How big oil will die
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How big oil will die
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Re: How big oil will die
#2First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport; second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil used in transport to ramp down.
Re: How big oil will die
#3First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport; second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil used in transport to ramp down.
> over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport
But doesn't transport have the biggest need for power density? Once renewable power density is solved for transport, I would expect the same applications will quickly be applied to the other places oil is used
Re: How big oil will die
#4I can see this playing out, but not as quickly as the author suggests. Cameras and cellphones last a couple years at the most, and are much easier to replace, than a car is. Sure, everyone wants a self driving car, but not everyone can switch just like that.
Re: How big oil will die
#5You think in 2025 we will be talking about children mining by hand in the Congo in horrible conditions to provide all those lithium batteries for that future? There is a price for everything.
Re: How big oil will die
#6Not many people know the relationship between oil and the US dollar.
The golden age of the US dollar was the Bretton Woods system, where every currency was backed in dollars and dollars were backed in gold. There was however no obligation for the Federal Reserve to accept audits of any kind to validate there was enough gold. Therefore the US could print money at will (and it did), until countries such as France started demanding the conversion of their dollars to gold.
To avoid the equivalent of a bank run at the Federal Reserve level, Nixon moved away from the gold standard and since then the US dollar has been allowed to float.
A less known fact, is how the US dollar has preserved its value in this current setup. The answer is: by having an exclusive deal with oil producers where oil is sold exclusively in US dollars. Since everyone needs oil, if you need dollars to buy oil, the dollar gains a relative value.
Having said this, it is important to understand that as energy consumers move away from oil, the US will need to find another way to sustain its currency or it will inevitably crash, along with everything valued in dollars, such as savings, wages, etc.
Re: How big oil will die
#7I can see this playing out, but not as quickly as the author suggests. Cameras and cellphones last a couple years at the most, and are much easier to replace, than a car is. Sure, everyone wants a self driving car, but not everyone can switch just like that.
Indeed. There are over one billion cars in the current fleet.
Re: How big oil will die
#8I can see this playing out, but not as quickly as the author suggests. Cameras and cellphones last a couple years at the most, and are much easier to replace, than a car is. Sure, everyone wants a self driving car, but not everyone can switch just like that.
The argument that counters this is that hailed rides will be cheaper than driving what you already have. You don't need to make a new purchase to switch.
Even if you have a recent model sitting in the driveway, you may choose to save money by hailing a car rather than driving your own.
I don't know if it'll play out like that, but the article is pretty convincing.
Re: How big oil will die
#9Good. Bloomberg estimates the transition will be a $10 trillion upside for those upgrading and replacing fossils[1].
It remains to be seen who the winners will be. Incumbents (Excelon, Shell, SA, etc.) have market share, but will have to strand trillions of assets and reserves. Newcomers (Tesla, etc.) have to survive the energy boom-bust cycle that early fossil went through.
My money is on the newcomers (my startup is one). The incumbents' shareholders simply won't let them strand assets short term to transition to new energy business models.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/investing...
Re: How big oil will die
#10First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport; second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil used in transport to ramp down.
> over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport But doesn't transport have the biggest need for power density? Once renewable power density is solved for transport, I would expect the same applications will quickly be applied to the other places oil is used
it is used as a precursor in chemical synthesis, plastics and a variety of other products.
you're not going to replace that with solar.