√Tesla boss forecasts tipping point for global oil demand
Demand for oil will begin to decline within five years, according to the controversial boss of electric-car specialist Tesla, Elon Musk. But not everyone agrees.
Elon Musk, the CEO of electric-car specialist Tesla, has boldly predicted global demand for oil will begin to taper off by the end of this decade.
While ‘peak oil’ is the theory of global oil production reaching its maximum available output, the Tesla boss instead said demand for oil will reach its peak within five years (by 2028).
Mr Musk was responding to a report about a banking CEO in the US who said oil will be necessary for the next 50 years.
“True, there will be a long tail of usage, but it will peak long before then,” he wrote on Twitter – the short-message social media platform he purchased in October 2022.
“Peak oil demand probably happens within the next five years.”
Peak oil demand probably happens within the next 5 years
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 19, 2023
However, oil industry analyst and commentator Anas Alhajji was quick to dispute Mr Musk’s prediction.
“Please allow me to present before you a large body of evidence that global oil demand will NOT peak in the next five years, not even 10 years, not even 20,” Mr Alhajji wrote.
“For oil demand to stay at current levels [of 100 million barrels per day], we need 700+ million [electric vehicles] on the roads.”
But despite the disagreement, Mr Musk’s comments mirror a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which predicts oil demand will level off around 2025 before beginning to decline by the middle of this century.
“For the first time ever, a [World Energy Outlook] scenario based on today’s prevailing policy settings … has global demand for every fossil fuel exhibiting a peak or plateau,” the IEA said in a statement in October 2022.
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“In this scenario … rising sales of electric vehicles mean that oil demand levels off in the mid-2030s before ebbing slightly to mid-century. This means that total demand for fossil fuels declines steadily from the mid-2020s to 2050 by an annual average roughly equivalent to the lifetime output of a large oil field.
“The declines are much faster and more pronounced in the WEO’s more climate-focused scenarios.”
A number of governments have already begun preparations to effectively ban petrol and diesel cars by 2035 or earlier, with some exceptions that would result in synthetic fuels taking over from traditional oil-derived fuels.
The post Tesla boss forecasts tipping point for global oil demand appeared first on Drive.
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