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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.

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Q&A

How the Wind Industry Can Fight Back

A conversation with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications

The Q&A subject.
Heatmap Illustration

Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”

Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.

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Hotspots

A New York Town Bans Both Renewable Energy And Data Centers

And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.

The United States.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.

  • Chautauqua, a vacation town in southern New York, has now reportedly issued a one-year moratorium on wind projects – though it’s not entirely obvious whether a wind project is in active development within its boundaries, and town officials have confessed none are being planned as of now.
  • Apparently, per local press, this temporary ban is tied to a broader effort to update the town’s overall land use plan to “manage renewable energy and other emerging high-impact uses” – and will lead to an ordinance that restricts data centers as well as solar and wind projects.
  • I anticipate this strategy where towns update land use plans to target data centers and renewables at the same time will be a lasting trend.

2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project will learn its fate under the Trump administration by this fall, after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must come to a decision on how it’ll handle a court challenge against its permits by September.

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Spotlight

The Wind Projects Breaking the Wyoming GOP

It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

I’m seeing signs that the fight over a hydrogen project in Wyoming is fracturing the state’s Republican political leadership over wind energy, threatening to trigger a war over the future of the sector in a historically friendly state for development.

At issue is the Pronghorn Clean Energy hydrogen project, proposed in the small town of Glenrock in rural Converse County, which would receive power from one wind farm nearby and another in neighboring Niobrara County. If completed, Pronghorn is expected to produce “green” hydrogen that would be transported to airports for commercial use in jet fuel. It is backed by a consortium of U.S. and international companies including Acconia and Nordex.

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