Electric cars are a pipe dream
- Thread starter Syzygys
- Start date
When has a lot to do with if.
Not really.
We are at or near peak oil.
We have no ready subsitute for oil, and the US gasoline prices are pretty low compared to much of the rest of the world.
From a year ago.
Netherlands $7.93/gal
Norway $7.77/gal
Denmark $7.59/gal
Germany $7.41/gal
Finland $7.36/gal
Portugal $7.30/gal
Belgium $7.26/gal
Italy $7.26/gal
Sweden $6.74/gal
Ireland $6.57/gal
Austria $6.29/gal
Spain $6.06/gal
Poland $5.96/gal
Bulgaria $5.21/gal
Romania $5.10/gal
Australia $4.65/gal
Canada $3.58/gal
United States $2.65/gal
So for all those countries, the Leaf probably makes economic sense today for any commuter putting an average of just 30 miles per day on a commuter car, and even more as the daily mileage goes up.
That's a LOT of potential buyers and the price of gas is only going to go up.
Arthur
Scientific American suggests peak oil in 2014.
The consequence of peak oil will be rising oil and hence petrol prices. What do you do when petrol is $ 50 per gallon, and the stores are full of electric cars, even if those cars can only travel 100 miles per charge?
The consequence of peak oil will be rising oil and hence petrol prices. What do you do when petrol is $ 50 per gallon, and the stores are full of electric cars, even if those cars can only travel 100 miles per charge?
I will enjoy the cleaner air too.Easy answer,we in the US will be eating from soup lines,unemployed,living like a homeless person, watching on TV or reading/watching online about the Chinese(and a few others) happily driving wherever they please.They will be driving their electric cars anywhere they please since they had the hindsight and will to build longer range cars,battery changing stations and pony express type infrastructure(you range out the car and hop into another) Those Chinese that dont use cars will happily jump on one of the countless bullet trains they again decided to build ahead of time.What will power all this Chinese electricity? The Chinese renewable energies they decided to construct ahead of time.Of course the Chinese will still use oil and petrol for quite a while thru the transition but thats ok too since they decided to make big contract deals with others at a low locked in price.
Another way round short range problems would be to use an electric train pick up. If your are driving from city A to city B, and it is more than 100 miles, just drive to your nearest car/rail terminal, and up a ramp onto a train carriage. Pay your $$$ and the train carries you inside your car to city B, where you drive off.
Not going to happen anytime soon.
Oil reserves and amount of oil production are coupled, If oil prices doubled the reserves would skyrocket and the peak would again get pushed back.
Arthur
So oil just magically appears when the price goes up? I can understand high oil prices making unconventional oil reserves like tar sands, shale oil and coal liquefaction profitable but then again they only become profitable at high prices, so peak oil means the end of cheap oil no matter how you look at the reserves. At century ago we once mined oil that was just meters or less from the surface, with energy returns of 1:50 (every 1 unit in 50 units out) now 100 years later oil sand mining gets 1:2, even the Saudis aren't doing better than 1:8 anymore, Sure there is plenty of oil but once you have to spend more energy mining it, there no worth, it would be like an energy economy based on burning silver!
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Yes.
That's the definition of reserves, the amount of oil that is economically recoverable at the present time.
As the price goes up, so does the oil that is economically recoverable.
Why do you think BP was shutting in the Macanudo well?
Because even though it would flow at 50,000 barrels of oil per day, there was too much gas in it to exploit it right now (the well was running 2 to 3 times as much gas as oil) and it was too far out to pipe the gas anywhere.
At today's prices.
Same with extraction methods, a lot of oil is in the reservoirs but it costs too much today to heat it so they can pump it out, but if oil is selling for twice as much, then it is economical to do so.
Then as you say, there's oil sands and shale and coal to oil etc etc.
Arthur
Yeah I already explained all this, and the problem with it, the amount of energy you get out verse put in keeps going down as we keep resorting to crappier and crappier sources, the price has to go up, and it does not become viable to power economies on it anymore. Not the mention the problem of tooling, having to build more and more wells with every less return, having to build whole new infrastructure to extract tar sands and shale oil, heck the energy returns on some biofuels are already greater then the average energy returns from oil wells, sugarcane to ethanol is often doing better then 1:5, yet it still represents a fraction of Brazil energy usage because of the need to build infrastructure.
You miss the point.
The question was $50 gallon oil, which since minus tax we are paying about $2 gallon, would be a 25 X increase in the price of oil.
But, if the price of oil was to double to just $160 a barrel there would be substantially more oil available quite quickly, and all the issues you mention wouldn't apply at that price, and gas would be about $5 per gallon.
If the price of oil was to go to $240, all sorts of other sources would become viable, including coal to liquid, and gas would be about $7 per gallon.
So we are a LONG way (most likely never) from $50 gallon gas (@2010 prices).
Arthur
The question was $50 gallon oil, which since minus tax we are paying about $2 gallon, would be a 25 X increase in the price of oil.
But, if the price of oil was to double to just $160 a barrel there would be substantially more oil available quite quickly, and all the issues you mention wouldn't apply at that price, and gas would be about $5 per gallon.
If the price of oil was to go to $240, all sorts of other sources would become viable, including coal to liquid, and gas would be about $7 per gallon.
So we are a LONG way (most likely never) from $50 gallon gas (@2010 prices).
Arthur
Well aware of that as I said nothing about the price being unattainable. Unless of course they can't get all those unconventional sources operating in time to match demand. We consume nearly 90 million barrels a day, Take for example deep waters off the Gulf of Mexico might have as much as 3-15 billion barrels or enough to match world demand for 35-170 days. Thus in shortage the price could easily become infinite: as in no amount of money can buy what is not available.
“… The US still consumes far more oil than China, however, at an average of 19 million barrels per day in the first half of 2010 versus 8.8 million in China. Growth in Chinese oil consumption has remained quite strong throughout the years at an average of 7% since 2003 while US consumption initially was stable around 20.7 million b/d until the economic crisis caused a consumption decline. If the current pace of Chinese growth could be continued and US consumption would stabilize it would take at least until 2020 for China to surpass US oil consumption levels. …”
From: first paragraph of August 2010 issue of the “Oil Watch” (They have not sent me more recent monthly issues as they did for years.) More at: www.theoildrum.com which probably is the world’s best source for oil related data.
I think there is no way oil production can expand to met the increased demand from Asia. Asia includes India and all those new Tata nano cars, plus other cars being sold in India. (Not to mention more trucks and greatly growing air transport in both countries.) China is already the world leader in car sales now and the Chinese have the money to buy oil at prices Joe American does not. True, the average Chinese will still be riding his bike, taking the bus, etc. but the number of more wealthy Chinese is rapidly growing and buying more cars every year* etc.
Few realize it, but salaries are rising in China so rapidly that buying a gallon of gas is getting cheaper in real terms for the Chinese. If the Yuan’s value is raised, as US wants, then it will get even cheaper still.
I expect than in 2020, or a little later when Chinese oil demand ALONE is greater than that of the US then about half of US cars will be up on cinder blocks as owners cannot afford to buy gas for them. There will be so many unwanted cars that they will be worth little, if anything, as trade in on an electric car. More likely is that you will need to pay to have your still quite functional gasoline car taken to the junk yard.
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* “… Ford’s sales in the Asian-Pacific and African regions shot up 39% to 731,724 vehicles. Ford anticipates 70% of its sales growth to come from Asia Pacific and Africa region in the next 10 years, mostly from China and India. …”
More details at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2660142&postcount=90
From: first paragraph of August 2010 issue of the “Oil Watch” (They have not sent me more recent monthly issues as they did for years.) More at: www.theoildrum.com which probably is the world’s best source for oil related data.
I think there is no way oil production can expand to met the increased demand from Asia. Asia includes India and all those new Tata nano cars, plus other cars being sold in India. (Not to mention more trucks and greatly growing air transport in both countries.) China is already the world leader in car sales now and the Chinese have the money to buy oil at prices Joe American does not. True, the average Chinese will still be riding his bike, taking the bus, etc. but the number of more wealthy Chinese is rapidly growing and buying more cars every year* etc.
Few realize it, but salaries are rising in China so rapidly that buying a gallon of gas is getting cheaper in real terms for the Chinese. If the Yuan’s value is raised, as US wants, then it will get even cheaper still.
I expect than in 2020, or a little later when Chinese oil demand ALONE is greater than that of the US then about half of US cars will be up on cinder blocks as owners cannot afford to buy gas for them. There will be so many unwanted cars that they will be worth little, if anything, as trade in on an electric car. More likely is that you will need to pay to have your still quite functional gasoline car taken to the junk yard.
------------
* “… Ford’s sales in the Asian-Pacific and African regions shot up 39% to 731,724 vehicles. Ford anticipates 70% of its sales growth to come from Asia Pacific and Africa region in the next 10 years, mostly from China and India. …”
More details at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2660142&postcount=90
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We are still swimming in oil, peak production simply means we won't globally produce more barrels per year, but we produce a staggering amount of it each year, so the net is the price will go up and that will keep the supply up, but the price doesn't have to rise that much for that to happen. 75 to 100 years from now things might be quite a bit different, but none of us will be around to see what that future looks like.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/excel/aeotab_11.xls
Arthur
Not to be picky, but the 19 million barrels per day is for Liquid Fuel.
Only 14 million barrels of that came from Crude Oil.
But to show how important it is to move to an electrical base for our transportation system, ~14 of the 19 million barrels of Liquid fuel we use each day was for transportation.
Arthur
Link does not work for me. I wanted to read as think in current dollar terms, oil will be well above $300/ barrel in 2022. Can you quote some section supporting a different POV?
Never said the price would be $50 a gallon or even $10, what I said is with demand and supply so tight your going to have problems, take for example 2008 oil price spike, cause by a "mere" 1 million barrels a day surplus over demand, image the pricing problems at equal supply and demand with no surplus, image 1 million barrel a day insufficiency, someone going to have to get shafted then!
Yes, the EIA does not project anything like that (prices per imported barrel in 2008 $s):
2022 2029
110.92 122.04
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/forecasting.html
(try the links here to the forcasts mentioned earlier)
Arthur
Short term fluctuations in supply can cause much higher than normal short term fluctuations in price, because then the industrial users will outbid most of the transportation users.
Much of our gas usage is nice to have, but industrial users need it to make their product and for many of them, the amount they need per product isn't that much that the price is as big an issue, so they have much more flexibility to pay more per gallon.
But sustained high prices resolve the supply issue and thus lower the price again.
Look at the EIA projections.
These are the guys who study this for a living.
I tend to believe them.
Arthur