Here is the quote in question from the Liberal Party forum on Social Development, as written by Margaret81:

Detroit's big automakers are slashing jobs, closing factories and undertaking costly revamps of their product strategies to cope with $4 a gallon gas.

"For once we actually have viable alternatives and exciting technology that are really game changers" in the effort to wean transportation from petroleum, says Mike Jackson, chairman and chief executive officer of Auto Nation Inc.

It's entirely possible that a decade from now, we'll realize that this was a pivotal moment in the auto industry's history. This could be the moment when a century of relying almost exclusively on petroleum to power personal mobility gives way to a new model, in which electricity powers our transportation.

God save us from well-meaning but scientifically ignorant people.  Their hearts are in the right place. 

Unfortunately, they speak in gibberish.

Petroleum is a fuel source.  Electricity is not a fuel source.

I should be able to stop this entry right here and now, but I have a feeling people still won't get it.

A fuel source is something from which useful energy can be extracted because energy is stored in the fuel in some way.  Useful energy is energy that can be used to do work.  For instance, coal is a fuel source.  There is energy stored in the molecular bonds that make up coal.  When heated, these bonds break and release energy in the form of more heat.  That heat can be used to boil water into steam, which can then turn a turbine that is attached to magnets, which spin within a coil of wires, into which an electric current is induced, as per Michael Faraday's law of induction (an explanation of which will also induce headaches).

There are other ways to spin the turbine.  You can use nuclear fuel rods to generate the heat needed to boil the water.  You can build a dam and use the energy in falling water to spin the turbine.  Or you can build a windmill and hope that a breezy day will create the equivalent spin to a mountain of coal, a few pounds of nuclear material, or millions of gallons of falling water.

The power plant transforms the energy stored in the coal into potential energy stored in the electric potential difference between the generator and ground.  But the electric potential difference is created because of energy in the original fuel source being released.

So our earnest Liberal paints a glorious but incomplete picture.  Sure, it would be great if all transportation ran on electricity.  We could do it today, if we wanted to.  But what is the new fuel source to replace petroleum?

Electricity is not a fuel source.  Electric current is the flow of electrons that arises from a difference in electric potential.  The potential is high at the coal-fired generating plant.  It is low at your lamp which has a path to ground.  When you connect the power plant to the lamp by plugging the lamp in and flipping the switch, electricity flows from the high potential (the power plant) and the low potential (the ground wire in the lamp plug) and the bulb glows because it is in the way of the flow and uses it.

But the electricity flows only because of the high potential generated by releasing and utilizing the energy stored in the coal.

Could we have electric cars?  Sure.  Would that change anything?  Not at all.  Take all the gas used to power the cars and burn it to power the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of power plants that would need to be built.  Then transmit the electricity to all those cars.

See, you still need that pesky fuel source.  Having an electric car doesn't change that.

Actually, you'll be burning more gas.  The reason is that the wires that guide the electricity have resistance, and that means some of the useful energy in the electricity is lost as heat before the it reaches the ultimate consumer.  Internal combustion engines place the fuel source as close as possible to the point at which the release energy is used, which is an efficiency improvement.

In a decade, things might very well look different.  But I have a feeling that people like Margaret81 will be disappointed at how similar things will be in ten years.  They seem to think that electricity replaces petroleum.  It does not, because the two are not interchangeable.  Margaret81 needs to explain what replaces the fuel source, and how that replacement generates power in quantities sufficient to power all those electric cars. 

But people like Margaret81 stop well before that point, with a half-baked vision that doesn't make sense because it is missing that crucial piece.  A piece that can't be waved away by burbling on about hybrids and recycling and such.

Or about buses.  Thanks to reader Tom who sent me this picture that perfectly captures the ignorance of these people:

Hey, stupid, what do you think makes you bus run?

I shouldn't call people names, but this sort of ignorance is dangerous.  These people will buy any sort of snake oil offered up by equally ignorant politicians hoping to ride the environmentalism wave to power.

Addendum: As a sop to environmentalists, I listed wind with nuclear and hydro.  I was wrong to do that.  Nuclear materials are a fuel source.  The energy is in the material, and can be encouraged to be released by causing chain reactions in the unstable elements.  Hydro dams are a fuel source.  The energy is in the position of the water, and can be released by opening up sluices and letting the water fall to a lower point.  Wind is not a fuel source.  It is the analog to electricity in our discussion.  Wind is not trapped in some place or in some material just waiting to be released when needed.  It happens when it happens because of differences in pressure in the atmosphere, and it is pure happenstance to be in the way of a good wind to spin your turbine.  You can't build an electric society on something that fickle.  You need a fuel source.  Margaret81 and people like her need to nominate a fuel source.