$3B plan aimed at electric car battery production
The Biden administration announced a $3.1 billion effort Monday to spur the domestic production of advanced batteries, which are essential to its plan to speed the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy.
President Joe Biden has prodded automakers to churn out electric vehicles and utilities to switch to solar, wind and other clean energy, saying the transitions are critical to eliminating the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.
In the wake of surging energy prices caused largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, administration officials have also described the transition to clean energy as a way to insulate consumers from the fluctuation of global oil markets and achieve true energy independence.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the funding plan Monday during a visit to Detroit. The $3.1 billion in grants, along with a separate $60 million program for battery recycling, is an effort to “reduce our reliance on competing nations like China that have an advantage over the global supply chain,” according to a Department of Energy statement.
The funding is aimed at companies that can create new, retrofitted or expanded processing facilities as well as battery recycling programs, officials with the Department of Energy said. The grants will be funded through the $1 trillion infrastructure law, which includes more than $7 billion to improve the domestic battery supply chain.
In April, Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to give the government more avenues to provide support for the mining, processing and recycling of critical materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese. The move comes in an election year when Republican leaders in Congress are blaming high gas prices on the Biden administration’s pursuit of renewable power — a claim that most economists say is not true.
A June report from the Energy Department said “the U.S. risks long-term dependence on foreign sources of batteries and critical materials.”