In America and around the world, millions of people think electric vehicles (EVs) are the solution to all kinds of environmental problems—like smog, fine particulate pollution, and global warming. Save the planet! Drive a Leaf (or Volt or Tesla or … the models multiply).

But enormous technical problems face the transition from gasoline- or diesel-powered to battery-powered vehicles. Those problems are all rooted in one issue: energy density (energy stored by volume). Cubic inch for cubic inch (and ounce for ounce), gasoline is far more energy dense than our best batteries.

For instance, while a gallon of gasoline delivers the equivalent of 33.4 kWh of energy, the same volume of a lithium-ion battery (the sort used, for example, in the Chevrolet Volt) delivers the equivalent of from 0.66 to 1.64 kWh of energy. I.e., the gasoline is from 20.4 to 50.6 times as energy dense.

That’s why it’s so much easier to power a vehicle a long distance using gasoline than using electric batteries.

Consider a few examples. In 2012, the 435-pound, 16-kWh battery of a Chevrolet Volt took about 4 hours to charge from a 208-volt charger and would last up to about 35 miles; the 480-pound, 24-kWh battery of the Nissan Leaf took 7.5 hours to charge and would last up to about 75 miles. Double those charge times using typical household voltage levels. And the Tesla Roadster’s battery took about 48 hours to charge on typical household voltage and would last about 245 miles.

Meanwhile, it took just a few minutes to refuel a Honda Civic VX with 78 pounds (12.4 gallons) of gasoline that would take it over 500 miles.

Why? Because one gallon of gasoline delivers 33.4 kWh of energy, so 12.4 gallons deliver 414 kWh of energy—almost 26 times what the Chevy Volt battery delivers, and over 17 times what the Leaf battery delivers.

And the EVs are much more expensive.

In other words, battery-driven cars are terribly inefficient in terms of the time and cost for distance traveled.

Lots of people get that. But there’s something very few do get, and it has to do with what we might call the co-benefits of using gasoline and diesel—made from petroleum—to power our vehicles.

Writing in FoxandHoundsDaily, Ronald Stein explains that if we succeed in greatly reducing our use of petroleum-powered vehicles, there will be unintended consequences that could seriously undermine the global economy.

Refining oil into gasoline and diesel for transportation is the primary purpose for building and maintaining refineries. But that actually accounts for only about half the typical revenue refineries generate. The other half comes from what Stein calls “the myriad of chemicals and byproducts developed from petroleum that revolutionized our infrastructure and directly enhance and improve our quality of life,” things used in “batteries, rubber tires, asphalt, and iPhones,” among thousands of other products.

Eliminate the primary purpose of refineries, and many will go out of business. Not only will that mean lower supply and consequently higher prices of the fuels, but also, those refineries that remain will see their cost per unit of the byproducts rise, and consumers will face higher prices for every product that uses them.

Stein is particularly worried that legislation aimed at reducing the number of internal combustion vehicles and replacing them with EVs—an eventuality that depends on meeting the as-yet-unmet challenge of producing super high-density batteries at an affordable cost—will set the world up for massive troubles.

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.

The impact on the international economy could be devastating. Batteries are a great tool, but can any of the technologies realistically be commercialized in huge new quantities and with enormous new capabilities to power global societies in the decades ahead, without impacting the rest of the economy?