How EV Adoption Will Impact Oil Consumption (2015-2025P) - Visual Capitalist

How EV Adoption Will Impact Oil Consumption (2015-2025P)
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The EV Impact on Oil Consumption

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As the world moves towards the electrification of the transportation sector, demand for oil will be replaced by demand for electricity.

To highlight the EV impact on oil consumption, the above infographic shows how much oil has been and will be saved every day between 2015 and 2025 by various types of electric vehicles, according to BloombergNEF.

How Much Oil Do Electric Vehicles Save?

A standard combustion engine passenger vehicle in the U.S. uses about 11 barrels of oil equivalent(BOE) per year. A motorcycle uses 1, a Class 8 truck about 24, and a bus uses more than 258 BOEs per year.

When these vehicles become electrified, the oil their combustion engine counterparts would have used is no longer needed, displacing oil demand with electricity.

Since 2015, two and three-wheeled vehicles, such as mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles, have accounted for most of the oil saved from EVs on a global scale. With a wide adoption in Asia specifically, these vehicles displaced the demand for almost 675,000 barrels of oil per day in 2015. By 2021, this number had quickly grown to 1 million barrels per day.

Let’s take a look at the daily displacement of oil demand by EV segment.

| Number of barrels saved per day, 2015 | Number of barrels saved per day, 2025P | |
| Electric Passenger Vehicles | 8,600 | 886,700 |
| Electric Commercial Vehicles | 0 | 145,000 |
| Electric Buses | 43,100 | 333,800 |
| Electric Two & Three-Wheelers | 674,300 | 1,100,000 |
| Total Oil Barrels Per Day | 726,000 | 2,465,500 |

Today, while work is being done in the commercial vehicle segment, very few large trucks on the road are electric—however, this is expected to change by 2025.

Meanwile, electric passenger vehicles have shown the biggest growth in adoption since 2015.

In 2022, the electric car market experienced exponential growth, with sales exceeding 10 million cars. The market is expected to continue its strong growth throughout 2023 and beyond, eventually coming to save a predicted 886,700 barrels of oil per day in 2025.

From Gas to Electric

While the world shifts from fossil fuels to electricity, BloombergNEF predicts that the decline in oil demand does not necessarily equate to a drop in oil prices.

In the event that investments in new supply capacity decrease more rapidly than demand, oil prices could still remain unstable and high.

The shift toward electrification, however, will likely have other implications.

While most of us associate electric vehicles with lower emissions, it’s good to consider that they are only as sustainable as the electricity used to charge them. The shift toward electrification, then, presents an incredible opportunity to meet the growing demand for electricity with clean energy sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear power.

The shift away from fossil fuels in road transport will also require expanded infrastructure. EV charging stations, expanded transmission capacity, and battery storage will likely all be key to supporting the wide-scale transition from gas to electricity.

Energy

Uranium: The Fuel for a Utopian Energy Economy
Explore how the unique features of uranium translate into advantages for nuclear power. CanAlaska Uranium

Uranium: The Fuel for a Utopian Energy Economy

Uranium is the primary fuel for nuclear energy, powering more than 400 reactors that make up 10% of the world’s annual electricity generation.

With countries turning back to nuclear power as a clean energy resource, uranium has become a strategically important metal for the future.

This infographic sponsored by CanAlaska Uranium explores how uranium’s unique properties allow nuclear power to be clean and efficient, and highlights the outlook for its future. This is part 3 of 4 in the Road to Energy Utopia series.

Why Uranium is Unique

Nuclear power ultimately stems from the radioactivity of uranium atoms, which yield great amounts of energy when split by the process of fission.

Besides the radioactive nature of uranium, its energy density—the amount of energy it contains per unit of mass—is one of its exceptional properties, making it significantly more powerful than other energy fuels.

The table below compares the energy density of uranium to other fuels, expressed in megajoules of energy contained per kilogram of fuel:

| Fuel | Type | Energy Density (MJ/kg) |
| Firewood | Biomass | 16 |
| Coal | Fossil fuel | 24 |
| Crude Oil | Fossil fuel | 44 |
| Diesel | Fossil fuel | 45 |
| Gasoline | Fossil fuel | 46 |
| Liquefied Natural Gas | Fossil fuel | 55 |
| Uranium-235 (enriched to 3.5%) | Nuclear fuel | 3,900,000 |

Enriched uranium-235, the fuel used by commercial nuclear reactors, contains 3.9 million megajoules of energy per kilogram of weight, which is magnitudes larger than the energy density of traditional fossil fuels.

For this reason, a relatively small quantity of nuclear fuel can produce significant amounts of energy through fission, translating into various advantages for nuclear power:

- High Energy Return on Investment (EROI)
Nuclear power has the highest EROI of any energy source, returning 75 units of energy for every unit of energy spent in construction and operation.

- Low Land Footprint
Nuclear power plants have the smallest land footprint per unit of electricity at 0.3m2 per megawatt-hour.
- Minimal Waste
Nuclear reactors produce little waste or spent fuel, and only a small portion of that is highly radioactive. Spent fuel can also be recycled.

Powering a Clean Energy Future with Uranium

The outlook for uranium has turned brighter with countries again embracing nuclear energy.

In 2021, global uranium requirements from reactors totaled 62,496 tonnes. By 2040, that figure could rise from 79,400 tonnes in the lower case to 156,500 tonnes in the upper case according to the World Nuclear Association, depending on how the conditions and policies for nuclear power shape up.

In 2021, mines provided about 77% of the uranium required for reactors, with 23% coming from secondary sources like stockpiles held by utilities and governments. Although maintaining these stockpiles is important for energy security, a sustainable mine supply of uranium will always be key to meeting rising reactor requirements.

In part 4 of the Road to Energy Utopia series, we explore how the metals copper and nickel are essential to the energy transition.

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