21–30 of 79 posts
Per billion invested in Renovables you can produce at most 10% of the kwh and for just a few years even months, till it's necessary costly maintenance
Less than 0.3% of electricity in the US is generated by oil (in 2018). The proper comparison for wind/solar for grid energy would be against natural gas/nuclear/hydropower.
Oil will be priced according to supply and demand. There may still be use cases which require oil. And however cheap the competition can produce oil it will be priced. This is non-news.
This assumes a perfectly competitive market, which is far from reality. Oil production is dominated by a cartel.
As a cartel can increase prices to maximise profitability, to a large extent, the price of oil is controlled by the price elasticity of demand.
> new wind and solar energy projects combined with battery-powered electric vehicles Less than 0.3% of electricity in the US is generated by oil (in 2018). The proper comparison for wind/solar for grid energy would be against natural gas/nuclear/hydropower.
> new wind and solar energy projects combined with battery-powered electric vehicles Less than 0.3% of electricity in the US is generated by oil (in 2018). The proper comparison for wind/solar for grid energy would be against natural gas/nuclear/hydropower.
So that means, you need a battery. The price of the battery, its decay and so on, has to be taken into account in that price. Does that aforementioned price for the barrel of oil includes that? I think not.
If everybody would go electric Today, the price of a battery would go to infinity, as there is not enough supply for that demand. If the changes happens too fast, the price for the battery and it's longtime cost would be higher than oil, even with oil at $100. Which for me makes all this argumentation that oil will die useless and pointless.
And to those prophets of "Oil will disappear": Oil will still exist, but won't have a monopoly in cars, some machinery etc anymore. I believe consumers will still buy cars powered by oil as long as it is worth it.
It's an industry that generates a lot of jobs, has a huge effect on GDP and I'm very sure countries will change very gradually to electric vehicles.
> new wind and solar energy projects combined with battery-powered electric vehicles Less than 0.3% of electricity in the US is generated by oil (in 2018). The proper comparison for wind/solar for grid energy would be against natural gas/nuclear/hydropower.
Oil primary use is as motor fuel for cars, trucks, planes and ships, and it's also used a a feedstock for the chemical industry. Renewables haven't been successful in either yet. This article assumes that electric cars are going to take off and replace internal combustion engines, which may not happen after all.
The worry is that oil companies are making investments now for 10, 20 or 30 years into the future and not taking into account the realities of making a return. There are all sorts of long term capital costs for setting up oil fields, refineries, pipelines and so on, and then marginal costs for each barrel thereafter. Under a scenario of total road transport electrification, demand would be drastically reduced, meanin…
I think 30-year oil investments are relatively safe if this is their threat. I can’t see this happening in less than 30 years.