https://archive.ph/kpKCK
"Late last month, analysts at the investment bank Credit Suisse published a
research note about America’s new climate law that went nearly unnoticed. The
Inflation Reduction Act, the bank argued, is even more important than has been
recognized so far: The IRA will “will have a profound effect across industries
in the next decade and beyond” and could ultimately shape the direction of the
American economy, the bank said. The report shows how even after the bonanza of
climate-bill coverage earlier this year, we’re still only beginning to
understand how the law works and what it might mean for the economy.
The report made a few broad points in particular that are worth attending to:
First, the IRA might spend twice as much as Congress thinks. Many of the IRA’s
most important provisions, such as its incentives for electric vehicles and
zero-carbon electricity, are “uncapped” tax credits. That means that as long as
you meet their terms, the government will award them: There’s no budget or
limit written into the law that restricts how much the government can spend.
The widely cited figure for how much the IRA will spend to fight climate
change—$374 billion—is in large part determined by the Congressional Budget
Office’s estimate of how much those tax credits will get used.
But that estimate is wrong, the bank claims. In fact, so many people and
businesses will use those tax credits that the IRA’s total spending is likely
to be more than $800 billion,
double what the CBO projects. And because
federal spending tends to catalyze private investment, that could send total
climate spending across the economy to roughly $1.7 trillion over the next 10
years. That’s significantly more money flowing into green-energy industries
than the CBO projected, though it’s unclear if that additional money will lead
to more carbon reductions than earlier analyses have projected.
Second, the U.S. is “poised to become the world’s leading energy provider,”
according to the bank. America is already the world’s largest producer of oil
and natural gas. The IRA could further enhance its advantage in all forms of
energy production, giving it a “competitive advantage in low-cost clean
electricity and hydrogen production, infrastructure, geologic storage, and
human capital,” the report states. By 2029, U.S. solar and wind could be the
cheapest in the world at less than $5 per megawatt-hour, the bank projects; it
will also become competitive in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and wind
turbines. (The law will help America’s battery industry, but the bank doesn’t
see the U.S. becoming the world’s biggest battery producer, given that China
already has such a dominant advantage.)"
Via
Future Crunch Oct 7, 2022:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-us-crime-conservation-argentina-evs-china/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
