So in an oil market that sputters at $60 a barrel, faints at $40, and vanishes at $20, what do negabarrels cost to produce? In 2004, Winning the Oil Endgame detailed how negabarrels costing $17 in today’s $ could save half of US oil. In 2011, our Reinventing Fire synthesis updated how saving all US oil by 2050, with far greater mobility, could cost $20 per barrel saved in US transport or $14 just in autos. Today’s efficient autos can save a barrel for less than $7. That will fall below 0 in a few more years as superior electric cars match or beat gasoline cars on sticker price alone.

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