But even though almost everything we make today is made of oil, plastic production cannot compare with the waste of burning it as fuel. Every time you fill up the tank of a mid-size you are consuming a barrel of petroleum.

We have a fossil fuel problem because oil is cheap, a very compact energy source that is inexpensive to produce and transport. It will always make economic sense…until the day it runs out. Taxing it is the only way to control it. Besides, taxation is controllable, you can always change the percentage if the rate is too high or too low. It is the obvious solution unless you are making a fortune marketing petroleum or big cars.

But I am realistic. EV’s and plug in hybrids, and most “carbon free” tech still extoll their cost on the planet. When I tell people I work for the mining industry, they ask how I can do that. I tell them that I like their mountain bike, do they know how much rock was mined to make it? Or their cell phone?

Lithium mining is mostly solution mining, but still has impact. Rare Earth Elements are nasty business. Ore deposits are rare. The US has several but only one(?) actively mining. It’s the processing that produces nasty by-products. That’s why China is the biggest producer and looking for projects in the third world. And no really tasty copper deposit has been discovered in years. The big un-mined ones are in very eco-sensitive areas.

There’s another issue. Petroleum also produces many other useful products, not just gasoline. Without the revenue for gas, everything else goes up in price. Asphalt, naphtha, plastic, grease, motor oil… While there are substitutes, concrete for asphalt, for example, still has an eco-cost. And if asphalt and all those other hydrocarbon products are still needed, what happens to the excess gasoline produced as part of the distilling process of petroleum if it doesn’t go in cars? Would that then be used to produce electricity because it becomes a waste product and very cheap? So EV’s go back to being gasoline powered?

In my opinion, a better way to lower the reliance of transportation on fossil fuels would be to tax the shit out of gasoline. This would incentivize smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and perhaps convince the American motorist that living in low population density suburbs distant from their workplace is a really, really dumb idea. The revenue from these carbon taxes could then be plowed into subsidizing public transport until it becomes self-supporting, as it already is in the rest of the industrialized world.

Mr Biden’s heart is in the right place, but I fear he is still too obsessed with not degrading middle class lifestyles, keeping middle class taxes low and creating middle class jobs. These are certainly laudable goals, but they should not dictate energy policy. The middle class suburban lifestyle is a major reason why we have this problem, we should not be helping to perpetuate it.

We are all entitled to a roof over our heads, a job that can support it, and efficient public transport. But no one is entitled to a spacious ranch house in a suburban park with a long commute to where he works and shops.

So – in short- EVs in general have a lower carbon footprint than conventional cars, and as we move to more carbon free power sources for our power grid that will only get better.