If 1kg of coal represents 1000 Wh, your generator loses 1/2 to waste heat, you only generate 500 Wh of usable electricity. Some analyses will state that renewable power has to replace the 1000 Wh of embedded energy within the coal, when it only needs to output 500 Wh.
If you use solar panels and generate 500 Wh directly, you have cut your energy use in half, even though the output has remained the same. An EV has a battery of ~80 kWh, equal to 2-3 gallons of gas, yet it can go a few hundred miles, a 3-4x ratio of efficiency, compared to an ICE.
I’ve never seen anyone measure coal power by the amount of chemical energy stored inside, unless they are specifically referring to using it as a heating source. For electricity generated by coal it’s always measured as output.
Just took my house onto off-grid solar, yet my energy consumption now exceeds when I was on utility grid power.
Naturally we ration things when they're expensive. But now I don't feel the need to turn off the lights or appliances when I leave my home, and my EV driving has gone up knowing that "fuel" is essentially free from here on out. And to soak up excess solar, I run multiple computers and servers 24/7 with reckless abandon.
I was brought up to "save energy ". Lights switched off when not in thevroom, that sort of thing.
Now I gave solar on the roof. There's an excess production capability, so now, during most days it doesn't matter if stuff is on or off. That especially applies to AC which I'll happily turn on on hot summer days. In effect I use more "because it's there to be used".
My EV is coming soon and given I can charge it on solar I plan to do a lot more day-trips-out over weekends etc.
So you're right, availability and affordability- but electrifying is great (for me) for both those things.
Meanwhile, fossil fuels are only 'cheap' because the users are pushing the negative externalities off on everyone else in the world. Priced properly they'd be even more costly than they already are.
The comment below about electricity prices is the real friction point though. Where time-of-use rates exist, running a heat pump with thermal pre-heating during cheap midday solar hours changes the math entirely - the building itself becomes the battery. I got into tracking my own load against TOU windows and ended up building a small tool for it (energy-iq.app); shifting ~40% of consumption off-peak ended up worth more than any single efficiency upgrade. Electrification halves the energy; rate-aware scheduling is what makes it halve the bill.
In Canada I’m a deep valley where it snows a ton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM