Yeah, I'm well aware of the efficiencies. I'm also well aware that IF you could use heat, then the efficiency could approach 100%. How many thermal power stations can use their waste heat? If all of Google's search engines where in cold climates and they used the computer heat to heat buildings, that would be nearly 100% efficient as well. For various reasons, much of the heat generated is not used.
If your car could use it's waste heat it would also be near 100% efficiency. I suppose you could claim it is pretty efficient if you drive in Alaska in winter with the heater running full blast. The fact remains, that a hybrid car and a typical thermal power station are in fact, not vastly different in their efficiency, unless you have an odd definition of "so vastly more", which was all I was checking on.
As a matter of fact, a number of companies offer home power/heating systems based on the small engines you malign, where the engine runs a generator for electric power, and the exhaust heat provides hot water and building heat. As you might imagine, they can have very high combined efficiency, at least in the winter at the correct latitude. On average, they would not do very well in Phoenix AZ over the summer, just like a coal plant in the SW of the USA won't either, because you can't do much useful with the excess heat. I'm sure you have seen the cooling towers around thermal & nuke plants. Guess what they are used for? |
