Weekly-ish News - Episode 14 (May 2, 2021)

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Headlines from this episode:

Electric Vehicles:

GM announced a $1b investment in EV manufacturing in Mexico.

• The United Auto Workers organization didn't like this, calling it "'a slap in the face' for UAW members and taxpayers".
• “Taxpayer money should not go to companies that utilize labor outside the U.S. while benefiting from American government subsidies,” the statement said. “This is not the America any of us signed on for. Frankly, it is unseemly.”
• The UAW Statement

GM has announced a unified app (One App to Rule Them All) for EV charging!

• They are partnering with 7 charging networks to offer a single point-of-contact service for interacting with chargers.
• Only for GM owners.
• Branded as Ultium Charge 360
• They will eventually have plug-and-charge for their vehicles, but not yet.
• The current partners are: Blink Charging, ChargePoint, EV Connect, EVgo, FLO, Greenlots, and SemaConnect

Ford announced a battery research facility with a $185m investment.

More discussion about tire pollution and electric vehicles!

• This was discussed in Episode 12.
• This article is a nice overview of the issue.

A new International Energy Agency report suggests we may have 145m EVs on the road by 2030 with current policy.

• We are around 11m currently.

There's a new report showing that (surprise!) we do not have enough battery production to meet EV goals.

Other Fuels:

We have another announcement of a partnership to make hydrogen out of renewable natural gas.

• They apparently have some revolutionary process to make hydrogen here.
• I stumbled on my words slightly here, for clarity: "green hydrogen" is hydrogen produced from renewable sources. The color-coding for hydrogen is very complicated, and whether hydrogen from RNG counts as "green" is a whole thing.

Energy:

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is doing an environmental review of an 880-MW Offshore Wind project for Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $8.25b loan program for electric grid upgrades.

The DOE announced $109.5m in funding for clean energy jobs in coal communities.

• $75m in carbon capture
• $19.5m in coal waste streams
• $15m for geothermal energy

Policy:

The White House announced a plan for emissions to be cut by 80% for the electric grid.

• This is on the path to net-zero by 2035 for electricity.