[RIPPERTON]

Now I dont normally do math but sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me.
I often hear the argument that power grids cant support the influx of EV charging but for every EV on the road theres 1 less ICE on the road and eventually this will see a decline in the number of service stations.
Ive been looking for a suitable Service station in Sydney for over 3 years now. It has to be of medium size without any large restaurant or car wash.
It also has to have an accessible power meter box whereby I dont have to ask the operators permission to get energy usage details because they simply wouldnt let you have it. So the BP on Mulgoa rd Jamisontown in western Sydney ticked all my boxes. The power meter box had dodgy bolt latches that I could jimmy without damaging and open the doors, take a quick video and then unjimmy the latches and make a getaway.
So, how much electrical energy does a Service station use in 1 day ?.
About 12 kWh without solar panels.
How many Service stations are there in Sydney ?
About 760.
All the Service stations in Sydney use 9.12MWh per day.
A Tesla uses on average 230Wh/km (its the 350 Chev of the electrical world)
The energy used by all the Service stations in Sydney could power 1 Tesla for 39,652km or 793 Teslas for 1 day on a 50km commute.
Now you need to add onto that data all the energy used by the exhaust fans in all the tunnels in Sydney and the energy used by the oil refinery in Kernell.
I'll keep at it...
Image Servo 1 is the start of a 6 day count.
Servo C is the end of the 6 day count.
Arial shot is the Service station with no solar panels.

 

[kennybobby]

... and the energy used by the oil refinery in Kernell.

That's some interesting research and good detective work to find an answer. The energy was not as high as i would have guessed.

i found this chart from 2010 that compares the Energy Return on Investment required to produce Energy from different sources [2010_Murphy_Hall_EROI _Ann_NY_Acad_Sci_ISSN 0077-8923].

 

[RIPPERTON]

https://greentransportation.info/energy-transportation/gasoline-costs-6kwh.html
Seems Im not the first to ponder this question.....The Oil Refinery
Its a very complex calculation. Almost impossible to put a number on it.
The refinery spits out all different kinds of fuel simultaneously, so for the 5kWh of electricity it took to make a gallon of unleaded, you also got half a gallon of diesel and some LPG. Plus the refinery is also able to "power itself" with some gasses it can use to generate electricity.
Exhaust fans in 3 of Sydneys tunnels use 202mWh per day. I hope thats right. 74gWh a year. See this is why I dont do math.

 

[brian_]

It should be obvious that pumping fuel for thousands of vehicles (and running the station's lights, etc) would use more electrical energy than charging one EV. Headlining this as "Ice vehicles use more electricity than EV's" is like comparing the total income of all the million kids working at all of the 40,000 McDonald's restaurants in the world to the income of the one chief executive officer of the same company and announcing "Kids working at McDonald's make more income than CEOs".

But it's an amusing discussion, and there are legitimately many energy flows involved in operating any vehicle.