Combined Conventional Potential
To recap: if all State of the Art end-use efficiency recommendations were implemented by 2025, 52% of EIA's forecast oil use would be eliminated. And half of this remaining oil use would in turn be displaced by substituting for oil the available and competitive 2025 biofuels/biomaterials/biolubricants (pp. 103–111), and the clearly advantageous portion of substituting saved natural gas (pp. 111–112). In actuality, however, the following section, on Implementation, will show that only 55% of that efficiency potential can be implemented by 2025 by the means described; the other ~45% would remain to be captured soon thereafter.
Given that realistic implementation, one-third of 2025 oil demand would be displaced by the supply substitutions (pp. 43–102). The idealized-efficiency-only Fig. 29 (p. 102) would then turn into the realistic path shown in Fig. 33; the two graphs are similar because the supply substitutions by 2025 nearly offset the not-yet-captured efficiency.
But how to capture that combined potential? Next we'll show how innovative business strategies, accelerated by public opinion, can actually capture half of Fig. 29's efficiency potential and the other half soon thereafter. But even with 7 Mbbl/d of savings still to be captured after 2025 as vehicle stocks complete their turnover, the 2025 supply-demand balance could be revolutionized, as charted in Fig. 34. Eighty percent of forecasted 2025 U.S. oil demand—all but 5 Mbbl/d—can be met in that year either by profitable, actually implementable efficiency and alternative supplies or by the 7.8 Mbbl/d of domestic petroleum supply that EIA forecasts for 2025.567 Adding the 7 Mbbl/d of further efficiency gains to be captured soon after 2025 would thus meet the entire forecasted demand without even needing 2 Mbbl/d of the forecast domestic petroleum output. And as we'll see on pp. 227–242, this doesn't yet count two large further options—substituting leftover saved natural gas in the form of hydrogen, or making still more hydrogen from non-biomass renewables.
The 7.8 Mbbl/d of domestic petroleum output shown isn't actually needed either. That's because the 8 TCF/y of leftover saved U.S. natural gas, plus another 2.5 TCF/y we'll explain on pp. 238–239, can be converted to hydrogen (pp. 227–242), which can be used 2–3 times as efficiently as oil. It can then provide end-use services, such as mobility, considerably greater than the 7.8 Mbbl/d of oil can do.
Thus we have a recipe for profitably eliminating all U.S. oil use, imported and domestic, over the next few decades, with considerable flexibility in both means and timing. Achieving this would take only about as long in the future as the 1973 Arab oil embargo is in the past. Within two generations, a more prosperous and secure America could be oil-free—without even counting any potential from expanding renewable energy sources other than biofuels.
Having charted this journey beyond oil, how do we begin, conduct, and complete it? The business and policy opportunities we present next can take us there, as part of a broader strategy for building a durably competitive economy, revitalized industries, a vibrant rural sector, a cleaner environment, and a safer world.
567. Comprising 4.61 Mbbl/d crude oil and lease condensate, 2.47 Mbbl/d natural-gas plant liquids, 0.48 Mbbl/d other refinery inputs (chiefly from natural gas), and 0.24 Mbbl/d for volumetric gain from domestic crude.
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