The administration of the US President Joe Biden has announced that a $3.1 billion plan will be formulated to give a fillip to the manufacturing of domestic electric vehicles batteries to expedite the transition of the USA from gas powered vehicles to electric vehicles.
The per capita greenhouse gases’ emission in the USA is the highest in the world. The transportation sector of America alone emits about one-third of its emissions annually. Hence, the Biden Administration believes that electrification of its transportation sector is crucial for mitigating climate change.
The funding will support grants aimed at building, retooling or expanding manufacturing of batteries and battery components, as well as establishing battery recycling facilities, according to the Department of Energy. The grants will be funded through President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, which includes more than $7 billion to bolster the country’s battery supply chain.
The move comes after the president in April invoked the Defense Production Act to encourage domestic production of minerals required to make batteries for EVs and long-term energy storage. That order could help companies receive federal funding for feasibility studies on projects that extract materials for EV production, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese.
“These made-in-America batteries are going to help reduce emissions and create opportunities across the country,” White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy said during a call with reporters on Monday.
President Joe Biden wants half of all new vehicle sales in the country to be electric by the end of the decade, and has also issued guidelines for all new cars and trucks bought by the federal government to be emissions-free by 2035, reported The New York Times.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said the funding from the infrastructure bill was “just the tip of the iceberg,” the Detroit Free Press reported.
Minerals like lithium and cobalt that are necessary to make EV batteries and for energy storage are mostly processed in Asia, with China in charge of the lion’s share, reported The New York Times.
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, President 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.
Achieving widespread electrification, however, will require major federal investment. A June report from the Energy Department said there was “a real threat that U.S. companies will not be able to benefit from domestic and global market growth” for batteries, and that “the U.S. risks long-term dependence on foreign sources of batteries and critical materials.”
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