How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
"There’s another side to this EV equation: Where will all this electricity come from? By 2040, electric cars will draw 1,900 terawatt-hours of electricity, according to BNEF. That’s equivalent to 10 percent of humanity’s electricity produced last year."
One reason is that refining crude oil uses electricity. Some people (such as Elon Musk) even claim that the electricity used to refine gasoline is so great, that it roughly equals the amount of electricity that an electric car would require to go the same distance as a gasoline powered car. In other words, no extra electricity is required.
A short video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4
Regardless, it is much better to have EVs powered by large, more efficient powers sources, that are easier to scrub the outputs of, or replace with cleaner options.
But yes, we do need some new way to generate electricity, that could be Solar Panel getting to 40% efficiency or Nuclear Fission. Personally i would like some more Nuclear Fusion advance, but i guess we are at least another 50 years from it.
The thing is, we have solved the clean electricity issue. We are constantly improving our clean tech and driving the costs ever lower. We've just been plagued with naysayers and feet draggers.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/151022160934-cheap...
If oil prices dont recover in the next 1 - 2 years we will likely see massive policy changes in the oil producing countries, which are likely to be very unpopular.
Oil states that passed peak oil haven't done well afterward. Egypt peaked in 1992[1], and came apart politically on the way down. Libya peaked in 2008.[2] (Much of that was a war, but they never came back.) Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to be near peak output yet, but they're well below peak revenue. This is a real threat to the country's stability, which is purchased with big handouts. This was a story on YC about two days ago.
[1] http://crudeoilpeak.info/egypt [2] http://crudeoilpeak.info/libya-peak-oil
This would require more coal and gas plants, which is not helping the environment any.
> The good news is electricity is getting cleaner. Since 2013, the world has been adding more electricity-generating capacity from wind and solar than from coal, natural gas, and oil combined.
with a link to: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/fossil-fue...
It's hard to find numbers, but the oil burnt to move passenger cars is nowhere near the entirety of oil consumption, even if looking only at transportation. Cars are not trucks. An electric replacement of the diesel semi-trailer remains a long way off. Cars are also not ships (big consumers) aircraft or trains (smaller consumers). Getting to the point that we are no longer burning oil for purposes of transportation is far harder than everyone getting a tesla.
Has anyone seen a practical attempt at an electric long-haul truck, container ship, or other large diesel engine?
Like, linux desktop complaints go from "no-one without a degree in CS can install or boot this" to "there's only 2000 games in the Steam catalogue that work on Linux", yet rarely do the people complaining realise that their complaints are actually wild praise from the perspective of yesterday.
Similarly, the acceptance that electric is both inevitable and better for commuter cars, taxis, delivery vehicles, motorbikes, scooters, buses, trains etc. can be stated as "planes, boats, long haul trucks still need liquid fuel".
Note the article at no point claims that electric cars equals no more burning oil. They suggest that it could lead to a softening of demand, roughly the same size as the overproduction that's got people so worked up recently.
EX: 28 feet/gallon sounds bad but * that by 14,770 containers and that's the equivalent of an 18 wheeler truck getting 78MPG. (Actual 18 wheeler get ~5-7 MPG which is not bad considering the load.)
http://www.instructables.com/community/Fuel-economy-of-the-w...
Ships are very very fuel efficient, by far the most efficient means of moving goods over distance. But they are also a large percentage of oil consumers (20% ?). So even though they are very efficient, they need to be addressed and their emissions somehow reduced.
Even where the propulsion is electric, the power source is a combustion engine, except for the few nuclear ships.
1. Autocharging is a trivial feature to implement. Charging times and range matter less.
2. In Uber/Lyft you don't chose car, but your provider does. Assuming electrical cars will have better economy there is less legacy/nostalgia barriers.
b) even that electricity is generated more efficiently than energy in a car engine - power plants generally don't have to make compromises in order to reduce weight.
b) incorrect.. as burning a fuel to directly produce mechanical energy that is used as mechanical energy is more efficient than.. burning fuel to produce mechanical energy to drive a generator to make electricity, to store it, to retrieve it, and then drive an electrical motor, to produce mechanical energy to use.