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7 comments on The Bullroarer - Friday 24th October 2008
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7 comments on The Bullroarer - Friday 24th October 2008
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A lot of people think that the main impact of peak oil is rising fuel prices, a problem which can simply be solved by switching to electric cars or whatever other new technology. The real problem is the impact on the broader economy. Given that we are in the early stages of the "worst economic crisis since the great depression" and will start to see year on year oil production declines at about the same time as the "recovery", new cars will be the least of our problems.
The average registered car in Australia is more than 10 years old. Most new cars are bought by fleet operators, relatively wealthy people, or on novated leases. New car sales are already going into decline. Hybrid cars and electric cars are more expensive than ICE cars and will remain so for some time, even taking fuel costs into consideration. I'm sure we'll start to see a few electric cars on the roads in four or five years time, but don't hold your breath for an "en masse move to electric cars" by the punters in the suburbs, up to their eyeballs in mortgage and credit card debt, about to be thrown onto the dole queue.
I watched the segment on Channel Nine's Today program about this concept. The MSM keep trying to portray these 'cleaner and greener' ideas as being major solutions to our problems, yet they ignore a. the practicalities of these ideas, and b. the magnitude, scope and urgency of real problem/s we are facing. Anything to keep the allusion that BAU can continue for a bit longer.
BAU was floated on the stock exchange three months ago at $1 a share. Today it's worth 0.3c a share. Soon they will need to put another decimal place on the chart, when it dips below 0.1c a share.
Don't be too hasty about that extra decimal point. They went up 200% on Friday! Everything must be OK!!!!!
Brisvegas,
Its the new vehicle owners that have high VMT. Since the capacity to produce new PHEV, HEV and EV will be limited for the next 5 years there will still be many people waiting to buy even if new car sales decline dramatically from the 1million last year.
Those few unemployed are not going to be driving much whatever vehicle they own, probably one of those older than 10years. Its my guess that the more fuel efficient vehicles like Mazda 121 will stay on road ,much longer than the Commodore and Falcon wagons.
While the US may be in the worst economic crisis since 1930's, China with ONLY 9% annual growth is not and neither is Australia. If China was to have NO growth in next year they would still need to import the same amount of commodities as this year, and the US in recession is still gobbling up more than 20% of worlds resources.
A world wide slow down will allow EV and battery technology to catch somewhat will potential demand, and give us a little longer time at the Peal Oil peak.
Neil,
With year-on-year oil production declines somewhere between 2-3% p/a and 8-9% p/a from circa 2010-2012 (if not sooner due to the impact of the credit crunch on new o&g projects), declining world oil exports at approximately 6% p/a, and Australia already 50% import dependent, even without considering the increasing likelihood of sudden oil shocks, you're dreamin' if you think EVs will solve the problem.
You're right that the financial crisis is yet to flow into the real economy here in Australia (or China), but we are going to see huge job losses starting in the next couple of months when it does. Mainstream pundits are predicting anywhere between 200,000 and 1 million job losses by the end of next year. We are actually in more debt than Americans; the average household owes approximately 160% of annual income. House prices are set to fall about 30%. New developments are falling off the radar by the day.
We might have a year or two before the worldwide economic recovery and oil demand start to bump back into the oil depletion curve triggering the next oil price spike (again, assuming no oil shocks, big OPEC cutbacks etc in the meantime). Retail, tourism, housing, construction, automotive, airlines and road transport, to name a few, are going to TANK, big time. And you think getting a few EVs on the road from 2012 is going to solve this? How about electric trucks? Electric planes? Electric farms?
Too little, too late, sorry. If EVs had been hitting the road in big numbers a decade ago they might have made a big difference, but they didn't. I'll probably own an EV myself one day, but a belief that this will save the economy is a delusion. We need to focus on much more important problems than how to keep cars on the road.