Electric motors have gotten ridiculously efficient. In the right power curve you can hit 95%, which is why we have now moved onto power per unit weight and unit volume. You make the drivetrain lighter you reduce the power needed for 0-60 times, which gets you a few more percent of efficiency.

Same thing with battery power density - it’s the rocket equation. Heavy batteries don’t go far. To go farther you add battery, then more battery to carry enough power to carry the larger battery. Increase the specific energy rather than the mass, and all the extra power goes into going faster or farther.

I think your EV example is a better example than your coal one.

I’ve never seen anyone measure coal power by the amount of chemical energy stored inside, unless they are specifically referring to using it as a heating source. For electricity generated by coal it’s always measured as output.

The battery loses 10% just by charging it.

I figured an EV is worth about 60mpg with a fair comparison to a gas car.

> An EV has a battery of ~80 kWh, equal to 2-3 gallons of gas, yet it can go a few hundred miles, a 3-4x ratio of efficiency, compared to an ICE.

Now compare size and weight of the battery with 3 gallons of gas. I can carry hundreds of miles of travel on my person if it's gas, I can't carry much battery though.

It's a well-known "paradox" known as Jevons Paradox. Given enough efficient use of a resource, overall usage could actually far outpace the efficiency gains. E.g. use of coal got efficient enough that travel via trains using it became possible, which led to way more usage of coal.

It kinda depends on where the energy is coming from.

I was brought up to "save energy ". Lights switched off when not in thevroom, that sort of thing.

Now I gave solar on the roof. There's an excess production capability, so now, during most days it doesn't matter if stuff is on or off. That especially applies to AC which I'll happily turn on on hot summer days. In effect I use more "because it's there to be used".

My EV is coming soon and given I can charge it on solar I plan to do a lot more day-trips-out over weekends etc.

So you're right, availability and affordability- but electrifying is great (for me) for both those things.

And the average increase in world population is about 1% per year, plus the bulk of the existing population is 'developing' i.e industrialization.

As fast as solar, wind, etc electricity production grows, the number of people requiring it grows along-side.

Also, 'renewable' is misleading, 'replaceable' is more accurate, all renewable energy generators wear out as everything does and need to be replaced using non-renewable energy mostly (you can't build solar panels from solar panel energy)