vin944 said:
The amount of electricity used to refine a gallon of gas can be used straight away in the Leaf. So grid demand should stay about the same shouldn't it?
Plus this is where the "EV crowd" gets this argument wrong--and we need to be careful how we present this argument. Yes, the refining process uses a lot of electricity. It's not known exactly how much (unless you are an oil company) but it's probably safe to assume that the amount required will ALMOST (but not quite) power an EV the same distance as a high mileage car would go.
However where the argument goes wrong is that their electricity is mostly generated on-site using the refined fuel or other by-products. So they are not actually pulling a lot of power from the grid. Therefore to make the argument that the grid can handle it, or that the refining process is using the "dirty" coal-fired power is incorrect. Basically the net effect is that the efficiency of the refinery as a whole is lower by the amount of product that must be used to generate power for the refinery.
All in all the argument is still valid from an efficiency point of view: power generated for electricity and then distributed to your outlets makes more efficient use of the raw materials going into the process than does gasoline refining. But to be fair we have to present the argument properly.