Taxpayer funds are being used for big renewable projects:
Dept. of Energy is offering $15.5 billion for retooling auto factories to make EVs.
From Canary Media: “Detroit automakers and their joint-venture partners are building clusters of new factories — from Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, down through Kentucky, and across Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas—to assemble EVs, process lithium, build batteries and recycle EV materials. Generous tax incentives provided under the Inflation Reduction Act are fueling much of this growth, particularly within the Southeast. So, too, are the “right-to-work” policies embraced by states in that region, which have been used to weaken union power and give automakers more leverage over their workers.”
Occidental Petroleum wins grant for direct carbon capture (a still experimental technology).
From OilPrice.com: “One of the biggest U.S. oil producers, Occidental, has just won one of two grants by the Biden Administration to build the world’s first direct air capture plant in Texas.”
A battery manufacturer will get $400 million for batteries that have yet to prove themselves.
From Canary Media: “Eos Energy Storage hopes this low-interest loan from DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) will help it cross a chasm to commercial success that has eluded many other long-duration energy storage startups over the past decade. The Edison, New Jersey–based company plans to use the backing to invest $500 million at its Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-area factory to produce as much as 8 gigawatt-hours of its batteries per year by 2026.”
From the Wall Street Journal: Heirloom was selected a few weeks ago as a potential recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. government as part of a 2021 infrastructure law program to kick-start the industry. Some of Microsoft’s purchase agreement is tied to Heirloom’s work in a government-funded hub in Louisiana, illustrating how the federal funding is accelerating the sector’s development. It is the first new credit-purchase tied to the government projects.” (Behind a paywall.)
Image of $100 bills by 401(K) 2013 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.