High electricity costs and an intensifying battle with Big Tech for power are hampering US and European policymakers’ efforts to reshore strategically important metals processing industries, executives say.
Washington and Brussels are offering billions of dollars of taxpayer funds for smelting, processing and mining projects for metals such as copper and aluminium, in order to break China’s stranglehold on the industry. The US has also imposed punitive tariffs on imports in a bid to protect domestic industry.
But senior executives told the Financial Times that more support was needed to make western smelting and processing profitable, while Silicon Valley companies were pushing up the cost of power in the US.