Originally Posted by BBQMan

Newscasts frequently contain announcements made with great pride about the production of electric of electric trucks and cars. The latest such was the President’s announcement of a new line of electric trucks during his speech in Elkhart. These announcements are usually accompanied by claims that these vehicles are ‘zero emission’ vehicles and will help curtail greenhouse gases. This sounds wonderful, but violates one of the basic laws of physics – the conservation of energy.

The electrical energy used in these vehicles has to come from somewhere. The somewhere is a power station. Today, in the United States, we have three primary sources of electrical energy – hydroelectric power, nuclear power and fossil fuels. Since hydroelectric sources are essentially used up, and new nuclear is years away, this leaves us burning more fossil fuel to generate the additional needed electricity.

Without going into the details of steam generation, let it suffice to say that the efficiency of energy conversion is significantly less than 50%. After that, you must consider the losses in transmission, voltage conversion and battery storage. At the end of the day, the power station will have to use approximately ten times as much fossil fuel as the vehicle would require if the fuel were used directly to fuel the vehicle. This is analogous to the preference for gas water heaters to electric. They cost less to operate.

Why are we embarking on programs that will increase our use of fossil fuels, increase our dependence of foreign oil and reduce the usefulness of our trucks and cars? Can someone explain the logic to me, please?