@Jer;

Shifts of paradigms tend to happen very slowly, then very fast.
To make things work at all the cost of renewables, and perhaps nuclear, will have to drop further, as renewables have done substantially already.

At some stage, then it becomes not worthwhile continuing to support the infrastructrure to enable fossil fuels to be extracted, distributed and utilised.

' Hybrids will dominate. Oil will not fall below 50M barrels per day, this century, with world reserves constantly being pushed out - 30, 40, 50.... years. '

Seems a bit too much like prophesy to me, with rather suspect foundations.

I am hardly the most passionate advocate of BEVs here, but it is mainly a question of timing, not direction.

In the next 70 years or so, it seems highly improbable to me that batteries won't improve enough to make the choice of a hybrid. or at least one using petrol as opposed to hydrogen and its derivatives, both uneconomic and bizarre.

Solid state batteries, perhaps assisted by on the move wireless charging, should do the job unchallengeably cheaply and conveniently,

No one uses smelly, polluting petrol in a hybrid right now as a matter of choice for its qualities, but because with current technology it is still a cheaper option, at least with decent range and convenience.

I find it difficult to imagine how that could possibly remain the case in 2100.

Hi Jer.

I am not sure what you are arguing.

Is it that electrification will be successful in developed countries, and by 2030, not 2100, but that the currently underdeveloped world will not be able to do anything similar even by 2100, and will continue to rely on petrol?

@Gryf said:

' Africa, India, and South America are already thinking ahead. Fossil fuel is a luxury in these areas and they are actually better places for renewable energy, i.e solar and wind.'

Just so, and it is a point which is little understood or referenced.
Renewables are way tougher in much of the developed world than in the areas where the population is still growing, in some places fairly fast.

That is basically because they are largely nearer the equator, with less variation in sunshine than even much of the US, let alone outliers like Northern Europe.

For renewables, it is a case of, 'if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!'

Only read Berlin instead of New York! ;-)

The surprise here is that, Musk, the highly-anti-Hydrogen guy, is now proposing Hydrogen storage at $775 Billion, and H2-Electrolyzers at $1,155 Billion. Hurray, hurray, Mr. Musk. Now while at it, with so much H2 stored away from seasons of Renewable Energy (RE) surplus for use in seasons of RE deficient, why not make the cars capable of using H2 directly as well as capable of using electricity directly...essentially a H2- PHEV?

So, during the seasons of RE surplus the car would be charged from the grid daily to drive 40 miles or even twice daily to drive 80 miles per day on just electricity. During season of RE deficient and with high grid power demand, the PHEVs will be using H2 to spare the grid of extra power demand.

Why did Musk proposed to just make them all BEV's that will still need power plants to produce the electricity with extra cost to build the plants, then a lot of extra cost to upgrade the grid to handle more power loads, then losses in power transmission, then a lot of extra cost to build a battery pack 5 times larger than the battery pack of a PHEV?

In the UK, they are working on replacing Natural Gas (NG) in the existing residential piping system with pure H2. Residential NG pipes are made from either low-grade steel or polyethylene, which can handle pure H2 just fine at low pressures. These pipes were used to transport town gas containing 50% H2 in the UK and Europe even before NG was discovered. This coupled with local backup electricity generator capable of utilizing waste heat from the generator would significantly boost energy efficiency vs a central power plants miles away.
The use of existing NG piping system for H2 would greatly save on the great expense of doubling the capacity of electricity power grid to handle all forms of energy as electricity. Plus, the NG piping system to transport H2 to each end users is far more reliable than the electricity power grid that is prone to disruption from hurricanes and snow storms.

Airplanes, trucks, trains, buses, and ships can use Liquid H2 (LH2) directly instead of wasting 1/2 of the energy of H2 to convert it to synthetic liquid fuels. Airplanes using LH2 can double its payload capacity due to the extremely lightness of LH2, thus doubling the energy efficiency per unit of energy from LH2.

Heat pump may be used in conjunction with waste heat recuperation from local power generators, but heat pumps have been available for many decades now, but has yet to see widespread use due to their high expense and costly to maintain and prone to breaking down, so Musk's over-reliance on heat pump may not be too wise.
Overall, Mr, Musk is to be congratulated on his effort to come up with a plan, even though less than perfect, to get us out of fossil fuel while others remain clueless or careless!