The Fight

Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Policy Watch

Mineral Mania

The week’s biggest news in renewable energy policy.

Mineral mining.
Getty Images / Chris Briggs / Heatmap

1. Global minerals mania – The U.S. government and allies this week announced the Minerals Security Partnership Finance Network, a global minerals investment operation focused on battery metals and other resources key to the energy transition.

  • Along with the announcement came the disclosure of specific U.S. financing decisions – $600 million to Australian Strategic Materials for a rare earths project in New South Wales; $20 million to Electra Ontario Cobalt, a Canadian company, for a cobalt refinery; $50 million to ESS Inc. for iron flow battery assembly lines at its Oregon plant; and $3.6 million to Pensana Rare Earths for researching the expansion of a rare earths mine in Angola.
  • This represents a new norm where U.S. dollars can go to mining overseas. I’ve covered mining my whole career and can safely say the U.S. has never organized this hard to counter China’s outsized influence in global minerals markets through direct investments.
  • What else does this mean? Companies that rely on raw materials abroad are probably thinking internally about whether their resources could qualify for federal money one day, too.

2. Mining at home – Meanwhile, the Energy Department on Friday announced $3 billion (!) for 25 battery minerals and manufacturing projects in the United States.

  • A noteworthy name on the recipient list: SWA Lithium, a joint venture between Norwegian state-owned oil major Equinor and the Koch-backed mining company Standard Lithium. The money will go towards extracting lithium chemicals from the Smackover formation in Arkansas.

3. Buckwheat bucked – Domestic lithium extraction got another major boost from the government late last week when the Bureau of Land Management published the final environmental review for the Rhyolite Ridge mine in Nevada, one of the few U.S. lithium mining projects close to completing its permitting.

  • Publication of the review without adverse recommendations means the project is all but assured to be approved.
  • It’s another blow to the Center for Biological Diversity, which has fought to block the mine because studies, including research funded by the mining company, show a clear danger to an endangered flower present at dig sites called Tiehm’s buckwheat.
  • I’d expect litigation here from CBD. I’d also treat this as a bellwether for how the Biden administration looks generally at mining vs. species protection.

4. Semiconductors souped – Congress passed legislation on Monday to provide for federal regulators to fund semiconductor projects under the CHIPS Act without environmental reviews, sending it to the president’s desk where it’ll likely be enacted into law.

  • Semiconductor industry representatives had bemoaned the risk of NEPA reviews impacting CHIPS money going out. Now they won’t have to worry.

5. Content standards – The Solar Energy Industries Association published a new draft standard for compliance with U.S. customs requirements against the use of inputs from the Xinjiang region of China, where the U.S. government suspects forced labor is involved with solar materials manufacturing.

  • The draft standard is intended as a series of recommendations for companies to most easily meet the existing customs requirements.
  • They’re open for comment through Nov. 4. You can comment here.

Here’s what else I’m watching…

  • Anti-offshore activists in Nantucket petitioned the Supreme Court to take up their failed appeal of a lawsuit claiming the Vineyard Wind project violated the Endangered Species Act, citing the court’s recent decision to undo the so-called “Chevron Doctrine.”
  • A Senate committee is poised to vote on bipartisan legislation this week that would create revenue sharing for states with offshore wind – which may not easily become law in an election year but could be on the horizon soon after.
  • Nearly half of all IRA funding has gone to seven swing states for the U.S. presidential election, according to analysis conducted by a public policy firm at the request of The Guardian.
  • Colorado is offering a fresh round of grant money to localities in the state that want to use automated rooftop solar permitting software.

This article is exclusively
for Heatmap Plus subscribers.

Go deeper inside the politics, projects, and personalities
shaping the energy transition.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Spotlight

It’s Getting Harder to Build a Solar Farm In America’s Sunniest State

A renewables fight in Arizona turns ugly.

Arizona solar farm.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Autumn Johnson told me some days it feels like she’s shouting into a void.

Johnson is the executive director for the Arizona branch of the Solar Energy Industries Association, the nation’s pre-eminent solar power trade group. Lately, she told me, she’s seeing an increasing number of communities go after potential solar farms, many of them places with little or no previous solar development. There’s so many she’s had to start “tracking them on a spreadsheet,” she tells me, then proceeding to rattle off the names of counties and towns like battles in a war. Heatmap Pro data reveals how restricted Arizona is today, with six out of the state’s 15 counties showing a restrictive ordinance on solar and/or wind energy.

Keep reading...Show less
Hotspots

Congressman Asks Trump to Shut Down the Empire Wind Project

And more of the week’s top renewable energy fights.

Map of renewable energy fights.
Heatmap Illustration

1. Long Island, New York We begin today with a crucial stand-off for the future of energy off the coast of New York City: Rep. Chris Smith – one of the loudest anti-wind voices in Congress – is asking the Trump administration to shut down active work on the Empire Wind project.

  • Few in Congress have frustrated offshore wind developers more than Smith, a New Jersey Republican who used legislative maneuvers to get a Government Accountability Office study greenlit about the impacts of offshore wind on whale species.
  • In a letter Friday, which has not been previously reported, Smith requested the project be forcibly paused until the Trump administration can complete its purported government-wide review of the wind industry.
  • Smith also asked a host of additional mitigation requirements be placed on Empire Wind before it can proceed, including new specific requirements on impacts to air travel. The letter claims – without specifics – that the project could impact radar interference “in the shadow of three major airports.”
  • “Empire Wind cannot safely proceed until much needed further review [can] be done to protect the public and our eastern seaboard. I ask that you do everything in your power to halt Equinor’s underhanded rush to begin piledriving and block construction until the critical assessment can be completed,” Smith wrote.
  • I’ve asked Equinor to comment on this letter, as a stop-work order would be a massive escalation in the war on offshore wind. Alyse Sharpe, a public affairs specialist with the Interior Department, told me in an email the agency does "not comment on congressional correspondence" but said it "takes all correspondence from Congress seriously and reviews each matter" and should there be "any updates on this topic, we will provide further information at the appropriate time."

2. Gulf of Maine – American floating offshore wind is now taking one more step backwards, as Mitsubishi pulls out of the test arrays it was working on under Biden with researchers at the University of Maine.

Keep reading...Show less
Q&A

How Should Regulators Grapple With Moss Landing?

A conversation with Dustin Mulvaney, professor of environmental studies at San Jose State University

Dustin Mulvaney
Heatmap Illustration

Today’s conversation is with Dustin Mulvaney, an environmental studies professor at San Jose State University. Mulvaney is a social scientist who spent much of his time before January 2025 advocating for more considerate and humane renewable energy development. Then Moss Landing happened. Mulvaney – who was there at Moss Landing the first day – is now obsessed with the myriad safety concerns laden in large-scale utility battery storage and what plans were in place to deal with the fire. His reasoning? A failure to grapple with safety concerns could undermine public trust in battery storage and make a transition away from fossil fuels more difficult.

The following is an abridged version of our conversation, which was the interview that first prompted me to investigate the mystery of the health concerns surrounding the fire.

Keep reading...Show less