By James Morton Turner, Wellesley College; Joshua Busby, The University of Texas at Austin, and Nathan Jensen, The University of Texas at Austin
The United States is in the midst of the biggest boom in clean energy manufacturing investments in history, spurred by laws like the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
These laws have leveraged billions of dollars in government support to drive private sector investments in clean energy supply chains across the country.
For several years, one of us, Jay Turner, and his students at Wellesley College have been tracking clean energy investments in the U.S. and sharing the data at The Big Green Machine website. That research shows that companies have announced 225 projects, totaling US$127 billion in investment, and more than 131,000 new jobs since the Inflation Reduction Act became law in 2022.
You may have seen news stories that said these projects are at risk of failure or significant delays. In August 2024, the Financial Times reported that 40% of more than 100 projects it evaluated were delayed. These included battery manufacturing, renewable energy projects and metals and hydrogen projects, as well as semiconductor manufacturing plants. More recently, The Information, which covers the technology industry, warned that 1 in 4 companies were walking away from government-supported grants for battery investments.
We checked up on all 23 battery cell factories announced or expanded since the Inflation Reduction Act was signed – almost all of them gigafactories, which are designed to produce over 1 gigawatt-hour of battery cell capacity. These factories have some of the largest employment potential of any project supported by the act.
We wanted to find out if the boom in U.S.-based clean energy manufacturing is about to go bust. What we have learned is mostly reassuring.
Read the full article here.
