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Comment by manofmanysmiles | Hacker News Reader

I am hesitant to ask, and yet morbidly curious what you are gesturing at.

Simple not morbid at all example is me buying an EV instead of a gas car and leaving the heat at 68 instead of 70 this winter. That destroys some demand for oil.

I'm guessing China? China has shown the world that it can tolerate the shock, and it was even a huge boon for them as they are successfully exporting excess EV production. World demand is significant, China alone was expected to increase world oil demand to a breaking point, and that isn't happening, and in fact, China is exporting oil demand destruction.

China has almost certainly been dramatically drawing down their oil reserves. They don’t publish trustworthy numbers on it like western countries do, but their import rates dropped too fast for any other explanation.

That’s not to say they haven’t done a phenomenal job with demand destruction it’s just their own domestic usage is still very high and they have to import unlike other heavy users.

China is the 5th largest oil producer in the world and the 2nd largest consumer. It's not just pulling from reserves that has dropped their consumption: for instance they have been switching very rapidly to electric trucks. At the same time they've been increasing internal production. I'm sure their goal is to balance production and consumption, to electrify enough of their demand that internal production can cover the remaining demand that's more difficult to electrify: jets, tanks, plastic, etc.

Compare the US and China on oil usage. The US is a net exporter compared to China being a huge importer.

And they for _sure_ are pulling from reserves since the US attacked Iran. The volume of imports and usage figures can only be explained that way. The impressive thing is the numbers suggest their reserves were massive and probably bigger than anyone thought.

They are for sure electrifying fast. In many ways the envy of the world on this. But they are oil import dependent and likely going to be more so soon if their reserves draw down too far.

It's not about absolute numbers but about relative ones. People underestimate how much small supply/demand mismatches can affect prices.

China reducing their oil imports was a huge boon to the entire world. China basically said "look everyone, we're strong, we'll reduce oil imports to help the rest of the world, and that will benefit all of us together, and also we're manufacturing and selling EVs and solar panels".

China is showing the world they have reached the lofty ideal of being a functional society, and I hate that an authoritarian Communist government was how they did it. I don't want to live under such a government, but I can't deny it's looking like a stronger form of government right now.

For the rest of us, if we want democracy to be better than authoritarian Communism, then we actually have to do the "be better" part.

> For the rest of us, if we want democracy to be better than authoritarian Communism, then we actually have to do the "be better" part.

Only problem is that the current reality of authoritarian capitalism in the US isn't helping democracy at all.

> That’s not to say they haven’t done a phenomenal job with demand destruction it’s just their own domestic usage is still very high and they have to import unlike other heavy users.

They will, just not as much as everyone was predicting a two decades ago. The fact that China isn't really feeling any pressure at all here should be a wake up call (they depend on oil, just less and less as time goes on). It isn't just that though, they basically took Nepal off oil completely, a bit of a special case since they had to import via India, which was always really expensive (and Nepal has lots of hydro). And the rest of the third world which simply can't afford much oil anyways now has a convenient other option.

Likewise, I don't see why ICE lovers are up in arms about people buying EVs. Shouldn't that just mean more oil (and less pricing pressure) for them?

Demand destruction is a specific concept in economics where high prices for something cause a lasting reduction in demand. The other comments explain typical mechanisms for this, like high prices for fossil fuels spurring on electrification of machinery powered by fossil fuels, which then reduces the demand base for fossil fuels. Or the downturn of economies being accelerated by fossil fuel pricing pressure, increasing deindustrialization, and reducing fuel demand (e.g. what europe is experiencing).

EV adoption removes demand for oil as does replacing home heating oil with heat pump etc.

Many uses for oil are based on existing infrastructure, build different infrastructure and demand falls.

Oil prices will increase until enough people stop buying it that the decrease production is canceled out.

Destroying demand is about getting people to not consume the thing. Oil being a knock on everything else and at such a volume would probably starve millions at the very least. This whole thing is a depopulation war. If you're reading this, you're on the losing side.

"demand destruction" == demand falling [here because of the war]

E.g., recessions, etc. Morbid would be if demand destruction came from deaths of many humans, but GP clearly did not mean that.

We as a planet were approaching Peak Oil consumption and this mishap has just acclerated that slightly. In all likelyhood annual oil consumtion will slowly decline or maybe quickly.

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