Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Earth

Global Shift To Clean Energy Means Fossil Fuel Demand Will Peak Soon, IEA says (npr.org) 176

Posted by msmash from the encouraging-feedback dept.
Demand for climate-warming fuels like coal, oil and natural gas will likely peak before 2030, evidence of the accelerating global shift to energy that doesn't emit greenhouse gasses, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s World Energy Outlook. From a report: "The transition to clean energy is happening worldwide and it's unstoppable. It's not a question of 'if', it's just a matter of 'how soon' -- and the sooner the better for all of us," said Fatih Birol, IEA executive director, in a statement. The agency represents countries that make up more than 80% of global energy consumption. The annual IEA report estimates that in 2030 there will be 10 times as many electric vehicles on the road worldwide and 50% of the cars sold in the United States will be electric. The agency says solar panels installed across the globe will generate more electricity at the end of the decade than the U.S. power system produces now. And the report projects that renewable energy will supply 50% of the world's electricity needs, up from about 30% now.

But the report warns the pace of the transition will have to quicken considerably in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and avoid some of the worst case scenarios in a changing climate. The IEA's outlook lays out a strategy for meeting that goal that includes tripling renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency measures and slashing methane emissions from fossil fuel operations by 75% by 2030. Methane has more than 25 times the climate-warming potential of carbon dioxide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Climate and anti-fossil fuel groups say the IEA's methane strategy should be even more aggressive.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Global Shift To Clean Energy Means Fossil Fuel Demand Will Peak Soon, IEA says More

Global Shift To Clean Energy Means Fossil Fuel Demand Will Peak Soon, IEA says

Comments Filter:

  • Really? I only 7 years...? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @09:54AM (#63949029) Homepage Journal

    The annual IEA report estimates that in 2030 there will be 10 times as many electric vehicles on the road worldwide and 50% of the cars sold in the United States will be electric.

    I dunno...I don't see that happening.

    Even today, EV sales are stagnating....with EV's sitting on the lots.

    The demand has dropped overall, and there are even people that went EV that found them to be a hassle for refueling that are upon trade in, going more for hybrid, or even ICE.

    Interesting video on CNBC about this. [youtu.be]

    • You ain't wrong. Only reason I bought mine is I literally got it for half the price since it's been sitting for years (and used as a loan car) by the dealership, they can't get rid of them.

      And the solar image is SOOO painted. Here they have raised solar tax now, and for cars they've taken away all subsidies, and not only that, cars cost pretty much the same they did 5 years ago, people simply can't afford it (not talking about Norway here, since their gov. basically subsidise electric cars), but ours.. and

      • The best part of the Norway thing is that it's basically 5 million people sitting on an oilfield...which they export so they can pretend to be green at home.

        • I love Norway and Norwegians. Lived there for years. However, when it comes to energy policies they are utterly full of shit in every possible dimension.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @10:13AM (#63949105)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • DTE just forced it on their customers this year in South Eastern Michigan. They previously had an Opt-In thing, but pushed this through with no ability to Opt-Out.

          https://www.mlive.com/news/202... [mlive.com]

        • You want to toss out a citation for this claim? I've never lived anywhere in the US that forces residential customers into a time of use (TOU) plan.

          San Diego. Here you really don't want to use electricity from 4 PM to 9 PM. Which is when everyone gets home from work and wants to cook dinner, run the dishwasher, and do a load of laundry. Oh, and charge their car.

          20 years ago when SDG&E forced smart meters on us they said it would cut costs. I and anyone else who had 2 brain cells to rub together knew TOU wasn't far away.

          • San Diego. Here you really don't want to use electricity from 4 PM to 9 PM. Which is when everyone gets home from work and wants to cook dinner, run the dishwasher, and do a load of laundry. Oh, and charge their car.

            Why would they want to charge their car between 4 PM and 9 PM? They should set it to start charging at 10 PM.

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • All of the dishwashers I've seen & many of the washing machines are programmable so they can start automatically later in the evening/night to take advantage of cheaper electricity tariffs. I have no idea about EV charging but I bet they do the same. If you want to use electricity on the most expensive tariffs possible, you can. Nobody's stopping you.

        • I didnâ(TM)t see where OP states this is the US. These shenanigans are happening in the EU as well as Michigan, New York and California as the grid is incapable of keeping up with even a decreased demand when switching to so-called green energy, so they should really build more gas/coal peaker plants, instead they put the entire grid on rolling brownout plans and de-incentivize the use of rooftop solar.

          The Netherlands is now planning on taxing the solar you produce at home to help offset the incredible

    • Interesting video, thank you.

      I think the guy at the end hit the issue perfectly, every automaker is launching EV's at the 50-60K price range which is well saturated at this point and many people (myself included) are just not willing to throw down that type of money.

      EV's today do absolutely have some tradeoffs especially in regards to peoples locale and living situations. Those tradeoffs look a lot different when a car is $30k versus $60k

      • I think the guy at the end hit the issue perfectly, every automaker is launching EV's at the 50-60K price range which is well saturated at this point and many people (myself included) are just not willing to throw down that type of money.

        EV's today do absolutely have some tradeoffs especially in regards to peoples locale and living situations. Those tradeoffs look a lot different when a car is $30k versus $60k

        If they can get the EVs to be more in line with current range and refueling times as current IC

        • The ranges for most of these EV's are 300+ miles which I think is good enough for most people. Refueling times just by the nature of physics and chemistry wont be nearing just pumping gas but the fact of at-home charging balances that out quite a bit, of course, that's *if* you can do at home charging. That's why the price is so critical, for a $50k price sticker some people aren't willing to make those small concessions. Prices always get put into the calculus of what people are willing to put up with.

          I

          • ...of course, that's *if* you can do at home charging.

            The thing is...that is a big IF that I think a lot of people pushing EVs either ignore or forget about.

            I don't know for sure, but I would guess that the majority of folks living in the US are NOT in single family dwellings that they own with off street parking where they can readily install a charging station and charge overnight.

            I would guess (and I may be wrong)..that the majority of those living in the US may:

            1. Rent a house, and you cannot just

            • Re:Really? I only 7 years...? (Score:4, Informative)

              by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @11:44AM (#63949453)

              There are some things in it's favor though.

              A majority of Americans (quick search shows it at 60%+) do in fact live in single family dwellings and another big chunk live in non-apartment multi family homes (like townhouses). I mean, the 'burbs are a big big part of America.

              Landlords who own single family homes to rent will have some incentive to install chargers, especially in a garage and especially if its a newer home as it likely has the electrical in place already or close to it. The charger itself is not the expense here, it's the electrical work and that can be very variable to the house and the placement. Even a 120V outlet can work reasonably well as an overnight charger, we are not talking about DC chargers here, I can buy a level-2 AC charger form Home Depot for $280. It's really more about having a non-street parking location which most single and multifamily homes have outside of the major metro centers.

              Also to be fair people who are living in their cars are likely nmot really the merket demographic for an EV. This sounds like a "San Francisco only" problem, the Tesla owner who can't afford a place to live...

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by ahodgson ( 74077 )

                Many (most?) townhouses will need electrical upgrades to charge at home. Even today they're being built with 100 amp service around here since the heat is natural gas.

                Or if the parking is on strata land instead of yours it's not up to you as to how or when a charger gets installed nearby.

                • Townhomes also have larger main feeds that are split off into each unit, more like an apartment building than a single family home. The chargers don't necessarily have to tap off the dwelling circuits, especially if it's part of a larger complex and the idea for the owners to charge for the usage. Also 100A service is going the wayside in new construction more and more as natural gas capacity does not get expand, almost all new homes in the US come with AC installed as much and things like heatpumps (and

                • Many (most?) townhouses will need electrical upgrades to charge at home.

                  Not really. At home I just charge on 120V AC. The average person just doesn't drive that much that you need heavy-duty 100 amp service.

                • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Ichijo ( 607641 )

            Even just a portable (Level 1) charger (attached to a beefy extension cord [amazon.com] if you park on the street) gives you 3-5 miles of range per hour of charge. 12 hours of that each night is enough for many commutes.

            • Even just a portable (Level 1) charger (attached to a beefy extension cord [amazon.com] if you park on the street) gives you 3-5 miles of range per hour of charge. 12 hours of that each night is enough for many commutes.

              Is it realistic to expect someone to roll out and extension cord all the way from the house, across the lawn, sidewalk, etc to the car at night...and then roll it back up and put away every morning before work?

              This isn't even considering the hazard of someone tripping over it at night, etc

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Ichijo ( 607641 )

                Is it realistic to expect someone to roll out and extension cord all the way from the house, across the lawn, sidewalk, etc to the car at night...and then roll it back up and put away every morning before work?

                My father does it so he doesn't have to clean out the garage or get a Level 2 charger installed. He likes the EV because he no longer has to visit the gas station or get oil changes, so it's still a good tradeoff for him.

            • Even just a portable (Level 1) charger (attached to a beefy extension cord [amazon.com] if you park on the street) gives you 3-5 miles of range per hour of charge. 12 hours of that each night is enough for many commutes.

              Beyond a long 10/3 cord being expensive enough to be a theft target, around here it is a bylaw infraction to lay cords across the sidewalk, which people sometimes do for their block heaters when it is really cold out. Apart from the obvious trip hazard for pedestrians which could get you sued, if it snows and covers the cord the sidewalk plow may take it away and damage your house and/or your car doing so. I used to drive a sidewalk plow many decades ago and cut many tangled cords out of my tracks. If yo

          • The true cost of EV is not just the car but also the infrastructure to support it. You need a dedicated spot at home (adds cost to a home) to charge (220V/50A from the breaker box to your spot = $5-15k electrician and construction costs) and you then also need to have the power supply (given we also need a 25kW budget for heat pump+ backup heat, another 5kW for instant water heater and another 5kW for an electric range) we are quickly running into asking your power company to go to a business-grade connecti

    • This is very wrong. By 2035 it will be illegal to sell combustion vehicles in 2 of the largest car markets in the world.

      More EV's are produced now so there is more inventory. The dealers are the problem with EV sales.

      • This is very wrong. By 2035 it will be illegal to sell combustion vehicles in 2 of the largest car markets in the world.

        I'm guessing when we get "close" to 2035...and the infrastructure is still not significantly better than now, and the EVs are MUCH cheaper and have ICE comparable range, that the citizens aren't going to stand up for it, and well....the govt officials will kick the can further down the road.

        They may want to be green, but they value their jobs more than they value being green.

        And too...I

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by haruchai ( 17472 )

      "Even today, EV sales are stagnating....with EV's sitting on the lots"
      Elon/Tesla has been predicting they alone will be selling ~20 million EVs annually by 2030.
      I 1st spotted this in the Introduction of their 2020 Impact Report
      https://www.tesla.com/ns_video... [tesla.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      One interesting statistic was that for all the doom and gloom about EV having a slump is that EVs in this 'bad' state was still 8% of sales. This seems a potentially viable trajectory to get to 50% of new car sales in 7 years.

      We are still waiting to see the manufacturers get significant selection out under $30k. Particularly in a "we might be in tricky economic times" context, the $30k+ segment I imagine to be particularly challenging. I could imagine that at least *new* cars to get to a 50/50 split.

      As a

      • There is a new apartment building, that was just built near my house, where all the parking spots in their parking garage have the facility for EV charging. They had it on a sign out front when they started looking for tenants. The No Vacancy sign went up about 2 weeks later.

        I admit, it is only a single data point.

        • I can believe it though, in the right neighborhood with the right demographic that is a very appealing factor. Be interested to know if the charging is part of the rent or is it pay-to-charge because that factor makes it appealing to developers as well, you have an entire money making center in a parking lot that would otherwise be a cost center.

          • I can believe it though, in the right neighborhood with the right demographic that is a very appealing factor. Be interested to know if the charging is part of the rent or is it pay-to-charge because that factor makes it appealing to developers as well, you have an entire money making center in a parking lot that would otherwise be a cost center.

            I don't know how the infrastructure is done in building, but the sign out front did say EV charging possible in every parking space. The building I work in have just added a bunch more EV charging spaces in the parking lot. Makes sense as it is an ongoing revenue stream for the building owners.
            My next vehicle will be an EV, but that is still a few years off.

            • Interesting that it is sold as "possible" so I guess they probably ran wires to each spot but probably didn't connect them and/or install a charger yet? Lean on the tenant for that when requested? Good thinking through as just running the wires is a good bulk of the cost.

      • As a homeowner with easy home charging who rarely drives over 150 miles in a day, the EV is a slam dunk. However if I lived in some apartment situation where I'd have to go to a charging *station*, absolutely not. Particularly since in my area DCFC costs as much as Gasoline (4X the residential rate for electricity). There's too much emphasis on 'public charging stations' and not enough around 'residential charging', because *that's* the place where you need your charging to be.

        There's a LOT of people out h

        • Who's going to want to pay to tear up all that paved lot area and install 100's of chargers?

          The landlords, if there is a demand from tenants to have chargers and the fact that they can charge the tenants for the power used to charge. Long term that could make them more money. The critical mass has to be there though so currently we are in this weird lurch with not enough demand for the capital investment of renovation.

          • The landlords, if there is a demand from tenants to have chargers and the fact that they can charge the tenants for the power used to charge. Long term that could make them more money. The critical mass has to be there though so currently we are in this weird lurch with not enough demand for the capital investment of renovation.

            Yep while reading your post I was thinking "chicken and the egg" type thoughts....

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Junta ( 36770 )

              Currently, the strategy for the broad chicken and egg is some incentives being thrown around. Unfortunately, the incentives seem to keep imagining "gas == electric" model and we think we need more gas-station style EV chargers, which are nice to have in a pinch if you have EV on a rare long haul trip, but suck so much harder than residential electric charging or gas pumps. 98% of EV driving would likely be covered if you waved a magic wand and everyone had residential charging available, with the DCFC sta

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Junta ( 36770 )

            It's tricky though.

            On the one hand, they could probably charge a 2x premium over residential rates.

            On the other hand, even with that, each charge-enabled spot would probably have to replenish 30,000 miles of range before it is break even, unless you charge a large 'sign up' fee to defray the up front cost. At 3x residential rates, you'd get to a breakeven of 15,000 miles but start creeping into being as expensive as refueling a gas vehicle, at least in my region.

            • That's pretty variable to the amount of work involved though, these aren't DC fast chargers being installed but pretty basic AC chargers which are really just a relay with some other bits attached to them. Most of the cost is going to be in pulling electrical to the locations. What's the cost you are using to calculate that 15-30k?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Junta ( 36770 )

                I was thinking:
                -About $1k per spot (an EVSE + labor + running wire/conduit/potentially breaking concrete). I think this is on the cheap side, but maybe economies of scale with a few dozen to bring it down to 1k
                -Assuming they could reasonably get away with a 0.10 $/kwh premium for charging
                -About 3 miles/kwh (roughly where a lot of EVs sit)

                $1k / 0.10 * 3 == 30k

                If they can do a 0.20 $/kwh premium, then 15k miles, however at that point at least in my area you start touching price parity with efficient gas vehi

                • Interesting, thank you for doing the math.

                  I wonder if assuming having an EV charge spot is a "premium" feature when renting if that can also factor into. Most apartments near me now have a few spots for EV charging so I have to assume those people pay something extra for usage.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rossdee ( 243626 )

          "Lots of people (especially in older cities) have homes or rent homes that do not have off street parking at all. So, what do you do there?"

          What do they do now, when they don't have a place to plug in the block heater overnight, and it gets down to 20 below zero?

          • What do they do now, when they don't have a place to plug in the block heater overnight, and it gets down to 20 below zero?

            What's a block heater?

            And whatever it is....it doesn't get that cold here....?

          • "Lots of people (especially in older cities) have homes or rent homes that do not have off street parking at all. So, what do you do there?"

            What do they do now, when they don't have a place to plug in the block heater overnight, and it gets down to 20 below zero?

            Whatever they do, they should do it carefully.

            https://news.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]

    • That doesn't mean US buyers are giving up on EV shopping entirely. Data from Recurrent shows that demand for used EVs is up. The used BEV market is outpacing even the most popular new EVs, like Tesla's Model 3, and the reason behind this is pricing, naturally. The average price for a used EV is $27,800, down 32% year-over-year.

      Like most things, it seems the price out the door and the consumer expectation for price are not aligned. So while the sales are slow, the used market is quite hot for EVs. Additionally, you'll notice sales for PHEVs and HEVs [bloomberg.com], especially the HEVs, are pretty hot.

      So there absolutely is a demand for EVs of one type or another. It's just the BEV production is just not aligned with what consumers are willing to pay at this time. This is likely the source of what you're seeing. But Hybrids, I see a ton of t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      Really? So why are hybrid minivans at the same price they've been at for years, as much or more as new?

    • Cars stay on the road for about 12 years, often passing through multiple owners in its life. Even if we only sold EVs from now on will mean that there will be a lot of ICE vehicles on the road for many many years to come.

      That we'll see a huge uptick in the number of EVs sold is pretty obvious. But 10 times a small number is still a small number. It's a pretty reasonable prediction.

      As for recharging being a hassle? I don't really agree. I've rented EVs and it was a hassle for me, because I had no charging st

    • "EV sales surged 49.8% compared to last year, increasing 5% from the 298,039
      sold in Q2. "
      https://electrek.co/2023/10/12... [electrek.co]

  • Assuming this article is true, at some point the oil producers will have to switch tactics from "we've decided to cut production, pay up bitches" to "look how cheap our oil is, you don't need to switch to electric". Lobbying corrupt politicians will become ever more important so that they can avoid getting banned from cities etc. I think we're a long way from that point though.

    • Assuming this article is true, at some point the oil producers will have to switch tactics from "we've decided to cut production, pay up bitches" to "look how cheap our oil is, you don't need to switch to electric".

      I don't always agree with Gwynne Dyer, but he made that same point recently.

      "The authors of the paper calculated that Saudi Arabia could earn $1.7 trillion before demand completely dries up if it goes the ‘fire sale’ route, compared to only $1.3 trillion if it cooperates with all the non-Arab members of the OPEC cartel and tries to hold oil and gas prices up."

      https://gwynnedyer.com/2023/gu... [gwynnedyer.com]

  • A wise man once said (Score:3)

    by irreverentdiscourse ( 1922968 ) on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @10:13AM (#63949099)

    If you think the middle east is a mess now, just wait until we don't need their oil.

    • If you think the middle east is a mess now, just wait until we don't need their oil.
      Do you think anyone will care, if we don't need their oil? The Middle East has been a mess since before Islam split, and nobody really cared until after WWI.

  • Does anyone know of any studies that have modeled the price of consumer fuel as the adoption of EVs increase? I have been curious about that for a while now.

    In a simplistic view, if demand at the pump collapses because everyone (say 50%+) is driving EVs, I would expect the price to collapse. Would we see sub-$1/gal gasoline price again?

    If so, then you would see a reduced demand for EV cars. ICE cars would become much more competitive than they are now.

    I don't see how it plays out.

    • When demand at the pump collapses, many gas stations will vanish. When people have to drive for one-two hours to find somewhere selling gas, EVs will look even more attractive.

    • Re:Market backlash (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pr0nbot ( 313417 ) on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @11:02AM (#63949295)

      I'm not an economist, but...

      Oil producers have a $/barrel below which it's uneconomical to get oil out of the ground. E.g. the Saudis can pump oil out at $2.80/barrel according to a Yahoo article I just googled up. (It's not quite that simple: production cost is one thing, but countries that fund themselves by oil production have other expenditures that need to be covered by the sale of their oil, so the market $/barrel they need to cover their budget requirements is much higher... but you get the idea.)

      As demand falls, that puts downward pressure on price, but as prices fall those producers with a higher $/barrel will exit the market, so supply will fall too, which puts an upward pressure on price. There's also Jevons Paradox, whereby efficiencies which mean less oil is needed will actually mean more rather than less oil is used.

      So I don't think oil will ever be dirt cheap, there will be some equilibrium price which is lower than it is today but not crazy low.

      • I'm not an economist, but... Oil producers have a $/barrel below which it's uneconomical to get oil out of the ground.

        That varies from site to site.

        If the price of oil drops, they will stop producting at the wells that have the higher cost to pump it out of the ground, but keep producing from the walls that have low cost to pump it out of the ground.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      Oil companies can definitely tank their prices to convince people to hold onto their ICE vehicles longer or to simply not go pure battery electric EV. Especially with the cost of electricity surging (providers need to build the safe infrastructure necessary to fuel all these new EVs), the best strategy Big Oil can implement is to change from miles per gallon to "Dollars per Mile" and fight the battle on price. Try some California energy prices in this exercise:

      Toyota Prius
      * $5.00/gallon gasoline
      * Fuel Effic

      • Especially with the cost of electricity surging (providers need to build the safe infrastructure necessary to fuel all these new EVs)

        Not to mention the backup infrastructure to provide power when the 'clean green renewable' generation isn't; all of the "renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuels" rhetoric still doesn't account for the cost of providing 24/7/365 dispatchable power in the face of night-time, overcasts, a week or more of calm, and other conditions that tank renewable production.

      • EV sales will plateau around at around 15% of all consumer vehicles on the road (regional average) simply because safe public charging doesn't exist for the TENS OF MILLIONS of renter households that don't have the option to charge at home. If you can't charge at home and you don't have a safe and convenient public charging option, you don't go EV. Period.

        I'm curious about that 15% number and where it comes from.

        What it reminds me of is the adoption profile of 802.11 wireless access. It used to be rare and "precious" in that you had to pay for it if it was accessible at all. Today, you can get WiFi nearly anywhere. Even if you happen to be in a zone where all access is restricted, you can almost always fall back to your personal hotspot using LTE or 5G. We have access and ease of use that was unthinkable not that long ago. The transition was faster

    • I read something a while back that may not hold in current modeling, but essentially the razor thin margins gas pumps operate on meant that the gas stations start collapsing much earlier than intuition would suggest, which would have a rolling effect as managing to find gas stations to refill at became more problematic and lack of economy of scale drove the price of gas up. Kind of like how you have to go through some mild effort to find a fill station for kerosene.
  • If want to actually reduce fossil fuel consumption we need nuclear. The longer you fight us the more people will die. Why hasn't your solar and wind actually reduced fossil fuel usage? See Germany and their failures.
    • Yeah that too. It'd be nice if we could go full on renewables but that'd likely require a much better grid that we're going to have anytime soon.

  • Peak oil (Score:3)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Tuesday October 24, 2023 @12:14PM (#63949533)

    Haha. Peak oil has been predicted more often than fusion breakthroughs.

Slashdot Top Deals

Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.

Close