After the nickel market goes haywire, the United States and its allies launch a critical minerals energy security plan, with stockpiling an option.
A view shows nickel sheets at Kola Mining and Metallurgical Company, a unit of Russia’s metals and mining company Nornickel, in the town of Monchegorsk in the Murmansk region on February 25, 2021. Credit: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images
By Marianne Lavelle Inside Climate News
A silver sedan rolled off of the General Motors assembly line in Spring Hill, Tennessee, last Monday that represented the $35 billion bet the company is making on the future inside the chassis of its most storied brand.
It was GM’s first all-electric Cadillac Lyriq, launched nine months earlier than scheduled and signaling that the automaker is charging full speed ahead on its transition to electric vehicles, despite tumultuous times.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has roiled global commodities markets—including those for nickel and other metals used in EV batteries—and laid bare how vulnerable the world is to price shocks in the metals essential to the EV future. That volatility comes on top of the pandemic-triggered supply chain woes that have dogged the auto industry for months.
President Joe Biden’s pledge to catalyze the electric vehicle transition has been only partly fulfilled, with consumer EV tax credits, much of the money for charging stations, and other assistance stalled with the rest of his Build Back Better package in Congress.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the linchpin for any effort to revive the legislation, this month said he is particularly reluctant to invest in an EV future because of U.S. dependence on imported metals for electric transportation. “I don’t want to have to be standing in line waiting for a battery for my vehicle because we’re now dependent on a foreign supply chain,” Manchin said at the annual CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.
But last week, automakers, the Biden administration, and U.S. trading partners and allies were doubling down on their commitment to vehicle electrification—not only to address climate change but because of concerns about energy insecurity in a world reliant on oil for transportation. Skyrocketing prices at gasoline pumps have made clear that U.S. drivers are not insulated from spikes in the global oil market, even though the United States is producing more oil domestically than ever.
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