The unlikely partners who could recharge U.S. battery production

The Washington Post ^ | August 18, 2025 7:30 a.m. EDT | Harry Krejsa and Sarah Hipel

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The hurdles to marrying clean tech and the defense industrial base are cultural more than technical.

When Congress took an ax to clean energy incentives last month, support for battery production surprisingly emerged unscathed. The One Big Beautiful Bill left intact advanced manufacturing incentives born from the Inflation Reduction Act — along with hope for the bevy of resulting domestic battery factories still under construction.

Those factories, however, were planning not only on supply-side incentives but also on demand that the new legislation reduced. With faster phaseouts of solar-farm and electric-vehicle incentives, two of the country’s largest battery consumers, our nascent battery manufacturers might face slower market growth than they budgeted for.

Yet clean tech entrepreneurs such as these might get an unexpected reprieve from an unlikely source: a defense industrial base suddenly desperate for batteries. Military planners are sounding the alarm that battery-powered drones are transforming warfare, and that the United States is woefully behind in the race to produce them.

These divergent communities might make for awkward business partners — but we don’t need climate activists to love the Pentagon, or arms manufacturers to start hugging trees. We just need them to be clear-eyed about their opportunity to solve each other’s problems. Climate change and great-power war are two of the United States’ existential challenges — and it would be a uniquely American story if we were able to address both at once.

In Ukraine, inexpensive and expendable drones have proved critical in holding off Moscow’s advances and are estimated to account for a large majority of Russian losses. This validates Beijing’s early bet on the strategic potential of vast “swarms” of cheap, unmanned aircraft. China is spending billions annually on armed drones in anticipation of a conflict with the United States, and its firms already...

[ProtectOurFreedom]

This is ultra annoying: “...but also on demand that the new legislation reduced.” The legislation did NOT change the demand curve. The FREE GOVERNMENT MONEY changed the Quantity Demanded on the demand curve by artificially lowering the price, but the demand curve itself did not change.

This is a big but subtle difference that people (especially journalists) do not get.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Ok so they keep getting ‘better’. When will they be good enough?

Sounds like the best way to make them better is with competition. You know-fossil fuels.