All in all, if everyone would transition to an EV you would see a noticeable drop in oil consumption thanks to the mentioned benefits.
The big problem is mining the battery metals, involving worst kind of worker exploitation and danger, which is why we need ethically sourced nickel-sodium (also known as sodium-ion) tech to catch up with lithium-cobalt.
That's not going to happen under capitalism though.
We should definitely take what improvements we can get!
(Also, sorry for injecting stupidity into the discourse in general. I didn't mean to anger people or say something wrong.)
I think if you and others ask these questions it means that there's room for improvement in how we should discuss EVs and renewables!
However if you live in other states you may find that roadblocks have been put in place and so your power has to come from non-renewables. Make no mistake, the limit is more legal than practical these days, renewables can easily be most of your power mix, and are already the cheapest source of power.
Am I wrong because even if you charge the batteries with power that comes from nonrenewable energy, its still more efficient, and in that becomes different from nonrenewable power?
Am I wrong because, in the U.S., its about 50/50 renewable/nonrenewable so the claim that your likely to charge your battery with nonrenewable energy is laughable?
Am I wrong because it depends where you are in the country?
I'm really just trying to understand, I didn't think I was making such a huge claim. I just thought it wasn't controversial to say most of our energy comes from nonrenewables still, bracketing whatever economic or political or logistical forces have made it that way.
Regardless, I will definitely think twice before talking about any of this on here. Lesson learned.
this is an it depends.
The best combined cycle power plants are more efficient - even accounting for transmissions losses than an ICE. However there are a few power plants that are less efficient.
Coal is about equal efficiency to a ICE in the ideal cases for both. Running an ICE at ideal efficiency is unlikely though, while they manage coal to put close to ideal, though after transmission losses the difference isn't so great if you are doing highway driving (but city driving is vastly worse).
The worst case power plants are worse then city driving in an ICE. These power plants are typically mothballed, but they when there is an emergency. They are generally only used every 5 years, but they are a part of every power utilities emergency plans. As power demand goes up power gets less efficient in general, so Christmas season is going to be less efficient.
> Am I wrong because, in the U.S., its about 50/50 renewable/nonrenewable so the claim that your likely to charge your battery with nonrenewable energy is laughable?
This is wrong. US generation is about 20% renewable (as of last year) overall. Some areas have far more renewable than others (my utility claims >80% wind for me in marketing, but I cannot find and source that can be scientifically claimed). Some areas have far less. You may also count nuclear power as green even though it isn't renewable.
Most energy comes from non-renewables for sure. However that is overall and so your specific situation may be different.
> Thanks for being patient with my stupidity.
No problem.
And I should, in fact, feel stupid because this is an extremely apparent/obvious fact to actually smart people?
Nobody in this chain of comments was concerned with most of this, so it hardly matters (to the discussion at hand) what I answer, or cite, or whatever. That's much of the problem with what you've been posting. All that was originally claimed was that broader EV deployment will tend to reduce petroleum use, so may be viewed as a threat by petroleum industry, which... I mean, yes, that's obvious. I would certainly find evidence to the contrary quite surprising.
> And I should, in fact, feel stupid because this is an extremely apparent/obvious fact to actually smart people?
No—because you keep trying to argue against the proposition you want to argue against, instead of the one that was actually advanced, which is why I've twice tried to redirect you back to the actual topic. The "but much electricity comes from burning fossil fuels!" observation isn't terribly interesting even when it isn't a non-sequitur, but given the topic at hand, which was narrowly about effects of EV deployment on the petroleum industry in particular, it's also being mis-applied.
We could get 100% of our electricity from coal, for instance, and the original claim might still be true. Technically, we could even get 100% of our electricity from petroleum, and it might still be true—though in that case I'd certainly allow that it wouldn't be obviously-true.
And further to your point (or maybe, reading between the lines of your point): its not like there is just one or two big nonrenewable energy companies that do petroleum, and coal, and natural gas, etc. We must understand how those are all competing for profits! And that while EVs might use coal, it doesn't mean their existence wont hurt the petroleum companies. Got it, and thank you :)