{"id":12247,"date":"2024-05-30T17:47:41","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T17:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=12247"},"modified":"2024-05-30T17:47:54","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T17:47:54","slug":"how-clean-energy-naysayers-help-china-and-hurt-american-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/30\/how-clean-energy-naysayers-help-china-and-hurt-american-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"How Clean Energy Naysayers Help China and Hurt American Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ben Jealous<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Ben Jealous
\n<\/strong>Guest Column<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Electric vehicles (EVs) are the future of transportation. As a driver of an (American-made) electric vehicle myself, I know firsthand the amount of money I have already saved compared to when I drove the gas-powered version of the same model. And that is before considering the benefit to our air quality, the climate, and how fun it is to drive.<\/p>\n

But roughly\u00a060 percent of electric vehicles sold<\/a>\u00a0worldwide are made by China. That is compared to just eight percent for American EVs. Moreover, Chinese sales continue to increase at a faster rate \u2013\u00a079 percent compared to 55 percent<\/a>\u00a0for American EVs between 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

Of course, part of the reason for this is the low prices of Chinese models. And part of the reason those low prices are possible is that the Chinese government has not exactly played fair \u2013 heavily subsidizing the industry in order to maintain its market dominance. But another reason China is so competitive is because of its domestic supply chain, especially localized battery production.<\/p>\n

US policymakers and our big automakers are finally waking up to the urgency of investing in EVs. As they are with solar and wind energy and battery manufacturing. But these staples of the next economy have their detractors \u2013 primarily the fossil fuel industry and the politicians and media outlets that often act as their mouthpieces. It goes further than that though.<\/p>\n

A big part of the naysayers\u2019 messaging strategy is to inflame fears about economic and social change. Tuning into networks like FOX News and One America News Network, it is not uncommon to get a taste of the disinformation campaign against EVs and other clean energy solutions. They wrongly portray policies meant to reduce carbon emissions and other pollution \u2013 especially cars and consumer appliances \u2013 as an attack on consumers \u201cfreedom.\u201d They also appeal to a general nostalgia for \u201cthe good old days\u201d when no one was asked to think about energy efficiency or climate warming pollution.<\/p>\n

Most Americans know, however, that we cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand. It would not only be a road to ruin for our climate but would also prevent American competitiveness in the global economy and be a disaster for American workers.<\/p>\n

Right now, we are seeing the beginning of a green jobs boom and the rebirth of the American manufacturing sector.\u00a0It is thanks to decisive actions by the Biden administration \u2013 from legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, and the CHIPS and Science Act to the recently announced tariffs. I wrote about it recently as\u00a0President Biden\u2019s anti-NAFTA moment<\/a>. This\u00a0is the way we will win the next economy.<\/p>\n

Just look at Illinois, where a $2 billion EV battery facility in Manteno will produce 2,600 new good-paying jobs. Lion Electric\u2019s\u00a0new plant in Joliet, IL<\/a>\u00a0will produce about 20,000 electric school buses and trucks a year, employ hundreds of workers, and is the first new vehicle assembly plant in the Chicago area since 1965. EV manufacturer Rivian, which already employs about 8,000 people in Bloomington and Normal, IL,\u00a0is expanding its production in the state<\/a>. And one of the outcomes of last year\u2019s strike\u00a0by the United Auto Workers (UAW)<\/a>\u00a0is the\u00a0reopening of Stellantis\u2019s plant in Belvidere, IL<\/a>\u00a0which was idled in February 2023 but now will produce EVs and bring at least 1,300 jobs back to that community. In addition to the federal action mentioned above, this EV boom in Illinois is being helped by state initiatives like Governor JB Pritzker\u2019s Reimagining Energy and Vehicles incentive package.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the Midwest, the Department of Commerce just reached a preliminary deal with the company Polar to expand and modernize its\u00a0semiconductor manufacturing in Bloomington, Minnesota<\/a>. A battery manufacturing boom throughout the Southeast now has that region being referred to as the \u201cBattery Belt.\u201d And domestic solar is also helping to revitalize manufacturing in the south. The Qcells solar panel plants in Dalton and Cartersville, Georgia, are soon expected to\u00a0employ nearly 4,000 people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In China, even green manufacturing is dirty. The building of products like EVs and solar panels is powered mostly by coal. And the production of raw materials for those products \u2013 like aluminum and steel \u2013 is rife with toxic pollution. In the US, by contrast, the transition towards powering our electric grids and industries with clean energy sources is well underway. And new manufacturing methods are making materials like aluminum cleaner than ever to produce. Add to that the boom in good American jobs, and it is clear that moving manufacturing and supply chains for the next economy to our shores is a win-win-win for the United States.<\/p>\n

Ben Jealous is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, former president of the NAACP and a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ben Jealous Guest Column Electric vehicles (EVs) are the future of transportation. As a driver of an (American-made) electric vehicle myself, I know firsthand the amount of money I have already saved compared to when I drove the gas-powered version of the same model. And that is before considering the benefit to our air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[232],"class_list":["post-12247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12248,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12247\/revisions\/12248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12247"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=12247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}