Take Heart: Things are happening.
By Chris Cottrell
These days, it’s easy to lose yourself in the doom and gloom. Everywhere you look, there’s a reminder of yet another climate target missed, or some civil right being stripped away. The steady drumbeat of bad news is relentless.
So this month, I wanted to pause and highlight some innovations that are giving me hope. These are developments that show just how far clean transportation has come. (And for what it’s worth, there were a lot to choose from!)
Take our home state of Colorado, for instance. Last quarter, we had the highest EV adoption rate in the country for the second time in as many years. Nearly one in three new cars sold were EVs. We even beat our own record.
The transportation sector is notoriously tricky to decarbonize, so the fact Colorado now has more than 210,000 EVs on the road - alongside the state securing its final $12 million in federal fast-charging funds - is nothing short of spectacular.
Another headline that caught my eye was on EV battery recycling. Companies in China are claiming they can now recover 99.6% of the minerals that go into the most common type of lithium ion EV batteries: nickel, manganese, and cobalt.
This is a huge win for the circular economy and a satisfying rebuttal to the red herrings that hyperfixate on the impacts of mining while ignoring the far greater harm of fossil fuels.
Lastly, can we talk about France’s inductive charging road? Yes, you heard that right: There’s a section of public highway that electric trucks can now drive over to charge their massive batteries. It’s admittedly nascent, but the fact that it’s no longer merely the stuff of science fiction is notable.
At a time when it’s tempting to feel overwhelmed, take heart: We’re not waiting for something to happen.
Things are happening.
