Hidden Tailpipe

[nwdiver]

All hydrocarbons will be used whether or not used to produce electricity or fill the gas tank. They will not stay in the ground. If we don't use them China will. Nobody uses them cleaner than the USA.

In 5-10 years solar PV will be <$0.02/kWh... the only reasons to burn fossil fuels past that point will be ignorance or spite.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Actually, it is about 6kWh of ELECTRICITY (plus other energy inputs).

There are multiple sources on this... here are a few:
Electric Mini: It takes a lot of coal to make gasoline
How much electricity is used refine a gallon of Gasoline?-video added! Gateway Electric Vehicle Club
How much electricity is used refine a gallon of Gasoline?

All of those are examples of the blogs quoting the source material incorrectly. If you dig into their sources (scroll down a bit on the first link for example) you see this:

Thus, using an 85% refinery efficiency and the aforementioned conversion factors, it can be estimated that about 21,000 Btu—the equivalent of 6 kWh—of energy are used per gallon of gasoline refined:

The blog took that and wrote:

It is a simple fact that just the refining of gasoline requires approximately 6 kwh of electricity per gallon of gasoline.

It is a result of people using energy and electricity interchangeably, even though that is wrong.

Your second and third link has the same exact issue. The expert they quoted used "energy". They then wrote electricity instead of energy, even though it means different things.

 

[JRP3]

All hydrocarbons will be used whether or not used to produce electricity or fill the gas tank.

The best use would be to produce long lasting and recyclable products such as plastics.

 

[mspohr]

The best use would be to produce long lasting and recyclable products such as plastics.

The best thing is to just leave it in the ground... 0 emissions.

 

[JohnQ]

In 5-10 years solar PV will be <$0.02/kWh... the only reasons to burn fossil fuels past that point will be ignorance or spite.

Fuel for heavy machinery in the field, heating oil, plastics, countries with undeveloped infrastructures, shipping ... I could go on.

 

[nwdiver]

Fuel for heavy machinery in the field, heating oil, plastics, countries with undeveloped infrastructures, shipping ... I could go on.

As Elon is fond of saying, "The only thing that can't be electrified are rockets"; fortunately we know how to split water with electricity to get H2.

- The Largest Truck in the world is now electric... it just doesn't use batteries... yet...
http://phys.org/news/2014-11-electric-world-largest-truck.html

- Heat pumps now work @-13F; On the rare occasion it's colder resistance electric, geothermal, wood or thermal storage are MUCH better options than heating oil...
http://www.mitsubishipro.com/media/226460/h2i_brochure.pdf

- We've been making plastic from plants like soy for decades
http://www.soynewuses.org/plastics/

Solar is actually BETTER for undeveloped areas since you don't have logistics concerns like miles of transmission lines or fuel.

If you REALLY have a hankering for liquid hydro-carbons (aviation and shipping) this is also on its way...

Reasons to remain addicted to fossil fuels
- Ignorance
- Spite

.... or good old fashioned laziness...