Substitutes for Liquid Fuels – Outlook in a Low Oil Price Environment

About the WorkshopKAPSARC convened a workshop in December 2015 with some 40 international experts in the areas of global oil markets, alternative fuels, electric vehicles and venture capital, to discuss the impact of lower oil prices on the future of alternative liquid fuels. The workshop was held under Chatham House rules.Key PointsThe case for alternatives to gasoline and diesel was historically built on economic concerns; that the world might be running out of oil, which would then become prohibitively expensive. More recently, the argument has been refocused around carbon abatement and avoiding the social costs of climate change.In the past, initiatives to pursue alternatives to oil would have come to a halt if confronted with the precipitous fall in oil prices seen over the past 18 months. Today, the impetus to continue investing in technologies that can be cost competitive with refined oil products is provided by global climate governance discussions. The outlook is therefore unlikely to be affected by short term oil price weakness. Innovators attempting to find viable alternatives to oil are now more likely to be venture capital backed entrepreneurs than major oil companies. The target ‘cost’ for low carbon alternatives is not based on the current or expected future price of oil but the underlying cost of oil development and production (excluding fiscal rents) plus the social cost of carbon.

关于本次研讨会KAPSARC于2015年12月组织了一次研讨会，邀请约40位来自全球石油市场、替代燃料、电动汽车和风险投资领域的国际专家，共同探讨油价下跌对未来替代液体燃料发展的影响。本次研讨会遵循查塔姆宫规则。要点：历史上，汽油和柴油的替代方案是基于经济考量提出的；担忧世界石油可能枯竭，进而导致其价格变得难以承受。而近期，争论的焦点已转向减排碳足迹以及避免气候变化的社会成本。在过去，若面临过去18个月油价急剧下跌的挑战，追求石油替代品的举措往往会停滞不前。如今，全球气候治理讨论为继续投资与精炼油产品具有成本竞争力的技术提供了动力。因此，短期内油价的波动不太可能影响这一前景。试图寻找石油替代品的创新者现在更有可能得到风险投资支持的创业者的青睐。低碳替代品的‘目标成本’并非基于当前的或预期的未来油价，而是基于石油开发与生产的潜在成本（不包括财政租金）以及碳的社会成本。