo economics", do you khallow? Next thing you know, you will be doing Zombie economics, or Trumponomics, as it is known. Trump created the greatest economy ever, by, um, talking about how he created the greatest economy ever, until, you know, he didn't. Total shyster flim-flam, complete gaslight economic fakery. Khallow!! Repent! Recant! Renounce your Paltry Gods! Accept the judgment of Ronan the Accuser!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 23 2020, @11:37AM
(Score: 3, Disagree) by choose another one on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:22PM (8 children)
No, Opec is a good indicator of supply,
Peak demand is just that.
Peak oil in a single oil field is peak production, after that it tails off because it's running out.
Peak oil worldwide is peak production which then tails off because it's running out, faster than we can find more, everywhere.
Peak coal didn't happen. As a kid in school in the 70s UK the textbooks said we had nothing to worry about, we had 300yrs of coal left, we also had 200k+ mineworkers. Today we have 300yrs of coal left, and about zero mineworkers.
Peak oil also won't happen. "The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone, the oil age won't end because we run out of oil" - I think it was a Saudi oil minister who said that, someone who should know where it's buried and how much there is (info the Saudis keep very closely guarded).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Aegis on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:34PM (6 children)
Peak coal happened in 2013 [wikipedia.org]
If they meant to say we were completely out of coal they would have just said that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:54PM (5 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:30PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:25PM (3 children)
Good job, that was the point. Peak coal, as defined by supply, did not happen.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @07:21PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @08:32PM (1 child)
And as others have pointed out in the comments, "peak oil" doesn't mean what you are saying, nor by extension, "peak coal."
From Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil [wikipedia.org]
"The concept of peak oil is often credited to geologist M. King Hubbert whose 1956 paper first presented a formal theory. Peak oil occurs when the cost of oil extraction exceeds the price consumers will pay."
It's all about the available resource "running out" because the remaining resources are difficult (and therefore more costly) to access.
Numbskulls use the phrase "peak oil" to mean whatever they want, but basically as a catch-all perjorative against the oil industry.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @10:25PM
That's still true in demand-driven peak oil. You're going nowhere with this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:41PM
The only thing that concerns them is Peak Profit.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:28PM (18 children)
No, it does not. As used originally, peak oil was a firm limit in productivity potential - that is, we didn't actually run out of oil, but oil began to be so scarce, that we could no longer pump it economically to the surface. The lesser known side issue of peak oil? We had one shot to get mankind into space, and if we blew it, we would eventually be done as a species.
Thanks to a number of factors, including renewable energy, it appears we no longer need worry about peak oil.
As has already been pointed out, the term peak oil has been misused here. In part due to fracking, in part to discoveries of new oil fields, it seems that there is more oil left in the ground than all the oil we have ever used.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:39PM
But... but... not everyone can worry about Trump being reelected, we need to worry about something!?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @02:54PM
I mean, it's not all that dire. Nuclear power is a thing, as well as ideas to power orbital lift vehicles with nuclear explosions. We could use the southern border states as our no-mans-land testing grounds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:24PM (12 children)
But we're still on track to hit Peak Climate, right?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:40PM (11 children)
We're still on track to hit peak whacko, yes. The climate has been changing since the earth was formed. It will continue to change, until there is no earth. Meanwhile, we will adapt, or we will die, or we will find other homes.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 22 2020, @03:54PM (3 children)
We here in the first world probably won't.
But all the poor folks whose home just got destroyed are going to need somewhere to go. Might as well come to the Land of the Free, amiright?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:28PM (2 children)
No, we're going to send them all to the asteroids.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:28PM
Or. more likely, they are going to send you down the drain. Under the form of thoroughly digested soylent green.
But that would be wasteful, the night soil is a resource.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @07:42PM
Fuck off fascist prick.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Dr Spin on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:08PM (6 children)
We're still on track to hit peak whacko
Trump being president is evidence that we are getting very close.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:30PM (5 children)
Someone thought you were funny. I'll give you an informative mod. Trump vs Biden proves that we really are whacko. Trump vs Hillary should have proved that already.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:03PM (3 children)
You say that now, but wait 'til you see what's on the ticket in another 4 years!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:33PM (2 children)
AOC vs some incel, most likely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:43PM (1 child)
You sure Trump Jr is going to run?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 22 2020, @06:47PM
I thought Trumpy Jr had a woman. Am I wrong? He certainly has enough money to buy one!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @06:22AM
No one thinks Runaway is funny, anymore. He is the stab in the back to American democracy. He is the Fundie wacko Christian appointed to the Supreme Court. He is the teenager with an assault rifle, assaulting Americans. Runaway is not funny. He still is ignorant, stupid, uneducated and ill informed; he is a lesser American, a hick, a redneck, a hillbilly, a deplorable. All that goes with his demographic. Not too bright, easily manipulated by Murdoch, and Sinclair, and OANN, and other Billionaire "bespoke" alleged "news" outlets. My god, Runaway, you are stupid, and so easily used. I can no longer respect you as an American, nor as a man. Fuck off, Runaway. And I mean that with the utmost sincerity.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Osamabobama on Tuesday September 22 2020, @04:12PM (1 child)
The next step is often glossed over in this discussion: Once oil becomes more scarce, its price goes up, changing the economics of pumping it to the surface. The peak oil theory asserts that oil becomes unaffordable and society built on cheap oil collapses.
Specifically, as the price of oil-based energy goes up, other energy, once more expensive, becomes affordable as a substitute. This mitigates demand for oil, providing a damping effect on the price increase. Simultaneously, the alternative energy sources (such as wind and solar) become cheaper as supporting technology is developed and production scale is increased. This leads other oil users to find ways to cut costs by changing sources, further reducing oil demand and price. Throw in a pandemic and you have another downward demand shock on top of all that, giving us our current situation.
I don't think I added anything new to this discussion, but the rest of this page was focused on details, with nobody talking about the big picture.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:47PM
I think we are on track to have renewables undercut oil for energy way before we run out. Unsubsidized solar and wind are pretty close to unsubsidized oil, but all the oil infrastructure already exists which makes changeover slow.
Better batteries would be a massive boost to home solar, 5KW of solar panels and 60KWhr of energy storage and the average home could tell the electricity company to piss off and never pay another electricity bill. (probably need double that if you have an E-car) Already starting to happen with some new homes here in AU. (Electricity here is 20 to 30 AU cents/kwh).
That doesn't address the other main use of oil, chemical feedstocks. As production goes down and unit costs go up, at some point it will plateau again when oil production matches chemical demand. I suspect that chemical demand is a lot less price sensitive than energy demand.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @05:20PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @12:54AM (1 child)
You're right about this being peak oil supply. That you are right should be just the start of your thoughts.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 23 2020, @04:41AM
Where should we go from that?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 22 2020, @10:11PM (5 children)
I think we will soon have a year of the EV. Probably BEVs, but fuel cells or some other energy storage system is certainly still possible. I keep thinking of flat screens vs tubes. They co-existed for a decade, and then in one year, 2009, the tubes collapsed. Went from about 50% of the market to gone. 0%.
2008 is also a notable year, for the spike in gas prices from roughly $2.50 to $4+ per gallon. When that happened, gas guzzling SUVs were dumped en masse. Was a huge glut of used SUVs clogging dealerships' used car lots. If SUVs could become "auto non grata" that quickly, ICE vehicles could suffer the same fate.
So it's just a question of when. How close are BEVs to rough parity with ICE cars? Just a wild guess, but the year of the BEV could be as early as 2025.
Something else about all this is that America drives way too much, and likes it that way. That too is changing. A whole lot of the driving we do is not really necessary, though we've convinced ourselves that it is. There's the ridiculously long work commute that wouldn't be so long if the worker didn't just have to have that place in the country. There should have been lots more telecommuting, but, many employers don't like it, fearing that it lowers productivity. Another issue is the car as a status symbol. When I see a Jaguar, I instantly think the owner is either an idiot or a sucker, or has way too much money.
America is still quite hostile to all other forms of transportation, except the passenger airliner. Where are our high speed rail links? Even the SF to LA route is still just a California dream. Walking is hindered by a hundred little things-- fences everywhere, bridges, roads and streets with no sidewalks, oceans of parking space between stores, loose dogs, and drivers with bad attitudes. Motorcycles have an aura of daring and danger about them, but bicycles are totally wimpy.
It would be pretty funny if the year of the EV never happens because the year of the death of the personal automobile arrives first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2020, @10:15PM
You are projecting your own very personal preferences as some mandate for everyone else to have to live your way. It's not logical nor respectful of others.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 22 2020, @10:31PM
It doesn't matter if it is "really necessary" or not. It is wanted. That is good enough.
(Score: 2) by anotherblackhat on Wednesday September 23 2020, @12:44AM (2 children)
Tony Seba, author of clean disruption thinks it will happen around 2025. (There are several youtube videos of his talks, including this one ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0 [youtube.com] )
I disagree with his timeline but the basic points seem sound to me;
Batteries are going to continue to get cheaper and better.
Solar Panels are going to continue to get cheaper and better.
Cheaper, better, batteries means cheaper, better, electric vehicles.
Cheaper, better, solar panels means cheaper electricity. Cheap Solar + cheap batteries means solar will "win".
Once electric cars are cheaper than gas cars, that's pretty much it, and 90% of all new cars will be electric.
Likewise, once solar panels + batteries are cheaper than grid power, that's also pretty much it, and 90% of all homes switch to solar.
If you believe the cost projections, then solar eventually becomes cheaper than delivering electricity.
Which means solar would beat all forms of centrally generated electricity, even fusion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @03:21AM
You are quite the fortune teller with your extrapolation of trends.
By extrapolating trends in the 1950s, we should all drive flying cars now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2020, @08:36AM
There's a lot more to the world than the equator. Not everyone get to enjoy sunny days year around. In fact, where i live, you would need a roof full of solar panels and it'd work maybe combined 3 months during the summer half of the year, when you don't have that energy consumption. It's the heating that uses most energy. Well except when you get that EV, then that's where the energy will go.
(Score: 2) by Revek on Tuesday September 22 2020, @11:45PM
But not for the reason they think. Renewable energy will overtake them and relegate them to a minor role. Most energy companies will invest heavy in renewables in order to maintain their current power base.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants