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tialaramextoday at 3:56 PM1 replyview on HN

This is true but also distorting because it's not an Apples-to-Apples comparison. Electricity is not only much more flexible it's also much more efficient when it's an option.

The internal combustion engine is not a very efficient way to convert fuel into movement, its key benefit was that it is compact enough to put inside the vehicle itself. A steam train was more efficient, and steam boats were more efficient still, but those are both enormous so it was seen as a more reasonable option for these vehicles. So an EV transition actually doesn't mean that much more electrical generation compared to much less fossil fuel production.


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jl6today at 4:12 PM

All true, but also remember that in a zero-fossil world the supply chain for solar/wind also needs to be decarbonized, which involves things like making green steel, which is not such a favorable efficiency story (the way to overcome it is simply to generate massive amounts of electricity cheap enough that you can eat the inefficiency).

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