Important facts.
The US uses about 22 million barrels of oil per day.
That's not gasoline. That's oil. That's everything. That's the stuff we turn into gasoline, and the stuff we turn into kerosene, and the stuff we turn into fuel oil, and the stuff we turn into plastic, and the stuff we turn into synthetic fertilizer. Everything. Now, from what I can find, of each 42-gallon barrel of crude oil, about 45% of it gets turned into gasoline.
Poof. The magic wand has been waved. Everybody has an electric vehicle, or a hydrogen vehicle, that duplicates the functionality of the car or 'light truck' they were driving yesterday. The electricity comes from clean, renewable, ecofriendly and arbitrarily-inexpensive sources. I know that doesn't exist, but bear with me.
This means that demand for gasoline basically goes to zero.
Know what this does to demand for oil?
Basically, nothing. Because we still need the other 55% of that barrel of oil. And you can't just take the 45% of each barrel that we *were* turning into gasoline, and decide to turn it into plastic or heavy fuel oil instead. It doesn't work that way. I mean, if you have a solution of one pint of alcohol in a gallon of water, there are a number of ways you can separate the two constituents back out, but if you decide you don't need the water and you just want to collect all the tasty alcohol you can, there's no easy way to turn that 9 pints of solution into 9 pints of alcohol.
Sure, I'm simplifying a bit. Different types of crude have different percentages of light and heavy elements. You can, in fact, play around with your distillation and your catalysis and produce a bit more gasoline, or a bit less. But, really, even if we sharply curtailed gasoline useage, that wouldn't much change how much *oil* we need. Certainly not to the same degree. If you refine a barrel of oil, you're going to get a certain amount of gasoline as a result, and if nobody wanted the stuff it'd have to be stored or flared off.
That's why conserving gasoline in an attempt to conserve oil is pointless.
That's not gasoline. That's oil. That's everything. That's the stuff we turn into gasoline, and the stuff we turn into kerosene, and the stuff we turn into fuel oil, and the stuff we turn into plastic, and the stuff we turn into synthetic fertilizer. Everything. Now, from what I can find, of each 42-gallon barrel of crude oil, about 45% of it gets turned into gasoline.
Poof. The magic wand has been waved. Everybody has an electric vehicle, or a hydrogen vehicle, that duplicates the functionality of the car or 'light truck' they were driving yesterday. The electricity comes from clean, renewable, ecofriendly and arbitrarily-inexpensive sources. I know that doesn't exist, but bear with me.
This means that demand for gasoline basically goes to zero.
Know what this does to demand for oil?
Basically, nothing. Because we still need the other 55% of that barrel of oil. And you can't just take the 45% of each barrel that we *were* turning into gasoline, and decide to turn it into plastic or heavy fuel oil instead. It doesn't work that way. I mean, if you have a solution of one pint of alcohol in a gallon of water, there are a number of ways you can separate the two constituents back out, but if you decide you don't need the water and you just want to collect all the tasty alcohol you can, there's no easy way to turn that 9 pints of solution into 9 pints of alcohol.
Sure, I'm simplifying a bit. Different types of crude have different percentages of light and heavy elements. You can, in fact, play around with your distillation and your catalysis and produce a bit more gasoline, or a bit less. But, really, even if we sharply curtailed gasoline useage, that wouldn't much change how much *oil* we need. Certainly not to the same degree. If you refine a barrel of oil, you're going to get a certain amount of gasoline as a result, and if nobody wanted the stuff it'd have to be stored or flared off.
That's why conserving gasoline in an attempt to conserve oil is pointless.