Monday, April 18, 2022

Kentucky’s burgeoning electric vehicle industry is no laughing matter, rural reporter tells social-media skeptics

Kentucky is about to gain thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs making electric-vehicle components, but some conservative Kentuckians are treating the notion of EVs with contempt on social media, reports C. Josh Givens, a reporter for The Hancock Clarion in Hawesville, Ky.. He writes that was confused, since two recently announced battery-manufacturing projects represent the two largest economic-development projects in state history. Last week Envision AESC, a Japanese firm, announced a $2 billion investment to build a power-cell and module facility in Bowling Green. In 2021, Ford Motor Co. announced it would build two battery facilities near Elizabethtown.

"One would think such huge projects would be celebrated all across the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and certainly they are celebrated in some circles, but don’t tell that to the cheerleaders of fossil fuels for vehicles and energy production," Givens writes. "Kentuckians have a choice here: either embrace this burgeoning economic shift in our state or get left on the outside looking in. The plants will be built, workers will be hired, and the economic landscape will be altered. Kentuckians must accept that all things change, and many times those changes are for the better and transform our lives in exciting ways. And no amount of laughter, vitriol or putting your head in the sand is going to stop that."

No comments: