The Upcoming Internal Combustion Engine Ban

 I have been working on the text below of a letter that might be useful to copy and send to your MP.

Dear your MP

Internal Combustion Engines

Emissions from ICEs, both diesel and petrol, are now well controlled – in modern vehicles – by various technologies.

Clever engineering has reduced CO2 emissions to very low levels.

Three way catalytic converters on both petrol and diesel vehicles have scrubbed out other potentially toxic emissions, including NO2

Diesel vehicles apply ‘ad blue’ (Urea injection) to reduce further NO2 emissions. Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) are successful and filter out at least 85% of soot and particulates.  In optimum operating conditions this filtration can easily approach 100% of particulates, including nano-particulates of sub one micron in size.  In the UK standard diesel at the pump is of the Ultra-low sulphur type.  And premium fuels (especially diesel), for example Shell V-Power, further reduce soot levels.  The days of sooty smokey diesel engines are over.

Furthermore, we can now produce synthetic fuels from atmospheric CO2 which de facto makes burning such fuels carbon neutral.  Such synthetic fuels contain far less impurities than mineral oils and therefore burn much more cleanly.  Proof of concept plants are already working in Canada and the UK and the owners have stated that they could, today, produce road fuels at prices competitive with current pump prices.

Modern vehicles powered by ICE are getting more and more efficient and getting ever better fuel consumption.   And all the emissions control technologies are getting more and more reliable.

We can now make ICE powerplants at extremely low costs using abundant and easy to acquire resources like aluminium (bauxite being super abundant) and iron and steel (also abundant) meaning that personal transport is also extremely low cost. This enables the private citizen to efficiently exploit his own labour and enjoy freedoms unimagined by earlier generations.  

Liquid fuels have very high relative energy densities of about 47.5 Mj/kg  as opposed to battery electric vehicles with energy densities of about 0.3 Mj/kg.  That is petrol (and to a slightly lesser extent diesel) have 100 times the energy density of a lithium-ion battery.

Looking at this from the environmental perspective ICE powered vehicles consume modest resources to produce and can be recycled.  BEVs are relatively costly to produce mainly because the production of batters that require rare metals is costly.  And not at all environmentally friendly and nor easily recycled. 

Apart from the above, the distribution of petrol and diesel is very well served in the UK, and globally.  Whereas to create the infrastructure to be able to charge electrical vehicles will likely cost trillions of Pounds. 

And lastly, what restrictions and surveillance will lawmakers have to impose on us to collect the taxes lost by the loss of fuel duty?  The implication of things like user charges by mass surveillance are an appalling assault on personal liberty.  

Given the forgoing please explain to me why the sale of new ICE powered vehicles is being banned?

Love

A Constituent.

Feel free to copy it.  If you think it’s (a) right in its assertions (b) something your MP will actually read and, hopefully, act on (c) in line with your own prejudices.

Also any suggestions for an edit will be welcomed. But bear in mind, in view of the fact that some (most?) MP’s seems to have the attention span of an inebriated goldfish and the reasoning ability of a 15 year old female (I speak from personal experience) I think it best we keep it to one side of A4.