All Access

Climate Deals

Standard

Climate Deals Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

Climate Deals Alerts

Alert

mustard

BFD Expert Voices - Climate Deals

BFD Expert Voices

topics

politics-policy

epstein-files

donald-trump

2026-midterm-elections

immigration

behind-the-curtain

race-and-equity

technology

privacy-tech-regulation

automation-and-ai

tiktok-news

big-tech

social-media

cybersecurity

economy

social-security

inflation

tariffs

federal-reserve

jobs

transportation

business

stock-market-news

retail-news

crypto

media

elon-musk

dealmaking

health

rfk-jr

drug-prices

axios-explains-abortion

public-health

world

israel

axios-explains-ukraine

iran

russia

china

energy-climate

nuclear-energy

climate-energy-policy

climate-change

extreme-weather

alternative-energy

electric-vehicles

science

emerging-tech

biomedicine

newsletters

pittsburgh

atlanta

san-diego

charlotte

boulder

washington-dc

kansas-city

dallas

denver

detroit

des-moines

austin

boston

chicago

cleveland

columbus

houston

indianapolis

miami

nashville

new-orleans

nw-arkansas

philadelphia

phoenix

portland

richmond

salt-lake-city

san-antonio

san-francisco

seattle

tampa-bay

twin-cities

raleigh

huntsville

axios-local

axios-pro

axios-live

the-axios-show

An auction for geothermal energy development on federal lands set a record yesterday. Companies placed six-figure bids for lease sales across more than 190,000 acres — nearly double the amount of land as the previous record-setting auction last fall, Alan writes.

Why it matters: The surge in interest reflects mounting investor appetite for geothermal energy development and, by extension, the level of demand they expect to see for the round-the-clock, clean electricity that geothermal can generate.

Driving the news: The Bureau of Land Management held a lease sale Tuesday for parcels across four districts in Nevada.

The auction attracted bids for 192,912 acres, or about 300 square miles, per results posted by BLM. The winning bidders committed to pay nearly $2.98 million. 

That's vastly more than the previous recordholder, which was another lease sale in Nevada in October, a BLM spokesperson tells Alan. That auction received bids for about 102,402 acres, at a total of just $637,892.

Of note: Registered bidders for yesterday's auction included not just geothermal energy developers, such as Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals, OM Geothermal and TLS Geothermics Corp., but also oil and gas companies like Chevron and Kirkwood Oil and Gas.

Regional utilities and power producers, such as Nevada Energy subsidiary Sierra Pacific Power Co., participated as well.

State of play: Geothermal last year accounted for just 0.4% of U.S. electricity generation, but the sector's boom moment seems to be here. 

The technology provides nonintermittent (or "firm"), zero-emissions electricity generated from hot rock deep beneath the Earth's surface. 

Meanwhile: Geothermal energy developer Fervo Energy last week closed $138 million in funding, which appeared to be the largest investment round in the sector, as reported exclusively by Axios.

The U.S. Department of Energy this summer said geothermal could account for 8.5% of U.S. electricity generation by 2050. 

California regulators last year issued a mandate for 1,000 MW of firm, emissions-free energy by 2026 — a move expected to spur the national geothermal market.

1 big thing: A new bidding war for geothermal

Illustration of a golden coin with an emboss of the Earth on it.

Toyota is investing an additional $2.5 billion in its U.S.-based battery production facility, Megan reports.

Why it's the BFD: Domestic battery production is shaping up to become a billion-dollar gold rush on the heels of the Inflation Reduction Act. 

What's happening: Toyota's additional $2.5 billion will go to its newest battery production facility in North Carolina, and it has allocated $5.6 billion to battery production investments going forward.

The North Carolina facility is expected to begin production on EV and hybrid batteries in 2025.

It had initially invested $1.29 billion in the facility in 2021.

Zoom out: The battery production arms race is on in the U.S., with the recently passed IRA adding renewed urgency throughout the industry.

Honda and Korea's LG Energy Solution said Monday they're investing $4.4 billion in a new U.S. EV battery plant likely located in Ohio, per Axios Generate.

Ford is building two factories in Kentucky, which will be able to produce 86 gigawatt hours' worth of batteries annually. 

The IRA includes provisions for domestic battery production, including a tax credit of $35 per kWh for each U.S.-produced battery cell and $10 per kWh for U.S.-produced battery modules.

That represents 35% of today's average cost of producing a battery cell and 33% of the cost of assembling an EV battery pack, respectively.

Yes, and: U.S.-produced critical materials and minerals also get a 10% tax credit, and the EV rebate for consumers is limited to those with U.S.-produced components.

The bottom line: Auto manufacturers are rising to meet demand as quickly as possible with a billion-dollar rapid buildout of manufacturing facilities across the country.

2. The BFD: Toyota ups ante in battery arms race

Illustration of a battery on a chess board as a playing piece. 

German multinational Bosch is investing $200 million to build fuel cells in South Carolina. The cells will be used in hydrogen-powered trucks, the company says.

Why it matters: We've seen a steady drumbeat of investment announcements from automakers and battery manufacturers looking to lock up battery supplies. Hydrogen fuel cells, by contrast, may be a more efficient option for heavy-duty applications like trucking. 

The investment announcement from a legacy player like Bosch shows that even conservative companies are taking the sector seriously.

What's happening: Bosch is expanding its existing manufacturing facility in Anderson, South Carolina.

Bosch expects to add 350 jobs and begin making fuel cells by 2026.

The move is part of Bosch's plans to invest $1 billion globally in fuel cell development, which the company announced this spring.

Of note: The fuel cells will likely be geared toward Class 8 trucks, the type of semis you see on the highway.

Bosch has provided such fuel cells to Nikola, which has been running tests of its Class 8 truck with Bosch tech. Bosch has also completed a pilot with Anheuser-Busch in California.

3. Bosch buys into hydrogen trucking

Illustration of a commercial electric truck leaving lighting bolt tracks behind it

🏭 A long fuse for solar's manufacturing boom: U.S. solar equipment manufacturing is about to grow, but there are miles to go before reaching the White House's goal of becoming a global heavyweight, our Generate colleague Ben Geman writes.

First Solar said Tuesday it will invest up to $1 billion in a new panel factory in the Southeast and will spend $200 million to expand production in Ohio. SPI Energy, meanwhile, announced new solar wafer manufacturing plans.

The developments offer early signals that the Inflation Reduction Act's manufacturing incentives could spur investment. But it will take years to bring such factories to full capacity — and, in the meantime, China holds a very long lead.

🛑 Better luck next time: Nitches, a Nevada-based sustainable fashion company, filed to withdraw its 1-A after missing the 21-day deadline for the offering, Megan reports.

The company originally planned to raise $4.5 million in the offering with Tier 1 requirements in its Aug. 8 filing. In its withdrawal notice on Aug. 30, Nitches CEO John Morgan said that no sales occurred prior to the notice and that the company will revisit the number of qualified shares in a later offering.

🚂 A crisis in America’s freight rail system: "Foster Farms needed at least nine trainloads of corn each month to feed its tens of millions of chickens and turkeys, plus tens of thousands of dairy cows at its California facilities. But the trains weren’t showing up."

Wired’s Caitlin Harrington dives into the cataclysmic slowdowns in U.S. freight rail, which is now on “the brink of total paralysis.”

The crises bring yet more supply chain upheaval — and to a transportation sector, freight rail, that's vastly more climate-friendly than the alternatives of shipping products by truck or air. 

🚰 Listen up, HGTV: "It’s not as sexy as a rooftop solar array, Tesla Powerwall battery or Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. But to home electrification policy wonks, an efficient electric water heater that can plug into a standard wall socket is a major advance in getting U.S. households off fossil fuels."

That’s from Canary Media’s Jeff St. John, who profiled Rheem’s ProTerra 120-volt heat-pump water heater, which aims to be a plug-it-and-forget-it, no-electrical-upgrade-needed option for efficient water heating. 

4. 🌡️ Temperature check

Illustration of a thermometer shaped like a smoke stack with smoke spewing out.

• Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners closed its CI Energy Transition Fund I at a cap of roughly $3 billion. https://axios.link/3cxeLd3

• Pixxel, an Indian developer of Earth imaging technology, raised undisclosed strategic funding from Accenture. https://axios.link/3pWzOZB

• Mermade Seafoods, an Israeli startup developing cultivated scallops, raised a $3.3 million seed round from OurCrowd, Fall Line and Sake Bosch. https://axios.link/3KyiUd4 

• Lincoln Park Capital Fund signed a purchase agreement with Lightning eMotors for up to $50 million worth of common stock in the electric fleet company. https://axios.link/3AY9Db3

• Kontrol Technologies, a Canadian smart-buildings company, has entered into a credit agreement with a Schedule 1 bank for up to $50 million in senior secured credit facilities. https://axios.link/3RkfrSl 

• Convalt Energy, a Watertown, New York-based renewable energy generation company, agreed to go public via Giginternational1 (Nasdaq: GIW), a SPAC led by semiconductor vet Avi Katz. https://axios.link/3pVVqFs

• Walmart has acquired a minority stake in Sustainable Beef, a Nebraska-based beef provider that says it’s building a processing facility in North Platte. https://axios.link/3RqNNCq 

• Arevon Energy secured a $400 million green loan fund credit facility from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and KeyBank N.A. to finance development of 6 GW-worth of solar and storage projects in the Midwest, Southeast and California. https://axios.link/3Tt5DXv

• UBS is working with Climeworks, the direct air capture company, and Neustark, a carbon sequestration company, to achieve net-zero emissions by 2025. https://axios.link/3B0spPd 

• Lightning eMotors has entered into a strategic partnership with GoBolt, a Canadian logistics provider, to build 170 electric cargo vans and box trucks over the next year for GoBolt operations in the U.S. and Canada. https://axios.link/3BalEdX 

• Advanced Cell Engineering, a lithium-ion battery technology developer for the EV market, has signed a lease agreement with Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida, to use its wet chemistry lab. https://axios.link/3q0vIzM 

• Southwest Research Institute completed a thermal energy storage demonstration facility designed by Malta, a long-duration energy storage company, as part of a project funded by a $2.6 million ARPA-E grant. https://axios.link/3R5yAqI

• NCX said it has completed the first cycle of its Natural Capital Exchange, in which 119 landowners in the Southeast received close to $2.5 million (an average of $21,000 each) to defer planned timber harvests for a year. NCX says that that equates to 2 million tonne-years of carbon sequestered across 1.17 million acres of forest. https://axios.link/3Q55O8z 

• Ameresco and Inovateus Solar, a solar EPC, have completed a 2.62 MW solar project in Danville, Illinois, which was built on a former GM plant turned brownfield site. Greenbacker Renewable Energy, an independent power producer and investment firm, owns the project. https://axios.link/3CKKouo 

• BHP Group, Caterpillar and Finning International announced an agreement to replace BHP's haul-truck fleet at the Escondida mine in Chile with electric trucks. https://axios.link/3wHh2Ji 

5. Hot deals

• Fluence Energy, the energy storage provider, has named Manavendra Sial as senior vice president and CFO effective mid-September, succeeding Dennis Fehr, who is departing the company in October. Sial was previously executive vice president and CFO of SunPower. https://axios.link/3B0m2eL 

• Algonquin Power & Utilities has appointed Darren Myers as CFO, succeeding Arthur Kacprzak, who is stepping down effective immediately. Myers was previously executive vice president and CFO of Loblaw. https://axios.link/3R4999f 

• Radiant Earth Foundation, a geospatial data provider, has named Jed Sundwall its new executive director. Sundwall joins Radiant from Amazon Web Services. https://axios.link/3Rj5P9M 

• Greenlane Renewables, a Canadian renewable natural gas company, has hired Alex Chassels as COO, and promoted Maura Lendon to chief legal officer and Sandra Keyton to chief human resources officer. https://axios.link/3pVVEMM 

6. It's personnel

🐪 Happy Wednesday! We're halfway to the long weekend. 

🐶 Megan's dogs are making great use of their cooling vests this week as much of her area is under a heat warning. As long as it's not humid, we won't complain.

🩹 Alan got a couple stitches on his finger yesterday. He's fine, but his WPM have taken a hit. (But don't let that dissuade you from picking him early in the 2022-2023 Axios fantasy draft.) 

Thanks for reading Climate Deals! Please share with your friends, family and pet clothing enthusiasts.

August 31, 2022

1 big thing: A new bidding war for geothermal