Höegh Autoliners announced that it has entered into a contract with China Merchants Heavy Industry (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd. for four fixed and eight optional multi-fuel and zero carbon ready Aurora class vessels. The Aurora class vessels will be ammonia and methanol ready. The vessel will be the first in the PCTC segment to operate on zero carbon ammonia. Together with the capacity to carry up to 9,100 cars, the industry leading Aurora class will be the world’s largest and most sustainable car carriers.
A coalition of 10 EU member states, led by Sweden, have written to the French EU Council Presidency and the European Commission to warn against the planned revision of sustainability criteria for bioenergy, saying it is too early to do so. Rewriting the rules now does not make sense, they argue, warning against repeated revisions of EU bioenergy legislation that risk undermining investor confidence in the sector. “It is too early to revise bioenergy sustainability provisions and considerably increase its administrative cost,” reads the letter, signed by the energy or economic ministers of Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, and Sweden.
“Such a move would put the EU’s reputation concerning long-term investments seriously in doubt and risk delaying our energy and climate transition,” they warn.
Storebrand, a $120bn Norwegian asset manager, has criticised two large US agricultural traders for moving too slowly to eliminate deforestation risk from their supply chains, as investors increasingly clamp down on environmental destruction in Brazil. Storebrand has placed Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland and Missouri-based Bunge on its “observation list”, which could eventually lead to divestment. “In our perspective the progress is too slow . . . we also believe that the ambitions are too low,” said Jan Erik Saugestad, Storebrand’s chief executive.
The Swedish Government has instructed the Swedish Transport Administration to analyze and submit proposals on how support for research and innovation in the field of electric aviation can be developed, coordinated and organized. According to a press release, within the concept of electric aviation, there are several rapidly emerging technologies that have come different distances in their technical and market development, such as battery operation and hydrogen operation through fuel cells and gas turbines.
In April 2021, Linde Gas began analyzing the business case for the production of green hydrogen at the Port of Aabenraa, powered by offshore wind turbines in the North Sea for the production of a number of green, hydrogen-based products, such as fossil-free fuel for trucks, planes and ships. Now, Ulrik Nielsen, Linde's Head of Clean Hydrogen in Denmark commented “We have now come one step closer, because the business case is positive, and we believe in the potential of the project. Therefore, we have just entered into an agreement with the Port of Aabenraa to pre-reserve 180,000 sqm at Ensted. Our agreement defines i.a. the framework and conditions that will apply to future leases of the large area.”
Eidsiva and Bellona's battery company, BEBA have entered into a three-year cooperation agreement to facilitate and commercially position the companies for large-scale battery production. Øistein Andresen, CEO of Eidsiva said that “Eidsiva wants to facilitate the establishment of large-scale battery cell production based on renewable energy. The collaboration with BEBA aims to help position the companies for new business opportunities within renewable energy production and socially critical infrastructure in the battery value chain.”
The Nordic countries are some of the most dynamic and successful economies in the world. They are also leaders in sustainability, from renewable energy, biofuels, carbon capture and storage and the hydrogen economy, circular economy business models and battery development, the Nordics are pioneers in policy design, technology development and consumer uptake. Mundus Nordic Green News is covering this transition for the international community. Every day we curate the stories of most relevance to international businesspeople and policy experts from the flow of news. Mundus Nordic Green Indices summarise the meta-data from our daily coverage to enable easy tracking of trends. We supplement these with our own opinion pieces and commentary.