US 'Battery Belt' Will Be a New Kind of Job Magnet

The Battery Belt is taking shape, and it’s creating a new economic development model where a college degree won’t be the ultimate qualification for jobs.

In 2022 we saw industrial policy passed by Congress intersect with investment plans from major manufacturers and startups, all emphasizing the future need for batteries for energy storage. But unlike the urban employment centers we’ve seen emerge in the last several decades, the regions now being dubbed the “Battery Belt” don't feature college graduates clustering together in office buildings in a handful of expensive cities to create internet and software-related products. It's more geographically diverse, with different economic and infrastructure needs than the prior era that was so heavily influenced by Silicon Valley.

An obvious difference between building batteries and building software is that batteries for electric vehicles and other large-scale industrial uses can weigh more than 1,000 pounds. The production and warehousing requirements for that kind of equipment rules out urban knowledge centers — the economic winners of the past 40 years — as the focus for this new wave of industrialization.

A year ago I foresaw that the electrification of the auto industry would be a boon for the South. While that's certainly been the case, the Midwest has also seen its share of wins this year. With an additional year of data to analyze, there are patterns emerging in the kinds of places being chosen for new battery plants.