How much electricity is used refine a gallon of Gasoline?-video added!
The short answer: 6 kilowatt hours.
Long Answer:
Some disinformation in the comments in the Post-Dispatch online forums on a story about stimulus money’s effect on the battery industry reminded me of this question that many people fail to ask when comparing the efficiency of EV’s to internal combustion engine vehicles. In fact, I had never thought to ask until Jack Rickard discussed it on one of his first episodes of his www.EVTV.me “Friday Shows”. He had done some research and estimated it was between 4-7.5 Kwh per gallon. I’ll post my comment:
Your average EV can go 16 miles on 4kwh (20 miles on 7.5kwh)- so that’s on the electricity used to just to refine that gallon of gas, nevermind the energy used to extract and transport the oil, and the tailpipe emission.
Jack inspired me to ask an authoritative source (as if he isn’t?). The DOE. So I emailed them, and in less than 5 business days received an answer, which I will post here.
Subject: Energy to refine gasoline
Dear Mr. Armstrong,
Thank you for your December 4, 2009, electronic mail requesting a reputable source to calculate the energy required to refine a gallon of gasoline. The energy required to refine a gallon of gasoline can be estimated based on the energy content of crude oil and the refinery efficiency of the facility performing the energy conversion; I can provide you a reputable source for both values.
In a 2008 report, Argonne National Lab estimated that the efficiency for producing gasoline of an “average” U.S. petroleum refinery is between 84% and 88% (Wang, 2008), and Oak Ridge National Lab reports that the net energy content of oil is approximately 132,000 Btu per gallon (Davis, 2009). It is commonly known that a barrel of crude oil generate approximately 45 gallons of refined product (refer to NAS, 2009, Table 3-4 for a publication stating so). Thus, using an 85% refinery efficiency and the aforementioned conversion factors, it can be estimated that about 21,000 Btu—the equivalent of 6 kWh—of energy are lost per gallon of gasoline refined:
The documents referenced herein are publicly available, as follows:
Wang, M. (2008), “Estimation of Energy Efficiencies of U.S. Petroleum Refineries,” Center for Transportation Research, Argonne National Laboratory, www.transportation.anl.gov/modeling_simulation/GREET/pdfs/energy_eff_petroleum_refineries-03-08.pdf
Davis, S., Susan W. Diegel, and Robert G. Boundy (2009), Transportation Energy Data Book, edition 28, National Transportation Research Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, cta.ornl.gov/data/
NAS (2009), Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use, The National Academies Press, www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12794&page=1
It is worth noting that refining one barrel of oil yields gasoline in addition to other products, so only a portion of the refining energy used to refine a barrel of crude is truly attributable to gasoline. Even so, in terms of energy equivalencies, the preceding estimation is valid.
If I may be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. Your interest in energy efficiency at the Department of Energy is appreciated.
Sincerely,
Jake
– Jacob Ward Program Analyst/PMF Vehicle Technologies Program Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy U.S. Department of Energy
For those who prefer watching TV vs. reading mathematical formulas, starting at 6 minutes in the this 1o minute video:
Comments are closed.
September 20, 2010 - 9:08 am
Great followup Dan. 6kWh of energy will get us 24 miles in the Speedster, slightly MORE than the national fleet average of 21.3 mpg on gasoline.
In the Mini Cooper we would get but 17 miles on the waste energy required to PRODUCE the gasoline from oil.
The answer you received from Argonne kind of takes a birds eye approach and that is valid. But they are talking about ALL refined products from the oil, and they are addressing OVERALL efficiency. Interesting.
But we actually GET a little over 19 gallons of refined gasoline that are used in automobiles from that 45 gallon barrel. And I would be interested in a followup on how much ELECTRICITY, not energy equivalents, but actual electric usage from the grid, or more often, from plant generated electricity.
I also think you will find a VERY interesting thing about oil plants and their electricity. It is true that 58% of our electricity is generated from coal. But that is ALL electricity. This figure is interestingly MUCH lower when we discuss retail electricity, or grid electricity to consumers. The difference is industry produced electricity for their own use. Oil companies are one of the largest producers of electricity in industry for their own use. THEY use coal at very close to the 100% level, which is remarkable since they have the oil and natural gas. But they use COAL which is cheaper, and this actually inflates the national “all producer” figure to 58%.
I think it would be very interesting not to approach it as an overall efficiency, but as an actual kWh of ELECTRICITY used in the process, per gallon of GASOLINE FOR FUEL produced.
I think you’ll find it comes out to roughly the same 6 kWh per gallon.
It is my belief that we can power our cars nationally COMPLETELY on the real, generated, transmitted, and consumed ELECTRICITY used to produce the gallon of gasoline.
And if so, even the concept of expanding our generating capacity and distribution comes under question.
There may actually BE a free lunch in here somewhere. We can feed on the table scraps left by the oil companies and get a free lunch energy wise.
Jack Rickard
September 28, 2010 - 2:41 pm
Hello Jack,
What is your source of the info on the coal used to produce the electricity used to refine gasoline?
The folks that are conducting the “intellectual” discourse on the EV’s ups stream emissions should take note and face the ugly reality of the ICE age
Thanks for this.
Gary
February 14, 2011 - 5:56 pm
If an average EV can go 4 miles per Kwh, then an electric car could go 30 miles (not 20 miles as cited above (typo?)).
20-30 miles worth of electricity consumed in refining every gallon of gasoline. Now, if everyone knew that…
CHRIS
March 5, 2011 - 12:49 pm
Chris, you are correct, I either mistyped or miscalculated. You’re going a long way toward making sure every one knows the advantages of EV’s with your films. Looking forward to “Revenge…”
http://www.revengeoftheelectriccar.com
Keep up the good work.
August 3, 2011 - 11:52 am
Hi all, i just did a similar analysis, since I was wondering how much energy a typical US refinery uses to produce one gallon of gasoline. Somehow I came up with a much more efficient model (yes, I surprised myself). My calculations, source links, and results are here, 2nd post down: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5046
Phil