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The post Best of Earth911 Podcast: Carbios’ Emmanuel Ladent on the Dawn of Enzymatic Plastic Recycling appeared first on Earth911.
When you’re doing home repairs, renovations, or even new home construction, many of the building…
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This story was originally published by Modern Farmer and is republished with permission.
It starts out as unnoticeable, lying dormant for two or even four years. It’s undetectable. But slowly, the signs come out. Individual branches on a tree point to signs of a nutrient deficiency or perhaps overwatering. Branches will start to yellow and weaken, turning shriveled. Then, the fruit will turn, becoming small and refusing to ripen and, sometimes, dropping early. The fruit is safe for human consumption, but it tastes like battery acid.
And once the tree reaches that point, there’s no coming back. The tree will die within a few years no matter what intervention you try. That’s why when growers see trees infected with Huanglongbing, known as HLB or citrus greening, they immediately look to remove the tree. There’s no other option.
“We’re destroying all the trees that get infected. We’re monitoring and eradicating those where we can. We’re using biological controls with the loss. We’re using every tool in the bag,” says Jared Plumlee, senior vice president of farming at Booth Ranches, in Orange Cove, CA. Plumblee oversees about 7,000 acres in the central San Joaquin Valley, growing navel oranges, valencias, mandarins and even some lemons and grapefruits. There’s no sign of HLB in the Booth orchards yet, and Plumlee aims to keep it that way. The ranch also has its own packing house onsite, where they pack only their own product. That’s both to foster trust with consumers, so they know every piece of fruit in a Booth box came from that farm, and to keep potentially infected fruit out.
HLB is a disease spread by the insect Asian citrus psyllid, which infects trees with a slow-growing bacteria while it feeds on their shoots. It’s commonly spread as the insect travels across borders in fruit or tree cuttings, but a warming climate is speeding things along. The transmission of citrus greening depends on temperature—both to ensure that the psyllid survives and that the host trees are at their most vulnerable. Temperatures between 60 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit allow the disease to thrive. Research has shown that areas that stay within that range for at least half of the year have the most cases of HLB.
As global temperatures rise, citrus greening infestations can—and will—move further north. Tracking the spread of HLB is, in some ways, tracking the warming climate.
Growers can often, unknowingly, graft an infected tree limb onto their otherwise healthy stock. That’s how citrus groves in Texas, and most especially Florida, fell victim to the disease. HLB was first discovered in Florida in 2005, where it promptly tore through the state’s orange and grapefruit groves, infecting close to 90 percent of the citrus. Nearly 20 years later, last season’s orange production is a mere 16 percent of the yield in 2003. And overall citrus production continues to fall, every year for the past five years. This year’s orange yield is predicted to be 25 percent lower than last years’ final production.
Across the country, California growers have paid close attention to what their colleagues in Florida experienced, and they have no desire to go down the same road. “We see those numbers [from Florida], and it’s very, very frightening,” says Plumlee. As California’s annual temperatures fall squarely in the range for optimal HLB transmission, growers are as proactive as possible, even getting state legislation passed that allows citrus growers to essentially tax themselves and put the money towards research and eradication programs. “We’ve been fairly successful thus far; it still hasn’t been found in commercial orchards,” says Plumlee.
California is home to roughly 300,000 acres of citrus production across the state. There have been infected trees found in California, throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties and along the coast near San Diego. But, so far, the bacteria has stuck to residential trees or others easily removed.
“Last year, some nursery stock was sent from South Carolina from a nursery that had citrus canker,” says Victoria Hornbaker, director of the Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Division at the California Department of Food and Agriculture. “But our team was able to react incredibly quickly to get out to those locations, collect that nursery stock, destroy it and do a one-mile survey of all citrus around those locations to make sure that we didn’t see any symptoms of citrus canker in the environment. So, that is a good example of how quickly we can mobilize and respond to potential issues regarding citrus.”
The citrus industry isn’t just important within California but across the country. Florida may be known for oranges, but it’s primarily grown oranges for juice. California has historically been the home of fresh citrus, growing 85 percent of the nation’s table fruit. “If we lose California citrus, we also lose our national and international market,” Hornbaker says. That means importing more citrus from outside the country, raising prices, and losing a tremendous amount of revenue all around.
That’s why California growers have such a focus on proactivity, and why there’s an incredible amount of research into citrus greening coming out of California institutions. University of California, Riverside is working on a treatment that effectively kills the bacteria, although it’s still being tested within industry. Growers are experimenting with higher-density planting, putting more trees in the ground per acre, to get a higher yield in a shorter amount of time. Although, as Plumlee explains, that also has a significant drawback. “The longevity of planting like that might not be 50 years; it may only be 25. Because once the trees fill in, you kind of hit this plateau on what your production level can be. So, in the face of HLB, you’re going to turn the ground over faster.”
Breeders are also working to find new varieties that are less susceptible to HLB. The Sugar Belle mandarin, the hybrid of a clementine and a Minneola, has shown promising resistance. The new variety was born out of research from the University of Florida and released to growers across the state in 2009. More than a decade later, the Sugar Belle is among the top-grown varieties in the state.
Oddly, there does seem to be a correlation between the size of the citrus and the resistance to the bacteria, although it’s not clear if size is a determining factor or simply a coincidence. But Neil McRoberts, a professor of plant pathology at University of California, Davis, says that grapefruit and large oranges are less resistant to the disease, with smaller mandarins showing more disease resistance. “Because our citrus comes from so few different progenitor lines, they don’t have any natural resistance to the bacterium. So, none of our favorite citrus types and varieties have much resistance in general,” McRoberts explains.
There could be a cure out there. But it won’t be on the horizon in five years or even 10. “I can see that, maybe in 20 years, we’ll be in a position where, if we don’t actually have a cure, we’ll at least have citrus that is able to stand up and keep producing a crop,” says McRoberts. “There are some promises out there, but it’s slow work.”
In the meantime, Plumlee and other growers have no choice but to keep going and keep growing. “You can’t just throw up your hands and quit. You keep doing the science and the trials and try to solve this puzzle. But, in the short term, there’s not a whole lot that you can do that we haven’t already done.” Growers like Plumlee have a crop that’s vital to the state and the nation and a disease that they are fighting to keep at bay. For now, they simply have to hold on—for a decade or two—until more effective methods are available.
“That is the scary part,” says Plumlee. “If we had something today, right out of the lab that works, we’re still 10 or 15 years from proving it out that it actually works. And then another 10, probably before it’s all implemented out in the industry. So, we know that time is not our friend.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline There’s no cure for citrus greening. California growers have no choice but to keep going. on Jul 16, 2023.
This story was originally published by Canary Media and is republished with permission.
Mark Begansky loves his electric grill. This isn’t your indoor, panini-press-style electric grill; this is an outdoor grill fit for sumptuous summer cookouts on the Fourth of July. Begansky loves to cook mouthwatering kebabs and barbecue chicken, corn and asparagus, getting the edges crisp and making those characteristic sear marks where the food’s caramelized. The look, and, more importantly, the taste are “the same as what you’d get from a gas grill,” said Begansky, who works in the healthcare industry and lives in New Jersey.
Switching to an electric grill is a way to jettison yet one more foothold of the fossil fuel industry out of people’s homes and lives. Yet despite their climate advantages and on-par performance, electric grills haven’t yet broken into the public imagination in the U.S. Of grillers surveyed every two years from 2015 to 2021 by the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, only 3 to 4 percent owned an electric grill.
Most people instead cook with grills that burn something: usually charcoal or fossil fuels, namely fossil gas (mostly methane, or CH4) or propane (C3H8). Grills that consume methane gas require owners to keep a gas line to their homes that they can run out to the grill. For propane grills, cooks purchase propane tanks and switch the gas connection every time the tank runs empty.
As carbon-based fuels, burning methane and propane releases planet-warming CO2 into the atmosphere. What’s worse, fossil gas lines that are fitted incorrectly can leak their methane, a greenhouse gas that’s shorter-lived than CO2 but has a climate impact that’s a striking 84 to 87 times more potent over a 20-year timeframe.
Instead of that pollution, Begansky’s choosing clean energy and electrifying his lifestyle — including, of course, his love for grilling. In 2019, Begansky signed on to an energy plan with 100 percent wind and solar through his utility, Jersey Central Power & Light. Since then, he’s switched to an electric vehicle, gotten a home energy audit and replaced his old propane Char-Broil grill last year with an electric Weber Q 2400. It plugs into a standard 120-volt outlet and “looks just like a regular grill,” he said.
Begansky said he uses his electric grill once or twice a week when the weather’s warm. It’s perfect for his family of four, spacious with enough room to cook 12 burger patties at a time, and can heat up to 550˚F, albeit in about 20 minutes. Begansky is thrilled he doesn’t have to lug around a 37-pound propane tank anymore and can ditch the worries that come from using gas: that he might accidentally burn something down or run out of fuel when the chicken’s half done.
The electric grill he bought was more expensive upfront — it’s currently listed for $399, whereas the comparable Weber Q 2200 propane gas grill costs $329. But the operating costs are lower. Begansky doesn’t have to spend $50-plus on propane for a summer of grilling, and, at the same time, said he hasn’t seen any increase in his electric bill. That fits what Weber, the best-selling U.S. grill maker, has found: that it only costs about 10 to 14 cents to run one of its electric grills for a 45-minute cooking session.
Though outdoor electric grills might sound obscure, manufacturers abound, including Char-Broil, Kenyon and George Foreman — maker of the 1990s’ wildly popular “lean, mean fat-reducing grilling machine.” For its part, Weber has been making electric grills since 1972 and today has three lines, including one launched just this February called the Lumin. And while electric grills may be less popular than gas grills, there are still — of course — many listicles weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the models available.
Despite electric grills’ small market share, sales are ticking upward. The market grew 21 percent from September 2021 to 2022, according to U.S. retail sales information from analytics firm Circana.
Still, despite growing interest and its new electric grill design, Weber plans to continue to sell gas and charcoal models, according to Director of Product Brian Atinaja. The company declined to share specific sales targets for its electric grills, but Atinaja said he thinks they will get a lot more popular in the U.S. — if they can overcome two big hurdles, that is.
First, few people know they exist. Second, those who do know about electric grilling think only of the small, indoor options that don’t deliver the “flavor experience that people associate with gas grills.”
But he (and enthusiasts like Begansky) claims electric can deliver that characteristic grilled goodness. What makes grilled food so delicious? With gas grills, Atinaja explained, it’s the food’s juices and grease falling into the flame, sizzling and vaporizing. Inside a closed grill, this smoky cloud bathes the food in flavor.
Electric grills can be tuned to create this flavor sauna too, according to Atinaja. Weber’s engineers, he said, have tweaked the electric grills’ designs in pursuit of this effect, including figuring out the grate spacings to let the right amount of juice drip onto the heating element and how fast to ventilate away the vaporized drippings so they don’t make the food too greasy.
And beyond matching on taste, electric grills tend to take up less space, Atinaja said, making them a better fit for people who live in dense cities or lack a backyard. And for families who live in apartment buildings or condos that don’t allow cooking on an open flame, electric might be the only way to grill. These reasons, along with more expensive fossil fuel costs, have in fact already made electric grills much more popular in Europe than in the U.S., according to Atinaja.
Still, electric grills can’t get as big as gas ones can, he noted. Electric versions are currently limited by an electrical outlet’s power. While a Weber Genesis gas grill can operate with an input of about 44,000 Btus per hour, a Weber electric grill drawing on a 120-volt socket can only pull an equivalent of 6,000 Btus per hour, according to Atinaja.
“Unless you use that power very efficiently, it’s not going to cook your food as you would expect it to. So that’s why we’ve focused on being super-efficient about the energy,” he said. Weber uses double-wall insulation on the top and the bottom of its newest electric grill to trap in the heat, he said.
But Weber is toying with additional solutions, including adding batteries. That’s a route some companies are already pursuing for induction stoves.
For Begansky, though, the difference in power isn’t an issue. As he sees it, the electric grill’s ease of operation and clear climate advantage outweigh its limitations. Plus, he underscored that electric grills deliver on arguably what matters most — flavor: “The food tastes just as good.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Your next barbecue could feature an electric grill on Jul 15, 2023.
Solar and wind projects are on course to make up more than a third of global energy capacity by 2030, according to a report by U.S.-based clean energy nonprofit the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). The report said the growth demonstrates that the energy sector will be able to take the necessary steps to meet worldwide climate targets, reported Reuters.
Solar and wind currently generate around 12 percent of electricity worldwide, but that is expected to grow to a minimum of 33 percent, offering less expensive energy and pushing out fossil fuel-generated power, the report said.
“Exponential growth of clean energy is an unstoppable force that will put more spending power in the pockets of consumers,” said Kingsmill Bond, senior principal at RMI, in a Climate Action press release.
The research by RMI was conducted in cooperation with the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund, started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
According to research from Systems Change Lab, eight countries have built solar and wind generation capacity faster than what is necessary to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the press release said.
The RMI report pointed out that solar and wind are predicted to generate 12,000 to 14,000 terawatt hours of power by 2030, which is three to four times the capacity of 2022 levels. Europe and China are the current leaders in the adoption of clean energy technology.
At the same time, by 2030 fossil fuel electricity demand will drop rapidly to as low as 30 percent below its peak in 2022, the report said.
“Despite a 5% reduction in the cost of fossil fuel-fired projects over the last six months, onshore wind and PV remain the cheapest new-build technologies to produce electricity in countries covering 82% of global electricity generation,” a press release from Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.
The RMI report went on to say that, as economies of scale build and more solar projects get underway, solar energy — which is currently the least expensive electricity production option — will become even cheaper, falling from its current cost of $40 per megawatt hour (MWh) to as low as $20 per MWh, Reuters reported.
“The benefit of rapid renewable deployment is greater energy security and independence, plus long-term energy price deflation because this is a manufactured technology — the more you install the cheaper it gets,” Bond said, as reported by Reuters.
The post ‘An Unstoppable Force’: Wind and Solar to Produce More Than a Third of Global Power by 2030, Report Says appeared first on EcoWatch.
Darning socks and mending trousers may seem like things of the past, but throwing clothing away every time it has a rip or a hole creates a lot of waste. What if, instead of buying something new, you could get credit for having items you already own repaired?
In France, now you can. The country’s new clothing repair program is intended to reduce waste, with the government offering a “repair bonus” for people to have their clothes mended.
Each year in France, around 772,000 tons of clothes are discarded, with two-thirds of them — many items likely perfectly wearable — adding to the heaps of usable “trash” in landfills, reported The Guardian.
Starting in October, those joining the program will be able to receive a credit of $6.73 to $28.05 for bringing their shoes and clothes to a cobbler or workshop to be mended.
“It could encourage exactly the people who have bought, for example, shoes from a brand that makes good-quality shoes or likewise good-quality ready-to-wear to want to have them fixed instead of getting rid of them,” State Secretary for Ecology Bérangère Couillard said at a news conference, as CNN reported. “And that is exactly the objective, to create a circular economy for shoes and textiles so that products last longer, because in government we believe in the second life of a product.”
The government will fund the program with contributions of about $173 million over a period of five years.
Couillard encouraged “all sewing workshops and shoemakers to join the system,” reported BBC News.
In a tweet, Couillard said the government was tackling fast fashion by encouraging people to purchase more ethical products and get them repaired rather than replacing them with new items.
“The goal is to support those who carry out repairs,” with “the hope of recreating jobs,” Couillard said, as The Guardian reported.
Eco-organization Refashion will run the program, saying their goal is to not only encourage consumers to reuse and repair items, but to lower how many they purchase and donate articles they don’t want to keep.
Beginning last year, the French government began to try and improve the textile industry, which creates an enormous amount of pollution through fast fashion.
According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the fashion industry is the second biggest user of water on the planet and produces 10 percent of worldwide carbon emissions. The industry is also associated with labor, poverty and gender concerns, with women making up 80 percent of the supply chain’s workforce.
“What I hope is that the French will become aware of what we can see, that is the impact of the textile industry across the world today,” said Couillard, as reported by CNN. “So they can themselves realize the aberration of the way in which we now consume.”
The post French Clothing Repair Program Pays People to Reduce Waste appeared first on EcoWatch.
This story is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live.
More than 113 million people in the United States are suffering under extreme heat as another massive “heat dome” expands from Texas westward toward California. Meteorologists expect the Southwest’s heat wave to intensify over the weekend, delivering some of the year’s highest temperatures and pushing California’s Death Valley near its all-time-record temperature of over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The midday heat in cities like Phoenix, Arizona, has become so intense that ordinary surfaces such as streets and metal railings are too dangerous to touch without risking burns.
But apart from these eye-popping highs, experts said the real danger of the Southwest’s heat wave will be its sheer duration. The mass of stagnant air responsible for the event has already lingered over Texas and Louisiana for weeks. It’s feeding on itself to generate more heat as it moves west, depleting ground moisture and discouraging cloud formation, which ensures that it won’t disappear for at least another week. During that time, more than a third of the country’s population will be under a heat warning issued by the National Weather Service.
Daytime highs in Phoenix have already topped 110 degrees F every day in the month of July, and the city is expected to stay that hot for at least another week, shattering the previous record of 18 consecutive days above that threshold. Furthermore, large metro areas like Phoenix will remain hot even in the middle of the night as heat soaks into concrete and asphalt. The daily low temperatures in the nation’s fifth-largest city aren’t expected to fall below 90 degrees F for another week or more.
That long stretch of heat will have disastrous impacts for human health, said Juan Declet-Barreto, a social scientist at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists who studies climate vulnerability.
“The magnitude of these events in terms of the temperatures that are being forecast and the length of time is very, very, very worrisome,” he told Grist. “It’s an absolute crisis.”
The worst-affected populations are outdoor workers and people who get around on foot or using public transportation, since they can’t shelter from the heat in air-conditioned environments. If a heat wave only persists for one day, some people can cope by staying inside and blasting air conditioning, but weeks of unrelenting heat make it difficult to avoid the exposure that can cause life-threatening heat stroke.
And that’s not the only worry. A long stretch of triple-digit days can make it harder for the heart to pump blood and the lungs to circulate air, leading to flare-ups of cardiovascular disease and lung disease. Even for people who spend most of their time indoors with the air conditioning on, prolonged heat can lead to dehydration, irritability, confusion, and dizziness. For vulnerable populations like elderly people and those with obesity, health effects can recur for years.
“The body loses the capacity to self-regulate,” Declet-Barreto said of temperatures above 105 degrees F. “This is even truer for populations of advanced age, people with physical or mental disabilities who may not be able to communicate their level of discomfort, and people with less resources [who] are going to be hard pressed to run the AC.”
Big cities are even more vulnerable to long heat waves than rural areas because of what’s called the “urban heat island” effect. During a hot day, the pavements and buildings in a city like Phoenix absorb all the heat of the sun as it pours down on city streets. At night, after the sun sets, they release all that trapped heat into the surrounding air, which keeps local temperatures elevated even when there’s no humidity. Furthermore, people who can’t afford to run their air conditioning all day may shut it off at night, leaving them exposed for hours.
“In the southwestern cities like Phoenix that are naturally hot and also have a very brutal urban heat island effect, you’re not going to see any respite,” said Declet-Barreto. “The body doesn’t really get a chance to rest.”
A study published last year in the medical journal The Lancet found that a rise in nighttime temperatures is associated with a rise in heat-related mortality. Most of the deaths are among elderly people, who can face serious health risks even at 90-degree temperatures. Scientists now believe that human-caused climate change has an undeniable effect on almost all contemporary heat waves, making them both more severe and more frequent. As soils dry out and ambient air gets hotter every year, heat waves like the one blistering the Southwest this week are becoming tens or even hundreds of times more likely.
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘An absolute crisis’: Millions in US Southwest stare down weeks of brutal heat on Jul 14, 2023.
Soccer (football) players competing in the Women’s World Cup have organized to take climate action over flying to and from the tournament locations in Australia and New Zealand. The campaign is the biggest of its kind in the history of the sport.
The climate action is led by Sofie Junge Pedersen, a player for Denmark, and includes 44 players and counting who plan to offset their flight emissions as well as donate to other climate initiatives. The participants hope to have at least 50 campaigners by the start of the World Cup on July 20.
“For about five years I have paid for carbon offsetting or compensated for flying, because unfortunately it is difficult to avoid in my job,” Pedersen wrote in The Guardian. “I have always felt bad because I know how much pollution a flight causes. I have felt it was something I wanted to do and something that is good for the planet, although we realise it is not the solution.”
Pedersen performed a climate change presentation to teammates in Denmark and Juventus Football Club last year, which led to the idea of offsetting flights to the World Cup. The teams were supportive, so they took the idea to Common Goal, a collective football movement for equality and sustainability, and the nonprofit Football for Future.
From there, players Jessie Fleming, a midfielder for Canada, and Elena Linari, a defender for Italy, inspired other soccer players to take on the initiative and create a global campaign.
“This is a topic I feel passionate about, and I hope this action my teammates and I are taking accelerates the climate conversation and sets a precedent for what athletes can do to push for more environmental policies in football,” Fleming told The Guardian.
The players are starting their campaign by donating to climate resiliency, carbon offsetting and climate adaptation actions as a short-term solution. Participants use scientific methodology to calculate the carbon emission tonnage of their World Cup-related flights, then donate money to initiatives by WWF Australia, WWF New Zealand and DanChurchAid.
In her letter on The Guardian, Pedersen noted that the campaigners realized they weren’t saving the world, and that flights need to be made more sustainable as a long-term solution. But the campaign participants hoped to become an example to fans of how to take even just one action for a more sustainable future.
The participants of the campaign also hope to influence officials to consider carbon emissions when bidding for tournament locations.
“There’s currently no sustainable solution for the environmental cost of air travel,” Elliot Arthur-Worsop, founder of Football For Future, said in a statement. “Governing bodies need to acknowledge the impact that their tournaments have on the natural world and introduce carbon considerations as key criteria in the bidding process for hosting future tournaments.”
The 2022 Men’s World Cup claimed to be a carbon-neutral event, but an analysis found that the advertising amounted to greenwashing, primarily because the organizers didn’t include stadium construction in evaluating emissions and impact. Stadiums in previous World Cup events were built over vulnerable wildlife habitats. Then, there are all of the flights that organizers, players, and fans take to get to the events.
“The 2026 Men’s World Cup is predicted to be the most carbon intensive event in the history of the beautiful game, with travel representing 85% of total emissions,” Arthur-Worsop said. “This trajectory is not compatible with a healthy planet for future generations, let alone the future of football. Things need to change, and the 2030 World Cup host selection is a perfect moment for FIFA to make a meaningful statement.”
The post Women’s World Cup Players Launch Biggest Climate Campaign in Soccer History appeared first on EcoWatch.
Electric vehicle sales in the United States set a record this past quarter and are on track to break the 1 million mark in 2023, which would be an unprecedented figure and a milestone for the industry. This surge comes even as many vehicle models have lost their eligibility for federal, and some state, incentives.
Analysts at both Wards Intelligence and Cox Automotive reported that consumers bought nearly 300,000 EVs between the beginning of April and the end of June. That represents a year-over-year jump of roughly 50 percent, and included growth in May and June, the first two months after federal tax credit rules became more stringent. Plug-in hybrid sales climbed as well.
“There are some vehicles that are intriguing enough to buyers that you don’t need a rebate,” Christie Schweinsberg, a sustainability analyst at Wards, said, noting the ever-increasing range of EVs and options for consumers to choose from. “People will still want to buy.”
But there are signs that the torrential pace of sales growth may not be sustainable. According to Cox, at the end of June dealers had, on average, about a 53 day supply of internal combustion vehicles in stock. The inventory runway for EVs, on the other hand, was more than double that. Overall, there were more than 92,000 electric vehicles available in the second quarter, compared to about 20,000 a year prior.
“The demand is not keeping up with production, which is the opposite story of a year ago,” Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Cox Automotive, said about electric vehicles. “We call it the ‘Field of Dreams’ moment. Automakers are building more but not enough consumers have come to the field.”
Krebs attributes the glut to both a post-pandemic boost in production and traditional consumer hesitations about buying electric vehicles. Price, she said, is the primary barrier among buyers that Cox surveys, because EVs remain generally more expensive than a similar gas-powered model. Concerns about charging infrastructure is another reason that would-be-owners stay on the sidelines.
The landscape for incentives on electric vehicles has become more confusing as well, said Krebs. At this time last year, dozens of models qualified for a federal tax credit of up to $7,500, with many cities and states offering additional incentives. Since then, some places, such as Oregon and New Jersey, have run out of money for their rebate programs. The Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed last year established manufacturing standards aimed at encouraging automakers to invest in U.S. production facilities and battery supply chains. That legislation has, at least in the short-term, significantly trimmed the list of models eligible for a tax credit.
“We certainly see an impact because of it,” said Michael Stewart, a spokesperson for Hyundai, which saw its vehicles, which don’t currently meet the new requirements, drop off the federal list. While sales of all of Hyundai’s EV models grew despite losing the credit, he believes that progress toward the company’s, and country’s, ambitious EV sales targets could have been even greater with them.
Still, the Hyundai Kona and BMW i4, which also does not qualify for federal tax credits, saw sales nearly triple. Market leader Tesla benefited from having recently regained access to tax credits and saw a 76 percent jump in sales of its popular Model Y.
Companies have combated the gaining EV headwinds in part by lowering prices – the average cost of an electric vehicle has dropped almost 20 percent, to $53,438, in the last year alone. Manufacturers have also utilized a loophole in the Inflation Reduction Act that allows them to claim a credit on vehicles they lease rather than sell. Hyundai has been particularly aggressive about promoting leases, which Stewart says have gone from accounting for around 5 percent of the cars the company moves off the lot to about 30 percent.
In the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act, Hyundai and other companies have announced plans to produce more electric vehicles in the United States and source more battery components domestically. This would make more models eligible for federal tax credits in the future. But, for now, both Schweinsberg and Krebs say the growing inventory indicates that the growth of electric vehicle sales could start to drop.
One factor, said Schweinsberg, is that cars often see a decline in sales within a year or two of a new model being introduced – a threshold that some EVs are reaching. “Typically it does well when the new generation comes out,” she said, adding that it’s probably too early to tell exactly what the trajectory for electric vehicles might look like.
Krebs predicts that EV sales will continue to grow, though “maybe not at the pace that a lot of people had hoped for.” To her, that’s not necessarily surprising given the dramatic shift the industry is attempting to make.
“It’s the biggest change in the industry since Henry Ford’s moving assembly line,” she said. “There are going to be bumps in the road.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline EV sales hit record. So why do some experts predict a slowdown? on Jul 14, 2023.
A new global plastics treaty due to take effect in 2025, will reset the world’s…
The post Earth911 Podcast: The Global Water Partnership’s Dimitris Faloutsos Sets the Stage for a Global Plastics Treaty appeared first on Earth911.