Welcome to Greenify 😃!
Did a friend send you Greenify? Subscribe now and thank us later for not missing the most insightful information on the booming #GreenTransition!
Please help us improve by leaving a comment or feedback, and if you like what you are learning… share it with your network 😁!
📌 Fact of the week
Automaker Nissan announced it will invest $1.4 billion into its British plant to produce the electric versions of two of its most famous models, Qashqai and Juke.
Hottest news of the week…
Regulation 🗃 – Brazil’s proposals
What happened: Brazil is planning to propose a fund at COP28 aimed at paying for the conservation of tropical forests. Brazil is the world’s largest rainforest nation, home to 60% of the Amazon jungle. These type of funds funnel money from rich, developed countries to developing countries which then use them to fight/prevent climate related damages. This is not a new concept, and it is safe to say that this scheme has failed in the past: in 2009, wealthy nations had promised to channel $100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020, yet failed to hit the target. ⛔️
Zoom out: Forests are a crucial carbon sink for the planet: the world’s forests, covering around 1/3 of the planet’s total surface, are estimated to hold around 861 billion tonnes of carbon. Under Bolsonaro’s presidency, deforestation rates had spiked, posing a serious threat to the environment… However, current president Lula has been very vocal on his ambitions to stop deforestation. The trade-off between preserving the environment and achieving economic growth is here to stay.🤚🏻
Business 💰 – Ford scaling back on batteries!
What happened: Ford recently announced a scale back on its planned investments in battery manufacturing. The company initially planned investment in a battery manufacturing facility in Michigan for $3.5B, recently reduced to $2B, as part of a larger move to revisit the aggressive EV strategy initially planned. The scale-back might have been influenced also by the fact that Ford’s EVs might not be eligible for the IRA’s $7.5k subsidy, as they might not achieve the minimum threshold of battery materials domestically sourced. 😅
Zoom out: Unfortunately this scale back signals a larger problem affecting the whole industry: lower demand growth than expected. Don’t get me wrong, demand for EVs is still growing… just not as fast as some automakers anticipated. There are various reasons behind this trend with the main ones being higher interest rates and higher cost of living, which make buyers more price sensitive. Our feeling is that once the economic situation gets back to normal, companies which have scaled back from EVs might lose big opportunities. 🤧
Innovation 💡 - A European company leading in battery innovation
What happened: Northvolt, Europe’s largest battery manufacturer, just announced a major breakthrough in sodium-ion batteries. It will be the first company to produce sodium-ion batteries without using neither lithium, cobalt, or nickel. The absence of these metals make Northvolt’s sodium-ion batteries cheaper, potentially opening new markets in developing countries.🚀
Zoom out: Sodium-ion batteries are cheaper and easier to make than the famous lithium-based ones. This is because salt, the main component of sodium-ion batteries, is immensely more available than lithium. As sodium-ion batteries have a lower energy intensity, they are more suitable for energy storage in buildings, industry and other applications where volume and weight of the battery are not a problem. The hope is that this technology will be sufficiently cheap to be deployed at scale and that it will help to overcome the problem of intermittency of renewables, especially in industry. 🤞
Deep dives of the week…
Chart of the week - Climate finance pledges gone wrong
In our regulation news, we briefly touched upon climate finance and the pledge made in 2009 by rich countries, according to which they would donate $100 billion per year to developing countries by 2020. This pledge ultimately failed and got pushed back to 2023. However, whether this goal will be achieved won’t be known for a while, as data on climate finance delivered in 2023 will not be available until 2025 due to data requirements and reporting processes in place. Hopefully, we should still find out more in the next couple of weeks throughout COP28.⌛️
Deal of the week - Kinterra capital going for battery materials 💰
In our innovation news we talked about how we might need less critical minerals in the energy storage sector, thanks to Northvolt’s breakthrough… but this deal will bring us back to reality. 👇🏻
Kinterra Capital, a Canadian Private Equity firm, just raised ~ €500 million for a new fund focused on critical materials for batteries. More precisely, Kinterra aims to invest in lithium mining, cobalt, nickel, and graphite extraction, battery production and recycling facilities, and other technologies essential for the energy storage industry.
The fund was oversubscribed, signaling a strong trust in the sector’s growth.👏
👋 See you next Friday, for the best sum up of this coming week!
If you enjoyed this edition, help us grow by liking this post, and share it with your network!