ICYMI: New York Times: 'The Biden Clean Energy Boom'

Since Day One, President Biden has led and delivered on the most ambitious climate agenda in history, including securing the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest-ever investment in climate action. The President's Investing in America agenda has unleashed a manufacturing and clean energy boom, attracting hundreds of billions in business investments in industries of the future, and creating over 270,000 new clean energy jobs. At the same time, the President's agenda is lowering utility bills for American families, delivering clean electricity to more homes and businesses, and powering the U.S. manufacturing boom.

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NYT: The Biden Clean Energy Boom
The president's signature 2022 climate law has sparked a rapid clean energy boom but its political impact is a lot less clear.
[David Gelles, 05/23/24]

It's been nearly two years since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law.

With a mix of tax incentives, federal subsidies and policy tweaks, the I.R.A. was designed to turbocharge America's clean energy economy and put the country on the trajectory to a lower emissions future.

The Biden administration initially expected the law to provide some $370 billion in spending and tax credits for clean energy projects, but other groups expect the figure to be far higher as more companies and households take advantage of the law's tax credits. The Brookings Institution estimated the I.R.A. could be worth $780 billion through 2031, while Goldman Sachs set a potential total cost of $1.2 trillion.

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The boom in clean energy projects is astounding. Since the passage of the I.R.A. in 2022, incentives provided by the law helped drive roughly $332 billion in new investments in clean energy and transportation technologies. Almost all of that was private investments, as opposed to government spending, spurred on by an estimated $48 billion in federal tax credits.

(These figures come from the Clean Investment Monitor, a joint project of Rhodium Group and the M.I.T. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.)

There are new Tesla battery plants in South Texas, solar panel factories in Oklahoma, wind energy facilities in New Mexico, and hundreds of other new projects in the works around the country.

In total, investments in clean energy and transportation accounted for a whopping 44 percent of all investment growth in fixed assets like plants, property and equipment in the entire U.S. economy last year, said Trevor Houser of the Rhodium Group.

Batteries and electric vehicles are the big winners. The I.R.A. included incentives specifically designed to spur the creation of a domestic supply chain for batteries and electric vehicles.

Since the law's passage, $114 billion in new projects in those industries have been announced, according to Jay Turner, a professor at Wellesley College who is tracking the data with his students.

That was a calculated move, part of the broader effort by the Biden administration to catch up with China, which is dominating the market for solar panels and electric vehicles.

"Batteries are the biggest winner here," he said. "We have seen an enormous influx of battery projects over the last two years, especially to the Southeast, which is now being referred to as the 'Battery Belt.'"

While the initial flurry of projects announced was primarily in manufacturing, Turner said a new wave of projects taking advantage of the I.R.A. was moving further up the supply chain, with companies investing in facilities to process lithium, which is a crucial component for batteries, and polysilicon, a key ingredient for solar panels.

"There's an effort to onshore the supply of raw materials," he said, "not just the manufacturing."

The climate impacts are poised to be significant. Two of the most straightforward ways to reduce emissions are by electrifying the grid and replacing gas guzzling cars with electric vehicles. The coming boom in battery production will go a long way toward accomplishing those goals.

"The level of battery manufacturing is enough to make a meaningful dent in emissions," Turner said, "for both the transportation sector and to help continue decarbonizing the electricity sector."

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the I.R.A. will reduce carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by 35 to 43 percent by 2030.

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