And where exactly does this "source" come from? It is coal dug up
and transported in the same inefficient process or else oil or
natural gas which are refined and transported in the same manner as
the fuel used to power an IC engine (solar and RE sources being so
small as to be completely insignificant in any such analysis.)
Sounds like this back-end cost is a wash as far as efficiency
calculations go, the electric power plant is more efficient than
masses of individual engines but that is as far back as you can take
the calculation. Distribution costs for both forms are equally fuzzy
(i.e. building and maintaining an electrical distribution network is
expensive and costs energy, the same distribution network for
gasoline is expensive but you had to build the roads in the first
place for the cars which are the subject of this discussion...)
jim