I’m here at the Clinton Global Initiative Conference in New York, and attended a great panel discussion on cars this morning, led by David Sandalow from the DOE and Jack Hidary.  The discussion was that there are approximately 245 million cars in the United States, and 800 million in the world.  Buy 2020 there will be more than a billion because of all the new cars being purchased in China and India.  If there were even 1,000,000 plug-in hybrids on the road by 2020, that would only be 0.1% of the cars.  10m would only be 1%.  To make a big impact, it’s nearly impossible, because the installed base is so huge.

Today, the world uses 83 million barrels of oil per day, down from the peak a few years ago of 85 million.  The current worldwide capacity to get oil out of the ground is believed to be 85.5 million barrels per day.  With 200 million more cars on the road in just 10 years, the fighting over oil will be extreme.  We’ll need 100 million barrels per day and it’s believed that the most we can get is 90.

The transformation of the car industry that is necessary to enable to world to survive on 90 million barrels per day is mind boggling.  All the great startups being funded, and all the great things going on to improve cars, even if they all happened and bore fruit — it’s still so hard for there to be enough new efficient vehicles to make a dent.  And this is even more so because cars are being built better, and last longer, and so are being turned over more slowly than ever before.

I’m over here in Berlin for the Solar Paces 2009 energy conference. It sure feels like Germany in particular, and Europe in general, both are taking renewable energy and efficiency much more seriously than we do in America. They are making bigger investments, and discussing plans on a bigger scale than I hear in the United States. I wonder if it’s because their economy is better, or do they care more, or do they understand the problem differently? As the conference here proceeds, I look forward to a better understanding of the best solutions that people propose.