Shell: Oil Is Not The Future Of Transportation
Originally published on EV Obsession.
Earlier this year, Shell released its most recent future energy scenario report, New Lens Scenarios (check out the PDF here). One of the big highlights, in my eyes, was that one of the scenarios (Oceans) projected that solar energy would become the largest source of energy by 2070. However, another big projection that someone recently picked out of the report is that the world of passenger vehicles could be nearly oil-free by 2070.
From the Mountains scenario (the not-as-green one): “By 2070, the passenger road market could be nearly oil-free and towards the end of the century an extensive hydrogen infrastructure rollout displaces oil demand for long haul and heavy loads. By this time, electricity and hydrogen may dominate, and affordable, plug-in, hybrid hydrogen vehicles offer the ultimate in flexibility and efficiency.”
As I noted when I first wrote about this Shell report, Shell’s cleantech projections might sound optimistic to a lay reader, but other (non-oil) companies and nonprofits have put forth much more optimistic projections and scenarios, ones in which solar energy and electric vehicles come to dominate much sooner. Shell, even if it is clear that we are moving away from oil, is trying to push a related resource it could tap for trillions of dollars — natural gas. To read its report or projections without paying attention to that would be to miss one of the key reasons Shell pumped time and money into this report.
But the key takeaway point does stand: even Shell realizes that a cleantech revolution is underway.
The second takeaway point is simply: Shell’s projections see the cleantech revolution happening very slowly, because that is what Shell is pushing for.
Don’t miss the second point for the first one, but certainly do go and parade this first point. It would be nice to think that only an illogical Fox News–brainwashed troll would think that cleantech is not the future of energy. But the truth is: a lot of common people don’t realize that cleantech is the future. Share the news!
h/t Motley Fool & Autoblog Green
Whether you have solar power or not, please complete our latest solar power survey.
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica's Comment Policy
