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Using the figures from 2003-4 at the ABS, we see that
+15,690PJ is produced in Australia
+1,295PJ is imported (mostly sweet crude oil refined products)
-11,759PJ is exported (uranium and black coal, and our own sour crude unrefined)
leaving 5,346PJ to use domestically, of which
-1,035PJ is used directly
-4,311PJ is converted into some other form (coal into electricity, refined oil products into plastics, etc)
Of those 4,311PJ converted,
1,801PJ are lost in the conversion, transmission and distribution processes,
giving 2,510PJ of products
and thus 3,545PJ of actual end use of primary and derived energy.
Now looking at this, we see that of 2,875.1PJ used in 2001 (earlier year than above, thus lower energy consumption), the forms it was used in finally were,
Petroleum products, 53.2%
Biofuels, under 1%
Natural and town gas, 22.6%
Electricity, 24%
Solar, under 1% (they mean solar hot water heaters)
Note however that "electricity" is not an energy source, but an energy carrier. Its source in Australia is overwhelmingly from coal, as noted here; about 50% of electricity comes from black coal, 31% from brown coal, and 10.6% from natural gas; the remainder of 8.4% is renewable, mostly hydro. So we can rearrange the table above like so,
Petroleum products, 53.2%
Biofuels, under 1%
Natural and town gas, 25%
Black & brown coal, 19.4%
Hydro &c, 2%
Solar, under 1%
Note however that the petroleum products are used overwhelmingly for transport. Of 1,530PJ of the energy got from petroleum products, 1,166.4PJ were used in road, rail, air or water-borne transport. They used only 8.4PJ of other kinds of energy.
Transport enables most of the other forms of energy consumption and production. It's hard to imagine mining, agriculture, or even construction without transport.
You're quite right that personal transport faces few technical difficulties; but it faces many psychological and social difficulties. Your average accountant or labourer is not going to hop on an electric scooter if they have any choice.
There are other technical issues, though. If we want to give up oil and replace it with electrical things, then we have to give up coal and gas, too. That's because electrical transport would be an extra burden on the power grid, and our power comes from coal, gas and hydro. Even if we assume that coal and gas are infinite, climate change effects will continue to give Australia a water shortage, which is already impacting power generation.
So, turning to electrical transport means we'd have to expand renewable energy. I'm quite happy about that, I'm just pointing it out as an issue. "Just add power packs to your bikes!" sounds simple, but is less simple when we say, "oh and build more wind turbines."
Let's also not forget freighting, the non-personal transport. The key to what we call "our way of life" isn't just beign able to hop in the car to go to the shops, but also at those shops to have products from many thousand of kilometres away. Freight transport faces technical difficulties, too. Electric trucking doesn't appear to be practical as yet, though rail of course works marvellously, it's not quick to build, and faces many political difficulties despite its obvious utility.
You're comparing apples and watermelons there. You are comparing the energy in electric plant output (post-conversion) with the transport system input (pre-conversion). The inputs are compared directly in this bar graph, which shows 1552.6 PJ of input to the electrical sector for 2001-2 vs. 1265.6 for the transport sector.
Coal-fired powerplants average around 33% efficient, and vehicle engines aren't far from that (gasoline 20-25% in normal use, diesels up to 40%). This means that the conversion losses of the electric sector are more than twice the net (not gross) energy use of the transport sector. If the electric sector switched to a technology like direct-carbon fuel cells, it could absorb the entire energy demand of the transport sector while cutting total coal consumption.
The heavy diesels used in mining trucks, railroad locomotives and such can be converted to burn slurried coal. It increases the required maintenance but it has been done.
The energy demand of electric bikes is so small that it hardly makes sense to tie the two together. On the other hand, the picture of the electric bike or scooter connected to a PV array can sharpen its "green" image.
I've got an office window with a view of a rail line, and among the trains which pass me several times a day there is the occasional intermodal consisting of semi-trailers on rail dollies (not flatcars). There appears to be no technical problem preventing the use of short-haul semi-tractors powered by Zebra batteries or the like to complete the link from railhead to destination. There are certainly destinations too far from a rail spur to be reached with such trucks, but we don't need a 100% solution even in the next 20 years; 90% will do.
You can put a coal gassifier on a locomotive pretty easily. Indonesia provides a very low sulfur and low ash coal that would be acceptable for a train. It would be annoying and inconvenient, but acceptable. Ships also have lots of ability to be retrofitted.
Depends on whether the sulfur is in sulfide minerals or in organic compounds. You can leach mineral sulfides with oxidising agents and remove the sulfide minerals that way, or grind up the coal and magnetically remove the sulfide particles.
Or just make synfuels out of high sulfur coal.