Infrastructure Bill Round-Up (2/18/2022)

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Topics Discussed:

• No one cares about panel gaps
• We need to shut up about deeply technical aspects of EVs when the average consumer literally doesn't know or care about them
• We need to stop making such a (public) deal about battery chemistries
• No one cares about megacastings
• Solid state batteries will not save us
• Education isn't a significant barrier to electric vehicle adoption
• EV weight is and isn't an issue 
• Tesla charger shouldn't become the standard
• Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)
• Battery recycling
• Sedans!
• Return-on-Investment (ROI) doesn't mean anything to most individuals when making vehicle purchasing decisions
• Autonomous driving
• Hydrogen makes zero sense for passenger vehicles and never will
• Other alternative fuel industries have absolutely shot themselves in the foot and it's hard to imagine them recovering in the long term
• The term "zero emission" needs to be abolished
• We both should and shouldn't care so much about public transit in decarbonization efforts
• Marine and rail are important, but not the most pressing need

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Vehicles:

Toyota is apparently planning on rolling out their first dedicated EV platform in 2027 or 2028, "when demand will justify the investment".

Toyota has replaced its CEO, allegedly in order to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.

• I'll believe it when I see it.

Hyundai is refreshing the Kona to be EV-first instead of a weird three-drivetrain thing, and they're changing the design to be more in-line with the Ioniq series.

The Hyundai Ioniq 6 has official EPA range numbers, getting up to 361 miles.

We have a small amount of info about the upcoming 2024 Ram 1500 electric truck, which will also have a plug-in hybrid version.

• Apparently one version will be called the "Range Electric Paradigm Breaker" which will have a lot of range or something. This was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, so . . . Yeah
• And more info about interior and such here

The Chevy Bolt received a small-ish price increase of around $900.

The VW ID4 had a $1,500 price increase for the 2023 model, even for existing reservation-holders.

• They cite battery cost increases as the reason.

The Ford F-150 Lightning has increased in price by at least $15k to $55k starting.

The Porsche Taycan now has an upgrade available that upgrades the onboard charger to accept 19.2kW.

• For home charging, this would require a pretty beefy circuit capable of 100A, which is . . . a lot
• This is probably more relevant for public charging because of that current requirement
• The upgrade costs $1,850 in hardware, plus labor

General Motors is getting a $2.5b loan from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to build a battery plant in support of its electric vehicle production.

• GM claims it will be able to produce 1 million EVs per year by the middle of the decade

Rivian has increased the range of its vehicles a small amount through an over-the-air update and added a snow mode for better traction in snowy conditions as well as remote pre-conditioning.

The automotive supplier ZF revealed a heated seatbelt at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) meant to improve electric vehicle efficiency in cold weather.

• They say that the product is production-ready, though they do not have customers yet.
• The marginal cost is around that of heated steering wheels.
• They claim up to 15% range increase while using the seatbelt instead of traditional cabin heating.

Not terribly surprising, but a new report found that cold weather results in more charging of EVs, not less driving.

• Basically, people aren't driving less as a result of less range, they're just charging their vehicles more often.

Redwood Materials, the battery recycling company, is planning to build a $3.5b plant in South Carolina, which will employ 1,500 people.

• Redwood is making serious moves in the battery recycling world, this is awesome news.

The Environmental Protection Agency has released new, more stringent emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks, but they're still less aggressive than California's.

• California still needs a waiver from the EPA to set its own standards for the more stringent standards.
• The EPA's are still fairly aggressive.
• These new standards take into effect in 2027.

Infrastructure:

Electrify America has increased its prices by $0.05/kWh across the board.

AAA is launching a pilot to provide free mobile charging to members who drive EVs in several cities across the country.

• The initial 14 cities are:

Sandia National Labs just published a paper looking into the issue of cybersecurity and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

• Link to the full paper.
• The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program places a lot of emphasis on cybersecurity and chargers, but there hasn't been much actual guidance about how security should be maintained with this infrastructure.
• The paper is a pretty thorough look at the whole issue.
• The paper does claim that more damaging types of attacks would be very difficult, but it's still an issue that needs to be addressed.

Nikola is planning to have a mobile fueling truck to deliver hydrogen to customers without a standalone hydrogen station.

• This sort of technology has been used for natural gas and propane vehicles in the past, so there is precedent, though it hasn't been very widely used in general.
• Hydrogen is already trucked to stations (they rarely, if ever, use pipeline hydrogen), so this isn't too large a leap.
• I think this is putting the cart before the horse.

Deployment:

Ford is going to deliver 2,000 electric delivery vans to shipper, DHL, by the end of 2023.

• This also comes with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to purchase more vehicles in the future.
• DHL will also use Ford's Ford Pro software to manage the vehicles.
• DHL operates a total of around 27,000 delivery vans, for context.

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has, again, changed its EV plans.

• The current plan moves their EV targets up to over 50% of their new fleet.
• They now plan to only by EVs from 2026 on.
• $3b of the funding to make this happen will come from the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act.

Air Canada has purchased 30 electric-hybrid airplanes from Heart Aerospace.

• These are both battery electric and have more traditional powertrains to increase range, from what I can find online.
• Air Canada is also acquiring a $5m stake in the company.

Energy:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that renewable energy will make up over 25% of the U.S. grid mix by 2024!

• This is an incredible milestone!

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EPA Clean School Bus Rebate Program awards

Tesla opens up their charging standard

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My guest appearance on Talk on the Wild Side!

Document Notes:

• Quarterly data submissions (p.7 and p.43/44; Section 680.112(b))
  • Charging station use
    • Charging session metrics
    • Energy dispensed per port
  • Reliability, maintenance, and installation cost 
    • Charging station uptime
    • Total monthly cost of electricity paid to operate the station
      • Demand charges
      • Energy charges ($/kWh)
      • Fixed charges
      • Taxes
      • Other fees
    • Monthly maintenance and repair costs per port
  • Construction and installation data
    • Detailed costs such as:
      • Installation costs
      • Distributed energy resource acquisition and installation
      • Grid connection and upgrade costs (paid for by charger operator)
• Annual data submissions (p.7 and p.44/45; Section 680.112(c))
  • Identifying information about organizations operating, maintaining, or installing EVSE
    • Whether these organizations participate in State or local business opportunity certification programs such as programs for minority-owned businesses, Veteran-owned businesses, woman-owned businesses, and/or businesses owned by economically disadvantaged individuals for private entities
  • Information about any certifications of these entities
• Annual report (p.7 and p.45; Section 680.112(d))
  • Description of community engagement activities conducted in accordance with their approved State EV Infrastructure Deployment Plans
• With regard to data requirements: Will this data collection place undue burden on states? (p.7/8)
• Charging station networking requirements (p.8; p.46/47/48; Section 680.114)
  • Must be able to communicate through the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) in tandem with ISO 15118
    • This is meant to help with cybersecurity concerns and;
    • Reduce the risk of stranded assets in the event that an operator abandons a station
  • Must be capable of “Plug and Charge”
  • Must be capable of “smart charge management”
  • FHWA recognizes that these requirements (Plug and Charge; smart charge management) are fairly new, hence the requirement of OPCC communications instead of requiring the use of those capabilities outright
  • Chargers don’t need to use those capabilities, but they must be capable of it
  • “FHWA proposes to include a requirement in Section 680.114(b) that, where credential-based electric charge initiation or payment is implemented, charging networks be capable of communicating with other charging networks to enable customers to use a single credential regardless of the charging network responsible for a charging station.” (p. 48)
  • Charging networks must be capable of communication with electric utilities and energy providers, or local energy management systems (p.48)
• Charging stations need to provide real-time status information through a freely accessible API to all third-party software developers (p.8)
  • Location
  • Connector type
  • Power level
  • Status
    • Number of ports accessible to persons with disabilities (p.51; Section 680.116)
  • Pricing
  • Chargers would be required to display the price of charging in $/kWh
    • In states where “charge for charge” is not allowed, FHWA requests comment on how to best require the display of price on these chargers
    • Should it be $/mi, $/minute, or some other metric?
• Price transparency (p.27/28)
  • Public disclosure for the documents concerning the operations of the EV charging stations where price setting is involved, including the procurement process used, the number of bids received, the identification of the awardee, the proposed contract with the awardee, and, in accordance with State law, the financial summary of contract payments (including the price and cost data), and any information describing how prices for EV charging are to be set under the contract.
• States are subject to 23 U.S.C. 112 and any State procurement policies and procedures per 2 CFR 200.217 (p.28)
• Level 2 chargers may be eligible for NEVI funds after corridors are fully built out (p.31)
  • J1772 would be the required connector for a Level 2 charger
• Non-CCS plugs at DCFC sites (p.31)
  • “Section 680.106(c) would further provide for additional flexibility for the provision of charging ports after the aforementioned CCS requirement has been met. This includes adding permanently attached proprietary connectors to DCFCs. In addition, specific to the use of FY22 NEVI Formula Program funds, DCFCs may include permanently attached CHAdeMO connectors for one or more DCFC charging port.”
    • It is not clear to me if “CCS requirement has been met” refers to “fully built-out” or just the 4 plugs per site requirement.
• Station power level (p.32)
  • Chargers with higher power levels are encouraged “where appropriate to support industry efforts to ensure a consumer’s time to charge is at least comparable to filling a gas tank”.
  • “The inclusion of a requirement that each DCFC charging port must be at or above 150kW would benefit the charging industry primarily in communicating standards with individual utilities that may not be accustomed to EV industry preferences.”
  • Level 2 chargers (if funded) would need to deliver at least 6kW per port simultaneously across all ports.
• Charger availability (p.32 and p.50; Section 680.116(b))
  • Stations must be available for public use 24/7 with minor exception
  • Isolated or temporary interruption due to maintenance or repairs would not violate this requirement
  • Stations must have an uptime greater than 97%
  • Uptime must be submitted quarterly and retained for quarterly review
    • Uptime calculation:
    • Mu = ((8760 – (T_outage – T_excluded))/8760) X 100
    • Mu = port uptime percentage
    • T_outage = total hours of outage in previous year
    • T_ excluded = total hours of outage in previous year for reasons outside operator’s control
  • The FHWA requests specific comment on what additional considerations should be contemplated to ensure EVSE resilience/reliability in floodplains and during natural disasters
• Payment systems (p.34)
  • Stations cannot require memberships for access
  • Payment options must include contactless payment methods from all major debit/credit card providers
  • Access cannot be limited by payment type
  • Plug and Charge payment capabilities are required
  • Credit card is not required to be the only payment method to be mindful of the underbanked.
  • FHWA requires multilingual access and access for people with disabilities
• Efficiency certifications (p.35)
  • For Level 2 chargers, ENERGY STAR certification is required
  • For DCFC, ENERGY STAR certification is not currently required due to a lack of widespread availability
• Physical and Cybersecurity measures (p.35/36)
  • “Section 680.106(h) would require States to implement physical and cybersecurity strategies consistent with their State EV Infrastructure Deployment Plans. This section also includes options for both physical security, such as lighting, siting, driver and vehicle safety, fire prevention, tampering, charger locks, and illegal surveillance of payment devices, and cybersecurity strategies that may be addressed in order to mitigate charging infrastructure, grid, and consumer vulnerability associated with the operation of charging stations. The FHWA encourages States to implement policies to safeguard consumer privacy and requests comments on best practices available in the industry.”
• Operational period (p.36)
  • Charging infrastructure must operate for at least 5 years (Section 680.106(i))
  • 5 years was chosen to provide a reasonable useful life while providing sensitivity to the changing landscape of charging standards/expectations and tech developments
• Workforce concerns (p.36/37/38)
  • Installation and maintenance must be done safely by a skilled workforce with appropriate licensing, certification, and training.
  • Workforce used should be diverse.
  • With exception of apprentices, all electricians installing, maintaining, and operating EVSE must be certified through the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Training Program (EVITP)
    • The participant in the program must provide documentation of a minimum of 8,000 hours of hands-on electric construction experience
    • https://evitp.org/
    • FHWA is aware of industry concerns with EVITP:
      • It being the sole provider might serve to privatize the licensing process or impose a hurdle to obtaining electricians
      • To address this, States can meet this requirement through another Registered Electrical Apprenticeship program that includes EVSE-specific training
    • For projects with more than one electrician, at least one must be an apprentice in a registered electrical apprenticeship program – Section 680.106(j)
  • “FHWA recommends that States take proactive steps to work with training providers, workforce boards, labor unions, and other worker organizations, community-based organizations, and non-profits to build a local workforce that will support the EV network”
  • Funding sources for such programs can be found at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/alternative_fuel_corridors/resources/ev_funding_report_2021.pdf
  • States should also consider how disadvantaged communities will benefit from added job growth
• Station customer feedback requirements (p.39)
  • Stations must allow for customers to report outages, malfunctions, and other issues
  • These reporting mechanisms must be accessible and equitable in accordance with ADA
  • FHWA requests comments on customer service strategies to enter issues as part of the real-time status data outlined in Section 680.116(c)
• Traffic control devices and signage (p.42)
  • Requirements are set by existing regulations in 23 CFR part 655 and 23 CFR part 750 for NEVI Formula Program projects
  • Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is currently being updated (updates due in September, 2022?)
  • Section 680.110

Yep, I'm taking September and October off, but I'll be back afterwards!

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My guest appearance on Talk on the Wild Side!

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Interchange Podcast episode about Power Purchase Agreements.

Vehicles:

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 has achieved the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Top Safety Pick+ list.

The federal electric vehicle tax credit is going to begin phasing out for Toyota and Lexus starting in October of 2022.

• This means it will drop down from $7,500 to $3,750 until April 1, 2023,      then phase out entirely in October 2023.
• Here is a page with the tax credit status by automaker/vehicle.

Not a surprise, but the F-150 Lightning's vehicle-to-home system will require additional hardware that may cost around $4k, maybe more depending on the home.

• This is in addition to needing Ford's Level 2 charger, which costs $1,310.

The Chevy Bolt received a massive price cut across the board, now starting at $26,595.

• GM is also giving retroactive discounts to Bolts bought new in 2022.

Hyundai is discontinuing the Hyundai Ioniq hybrid and plug-in hybrid, after already cancelling the fully electric Ioniq.

• This mostly makes sense, since they're properly moving towards electrification with the Ioniq name.
• This is a shame, though, since the Hyundai Ioniq hybrid was the most efficient gas car on the market for several years.

We now have pricing for the Mercedes-Benz EQB, which will start at $55,550.

Nissan and Wallbox (the charging company) are partnering to offer at-home charging to Nissan customers.

• Nissan owners will be able to purchase a level 2 Wallbox charger and schedule its installation through Nissan, all in one process on the Nissan website.
• Owners will also receive a rebate of an unknown amount when going through their website.

Stellantis is testing under-road wireless charging in their Fiat 500 with a system that is capable of up to 20kW.

Ford is going to assemble its "next generation" EV platform in Valencia, Spain, and is moving forward with converting its Cologne, Germany facility to produce EVs.

• The site in Spain would begin production at the end of the decade.
• The Germany site's conversion is a $2b project.

BMW is opening its own battery production facility in late 2022, not to produce its own batteries at a large scale, but to develop specifications for other battery manufacturers to meet.

• The idea is that learning more about battery manufacturing will allow them to set higher quality technical standards for their suppliers to meet.
• This facility will also do battery research to develop new batteries that meet their performance goals.
• This is a 130m Euro investment.

LG Chem and Korean Energy Materials are partnering to build a $160m battery precursor factory in South Korea.

Stellantis and Samsung are partnering to build a battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana.

• It will have an initial capacity of 23GWh/year and will ramp up to 33GWh over a few years.
• Production is to begin in 2025.
• This is a $2.5b investment.
• It will create 1,400 jobs.

Toyota is now also partnering with Redwood Materials to develop a "closed-loop" battery market.

• Redwood Materials is a company that does battery recycling and is partnering with Ford and Volvo already.
• Redwood Materials is already processing 6GWh of batteries annually with the goal of ramping up to 100GWh by 2025.

Electrify America has set up a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement with Terra-Gen to take advantage of 75MW of solar power with an annual electricity production of 225TWh.

• That is enough electricity to drive roughly 675m miles or 1b km.
• Operations of that solar facility in the Mojave are expected to begin in Summer of 2023.

The EV charging company, FreeWire Technologies, has opened a new headquarters in Newark, California and raised $125m in additional funding for scaling up.

• FreeWire is definitely gearing up to take advantage of Infrastructure Bill funding.
• Their charger uses a large battery to lessen the grid-connection requirements at their chargers.

Deployment:

The charging company FreeWire and Phillips 66 have signed a letter of intent to partner on installing FreeWire chargers at Phillips 66 fuel stations across the U.S.

• There are unfortunately no details available about the number of planned sites, timeline, etc.
• It's worth noting that "letters of intent" are usually not binding.

Seattle is offering (a limited number of) free curbside Level 2 chargers to property owners who don’t have a way of installing EV chargers at their sites.

• The chargers would have a flat rate to charge, but would be free to install.

Rivian has installed its first two WayPoint Level 2 chargers in Michigan at the Holland State Park on Lake Michigan.

The United Kingdom's Department for Transportation has announced more than £200 million of new funding for demonstration projects for hydrogen and electric heavy duty trucks.

• This will be a 3yr project.

Milan's transit system has ordered 75 more electric transit buses from Solaris to go into service in late 2022.

• This brings their total order up to 215, out of 250 included in their original deal with Solaris.
• They intend to completely phase diesel out by 2030.

Los Angeles has deployed its first electric fire truck in Hollywood.

• It only has a 132kWh battery pack, which can allow for about 2 hours of pump operation.
• It has a "range extender" 6-cylinder diesel engine that can operate the pumps for an additional 6 hours.
• This vehicle will not be a full replacement for traditional fire trucks, which may need to operate for well over a dozen hours continuously.

Energy:

Grand Rapids, Michigan is hoping to reach 100% renewable power by 2025 and just launched a 0.9MW solar facility to help power its water filtration plant.

Nebraska Public Power District held a ribbon cutting for a new solar facility in Norfolk that produces 8.5MW of solar power with 1MW of battery storage.

The Sandy Creek Solar Power Plant in Bay County, Florida is now online, producing 74.9MW of power.

Entergy has completed a 100MW solar facility in Mississippi.

The French Road Solar project in Burlington, Indiana has officially come online with 2.8MW of solar power.

The DeCordova Energy Storage Facility by Vistra in Granbury, Texas is now online with 260MW of battery storage, which makes it the largest storage facility in Texas.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers have developed a record-breaking solar panel that is 39.5% efficient.

Huge thanks to Seonghoon Woo, CEO of Amogy, who took a lot of time out of his schedule to have this conversation with me!

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to find me on Twitter @archduketyler

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Notes:

Amogy's website

The roundtrip efficiency of such an ammonia system is between 15-25% based on the following sources:

• An ammonia energy group.
• A study under the American Chemical Society.

On Density: ammonia holds approximately 5 times the amount of hydrogen per unit volume compared to gaseous hydrogen used in a traditional fuel cell vehicle.

Paper from the Department of Energy (2006) about ammonia as a hydrogen carrier.

There are approximately 5,000km of ammonia pipeline in the U.S.

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to find me on Twitter @archduketyler

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The Environmental Protection Agency's page for the program.

The program guidelines.

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to find me on Twitter @archduketyler

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Vehicles:

Electric vehicles had record sales in Q1 of 2022 by a significant margin.

• There's some interesting data in the article, with the most interesting thing being the chart of EV sales over the last decade, the chart looks pretty exponential.

Around half of the higher-risk Chevy Bolts included in the battery recall have been fixed.

This article discusses whether or not chasing 350kW chargers for an EV that can accept that speed of charging, and the complexity of the article is a clear example of why we really need to find a better way to discuss charging speeds.

• The main point of the article is that, since there aren't many 350kW chargers out there, planning a trip around hitting those chargers won't save you time over simply going to slightly slower (150kW) chargers that are closer to your planned route.
• The article is more interesting in its discussion around the actual charge rates the author saw while testing the Ioniq 5 and EV6, which were all over the place compared to the stated power of the chargers.

Lucid has increased prices across the board by up to $15,000 for their vehicles effective June 1, 2022, but will honor the prices of current reservation holders.

• This puts the starting price of a Lucid Air at $88,900.
• They still expect to hit their target of 12-14k vehicles produced by the end of the year.

Volvo's entire 2023 lineup of vehicles will be, at minimum, hybrids.

• This is awesome.

We now have a full review by Green Car Reports of the Genesis GV60, which is basically a luxury version of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 that starts at $59,980.

We also now have pricing information for the Cadillac Lyriq, which will start at $62,990.

Freightliner is slated to begin production of their eCascadia electric semi by the end of the year.

• The semi will have up to 230mi/370km of range, which is quite close to the number that fleets were asking for at ACT Expo (around 250mi/400km).
• It will have up to a 438kWh battery pack.

Both Kia and Tesla have stopped included Level 1 (120V) chargers with their electric vehicles.

• They claim usage is very low, which may be true, but it's still absolutely asinine to sell a vehicle without a way to charge the vehicle included in the purchase.
• Level 1 charging is a crucial emergency feature that is very low cost on the side of the automaker.
• Maybe in 5-10 years this will make sense, but given how immature the market is, this is an absolutely obscene decision.

Lordstown Motors says that they need an additional $150m to get production rolling.

Lordstown Motors has completed the sale of its factory to Foxconn, who will do the actual manufacturing of Lordstown's trucks.

• This comes with a $100m investment by Foxconn in a joint venture to engineer new EVs.
• They still claim to be on track to begin production in the third quarter of 2022.

Ford has sold more of its shares in Rivian, bringing its investment from 12% to 10% of Rivian's value.

The Rocky Mountain Institute argues that time-of-use charging and smart charging programs can decrease the carbon impact of EVs by up to 18%.

• They basically argue that EVs won't increase electricity's carbon impact because smart charging can take advantage of lower carbon electricity at the right times, but this isn't really a guarantee.

Deployment:

Westerville, Ohio has deployed 16 new Level 2 chargers across the city.

The Swedish company, Volta, is planning on bringing 100 electric trucks to the U.S. to be used as a pilot for their "truck as a service" business model, and eventually begin manufacturing trucks in the U.S. by 2025.

• These initial trucks will be Class 7 trucks with a range around 100mi (160km).

Chatham Area Transit in Georgia has deployed 6 electric transit buses into their fleet of 62 buses.

The University of Virginia is getting 4 electric transit buses from Proterra, adding to its fleet of about 40 buses.

• This is part of a strategy to become carbon-neutral by 2030 and fossil-fuel free by 2050.

Charlotte, North Carolina is piloting light pole-mounted EV chargers that focus on usage data collection and sharing, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy.

• The first charger is being used approximately once per day.
• Four more of these chargers will be installed by the end of the year.

Energy:

Rivian has financed 1 MW of solar power at the Paris Solar Farm in Tennessee to provide electricity for its Waypoint network in Tennessee's state parks.

• The solar farm is still in construction and should begin operations by the end of 2022.
• It will produce a total of 6.75MW.

SpaceX is expanding its solar farm in Boca Chica, Texas by about 30%, adding around 750kW of solar power.

The bank OZK has completed construction of a 4.8MW solar plant that will produce enough power to supply 40 of its locations as well as their headquarters.

Houston County, Texas now has 68MW of additional solar power.

The city of Urbana, Illinois has a new 5.2MW solar farm installed on an old landfill.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce has opened a grant program called Solar for Schools which will award grants of up to 95% of project costs for schools to install solar power.

• There is $7.5m available through this program.
• Each school district can install up to 80kW of solar.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a finding of no significant impact for the Humboldt Wind Energy Area off the coast of California, which allows a lease sale to move forward for the region.

• The area has the capacity for around 1.6GW of wind production. 
• This is an early step towards leasing the area for development, but it's a very significant one.

The company RiverCap Ventures plans to recycle 200 old wind turbine blades to make benches, planters, tables, and other outdoor equipment.

• They begin production in August 2022.
• It's apparently hard to grind the fiberglass blades for use in cement and such, so they're avoiding that by simply cutting the blades and utilizing their structural integrity.
• They are building two more facilities in the U.S. to do this sort of recycling, which is around a $10m investment.

A seven-year study found that the Block Island Wind Farm did not negatively impact fish habitats.

• The study was funded by the wind industry, so some skepticism is prudent.
• A link to the study.

The U.S. federal government has announced a plan to use over $12b to modernize Puerto Rico's grid, focusing on renewable energy and resiliency.

Policy:

The U.S. Department of Energy has officially opened up a notice of intent for the $2.5b of funding for grid transmission through the Infrastructure Bill.

• This sort of "notice of intent" is important for gathering industry feedback and the allow the industry time to plan for how to take advantage of the funding (such as beginning partnerships, raising capital, etc.).

The U.S. General Service Administration (GSA) has issued new standards requiring lower-carbon cement and asphalt to be used in all GSA projects.

• This should result in a 20% reduction in carbon emissions associated with concrete and asphalt for GSA construction projects.

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Stats from the upcoming warehouse build by Prologis Ventures:

Power Output: 2.5 MW

Annual Energy Output: 4 GWh

Class 8 Trucks Supported: 22

Annual Miles/Kilometers Supported: 1,760,000 miles | 2,800,000 km

Annual Greenhouse Gas Reductions: 5,695 tons