When will fossil fuel useage peak a general discussion

GreatApe

2018: +2% increase in global CO2 emmissions

People talk as if solar & wind are taking over while the truth is that fossil fuel useage has been growing more or less continuously since 1900 including the recent past

So when will global fossil fuel useage peak and also which year will global FF useage fall to below 2000 level?

My guess:

Peak: 2030s (probably late 2030s)
Fall below 2000 levels: 2050s (probably late 2050s)

unrecordings

I'm game for this discussion so long as it stays friendly (I'm not holding my hopes out though)

My guess is when the cost of extraction exceeds the economic benefit - but I think this will happen in steps due to the inertia inherent in the way we've powered the 20th Century. Taking just coal, once the cheap stuff runs out, then in the UK we'd be looking at re-opening the deep pits, with the resulting price rises for energy.

As for timelines - no idea, other than it might be a lot sooner than you think (again for the UK given that we're not on best terms with Russia or China

Just my thoughts :-)

frozen_wastes

I'll stick my neck out and say that 2020 (next year) will be the year that fossil fuel demand peaks. It's all about competition with other energy sources.

Developed markets such as Europe and North America are seeing steady or slightly falling final energy demand. However markets such as Asia as a whole are still seeing dramatic increases in energy consumption. Markets such as Africa - the penultimate frontier as far as business and commerce is concerned has barely started to develop. That all translates into strong future prospects for growth in energy consumption.

However energy consumption is not the same as fossil fuel usage. In spite of the fact that renewable energy costs are falling together with battery storage, the investment levels in these technologies is still very small compared to oil and gas.

Right now cleantech as a whole is on a par with oil and gas in terms of levelised cost. That means while the oil and gas industries benefit very strongly from very well established supply chains, cleantech is still able to compete with oil and gas for new investment despite less well developed supply chains being in place.

So when cleantech costs continue to come down, supply chains will scale up. Add together the fact that new discoveries for oil and gas are on a long term waning trend and it's clear that in the near future the costs of oil and gas will start to make that industry even less competitive.

Also consider several reports suggesting that global sales of new ICE cars is reckoned to have peaked last year.

So back in 2016 I read a report suggesting that peak demand for oil would be in 2020. I think that's reasonable. Reports from the IEA, BP and BNEF suggesting peak demand in the 2030's have consistently underestimated forecasts for renewable energy deployment - and it's worth considering who the major sponsors of these reports are. They are paying for a report that backs up their business plans.

So I think that the 2020's will see an accelerating decline in demand for oil globally. By 2030 in europe at least, I don't think a single new car will be sold with a petrol or diesel engine. That transition will happen very quickly once the sticker prices for electric cars become cheaper than those for petrol or diesel equivalents. That leaves existing cars, trucks and the aviation / marine industries as the remaining markets for oil demand.

Gas demand is much more tricky. That product is very much tied to the heating of buildings. Whilst new buildings are built with energy efficiency in mind, existing building are not only very expensive to retrofit with better insulation and/or heatpumps but the product hasn't developed at all for the building retrofit market in the last 10 years.

I'm loathe to say it, but global gas demand will probably remain flat.

GreatApe

unrecordings wrote: »

I'm game for this discussion so long as it stays friendly (I'm not holding my hopes out though)

My guess is when the cost of extraction exceeds the economic benefit - but I think this will happen in steps due to the inertia inherent in the way we've powered the 20th Century. Taking just coal, once the cheap stuff runs out, then in the UK we'd be looking at re-opening the deep pits, with the resulting price rises for energy.

As for timelines - no idea, other than it might be a lot sooner than you think (again for the UK given that we're not on best terms with Russia or China

Just my thoughts :-)

I was talking more about global use. Each country has its own quirks

Coal in the UK died primarily because of abundant cheap offshore natural gas
The stuff was so plentyful that as soon as it was made legal to burn the stuff in power stations we had a dash for gas in the 1990s. And before that in the 1970s we had a boom in natural gas useage for space heating which must have displaced a lot of coal in that application. We still uses significant amounts of coal but it went from something like 75% coal to about half of that.

Something similar has happened in the USA with their shake gas deposits
They still use significant quantities of coal but much less than a decade ago

Globally however, CO2 emmissions keep growing

1961Nick

Narrowing this question to the UK.....I'd say by 2025.

The uptake of BEVs by company car users will accelerate rapidly in 2020 when BIK rates are reduced to zero. That'll mean a lot of used vehicles entering the market from 2023 onwards.

GreatApe

frozen_wastes wrote: »

I'll stick my neck out and say that 2020 (next year) will be the year that fossil fuel demand peaks. It's all about competition with other energy sources.

This is close to impossible for now, as wind and PV deployment would have needed to be 10 X what they were to have stopped fossil fuel growth in 2018

2018 fossil fuel consumption increased some 4,700 TWh while solar went up 87 TWh and wind 142 TWh as you can see only a fraction of FF increase

mmmmikey

Looking at a UK perspective I'm a bit more pessimistic about EV roll out than 1961Nick because even as EV sales start to accelerate there's still a huge amount of FF cars on the road. To counter this, my own expectation is that there is huge scope for the demand for energy (and hence FF) to fall as awareness grows and the public at large realise how easy some of the initial big wins are (I'm sure there are many greenies posting on this forum that have nearly halved their usage since perceiving it as an issue). So although I'm not convinced of the EV argument I reckon for the UK 2025 is about right.


Harder to guess the global position but my bet is on GreatApe being about right, although I suspect this will be nearer 2030 and lead by China, with the US playing catch up. My expectation is that China's investment in FF is a pragmatic way to get ahead in the world economy and once that's happened a more ethical stance will be adopted. As for the US - well think about gun control. It is clear that pressure groups with vested commercial interest have a lot of sway and I suspect we'll see the same effect thwart the drive for environmental protection, with the US quickly becoming the "dirty man" of the world.

GreatApe

I thought it would have been common knowledge on this board that the UK has already peaked it's Fossil fuel useage and it has been on the downwards trend for some time?

Of course the UK was one of the few lucky countries to already be developed in 1990 unlike China India Africa and much of the rest of the world who were extremely poor

1961Nick

mmmmikey wrote: »

Looking at a UK perspective I'm a bit more pessimistic about EV roll out than 1961Nick because even as EV sales start to accelerate there's still a huge amount of FF cars on the road. To counter this, my own expectation is that there is huge scope for the demand for energy (and hence FF) to fall as awareness grows and the public at large realise how easy some of the initial big wins are (I'm sure there are many greenies posting on this forum that have nearly halved their usage since perceiving it as an issue). So although I'm not convinced of the EV argument I reckon for the UK 2025 is about right.

There are 39M vehicles on the road which of course is a lot of stock to replace. However, it's those vehicles that are used for business that are travelling the most miles & therefore making a disproportionate contribution to CO2 emissions. The zero BIK rate is a massive incentive for those users to change to an EV. The saving for a higher rate taxpayer driving a typical £30,000 German repmobile will be £7500 pa. Expect to see all those 3 series, A4s & C Class being replaced with model 3s.

mmmmikey

GreatApe wrote: »

I thought it would have been common knowledge on this board that the UK has already peaked it's Fossil fuel useage and it has been on the downwards trend for some time?

Not disagreeing, but that surprises me - when did this peak, and how quickly is it falling?

Also, if a Chinese factory makes a 99p plastic item for selling in the UK, would you count the FF used in it's production as Chinese usage or UK usage? And on a similar vein, in the same example where do you count the FF used in shipping the goods - in China, in the country where the ship is registered or in the UK?

Again, not challenging your assertion about FF usage, just trying to understand it better....

mmmmikey

1961Nick wrote: »

There are 39M vehicles on the road which of course is a lot of stock to replace. However, it's those vehicles that are used for business that are travelling the most miles & therefore making a disproportionate contribution to CO2 emissions. The zero BIK rate is a massive incentive for those users to change to an EV. The saving for a higher rate taxpayer driving a typical £30,000 German repmobile will be £7500 pa. Expect to see all those 3 series, A4s & C Class being replaced with model 3s.

Interesting stuff, I hope you're right. Looking forward to them hitting the seconhand market in numbers and with decent warranties on the batteries so I can buy one

I think you also highlight a significant demand-side issue here. Sure, if you're a plumber you can't work from home. But I wonder how much more scope there is for reducing the amount of business travel through further use of videoconferencing, other forms of communications and just general awareness?

I know that I did a ridiculous amount of air travel in the noughties flying round the world fixing computers, not really focused at the time on the damage I was doing to the environment. If I lived that decade again with my current awareness I could have done less travel and far, far less damage. It's partly the feeling of guilt that's making me really engage with the green movement and do as much as I can on a personal level to reduce my impact now I've retired.