Why is combustion cheaper than electricity to run when it comes to heating but not when it comes to transportation?
In: 5
Because making heat and pushing a car down the road are two very different end results. Petrol/diesel car engines are not very efficient and waste about 75% of their fuel energy just making heat instead of moving the vehicle.
If all you want is heat, then that works fine. Just burn the fuel and you get tons of heat from an energy dense fuel.
Electricity storage and generation is not very energy dense, but we have electric motors that are +90% efficient, so it’s great for moving things like cars, but not great for heating because when compared to how much energy is in liquid fuel, you can’t generate or move an equivalent amount of electricity very easily, so makes less sense to just convert that electric energy into heat unless it’s your only option.
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