Re: Long term OIL

Perhaps you're unaware of how quickly renewable energy is growing in the United States. Renewable energy in 2015 already accounted for 13% of energy generation in the US. In addition, renewable energy capacity is now growing faster than all non-renewable capacity combined. In 2016, 63% of all generation capacity gains were from renewable resources, while 32% came from natural gas and 5% from nuclear. It'll take awhile for it to reach the tipping point where renewable accounts for more overall generation than all other sources, but this is a snowball rolling downhill. It will only continue to build momentum. There's already more than enough crude to get us to the finish line.

I agree that 13% is not a small share. But then, to replace the fossil fuels, we need to manufacture electric cars at affordable prices. Right now, they are out of reach for the vast majority of the Americans. And the future supply of Lithium and Cobalt is not that assured.

I agree that for transportation, there is a long way to go before fossil fuels are displaced as the dominant source of energy. But the cars are already affordable, it's just production scale that's lacking. The Tesla Model 3 is beginning production (this week I believe), and Chevy has the Bolt, which is similarly priced in the $35,000 range and has a slightly better range. As for batteries, Tesla has the Giga Factory which is currently only operating at a fraction of capacity. When it is at 100% capacity, that single factory will be producing more lithium ion batteries than the rest of the world combined. They built that factory because they forecast that demand. The question is how quickly the demand will materialize

So the Tesla guys (Elon Musk, I guess) seem to be interested in oil prices surging

If the prices hit the mark of 100 dollars per barrel again, the gas prices are certainly going to rise as well, and that might make electric cars (Tesla included) more competitive. Though I don't know about how much affordable they will become overall since folks may just choose to drive their regular cars less. On the other hand, electric cars are still pretty expensive, and those who buy them most likely don't care about either gasoline or electricity prices

I have no doubt Musk would like high oil prices. It would definitely help demand for not only electric cars, but the other services and products Tesla offers. Gasoline usage is pretty inelastic. You can cut out discretionary usage but you can't cut out the need to drive to work, and required driving (at least in this country) far surpasses what Annie reduced. The cheapest electric car is more expensive than the cheapest gasoline powered car, but a not exactly insignificant amount, roughly 12-15 thousand dollars. I expect that gap will fall in the future, but never close fully.