As governments, including California’s, join the electric vehicle (EV) crusade, new public policies are advancing that ultimately would ban the sale and registration of light-duty vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.
. . . The unintended consequences of banning internal combustion engine cars is that manufactured aviation, gasoline and diesel fuels from crude oil are the economic reasons refineries even exist. We not only rely on the efficiency of oil for transportation fuels, but the many other vital derivations of fuel. In fact, transportation fuels represent about half of the products manufactured from crude oil. It fulfills the economic need for the refineries to continue operating to produce the other essential chemicals and byproducts used in our daily lives.
Once we sever our ability to manufacture internal combustion vehicles and the fuels to operate them, we practically bet the farm that the supply chain for the materials for that next generation battery will be abundant enough to power future generations. If the world’s bet on cobalt, or if the supply chain for some unrealized next generation battery proves inadequate, the world will be hurting for transportation. Once eliminated, it will be next to impossible to recreate the factories for those internal combustion vehicles or to rebuild the refineries that manufacture our aviation, gasoline, and diesel transportation fuels.
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