A confusing aspect of electrification is that the final energy consumption goes down by doing so. A gasoline car uses 2 MJ of gasoline per km, while an electric car only needs 0.6 MJ of electricity.

If that electricity comes from a modern gas-fired power plant, it ‘only’ requires 1 MJ of natural gas (-50%). But if it is wind power, it just requires 0.6 MJ of electricity from wind: in that case, the primary energy demand is reduced by 70% as is the final energy demand.

So to fully replace a given amount of energy in gasoline cars, you will need only 30% of that quantity in the form of renewable electricity.

And in that first tweet, I should probably have said ".. *often* goes down by doing so." It is possible to make matters worse by clumsy electrification, like replacing a gas-fired heater by electric resistance heating using fossil electricity. Not recommended.

A macro consequence of all of this: in many countries, electricity now caters for 20% of final energy demand. If you'd want to increase that to 50%, you won't need 2.5 times more electricity, but significantly less.

So finally, we have a paradox working in our favor ;)