EV's and Transportation as a Service to kill Alberta economy by 2030?

[Fuzz]

That answers a different question, not the one I asked. If Tinrodi thinks batteries are affordable, why are electric cars not, without massive subsidies? Like, look at this:

http://www.nissan.ca/en/electric-cars/leaf/

A little econobox, for $34,000. No one is buying that car for $34,000 dollars. It's a $15,000 car. Which is why they have "$14,000 in incentives". Unless, as I suggest, the batteries are still to expensive to make it attractive to buyers on its own?

Look, I'm pointing out very specific issues with batteries, not with electric vehicles, and not with what is inevitably coming with a transition to electric. Is your view really that things are ok, and if car manufacturers just decided to make more electric vehicles, it would all work out? Because the facts really say otherwise.

[Fuzz]

The other great hurdle that has slowed the uptake of EVs is the price of the battery, but that is falling as energy density rises. Financial analysts at Exane BNP Paribas in September published a bullish report on EVs, saying it expects battery pack prices to nearly halve to $215 per kWh by 2020 from $400 per kWh now. It sees the price dipping to as low as $140 per kWh in 2025.

http://www.autonews.com/article/2017...tery-shortage?

I was curious, so did a little math for fun.
So lets say you have a 75kwh hour battery car, around what is in a base Tesla, good for about 400km. That battery costs today, $30,000. In 2025 it will cost about $10,500. Let's say that you have a car that gets 8.0l/100km, and gas costs $1/l, so $0.08/km. So $30,000 buys enough gas to drive 375 000km. $10,500 Gets you about 130 000km. Currently, I don't think you will get 375 000km out of a battery pack.

So the cost of the pack won't offset gas costs currently, though may get close by 2020. By 2025 it probably makes sense, but ICE's are getting more efficient as well. 5l/100km will get you about $210 000km at 2025 battery prices.

Anyway, just something I was curious about. If my numbers are wrong, it's becuase I woke up at 4:30 and have only had one coffee so far...and I know all the whadabouts...I was just curious on battery vs fuel. I left out charging costs, and all other externalities.

[Igniter]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

http://www.autonews.com/article/2017...tery-shortage?

I was curious, so did a little math for fun.
So lets say you have a 75kwh hour battery car, around what is in a base Tesla, good for about 400km. That battery costs today, $30,000. In 2025 it will cost about $10,500. Let's say that you have a car that gets 8.0l/100km, and gas costs $1/l, so $0.08/km. So $30,000 buys enough gas to drive 375 000km. $10,500 Gets you about 130 000km. Currently, I don't think you will get 375 000km out of a battery pack.

So the cost of the pack won't offset gas costs currently, though may get close by 2020. By 2025 it probably makes sense, but ICE's are getting more efficient as well. 5l/100km will get you about $210 000km at 2025 battery prices.

Anyway, just something I was curious about. If my numbers are wrong, it's becuase I woke up at 4:30 and have only had one coffee so far...and I know all the whadabouts...I was just curious on battery vs fuel. I left out charging costs, and all other externalities.

Don't forget the costs of adoption that will eventually be transferred over to EV's either via user fee (tolls) or charging station tax. Approx. 35 cents per litre in Alberta is tax (more in other jurisdictions) which goes mainly towards road building.

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Alberta's oil industry is being threatened by the global oil industry, not by BEV's. You can argue about the margins until you are blue in the face, it doesn't change the fact that oil demand is on an upward trend, and has been forever.

Ha so true. EV's kill our oil industry by 2030? No! Our government and shale oil will kill our oil industry by 2025!

[burn_this_city]

Rumours of our demise are greatly exaggerated. The bloom is starting to come off the shale rose. Apparently they aren't profitable at $35-$50, which means their cost structure in a lot of cases is worse than legacy oilsands. The scam is still cashflow negative, just like it has been since the beginning and now they're going to have to survive and grow without borrowing or issuing equity.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

The cover of the Economist this week

Over cover this week considers the death of the internal combustion engine. It has had a good run, but as batteries improve and regulators tighten rules on emissions, the end of the road is in sight. The transition to electric cars should be welcomed, but it will be a bumpy ride

...

And then there is oil. Roughly two-thirds of oil consumption in America is on the roads, and a fair amount of the rest uses up the by-products of refining crude oil to make petrol and diesel. The oil industry is divided about when to expect peak demand; Royal Dutch Shell says that it could be little more than a decade away. The prospect will weigh on prices long before then. Because nobody wants to be left with useless oil in the ground, there will be a dearth of new investment, especially in new, high-cost areas such as the Arctic. By contrast, producers such as Saudi Arabia, with vast reserves that can be tapped cheaply, will be under pressure to get pumping before it is too late: the Middle East will still matter, but a lot less than it did. Although there will still be a market for natural gas, which will help generate power for all those electric cars, volatile oil prices will strain countries that depend on hydrocarbon revenues to fill the national coffers. When volumes fall, the adjustment will be fraught, particularly where the struggle for power has long been about controlling oil wealth. In countries such as Angola and Nigeria where oil has often been a curse, the diffusion of economic clout may bring immense benefits.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

If you are able to make it to U of C between Aug 13-21 you can earn $20 for participating in an anutonomous vehicle study. Details here

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Swedish company increases energy density by 70%...

Of course, not every new technology will be practical to scale into production, however, I think this demonstrates that there is a lot of research in the pipeline with a very receptive market.

[Fuzz]

A good article on the future of EV's and hydrogen potentially being a good option. It may be very good for Alberta, too. Perhaps we would be a fantastic test bed for the hydrogen vehicle, given our wind, natural gas and infrastructure?

http://boereport.com/2017/08/14/gaso...g-its-reality/


Also, so much this:

And finally, some wag, as sure the sun will rise tomorrow, will bring up buggy whip manufacturers, how one industry naturally dies as another rises. Go ahead with the futile analogy if you must, but please provide a few data points for the excruciatingly lazy comparison: over the 10-20 year period when automobile sales took over, how many buggy whip jobs were lost in the transition, and how many automotive jobs were created? If the prevailing sentiment is that this ratio would be the same in the transition from fossil fuels to green energy, the world is as doomed as if the temperature goes up 100 degrees.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

Swedish company increases energy density by 70%...

Of course, not every new technology will be practical to scale into production, however, I think this demonstrates that there is a lot of research in the pipeline with a very receptive market.

I have seen this article every year for the past 10 years.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by GGG

I have seen this article every year for the past 10 years.

Yes which had coincided with an 85% reduction in the costs of batteries. It's almost like they're connected somehow.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Yes which had coincided with an 85% reduction in the costs of batteries. It's almost like they're connected somehow.

85% is nothing.

Compare the development in batteries to the development of the microchip. Increase in battery performance has been at a glacial pace.

And range is still severely limited at any reasonable cost and every vehicle needs to be heavily subsidized at the consumer end and the industrial end for it to be twice as expensive.

Yes it will get there. All of the current wave of articles are alarmist designed to fuel a talking point. I suspect you can pull articles from 10 years ago that match almost word for word of the current set of articles. The current predictions are not grounded in any real science. They are just predictions.

What are your specific predictions for world wide oil demand and electric car adoption?

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by GGG

85% is nothing.

Compare the development in batteries to the development of the microchip. Increase in battery performance has been at a glacial pace.

And range is still severely limited at any reasonable cost and every vehicle needs to be heavily subsidized at the consumer end and the industrial end for it to be twice as expensive.

Yes it will get there. All of the current wave of articles are alarmist designed to fuel a talking point. I suspect you can pull articles from 10 years ago that match almost word for word of the current set of articles. The current predictions are not grounded in any real science. They are just predictions.

What are your specific predictions for world wide oil demand and electric car adoption?

85% reduction in ten years is nothing? Ok...

There were no articles from 10 years ago about the impending take over of EVs. Try and go find any articles that were anything more than highly skeptical. Yet here we are.

I think the battery technology is mostly there. Ranges of 340 kilometers are being achieved for vehicles with a price of $45,000. In another ten years the price of those vehicles should drop to $25-30,000. At that point, by 2027 I think we'll see 25% of all new vehicles globally being electric. In OECD countries adoption rates will be higher than 50%.

From a technical perspective, I don't think batteries need to get much better. A 500 km range is more than enough to bust the internal combustion engine market open and 300 km at a 20% lower price is probably enough too.

Charging infrastructure is the limiting factor at this point not batteries. But that's being solved. In 10 years all highway gas stations will have chargers, it'll be a relatively small transition actually.

So world oil demand probably continues to grow to 2030 driven by aviation, trucking and plastics but the pace of growth falls by over half of the previous 15 year average. Oil demand for passenger vehicles peaks by 2025 globally.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by GGG

What are your specific predictions for world wide oil demand and electric car adoption?

Anecdotal data...percentage of car manufacturers publicly stating that electrification of vehicles is unavoidable

10 years ago : 0%
Today : ~%100

PS comparing any other technology systems performance trajectory against the semiconductor industry is bananas.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

Anecdotal data...percentage of car manufacturers publicly stating that electrification of vehicles is unavoidable

10 years ago : 0%
Today : ~%100

PS comparing any other technology systems performance trajectory against the semiconductor industry is bananas.

Well 10 years ago we were banking on hydrogen as the energy storage device to power cars in the future.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

Originally Posted by GGG

Well 10 years ago we were banking on hydrogen as the energy storage device to power cars in the future.

Really, I remember Ballard was a big deal but never saw any vehicles...I think Toyota is still investing in that tech.

It would be better if hydrogen was the fuel of choice...some interesting research at the U of C using a process to extract hydrogen from bitumen and leave everything else in the ground.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fozzie_DeBear

Really, I remember Ballard was a big deal but never saw any vehicles...I think Toyota is still investing in that tech.

It would be better if hydrogen was the fuel of choice...some interesting research at the U of C using a process to extract hydrogen from bitumen and leave everything else in the ground.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.topg...rst-2007%3famp

I think Toyota had them too back then. The infrastructure never made sense to build though so it was DOA compared to the electric but many of the same claims around efficiency and energy density improving quickly were being made.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by GGG

Well 10 years ago we were banking on hydrogen as the energy storage device to power cars in the future.

Yup, and 10 years ago we were having a debate between HD-DVD and Blu-ray as a video format. What is your point?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by New Era

Yup, and 10 years ago we were having a debate between HD-DVD and Blu-ray as a video format. What is your point?

That claims of energy density improvements based on non commercial scale research should be taken very skeptically until proven at scale. The assumption that continued commercial scale increases in energy density will continue at the historical pace is not a good assumption.

Essentially don't assume that tech will continue to develop or expand based on the exponential growth it is currently undergoing.

And fundementaly EVs will not kill Albertas economy by 2030.

[Igniter]

Originally Posted by GGG

And fundementaly EVs will not kill Albertas economy by 2030.

I also want to champion this statement.

We have a wide range of hydrocarbon resources in Alberta which can be placed into 2 simplified but accurate categories.

1. The Oil Sands
2. The Deep Basin

With respect to the oil sands, what we're seeing is a consolidation of control from many companies including multinationals towards Canadian super majors. Suncor, CNRL, Cenovus. These companies are now in the position where they can use their size to generate sustained and controlled growth. In addition, they are continuing to test new technologies that may reduce the dependence on steam (water and heat) making them more economic, less environmentally damaging. To boot, the majority of the oil sands are not mines either, but SAGD, which is much less impactful from a surface perspective. Everyone is presuming that EV's and batteries are going to get cheaper through innovation, well why not in the oil sands too? Coupled with carbon capture, and the oil sands could be a lot less "dirty" than many think. More on this later.

With respect to the deep basin, it's got assets that rival a lot of the shale plays in the US with respect to gas production, but it lacks hydrocarbon liquids (Propanes, Butanes, and Pentanes+) and light crudes. These liquids/oils are the current driving force behind the majority of the shale boom south of the border. The gas they could give away and they would still be making money. This sets us up in the short term to take a bit of a hit - but in the long run we've got significant gas assets that surpass many of the Americans. Again, there are concerns about fracing and water usage, but if we assume that battery density will be improved with innovation, why not water treatment and fracing?

Which brings me to my conclusion. I think the world needs to understand that even once we start to ween ourselves off of using oil directly for transportation in the form of gasoline or diesel, we're still going to need hydrocarbons for plastics and lubricants. But as we switch over to EV's, I think natural gas can be an excellent on-demand/base load power generation fuel - as do many current power utilities (see Transalta Renewables). When you couple that with carbon capture at scale, I think it can be a very cost effective source of power generation for all the EV's that we'll be using. Luckily we have a lot of natural gas to use!

So where do we as Canadians or as North Americans want to get the hydrocarbon resources that we'll still need? Do we want to get it from Russia or Saudi Arabia or Venezuela - countries with poor environmental, safety or human rights records? Or from somewhere that is doing it responsibly.
Watch: Peter Tertzakian

And then finally, as if and when we innovate our battery technology and move towards that EV reality, maybe we'll also end up innovating our building materials for vehicles and buildings. Maybe these building materials will end up requiring a high carbon source... and suddenly natural gas becomes the feed stock for something else.

I think it's safe to believe that if you assume only batteries will evolve, our oil and gas industry will cease to exist. But that ignores the fact that the rest of the world is changing too - and the industry will exist in some some shape or form.

I encourage everyone to follow the XPRIZE for Carbon.
Carbon XPRIZE

It has the opportunity to create a whole new industry in Alberta, and the rest of the world in the next 10 years. It might not... but the same thing could happen with battery technology.

Or hey. Maybe the super volcano in Yellowstone will erupt and potentially plunge the world into another ice age. A lot can happen in the future... just don't blindly count us (Alberta Oil and Gas) out.