The tide is changing

Driving back through Georgia from an August vacation in South Carolina, I was distracted by a mega-facility construction site off the freeway. Googling it, my guess was right: It was one of the electric vehicle (EV) battery storage projects that Georgia has been justly boasting about. This is the $5.54 billion Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America, an EV manufacturing facility which is just one of 23 projects Georgia has landed in the past few years totaling $17 billion and adding more than 22,000 jobs, according to one source.

We all see the tide changing regarding transportation and clean energy as private companies and investors have announced at least $86 billion in new investments into 210 clean energy projects across 38 states; Arkansas is one, albeit on the low end.

While investment in EVs has gained steam in the last several years, I understand the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is having an impact not only from incentives that benefit individuals and industry, but providing industry with a green light that the federal government will support this form of industrial policy albeit light; i.e., avoiding direct regulation in order to promote industry and subsequent climate-change goals.

My hope is that U.S. EV investment and jobs will begin to counterbalance China’s domination of solar panels that their government has strongly supported and now dominate with 80 percent of the building blocks for solar panels, as well as the related supply chain, something the U.S. neglected in the past. It appears we are not neglecting the EV/battery future, and with that perhaps we can give a plug for one of the ways the IRA is supporting U.S. industry in a productive and least meddlesome way.

TOM UTLEY Little Rock