Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News! Global plugin vehicle registrations were up 45% in August 2023 compared to August 2022, rising to 1,238,00 units. In the end, plugins represented 18% share of the overall auto market (with a 13% BEV share alone). This means that […]
I wonder when this is going to seriously affect world oil demand? People used to think "Peak Oil" would be when supply was constrained, it turns out it will be when demand is constrained.
It will change when electric cars cost the same as a regular car. The cheapest EV in France is 3 times more expensive than my car. I can’t afford it.
I know my Chevy Bolt had a higher sticker price than other subcompacts but the TCO is way lower than anything else on the market thanks to way lower maintenance and operating costs.
Not to mention the $7500 tax credit and if you’re in CA there’s also a tax rebate (they send you a check).
"I'm only going to help save the world if it does not inconvenience or cost me anything whatsoever at all" is not the brilliant take you think it is.
Based on this data, 48.6% of oil was used on the read. If we assume that about every other car becomes electric, that could cut the total oil demand by about 24%. That’s actually quite significant, but obviously it will happen so gradually that the oil industry should have enough time to adjust.
Eventually most cars will be electric, but even that won’t destroy the entire oil industry, because there are still many other uses for oil. It takes a while for various other industries to shift away from burning oil and gas, but when that happens the oil industry will be totally screwed.
I'm not so sure that they'd be necessarily screwed even then, I think it will depend upon what direction plastic demand and plastic production goes in. The majority of plastics still need to be made from petrochemicals, and the majority of plastics have to be virgin simply due to the inherent limitations on their recyclability.
Sure, the industry won't be as large as today but unless we see bioplastics completely replace petrochemical plastics or simply see plastics completely abandoned (that'll never happen, plastics are simply too useful to ditch entirely.) It will still exist in some form simply because it will be necessary for plastic production.
The oil industry isn’t about to go anywhere, that’s for sure. It’s just that within the next 100 years, it will probably shrink to a tiny fraction of what it is today.
Now that plastic bags or straws have been banned in certain parts of the world, the future of plastic is beginning to look slightly more uncertain than it used to, but I wouldn’t be too worried just yet. Microplastics are also lookin pretty concerning, so maybe in the very long run we’ll start addressing that as well. All of this might reduce the demand for plastic in general, but I don’t think that’s going to have a major impact any time soon. As you pointed out, plastics are too versatile to ditch entirely.
Maybe we’ll start using more bioplastics, but petrochemical based plastics will be used in many places regardless. At the moment, plastics are used pretty much everywhere, even when it clearly isn’t the most optimal solution. I think that this situation will begin to gradually change as the production and use of alternatives become economically attractive.
For instance, a plastic wrapping around a salad doesn’t need to last thousands of years. As long as it protects the salad all the way from the farm to my kitchen, It’s good enough. This sort of optimization will probably reduce the demand for plastic, but it will probably never go down to zero. There are lots of applications such as chemical bottles where long term durability is far more important.
The shitty thing is that as it puts the pressure on big oil, prices will rise and hurt poor people the hardest. We’re already being squeezed by the cost of gas, and when demand gets low the price will continue to go up until poor people are forced to choose between gas and food or an EV and food.
Why will oil be able to raise the prices? Seems like with less demand it'd be cheaper.
That’s what you’d think. But they’re capitalists and will squeeze every penny they can to their dying breath.
Supply and demand is largely a myth, especially in markets like oil where it’s practically a monopoly.
Is not a monopoly though, yes there are cartels but it’s not a monopoly. The less demand there is for oil the less power OPEC has to manipulate prices. They will be left scrambling to supply the remaining demand. Supply and demand isn’t a myth, OPEC simply manipulate supply to influence the price.
The fact that they can just manipulate supply I what makes supply and demand a farce with oil. Demand doesn’t change the price, only supply.
Oil and gas could still be cheap today, there’s no shortage of oil at all, so they create the conditions necessary to benefit them. They’ll do exactly the same thing as demand for oil peters out, but they’ll wring the neck of that goose tighter and tighter until it finally dies. And it’s the people who can’t afford a new car that will suffer the worst when that happens.
Demand does change the price. You can see the price drop during economic downturns. Supply and demand are two sides of a single equation. It simply doesn’t make sense to say that only one impacts prices.
Prices had been dropping recently despite KSA reducing supply, until the attacks in Israel that is.
Lmao
Same reason why oil prices keep going up even as demand drops, the price of oil is largely determined by OPEC+ and they will cut production until prices rise to where they want them, and the more they have to cut production the higher the prices have to be to offset their fixed costs. More oil = more total revenue = lower price floor for profits.
Lack of demand does not raise prices on fuel - quite the opposite.