Texas has the biggest oil refinery presence in the US (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_Un...)
Refineries don’t just make gasoline, but plastic, engine oil, industrial lubricant. That being said, wiki will tell you 85% of refinery output goes to gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, and aviation fuel.
I wonder what the energy efficiency of petroleum refining is. From the US DOE,[0] I get:
TBtu
3542 primary energy
2082 applied energy
1460 energy lost
0) https://www.energy.gov/eere/amo/dynamic-manufacturing-energy...
More electricity is spent just refining the gasoline used by an ICE than is used in total by a BEV to go the same distance.
The relevant comparison is arguably greenhouse gas emissions per km. For ICE, you clearly must include emissions during refining. But that could be ~zero, if all the process energy were wind, solar or nuclear electricity. Or it could be an additional 70%, if all the process energy were petroleum. So the range is 1.0-1.7 times nominal fuel emissions.
For BEV, total emissions could be ~zero, if all the electricity were wind, solar or nuclear. But if the electricity were generated from fossil fuels, you'd have nominal fuel emissions plus both refining process energy and generation loss.
Electricity from natural gas could be the clear winner, because you get additional energy from two H2 for C converted to CO2. Unless leakage were too great. And there's ~no conversion loss in the vehicle. So that's maybe 0.4-0.7 relative to gasoline/diesel fuel emissions.
Electricity from coal and petroleum would clearly be worse. For coal, because there's ~no H2, and because generation efficiency is lower than for natural gas. And for petroleum, because you have the 0%-70% process energy, less H2 per C, and somewhat lower generation efficiency. But there's ~no conversion loss in the vehicle for either. So overall that's maybe 0.8-1.4 relative to gasoline/diesel fuel emissions.
Bottom line, relative to nominal ICE fuel emissions:
ICE ~1 to ~1.7
BEV ~0 to ~1.4
I suspect that using outside electricity is a purely economic issue. That is, when the value of additional products produced is greater than the cost of extra electricity needed. So in that sense, oil refineries are like aluminum refineries, in that they can store surplus electricity.
Texas also has its own grid [0]. There are three separate grids in the lower 48: East, West, and Texas. This means the Texas grid doesn't need to stay in phase with the rest of the US. While they do move power to/from the other two grids, it's done with DC interties. Texas shares power with Mexico via high-voltage DC transmission lines [1].
[0] https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-...
[1] http://www.abb.com/cawp/seitp202/8192dccad527af33c125737f002...
It also sells to adjoining states. The Texan site that I referenced mentions that.
"Power demand is highest in summer, primarily due to air conditioning use in homes and businesses. The region's all-time record peak hour occurred on July 19, 2018, when consumer demand hit 73,259 MW. A megawatt of electricity can power about 200 Texas homes during periods of peak demand."
OK, why? From an article in Texas Monthly:[0]
> More than half of the energy consumed in Texas is for industrial use, according to the EIA, while residential use—which in terms of sheer BTUs is the most in the nation, even as our per capita usage is relatively low—accounts for just over 13 percent. Transportation accounts for nearly a quarter, while commercial comes in slightly lower than residential.
I wonder what the major industrial uses are. Some is used in oil and natural gas production, I guess. And perhaps size accounts for high transportation usage.
0) https://www.texasmonthly.com/energy/texas-uses-energy-state/