
How big oil will die - triplesec
https://shift.newco.co/amp/p/38b843bd4fe0
======
stablemap
Discussion from a month ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715405)

~~~
diafygi
Seems this was post was buried. Was the repost the reason? Or the flaming?
Energy discussion not interesting to YC?

------
pilom
Every time I see someone make the argument that "all cars will be electric by
20XX" I feel like they are incredibly sheltered from rural life. The US is
HUGE! Sure the majority of commuting could be replaced by electric cars but
I've seen no evidence of them being able to replace ICEs for the "I want to go
skiing/kayaking/hiking (pick an activity where your car sits on the side of
the road all day) 2 hours away and return on the same day" situation. There
are so many changes to infrastructure that need to be made to get there. Sure
ski resorts and malls and park and rides might put in 1000s of chargers in
their parking lots eventually, but it certainly won't happen by 2023 or
whatever this article predicts. Sure the cars might exist, but the charging
infrastructure won't by then.

~~~
maxsilver
Electric cars can have ICE's strapped onto them, and it works really well. The
Chevy Volt, for instance, is perfectly designed to handle the situation you
described. It gives you 52ish miles of all electric range, so you can commute
and grab groceries and do all of your normal driving on pure electricity. And
for various road trips, it still gets 40-ish MPG for hundreds of miles without
any electricity needed.

It also needs zero fancy charging infrastructure. Have a regular US household
power outlet anywhere in your garage or home exterior? Then you have
everything you need to charge it up every night.

We could easily eliminate 50+% of US personal vehicle emissions, simply by
putting 2013-era PHEV technology into every single car /SUV / truck, and
getting people to plug them into regular 120V US household outlets overnight.
Even rural folks would benefit greatly from getting 1 or 2 free "electricity
gallons" every night.

Pure EV's are obviously ideal, and way cooler. But even just a little bit of
electricity in a PHEV goes a _long_ way to reducing/eliminating emissions.

~~~
briantakita
> It also needs zero fancy charging infrastructure. Have a regular US
> household power outlet anywhere in your garage or home exterior? Then you
> have everything you need to charge it up every night.

There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will
require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country. Couple this
with "smart grid" mandates & you have yet another channel for government
control via bureaucracy & regulation. Denizens of cities tend to be more numb
to government control & people in more sparsely populated areas tend to be
more willing to demand/defend freedom & liberty.

There are many new properties that need to add utility poles. Don't forget
power loss over distance.

The big advantage of Gas is you can transport/store the product without the
product losing energy.

> We could easily eliminate 50+% of US personal vehicle emissions, simply by
> putting 2013-era PHEV technology into every single car /SUV / truck, and
> getting people to plug them into regular 120V US household outlets
> overnight. Even rural folks would benefit greatly from getting 1 or 2 free
> "electricity gallons" every night.

Living in Tennessee, it's difficult to ignore the power lines everywhere in
otherwise abundant greenery. Electric cars will only add more power lines &
infrastructure.

~~~
maxsilver
> There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will
> require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country.

Two electric cars in a household, both charging simultaneously, uses less
electricity combined than just one standard clothes dryer or one central air
conditioner -- the kind of appliances everyone already has in their home and
runs regularly.

It's not nothing of course. And some parts of the grid will need capacity
improvements. But we're only talking about 900 to 1400 watts per car here, and
most of that only happening at night when there's lots of spare capacity
already. I don't see any factual reasons this would crush the power grid --
cars simply don't use enough electricity to cause a major problem.

~~~
maxerickson
1400 watts for a plug in hybrid or someone that doesn't drive longer distances
everyday.

For full electric with higher mileage 5,000-10,000 watts would be a lot more
likely (Tesla sells a 17 KW charger).

~~~
maxsilver
> For full electric with higher mileage 5000-10,000 kilowatts would be a lot
> more likely.

I don't think so. Sure, it's technically possible to use that much power, but
most people aren't going to empty their Tesla battery every single day, for
the same reason most people don't buy a whole tank of gasoline every single
day.

You can charge a Tesla on a 1.4kw US household outlet, just like every other
car. It will still give you 50+ miles a night. Bump that to just a 3.3kW
charger and you'll be pulling over 100 miles of charge nightly. 3.3kW is more
than enough to cover 92% of all commuters nationwide, according to USDOT.

Superchargers are awesome and all, and are great for roadtrips, but 99% of
people will have no need to pull 17kW down in their home. That's an insane
amount of power.

------
diafygi
Good. Bloomberg estimates the transition will be a $10 trillion upside for
those upgrading and replacing fossils[1].

It remains to be seen who the winners will be. Incumbents (Excelon, Shell, SA,
etc.) have market share, but will have to strand trillions of assets and
reserves. Newcomers (Tesla, etc.) have to survive the energy boom-bust cycle
that early fossil went through.

My money is on the newcomers (my startup is one). The incumbents' shareholders
simply won't let them strand assets short term to transition to new energy
business models.

[1]:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/investing...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/investing-
trillions-in-electricity-s-sunny-future)

~~~
forgotmysn
can you link to or provide a little more info on the "boom-bust cycle that
early fossil went through"?

~~~
diafygi
Here's a recent example with the shale boom-bust:

[http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2015/11/04/boom-to-
bust-5...](http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2015/11/04/boom-to-
bust-5-stages-of-the-oil-industry/)

This is extremely typical in the history of energy (wood, coal, oil, solar,
nuclear, wind, and on and on) because of the speed at which things move.
First, you come up with a new innovation, pump capital into building tons of
it (the boom). Then, someone else comes up with an innovation, which busts
you.

It's fundamentally impossible to defend an advantage/monopoly long term in
energy (except with governments, e.g. utilities). Coincidentally, this is why
we don't see much VC participation in energy, and when they do participate,
they usually lose their shirt. The competitive fundamentals of energy aren't
compatible with monopoly seeking.

~~~
ramzyo
>> It's fundamentally impossible to defend an advantage/monopoly long term in
energy (except with governments, e.g. utilities)

I'd argue the causal factors here are more attributable to a combination of
natural forces in quasi-free market economies (e.g. competition) and antitrust
laws than the specific economics of the energy industry.

------
saagarjha
I can see this playing out, but not as quickly as the author suggests. Cameras
and cellphones last a couple years at the most, and are much easier to
replace, than a car is. Sure, everyone _wants_ a self driving car, but not
everyone can switch just like that.

~~~
function_seven
The argument that counters this is that hailed rides will be cheaper than
driving what you already have. You don't need to make a new purchase to
switch.

Even if you have a recent model sitting in the driveway, you may choose to
save money by hailing a car rather than driving your own.

I don't know if it'll play out like that, but the article is pretty
convincing.

~~~
leereeves
Why would a car owned by someone else be cheaper than the same car owned by
you?

The obvious answer - dividing the cost of the car over more miles - doesn't
seem right to me. Driving more miles doesn't generally increase the useful
mileage lifespan of cars, it just wears them out more quickly.

~~~
kjksf
Even in the short term, an owner of a large (say 10k+) fleet of cars has a lot
of opportunities to drive down cost per car that is not available to an
average costumer:

\- a guaranteed purchase of 10k cars will get a significant discount over
retail price

\- not paying dealer overhead

\- buying gas (or electricity) in bulk will be cheaper than retail price

\- in-house repairs and maintenance will be cheaper

\- a lot of people buy on credit, which is expensive. A fleet operator will be
able to get cheaper funding (e.g. free by doing an IPO) and eventually fund
purchases fully from profit

\- an average customer is influenced by marketing and therefore over-pays for
non-essential items. A fleet buyer will be ruthless about maintaining best-
bang-for-the-buck ratio.

In the longer term fleet operator will transition fully to electric, build its
own electricity generation capacity (especially in sunny states like texas or
ca, where solar is really cheap), use data from past repairs to drive up
reliability and durability of the cars etc.

------
chrissnell
This article makes a number of flawed assumptions:

    
    
        - It neglects the environmental impact of battery production.
        - Diesel motors can be significantly less expensive to maintain and operate, even more so as the reliability of
          emissions-reducing technology is improved.
        - Battery charging is nowhere near as fast or convenient as a gas station.
        - Electricity must come from somewhere.  Few places have steady wind and none have 24-hour solar energy.
    

The world will switch to electric vehicles when they offer sufficient cost-
savings, convenience, and appeal. Until we solve all of those things (and not
with massive government subsidies), they will continue to play second-fiddle
to gas- and diesel-powered vehicles.

~~~
vvanders
> Diesel motors can be significantly less expensive to maintain and operate,
> even more so as the reliability of emissions-reducing technology is
> improved.

Source? As someone who owns two diesels(1.1L 2cyl and 3.0L 6cyl) and an EV the
oil changes alone make your argument invalid.

You know what my highest per-mile operating cost is(including electricity)?
Tires.

Look, I love the simplicity of the diesel as much as anyone else but EVs have
a very strong position on operation costs.

~~~
chrissnell
When were your diesels built? The new (last five years or so) engines are
amazing--they've really come a long way with the emissions systems.

I own two diesels: a 1987 Land Rover Defender 110 with a 300Tdi (no emissions
controls, ridiculously smokey) and a 2017 Ram 2500 with the 6.7L Cummins turbo
diesel (cleaner than I'd ever imagined).

~~~
vvanders
I think you may have mis-read my reply. I was talking about operating costs,
not emissions.

The 3.0L ecodiesel was built last year and yeah, it's much cleaner than our
'81 1.2L which is pre-emissions.

The thing is the new engine is full synthetic(only approved oil) so combined
with the ~$30 Wix filter an oil change runs ~$110 every 4k. The only
maintenance item on our EV was a coolant change at 50k, something you'd have
to do on a diesel as well.

~~~
chrissnell
That's a different story than my Cummins, which gets an oil change every 15K
miles and uses regular 15W40 dino oil. Other than fuel[1], I've only spent
about $115 in the first year of ownership and only because I took it to the
dealer for an oil change instead of doing it in my garage like I do my other
diesel truck.

[1] 15-17mpg...not bad for a 10,500 pound truck

~~~
vvanders
Even ignoring the oil change(15k seems like a huge interval, 5x what I did on
traditional oil) you're still spending ~$0.17 per mile @ $2.80/gal.

For our 5k lb EV right now I'm paying $0.07KWh at about .3KW/ mi for a total
of $0.023/mi(hence why tires cost me more than electricity, they're about
$1k/35k mi or 0.028/mi).

Even our Ecodiesel that gets 28MPG still costs almost 10x to run per mile
compared to our EV(which has similar weight) before you even factor oil
changes.

------
mikestew
Pardon my coarseness, but the author has his head so far up his own ass as he
can’t tell whether the sun is up or down. I say this as a person who ordered a
Nissan Leaf the first day they were available, has way too many shares of TSLA
in their portfolio, and would love nothing more than watch Exxon Mobile go out
of business. But they won’t be dismantling the Keystone pipeline any time
soon, let alone in eight years.

Sure, ICEs are complex. But it is a _known_ complexity. So well known that our
80K Scion xB has never had the valve cover off (IOW, nothing internal to the
engine has broken). In fact, we’ve done nothing to it but tires and oil.
Having never done it, from the shop manual I’d guess I could have the engine
of our 200K mile VW camper van on the ground in about 30 minutes, have it
rebuild over a weekend, and it’s good for another 100K miles. Complicated
though they might be, ordinary humans can figure them out. Hell, the inner
workings of an Intel CPU surpassed my understanding years ago, but they still
sell millions of them, and my ignorance doesn’t stop me from writing software
for them.

Look at the list of common repairs in the article. Almost all of them have one
thing in common: the repairs are dictated by emissions testing, not because
they’ll leave you at the side of the road. O2 sensor? The car is likely to
still run, just poorly. The driver might not even notice. Catalytic converter?
Unless it’s plugged from flooding the engine (raw gas will plug a cat), the
car will still run. And yada yada for the rest. Of the items on the list, only
an ignition coil is going to leave you at the side of the road. Let me put
another way: I like our old VW because it gives an opportunity to still work
on cars once in a while. The rest of our vehicles, modern cars and motorcycles
all, are fucking appliances that don’t need the tender care of an old
mechanic. So let’s discard the “ICE cars are complex and unreliable” argument,
shall we? And there’s more to the ICE world than passenger cars, as you won’t
be plowing a field with an electric tractor anytime soon.

Using a Prius as an argument for EVs is just dumb, because you know what else
a Prius has under the hood beside an electric motor? So the more one makes the
case with the longevity of a Prius, the more one argues that ICEs are pretty
reliable.

By the time I got to the self-driving car portion, I checked out. In six
years, new car sales will drop to near zero? That’s not an argument worth
having, because you’re arguing with a kook.

------
technicalbard
There are a few problems yet to be solved. First, the battery system in a
Tesla Model S has a carbon footprint from manufacturing that equals driving a
midsized gasoline powered car for 8 years. If that doesn't change, then there
is no net carbon reductions Second, battery energy density needs to get
dramatically better. Current Li-Ion batteries are about 6 times the energy
density of a lead-acid battery of 40 years ago. They need to get 20 times
better to equal a hydrocarbon fuel. Third, the increase in electricity demand
has to come from somewhere. It isn't viable to replace all electricity
generation with wind/solar, without MASSIVE storage investment. Hydroelectric
and nuclear will be needed at large scale to cover this demand if coal and gas
are not used. While everyone talks about these technologies getting better at
the same rate computers did, they haven't thus far. They might, but the laws
of thermodynamics are a steep slope.

------
nateburke
The OP is operating in a peacetime mentality. Oil's killer app is war:

Can a fleet of fighter planes run on electricity, currently? No.

Has the Army committed to having 100% of their fleet of tanks running on
electricity by 2025? No.

Can you run a supply chain to the front lines of a ground war with
electricity? Technically yes, but it's only a matter of time until your wire
infra gets cut/bombed.

So I completely agree with the OP, assuming a general absence of armed, land-
based conflict in the next 20 years.

That said, think about why the US even _has_ a highway system and domestic
airlines. There are two main weaknesses of building transportation
infrastructure on rail, from a central-planning perspective:

1\. You can shut down an entire country's economy by bombing the rail
infrastructure (c.f.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea),
viewing the seceded South as a "country" here...), less so with airfields and
asphalt highways.

2\. There is no consistent demand for continued production of railroad
infrastructure, once it is built, which makes mobilizing production in times
of great need (e.g. war) slow and difficult.

How this relates to the OP's argument re: electric cars:

1\. While battery technology will continue to improve, the main means of
transporting electricity is still the power plant + electric lines, which is
relatively fragile compared to oil barges/tanks on trucks + highways. You
would need to destroy every oil tanker and truck in America to shut down the
energy distribution system -- a much harder task than bombing every power
plant -- power plants can't move.

2\. With gas-powered cars (and planes, though to a lesser extent), you can
keep the production running all the time making civilian vehicles. Turning all
those Ford F150s and 737s into tanks and bombers is difficult, but it is way
easier to do so if you don't have to build the factories FIRST.

~~~
FrozenVoid
>Can a fleet of fighter planes run on electricity, currently? No. >Can you run
a supply chain to the front lines of a ground war with electricity? Yes, with
cheap solar power and favorable weather condition(alternatively recharge
locations which would recharge or repair drones.) Solar powered drones would
be more cost-effective than oil-based armies. Air/ground units greatest cost
is protection of humans inside, making them expensive and energy hungry. Once
the human factor is out, there is no point on being dependent on dense energy
sources such as oil or static infrastructure such as rails and roads. The
ideal fighting unit is cheap and self-sufficient: something like solar-powered
aerial drone armed with particle beam weapon(e.g.ion beam) or area-denial beam
weapon powered by wind/solar/hydro. Renewable energy is the future of warfare,
like it or not.

------
andy_ppp
I did some quick maths and at 16 cents per mile this looks like it would make
around 500bn in revenue per year if all journeys in America were converted to
electric self driving uber over night! Maybe Uber will succeed after all!

------
chao-
I want fewer fossil fuels as much as the next guy, and while the core argument
about ICEs is beyond my expertise, the data the author presents seems to
support it so that's pretty neat. However, I take issue with the article's
casual conflating of oil with all fossil fuels, and fossil fuels used for
transportation with all uses of fossil fuels.

It signals a lack of awareness when the author writes things such as:

> _The pipeline was built at a cost of about $7 billion ... Keystone XL will
> go down as the world’s last great fossil fuels infrastructure project._

Without even straining my memory, I recall that Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass
Terminal opened in the last year. It cost about as much to build as the $7
billion quoted here, and they are planning another now at a higher projected
cost [0].

Overall I agree with the author's proposed trajectory and order of events
involving self-driving cars, fewer used car sales, and so on, but differ on
the time scale. I figure things will progress at one-half to three-quarters
that speed, at fastest. I don't think the "simple" argument of "people will
select the cheaper option" is as simple when it comes to automobiles. A
combination of inertia, identity and utility are going to make it slow going.

Not only am I "not a car guy", I actively dislike the task of driving. So it
took a long time for me to _really get_ why people identify with their
vehicles, but now that I do, I can see how limited my eco-progressive
perspective of "Everyone would prefer to live a car free life just like me!"
was. I still arrogantly think everyone else will come around, but it's going
to take longer than the author, or younger me, thought it would.

Definitely the generation born after the self-driving car is widespread will
be the ones to complete the job. I don't think that timeline plays as cleanly
into the oil (or fossil fuel) narrative that this article sets up, though.

[0] [http://wgno.com/2016/12/21/8-5-billion-natural-gas-plant-
and...](http://wgno.com/2016/12/21/8-5-billion-natural-gas-plant-and-terminal-
planned-for-plaquemines-parish/)

~~~
bmelton
And of course there's people like myself -- I _love_ cars, but I actively hate
commuting. Not because I mind the driving, or the traffic, but because it's
time I'm getting nothing done.

If I lived in or near a bigger city, some of that would be offset by mass
transit, but even mass transit comes with a lot of wasted time -- walking to
the platform, waiting for the train, driving/walking to the station, what have
you. But a self-driving car, or a car I can call on-demand solves all of that.
I can walk out of my house, get into a car, and read, catch up on email, or
get work done during my commute.

I'll probably still have a car for leisure. I currently have a Jeep that I use
for wilderness / beach / outdoor trips, and I can't see that changing any time
soon even though I have a gas-electric hybrid for commuting, but if my daily
transit needs can be met by a self-driving, plug-in electric, it's a massive
ecological benefit while actively increasing my daily productivity and quality
of life.

I agree with you that the 100% coverage the author imagines is a LONG, long
way off, and I imagine that even of people who feel more like you do, the idea
that they're going to start replacing perfectly good cars with expensive
replacements is unlikely outside of the top 10-20% of earners, but if enough
people like me switch over a significant portion of our driving patterns to
those described in the article, it'll be a huge win.

------
oisino
Talking to people behind self driving car companies the issue is not the self
driving technology or laws it's more infrastructure around extremely low
latency internet to make self driving cars work in the general wild. This
article assumes mass adoption really quickly but who knows how quickly our
general infrastructure will be updated to enable this especially in third
world countries that are ramping up in traditional cars consumption but are
notorious for bad mass scale infrastructure (Brazil/ India).

~~~
Dylan16807
Why would the internet be involved in anything a self-driving car computes
with a sub-five-second deadline?

------
umanwizard
First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport;
second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil
used in transport to ramp down.

~~~
glibgil
> over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport

But doesn't transport have the biggest need for power density? Once renewable
power density is solved for transport, I would expect the same applications
will quickly be applied to the other places oil is used

~~~
sigstoat
it is used as a precursor in chemical synthesis, plastics and a variety of
other products.

you're not going to replace that with solar.

~~~
diafygi
Sure you will, but maybe later. Super cheap energy makes bio-plastics
competitive.

Massive solar farms passively making carbon chains when the sun is up. The
reason no one is talking about it is that the transportation transition is
lower hanging fruit.

~~~
Gibbon1
There is an interesting line of research into catalysts that use electricity
to create stuff like methanol, acetic acid, etc from CO2 and water. Often when
you see people comment on this they automatically assume synthetic methanol
--> green washed automotive fuel --> yay and I can keep my F150 pickup. But
more seriously, pure low weight hydrocarbons --> chemical feed stocks.

------
khn1
There is a major blind spot that the author fails to address: All vehicles
(ICE or EV) have a heavy dependence on petroleum products such as plastics,
lubricants, and synthetic rubber. While I believe that EV's are the future, I
do not think their success implies the fall of Big Oil.

~~~
dbaupp
The amounts differ by an order of magnitude, or maybe even two. E.g. the EIA
says 9.3k barrels/day is consumed as motor gasoline (more than half of all
consumption of finished products, and the next largest categories are also
burn-the-oil, possibly including 3.6k barrels/day of diesel fuel) whereas only
323 barrels/day go to petrochemical feedstocks.
[https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.h...](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm)

------
emmanuelindex
Why self driving cars should only be electric vehicules? And if the price of
oil is going down due to electric vehicules it will make people even more
happier to use their already amortized vehicules. And don't forget that a
large part of electricity comes from oil in the US.

~~~
danans
> And don't forget that a large part of electricity comes from oil in the US.

Unless you live in Hawaii this is false.

Coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar are collectively and
individually larger contributors than oil.

[https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)

------
nnfy
OP does not understand that he is far more enthusiastic about his Prius than
the rest of the world.

Too much of this article is based on unsubstantiated, overly optimistic
predictions, and the reasoning is regularly fallacious. Two examples:

1\. OP lists expensive repairs for combustion vehicles, then suggests that
because said parts do not exist in EVs, that EVs are cheaper to maintain. This
is nonsense, first of all most of the parts listed almost never require
repairs (how often do you spend >$1000 to replace a catalytic converter?) and
secondly, it is (deliberately?) misleading to ignore that EVs have specialized
parts of their own to repair. The fact that there are fewer parts is not
enough data to suggest that an EV is cheaper automatically to maintain, or
more reliable. Further, there is a risk that some people will spend more money
on EV repair because they may require specialized equipment to maintain.

2\. His "current estimates" sources are based on extrapolation of current
tesla battery performance, which is an uncertain predictor of future
performance given how little time the tested batteries have spent in use.

3\. When OP leaps to self driving cars as another reason for the emergence of
EVs, he also conveniently misses that there is utility and sentimental value
in owning your own car.

tl;dr: Will EVs eventually supersede ICVs? Sure. But putting out an article
which says with certainty, and a straight face, that no one will want oil in 8
years is just unnecessarily smug.

~~~
PeterisP
It's funny that you claim that "most of the parts listed almost never require
repairs" when the list explicitly is the top 10 most frequent actual repairs
that were performed in 2015.

Also "they may require specialized equipment to maintain" is a guess that's
not true, while everything requires particular tools, repairing and
maintaining electric drivetrains requires less specialized equipment than
ICEs.

~~~
nnfy
From that same article, the average repair cost is $387/year for a typical
vehicle. Nowhere near the scary list with >$1000. You feel right into OP's
literary trap, which is my problem with the whole article. Overly optimistic
sensationalism. 8 years to rebuild our entire infrastructure!

I'd like to see a source for the second, I think you're making the mistake OP
lead you to, in the assumption that simply because of fewer moving parts, the
vehicle is necessarily easier to work on.

------
Animats
That's from May 2017.

It costs less to make an IC engine than to make an electric drivetrain.
Replacement cost for a Tesla drivetrain is about $6000 - $15000. Replacement
for an volume-product automotive engine is about $2,250 to $4,000. Detroit put
a lot of effort over the years into making engine manufacture cheap.

~~~
mhmiles
Pretty sure you’re not finding a new engine for a BMW 5 series for $4000 and
that’s a cheaper car than Tesla S/X

------
jswizzy
You think in 2025 we will be talking about children mining by hand in the
Congo in horrible conditions to provide all those lithium batteries for that
future? There is a price for everything.

~~~
diafygi
Fun fact. Afghanistan has huge lithium resources.

[https://nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html](https://nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html)

~~~
Analemma_
Oh, well never mind then: Afghanistan has much better labor protections than
the Congo /s

~~~
princeb
it will when afghanistan becomes the USA's 51st state. (or maybe 52nd after
NK)

------
alliao
And this is how car manufacturers going to make up the revenue loss of the new
much more reliable electric drive train.

AI + Autonomous driving.

Both of these requires sensors, and silicon. Both hates abuse from vibration
and heat/cold cycle, in short, they will fail.

So instead of paying for things that would break in the old car, why not pay
for things that only exists in the new car.

It's not hard...

~~~
hyperbovine
Cars have been shipping with sensors and computers since the 80s. When was the
last time you heard of somebody's ECU failing? What's that, you've never heard
of an ECU before? :-)

~~~
esterly
Agreed. The sensors which fail commonly fail [1] on high milage ICE cars are
in the hot places, exhaust and coolant. Battery cooling and electric motors
run at a much lower temperature around 40C [2].

1\. [https://www.gsfcarparts.com/blog/when-car-sensors-go-bad-
sym...](https://www.gsfcarparts.com/blog/when-car-sensors-go-bad-symptons-
for-5-common-sensors) 2\. [https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/questions-
about-batt...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/questions-about-
battery-cooling.95620/#post-2237439)

------
partycoder
Not many people know the relationship between oil and the US dollar.

The golden age of the US dollar was the Bretton Woods system, where every
currency was backed in dollars and dollars were backed in gold. There was
however no obligation for the Federal Reserve to accept audits of any kind to
validate there was enough gold. Therefore the US could print money at will
(and it did), until countries such as France started demanding the conversion
of their dollars to gold.

To avoid the equivalent of a bank run at the Federal Reserve level, Nixon
moved away from the gold standard and since then the US dollar has been
allowed to float.

A less known fact, is how the US dollar has preserved its value in this
current setup. The answer is: by having an exclusive deal with oil producers
where oil is sold exclusively in US dollars. Since everyone needs oil, if you
need dollars to buy oil, the dollar gains a relative value.

Having said this, it is important to understand that as energy consumers move
away from oil, the US will need to find another way to sustain its currency or
it will inevitably crash, along with everything valued in dollars, such as
savings, wages, etc.

~~~
pm24601
You are ignoring history. The US is the one (of 2) major countries to:

* NOT have been invaded/conquered

* NOT had major currency hyperinflation/devaluation

* long lasting (centuries at this point)

* currency reissue/replacement

The other arguable is the UK and the pound.

~~~
maxerickson
There have been significant foreign incursions. Not a real occupation I guess.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Washington)

~~~
qbrass
Even when Canada invades, they just end up saving you from a tornado.

