Peak fossil fuel demand will happen this decade | Hacker News Reader

Peak fossil fuel demand will happen this decade

ft.com

22 pointstoomuchtodo20 comments

https://www.iea.org/topics/world-energy-outlook

"This decade" only has 6 1/2 years left to run. (Maybe 7 1/2, depending on where you put 2030.) So, that's a bit closer than it sounds.

Very true! China is forecasted to reach peak gasoline consumption this year, for example.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37307619

https://archive.is/xPULP | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-29/china-...

US is catching up.

https://archive.ph/gn4vV | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-14/us-likely...

> It took 10 years for the US to sell its first million fully electric vehicles, two years to reach the second million, and just over a year to reach the third. By the time the latest quarter’s figures are tallied up over the next month, the country should be well on its way to a fourth.

China is currently the second top consumer of oil (2021 data). US is the first. Musk has said recently Tesla is trying to get into the Indian market "as soon as humanly possible."

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...

United States 20.4% China 15.7% India 4.8% Russia 3.8% Japan 3.5%

Electric cars are an optimization of the wrong solution. E-bikes and trains can change the world.

People buy want they want, not someone else's opinion. Sell what people want. We're unable to sit around for decades waiting for trains to get built, although e-bikes are very valid and uptake is similarly robust. Same with electric scooters.

As long as it's non-combustion, that's all matters. Optimal urban planning and mass transit takes time, and there is no assurance it'll actually get done.

This is a very myopic viewpoint that ignores that such purchasing decisions aren’t made in a vacuum.

People make purchasing decisions based on their environment, and that environment is heavily influenced by public policy.

If you would like to bet [1] $10k to a charity of the winner's choice that mass transit and urban planning is more successful by somewhere between 2030-2035 vs rapidly scaling up EV production, I'll take the EV side of the bet. Let me know. A "gentleman's bet" is fine as well if you'd prefer; I'm signaling accountability with regards to my position with my offer. I am highly confident that EV deployment will be more successful than public policy around urban planning and mass transit over the next decade.

China has an enormous amount of state controlled deployment of mass transit [2] and urban planning [3], and it is still one of the world's largest markets for light auto units [4]. For sure, people will continue to urbanize, but they will also buy cars. Sell into reality, not what you wish reality was.

[1] https://longbets.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_rail_transit_in_China

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning_in_China#Modern...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37308077 ("The Chinese car market is about 23 million a year. The United States is about 13 million. China will be soon be shipping more EVs than the US ships cars. That should be enough to get the EV market to a tipping point.")

It’s difficult to take your bet as anything other than disingenuous grandstanding considering the appetite for such public policy changes is pretty weak. It’s impossible to distinguish what is a matter of will and what is a matter of actual possibility.

To your points about China. You can’t point to the size of any of chinas markets without normalizing for the size of the population. Yes, Chinas automotive sales are twice that of the US and frowning but their vehicle registrations [0] per capita are less than the quarter of the US total, which is the real relevant number: the actual number of cars on the road.

Further, while true that China has engaged in very large scale urban planning and mass transit projects. I wouldn’t say it’s fair to call them some sort of anti car utopians. If anything they limit cars from the standpoint of transit efficiency. They actively promote their own industrial development in the automotive market and consider EVs to be a competitive advantage.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...

> People make purchasing decisions based on their environment, and that environment is heavily influenced by public policy.

> It’s difficult to take your bet as anything other than disingenuous grandstanding considering the appetite for such public policy changes is pretty weak. It’s impossible to distinguish what is a matter of will and what is a matter of actual possibility.

These are both your statements. I've done my best to argue in good faith with a genuine offer to be accountable to my thesis, but you can't both say "public policy will change purchasing decisions" and "appetite for such public policy changes is pretty weak." Either you believe public policy will successfully encourage mass transit and urban planning outcomes that provide superior benefit to vehicles or you don't. I believe EV deployments will be superior based on, as you say, lack of public policy appetite (which is literally the foundation of my thesis; there is no appetite for what you put forth is the superior solution while EV manufacturers have nothing to stop them, there is no speed limit). Appreciate the conversation regardless.

> you can't both say "public policy will change purchasing decisions" and "appetite for such public policy changes is pretty weak."

Fortunately I didn’t say that:

> People make purchasing decisions based on their environment, and that environment is heavily influenced by public policy.

Your editorializing of public policy has an impact in general, to public policy will move in this direction is doing the heavy lifting here and is putting words in my mouth.

Ultimately, policy is a choice, it isn’t something that exists as a force of nature that we can’t control. While I share your pessimism that anything will get done, that pessimism can’t be left to become a self fulfilling prophecy.

There’s a nasty cycle of car dependency. The government makes driving easy and alternatives hard through toll free highways, and mandated parking minimums around every building. Entire neighborhoods are zoned for low density housing making apartments and even duplexes illegal. The government underwrites mortgages through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Many neighborhoods lack continuous sidewalks, bike lanes safe enough for kids to use, and safe ways to cross the road.

Faced with government preference for car infrastructure only, employers take the path of least resistance in building parking, and individuals buy cars and drive everywhere. Which leads to induced demand for more car infrastructure and resistance to throwing a bone to alternates (“Don’t waste gas tax money on public transit!”)

What people want is also heavily influenced by marketing departments over decades.

In the US trains/bikes are a multi-hundred-trillion dollar solution. The issue is infrastructure is built for cars. Saying "use bikes" is saying "Get rid of the millions of single family houses that already exist and build multifamily houses with commercial integrated".

Yea, we can start that, but that is also a multi-decade process whereas an electric car can be bought tomorrow.

E-bikes and trains can't help you buy a week of groceries for a family of four. No one is going to give up the convenience of point-to-point travel in a private vehicle with enough space for kids, pets, and groceries and a roof to keep out the rain.

In New York there are bodegas. Driving through Manhattan is a frustrating experience. Unfortunately the Subway has been allowed to degrade as those on the supply side consider it a slush fund and jobs program and on the demand side people consider fare evasion a human right. Most of the increase in land value created by convenient access to a station is captured by private landlords.

> In New York there are bodegas.

What's your point? They aren't substitutes for a real grocery store. I've lived in New York, and it's miserable to rely on bodegas for food, especially if you have to walk to/from them.

Buying a week of groceries at once is not a universal constant. You could fill a cart to the brim every two weeks. You could order delivery. You could peruse the market every day for the freshest product. Lots of older folks in NYC use a folding cart. Walking is good for your health.

Cars are the most convenient option because of extensive in kind subsidies in the form of mandatory parking minimums, toll free roads, and a big FU to anyone who is dismounted through lack of sidewalks, unsafe street crossings, 45MPH speed limits and drivers doing 10 over that, etc. If we put almost all of our infrastructure spending into pedestrian friendly construction versus almost all of it toward cars then people would not need to be married to their cars.

7 1/2, because year zero belongs to previous decade.

Years are 1 indexed, there never was year 0. It was year 1 BC and then straight to year 1 AD. If it's 1 indexed, than the last year of the decade is 10, otherwise the first decade would be only 9 years long.

There is no one way of doing this. What you write is correct, but most people use the (IMO simpler) 3rd digit rule: the decade is decided by the third digit of the year. So 2020, 2021, ..., 2028, 2029 belong to the same decade, as do 2030, 2031, ..., 2038, 2039.

This indeed causes problems for the 1 - 9 AD decade, which only has 9 years this way, but most people won't care because we live in 2023.

>but most people use the (IMO simpler) 3rd digit rule: the decade is decided by the third digit of the year

Most people using something doesn't mean it's right. Most people could say PI is 3, because it's easier to remember, but it don't change a thing.

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