How will using electric cars help with reducing carbon emissions if the electricity used to charge it also comes burning fossil fuel?

Because a power plant burns enough hydrocarbons to transport a car for a hundred miles.

  • Thermo-mechanical/
  • Mechanical to electrical/
  • Transmission and
  • charging your battery

About 1/2 to 1/3 of the net fuel equivalent

  • Transporting crude oil
  • Refinery of oil
  • transporting gasoline
  • To heat/manufacture energy, you can burn gasoline

Internal combustion engines aren’t thermally efficient so they lose a lot of heat to the radiator, engine block, and tailpipe.

If all energy is from hydrocarbons, EVs will consume 1/3 to 1/2 of the energy and emit 1/3 to 1/2 of the carbon. If you add renewables wind, solar and thermal energy to the mix, then EVs will replace a lot of oil and coal. It is much easier to control and regulate power plant emissions in a small number of locations. You only need to apply for a few locations when you have improved emission control methods, and not 150 million mobile vehicles.

 

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