EV Battery Factory Will Require So Much Energy It Needs A Coal Plant To Power It
Cowboy State Daily | 09/22/2023 | Kevin Killough

A $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, will help satisfy the Biden administration’s efforts to get everyone into an EV.

It also will help extend the life of a coal-fired power plant.

Resource Adequacy Panasonic broke ground on the facility last year. The Japanese company was slated to receive $6.8 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been pouring billions into electric vehicles and battery factories as part of its effort to transition America away from fossil fuels. { ! }

The Kansas City Star reports that the factory will require between 200 and 250 megawatts of electricity to operate. That’s roughly the amount of power needed for a small city.

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As a result, the utility will continue to burn coal at a power plant near Lawrence, Kansas, and it will delay plans to transition units at the plant to natural gas.