As Percent Of Gross State Product, Nevada Ranks #1 In Clean Investment

So far in 2023, there has been $178 billion in clean investment in the US, up 40% from the same period last year. (emphasis added)

Additionally, the Biden administration has invested heavily into the University of Nevada Reno and lithium mining. Last month, the administration designated UNR as a 2023 Technology Hub due to UNR’s core technology in lithium batteries and other electronic vehicle (EV) materials. As one of 31 Technology Hubs identified by the administration, a portion of $500 million in grants will be distributed to the designees.

Researchers from UNLV’s business school discovered that the lithium industry employs around 9,000 people in Nevada. However, that figure is expected to increase as lithium demand is expected to increase more than sixfold by 2030 compared to 2020. In response to Biden’s push for a “clean energy future,” the Ioneer mine received a $700 million conditional loan from the Department of Energy.

Earlier this year, Governor Joe Lombardo joined Elon Musk to announce Tesla’s new $3.6B giga factory in Northern Nevada.

In an interview with Business Facilities, Governor Lombardo stressed that “Nevada will be ground zero for the energy transition… a global leader in the development and utilization of clean energy innovations. It will capitalize on its strengths and export innovative processes and products in mining and production of batteries and solar energy to new global markets supported by a robust, statewide electric vehicle (EV) and energy storage infrastructure.”

The CIM study finds, with respect to clean technology manufacturing, including EV’s and solar, Nevada ranks seventh. For investment in clean energy generation and industrial decarbonization, Nevada ranks third. The Silver State ranks fourth when it comes to clean energy and industry investment, spending 0.8 percent of the state GDP on clean investments.

On X (formerly Twitter), Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto cited the bipartisan study and announced that “we’ve still got more to do.”

Ever since I was elected to the Senate, I’ve worked to make Nevada the best state in the country for clean energy, because it creates good-paying jobs for our families. Now we’re seeing the results of that work – and we’ve still got more to do.https://t.co/MnEpDtcVGD pic.twitter.com/WCckUV1jIW

— Senator Cortez Masto (@SenCortezMasto) December 14, 2023

During a brief address to the Nevada Legislature and Governor Joe Lombardo, Cortez Masto encouraged bipartisanship to lead the clean energy economy in Nevada in order to do “everything we can do for our working families and businesses.”

“Nevada is at the forefront of leading the innovation economy. I call Nevada the “Innovation State.”  We have the universities, companies, mining, minerals and the laboratories that are incubating ideas and pioneering technologies to create the jobs of the future,” Cortez Masto noted.

“We have the sun and we have capitalized on our solar economy. We are the center of the clean energy and critical mineral future. It is the only state in the US that econompasses the full spectrum of the clean energy economy. Nevada is primed to lead the country into the clean energy future. We need to take this opportunity to create good jobs….good union jobs,” she emphasized.