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U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have seized $806 million worth of imports since a forced labor law aimed at Chinese manufacturers went into effect last June, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Intended to punish China for its treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities across Xinjiang province, the crackdown has had the corresponding effect of crippling the U.S. solar market and freezing its supply chain.

By the numbers: Axios reported that the U.S. detained 1,592 imports into the country worth nearly $500 million through Sept. 30 because the shipments violated the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act — known as the UFLPA.

Customs officials have since confirmed to Axios that they have seized an additional $306 million worth of goods from October through early January of this year.

The majority of the detained imports were solar panels, a critical piece of solar infrastructure that mostly comes from Xinjiang and other parts of China.

Zoom in: The law has brought the flow of solar imports into the U.S. to a near standstill, and ground large-scale projects to a halt.

The shrunken supply has jacked up costs and forced developers to retreat.

"I have seen developers and investors revising solar module costs up by 30%-40%," Xu Chen, a senior director at FTI Consulting, tells Axios.

Between the lines: The seizures over the past few months comes as Customs and Border Protection is becoming more familiar with the products that violate the law, one official told Axios. The increase also stems from Q4 being a historically busy time for solar shipments.

But the official added that he expects the number of seizures to drop relatively soon, as the industry begins to figure out what it can ship, and what violates the law.

"As more importers learn more about the UFLPA, we should be able to see a drop in the numbers," said the official, who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with corrected figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The worth of imports the agency has seized since last June is $806 million (not $1.3 billion), and the amount seized from October through January is $306 million (not $806 million).

1 big thing: More seizures from China forced labor law 

Forum Mobility, an electric-trucking startup, raised $15 million in Series A funding in addition to $400 million in separate funding dedicated to infrastructure buildout, the company tells Megan.

Why it's the BFD: Converting the nation's fleet of logistics carriers to heavy-duty electric vehicles remains a daunting, expensive task that will require massive investment from the industry's biggest stakeholders. 

Details: CBRE Investment Fund, the investment arm of the real estate behemoth, led the all-equity Series A round and will take a board seat at Forum Mobility as part of the round, which closed at the end of December. 

New investors Elemental Excelerator and Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, the e-commerce giant's climate-focused venture arm, joined the Series A along with existing investors Obvious Ventures, Edison International, Overture and Homecoming Capital.

Forum raised a separate $400 million from CBRE Investment Fund and Homecoming Capital to fund its charging-station network development as well as the procurement of electric trucks it leases to carriers. 

How it works: Forum Mobility develops, owns and operates charging stations for electric heavy-duty trucks between major ports and distribution centers. It also allows carriers to lease electric trucks for a monthly fee or purchase the trucks outright with access to its charging network.

Forum's first charging station pilot is operating in Southern California near the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach with its first customer Height Logistics, Forum chief strategy officer Kim Oster tells Megan.

Forum plans to build additional charging stations along the same route in Southern California as well as near the Port of Oakland in Northern California, Oster says. Its current projects under development are expected to open by the end of 2023.

Zoom out: The incentives for domestic charging infrastructure and port electrification in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are less influential than state policy and companies' own emission-reduction plans, Oster says.

Emissions from shipping and logistics would count toward most groups' Scope 3 emissions, which are often harder to track and combat.

Even a slight reduction in emissions for companies with large Scope 3 emissions from shipping — hint, Amazon — would result in a large net reduction overall.

Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund has also backed biofuel startups in an effort to reduce emissions with its existing fleet, and Amazon's corporate arm has a purchase agreement with EV maker Rivian for 100,000 last-mile delivery vans.

Quick take: Expect even more deep-pocketed logistics and real estate groups to get behind charging-infrastructure investments as incentives from the IRA start to roll out.

2. The BFD: Amazon, CBRE back electric trucking

Illustration of a delivery truck with a dollar bill on the side

🏗 $40 million for low-carbon cement: Sublime Systems, a Somerville, Mass.-based developer of tech to manufacture low-carbon cement, raised a $40 million Series A led by Lowercarbon Capital.

Existing investors The Engine and Energy Impact Partners participated, as well as Siam Cement Group, the largest cement manufacturer in Southeast Asia.

Sublime replaces the high-temperature kilns typically used to make cement with electrolyzers that can make cement at ambient temperatures.

🌳 Temasek invests in hardier trees: Living Carbon, a Hayward, Calif.-based startup developing plants that capture and store more carbon, raised a $21 million Series A led by Temasek. 

Lowercarbon Capital, Toyota Ventures and Felicis Ventures participated.

Living Carbon plans to plant 4 million of its “fast-growing, carbon-guzzling supertrees.” Let us know if the trees will wear capes.

🚗 Your EV is now arriving: Uber and Hertz today announced an expansion of their rental partnership to Europe, Megan reports.

As part of the agreement, Hertz will make up to 25,000 EVs available for Uber drivers to rent by 2025. The program will first roll out in London, with Paris and Amsterdam following shortly after.

Drivers can rent economy-style EVs or more luxe options like Tesla or Polestar, Uber tells Megan.

🔌 Putting a number on charging inequity: Majority-white neighborhoods are ~1.4x as likely as majority-nonwhite areas to have an EV charger, per an analysis on 35 cities by our What's Next colleagues.

Cities with the greatest disparity: Philadelphia, Chicago and NYC.

Cities where it's less pronounced: SF, Dallas and Portland, Oregon. 

🫰 $3 trillion climate target: Philanthropic heavyweights plan to vastly scale up combined public, private and philanthropic climate finance, Axios' Ben Geman writes in Generate.

"Giving to Amplify Earth Action" aims to "help unlock the $3 trillion of financing needed each year to reach net zero, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity by 2050."

The many backers of the initiative, launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, include the Bezos Earth Fund, African Climate Foundation, IKEA Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and more.

🚲 Austin juices e-bike rebates: The utility Austin Energy has doubled its e-bike incentives for area residents and fleet owners, Nicole Cobler reports in Axios Austin.

Austin Energy ratepayers can get a rebate of up to $600 for a purchase over $2,000 — or as much as $1,300 if they've signed up for the utility's customer assistance program.

It's too early for data on the upsized incentives, but more than 2,600 Austinites had received rebates as of October under the prior program.

🔋 ICYMI from DOE: The Department of Energy plans to lend Ioneer up to $700 million to support a planned Rhyolite Ridge project to mine lithium, Ben writes in Generate.

The move is part of a White House push to support links in the battery supply chain and the first to back a lithium mining project, per Reuters.

The project could produce enough for roughly 370,000 electric vehicles annually, DOE said.

3. 🌡️ Temperature check

Illustration of three emojis: a thermometer, a hot face, and a cold face.

• Aerones, a Latvian developer of robots for wind turbine maintenance and inspection, raised $30m. Lightrock and Haniel co-led, and were joined by Metaplanet and Mantas Mikuckas. https://axios.link/3ZxHfqC

• Sollum, a Montreal-based provider of LED lighting solutions for greenhouses, raised C$30m from Idealist Capital and Fondaction. https://axios.link/3GMKC4r 

• Membrion, a Seattle-based manufacture of ceramic desalination membranes for water recovery in harsh environments, raised a $7m Series B led by PureTerra Ventures. Safar Partners, GiantLeap Capital, and Freeflow participated. https://axios.link/3IVxTzg 

• EQT Private Equity launched a €26 per share public takeover tender for va-Q-tec, a listed German provider of thermal energy efficiency and temperature-controlled supply chain solutions. Mubadala and Cinven also are participating. https://axios.link/3XfkuX7 

• Spectaire, maker of a micro mass-spectrometer device for measuring emissions, agreed to go public via Perception Capital Corp. II. https://axios.link/3WjQNTc’

• Norway’s sovereign wealth fund agreed to buy a 49% stake in Iberdrola’s 1.3 GW portfolio of Spanish solar plants and onshore wind farms for €600m, per Reuters. The sovereign wealth fund is managed by Norges Bank Investment Management. https://axios.link/3CTL0x8

• VistaVu, a Calgary-based provider of business management software, acquired the SAP S/4HANA cloud and ECC practice from Quintel, which focused on the utilities and manufacturing sectors. https://axios.link/3WcxcUZ 

• Gogoro, the Taiwan-based manufacturer of swappable batteries for EVs, and Belrise, an India-based automotive systems manufacturer, announced a planned 50-50 partnership to invest ~$2.5b over eight years with India’s State of Maharashtra to build battery swapping infrastructure in the state. https://axios.link/3QPgiei 

• OBE Power Networks, a Miami-based EV charging services provider, closed a senior secured funding facility with SUSI Energy Efficiency Fund II, managed by SUSI Partners, a Swiss-based infrastructure investment manager. https://axios.link/3IU3XUb 

• Hanwha Group, the South Korea-based conglomerate, and LG Energy Solution, the South Korea-based battery manufacturer, agreed to invest in building battery production facilities in the U.S. https://axios.link/3w7kRXR 

• Raven SR, the Pinedale, Wyo.-based waste-to-fuels producer, signed MOUs to supply SAF to All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines. https://axios.link/3H8d6ai 

• Eviation Aircraft, the Arlington, Wash.-based manufacturer of electric aircraft, received an LOI from Aerus, a regional airline in Mexico, to buy 30 of Eviation’s nine-seater Alice commuter aircraft. https://axios.link/3XjA5F5 

• ZeroGeo Energy, a Swiss low-carbon energy developer, and Sage Geosystems, a Houston-based geothermal developer, entered a joint venture agreement to develop energy storage and geothermal energy projects in Europe under the name TerraThermo. https://axios.link/3QSQqht 

• Ballard Power Systems, the Canada-based fuel cell products manufacturer, agreed to develop a hydrogen fuel cell electric truck for mining logistics and transportation with Adani Enterprises, the India-based conglomerate, and Ashok Leyland, an India-based commercial vehicles manufacturer. https://axios.link/3QI2uSI 

• Masdar, the UAE-owned energy company, signed an MOU with the Port of Amsterdam, SkyNRG, Evos Amsterdam and Zenith Energy to explore development of a green hydrogen supply chain between Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam to supply the European market. https://axios.link/3IWj1Ay 

• WiTricity, the Watertown, Mass.-based developer of wireless charging for EVs, and VTT, the Finland-based research institution, announced a collaboration to install WiTricity wireless chargers as part of the Reflective project to develop a light EV for cities. https://axios.link/3J2VMEO 

• CF Industries, a Deerfield, Ill.-based nitrogen fertilizer producer, signed an MOU to supply up to 500,000 metric tons annually of clean ammonia to Jera, the Japan-based electricity provider, starting in 2027. https://axios.link/3HdQhCd 

• NaaS Technology, an EV charging services provider in China, and Beijing HyperStrong Technology, a China-based energy storage system provider, are launching a joint venture, NewLink Hyper Technology, to develop energy storage projects in China. https://axios.link/3XiGlNi 

• H3 Dynamics, a developer of hydrogen-electric propulsion systems for aircraft, and Hylium Industries, a South Korea-based developer of liquid hydrogen storage systems, are collaborating to develop electric aircraft systems fueled by liquid hydrogen. https://axios.link/3iNi5ny 

• ESS, a Wilsonville, Ore.-based developer of long-duration energy storage, responded to a class action lawsuit alleging violations of federal securities laws. Grizzly Research, which acknowledges it takes long or short positions on companies, issued a report on ESS in December. https://axios.link/3XD4Kgk 

4. Hot deals

• LyondellBasell, a chemicals manufacturer with regional headquarters in Houston, hired Trisha Conley as EVP, people and culture. Conley was previously SVP, people development, at Chevron Renewable Energy. https://axios.link/3w6GV4G 

• Schneider Electric appointed Shitiz Agarwal as VP, power systems, sales and operations. https://axios.link/3CVnCPL 

• Sapphire Technologies, a Cerritos, Calif.-based developer of energy recovery systems for hydrogen and natural gas applications, hired Stephen Richards as VP of engineering. Richards previously worked for Rolls-Royce. https://axios.link/3IUHYw5 

• Argentina Lithium & Energy, a Vancouver-based mining company focused on lithium projects in Argentina, appointed Martin Burian to its board of directors. Burian is managing director at RCI Capital Group. https://axios.link/3ISE07i 

• Strategic Marketing Innovations, a D.C.-based government affairs firm, hired Bryan Bender. He was previously a Politico editor.

• JTEC Energy, an Atlanta-based developer of heat-to-electricity tech, appointed Glenn Eisman to join its technical advisory board. Eisman previously founded H2Pump, a hydrogen recycling company. https://axios.link/3CVIhTM

The guy who invented the Super Soaker, Lonnie Johnson, developed JTEC’s core technology. He’s also a former NASA scientist. 

5. It's personnel

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back from yet another long weekend. 

🔌 Situational awareness: Our colleagues at What's Next looked at the 35 U.S. cities with the highest share of EV sales. Which have the greatest inequity when it comes to public charging infrastructure? Read on to find out.

🌧️ Megan's good friend came to Los Angeles to celebrate her 30th birthday in what she hoped was an escape from the gloomy PNW winter. No dice.

🧟 Alan isn't sure what he expected from the post-apocalyptic pandemic-zombie show from the guy who did HBO's "Chernobyl." But the first episode of "The Last of Us" was mighty intense.

Thanks to Michael Flaherty and Phoebe Neidl for today's edits.

And thank you for reading Climate Deals! Please share with your friends, family and family logistics coordinators.

January 17, 2023

1 big thing: More seizures from China forced labor law