Greenify #48: The green transition: upskilling Europe's workforce
February 3, 2023
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📌 Fact of the week
This miners rule the world? On Tuesday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officially blocked a big gold and copper mining project in Alaska, mentioning risk to salmon fisheries and other ecological threats!
Hottest news of the week…
Regulation 🗃 – Europe fires back! 🔥
What happened: As highly anticipated in the press and in our previous Greenify editions, the European Commission has officially responded at Biden’s IRA with its newly launched “Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age”. The key elements of the plan are: simplifying the regulatory framework (e.g. easier access to permits when building renewable capacity), upskilling the European workforce (e.g. training a gas boiler installer to install a heat pump), accelerating access to investment and financing, and enhancing global cooperation for cleantech and raw materials. The plan includes simplifying and accelerating aid granting at the state level to promote investment in key sectors, as well as channelling existing EU funds, including the €250 billion from REPowerEU. 🤝
Zoom out: The document was also preceded by Margrethe Vestager’s words, the EU Commission’s Competition chief, who spoke about a proportionate response to Biden’s IRA in order to boost cleantech in Europe. In our view, the key for Europe’s plan to be successful lies in the effectiveness with which bottlenecks will be addressed. Specifically, we think upskilling the workforce is crucial: when funding is supportive, demand will always be there, but supply is not a given… labour shortages have been cited by many companies as a key barrier towards projects’ development in many green areas. Hopefully, resources will be channelled towards this area.⚒️
Business 💰 – Ikea group is becoming a renewable company!
What happened: Ingka Group, the Swedish holding company that owns the majority of IKEA stores worldwide, has acquired a 15% stake in the Golden Plains wind farm in Victoria, Australia. The facility is being developed by TagEnergy, which has raised enough capital to build 756MW of capacity in the first phase of the project.
Zoom out: In 2021 Ingka group pledged to invest €6.5B in renewables to reach 100% clean energy across its value chain. The group now has 575 wind turbines and 20 solar parks, on top of the 935,000 solar panels on the roofs of IKEA facilities. Ikea is not the only group going above and beyond reaching acceptable ESG metrics… have a look at the “company of the week” below to see what Microsoft is investing on.
Innovation 💡 - United Airlines planning loads of sustainable fuel!
What happened: United Airlines announced a JV with energy players to develop enough Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to power 50,000 flights between Denver and Chicago per year (a similar distance to Rome-Paris). The JV is initially investing $50 million to test the technology and if successful will build a production plant in 2024 and start using the SAF by 2028. 👍
Zoom out: The fuel would be produced from ethanol, and is considered sustainable as, although it emits greenhouse gases while flying, its production process is much more sustainable than drilling oil. SAFs are considered the only actionable solution to partially dercarbonise the airline industry at the moment, as batteries are not powerful enough yet and hydrogen technologies are lagging further behind.😬
Deep dives of the week…
Chart of the week - China holds power 🎖️
We have discussed several times geographical inequalities when it comes to the most advanced towards the transition to net-zero. In our recent editions, we had pointed out China’s dominance; this week, we do the same, with a more accurate graph. Obviously massive in size, China accounts for more than half of total global capacity in many clean technologies. Notably, we see a massive dominance on PV and offshore wind… not surprising! 😒
Source: IEA
Company of the week - Boston Metal: decarbonising steel!
This week we talk about Boston Metal, a start-up that has developed a technology to produce green steel. Traditionally, steel is produced by breaking down iron ore and combining it with coal in a blast furnace, ultimately producing tons of CO2 (steel accounts for c.7% of global emissions). On the other hand, Boston Metal’s technology, Molten Oxide Electrolysis, passes electricity through iron oxide combined with a mix of other oxides, ultimately breaking down iron and only creating oxygen as a by-product! Of course the process is zero emissions only if the electricity is generated through renewable power! The company is ultimately aiming to sell its technology to manufacturers, rather than becoming one itself, and to do so it has recently raised $120 million, mainly from AreclorMittal and Microsoft🍀
Comment of the week - The EU Coal bounce is over
Worldwide coal consumption in 2022 reached 8 billion tonnes, the highest amount ever consumed in a year. However, there is a place where this increasing trend is over already: the EU. Although it does not make much sense to focus on the European Union, as it only makes up c. 7.5% of the worldwide emissions, it is important to see that the most strictly regulated region in the world is not seeing its coal consumption grow any longer.
Why are we so confident? Cause it is proven by an insightful report published by Ember, also successfully explained by this 👉 amazing twitter thread 👈. Take a look below for the key findings!
Key takeaways:
Coal power generation only increased due to a temporary emergency caused by the shortfall of hydro and nuclear power (especially strong in France) 😬
The EU has imported a lot of coal in 2022, but 2/3 of it has not been burnt and only kept as emergency stock 😉
Solar power generation has increased enormously in 2022 and is expected to continue like this, reducing the need of coal going forward 🚀
Having surpassed nuclear and gas in 2022, wind and solar together are now the largest source of electricity in Europe 👏
👋 See you next Friday, for the best sum up of this coming week!
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