Battery Plant Cancellations Surge in 2025

Updated: 2026.01.15 13D ago 9 sources
Atlas Public Policy estimates that in Q1 2025, U.S. companies canceled, downsized, or mothballed nearly $8B in supply chain projects, including over $2.2B tied to battery plants. That single quarter exceeds the combined losses of the previous two years. It hints at a cooling in reshoring momentum and strain in the clean‑energy manufacturing push. — A sharp, one‑quarter reversal flags fragility in U.S. reindustrialization and decarbonization supply chains with implications for jobs, energy transition timelines, and industrial policy design.

Sources

China’s supply chain problems
Tyler Cowen 2026.01.15 62% relevant
Cowen’s note on China’s battery‑material refining concentration and the mismatch with mining supplies complements the documented battery‑plant cancellations and supply‑chain fragility, linking Chinese upstream constraints to the same global fragility that sank U.S. projects in 2025.
Britain Awards Wind Farm Contracts That Will Power 12 Million Homes
BeauHD 2026.01.15 60% relevant
This UK auction represents a counterpoint to the 2025 trend of canceled clean‑energy industrial projects: it signals where private capital still flows into large‑scale green infrastructure, and therefore informs the broader pattern about which parts of the energy transition attract investment versus those (like some battery projects) that have faltered.
Putting solar panels on land used for biofuels would produce enough electricity for all cars and trucks to go electric
Pablo Rosado 2026.01.12 57% relevant
The Our World in Data analysis implies a different pathway to decarbonised transport that reduces pressure on battery‑plant capacity by instead increasing grid‑scale solar deployed on existing cropland; that connects to the existing idea about fragility in battery manufacturing and the need to consider alternative routes to electrify transport.
America must embrace the Electric Age, or fall behind
Noah Smith 2026.01.09 90% relevant
Smith argues the U.S. must scale battery, EV and solar manufacturing or fall behind China — the exact policy problem highlighted by the cited Atlas Public Policy finding that billions in battery‑linked projects were canceled, showing fragility in U.S. reindustrialization that his essay diagnoses and urges fixing.
Are Hybrid Cars Helping America Transition to Electric Vehicles?
EditorDavid 2026.01.04 72% relevant
Both pieces document fragility in the clean‑vehicle industrial transition: the article shows EV sales and investment dynamics shifting toward hybrids as subsidies lapse, which echoes the earlier finding that battery plant projects were being canceled or delayed in 2025 — together these suggest the reshoring/EV industrial policy is sensitive to short‑term incentives.
The US Effort to Break China's Rare-Earth Monopoly
EditorDavid 2026.01.04 65% relevant
Both stories flag fragility in U.S. reindustrialization: the rare‑earth article shows how processing economics and small‑scale production constrain supply‑chain reshoring in the same way battery cancellations revealed strain on clean‑tech industrialization.
Oregon Faced a Huge Obstacle in Adding Green Energy. Here’s What Changed This Year.
Tony Schick 2025.12.30 30% relevant
Both pieces point to fragility in the clean‑energy industrial push: where national project cancellations reflect strain in the transition, Oregon’s blocked transmission shows another failure mode that can derail local buildouts and investment.
The Navy kept chasing a 100% solution to the point where they ended up with 0% of the ship being delivered
Isegoria 2025.11.30 75% relevant
Both stories document sudden, large‑scale program cancellations (or project mothballing) that reveal fragility in industrial policy and the costs of shifting requirements; the Constellation collapse echoes the rapid attrition of planned manufacturing projects that undermine reindustrialization and jobs.
Incentives matter, installment #1637
Tyler Cowen 2025.10.01 100% relevant
“In the first three months of 2025… nearly $8 billion… including more than $2.2 billion tied to battery plants,” per Atlas Public Policy.
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