With the news of the US’ actions in Venezuela this morning, we are reminded again of how reducing oil demand can lead to less conflict – and electric vehicles are our best bet for doing so.
Today, US dictator Donald Trump, who cannot legally hold US office, unilaterally ordered an invasion of Venezuela, violating the country’s sovereignty and kidnapping its dictator, Nicolas Maduro. The US claims the initial operation went off smoothly, but we’re only hours in, and the US is no stranger to premature declarations of victory.
Mr. Trump stated outright this morning that the reason for the invasion was to steal Venezuela’s oil. Although, this will likely be a difficult process due to decaying infrastructure and long-term destabilization in the country, partially caused by US sanctions to begin with.
Attempts were made in this morning’s press conference to obfuscate the US’ purposes there, but he couldn’t help but come back to the same explanation over and over: it’s oil.
Putting aside any opinions of Maduro’s reign in Venezuela, the action this morning is clearly an unjust and unwise escalation regardless, and this moment reminds us of one of the benefits of EVs: that they will help to put an end to this sort of conflict.
Oil doesn’t just harm your health, it also creates conflict
This morning’s actions remind us that the combustion of oil is responsible for many social ills, beyond the obvious harmful air pollution and climate change.
It’s bad on the international stage as well. Ever since oil became such an important transportation fuel, it has also fueled global conflict. Many wars of the 20th and 21st century have been centered around oil, and that includes the military action initiated this morning.
The current conflict between Russia and Europe also has oil at its center – when Russia annexed Crimea in 2015, the international community’s reaction was mild at best, largely because Europe was addicted to Russian gas and oil. After this trial balloon went off without a hitch, Russia was emboldened towards a greater invasion of Ukraine. Europe reacted with a rush to get off of Russian oil and gas, which led to energy price spikes across the bloc of nations which could have been avoided had they electrified sooner.
Even the US Department of Defense recognizes this, acknowledging that climate change is a threat which will drive global conflict.
Oil companies also tend to throw their weight behind causes that are harmful to humanity, and at the very least, the centralization of political and economic power into one industry does not help lead us to a more pluralistic society.
So it is clear that the addiction to this resource must stop, must stop as rapidly as possible, and that doing so will reduce conflict. And here, electric vehicles are the answer.
Most oil is used for transportation. EVs fix that.
Some will point out that oil is still needed for things other than fueling cars, but the vast majority of oil is used in transportation applications. A large chunk of oil is also used for heating, and a relatively tiny amount is used for other petroleum products.
And a majority of the oil used in transport is used to fuel light-duty vehicles. Reducing this largest chunk of our addiction would reduce the cause of the aforementioned conflicts.
So, to reduce oil consumption, we need to reduce its use in transportation, and specifically in light-duty vehicles.
Electric cars do that, because they do not need to use oil to propel themselves. Instead, they can power themselves from any number of sources of electricity, which can be sourced with whatever energy resources any given country has access to domestically, whether that be wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear, or whatever else. This means countries can be more self-sufficient or flexible, and thus reduces the opportunity of resource cartels to abuse power.
The resources EVs use are also not as primed for global conflict – most of them are used in much smaller amounts per car, are well-distributed geographically, and are recyclable, not burned.
Of course, there are other ways we can reduce oil consumption – electric bicycles, which we also cover here on Electrek, have reduced oil consumption even more than electric cars have, and sold in greater numbers globally.
And that same EV technology can be applied to freight and transit, cutting those chunks of oil use too.
All of these need to be adopted as rapidly as possible, and will cut the need for oil to a tiny fraction of a traditional gasoline-fueled vehicle (given that all plastics make up ~2-3% of oil use).
But all of these solutions are opposed by rich, powerful, and violent groups which have benefitted from being the drug dealer behind the world’s addiction to oil. This is why US republicans and their oil industry donors actively work to harm electric cars and renewable energy, and it’s why OPEC constantly proffers its wishful thinking that the oil age will never end.
And yet, for all this flailing they’re losing the fight.
Oil is already nearing its peak
It turns out, oil consumption in the US is already falling, and it’s falling because of EVs.
US oil consumption reached a peak in 2019, dropped significantly in 2020, and has not recovered to its 2019 peak since then. It may inch up a little more from here due to republican actions, but it has likely already reached the point at which historians will mark the start of its long term decline, largely due to increasing EV sales and other technologies to reduce oil use (e.g. heat pumps for home heating).
The same is true globally – Norway already passed peak oil demand, China is passing peak oil demand right around now, and the entire planet will pass peak oil demand by the end of this decade. A long term decline in oil consumption is inevitable with the advance of technology and energy efficiency.
This has also resulted in lower oil prices. In the highly-leveraged global oil market, small drops in demand can lead to large drops in oil prices. The growth of EVs has driven oil prices lower.
But it is clear that this transition could still be had faster. Rather than retreating from goals, nations that want to reduce conflict should accelerate further forward, to help avoid needless conflict like today’s. The faster we move away from oil, the faster we can reduce these sorts of conflicts, and the cheaper it will be on everyone’s health and in terms of the costs of climate change.
And since oil is a global commodity, this solution is not limited just to the countries that are misbehaving or being misbehaved upon. Replacing gasoline infrastructure anywhere on the planet limits the power of cartels to abuse others, so you (or more pointedly, whatever government you are represented by) can strike a blow to stop this nonsense no matter where you are.
So, if you want a solution to idiotic oil conflicts like the one that US dictator Donald Trump intensified this morning, the solution could be right in your driveway.
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