Environmental Assessment for Celgard, LLC, Electric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative Project, Concord, NC (Doe/Ea-1713)

DOE prepared this Environmental Assessment (EA) to assess the potential for impacts to the human and natural environment of its Proposed Action-providing financial assistance to Celgard under a cooperative agreement. DOE's objective is to support the development of the electric drive vehicles (EDV) industry in an effort to substantially reduce the United States' consumption of petroleum, in addition to stimulating the United States' economy. More specifically, DOE's objective is to accelerate the development and production of various EDV systems by building or increasing domestic manufacturing capacity for advanced automotive batteries, their components, recycling facilities, and EDV components. This work will enable market introduction of various electric vehicle technologies by lowering the cost of battery packs, batteries, and electric propulsion systems for EDVs through high-volume manufacturing. Under the terms of the cooperative agreement, DOE would provide approximately 50 percent of the funding for Celgard to construct a small industrial facility (approximately 135,000 square feet) on approximately 20.6 acres of land for the manufacturing of separator materials for commercial HEV batteries. The proposed project would involve the installation of a manufacturing plant with sufficient capacity to manufacture at least 1,000,000 square meters of separator material to support the assembly of at least 20,000 plug-in HEV batteries, or equivalent, per year in accordance with the requirements of DOE's Funding Opportunity Announcement. Additionally, the project would create approximately 273 permanent jobs. The environmental analysis identified that the most notable changes, although minor, to result from Celgard's Proposed Project would occur in the following areas: air quality and greenhouse gas, noise, geology and soils, groundwater, vegetation and wildlife, socioeconomic, utilities and energy use, transportation and traffic, and human health and safety. No significant environmental effects were identified in analyzing the potential consequences of these changes.