Today: GM supplier Magna is stuck with a plant built to churn out parts for battery-powered pickups; Exxon scientists had doubts about the oil giant's algae biofuel; EU eases emissions trading system amid energy crunch.

Welcome back: At first, North America’s biggest auto-parts supplier was thrilled to snag the job of making enclosures for the batteries in General Motors’ new electric pickup. The contract was so big—and promised to be for years to come—that Magna International built a new factory in a Michigan cornfield.

The Wall Street Journal's Sharon Terlep reports that five years later, that million-square-foot plant is mostly empty and losing money, a casualty of America’s messy breakup with electric vehicles. It is one of dozens of now desolate or sparsely used EV parts plants across the country.

Now the war in Iran has driven gas prices up so sharply that EV enthusiasts are daring to wonder whether U.S. car buyers are willing to give the vehicles another look. But Magna and its big Detroit customers are forging ahead with plans to roll back EV investments.

It can take years to pivot a factory and supply chain from one type of vehicle to another. And it would take four to six months of higher gas prices for most Americans to reconsider more fuel-efficient vehicles, said Paul Jacobson, GM’s chief financial officer. “We certainly don’t see it today,” he said recently. GM said this week it would idle the Detroit factory where it builds the big electric trucks that Magna supplies, due to weak demand.

• Rising fuel prices and “pump anxiety” caused by the Middle East conflict have brought a surge in consumer interest in electric vehicles. (FT)

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Exxon Mobil’s scientists delivered a grim message to one of the oil company’s top strategic-planning executives in February 2020: Its much-heralded algae biofuels program was falling well short of its stated goals.

The Journal's Collin Eaton reports that their presentation was one of multiple communications to Exxon’s top leadership in early 2020 that even the most promising strains of algae were struggling to produce much oil outside the lab, documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show.

A week later, Exxon told investors algae could become a more prolific source of biofuel in the near term than agricultural products such as sugarcane and palm. That alarmed the scientists who didn’t agree with the way the data were presented to investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

The European Union is to ease its landmark carbon-pricing program as the bloc’s leaders look to soften the impact of the war in the Middle East on Europe’s beleaguered industrial sector, Joshua Kirby writes for WSJ Pro Sustainable Business.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, said it is proposing to remove a mechanism in its emissions trading system, or ETS, that cancels surplus carbon allowances, a change that it said “will better equip [it] to respond to future market developments, including potential tightness in supply in the coming decades.”

The proposed change comes as European industry, already struggling to gain momentum in its production levels, readies itself for a fresh blow from higher energy prices. The energy crunch driven by the Iran war is the most serious threat to European industry since the continent shut off supplies of Russian gas early in 2022, when President Vladimir Putin launched an all-out invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

• The Iran war isn’t just affecting energy supplies. It is also cutting deeply into supplies of the invisible gas that is essential for AI. (WSJ)
   
• Microsoft and Walmart are among companies driving a boom in carbon credits generated by sustainable agriculture projects. (Trellis)
   
• Google and Fermi executives debated taking energy off grid in the race to find power for data centers. (Latitude Media)
   
• Voltify, a Philadelphia-based startup, raised $30 million in seed funding to trial its system for decarbonizing the rail industry. (WSJ)
   
• Residents of Sweetwater, Texas, are frustrated that thousands of old wind-turbine blades have been dumped in their town. (Bloomberg)
   
• Most startups avoided using words related to climate in pitching to investors at the progressive annual SXSW event. (FT)
   
• More farmers are planting soybeans this year, a less fertilizer-intense crop than corn at a time when fertilizer costs are surging. (WSJ)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business gives you an inside look at how companies are tackling sustainability. Send your comments to editor Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and reporters Clara Hudson at clara.hudson@wsj.com and Yusuf Khan at yusuf.khan@wsj.com. Follow us on LinkedIn at perrycp, clara-hudson and yusuf_khan.