> But electricity is under half (30%?40%?) and the rest of that energy isn't fossil-free.
The trick of course is that if you electrify heating and transportation they'll need much less energy. Your average car with an ICE has an efficiency of 20-40%, electric cars have 60-80%. Heating your house with gas has an efficiency of around 100%, heat pumps have 300%-500%.
In theory gas boilers for heating are above 90% efficient. Not 100% because to achieve 100% what you'd have to do is keep the exhaust gases (which are hot) inside, where the people are, and unfortunately the exhaust gases are poisonous so that's a terrible idea.
Not sure where you get your numbers but they are way off. Natural gas is 90% (nothing is 100%). Heat pumps are geothermal masquerading as electric. And the highest number I ever heard for a heat pump was 135% which was under nearly ideal circumstances. In Finland, heat pumps can't make nearly enough heat to handle a winter there so you need something else too or instead of.
Truth is that electricity is great for kinetic energy but terrible at making heat. Most forms of energy can be transformed into another form of energy at about 50%. Electricity is the weird one where its 90% to motion but only 10% to heat. So if you want heat, you want something that makes heat directly. That's why natural gas heating (for building and homes) is usually lower carbon any other method. When you try to switch to electric, it makes things worse because of these inefficiencies. And heat pumps are great when you are in the right environment for them (like say the UK down to say Spain or so). But in Finland, you are going to need more than just some pipes in the ground and a fan.
135% is quite low for an air source heat pump. For instance a Samsung HHSM-G600005-1 [0] claims to have been tested to be 485% efficient at heating water to 35°C and 283% efficient at heating water to 55°C, both with 7°C air temperature. For Finland you'd want to find a heat pump with a datasheet specifying SCOP for specifically the EN 14825 Northern Europe climate zone. I couldn't find one with some quick googling, but I found a Swedish site selling a air-to-air heat pump[1] claiming 222% efficiency at -25 °C.
Are you saying that, for a given amount of electricity, you can only convert 10% to heat? I can't even think of a way to make this correct, since all forms of energy end up as 100% heat, the question is just whether the heat ends up in your home or not.
> And the highest number I ever heard for a heat pump was 135% [...] Truth is that electricity is great for kinetic energy but terrible at making heat. Most forms of energy can be transformed into another form of energy at about 50%. Electricity is the weird one where its 90% to motion but only 10% to heat.
Sorry but absolutely not, that's wrong on several levels. First off, in its most basic form of resistive heating, electric heating is already close to 100%. Heat pumps are even better, and I'll just quote Wikipedia
> At a cost of 1 kWh of electricity, they can transfer 1 to 4.5 kWh of thermal energy into a building.
The trick of course is that if you electrify heating and transportation they'll need much less energy. Your average car with an ICE has an efficiency of 20-40%, electric cars have 60-80%. Heating your house with gas has an efficiency of around 100%, heat pumps have 300%-500%.