IEA: electric cars are not enough to quench oljetørsten – Hegnar Online

the head of The international energy agency (IEA) participated on Thursday in the conference Energy for Tomorrow, which was arranged by the newspaper The New York Times in Paris.

Birol took the opportunity to pour a bucket of ice-cold water over elbilentusiastene in the saddle.

I do not believe in the argument that electric cars alone will cause the demand for oil passes the top. At least not in the short or medium term, ” said Birol.

the Reason is that the growth in demand for oil does not come from passenger cars. It comes from trucks, aircraft, and petrochemical industry. Today we have no adequate alternatives to oil here, he said.

Not enough

Birol stressed that he did not want to take the courage for the innovators. It is very good with electric cars, had he.

– But we must put things in perspective, ” said Birol.

If every other passenger car sold in the world in the next 20 years, is an electric vehicle, we will still not reach any peak in demand for oil. It will continue to grow, he said.

According to him is not the world on the way to achieving the klimamålene in Parisavtalen. The development goes in the right direction in Europe, but the strong growth in Asia is starting to steer the world towards a warming of far more than 2 degrees.

the Technology is evolving

Also the climate and miljøminister Vidar Helgesen (H) were in place at the conference in Paris. He believes Birol is right that the really big challenges is not located in personbilmarkedet.

Where are things about to resolve themselves in a convincing way, even if it’s going to go slowly if not more countries are introducing incentives. The big question is how tungtransporten develops, ” says Helgesen to the NTB.

He, nevertheless, believes Birol underestimate the technological development within the number of heavy transport trucks and mentions hydrogenlastebiler as an alternative that begins to be interesting.

In the airline industry is it further ahead. Have you rekkeviddeangst in the car, so welcome on board of the aircraft. But where will biofuels be an important part of the solution, predict Helgesen.

Over 1 million

the Iea’s own benchmarks show that last year was merkeåret where the number of electric cars on the roads of the world passed the 1 million mark. The number is tripled in just two years.

It is the united STATES and China, which has the most electric vehicles, but in relation to our size, it is the Uk who is in the lead. By the end of 2015 amounted to electric vehicles 2.6 per cent of the registered passenger cars were in Norway.

Elbilsalget in Norway has been somewhat lower this year than last year, and electric cars are now in excess of 15 percent of the new passenger cars that are registered. (©NTB)