Diesel, H2, Electric, Petrol, CNG, 2040 post-oil world

AndyH asked a great question in the
3 fuel types, Diesel, Hydrogen, Electric - Mercedes
thread, it deserves a topic of its own.

"which of these vehicles will be the most useful in the post-oil world of 2040+?"

My predictions

I mostly agree with Musk's predication that mid 2020s, EVs will cross the 50% for new passenger vehicles. My model is that plugin vehicles (EVs and PHEVs) will cross the 50% mark for new passenger vehicles world wide mid 2020s. Obviously if either EV or PHEV cross the 50% mark, then the other cannot, Thats end game, not mid game.

The world still buys salt, the world will still buy oil. As an energy source, recently coal has overtaken oil to be the world's primary energy source so we have already entered the 'post oil' world for energy. By $$ value oil is the main energy commodity.

I expect a financing singularity to occur in the developed world in regards to vehicles, that will be similar to Carmageddon but permanent. The institutions that back the loans and leases will cease financing new ICE vehicles, this is similar to Shai Agassi expectations, my take is that is occurs when the all in 3 year cost (depreciation and electricity) for a new EV equals the same cost for a 3year old ICE (depreciation and fuel). This will a brutal time for the industry. It also is in a post rebate timeframe.

I don't see chemical H2 ever being a viable surface or air transportation fuel, perhaps viable for space. Hydrogen may still be the future, but thats for due to physics not chemistry.

2040 Diesel fleets will still be around for heavy haulage, truck stops on the outskirts of towns.

2040 Transport shipping will have either hydrocarbon fuel cells or equivalent efficiency combustion motors. Solar and batteries might also become dominant for ships without deck storage (ie bulk commodities etc)

Much more to add, China will have banned ICE from their cities etc
the world is larger than the west, India might've made air bag compulsory by now, or maybe not http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/airbags-abs-may-become-compulsory-by-fy14-report-113031800201_1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; Some large automotive markets will remain dominantly oil based long after others have transitioned to 100% plugin.

I don't know if your oil/salt comment was a subtle hat-tip to this 2009 book (Turning Oil Into Salt: Energy Independence through Fuel Choice), but it is relevant to this topic. "Pump" (the movie) revolves around essentially the same message: i.e., that fuel choice is what will get us off of petroleum and make turn it into an 'unstrategic' commodity the quickest.

As for predictions and/or hopes, here's my quick two-cents on the options:

• I hope and almost expect to see Musk's prediction come true, if half of all new passenger cars being BEVs by 2025 is indeed what it is/was.
  
  
• I suspect that a benign/sustainable diesel substitute will be developed for use in the many and long-lived diesel engines that are sure to be around (including those in trains).
  
  
• I also suspect that better ways (than using corn) will be found/used to make ethanol, especially in smaller rural communities.
  
  
• H2? Maybe for larger vehicles with well-defined routes and stopping points (buses, warehouse machinery).
  
  
• CNG? Not sure!
  
  
• Hopefully, jet fuel will also be synthesized, or "synthesizable", from any diesel substitute that comes along.
  
  
• And finally, I suspect and/or hope that many solar-powered (at least partially) hyperloops will be used throughout the world by 2040, if not much much sooner. (Is anyone else here optimistic about hyperloops?!)

CNG is already at scale in some countries that lack oil refinery capacity, like Iran and Italy. Cheapest way for USA to reduce reduce oil use is to buy Thai CNG utes http://www.nissan.co.th/en/Vehicles/Navara-CNG.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; its about $400more than diesel or $2000 more than petrol model. Global LNG is not cheap, but its cheaper building a refinery. post Carmageddon, CNG vehicles won't be competitive to buy either, in 1st world countries.

Rail yes, cars yes, Hyperloops no. too claustrophobic.
Chinese fast rail yes

AndyH said:

Hey ydnas - which of these vehicles will be the most useful in the post-oil world of 2040+?

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Wow, great question!!!

1) diesel - none economically available
2) hydrogen - no cheap natural gas to crack
3) electric - sub $100 per kWh batteries powered by clean, renewable sources like the sun, wind, waves, water, et al.


The correct answer is "3".

I get that complexity can be challenging, but for this topic we must be able to consider multiple factors. Post-oil doesn't just mean crude - it means all fossil fuels tracked as part of the oil mix. That's even more important since in addition to being at/past peak oil we have a serious atmospheric carbon problem. That means that:

No, CNG is not an option because it's a fossil fuel and is at or near peak on its own.
Efficiency of fossil-fuel vehicles is irrelevant as they're on their way out.

The point of the energy transition plans is not to "add" new systems to the existing playing field - it's to replace the stuff that's killing us.

I'm a fan of Elon Musk. I would, however, like to see what's behind his 50% BEV number. Unless we have a crisis that takes a LOT of cars off the road and massively increases our ability to make batteries, there's not a chance that we'll get to 50% market penetration in 2050 -- and we need 80%+ of all vehicles on the road to be ZEV - not just 50% of new car sales.

Reviewing TIR, Reinventing Fire, and the Crash Course could be very useful.

The real point is that batteries fall pathetically short of our customary fossil fuel energy storage medium. When we wake up to a declining global availability of petroleum, we won’t just switch over to electric cars. We may not be able to collectively afford such a transition, given the huge up-front costs in both money and energy. Where will the prosperity come from? If oil shortages drive recession in the usual fashion, expensive options may be off the table.

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http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/08/battery-performance-deficit-disorder/

Looking closer to 2030 than 2040. And no, neither 'efficiency' nor 'more tech' seem to be part of the process. How fast can Elon crank out those giga-factories, hmmm?

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?

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By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.

These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse," in all such cases over "the last five thousand years."

Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with "Elites" based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:

"... accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels."

The study challenges those who argue that technology will resolve these challenges by increasing efficiency:

"Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use."

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AndyH said:

I get that complexity can be challenging, but for this topic we must be able to consider multiple factors.

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AndyH posting tip #1: Start every post with an ad hominem attack.

AndyH said:

I'm a fan of Elon Musk. I would, however, like to see what's behind his 50% BEV number. Unless we have a crisis that takes a LOT of cars off the road and massively increases our ability to make batteries, there's not a chance that we'll get to 50% market penetration in 2050 -- and we need 80%+ of all vehicles on the road to be ZEV - not just 50% of new car sales.

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So the obvious solution is to pursue solutions which use MORE resources and MORE energy (which, in turn, uses MORE resources). /sarc

RegGuheert said:

AndyH said:

I get that complexity can be challenging, but for this topic we must be able to consider multiple factors.

Click to expand...

AndyH posting tip #1: Start every post with an ad hominem attack.

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Back to your old tricks, eh Reg? How in God's Green Earth can you take a request to zoom out as a f'n personal attack? :roll: Yours is the attack - make it the last one please. Thanks in advance.

RegGuheert said:

AndyH said:

I'm a fan of Elon Musk. I would, however, like to see what's behind his 50% BEV number. Unless we have a crisis that takes a LOT of cars off the road and massively increases our ability to make batteries, there's not a chance that we'll get to 50% market penetration in 2050 -- and we need 80%+ of all vehicles on the road to be ZEV - not just 50% of new car sales.

Click to expand...

So the obvious solution is to pursue solutions which use MORE resources and MORE energy (which, in turn, uses MORE resources). /sarc

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You're still not getting it. Sorry about that. Start with facts then work toward solutions is my suggestion - not the other way around.

AndyH said:

RegGuheert said:

AndyH said:

I'm a fan of Elon Musk. I would, however, like to see what's behind his 50% BEV number. Unless we have a crisis that takes a LOT of cars off the road and massively increases our ability to make batteries, there's not a chance that we'll get to 50% market penetration in 2050 -- and we need 80%+ of all vehicles on the road to be ZEV - not just 50% of new car sales.

Click to expand...

So the obvious solution is to pursue solutions which use MORE resources and MORE energy (which, in turn, uses MORE resources). /sarc

Click to expand...

You're still not getting it. Sorry about that. Start with facts then work toward solutions is my suggestion - not the other way around.

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Let me spell it out for you: It takes MORE resources to MAKE EACH FCV AND it takes MORE resources to FUEL EACH FCV. Because of this simple fact, every fuel-cell vehicle which is put into service uses the resources that would have allowed either two or three BEVs to have been fielded. As such, when used in roles that BEVs address, they are not a solution, but rather they are a direct impediment to progress toward a solution.

And, yes, I will continue to call you out on your incessant, obnoxious ad hominem attacks.

RegGuheert said:

It takes MORE resources to MAKE EACH FCV AND it takes MORE resources to FUEL EACH FCV.

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They may be using more resources per FCV, but they plan to make it up on volume.

AndyH said:

I'm a fan of Elon Musk. I would, however, like to see what's behind his 50% BEV number. Unless we have a crisis that takes a LOT of cars off the road and massively increases our ability to make batteries, there's not a chance that we'll get to 50% market penetration in 2050 -- and we need 80%+ of all vehicles on the road to be ZEV - not just 50% of new car sales.

Click to expand...

RegGuheert said:

AndyH said:

RegGuheert said:

So the obvious solution is to pursue solutions which use MORE resources and MORE energy (which, in turn, uses MORE resources). /sarc

Click to expand...

You're still not getting it. Sorry about that. Start with facts then work toward solutions is my suggestion - not the other way around.

Click to expand...

Let me spell it out for you: It takes MORE resources to MAKE EACH FCV AND it takes MORE resources to FUEL EACH FCV. Because of this simple fact, every fuel-cell vehicle which is put into service uses the resources that would have allowed either two or three BEVs to have been fielded. As such, when used in roles that BEVs address, they are not a solution, but rather they are a direct impediment to progress toward a solution.

And, yes, I will continue to call you out on your incessant, obnoxious ad hominem attacks.

Click to expand...

You can spell it in any language you choose but until you cite some sources and define the system in which your mythical resource hogs will be used, there's no point to your 'point'. You might want to double check your 'facts' if you think that a FCEV system capable of moving 40,000 lbs of cargo uses more raw materials than an equivalent battery system...

The actual point of this is that in a post-2030 world when one does NOT have oil, gasoline, or diesel to use, a battery is NOT enough. Your argument is made moot when your proposed solution CANNOT PERFORM THE NECESSARY FUNCTION.

If you believe that any of my posts are "incessant, obnoxious" attacks, feel free to push the 'report' button and let the moderators take care of the problem.