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0 pointsfallingknife4y ago0 comments

Given that the US is now a net oil exporter, an oil shock scenario is pretty much off the table. Moving to EVs is going to take so much oil demand off the table that it's pretty much a non issue going forward too.

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coldtea4y ago

>Moving to EVs is going to take so much oil demand off the table that it's pretty much a non issue going forward too.

And yet the gas price is higher it's been since 2014 or so.

And "moving to EVs", with 280 million conventional cars in the USA atm, ain't gonna happen in any large degree for the next 10-15 years. EVs (including hybrids) are less than 4% of current annual sales, and all-electric are half that. That's even assuming there was the production capacity, battery materials availability, network, etc for this to happen - which includes several breakthroughs or handwaving micacles.

starwind4y ago

Gas, like all commodities, create their own business cycles. You don't want to compare spot prices, you want to compare trends. As a counterpoint, I could say "2 years ago, gas was cheaper than it had been since 2006"

DesiLurker4y ago

this is not even remotely true, the only reason US is a net oil exporter is because combination of high oil prices & cheap money has created an artificial support environment where unprofitable stuff like shale oil can survive. take some of these factors out and add demand destruction (even as low as 5%) from EVs and you are back to wildly fluctuating oil prices with no end in sight because every year the problem will be incrementally worse.

if there is one takeaway from all this it is there are very few oil producers that are profitab;e above $50/bbl and US ain't one of them.

chasd004y ago

isn't not being dependent on fossil fuels the goal? If EVs cause demand destruction for oil then that's good no? The more oil left unburned the better, i thought that was the point all along.

who cares about wildly fluctuating oil prices if your country is no longer dependent on oil.

DesiLurker4y ago

Oh I strongly agree about need of moving away from oil, I was just addressing the oil shock remarks parent made. I do worry about the compensatory behavior in non-ev addressed markets (like aviation, energy, food etc) just because oil prices are temporarily low after EV demand destruction. this is why I feel its best to start removing all fossil subsidies at the first chance we get because we may not want a distorted price signal to exist for any longer than it has to.

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coldtea4y ago

>Moving to EVs is going to take so much oil demand off the table that it's pretty much a non issue going forward too.

And yet the gas price is higher it's been since 2014 or so.

starwind4y ago

DesiLurker4y ago

if there is one takeaway from all this it is there are very few oil producers that are profitab;e above $50/bbl and US ain't one of them.

chasd004y ago

isn't not being dependent on fossil fuels the goal? If EVs cause demand destruction for oil then that's good no? The more oil left unburned the better, i thought that was the point all along.

who cares about wildly fluctuating oil prices if your country is no longer dependent on oil.

DesiLurker4y ago

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