Why the US’s pathbreaking climate law won’t be enough

Paul Huelskamp wanted to build more factory space — it was just a question of where. After more than a decade in the clean energy industry, he was confident about the trajectory of his battery manufacturing startup Moxion Power, certain that large-scale energy storage would be a vital and profitable piece of the energy transition puzzle.

His investors pressed for Mexico when, in early 2022, “we started to hear what was possible in the Inflation Reduction Act.” Particularly attractive were tax credits being made more widely available for large battery systems, with...