>renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero, is cleaner environmentally, much easier to transport and could readily replace up to 40% of global oil demand
Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any technology that is capable of moving macroscopic amounts of matter is capable of moving gasoline. You can haul it on a bicycle, you can haul it on an airplane. To transport electricity you need to make sure there are power lines and batteries arranged in a certain way.
That really is a remarkable visualization! So much so that I had to compute it for myself - 27,000 liters of gasoline will move an average car 287,000 km assuming 9.4L/100km which is the average 2017 fuel economy for a "car, light truck, SUV" in the US.[1]
With existing infrastructure, for most locations, electricity is far easier to transport than gas. Even with some necessary scaling to support widespread car charging, electrical infrastructure is far more robust, redundant and safe than the gas.
That's a nice image, but you are making a case for storage, not transport.
Transportation of (flammable) liquids require either vehicles (and hence roads or rails if you go inland) down to the last mile. Electricity requires a wire, which is far less costly to build.
Also if you consider the logistics of bringing energy to different places of a building, wires are much easier to lay down than pipes.
>A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan.
A cube 3 meters on a side can also contain almost 160,000 meters squared of solar cell wafers, given a common wafer thickness of around 170 micrometers.
Assuming around ten square meters per car, that could keep nearly 16,000 cars on the road for decades.
edit - to take this further, a standard shipping container could contain enough wafers for nearly 20,000 cars and in 2012, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 254,639,386 registered vehicles in the US.
So that comes to under 14,000 shipping containers full of wafers, which could fit in one single ship delivery, for all of the vehicles in the USA.
I understand this to mean “cheaper to transport at scale”. You need to truck gasoline to a gas station every time. Once cables are laid, electricity transport is practically free.
Imagine the delta between the electric infrastructure we need when we have a car fleet that is electric vs the electric infrastructure we need when we don't.
Given we need to transport electricity for a bunch of other things, this delta is small.
It's big relative to the electric fleet size when the fleet is small, but it's tiny when the electric fleet is a substantial fraction of the car fleet.
>“For a given capital outlay on oil and renewables, how much useful energy at the wheel do we get? Our analysis indicates that for the same capital outlay today, new wind and solar-energy projects in tandem with battery electric vehicles will produce six to seven times more useful energy at the wheels than will oil at $60 per barrel for gasoline powered light-duty vehicles, and three to four times more than will oil at $60 per barrel for light-duty vehicles running on diesel,”
If these figures are even in the rough ballpark of being correct, then it is all over bar the shouting.
>"More than a third (36%) of the crude oil produced today goes to fuel vehicles susceptible to electrification"
Coffin nail for small internal combustion engines is maintenance and life span. I think maintenance is around 5 to 10 cents a mile. And the engines only last 4-8000 hours. Maintenance on electric motors is nil. And the life span is 25-50,000 hours at least for industrial motors.
Kicker once price parity is archived gasoline powered cars will be more expensive to operate even if the cost of gasoline was zero.
> renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero
This seems to be the crux of the argument. It certainly doesn't make sense to me. Obviously oil would find it hard to compete with electricity if it was free, but amortizing the cost of renewable power plants means that is unlikely any time soon.
Marginal cost = cost of producing one more unit of something (energy in that case) once your capital has been spent.
It just says that if you have a solar panel, you don't need to spend additional money to make it produce electricity. Unlike, say, a diesel generator. It is purely capital spending, zero marginal cost.
Another way of counting would be to say that _not_ producing costs you money as you are losing capital over the panels' lifetime.
There are times of the year where renewable energy is free right now, and production is curtailed.
There are also some places where prices go slightly negative because the producers' tax credit schemes give them revenue in excess of the negative price.
Bloomberg has a study.[1] But they see electric vehicles hitting 50% of new sales about 20 years out.
The battery Ford F150 is two years out.. At that point, most consumer vehicles can potentially be electric, but the electrics will not be lower in initial cost yet. Bloomberg sees that happening in 2024.
Conversion may happen faster in China. Already, there are heavy incentives to go electric in Beijing. As in, you can get a car license much more easily.
FYI we are at about 5% yearly now. More than half the EVs produced last year were produced in China, where the government strong subsidizes electric vehicles and taxes fuel vehicles.
There is also another strong incentive for EVs in a renewable electricity scenario: smoothing the intermittence.
Nowadays, electricity grids try to incentivize consumers to use electricity at night more, as they try to smoothen the consumption baseline. With solar and wind, you have huge spikes of production and some gaps as well. Expect electricity to be very expensive at some time and very cheap (even free or negative price) at some other time. In such a context, storage capacity becomes very quickly a good investment.
The Forbes summary of the report it's covering says this only covers light duty vehicles and up to 40% of oil production. So still plenty of demand for oil for long haul ships and trucks I imagine.
Some of the more sustainable long haul truck routes are likely going to go electric.
Hydrogen fuel cells likely won't be cost effective for cars, but may disrupt diesel in long haul ships and may be competitive against fast charging for the wilder long haul trucking routes.
I have questions about the environmental impact of EV batteries when it comes time to replace or dispose of them. I've read a few things, including an old statement by Tesla on the topic.[1]
> Tesla: "our lithium ion cells contain no heavy metals, nor any toxic materials. In fact, our cells and Energy Storage System, by law, could be disposed of by putting them in a landfill. However, we have no intention of landfilling our ESS." They go on to say a recycling plan is being implemented. Cool.
From an RoHS POV, sure, no heavy metals. But "no toxic materials" and "ready for landfill" blows my mind. Am I naive?
I'll assume Tesla is one of the Good Guys, but I predict worse players in the industry will take advantage of loose disposal regulations if there is short term benefit.
The writer doesn't seem to distinguish between reserves and resources, a common mistake in these kinds of articles. In normal mining use reserves are areas of ore you've mapped out and shown to be economically extractable by drilling holes, taking samples etc, resources are the amount or stuff out there. Reserves always only go a few years ahead because it takes money to find them, drill them and so on. That doesn't mean we're running out.
> Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days As A Transport Fuel Are Numbered
I know the article was about cars, but fossil fuel will always have a place as aviation fuel. The only thing I can currently see ending that trend is widespread use of vacuum tunnel trains.
I see the claim that we need fossil fuels for airlines and rockets raised frequently, but once we have widespread renewable electricity, what’s the barrier to creating fuel from air and water, using electricity?
AFAIK, it’s not really fossil fuels that are needed for planes and rockets, but high energy density liquid fuels, and these can surely be created renewably once we have a renewable energy infrastructure.
The question on my mind is what else will this freed up oil will be used for? One area could be cheaper fuel for aviation? More plastics? This of course ignores the environmental cost of continuing to use oil.
If oil demand falls a lot of tar sands and offshore and fracking and other hard to get oil will become uneconomical to extract, causing (paradoxically) supply to appear to contract too. The oil age could ratchet down via a series of price spikes and contractions just as it ratcheted up via price spikes and expansions.
Note that this is a "Forbes Contributor", i.e. a user of the Forbes blogging platform. I wish HN wouldn't label these with "forbes.com" because it's even shittier quality than Forbes.
Lithium batteries aren’t green at all. Going to EVs just changes the impact on the environment.
If we can’t solve the end of life issues with lithium batteries, we need to look at them as a technology adjacent to petroleum when it pertains to environmental impact. A true step forward would be an innovation of power storage itself, rather than the mechanisms around it. Build a better gas tank.
OPEC and the United States keep fossil fuels artificially inflated through constant wars and their barbaric sanctions against Iran & Venezuela. How much would a barrel of oil cost if they were allowed to sell on the free market?
"fossil fuel" is a limited resource (not renewable) full of interesting chemical molecules. It is a shame that it is wasted for energy production. IMHO, it is too cheap.
The entire article is 100% bullshit and has nothing to do with EV per se. All you need to do is look at general electricity prices, which have been going up, not down, especially in the countries that have the highest renewable rate (Denmark or Germany).
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Line-graph-of-average-el...
Once electricity prices start collapsing and battery capacity issues are resolved, I'll start believing the story.
Here in the UK the price of petrol has gone up more than 50% in the past 20 years. So long as electricity is increasing in price more slowly its still more attractive as a fuel source.
[+] [-] klwejchkwejrhc|6 years ago|reply
Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any technology that is capable of moving macroscopic amounts of matter is capable of moving gasoline. You can haul it on a bicycle, you can haul it on an airplane. To transport electricity you need to make sure there are power lines and batteries arranged in a certain way.
[+] [-] localhost|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_automobiles
[+] [-] Diederich|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Iv|6 years ago|reply
Transportation of (flammable) liquids require either vehicles (and hence roads or rails if you go inland) down to the last mile. Electricity requires a wire, which is far less costly to build.
Also if you consider the logistics of bringing energy to different places of a building, wires are much easier to lay down than pipes.
[+] [-] pkulak|6 years ago|reply
I guess that's a valid point, but mailing DVDs still lost out to streaming, same as trucking and piping gas will lose to wiring.
[+] [-] inflatableDodo|6 years ago|reply
A cube 3 meters on a side can also contain almost 160,000 meters squared of solar cell wafers, given a common wafer thickness of around 170 micrometers.
Assuming around ten square meters per car, that could keep nearly 16,000 cars on the road for decades.
edit - to take this further, a standard shipping container could contain enough wafers for nearly 20,000 cars and in 2012, according to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 254,639,386 registered vehicles in the US.
So that comes to under 14,000 shipping containers full of wafers, which could fit in one single ship delivery, for all of the vehicles in the USA.
[+] [-] perfunctory|6 years ago|reply
I understand this to mean “cheaper to transport at scale”. You need to truck gasoline to a gas station every time. Once cables are laid, electricity transport is practically free.
[+] [-] Tomminn|6 years ago|reply
Given we need to transport electricity for a bunch of other things, this delta is small.
It's big relative to the electric fleet size when the fleet is small, but it's tiny when the electric fleet is a substantial fraction of the car fleet.
[+] [-] vvanders|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inflatableDodo|6 years ago|reply
If these figures are even in the rough ballpark of being correct, then it is all over bar the shouting.
>"More than a third (36%) of the crude oil produced today goes to fuel vehicles susceptible to electrification"
https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk/
[+] [-] Gibbon1|6 years ago|reply
Kicker once price parity is archived gasoline powered cars will be more expensive to operate even if the cost of gasoline was zero.
[+] [-] arbuge|6 years ago|reply
This seems to be the crux of the argument. It certainly doesn't make sense to me. Obviously oil would find it hard to compete with electricity if it was free, but amortizing the cost of renewable power plants means that is unlikely any time soon.
[+] [-] Iv|6 years ago|reply
It just says that if you have a solar panel, you don't need to spend additional money to make it produce electricity. Unlike, say, a diesel generator. It is purely capital spending, zero marginal cost.
Another way of counting would be to say that _not_ producing costs you money as you are losing capital over the panels' lifetime.
[+] [-] epistasis|6 years ago|reply
There are also some places where prices go slightly negative because the producers' tax credit schemes give them revenue in excess of the negative price.
[+] [-] Animats|6 years ago|reply
The battery Ford F150 is two years out.. At that point, most consumer vehicles can potentially be electric, but the electrics will not be lower in initial cost yet. Bloomberg sees that happening in 2024.
Conversion may happen faster in China. Already, there are heavy incentives to go electric in Beijing. As in, you can get a car license much more easily.
[1] https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/
[2] https://thinkprogress.org/electric-vehicles-cheaper-gasoline...
[+] [-] Iv|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Iv|6 years ago|reply
Nowadays, electricity grids try to incentivize consumers to use electricity at night more, as they try to smoothen the consumption baseline. With solar and wind, you have huge spikes of production and some gaps as well. Expect electricity to be very expensive at some time and very cheap (even free or negative price) at some other time. In such a context, storage capacity becomes very quickly a good investment.
[+] [-] kristianp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WorldMaker|6 years ago|reply
Hydrogen fuel cells likely won't be cost effective for cars, but may disrupt diesel in long haul ships and may be competitive against fast charging for the wilder long haul trucking routes.
[+] [-] woodandsteel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abhi152|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emptybits|6 years ago|reply
> Tesla: "our lithium ion cells contain no heavy metals, nor any toxic materials. In fact, our cells and Energy Storage System, by law, could be disposed of by putting them in a landfill. However, we have no intention of landfilling our ESS." They go on to say a recycling plan is being implemented. Cool.
From an RoHS POV, sure, no heavy metals. But "no toxic materials" and "ready for landfill" blows my mind. Am I naive?
I'll assume Tesla is one of the Good Guys, but I predict worse players in the industry will take advantage of loose disposal regulations if there is short term benefit.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling-our-...
[+] [-] akeck|6 years ago|reply
https://syonyk.blogspot.com/2015/12/cobalt-requirements-for-...
[+] [-] tim333|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nordsieck|6 years ago|reply
I know the article was about cars, but fossil fuel will always have a place as aviation fuel. The only thing I can currently see ending that trend is widespread use of vacuum tunnel trains.
[+] [-] doctor_eval|6 years ago|reply
AFAIK, it’s not really fossil fuels that are needed for planes and rockets, but high energy density liquid fuels, and these can surely be created renewably once we have a renewable energy infrastructure.
Or have I missed something?
[+] [-] adrianN|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IloveHN84|6 years ago|reply
That is a huge barrier of entrance. At the same price, one can buy a BMW or Audi. We need an economic model to let the EV industry boom
[+] [-] psadri|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gingabriska|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Proven|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Scoundreller|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] RickJWagner|6 years ago|reply
Now all we need is an electric car that fits the economic footprint of a gas car and provides decent range. I'll take a performance model, please.
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cylinder|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greglindahl|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccsnags|6 years ago|reply
If we can’t solve the end of life issues with lithium batteries, we need to look at them as a technology adjacent to petroleum when it pertains to environmental impact. A true step forward would be an innovation of power storage itself, rather than the mechanisms around it. Build a better gas tank.
[+] [-] Anothernhym|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reacweb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Anothernhym|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] JackPoach|6 years ago|reply
Once electricity prices start collapsing and battery capacity issues are resolved, I'll start believing the story.
[+] [-] onion2k|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwaltrip|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phaemon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imtringued|6 years ago|reply