Either that, or it will force most countries to electrify their economies, which has made economic + ecological sense for decades.

The oil interests will do everything they can to fight it. (Like buying off Trump, which probably had a lot to do with us starting the Iran war, and is certainly why we're cancelling many affordable energy build outs in the face of widespread shortages.)

Less corrupt economies will pull ahead, and technological progress will bifurcate. The US will probably be on the wrong side of this. China will probably be on the right side.

▲

adi_kurian 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

How quickly could we electrify our economies and what dent in oil dependence could be made with a will?

▲

adrianN 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I doubt people here can give realistic estimates as to how quickly we can ramp up the production of e.g. heat pumps, since a lot depends on how much we're willing to pay for it. There are many areas where we have the technology to electrify, we just don't do it because at current fuel prices pay back times for electrification are too long. There are also simple things like better insulation for buildings that can dramatically reduce fuel demands.

	▲	fy20 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The US produces much more natural gas than it consumes, so changes like this don't really make sense. Europe started implementing these initiatives a couple of decades ago, it makes sense there as they are a net importer, with residential prices around 3x higher than the US. In my country a newly built house (very low energy demand) is often cheaper to heat with a heat pump than natural gas, especially if combined with solar PV - but that's still more expensive than a home in the US. The most impactful usages are transportation, as everywhere basically everything is transported by road, and renewable electricity generation, so fossil fuels can be used elsewhere (residential, industrial, etc).

▲

eucyclos 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Europe, particularly Germany, has quite a will. Maybe a little faster than that given there are lessons to be gleaned from it.

▲

samaltmanfried 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Like buying off Trump, which probably had a lot to do with us starting the Iran war...

Oil companies have actually not benefited from America's middle-eastern wars. America's regime-change wars have made the region less profitable for US oil companies. Why invest in infrastructure in countries with unstable regimes, or risk of infrastructure becoming a target?

If anything, energy companies would benefit from the sanctions on Iran being lifted, so they could invest in infrastructure there, or buy gas from Iran.

I hope one day this silly 'war for oil' meme will disappear.

	▲	BLKNSLVR 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		cough Russia cough

▲

rayiner 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Like buying off Trump

That’s a weird thing to say considering that the Iran hostage crisis helped swing an election almost half a century ago. It’s not like nobody thought about going to Iran until someone bribed Trump to do it.

The far more rational theory is that Trump did it to deflect from his failure to combat inflation domestically. They made an entire movie about his. (Wag the Dog.)