Jeff St. John summarizes an RMI analysis regarding global battery manufacturing forecasts and clean energy transition targets.
Opinion
St. John: Clean hydrogen incentives risk becoming a tax-credit mining scheme
“I fear some jockeying around from folks who see this as being either a tax credit mining or farming opportunity, or a chance to see their existing fossil fuel assets be repurposed for use in what is putatively a decarbonization strategy, but which runs the sig…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
St. John: Very Few US EVs Will Qualify for $7,500 Tax Credit
“With China dominating so much, between 70 to 90% of key precursor, you know materials and kind of components of lithium ion batteries that very few, if any, EVs sold in the U.S. Will be eligible for that 7500 per EV tax credit”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
St. John: Freight Depots Face 1-2+ Year Grid Interconnection Delays for EV Chargers
“A lot of the freight depots out there are reporting that it's taken one, two, or more years to get the grid interconnection service they need to actually do all the charging that they're gonna need for all those trucks.”
Assertion Supported
St. John: California Rooftop Solar Installations Dropped 75% to 80% Post-NEM 3.0
“The new regime cuts the compensation or economic value for rooftop solar for Single-family homes roughly in half and the installations have dropped by roughly three-quarters to four-fifths since that went into effect in April, and California solar installers a…”
Opinion
St. John: Clean hydrogen lacks the infrastructure and economics for end-user adoption
“Governments, the United States, the European Union, South Korea, Japan, others, are incentivizing hydrogen production for these purposes And making goals that are kind of astounding in their scope for gigawatts, tens of gigawatts of hydrogen production, and ye…”
Insight
Green cement is commercially unviable if it delays building construction timelines
“Cement costs are about maybe two, three, four percent of an overall building cost. The cost of labor and the time it takes to build a building are a lot higher than that. You could have a much lower carbon cement, but if it takes three to five times as long to…”