Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) speaks to members of the media Wednesday at the BMW Spartanburg Plant in Greer, South Carolina. BMW will invest $1 billion in its sprawling factory near Spartanburg to begin electric vehicle production and another $700 million to build an electric battery plant nearby. | ` Photo/Sean Rayford
Significant changes are afoot in the country’s economy — if clean energy efforts can overcome their mounting pains.
President Joe Biden today marked an interim step by announcing $2.8 billion in grants from the bipartisan infrastructure bill to boost the U.S. electric vehicle and clean energy industries from mining to battery manufacturing. The funding is part of more than $135 billion from a trio of recently enacted climate and energy legislation designed to catalyze investment in domestic clean energy production and reorganize traditional supply chains.
The initiative faces serious obstacles, including Chinese dominance of the clean energy supply chain and the fact that the technology relies on essential minerals that are only available in a few parts of the world.
But private developers are already pumping billions of dollars into the industry. And manufacturers and politicians — including Republicans in Congress who voted en masse against the climate bill — are lining up to board on the first floor.
“South Carolina will become the Detroit of batteries,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) during a BMW event promoting the German company’s $1.7 billion plan to build electric vehicles in the United States states was announced.
Biden has pledged to make half of all new car sales electric by the end of the decade. Today’s grant announcement was part of the administration’s plan to address supply chain issues. The President also launched a government-wide effort to ensure sustainable supplies of critical minerals needed for electric vehicles and wind and solar power generation.
Planned private investments in massive facilities to manufacture lithium-ion batteries needed to meet the increasing demand for electric vehicles currently total more than $40 billion, Andres Picon, E&E News reporter at POLITICO, today in a story.
According to a recent report by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the production capacity of domestic battery factories could increase by about 333 percent by 2025 compared to 2020 levels.
But the rush to produce clean energy and electric cars also raises concerns about the mining needed to dig up the minerals needed to power it. Many Republicans and Democrats agree that the country needs many more mines to power the energy transition, writes Jael Holzman, reporter for E&E News at POLITICO. Exactly how much new mining is needed remains an open question.
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Today on the POLITICO Energy podcast, Catherine Morehouse discusses why regulators have slammed the brakes on a $197 million proposal to build hundreds of EV charging stations across Minnesota.
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Percentage of states’ total historic losses from weather and climate-related disasters over the past five years. | NOAA
Weather and climate-related disasters such as hurricanes, storms, drought, floods and wildfires have resulted in $2.2 trillion in losses since 1980, with a third of all losses occurring in the last five years, according to a report released today.
The analysis, conducted by PSE Healthy Energy for the E2 group of companies, concluded that every state in the country is affected and remains at risk from rapidly escalating climate catastrophes.
Wreckage after Hurricane Ian in Florida. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
Climate maps on the table
The Biden administration has made an unprecedented effort to analyze how climate change is affecting the cost and availability of property insurance, writes Thomas Frank.
The move comes as homeowners in several states face rising premiums and dwindling insurance options.
Hanging on the scales
The fate of Wisconsin’s clean energy future could be decided by one of the closest gubernatorial races in the nation, with candidates separated by less than half a percentage point, writes Jeffrey Tomich.
The outcome of the election will determine control of the state’s Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities. In some states, the political control of the pension commissions does not play a role. Not so in bipartisan Wisconsin, where key issues were decided along party lines.
Escape from contract
The Netherlands is the latest country to announce its withdrawal from an international energy deal over complaints that the deal protects fossil fuel interests, writes Karl Mathiesen.
Spain announced its withdrawal last week. Poland is in the process of leaving and Italy has left the Energy Charter Treaty.
An Exxon gas station sign in Nashville, Tennessee | Mark Humphrey/` photo
In court: New Jersey has joined the growing list of states and localities suing the world’s largest oil companies and their trade associations for concealing the climate impact of burning fossil fuels.
Natural gas conflict: Indigenous leaders in Texas are struggling to keep natural gas exports off sacred land as war in Ukraine spurs demand for the fuel.
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A Tesla Powerwall attached to a house. | Tesla
Texas’ main grid operator approved a pilot program that will allow private solar and storage systems in the state to participate in the electricity market.
The Democrats’ messaging war over high gas prices is overshadowing the recently passed climate bill, one of their most hard-fought legislative accomplishments.
Scientists from Australia to Denmark are urging Biden to protect an endangered whale from offshore wind development and oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
That’s it for today folks! Thank you for reading.
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