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by athesyn 2157 days ago
They've been saying this for the past 20 years and even though it's inevitable it's still nowhere near our lifetimes.
4 comments

What’s different from the narrative of the last 20 years is that we’re not running out of oil but in fact have a glut of it. A little ironic.
exactly, I remember learning at school that we're running out of oil in 30 years and have ot diversify or peril.

As it looks there will be plenty of oil in the ground before we don't need it anymore.

We have mainstream electric vehicles now and more are on the way. A very large part (40-60%) of petroleum is used for gasoline. That will wreak havoc on oil producing places, although who gets hit how hard and what consequences it has is impossible to say.
The developing world, a group very cost sensitive and unlikely to switch for environmental reasons, is putting gasoline vehicles on the road much faster than the developed road is taking them off.

For electric vehicles to eat the world they have to be cheaper than gasoline counterparts. Not only for luxury electric vehicles to be cheaper than luxury gasoline vehicles, but for the cheapest gasoline motorcycle/scooter/car to be more expensive than the cheapest electric motorcycle/scooter/car. Given the current cost materials inside a battery/electric engine compared to the current cost of materials inside a combustion engine it’s unlikely to happen with our current approach.

The developing world can't pay much for ICE technology, and more importantly can't sustain it on its own. It will ultimately follow the lead of the developed world with a slight delay.
As more oil is freed up by reduced demand in transport, I wonder whether we will see more cheap plastic flooding our cities. People are switching to electric in part because they are keen to reduce their reliance on petrol (and its cost), but nobody is really moving away from plastic.
There is a push to move away from disposable plastic. Why else were paper straws such a big deal?
How do you figure that? The Saudis have a ton of cheap oil, but they still want high prices and high demand. It's one thing to say they will sell to petrochemical forever, but IMO peak oil was reached in 2019, which isn't good for countries whose main revenue is oil.
More like ringing bells for the last 20 years. And now we are here and these regimes are not ready.