NORDIC GREEN NEWS - 10 AUGUST, 2020

Equinor promotes an engineer to CEO, doubles-down on green push

Norway’s state-owned oil company, Equinor, has a new CEO. Anders Opedal, will be the first engineer to get the prestigious job. Opedal joined Equinor as a petroleum engineer in 1997, having worked for both Baker Hughes and Schlumberger. Since then, he has held a number of positions in the company. He has managed Equinor's project portfolio of more than NOK 300 billion, been Operations Director, as well as Country Manager in Brazil. 

 

According to Jon Erik Reinhardsen, Chairman of the Equinor Board, Opedal has delivered results that have exceeded the expectations that have been set for him. He is the first engineer to become CEO of Equinor, and is strongly involved in technology, digitalisation and industrial development. The Board's mandate to Opedal is to accelerate Equinor's development as a broad energy company, and to increase value creation for shareholders through the energy transition.

 

According to the Financial Times, Equinor has pledged to halve the carbon intensity of the energy it produces by 2050 and has a net-zero emissions goals for its operations.

 

Fortum and Metsä Group launch €50 million R&D program for the circular economy

According to a June press release from Fortum, Fortum and Metsä Group, are launching a world-class R&D program in cooperation with Business Finland, to focus on pulp fibre from renewable and sustainable sources. Fortum is Finland’s largest electricity producer, and Metsä Group is a Finnish forest industry group present in about 30 countries. 

 

ExpandFibre is a collaborative project that will launch during the summer of 2020 and continue until the end of August 2024. The goal is to develop unique technologies and smart business concepts to make textile fibres and other new bioproducts from straw and wood pulp. The program focuses on seven research themes:

• Textiles
• Biocomposites
• Packing
• Other new fibre products
• Hemicellulose
• Lignin
• Acquisition and fractionation of straw

Business Finland has granted the program €20 million in funding in a challenge competition for locomotive companies.

 

Luleå and Gällivare compete for prestigious Hybrit steel project

With the global steel industry accounting for 7% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, the carbon-free, hydrogen-based Hybrit project has attracted much international attention. A pilot plant that will produce fossil-free steel began construction on SSAB's works in Luleå in 2018. The lessons learned from that will form the basis for the demonstration plant that will be in place in 2026. Hybrit aims to have a solution in place for full-scale production of fossil-free steel by 2035.

 

According to Åsa Bäcklin, from Hybrit, parallel consultations have been initiated at two alternative locations for the demonstration plant in Norrbotten – the Vitåfors industrial area in Gällivare municipality, where LKAB conducts mining operations and Svartön's industrial area in Luleå, where SSAB's steelworks and LKAB's ore harbor are located. Consultations with authorities, organizations and the general public will end in September 2020. The municipality that wins the tug-of-war over the production facility will receive an investment of around SEK 20 billion, new jobs and a spectacular facility, that includes a 150-200 metre high reduction tower, which will be higher than Sweden’s existing tallest building, the 190 metre Turning Torso in Malmö. According to Henrik Ölvebo (MP), Chairman of the Municipal Board in Gällivare, “the project is interesting from a global perspective, as the winning location will be the first in the world to manufacture, from ore to steel, fossil-free”.

 

New hydrogen park planned for Mo, in Norway

Norway’s Statkraft, Celsa Nordic and Mo industripark AS, in northern Norway, have signed an agreement to establish a value chain for green hydrogen for industrial use. Celsa is a producer of reinforced steel products in the Nordics. The goal is to replace fossil energy in the rolling mill at Celsa's production facility. According to Carles Rovira, CEO of Celsa Nordic, “the project is part of Celsa’s strategy to reduce CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030 and eliminate emissions completely before 2050. Production is ready to use hydrogen as soon as the hydrogen plant starts up.“ The parties will jointly establish “Hydrogen Hub Mo” - a plant for electrolysis-based hydrogen production in Mo Industrial Park. 

 

The first step in the project is to establish a production unit that supplies Celsa with hydrogen. The collaboration also includes creating demand and supplying hydrogen to other industrial processes and as a fuel. The goal is to expand production as areas of use and market demand increase. The production will use residual products such as waste heat and oxygen. Hydrogen gas will primarily be distributed to companies linked to the industrial park.

 

Danish NGOs criticise EU’s climate plan

If the EU is to live up to its own climate goals and help stop global warming, more ambitious commitments must be on the table at the EU summit, according to environmental organisations. The European Commission’s plans call for EU countries to reduce their CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030. By then, at least 27% of the EU's energy must come from renewable energy, and 30% must be saved, through efficiencies and better insulation of buildings. 

 

But the plan is far too unambitious, warns several environmental organizations. 92-gruppen is a network consisting of 23 Danish environmental and development organisations. The network believes that much higher, binding targets are needed in the EU, namely: 55% less CO2 emissions within the EU, 45% renewable energy, and 40% energy efficiency. Greenpeace echoes 92-gruppen. Both organisations call for the EU to tighten carbon trading, increasing the cost of emissions.

 

More research needed into “Power-to-X”

Power-to-X could be Denmark's next major export adventure. But it requires a greater investment in research and industrialization, say researchers from DTU (a Danish Technical University) and Haldor Topsøe. Power-to-X is the generic name for the concept of using renewable energies to produce molecules that could be used, for instance, as transport fuels.

 

A Professor of Physics and Head of the Catalysis Theory Center at DTU; the Centre’s coordinator; and a senior R&D director at Haldor Topsøe, argue that while the Danish government and the Folketing have put Power-to-X on the agenda, for Power-to-X to succeed, fundamental problems of converting society to green power from wind turbines and solar cells need to be solved. According to the trio, the technology is still too expensive, and more research is required to enable industrialization of production. Effort is required to resolve both fundamental efficiency issues with the chemistry and policy support mechanisms.

 

Danish electric ferry completes first year of operations

On August 15, the electric car ferry, Ellen, will complete her first year of operations, sailing from Søby on Ærø to Fynshav on Als. So far, no other electric ferry in the world has such a wide range as Ellen, which sails 41 kilometres on a single charge. 

 

Ellen was developed in a collaboration between Ærø Municipality and the EU Commission, each of which has invested approximately DKK 120 million in the project. But the project was more expensive than budget, due to the charging structure, which is “insanely expensive”, due to the amount of power that needs to be drawn, every time Ellen is refueled in Søby. .

 

Although it has been calculated that there are about 1000 ferries in Europe that could use such a solution, technology is constantly moving. Lars Wolfgang Hansen, Acting Chairman of Småøernes Færgeselskaber (the ferry operator), said he “does not think there will be an Ellen II, because the ship has a range of 22 nautical miles. It is simply too short for an island ferry in shuttle service.” If Hansen were to build a ferry today, he would choose a hybrid ferry with smaller diesel engines, but he anticipates there will soon be ferries sailing on hydrogen or fuel cells in some combination.

 

Time to force Vattenfall home to Sweden

With Vattenfall’s old CEO resigning, an opinion piece in Affärsvärldens, a leading Swedish business magazine, calls for Sweden’s state-owned electricity giant, Vattenfall, to have its wings clipped. Arguing that Vattenfall's investments in Germany and the Netherlands have been a single gigantic waste of capital, “what remains is debris and bad memories”. Vattenfall does have some significant wind-power projects, but it doesn’t have any particular expertise in developing them. Vattenfall should sell these while it can, and return to its Swedish roots.

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