How has US industrial policy impacted climatetech investment?
Rhodium partner Trevor Houser joined the Catalyst podcast to discuss the recently launched Clean Investment Monitor.
In climatetech circles, the Inflation Reduction Act was a big deal. The expectation was that combined with other parts of U.S. industrial policy such as the CHIPS and Science Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the IRA would transform the American economy and ultimately slash U.S. carbon emissions.
We can’t see the impact on carbon emissions yet, but we can measure the initial effects on the economy. So how’s it going so far?
In this episode of Catalyst, host Shayle Kann talks to Trevor Houser, partner at Rhodium Group, about the new Clean Investment Monitor, a database of climatetech investments developed by Rhodium Group and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. Trevor highlights three different categories of policy impacts:
- Sectors where policy accelerated existing trends, including solar deployment and EV sales.
- Sectors where policy catalyzed new growth that probably would not have happened otherwise, such as manufacturing, hydrogen, carbon management and sustainable aviation fuels.
- Sectors that are declining despite policy incentives, including the deployment of wind and heat pumps.
They discuss the drivers behind these trends and cover topics, including:
- The regional clustering of manufacturing investment and new geographic hubs.
- The surprising growth in hydrogen made from steam methane reforming, also known as blue hydrogen.