Am I too paranoid?

this country is headed for a complete moral and economic meltdown... not if, when

 

Over time rates tend to go up. However, very little, if any, of the rate increases will be due to electric cars.

This will hold true as long as the trend of most electric car charging being done at night when there is lots of spare capacity.

More likely the rates will go up because of new McMansions, AC use, and other things that gobble power during peak times.

Heck, EVs may actually slow the rate increases in areas with smart grids as EVs can be tapped to help supply demand during peak hours

 

the economy (world) and very cheap energy (world) are inextricably related. You can't have one without the other. As you pointed out worldwide oil production peaked years ago - even as we continued to borrower & borrow ourselves deeper and deeper into debt ah la trillions. Even if our economy were doubled (which it can't do without cheap energy) we couldn't pay down 17 trillion. So with the passing of cheap energy our economy can only do so much. How soon and how hard will reality hit? No one knows how much elasticity there is left in this giant rubber band.
Often before a tidal wave hits - the water washes out of the bay. You can stand there and take pictures of wet sand and ships lying on their side or you can get to high ground, & consider those circumstances as a warning. So, do whatever you think best - because if you over prepare ... well that's a lot less costly than doing nothing and being unprepared.
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Exactly what they are today. Perhaps even lower.
Read:
Don’t Worry: US Grid Capable of Supporting Up to 150 Million Electric Vehicles

Next question?

101% CORRECT

Not so true. Gas prices can -and will- go up even with the U.S. and EU still in recession. Reason is China and India use oil much more efficiently (smaller cars, better mpg, rising incomes, strengthening currencies, fewer miles driven, more carpooling, etc.)

So, they can easily handle gas at $5, $6, $7.....probably even all the way up to $10-12.

This is VERY bad news for the U.S. and EU

Your guess would be wrong.......
There are very few 'infrastructure improvements' other than improving transformers at the neighborhood level (in areas where there is likely to be a high % of plug in cars), as well as continuing to build out the Super/Smart Grid (which has benefits other than supporting EVs, such as moving renewable energy from where it is produced to where it is demanded)

This is not the Hydrogen Highway we are talking about here.
Any mention of "infrastructure costs" w./ regard to Plug-in cars is FUD by oil companies and other vested interests.

Agreed.

The automakers have invested billion$ into PHEVs/EVs.
They are not going to take lightly to that investment being washed away by cheap oil.

If -and I highly doubt it happens- oil prices crash, we will see automakers band together, hand-in-hand with the environmental movement, and demand either a Carbon Tax or a Price Floor on the price of oil.

 

The oil from the tar sands and deep sea drilling require high prices to support the.
Sure, not $110, but it can't drop too much or that oil goes offline.

Which would cut supply and raise prices.
Demand continues to go up worldwide, so I see little reason for a long term drop in oil prices.

 

101% Absolutely True.

Just as carmakers have invested billions in alt-fuel technologies, so too have oil companies invested billions in more expensive, unconventional oil. It makes up a significant and fast-growing portion of total world crude production.

None of these companies is stupid enough to make those investments if they thought oil prices were about to crash.

No, we are in an era of permanently high oil prices. If there are any crashes, they will be short-lived and due to a recession in one part of the world or another. But it will be a short-term effect.

The one statistic everyone should know re: oil prices is this:

By 2030 -just 16 years from now - The world will have a billion MORE cars than it does now, mainly in China and India.

 

I could see India flourishing decades from now, but China's government was designed to control rural farmers, not industrialists. India has the Westminster system and a less centralized government, so it could flex for any dominant sector, like services, manufacturing, agriculture, etc. Nevertheless, they have the terrible tariffs of third world countries. A Prius is so expensive in India that they're almost impossible to sell, so the consumers just buy the inexpensive diesel, which is probably built to emissions standards of the 50s.

 

India needs to open up its market more.
I have been there many times. Its roads are really bad......
Hybrids are ideal for Indian traffic conditions.........there is a LOT of stop-and-go driving, not to mention running of A/C while idling.
It is almost impossible to get above 60 mph anywhere in India

 

USA is not currently having much of a problem with oil supply so much as a refinery of the oil issue. Small hickups at any one refinery and the prices goes up .50+ on speculation overnight. Even shut downs between swap out of equipment for seasonal changes causes price spikes that really do not need to happen.

The last major refinery built in the USA was in 1977. It is time to bit the bullet and build a few more. Sort of surprised someone has not built one just over the border in say Mexico and piped in the fuel.

 

While no new refineries have been built, capacity has grown quite a bit.

 

You know the Keystone XL would've been great. Canada is actually a close ally of ours. Mexico doesn't even have a decent government.

 

Keystone would be awful. Right now all that oil is shipped to Midwest refineries and sold, pretty much in the USA.
Once Keystone goes through it will be sold on the world market and we will have increased gas prices in the Midwest. In addition to loosing the oil, we have to deal with the added oil leaks from the pipeline.

 

EVs should not significantly increase electricity prices, if they continue as they are then electricity prices for non-ev owners should go down because electric vehicle owners buy a great deal of wind and solar, while charging at night. That should lower costs for other users.

Don't get me wrong, electric rates are going up, and this has nothing to do with EVs. Infrastructure needs to be built for peak loads, and old cheap coal plants, that polute a great deal are coming off line in favor of newer natural gas and wind that cost more, but pollute less. The idea of building a high polluting plant today in the us is no longer acceptable.

Which makes you ask what happened in 2011. The tsunamis and thai floods, along with the strong yen. If a high percentage of hybrids continue to be built in japan, these events may happen again. Hopefully the next gen prius will be built in the US.

If gasoline prices go down, that would be good news not bad news. If it goes down because oil becomes much more plentiful, then I would not get upset. I find this unlikely to happen though, its better to take a pessimistic outlook.

 

Oil prices / energy prices in general going down would be best thing that could happen to American economy to bring it back. Nothing else could cause recovery any faster. History proves this time and time again, cheap energy = very happy economy.

As for oil being plentiful, it already is. It is not any oil shortage causing the gas spikes in America. It is the refineries. Fantastic site for tracking this here.

As for putting a refinery in Canada. LOL. They are more into global warming than the USA.

 

America's economy is much less keyed to the price of oil than it was in 1979.
The Cutting Edge News

today it is much lower, but much higher than the last decade

I agree that unconventional oil is plentiful as long as you are willing to pay. I think you are very confused if you think that that higher prices of gas and diesel are about refinery and not oil prices.

Its about economics, refineries are very expensive. Transportation is relatively cheap. If refineries charge too much brazil will build more and export refined products here.