I'm feeling optimistic today. I know, my style here usually leans towards the negative, so regular readers who did a spit-take with their morning coffee just now are forgiven. But, this morning I'm believing in American ingenuity, in American can-do spirit, in an expression attributed to Winston Churchill, "Americans will always do the right thing, after they have tried everything else." What am I optimistic about today? Electric vehicles.
The popularity of electric vehicles continues to grow. The backlash against EVs is predictable. One argument against EVs is the fact that their batteries contain critical minerals like lithium and cobalt and nickel. The mining industry for those minerals is environmentally destructive, to say nothing of exploitative of human labor. Because of that, EVs are doomed to fail, say the naysayers. And they would be right, if not for one thing: the problem has a solution. Recycling. Which Americans will get around to eventually.
Grist has an explanation of the challenge...and the solution. In short, "the critical materials in batteries are infinitely reusable. Eventually, a robust circular battery economy could all but eliminate the need to extract them at all."
What will it take to create and support a "robust circular battery economy"? Political will. That's it. Does America have the will? That's a bigger challenge than the technical challenge. I'm optimistic (that's unlike me, I know) that our collective recognition of our need to migrate away from our current gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting automobile design is growing. Growing fast enough to solve the technical challenges before the political opposition can kill this upstart alternative to the kinds of vehicles that got us into the mess we find ourselves in today.
P.S. The irony is not lost on me of illustrating an article about American can-do spirit with a photo I took of a German electric vehicle on a street in Amsterdam.
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