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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

The notion of crude oil becoming a stranded asset seems a little silly. It will be many decades before the transportation infrastructure transitions off fossil fuels. And even then there will be demand for oil as a feed stock for chemical manufacturing (plastics, fertilizers, etc). (I'm not claiming that this is a good thing, it's just the economic reality.)

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I can't remember where I saw the numbers and I'm pretty sure I'm off a bit. But I think only half of all crude oil gets distilled into "fuel". The rest ends up as plastics and other chemicals, as you mention. I just remember it's a very significant of non-fuel oil use is out there. A quick google search, I can't find the chart I saw. Maybe someone can chime in better on that?

Edit: Listen to Retric's comment below, not me on my stats

Worldwide, only 1/4 of oil is used for industry.

46% of oil is turned into gas. However, include diesel, aviation, plus boat fuels and transportation adds up to 69% of oil used.

Home heating is 3%, and electricity is 1%.

Personal transport going close to 100% electric is going to take a long time, but combine all electric vehicles with plug in hybrids and demand may start to drop within 10 years. Especially if bio fuel production remains steady, the total demand for oil could actually start to fall significantly within ~15 years.

Remove oil as an energy source and industry would still keep 1/4 of current demand. So, oil is not going to become stranded, but that’s still going to crush any company or country depending on current profits.

We have a LOT of oil in the ground. If most of it doesn't get stranded we're in for much, much worse problems.

I don't understand why people say oil is useful for plastics and such as though that was fundamentally different from its use as fuel. In either case, the reason we use it is because it is a pre-existing store of energy. If you have an energy source, then you can make oil, plastics, and whatever else you want. I have, or had, a mug from a former employer that was made out of plant-based plastic. It appeared no different from any other.

Sure synthetic hydrocarbons will eventually take over for those purposes. But we don't have anywhere near enough renewable energy to make it economically viable today. It will take decades to build the necessary infrastructure.

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