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Old 03-13-2023, 05:49 PM   #752
Street Pharmacist
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In this transition there's so many weird things that make what seems difficult big picture much easier when looked at more closely. A couple interesting examples:

-some estimates are that almost 40% of shipping miles transport coal, oil, gas, and petrochemicals. While electrifying everything will not totally eliminate this as these will still be used for some things, that significantly decarbonizes the shipping industry without doing anything else. While not to the same extent, how many road miles are traveled to move these products on land?

-Ethanol for fuel uses up almost 40% of corn production in the US. Using even 1/3 of that land for solar production would be all the solar needed to fuel all the vehicle miles driven in the country. Caveats are of course that you'd need batteries and there's probably better places to put solar, etc. But it does put in perspective the crazy amount of resources being used to displace about 10% of current gasoline use


Yes electrifying everything will create more electricity demand. But the demand isn't going to be current demand plus new. It's far more complex with demand becoming more flexible, efficient and smart. Plus there is some demand destruction by not using fossil fuels as shown above. How much energy is saved by not exploring, producing, transporting, refining and selling the fossil fuels?
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