How much electricity does an oil refinery use?

I can't quote the relevant statistics, but yes, there's definitely an electrical component to refining oil. And unless that electricity is generated by sustainable methods, it means fossil fuel is used to make fossil fuel. And to store it. And to transport it. There are many layers of compounding inefficiencies involved, which makes electricity look even better. True, the global electric grid could use upgrading to take advantage of large renewable-source generation plants, but the argument that widespread use of EVs will collapse the grid is nonsense.

 

It would break, but many places could handle half the new cars being EVs, something faster than auto manufacturing can produce

I'm not sure how accurate these figures are but it takes a lot of energy to produce gasoline and diesel and remove sulfur.
Electricity consumption by petroleum refineries statistics - countries compared - Energy data on NationMaster

Each grid is different. In Texas where there are many refineries and a smart grid, there is plenty of capacity for charging at night and in the winter daytime. The extra refining electrical capacity would only help evs in the summer peak hours, which most utilities will discourage anyway. The less efficient plants would be mathballed for summer peak. The grid is separated from the others so refining generation would not be sent to other users outside of ERCOT grid. Wind would continue to be added to ERCOT grid regardless as this helps reduce other fuel use. The big shift from this in ERCOT (the texas grid) would be much less air polution, as these refineries and tailpipes concentrate polution in the Houston MSA. Bottom line is the refining areas have plenty of electricity as many areas of the grid, but individual grids would get stressed by evs, and environment around refineries in the US gulf coast and Canadian Oil sands would get much less damage. Texas and Alberta can pump their "saved" natural gas to places that need to build new efficient CC natural gas plants for the higher demand. I'm not sure of the situation in Europe.

Now what about a pro ev video, jump to 6:15 for co2 discussion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=YfTiRNzbSko

 

The US EPA says 18% of source oil energy is consumed from refinery to (I think) petrol station.

 

48,891,000,000 kWh for all US refineries (per year)
If every car in the US was a Leaf, and got 0.25 kWh per mile.
Roughly 977 miles in each car.

Alternatively, 12,000 miles per year (US average?) that amounts to 16 million Leafs.

Another way of looking at it, for just the refining electricity costs, you could power one Leaf for every 12 gas cars.

 

Starting from EPA again, it takes 1/.82 gallons = 1.22 gallons of oil to move a Prius an EPA estimated 50 miles. Why don't we burn the oil at the central power plant in service to a LEAF instead ?

1.22 gallons of oil is about 40.75 kwh. In the US, oil burning plants operate at about 32% efficiency, waste 7% getting the energy to the home, and then a LEAF consumes 360 wh to charge and travel a mile, again according to the US EPA.

40.75 * 0.32 * .93 = 12.13 kwh reaches the home;
12.13/0.36 = 33.7 LEAF miles.

Looking at just one component of the energy chain is fallacious reasoning.
Wondering why the LEAF comes out looking so bad ?
1. Transmission and charging losses (not seen in a Prius) eat up 22 - 27% of the source energy. This is *already* way more than the refinery costs.
2. The LEAF is a heavy car because of the batteries, and consumes more energy/mile than the Prius.
3. The Prius ICE is more efficient than the central oil burning plant.
Incidentally, these numbers are worse for the LEAF in the winter when the EV burns extra electricity to heat the passenger cabin, while the Prius uses free ICE heat. I should also point out that a central power plant emits, depending on the pollutant, up to magnitudes more pollution per gallon oil burned than a Prius.

 

Are you including refinery pollution in that?

 

^^ Fair point Corwyn, refinery pollution is not considered. Know any statistics ?

 

Some say the number is too complex to calculate. The electricity comes from fossil fuel ... over 1/2 of the (oil) fossil fuel comes from terrorist countries that want us out - so we spend untold trillions of dollars (as well as btu's / kWh's) to maintain our stronghold around the world. It's a complex and ugly picture - but the bottom line is that electricity and fossil fuel "values" are inextricably linked.

Geoftopia: "Real Price Of Gasoline" Report Reveals Actual Cost of Gas to Consumers Is as High as $15.14 per Gallon

It'll make your head spin, but here's a governmental chart if you want to try & add up how much fuel we burn to make electricity:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm

.

 

As high as $15? Consider the replacement cost from nature's point of view. First you have to grow the plants, then you have to wait for them to decompose...it could be a million dollars a gallon.

 

In the UK the electricity could power about 1 million cars. It would also free up other resources, mainly natural gas, that could be used to produce electricity instead of refine oil.

It definitely is the case. When they complain about the new power plants do they think oil will be more plentiful and less expensive in 20 years

Probably because in GC's effort to burn less oil, you assumed the leaf would cause you to build more oil burning power plants. Why would you try to derail plans to shift away from oil? How many miles would a typical car go if you needed to convert solar or wind to gasoline? It seems you set up a equation to do something exactly wrong.

 

The number I saw was about 7 kWh of energy. Now this energy is not electricity from the grid, but typically the result of burning byproducts from the refining process (natural gas, for example).

In some cases, utilities will actually pay refiners to produce extra electricity to export to the grid. Heck, around here many datacenters with large backup diesel generators (multi-MW) will have contracts with the utility to fire them up should the utility need a bit of electricity in a pinch.

 

AG, you quoted GC asking

My post was the answer: an oil burning Prius taken off the road will fuel ~ 0.65 LEAF.

 

LEAF is about 300 lbs heavier than the Prius. I would not consider it a "heavy" car compared to the Prius. The biggest benefit the Prius has in efficiency is aerodynamics, not weight - but the LEAF is not meant to be a highway car. With more regenerative capability I would bet that the LEAF will be more efficient in the city.

The Prius does not get "free" heat - have you seen how many complain about how much worse the fuel economy is in the winter? Even in mild southern CA, The Prius is 10% worse in typical driving unless only doing long trips.

Either way - burning oil is not the point. Combined cycle nat gas plants is the way to go where efficiency is 60%+. You could probably build oil-burning plants to the same efficiency level if you wanted to. All of a sudden the LEAF is 20% better than the Prius. And you have the opportunity to run clean energy like hydro/wind/solar if you get your power from those sources.

Ignoring transmission losses - in real life in similar driving my Prius gets ~45 mpg and my LEAF gets ~3.6 mi / kWh (280 Wh/mi) from the wall. Numbers I've seen reported on MNL are pretty similar.

 

Link ? That is higher than I had heard.

18% of 33.4kwh = 6 kwh.

Miles travelled by a typical ICE car on 1 gallon of gas = 20 miles

Miles travelled by a typical EV on 6 kwh = 20 miles

 

The question was how much electricity is used refining gasoline. It was not if we took the oil used to make the gasoline in a prius and converted it to electricity in inefficient legacy generators how far would a leaf go. The UK is talking about having 60% of new cars in 2030 be PHEV and BEV. They will need to build new power plants to charge these cars, but they can use some of the electrical generation already built to supply the refineries, as these should be producing less gasoline and diesel.

Exactly. In 2050 do we want to be producing gasoline from coal and natural gas, or is moving transportation to a flexible grid a better choice. Only time will tell, but I don't buy any arguments that say lets continue to rely solely on gasoline because it is more efficient. The arguments against electrifying cars should come down to price and subsidies, not efficiency or pollution. How do you make a tailpipe cleaner on an old car?

That 7kWh is all energy, and most of that comes from the oil itself.

Diesel generators are cheap, so they are good for back up when you never expect to use them. California and NY produce too little power, so they tend to have more of these in case of black out. The solution is to have them but not use them. Many data centers are converting to bloom boxes or other natural gas co generation now.

 

AG, your counter argument is pie-in-the-sky. Per the US DOE the average oil burning central power plant efficiency is 32%. I'm sorry you do not like reality.

While a CHP Natural Gas plant is indeed much more efficient, that particular kind of plant is a rare find in the US energy landscape, and it is silly to use it in comparisons. I stand by my statement: oil burned in a Prius takes one further -- about 50% further, than oil burned for a LEAF.

Drees: you can look up the 18% refinery figure from the EPA. it is used, among other places, in CAFE calculations. If the "7 kwh" figure is specifically energy consumed to make one gallon of petrol, the numbers work out like this: Per the EPA, 1/.82 gallons of oil turn into 1 gallon of petrol. There are 33.4 * 1/.82 kwh starting energy, and 33.4 kwh end energy. The difference is 7.33 kwh.

 

The reality is that we need to address both fossil fuel power plants & fossil fuel transportation. One can't wait for the other.

That is even better. My oil ICE gave 20 mpg. So now I not only save oil, but also electricity

 

SageBrush, I must admit, you logic seems very flawed, or I am misunderstanding something here.
You state it is silly to use CHP efficiency because it is so rare. Yet you do use oil burning power plant efficiency?

From what I can find, about 8% of US power plants are CHP, while only 3% of US power plants use oil as a source.
So yes, while CHP plants are uncommon, oil burning plants are even less common. Or were you talking about the efficiency of refineries, not power plants??