Biden GREEN Act Would Subsidize Tesla EV, Batteries and Solar

The text of the GREEN act renewable energy bill was released.

If it was passed in its current form it would subsidize Tesla for
* 400,000 cars at $7000 per car
* Battery energy storage at 30% of cost initially and then decreasing through 2028
* Extending solar energy subsidies at 30% through 2025 and then phasing out

The (GREEN Act) bill also extends the investment tax credit (ITC) for solar energy property at 30 percent through 2025, which phases down to 26 percent in 2026, 22 percent in 2027, and 10 percent thereafter. The bill uses the same phaseout timeline and percentages for geothermal energy property.

Application of the ITC is also expanded to include energy storage technology and linear generators at the 30 percent rate through 2026 and phases down by 4 percent each year in 2027 and 2028. The bill describes energy storage technology as that which uses batteries and other storage technology to store energy for conversion to electricity and has a minimum capacity of 5 kWh, or to store energy to heat or cool a structure. It further describes linear generators as that which converts fuel into electricity through electromechanical means using a linear generator assembly without the use of rotating parts with a nameplate capacity of at least 1 kW.

The bill also extends existing tax incentives available for the sale of electric vehicles. The bill increases the electric vehicle credit cap for manufacturers to 600,000 vehicles, but reduces the credit by $500 after the first 200,000 vehicles sold. This would replace the current phaseout period that begins with 200,000 vehicles sold, with a phaseout period that instead begins during the second calendar quarter after the 600,000-vehicle threshold is reached. At the start of the new phaseout period created under the bill, the credit is reduced by 50 percent for one calendar quarter and subsequently ends. For manufacturers that already passed the 200,000 threshold before the enactment of the bill, the number of vehicles sold in between 200,000 and those sold on the date of enactment are excluded in determining when the 600,000 threshold is reached.

SOURCES- Lexology
Written By Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com (Brian owns shares of Tesla)

69 thoughts on “Biden GREEN Act Would Subsidize Tesla EV, Batteries and Solar”

  1. This is a really interesting topic, given that technology does not stand still and more and more superfoods end up on the shelves of regular stores. A couple of years ago, goji berries could only be obtained in some online stores, but now they lie next to peanuts under my house in a small store. More recently, I was surprised when they took my old laptop for recycling, it worked so cool https://www.rubbishwaste.co.uk/

  2. GREEN Act is cool! That would be like this all over the planet. Although in Europe it seems that in some countries free parking has been made for electric cars in the centers of large cities. Which is also very, very nice. It would also be cool to help green companies that export all kinds of raw materials. Like big-ben

  3. Tax what is detrimental and subsidize what is useful. And outlaw BTC. Can't think of a bigger Ponzi scheme.

  4. When we stop subsidizing oil at all levels, including using part of the defense budget to keep Middle East oil lanes open (why are taxpayers paying to protect some corporation’s product again?) then we can talk, and the issue of extraneous damage hadn’t even been broached yet.

  5. There is history of new taxes being introduced, it's never going to be more than X, it will be phased out by Y, all the revenue goes to Z.

    And then those promises are all broken.

    Having said that, I don't think that a new tax is less trustworthy than some other government control. Actually I think a tax is probably better than many things such as a new department, which will generate it's own new constituency pushing for expansion and new powers.

  6. Current nuclear plants don't do peak – they're built to run flat out for a year and a half. Carbon free would start with building enough light water reactors to cover all baseload, then advanced reactors ( salt, metal or gas cooled ), with hot salt storage, to cover peaks, heat for industry, and synthetic fuel production. By the time the LWRs were built, the current crop of wind turbines and solar panels would all be ready for the junkyard.

  7. Sydney ? I used a motorbike there decades ago. Might be faster than a sweatwheel. Didn't like starting the day underground in a tunnel.

  8. People do not trust an additional tax. If you want a carbon tax then put it on fuel and set it to be revenue neutral so that you can repeal the federal gas tax.

  9. What does it mean not to trust a carbon tax? Do you also not trust your income tax or your state tax? This is an excuse to let the perfect get in the way of the good. Obviously it only taxes economic growth that depends on fossil fuels and that is precisely the point! Yours is the typical non-sensical ideological gut response that is holding an efficient and effective solution back.

  10. My commute to work is 50 to 45 minutes by car on a typical weekday morning. Up to an hour if there is some problem like a car crash causing a traffic jam.

    My record by pushbike is 34 minutes, with a usual time of 36. A car crash closing off the motorway can push that up to 45.

    And yes, there are two locations on the commute that were designed by idiots. Or more realistically, designed several decades ago when the traffic load was a small fraction of today, and not updated yet. And the bike just bypasses those without a problem.

    (Or I take a mountain bike and go almost entirely on dirt tracks through the bush. But that's about as slow as driving, with a much higher chance of snake, roo or spider issues. So that's usually just on Fridays.)

  11. Though we are discussing a government program here. Only government sponsored research is within its scope.
    Yes, private research is a thing, and it's clearly still a thing as most of the rest of the stories on this site record. But that's not going to be the subject of a green deal act.

  12. The tyre thing MIGHT work if you are dealing with a vehicle that has 20 axles. Pump up all the other tyres and you relieve the load on the flat one.

    And I guess we could try to stretch that metaphor to the economy, but would it help understanding? Probably not.

  13. Yeah, not sure where this quaint belief that many Americans have that term limits is a good idea. 
    It may be, but nobody ever seems to have any evidence.

  14. One pedantic niggle: it is an internal combustion engine.
    But other than that, this is a good find, and does explain this otherwise weird little quirk in the announced act.

    I don't know about their secret combustion process. They proclaim a lower temperature (so it doesn't produce NOx pollution) but also proclaim a higher efficiency (which requires a higher temperature).

    My guess is that it's a compression ignition (ie. diesel cycle) engine running very lean (low temp) and gets the efficiency from a simpler mechanism with less friction.

  15. About a century for LA at current Tesla gigafactory production rates. Eventually a couple years of all Tesla battery production, if they hit their 20TWhr/yr target – sometime well after 2030? Not that it would be available for LA to use…

    If we're going to shift to renewables/unreliables, maybe we'd better figure out flow batteries. That or start building hydrogen extraction and conversion to methane plants, inefficient as that is, so we can keep using the natural gas peaking plants at night while going green.

    Too bad expanding nuclear power seems to be off the table, other than continuing to invest in 'development' (research pork).

  16. Subsidies always cause the price to increase. One Kw on your home generates 132Kwh per month at best. Utilities hate batteries because it circumvents their peak charges. Solar's only way to be efficient is build farms with battery storage capable of load following. Update the hydro turbines and generators that were installed in the 40's to generate more energy. Manage the reservoirs by adding one foot to the spillways and schedule the releases to precede precipitation. At wind farms install battery storage that load follow and allow the wind farm to produce at full capability. Change the grid contracts that give priority to gas, fossil and nuclear and use them instead as peakers. This I believe will yield carbon free energy or at least pretty close.

  17. There are levels of battery usefulness:

    Smoothing the AC (what Australia is doing, you use batteries constantly)
    Replacing peaker plants on hot standby (you need lots more battery but you use it less often)
    Replacing peak power generation (you need yet more batteries and use them daily)
    Compensating for the intermittent nature of wind/solar (you need yet more batteries and may use them even less frequently)

    In general for something to offer a good ROI it needs to be used regularly. Infrequent use on rainy days means you have an expensive battery infrastructure that you use irregularly at great cost.

    Put the batteries in cars where they have a good ROI. When it comes to power grids think in terms of ROI, not Utopia.

  18. People don't trust a carbon tax and I don't blame them in the slightest.

    Best way to bring about a carbon tax for cars:

    Eliminate fuel standards.
    Eliminate the federal gas tax.
    Use carbon tax as a gas tax substitute.

    Taxing energy across the economy is actually a bad idea as we use energy for most everything and you are taxing economic growth.

  19. I didn't give you a dislike but not all research funding must be channeled through ARPA/DARPA.

    In olden times companies would do research instead of going cap in hand to government to fund their research. I guess I don't blame them- why think hard about if something will work, take a risk, and fund yourself when you can get free money.

  20. Sorry but we need the sexy/ productive/ wealth-generating GREEN act. Not the current feel-good/ carbon-minimization-is-more-important-than-a-good-job-and-a-rich-country GREEN act. Hyper profitable and productive personal and commercial consumables with high demand and widespread appeal – that is pick-up trucks/ transports, home grid-minimizing (lean towards self-sufficiency) energy production, robust grid improvements with high reliability real-time grid-balancing energy production, manufacturing/ industrial on-site power, vacation transport electrification/hydrogening, more and bigger and better eco-driven 'new-build' at residential, commercial, (and MINING/ AGRO!!), and industrial sectors. More, bigger, better, faster, efficient-er, and cleaner – Green, Done Hard.

  21. Which is why we have to change the cost calculation, but that's better done by taxing the heck out of private ICE vehicles (and maybe slightly taxing private EVs) than by subsidizing the alternatives.

  22. You either have a flying car or your transit system was designed by an idiot. I can drive to work from home in 15 minutes, bicycle in 13 minutes, or take a train plus walk 200m in 19 minutes. If I still went to work instead of working from home that is.

  23. Tell that to Biden.
    Wealth is being taken from all tax payers including the poor to support buyers of cars the poor can't afford. The rich invest in solar projects and the poor pay the return of the investment with their tax $ .

  24. Now that people have experienced getting 'checks' for Covid, and most have probably at least heard about and considered the UBI idea, I wonder if they might be more willing to accept a revenue neutral carbon tax that gives every single person an equal carbon rebate check.

  25. Term limits won't bring in smarter people, the system will continue to bring in those whose principal and possibly only talent is for winning elections. With term limits these will have the added bonus of all being noobs.

  26. Sounds like if you have the big batteries then the peaker plants can take 30 minutes to warm up, thus don't need to be on standby all the time.

  27. For all those criticising the various choices of technology being subsidised, don't blame Biden, blame all the ideologues that never would have voted for a presidential candidate that wants to implement a more rational policy such as a carbon price.

  28. I agree. Unfortunately much more efficient and unbiased policies such as a price on carbon seems to be ideologically impossible for so many Americans to stomach. After all it is much more important to stick to one's principles than save the planet.

  29. It appears that Bill Gates is an investor in a Linear Generator company called mainspringenergy.com. Also, Dianne Feinstein has previously introduced legislation supporting this technology.
    It is curious, though, that a fuel-based technology has ended-up on this renewables bill. But, one of the available [flex] fuels is hydrogen. Also, this generator is of a much higher efficiency than the internal combustion approach ( even with current mainstream fuels), and simultaneously pollutes far less. Very simple mechanically. Overall, seems very promising.

  30. I mean we fixed the previous depression in the housing sector with shovel-readiness money.

    In all seriousness it is worrying when people think of the US economy as a single homogeneous, interchangeable blob. Economy down 10% in one area? Pump 10% in to another area. I mean it works for tires- if one is flat then you put more air in the others to balance everything out.

  31. Government has a proven track record of picking winners. When they pick you you have won. Don't believe me? Ask ULA.

    Wish they had picked my proposal for extracting energy from the phase change of protonated hydroxide. I think we could extract useful work from that.

  32. The pork must flow. Its like the US took notes on what China does but used crayon for the most useful parts.

  33. Hey now we all know that the only way to fix a depression in the entertainment and food sectors is with some sweet sweet GND trillions.

  34. Why are we subsidizing solar? I’m constantly told that it is already cheaper than everything.

    No, seriously.

  35. Most people have a revealed preference for a private vehicle over sharing public transport if the cost is remotely comparable.

    • Hygiene. Do we really need to discuss this after 2020?
    • Convenience. If standing on a corner in a crowded city, at a non busy time, you can get some public transport or taxi/uber within minutes. If it's late at night you can only get a taxi/uber. If you are in a suburb it might be 10s of minutes wait. In a rural area there is a bus once a day, and it's a 10 km walk to the nearest stop. Unless it's a remote rural area.
    • Travel time as per OrangeBattery. A train can be faster point to point, a bus almost never is.
    • Personalisation. My car is leather lined, comfortable, set to my preferred temperature, plays my preferred music, lets me carry around a bunch of stuff I sometimes want (like a spare hat), and is generally a far nicer place to be than any public transport.
  36. The South Australian 'giant' battery isn't a peaking plant – it's used for keeping the AC steady. The battery, world's biggest till lately, would keep South Australia, the smallest mainland State, running for about half an hour. Peaking plants burn gas, and not helluva efficiently, unless they keep the combined cycle boilers hot and ready for use all the time. Batteries sufficient to keep Los Angeles running reliably after sundown would take centuries of gigafactory production.

  37. Yes, that was my first reaction: Somebody already has a free piston project ready to go, and was able to convince their good friend to sneak that into the act.

    Either that, or the em-drive really does work and Area 51 has small probes that can accelerate to GJ of kinetic energy on a 4-pack of AA cells.

  38. Still kind of weak. Let's subsidized the full 100. We can reduce the subsidy at certain milestones but we shouldn't eliminate it until be reach 90%.

  39. Or Murray could agree with you but is simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the Left. I'm totally against wealth redistribution but I am also against crony capitalism.

  40. Because peaking plants and grid infrastructure are much more efficient in the US than Australia where they’ve been very profitable?

  41. Waste of tax payer money, money that we don't have. This is why congress needs term limits, get smarter people in who know how to balance a checkbook to stop inflation from growing higher & higher.

  42. There may be some pushing towards linear free piston stirling generators actually, for direct combustion purposes at low power output, as an alternative to fuel cells. On the waste heat energy recovery front though, EU research seems to suggest for a thermoacoustic generator, using a bidirectional turbine rather than a stirling free piston for the generator would be a better choice.

  43. Because public transportation is a waste of time. My car can get me across town in 10 minutes. A city bus, in 1-2 hours. How does that make sense?

  44. But why not subsidize public transportation instead of purchasing a personal EV every time from now to eternity

  45. OK, why subsidize linear electrical machines over rotating ones? Plan on making a lot of free piston engines?
    More likely some crony has a front company claiming it will make them. The Nikola/Solyndra of electrical generation?
    Maybe free piston Stirling engines?

  46. I keep hearing that, even if large scale fusion plants replaced all other energy production right now, we'd still have an energy storage prob.problem.

  47. Yeah we definitely need to make sure that we start pumping out that infrastructure. Like, yesterday, because it's behind.

  48. I work for a major multi-state electric utility where we are moving forward as quickly as possible to incorporate batteries into our grid. We have several projects under construction and many more in the pipeline.

    But, NONE of these projects have a positive business case. All of them will lose money. We are just doing them to learn.

  49. With an infrastructure that is not prepared for an electric future, I am not sure that subsidizing electric vehicles is the wisest or most efficient decision.

  50. Long live to Democratic lobbyism,making sure to make ultra rich american stay even wealthier.The same democrats instil they must do something about wealth distribution,long live the hypocrisy.

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