KFLLCFII wrote:There's no confusion...When referring to the alternatives of oil (and natural gas/propane) with regard to transportation, the end result is one which lacks internal combustion, and for all intents and purposes, therefore gains (requires) electrical propulsion instead. But, other than solar-powered paperweight vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles, and nuclear-powered vehicles, none of the pure-electric vehicles lacking internal combustion can self-propel without connecting to a grid (or personal power plant/generator) for recurrent charging from an outside source. So if you remove oil (and natural gas/propane) from the propulsion equation, you must segue the topic to large-scale electrical energy, because pure-electric vehicles (overwhelmingly) cannot operate without it. And as I said previously (to compound the matter), if the method to generating that electrical energy (now with an order of magnitude higher demand to replace that 70% of oil going toward transportation) does not exist within the existing footprint of every conventional method AND match, let alone exceed, the cost, portability, density, longevity, and wide availability of every conventional method, then the economy who chooses such an alternative method by definition cannot compete with those economies which do not choose to follow down the same path.
Nope.
Of course, electric vehicles depend on the grid for energy and yes, the grid will have to be expanded to cope.
First of all, the electric grid has been expanding since its inception pretty much everywhere. It follows demand, and the increased demand from electric transportation will happen gradually enough that utilities will easily be able to plan it and keep up.
Now, as for the 'economy', electric power generation is quite efficient. Much more so than any vehicle's internal combustion engine. Even an oil-fired plant (there's very few of these) beats the efficiency
of an ICE by virtue of its size which allows for greater complexity and large scale systems which recover more energy from every ounce of fuel.
Of course, the grid is much more than just gas/coal/oil fired plant (the efficiency of any of which already beats that of an internal combustion engine by miles). There are renewables, nuclear and a host of other secondary means of generation depending on the locally available resources.
The flexibility of choosing and varying the generation methods makes a large scale electric grid the most efficient way to generate and distribute energy and it allows every nation to maximize the potential for local generation and usage of local resources, thus benefiting the local economy much more than just buying tanker loads of fossil fuels from abroad.
Taking this into account, the overall efficiency of generating energy through the grid, transmitting it across the country, storing it in a vehicle's batter and then converting it into motive power is way higher than that of extracting crude oil, shipping it across the planet, refining it, transporting it across the country by road then converting it to motive power through a hugely inefficient small engine.
While an average ICE would give around 30% efficiency from gas to wheel, I suspect that taking the whole chain from crude to wheel into account, we're probably close to single digit efficiency...
For reference, an electric motor delivers over 90% efficiency... Even taking into account the losses due to transforming, transmitting and generating, a grid based system will necessarily be more efficient, especially as a grid switches to renewables and locally produced energy.
There's no doubt that (forced) electrification in certain pockets of the world will happen, but so too must productivity and overall efficiency steadily decline in such pockets. Forcing the mass of vehicles onto a grid (while perhaps individually and instantaneously efficient against oil) by definition reduces individual and overall productivity, and is therefore inefficient as an economy. You're just not going to get the same GDP per capita against an economy which largely does not electrify, because your costs just cannot compete with theirs. Exports decline by way of lowered demand for your (relatively expensive) goods and services, which lowers your revenue, which lowers your profitability, which lowers your demand for skilled workers and puts your costs above your revenue, which leads to...a very bleak outlook...unless/until your economy gets back into the competitive edge that your competitor has...oil.
I still absolutely do not understand where your assessment that a grid based transportation system would be less 'productive' (?) and less economical and efficient comes from.
If you're a Middle East country and pump cheap crude oil straight from under your feet, that might be somewhat true though even then, extraction and refining has a non negligible cost.
For most of the World where this is not the case, the grid can be adapted to the best way of generating power for the concerned region / nation. The best way meaning using local resources or whichever resource can be acquired for cheap or which benefits the local economy the most. As I said, the multitude of ways that exist to generate electricity also allows for increase flexibility and localized production (even down at the consumer level). There is no economic downside to a grid compared to a purely oil-based transportation system where you are necessarily tied to a certain infrastructure and a limited amount of corporations and nations which control this particular industry. It must be great if you're one of these few nations but if you're anywhere else, that's tons of money flowing out of your borders to keep your country rolling. A grid allows much more control.
I wholeheartedly agree with regard to the grids.
But it still wouldn't address the competitive edge that economies based largely on self-powered vehicles have over economies based largely on grid-powered vehicles.
Get a nuclear cell safely and efficiently down to the combined size and cost of an average internal-combustion car/truck/semi engine and fuel tank, and give it the immediate power and range of such, and you'll knock the competitive edge off oil.
You have this backwards. I start to see where your misunderstanding comes from...
Large scale generation is always more efficient than small scale generation. A nuclear powerplant will always be more efficient than a hypothetical tiny one you'd stick inside a car. Ditto an oil, plant, coal or whatever plant you can think of. This increased efficiency would likely override the losses incurred in electrical transformation, transmission, storage and mechanical transformation.
Of course, the beauty of a grid is that, once again, you can power it with whatever is more efficient/available/affordable.
There is no inherent 'competitive economic edge' to self-powered vehicles over grid power vehicles, quite the contrary.
The one thing I have to say about the economies of switching to the grid for transportation is that governments which use fuel tax as part of their income will have to switch to a different taxation system to compensate... Not that governments ever lack creativity when it comes to finding new and improved ways of taxing people...
