Jonas Nahm
@jonasnahm
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Associate Professor @SAISHopkins . Former industrial policy economist for Biden White House. Studying climate as an economic policy issue. Views my own. 🏳️🌈
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Joined July 2014
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Today is my first day as a senior economist at the
@WhiteHouseCEA
. I’m excited to learn from this talented group of people and can’t wait to get to work on America’s industrial strategy and the clean energy transition.
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Does the
@nytimes
even realize what an embarrassment this is. Let’s doubt and undermine the work of thousands of experts who have devoted their careers to this, because is it even real if you can’t see it with your own eyes?
For years, Bret Stephens considered himself “an agnostic on the causes of climate change.” A trip to Greenland changed his mind.
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FT claiming today that "Biden's industrial policy legacy is marked with factory delays and pauses." That is not how I read this graph! Delays in manufacturing construction projects of this scale are not unusual, especially when everyone is doing it at the same time. 1/
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Today was my last day at
@WhiteHouseCEA
. I spent a year tackling the nation’s industrial policy challenges with the smartest, kindest, and funniest economists and am energized to continue that work from the other side. Now some sleep, and then full force behind team
@KamalaHarris
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No place to fight global poverty like the House of Lords
Columbia University president Shafik has resigned, and says will go back… to the UK House of Lords.
“I have been asked by the UK’s Foreign Secretary to chair a review of the government’s approach to international development… Enables me to return to the House of Lords…”
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The EU perspective seems to be that the US finally got around to climate policy, but did it by blowing up the system. The EU is structurally unable to match the subsidies without undermining the very union itself -- few places have the fiscal firepower to keep up.
@DanielaGabor
Hi Daniela this is the piece that puzzles me. I’m unaware of political reasons for thinking we US progressives could have done better than we did. For example original BBB included CEPP, a true mix of carrots and sticks. Manchin swiftly killed it.
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The Clean Energy Marshall Plan proposed
@BrianCDeese
in Foreign Affairs has the laudable goal for making the energy transition work for the Global South. But I'm not sure that primarily viewing other economies as export markets for U.S. technologies can work, for two reasons. 1/
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Why are some states better at overcoming interest group opposition to climate policy than others? In a new paper with
@jonasmeckling
now out in
@cps_journal
we introduce the notion of
#strategicstatecapacity
to explain this variation. 1/6
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This graph illustrates what the United States is up against, and why the Inflation Reduction Act is not just about climate change but also about the competitiveness of the American economy.
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Today, the White House released the 2024 Economic Report of the President, which includes a chapter on accelerating the energy transition by removing obstacles to structural change. 1/
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Sweden discovers the biggest rare earth deposit in Europe but expects it'll take 15 years for the raw materials to hit the market. Reminder that we can't reshore supply chains over night and that the clean energy transition will take a global effort.
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Rather than viewing the world as export production locations and markets that consume those products, we should conceive of the energy transition in terms of an international division of labor, where everyone gets a piece of the growing clean energy manufacturing pie. 6/
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There's little indication that China is vastly overproducing EVs (yet). Most excess production capacity on the ICE side, which is not surprising given that more than 50 percent of sales are now EVs. Cyclical excess capacity as a result of technological change (and policy!).
GM is discussing capacity cuts in China with its JV partner SAIC in the face of declining market share, according to Bloomberg.
There’s a lot of talk about China trying to export ICE overcapacity. Instead, I expect China’s ICE capacity to get cut over time with the shift to EVs.
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Ultimately, I think there is not yet an appreciation in the EU for the things Europe does better than the US -- including all the institutional investments in financing and vocational training that are not part of the IRA but will be required to make it work.
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China is driving consolidation in the battery industry and curbing additional capacity investments that have also led Chinese battery makers to cancel overseas investment plans.
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I would expect that share to grow, now that both IRA incentives and 301 tariff protections are anchored. Not every project is going to work out, and that's normal. Let's finally ditch the Solyndra trauma and agree that failure is part of trying new things. 4/
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Banning any Chinese involvement in US clean tech manufacturing projects will make it harder to meet IRA local content requirements and scale up a domestic clean energy industry.
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US manufacturing construction spending is way way up. Of course that's going to make it harder (and likely more expensive) for everyone to build. There are other issues, like environmental permitting, that can cause delays even in the best of times. 2/
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.
@NKupzok
and I have a new paper out in
@PoPpublicsphere
that argues that climate politics is increasingly driven by the decarbonizable sector: industries that are part of the fossil fuel coalition but that can in principle decarbonize their business model. 1/
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Hard hat tour of the new
@SAISHopkins
@JohnsHopkins
building on Penn Ave to pick our offices w the one and only
@m2matthijs
.
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What's more interesting in the FT figure is the *small* share of pauses and cancellations. That's huge, especially since we are building entirely new industries. 3/
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I am very happy to share that my book on green industrial policy, Collaborative Advantage, has won the
@isanet
Award for Best Book in International Political Economy.
I am grateful for all the support I had in making this project happen!
Open access:
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One more thing on the
@BrianCDeese
Clean Energy Marshal Plan proposal: I completely agree and support the idea of developing a (green) alternative to the Belt and Road Initiative. 1/
The Clean Energy Marshall Plan proposed
@BrianCDeese
in Foreign Affairs has the laudable goal for making the energy transition work for the Global South. But I'm not sure that primarily viewing other economies as export markets for U.S. technologies can work, for two reasons. 1/
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While the US of course couldn't have done better given the constraints of the system, there is also some truth to the fact that governments everywhere promised growth in return for climate policy, and competitive subsidization undermines that argument elsewhere.
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In June, China's MIIT finalized rules designed to drive consolidation in the battery sector. Firms have to spend a minimum of 3% of revenue on R&D, have capacity utilization of 50% or more, and meet minimum energy density and cycle life requirements.
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The climate and industrial strategy teams at
@WhiteHouseCEA
joined forces to bring you this gem. Read below 🥰. 👇👇👇
The clean energy transition is under way, creating an innovative U.S. economy powered by cheap, reliable, and secure clean energy. This transition will address the climate crisis and provide new sources of economic growth, employment, and prosperity. 1/
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First, U.S. clean energy technologies are (not yet) competitive on global markets. We talk a lot about industrial strategy, but not enough about industrial competitiveness. U.S. solar panels are three times more expensive than panels from elsewhere. 2/
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As EV demand grows less quickly than in previous years, demand for stationary storage is picking up and taking advantage of falling battery prices. Majority of storage installations now used to shift energy demand, integrate renewables.
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Checking in on the new
@SAISHopkins
@JohnsHopkins
digs in DC on a beautiful (80 degree?) November day.
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But it's also not clear that the Global South wants to be a clean energy technology importer. The same political reasons that prompted the IRA-- growing the economic coalition around climate--are also at work elsewhere. 4/
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Watching Europe’s energy transition in real time — the North Sea dotted with offshore wind turbines as I head back to DC after an incredible workshop on EU industrial policy at
@EUI_EU
organized by the amazing
@ProfKMcNamara
. Grazie!
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Perhaps the best moment of 2022 was watching the eruption of Mauna Loa on Hawaii, husband in tow. We live on a beautiful planet. Let’s take care of it, and take care of each other. Happy New Year.
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Talking about my book "Collaborative Advantage" at
@Harvard
's
@FairbankCenter
tomorrow. Registration and live cast link below. Good time to think about climate, energy, and (threat of) decoupling: Xi & Biden just announced new climate talks today.
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This likely means helping them integrate in higher-value-added segments of clean energy supply chains, and moving beyond the extraction of raw materials the advanced economies need for their industrialization goals. 5/
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“While reinforcing my belief that markets, not governments, are the cure.” It’s all virgin forest to the opinionators of the New York Times. Clearly nobody else has ever thought about this.
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But if it focuses too much on selling others our stuff it risks repeating the Belt and Road mistakes rather than improve on it. A vision where the Global South participates in some clean energy supply chain segments is likely more attractive. 2/
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Full house at the
@WatsonInstitute
today. Thank you for being such wonderful hosts and for filling the room despite the zoom option,
@MkBlyth
and
@JeffDColgan
!
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And so it begins, the great subsidy race of the green transition. It’s nonetheless unlikely that any of these supply chain can be onshored in their entirety, so setting up trade conflict could cause more harm than help.
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US conversations about EU complaining often miss that just as there is a lot of performative politics in the US, EU leaders will make points to appeal to domestic audiences, not because they think their demands are realistic. It's not all technocratic politics in Europe either.
Evergreen tweet 👇🏾
US-EU discussions devolve into the Americans wishing Europe just had a proper federal government w/ fiscal union, and the Europeans wishing the US could pass strong regulations rather than giving business tax credits. But they don't, and can't.
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It turns out 70 percent of time spent online in Europe is managing cookie permissions.
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It didn’t. Most battery technologies that are commercially available today were invented here.
1/Here's something I've been wondering about recently: How did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?
With every other technological revolution, we anticipated it well in advance, and as a result we were the first -- or one of the first -- to take advantage of it.
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.
@SecYellen
at
@SAISHopkins
: “We do not seek to decouple our economy from China’s” adding that such decoupling would be devastating for both countries. “Healthy economic competition can benefit both countries over time.”
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And China is selling EVs for USD 10k, a fraction of the cheapest models available here. It strikes me that the Clean Energy Marshall Plan is a good opportunity to figure out a path to competitiveness for U.S. industries. Including by learning from China. 3/
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We wrote a nice piece at
@WhiteHouseCEA
on central bank independence earlier this year, showing why preventing political interference is key to controlling inflation and using monetary policy effectively. Not surprisingly, terrible proposal from Trump.
Trump on the Federal Reserve:
"I feel the president should have at least say [on rates] in there ... I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman"
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The IRA is essentially the opening move in a process of catch-up development for the United States. That’s exciting and ambitious, but also a novel test for domestic institutions that are not set up for this purpose. Some thoughts in
@techreview
.
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A Clean Energy Marshall Plan could help us achieve just that.
Full article here:
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German automakers invest in Chinese production base amidst heavy competition in the EV transition. However, whether diversification happens or not depends more on investments elsewhere and ability to build up new markets.
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It’s probably also more realistic economically: we won’t be competitive in all supply chain segments for all sectors. Some division of labor will likely remain, and mean more diversification and resilience for all. 3/3
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At
@SAISHopkins
,
@SecYellen
lays out three principles of US approach to China economic relationship: 1. Secure national security interests, human rights. 2. An economic relationship that seeks growth, innovation in both countries. 3. Cooperation on global challenges like climate.
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Here comes the green subsidy race!
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Full paper here. A huge shoutout to
@NKupzok
, who is a brilliant thinker with a sharp intuition on climate politics, an incredibly hard worker, and an absolute joy to work with. 🙏
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EVs now make up half of auto sales in China, a car market twice the size of the US. Aside from the emissions win, this is a huge competitive advantage for Chinese firms, which now have plenty of space to perfect and advance their technologies at home.
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I’m glad to see
@DanielaGabor
and
@robinsonmeyer
reforging the transatlantic climate alliance 🥰
Robinson is right and I should be more careful with recognising that there are some significant (potential) concessions to a non-derisking approach in the IRA
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@adam_tooze
From interviews I’ve done, companies explicitly make political choices and place new plants in red states to make the legislation durable across administrations. They are fully aware of their own political weight.
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Coordination on infrastructure investment is industrial policy, too. Europe is turning the North Sea into its largest offshore wind plant.
OPINION: We need offshore wind turbines— and we need a lot of them.
We need them to reach our climate goals, and to rid ourselves of Russian gas, ensuring a more secure and independent Europe.
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Yes, but largely using imported cells and wafers, and at a huge cost: solar prices in the U.S. are nearly three times what they are in the rest of the world.
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Today at
@rooseveltinst
,
@jennifermharris
on green industrial policy: “Market access is a privilege not a right” and we need to use that tool to advance climate goals.
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While institutional sources of state capacity are often hard to build,
#strategicstatecapacity
leaves room for learning and imitation. That should be good news for climate policy. 6/6
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Excited to talk about my book at
@BrownUniversity
‘s Rhodes Center this coming Friday! Thanks for inviting me
@MkBlyth
!
Fabby talk this Friday with the fabby
@jonasnahm
talking about his fabby book Collaborative Advantage. Want to know how to think about which countries can actually execute a green transition and who can't? Tune in for more:
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Our findings challenge the notion that pluralist states are mere fora for interest group competition and show that even pluralist states actively shape the interest group landscape. 4/6
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We need the IRA for decarbonization. But we also need a climate politics that plays politically in other parts of the world. Right now too much of climate politics on both sides on the Atlantic rests on economic promises that undermine these political arguments elsewhere.
EU is challenging the Inflation Reduction Act. And they are doing it during COP27. Delicate timing and it is a very direct document. A quick thread. HT
@toddntucker
(1/6)
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Hours of fun. If only you had high-speed rail, America.
This map shows how far you can travel from each station in Europe in less than 5 hours!
👉🏼
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Bad take 👇
Saying the quite part out loud…
Green energy policies bankrupt entire nations.
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They are generally less than 300 bucks, come with an inverter and are ready to plug into a standard socket. You can’t sell excess power — it just gets “donated” to the grid. But even without a battery, it can power to things that run all the time, like a fridge.
@JesseJenkins
In Germany over 500000 homes have installed 'balconey PV' with max. 800W and no permitting. Plug in to normal socket. Purchased at Home Depot, Lowes, Bauhaus, IKEA, etc. Cheapest possible PV.
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@_david_ho_
There are a number of really interesting projects on the Big Island to reduce methane emissions w algae feed. Hawaii might be at the forefront of making beef somewhat more sustainable.
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Perhaps content for a niche audience (👀
@robinsonmeyer
), but here’s a comedic primer on the state of EU industrial policy.
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@kyleichan
This claim is usually based on a BNEF analysis that estimates annual global demand necessary to meet 2050 net goals. Existing and announced capacity in China far exceeds what’s needed for net zero 2050. Seems like a reasonable demand estimate to me?
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On the curb at Providence airport. College kid jumps out of car behind me, darts for the door. Parents get out of the car, yell: “Eat your fruits and vegetables. And salad!” Me: “He’s not going to listen!” Everyone laughs. Rhode Island is special.
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China’s domestic EV market has grown ~10% since December.
I built a giant China EV database to work out the EV revenue market share ('share of wallet').
Here is the result:
A few observations:
1) The Chinese BEV market has grown to $120 billion in size.
2) This implies a +$10.5 billion increase since LTM December 2023 ($109.4B)
3)
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China now grappling with excess production capacity in solar, after publishing draft rules to shut firms with low capacity utilization rates and low R&D spending. XJP and head of PV association echoed calls to limit "inefficient production capacity.'
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I had the honor of speaking with the great
@MkBlyth
about my book Collaborative Advantage. We talked about what it tells us about the prospects for economic decoupling amidst growing geopolitical tensions and the need to rapidly decarbonize. Listen below!
New Rhodes Center Podcast up. Me in conversation with
@jonasnahm
about his excellent book Collaborative Advantage, and from that, why much of what we think about globalization, de-globalization, and green tech supply-chains is quite wrong. Enjoy:
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In the end, not everyone can be an exporter (or producer) of green energy technologies but right now the only way to build winning coalitions is to promise just that. I wrote a chapter on this dilemma in "Diminishing Returns":
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After China broke the German automakers' resistance to EVs, America is now breaking the German government's resistance to green subsidies (for such EVs). Competition can be good for business.
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@toddntucker
I read that piece and share some of the concerns, but the investment figures they cite amount to less than what each one of these companies is investing in a single battery plant elsewhere. So some of this is likely simply part of the switch to EVs.
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Go work with this guy!
Know about China and Finance/Green Transition/Growth Models? Fancy a two year post doc at Brown working with me? Hey - there are worse fates. It says China Initiative, which it is, but one of these positions will be Rhodes Center based. Check it out:
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He had the best ever inflation.
Trump: I actually had a positive inflation. I'm not going to give you a whole course in economics
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Old enough to remember when you couldn't talk about "industrial policy" in DC and everyone referred to "advanced manufacturing" instead.
Public investment and industrial policy "has been bubbling in the academy for at least a decade, and it came to fruition in this administration,” thanks to shifting policy and political landscape -
@FeliciaWongRI
to
@paulwaldman1
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👀👀
NEWS: Chinese electric vehicle maker Zeekr, which is controlled by Geely, today showcased their new in house designed ultra-fast charging LFP battery installed on its new 007 sedan.
• 10-80% in 10 minutes. Adds 300+ miles of range in 15 minutes
• 472kW peak charging speed
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China produced just under 9 million EVs in 2023 and is expected to produce more than 10 million EVs in 2024, in line with domestic sales targets (and some export production). About 30 percent of EV exports are Teslas produced in Shanghai for export production.
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Unlike institutional sources of state capacity,
#strategicstatecapacity
is explicitly political. We argue that states can actively (and strategically) shape their relationship with external interest groups to advance policy goals. 2/6
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The chapter describes how specific policies enacted by the Biden-Harris Administration are strategically targeting these factors across the U.S. economy.
The full report is here: 5/
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Join us this afternoon at
@FairbankCenter
Talking about my book "Collaborative Advantage" at
@Harvard
's
@FairbankCenter
tomorrow. Registration and live cast link below. Good time to think about climate, energy, and (threat of) decoupling: Xi & Biden just announced new climate talks today.
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We live in a world of politics
"Simply put: In today’s world, trade policy needs to be about more than tariff reduction, and trade policy needs to be fully integrated into our economic strategy, at home and abroad."
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Clear that Youngkin is just trying to score politically, but this does raise questions about whether a plant owned by Ford but operated by CATL will teach Ford how to make batteries or is the kind of hollow relocation that LCRs are often criticized for.
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It's been a real honor to work on this chapter with
@kyle_c_meng
and our stellar team at
@WhiteHouseCEA
for the last 8 months. 2/
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@dcullenward
@jerometenk
@tedfertik
@DanielaGabor
@jonasmeckling
@jerometenk
it looks like we now have to finish this thing 😭
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@toddntucker
@MESandbu
@FT
The US has been going after European industrial policy for decades -- so the US now says protectionism is the only way we can deliver and everyone else is supposed to cheer and move on? I think that's going to be hard to sell domestically in Europe.
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In other words, climate politics is now less about the battle between green and fossil interests, but is shaped in important ways by the size of the domestic decarbonizable sector that can be coaxed from one group to the other. 6/
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Of course, states with corporatist characteristics also play an active role in managing external interests to advance policy goals. 5/6
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