The demand destruction of oil for transportation, as I wrote recently, is in train. (See Houston, You’ve Got a Problem.) One of the key factors in this trend is the electrification of light-duty vehicles. In order to fully realize this potential, though, it will be necessary for automakers to significantly reduce the weight of their cars and trucks.
This graphic represents what Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute think is a viable pathway to 0% oil use in the transportation sector. It is part of the brilliant Reinventing Fire scheme “…for running a 158%-bigger U.S. economy in 2050 but needing no oil, no coal, and no nuclear energy.” (I use Reinventing Fire as a textbook for my graduate class on clean tech.)
How do we get to zero oil use for transportation by 2050? Continue reading