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by blargey 88 days ago
Norway switching from ICEs to EVs objectively reduces global oil consumption+burning by exactly that much.

Norway exporting oil increases oil supply, but doesn't increase consumption. The world's oil consumers are not supply-constrained; the producers are not running at 100% capacity, and they'll happily pick up the slack if Norway just stopped exporting oil for no reason. And there's a large amount of consumption that can't be offset by electrification in the first place (petrochemicals, long distance flight, etc) so there's not even a theoretical future end-state where they require a non-EV-using counterparty to buy their oil to fund their EV usage.

Calling it a "bookkeeping trick" is just verbal sleigh-of-hand.
2 comments
jasonfarnon 86 days ago
"Norway switching from ICEs to EVs objectively reduces global oil consumption+burning by exactly that much."

Meaning what they are in fact doing has the same effect as if they stopped producing/exporting oil exactly to the extent that it gets replaced by EVs over there? I could only see that happening if they undersell everyone in the world so they create no new consumers. I guess the truth is somewhere in the middle. I imagine the truth be known though? When Norway enters the market, how much other producers' sales go down?

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patmorgan23 88 days ago
Increases in supply also increase consumption, we use lots of cheap stuff, but not very much of expensive stuff.
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jonasdegendt 88 days ago
This would be true but you're not accounting for OPEC and other groups (e.g. historically the Texas Railroad Commission in the United States, not sure how relevant they still are) to balance production and price per barrel to what they think is agreeable.

Oil hasn't been supply constrained since the 50's, it's price is largely based on what producing countries agree on, as well as geopolitics.

Additionally, governments levy a decent amount of taxes on certain end products such as gasoline. They might very well, as they have in the past, decide to simply up their tax revenue as prices of crude and derivatives go down.

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