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How Much Electricity Does It Take To Replace Gasoline?

Created December 21, 2008, at 6:13 pm by Going2Green

Jeff Wilson has a fascinating article on the Better Place Web Site called "How Much Electricity Does It Take To Replace Gasoline?" You can read it @ http://planet.betterplace.com/profiles/blogs/how-much-electricity-does-i...

Ron Evett

3 years ago

I'm sorry to sound mean spirited about it, but facts, as usual, are stubborn things. The article gets the reality of where our electrictiy comes from, and how inefficient the process is, pretty badly wrong. Unless one wants to save the planet by putting one's own windwill up to supply all his vehicle energy needs, he's going to have to get it from an electric grid that generates about 1.35 pounds of CO2 per kW-hr. In a recent Consumers Union test, a plug-in hybrid conversion raised its gas mileage from 40 mpg to 68 mpg by running for up 35 miles on its 187 lb, 5 kW-hr battery. The 87 grams/mile of CO2 at the electric company more than made up for the reduced gasoline consumption, raising the overall CO2 level from 217 grams/mile (for a standard Prius) to 223 grams/mile. Once the new Li-ion battery is depleted, it gets a little worse: 227 grams/mile. Part of the poor performance is due to hauling around that extra 187 pounds all the time.

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ex-EV1 driver
Senior Member

3 years ago

Ron,
I see you’re contradicting yourself here from your post in “Plug-in hybrid: true comparison?” There you said that “Gasoline is 20 pounds CO2 per gallon burned, and electricity is 1.35 pounds CO2 per kW-hr. (That's counting all sources of electricity, including those that produce no CO2 at all.)” when, in reality, you are referring to today’s overall grid mix. I think that even this is pessimistic if you really look at the US grid overall. It seems closer to that of some states that use nearly 100% coal generated electricity. EPRI did a very good analysis a few years ago but I don’t have time to dig it out now.
The good news is that the grid can and is being cleaned up a lot by moving to clean and renewable energy sources (which we need anyway).

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