Treasury rolls out climate-friendly manufacturing tax breaks

The Treasury Department just unveiled final rules for tax breaks for making "clean" energy parts and mineral products used in climate-friendly tech.

Why it matters: These IRA subsidies are among the biggest White House attempts to marry climate and industrial policy.

The intrigue: Officials say they tweaked the rules, after industry complaints, to subsidize a wider range of mining and mineral project costs.

One change enables processing projects to apply credits to domestic mineral extraction costs.

The big picture: The "45X" credit covers equipment like solar inverters, battery cells, wind blades and plenty more.

One example is $35 per kilowatt hour of battery cells; another is 10% of production and processing costs for many "critical minerals."

State of play: Even before the final touches out today, the credit has been driving lots of new U.S. projects, Biden officials say.

Corporate announcements totaling $126 billion — including $77B worth of battery projects and $19B in solar — have arrived since the IRA passed, Treasury said, citing MIT-Rhodium Group data.

What we're watching: Reaction from mining and mineral processing sectors to the changes.