Re: Electric card

Jim McCoy (mccoy@communities.com)
Fri, 12 Dec 1997 13:37:18 -0800


Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net> wrote
[regarding factoring in refining costs to the costs of IC engines...]
>
>No, what I am saying is that the energy drain to refine the oil that
>makes the gasoline, transports the gasoline, etc. further reduce the
>efficiency of an IC car, as a systemic calculation, while electric
power
>plants are very efficient at creating the electricity from whatever
>source

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