Reddit reviews Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030

Well, you can characterise it as declaring war, or as giving them a gentle nudge to start adopting new technologies to better service their markets.

There's ample evidence to show that the car industry, petroleum industry, and fossil fuel industries would prefer climate change not be discussed, and not have to react to it. And while they have responded in some ways to pressure by their customer base, they've also resisted change because it's not in their long term interest.

However as Tesla enters the market, it takes market share. It's done this to the luxury vehicle market and will do so to the other markets. This is the most effective way to ensure that these industries respond to the challenge of climate change - either they respond by producing competing products, or Tesla will over time ramp up volumes, take more market share, and disrupt them out of existence, just as has happened to Blockbuster, Kodak, Nokia.

Shareholders of companies in these markets are on notice - the long term viability (10 - 15 years) of your business is at stake. Many brands we know today will disappear. This new technology will also create new business models and opportunities - but the incumbants will have to act fast!

More on disruption of the energy market by solar/battery from Tony Seba's book and this great presentation in Oslo a few months ago.

edit: formatting and sales added

This is the latest sector report from RethinkX, the think tank founded by entrepreneur and technology theorist Tony Seba who literally wrote the book on the Clean Disruption of energy and transportation.

A few highlights of our findings from the report:

Industry Impacts

• By 2030, the number of cows in the U.S. will have fallen by 50%. Production volumes of the U.S. beef and dairy industries and their suppliers will be cut by more than half.
  
• By 2030, the market for ground beef by volume will have shrunk by 70%, the steak market by 30% and the dairy market by almost 90%. The markets for other cow products (leather, collagen, etc.) are likely to decline by more than 90%. In total, demand for cow products will fall by 70%.
  
• By 2030, the U.S. dairy and cattle industries will have collapsed, leaving only local specialty farms in operation.
  
• By 2035, demand for cow products will fall by 80%-90% and U.S. beef and dairy industry (and their suppliers) revenues, at current prices, will be down nearly 90%.
  
• Farmland values will collapse by 40%-80%.
  
• The volume of crops needed to feed cattle in the U.S. will fall by 50% from 155 million tons in 2018 to 80 million tons in 2030, causing cattle feed production revenues, at current prices, to fall by more than 50% from 60 billion in 2019 to less than $30 billion in 2030.
  
• All other livestock industries including fisheries will follow cattle and suffer similar disruptions, while the knock-on effects for throughout the value chain will be severe.
  
  Food Cost Savings:
  
  
• The cost of modern foods and products will be at least 50% and as much as 80% lower than the animal products they replace, which will translate into substantially lower prices and increased disposable incomes. The average U.S. family will save more than $1,200 a year in food costs, keeping an additional $100bn a year in Americans’ pockets by 2030.
  
  Jobs Lost and Gained:
  
  
• Half of the 1.2 million jobs in U.S. beef and dairy production (including supply chain), along with their associated industries, will be lost by 2030, climbing toward 90% by 2035.
  
• The emerging U.S. modern foods industry will create at least 700,000 jobs by 2030 and up to 1 million jobs by 2035.
  
  Land Use and Environmental Impacts:
  
  
• Modern foods will be far more efficient than animal-derived products: Up to 100 times more land efficient, 10-25 times more feedstock efficient, 20 times more time efficient, and 10 times more water efficient than industrial livestock. They will also produce an order of magnitude less waste.
  
• By 2035, 60% of the land currently used for livestock and feed production will be freed for other uses. These 485 million acres equate to 13 times the size of Iowa, an area almost the size of the Louisiana Purchase. If all this land were dedicated to maximize carbon sequestration, all current sources of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions could be fully offset by 2035.
  
• U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from cattle will drop by 60% by 2030, on course to nearly 80% by 2035. Even when the modern food production that replaces animal agriculture is included, net emissions from the sector as a whole will decline by 45% by 2030, on course to 65% by 2035.
  
• Water consumption in cattle production and associated feed cropland irrigation will fall by 50% by 2030, on course to 75% by 2035. Even when the modern food production that replaces animal agriculture is included, net water consumption in the sector as a whole will decline by 35% by 2030, on course to 60% by 2035.
  
• Oil demand from the U.S. agriculture industry (currently 150 million barrels of oil equivalent a year) will fall by at least 50% by 2030.
  
  Health & Food Security:
  
  
• Nutritional benefits could have profound impact on health, particularly conditions such as heart disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes that are estimated to cost the U.S. $1.7 trillion each year. The way they are produced should also ensure a sharp reduction in foodborne illness.
  
• The modern food system will be decentralized and therefore more stable and resilient, thereby increasing food security.
  
  Geopolitical Implications:
  
  
• Trade relations and geopolitics will shift due to a decentralized food production system.
  
• Any country will be able to capture the opportunities associated with a global industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

The first video is just a summary of Tony Seba's most recent book, which is well-cited. As I said, I have some small issues with the details, but the general picture is accurate: it will be cheaper to produce electricity 24/7, including overcapacity and storage, with solar than with any fossil fuels everywhere except the high latitudes by 2030.

The key assumptions this case makes are that 1) Swanson's Law will continue to hold in driving the cost of PV lower for at least 15 more years, and 2) the assumption that battery storage will continue to follow its current curve of around 8% improvement per year (although Tesla's gigafactory is likely to put us slightly ahead of the curve starting in 2017).

If you want to argue against the 2030 projection, you have to argue that one or both of those assumptions is wrong. Few people are doing so, including most notably the utility sector which is already withdrawing fossil-fuel-based generation capital investments in high-insolation areas like California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, etc.

I recommend chapter 6 of Tony Seba's book Clean Disruption for more on the real-world costs of nuclear. Nuclear hasn't actually been as cheap as has been promised. Frequent large cost overruns, plus the taxpayers are often stuck with decommissioning costs.

For all the people who say "maybe now we can end the subsidies for solar," without bailouts, federal loan guarantees, and the government acting as the insurer of last resort (because no insurer will take on the liability for a nuclear accident), there would be no nuclear power industry at all.

> We can't consume our way out of climate change.

I don't want to be completely dismissive of your statement (I know your heart is in the right place), but there is a strong argument that, paradoxically, consumption is exactly how we're going to solve climate change, because the more solar and wind are bought, the more the price goes down and the more lithium ion batteries are bought, the more the price goes down.

The fossil fuel and ICE car industries are being disrupted by cheaper renewables and electric vehicles, and it could be happening much more rapidly than anyone thinks. Please see this book if interested, by a Stanford professor who has researched this subject very deeply:

www.amazon.com/Clean-Disruption-Energy-Transportation-Conventional/dp/0692210539/

By 2030, it's likely that almost all new vehicles sold will be electric. See http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Disruption-Energy-Transportation-Conventional/dp/0692210539

EDIT: I guess ExxonMobil and the Koch brothers pay people to downvote things in the environment forum lol

Don’t take my word for it:

Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation: How Silicon Valley Will Make Oil, Nuclear, Natural Gas, Coal, Electric Utilities and Conventional Cars Obsolete by 2030 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0692210539/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zk.7Ab6XXDYSB