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Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

forbes.com

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Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#11

Post by sremani »

psadri wrote: post #2

The question on my mind is what else will this freed up oil will be used for? One area could be cheaper fuel for aviation? More plastics? This of course ignores the environmental cost of continuing to use oil.

Petrochemicals are still an important component of industrial agriculture needed for feeding 7 billion people around the world.

If oil prices fall too low, Persian Gulf and Russian borders become unstable and from there its any ones guess, how things would take shape.

Energy is heavily interlinked with geo-politics and if Persian Gulf is out of the game even for few months - millions of people will starve to death. The only silver lining is that North America is self-sufficient in ONG for the coming years, and that is not the case for much or Europe, Asia and Africa.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#12

Post by neltnerb »

psadri wrote: post #2

The question on my mind is what else will this freed up oil will be used for? One area could be cheaper fuel for aviation? More plastics? This of course ignores the environmental cost of continuing to use oil.

If the cost of extracting it is too high, it stays in the ground. Otherwise, it gets used as a precursor for higher value products like plastics.

The caloric value of a hydrocarbon is approximately the minimum price it can be sold for. Almost any other use will give higher returns to justify paying a higher price. Though hopefully it doesn't just mean more plastic everything, that would be disappointing.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#13

Post by api »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #8
api wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If oil demand falls a lot of tar sands and offshore and fracking and other hard to get oil will become uneconomical to extract, causing (paradoxically) supply to appear to contract too. The oil age could ratchet down via a series of price spikes and contractions just as it ratcheted up via price spikes and expansions.

Thing I read about the history of oil is energy return on investment went from about 125:1 in 1920 to about 10:1 now and tar sands are worse than that. If countries start slapping carbon taxes on oil, you can quickly see where that goes.

It costs so much less to drive an EV per mile largely because we get electricity from sources with a much higher EROEI than present day oil. Gas, coal, solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro are all much better. The low energy return of current oil is priced in.

BTW it's not just obtaining the oil but refining it. Oil refineries use a ton of power usually from electricity, gas, or by burning some of the oil itself. Heavier oil like tar sands and shale takes more energy to refine, as does high sulfur oil.

Tar sands is so bad I've heard it described as being almost more a way of very indirectly converting other sources of energy into oil than a source of energy.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#15

Post by toomuchtodo »

RickJWagner wrote: post #14

Great! Now all we need is an electric car that fits the economic footprint of a gas car and provides decent range. I'll take a performance model, please.

Lead time on a Performance Model 3 is 2-3 weeks. I know because I just ordered one today for my brother. Order away!

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#16

Post by klwejchkwejrhc »

>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

Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any technology that is capable of moving macroscopic amounts of matter is capable of moving gasoline. You can haul it on a bicycle, you can haul it on an airplane. To transport electricity you need to make sure there are power lines and batteries arranged in a certain way.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#17

Post by vvanders »

sremani wrote: post #11
psadri wrote: post #2

The question on my mind is what else will this freed up oil will be used for? One area could be cheaper fuel for aviation? More plastics? This of course ignores the environmental cost of continuing to use oil.

Petrochemicals are still an important component of industrial agriculture needed for feeding 7 billion people around the world. If oil prices fall too low, Persian Gulf and Russian borders become unstable and from there its any ones guess, how things would take shape. Energy is heavily interlinked with geo-politics and if Persian Gulf is out of the game even for few months - millions of people will starve to death. T…

Honestly the electrification of farm equipment is coming too. For a tractor you want two things: weight and torque. Electric drivetrains provide both.

Tractors have way more complex transmissions(HST, Power Shuttle, etc) that all goes away with a VFD electric drivetrain. Large traction motors already exist(all cargo trains these days are diesel-electric). The lower operating costs and lower maintenance help as well.

If I could have bought our Kubota in an electric drivetrain I would have done it in a second

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#18

Post by vvanders »

klwejchkwejrhc wrote: post #16

>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 Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any tec…

It's a shame that we don't have the technology to pull energy from the sun and turn it into electricity.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#19

Post by localhost »

klwejchkwejrhc wrote: post #16

>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 Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any tec…

That really is a remarkable visualization! So much so that I had to compute it for myself - 27,000 liters of gasoline will move an average car 287,000 km assuming 9.4L/100km which is the average 2017 fuel economy for a "car, light truck, SUV" in the US.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#20

Post by flukus »

psadri wrote: post #2

The question on my mind is what else will this freed up oil will be used for? One area could be cheaper fuel for aviation? More plastics? This of course ignores the environmental cost of continuing to use oil.

~70% of oil is used for transportation. Take away the ability to amortize the enormous infrastructure costs at the gas pump and it's not clear that oil will get cheaper, the exact opposite may happen.
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