Locator: 48701RENEWABLEENERGY.
In response to the original post: link to this story.
A Japanese company has halted construction on a $1.6 billion factory in South Carolina to help make batteries for electric BMWs, citing “policy and market uncertainty.”
While Automotive Energy Supply Corp. didn't specify what those problems are, South Carolina's Republican governor said the company is dealing with the potential loss of federal tax breaks for electric vehicle buyers and incentives for EV businesses as well as tariff uncertainties from President Donald Trump's administration.
The South Carolina plant is supposed to sell battery cells to BMW, which is building its own battery assembly site near its giant auto plant in Greer. BMW said the construction pause by AESC doesn’t change its plans to open its plant in 2026.
AESC has already rolled back its South Carolina plans. They announced a second factory on the Florence site, but then said earlier this year that their first plant should be able to handle BMW's demand. That prompted South Carolina officials to withdraw $111 million in help they planned to provide.
I think there's more to the story. None of which has to do with Trump but Trump will get all the blame.
For more on the BMW story, see this link.
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A Musical Interlude
Original Post
So, two energy truisms:
- the AI story is an energy story;
- the renewable energy story is driven by ideology.
China took advantage of #2 and played America for thirty years.
From Barron's today: link here.
The “Big, Beautiful” Republican tax and spending bill is giving clean-energy companies fits. It ends tax credits early for things such as solar panels and battery factories, takes away support for electric vehicles, and will make wind turbines even harder to install.
But one section of the bill appears to be causing the most headaches of all—a new set of provisions that takes away tax credits if a project relies on China for any part of its clean-energy-supply chain. That could include components as small as wires or specialized screws, according to people in the industry and tax lawyers. The anti-China rules are “unworkable,” said Jim Murphy, CEO of leading renewable developer Invenergy, at a conference held by the American Council on Renewable Energy in New York this week. “They really close the door on any ability to do any broad deployment.” Invenergy is privately held, but other major renewable developers like NextEra Energy and AES are publicly traded.
China dominates the supply chain for almost all clean-energy products, from base molecules, such as rare earth minerals and polysilicon, to the finished products. That’s been a concern for lawmakers of both parties, with Republicans raising particularly loud alarms. Just this week, Republican Senators Rick Scott and Marsha Blackburn demanded an investigation into an anonymously sourced report that some Chinese solar components had been found to contain communications devices.
Those kinds of worries are why Republicans in the House of Representatives included language in the tax bill to deny credits for any equipment with connections to a “Foreign Entity of Concern,” which includes China. Those rules are now being debated in the Senate, and could change in the weeks ahead. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said that the provisions on China are “void of any understanding of just how these supply chains work,” though it’s not clear if he’ll force any changes.
On its face, the ban on Chinese material would seem to help U.S. clean-energy deployers and manufacturers. The U.S. has been trying to catch up to China in clean energy. The Inflation Reduction Act set aside $370 billion to support that effort. Renewable projects like solar farms can qualify for credits worth 30% or more of the value of the installation, and there are valuable subsidies for products made in domestic factories.
It’s starting to work. Today, U.S. factories make enough solar panels to fulfill much of the country’s demand for them. But there’s a very big hitch. The subcomponents of those panels are still made almost exclusively in China, which has spent more than a decade building up its supply chain. The same thing goes for the cells in batteries that go into electric vehicles and power-storage devices. On its latest earnings call, Tesla said it still relies on Chinese battery cells, though it’s trying to shift some manufacturing to the U.S. “We are in the process of commissioning equipment for the local manufacturing of LFP [lithium iron phosphate] battery cells in the U.S.,” Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said.
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Amphibious Landings
Today: there were very few stories in mainstream media today regarding D-Day, June 6, 1944.
When I was looking something up regarding D-Day, AI replied that the landings on the beaches of Normandy, France, was one of the largest amphibious assaults in history.
I was surprised ot see "one of the biggest." So I asked AI what was the largest amphibious assault in history. This time, AI, the same "source of AI," got it right, saying that the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, was the largest amphibious assault in history.
Quick! What was the second largest amphibious assault in history? The Battle of Okinawa.
What was the third? The Gallipoli Campaign.
Number four? The Invasion of the Philippines.
What was Operation Chromite? Number 5. The Inchon Landing, Korea.
