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.. overprojecting, very badly! I am going to just flat out state that the odds of an automobile manufactured in 2025 being a gasoline burner are approximately nil.

If we are considering the use of oil on time horizons greater than a decade, the primary determinants will be the development of electrict automotion and other alternatives to the combustion engine, and the extent of demand for oil from the manufacturing and chemical industry.

The very basic facts of electric driving is that electricity costs a very small faction of what gasoline does per mile driven and that electric drive trains are in all ways superior to combution engines - less costly to manufacture, more reliable, and better preformance at varied RPM. - the edges combustion engines currently enjoy are the energy density of gasoline, and the speed with which a gas tank can be refilled. Both of which will most likely be eliminated by advances in electricity storage technology - and approximately two days after the invention of the gasoline-equivalent battery, all manufacturers of combustion engines will be bankrupt, and oil demand will freefall to the level comsumed by industry for plastics and such.  

This, is, in fact a good reason for oil producers to maintain high production levels in the present- current demand levels are an accident of the technology we use for personal mobility, and when that technology changes - and it will, the only question is the exact date- the demand will vanish, and the worth of the oil still in the ground after that date will decline very sharply.

by Thomas on Wed Nov 10th, 2010 at 04:22:14 AM EST

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