‘Endangering Our National Security’: Senator Launches Inquiry Into Biden’s $200M Grant to China-Based Battery Company
The Truth About Cars That Nancy Pelosi And Dianne Feinstein Never Want You To See
There is only enough lithium and cobalt in the world for only the top richest people in the world to EVER afford electric cars. There are 1.5 billion cars in the world. There is only enough lithium ion battery raw material for a tiny percentage of those cars at affordable prices.
Almost all of the lithium and cobalt exists in foreign countries that hate the U.S.
To mine it, child slave labor is used and massive genocide-class corruption exists around those mines.
It will eventually run out totally and the previous materials will no longer be able to be recycled.
Silicon Valley, Goldman Sachs and California politicians push for lithium ion batteries because they own the stock of all the lithium mines. The last heads of the U.S. Department of Energy secret owned lithium battery companies.
The lithium/Cobalt chemicals in the world will only last another 30 years at the current rate of use.
Even the biggest companies in the world: GM and LG, won’t build stupid lithium ion batteries unless the Dept of Energy bribes them to build those worthless batteries.
You can make fuel cell hydrogen from any ocean or lake water, natural gas or any organic waste garbage. Those raw materials will last another 1000 years.
Silicon Valley, Goldman Sachs, Panasonic and California politicians spend thirty billion dollars a year blockading hydrogen fuel cells and running blogger campaigns against them.
A lithium ion car and/or battery blows up every minutes. A fuel cell car never blows up.
The U.S. Department of Energy has known these facts for decades but would rather lie to the public so it’s political buddies can profiteer today, rather than prepare for tomorrow!
Hydrogen fuel cells hold the true promise. A great deal of energy can be stored in a relatively small amount of hydrogen. Plus, refueling can be done relatively quickly. Pumping more hydrogen simply takes a bit longer. It doesn’t scale as badly as recharging a large battery, where higher power delivery is required, along with large uprated cables and connectors. While storage and refueling of hydrogen was once a difficult proposition, the last decade has seen companies like Toyota and Hyundai invest in maturing the technology.
The fast refueling time is really the key to hydrogen’s potential in the trucking world. There isn’t an electric vehicle on Earth that can add 727 kilometers of range in under an hour. Even if there was, it would likely require cabling and connectors rated for a megawatt or more. However, with hydrogen, Hyundai can offer quick refueling and long range while keeping emissions clean and green.
The other issue is weight. Semis can carry whatever they want up to the aforementioned gross 37,200 kg for Class 8 trucks. Weight carried in batteries directly competes with cargo, and while Tesla still hasn’t released any weight data, it’s likely that battery weight alone is in the 10,000 kg – 15,000 kg range. Compared with a fuel load of 67 kg of hydrogen, even if there is significant weight reduction in the cab and the motors, Hydrogen makes the most economic sense.
Hydrogen may yet be the ideal solution for cleaning up the heavy truck fleets of the world. That may be via fuel cell trucks, or perhaps via hydrogen-burning combustion engines which aren’t quite as clean. Challenges remain around the production of hydrogen from clean sources, though they’re not insurmountable. As for the lack of refuelling stations, it’s not as big a deal for commercial operators, which are often in the habit of refuelling from specific depots already.
The top Republican on the Senate energy committee launched an inquiry on Wednesday into a Biden administration grant to a China-based battery company under scrutiny from U.S. financial regulators. The announcement came in the wake of a Washington Free Beacon report about the Biden administration’s attempt to spin the grant as a boon for American-made clean energy.
Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the Department of Energy’s grant to Microvast Holding “endangers our national security” and “undermine[s] the United States’ position in its race against China for technological supremacy,” in a letter to DOE secretary Jennifer Granholm on Wednesday.
The inquiry comes after the DOE gave the $200 million award to Microvast, a holding company that operates primarily in China, to build a lithium-ion battery separator facility in Tennessee, the Free Beacon reported on Tuesday. Granholm said the funding, which came from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, would help “supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is American-made.”
Barrasso asked Granholm to turn over records detailing the “security review process” for companies receiving DOE funding, and the names of officials who are responsible for approving the payments.
“Microvast’s close relationship with China is no secret,” wrote Barrasso. “I remind you that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was ostensibly intended to develop robust domestic manufacturing bases and supply chains free from the predations of the [People’s Republic of China].”
“DOE distributing $200 million in taxpayer funds to a company joined at the hip with China is demonstrably antithetical to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s intent,” he added.
Barrasso asked Granholm to provide him with the information by Dec. 21.
The DOE described Microvast as a “majority U.S.-owned company, traded on NASDAQ” and “headquartered in Stafford, Texas.” Microvast’s 2021 annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission said it is a “holding company, and we conduct all of our operations through our subsidiaries, and principally through our subsidiary in China.” Microvast said it has received subsidies from the Chinese government and a significant portion of its customers are Chinese state-owned enterprises.
“The PRC government exerts substantial influence over the manner in which we must conduct our business activities and may intervene, at any time and with no notice,” said the company’s filing.
Earlier this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission added Microvast to a list of public companies with China-based auditors and whose financial records are subject to restrictions by the Chinese government. Companies that remain on the list for three consecutive years will be delisted from U.S. stock exchanges under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act.
A DOE spokesman defended the grant in a statement to the Free Beacon on Wednesday, saying the company “will use U.S. sourced raw materials in the proposed facility and equipment manufactured within the U.S. or by U.S. allies.”
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The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law states that the DOE should avoid funding projects that “use battery material supplied by or originating from a foreign entity of concern,” which includes a “foreign entity … subject to the jurisdiction or direction” of China.
The DOE told the Free Beacon that Microvast “does not meet these criteria.” A spokesman did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about how this was determined.
Microvast spokeswoman Sarah Alexander told the Free Beacon that the company is majority U.S.-owned and primarily operates out of Huzhou, China, but has been expanding its manufacturing and research facilities to Germany and the United States.
DoE’s Granholm Hands Out $200M Greenie Grant To Lithium Battery Company — Controlled By Hunter Biden’s Chinese
So what does “American-made” mean to the Biden administration as it hands out huge chunks of “free” taxpayer cash for its “green” infrastructure schemes?
As Donald Trump used to say: “Chiii-na.”
According to Alana Goodman:
President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy is touting a grant to a lithium battery company as a move that would help herald the shift to green energy and ensure the United States is cultivating domestic sources of energy. It did not say, however, that the Texas company receiving the grant operates primarily from China and is under scrutiny from American financial regulators.
The DOE announced in October that it would give the $200 million award to Microvast Holdings to build a battery separator facility in Tennessee, using funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. At the time, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the grant would “supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is American-made.”
While the DOE described Microvast as a “majority U.S.-owned company, traded on NASDAQ” and “headquartered in Stafford, Texas,” financial records show the company operates primarily out of China. Microvast itself says the Chinese government “exerts substantial influence over the manner in which we must conduct our business activities and may intervene, at any time and with no notice.” The company was also recently added to a Securities and Exchange Commission watchlist of Chinese companies that are on track to be delisted from NASDAQ for failing to comply with U.S. auditing requirements.
Which not only has the smell of ‘Solyndra’ all over it, given that it can’t seem to produce records for an audit any more than Sam Bankman-Fried can, it’s also a China-controlled entity. What China wants, the company does.
Which rather puts paid to rest the idea that Joe Biden is out financing “Made in America” green infrastructure, in response to previous reports that solar panels and wind turbines have largely benefitted Chinese makers.
How he touted that to the public, and like a conman, won votes for his “infrastructure” bill on that very promise. Domestic green energy, domestically produced, and pay no attention to that oil in the ground that could be produced without subsidies.
Turns out he didn’t mean it at all and now that he’s got the bill passed with the cash to fling around, his promise was about as good as the one he made to the student loan debtors.
Here’s one small part of his droning dreck on the importance of bankrolling Made-in-America greenie energy schemes dating from the White House site last June:
While President Biden continues pushing Congress to pass clean energy investments and tax cuts, he is taking bold action to rapidly build on this progress and create a bridge to this American-made clean energy future. Today, President Biden is taking action to:
- Authorize use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to accelerate domestic production of clean energy technologies, including solar panel parts;
- Put the full power of federal procurement to work spurring additional domestic solar manufacturing capacity by directing the development of master supply agreements, including “super preference” status; and
- Create a 24-month bridge as domestic manufacturing rapidly scales up to ensure the reliable supply of components that U.S. solar deployers need to construct clean energy projects and an electric grid for the 21st century, while reinforcing the integrity of our trade laws and processes.
Together, these actions will spur domestic manufacturing, construction projects, and good-paying jobs – all while cutting energy costs for families, strengthening our grid, and tackling climate change and environmental injustice. With a stronger clean energy arsenal, the United States can be an even stronger partner to our allies, especially in the face of Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Give me your votes, then forget about what I promised about Made in America. That’s his “word as a Biden.”
What seems to be happening here is the same thing we have seen from the European Union, particularly France, that Joe Biden’s free money and incentives to develop greenie infrastructure has attracted a boatload of foreign companies, pulling up stakes from Europe to avail themselves of Joe’s free cash, which they would otherwise have to put up themselves.
I wrote about the beefs from Europe here:
Lastly, there’s the much-reviled “Inflation Reduction Act” which as it turns out, penalizes Europe, given that most of the greenie energy projects include a “Made in U.S.A.” label. It’s not as if the European Union doesn’t do this itself on a host of goods Americans buy from them. But all the same, big subsidies to non-sustainable-without-subsidies projects such as green energy has had many knock-on effects which harm allies. European companies are pulling up stakes and coming to the U.S. to take advantage of all that Biden green free money, which wasn’t exactly the plan when Biden’s minions created the Inflation Reduction Act in the first place. They are leaving Europe and the U.S. is benefitting. No wonder that leaves them steaming.
It’s quite likely that Biden, when he spoke of his differences with French President Emmanuel Macron on his recent state visit, got an earful from the French president on this very matter, which Biden later said, would require “tweaks” in the bill, which are unlikely to happen.
But more to the point, it looks like the Chicoms are taking advantage, too. Free money from the feds is a dinner triangle heard worldwide, and otherwise useless and unprofitable green enterprises are now flocking to the U.S. to get hold of all that free green money Joe’s handing out.
What’s disgusting is that Granholm billed it as “Made in America” when in fact only the money shoveled out is Made in America. The greenie enterprises are foreign, they are Chinese, they thrive on subidies, and they gather to the states like bums encircling a chief drug dealer in a homeless encampment for their succor.
That’s not what the American people were told as this bill went into operation. The money was really for China.
Hat tip: Instapundit
Image: U.S. National Archives, via Picryl // no known copyright restrictions
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