OCTOBER 23, 2024
 

Hello!

In Cipher this week:

• Anca Gurzu traveled to Romania to report our latest story with The Associated Press on coal miners transitioning to clean energy jobs.
• Cat Clifford reports on what it takes to build solar farms in the swing state of Wisconsin ahead of the 2024 election. Plus, a bonus Reporter’s Notebook on her trip!
• Amena H. Saiyid has a Data Dive on growing investments into cheap solar in Latin America.

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Send your energy photos, story tips and more to news@ciphernews.com.

Rovinari, a plant that produces electricity from coal, operates in Rovinari, southern Romania, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo by: AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda.

As coal plants shut in Romania, some miners transition to green energy while others are reluctant

BY: ANCA GURZU

PETRILA, Romania — For many years, Sebastian Tirinticǎ worked in a coal mine, just like his father and grandfather.

These days, Tirinticǎ, now 38, is largely surrounded by solar panels and wind turbines as he travels across Romania to retrain workers for renewables jobs.

It’s been a huge professional shift for a worker from one of the main coal regions of this formerly-communist Eastern European country.

“It’s hard to unglue yourself from something you did your entire life,” said Tirinticǎ, who has a short beard sprinkled with grey hair. “It’s hard to start again from zero, and not everyone has the strength and courage to do it.”

Romania hopes to find more workers like Tirinticǎ, but they are hard to come by.

Check out the full version of this story here.

Highlights here:

In a region where coal mining was once a driving economic force, miners are witnessing a slow and steady decline of the decades-old industry as Romania prepares to phase out coal-based activities by 2032.

However, not many have taken the leap to equip themselves with new skills, even when presented with opportunities, as tradition, uncertainty and fear keep people wedded to what they know. This is sometimes one of the largest challenges of the green energy transition: changing hearts and minds.

For that to happen, coal workers need incentives and guarantees, which experts say do not exist. The lack of a targeted strategy, mixed political messages and lack of trust are some of the main barriers for transforming these mono-industrial regions.

Romania, a European Union country of about 19 million people bordering Ukraine, is known for medieval castles in its Transylvania region. The country has a flourishing information technology and software services sector. Yet unemployment in rural areas, corruption and bureaucracy are challenges. Millions have left in recent years in search of better economic opportunities.

A shift to a greener economy is also upending the country’s energy sector, adding to the reluctance of some miners to embrace change amid an uncertain future.

Locals worry the closure of coal-based activities will throw their region into years of poverty, similar to what neighboring areas experienced when hundreds of mines started to close down after the fall of Communism in the 1990s.

The renewables sector is expected to create thousands of jobs in Romania, but they will likely be spread across the country and appeal to people with different professional backgrounds.

Read the full article on Cipher’s website.

Editor’s note: This story is a collaboration between Cipher News and The Associated Press, Global Climate Desk. Learn more about this partnership here.

Lunchtime Reads and Hot Takes

The Climate Short: Hedge Funds Pile Up Huge Bets Against Green Future — Bloomberg
Cat’s take: The bottom line: Green tech is less profitable. Also, China's dominance in cleantech is a big risk. "Wherever China is dominating, run for the hills,” founder of a hedge fund told Bloomberg.
 
Mexico Charts a New Path on Climate Change, Says Environment Secretary — TIME
Amena’s take: Changing the development paradigm from extractive to sustainable industries is a priority for Alicia Bárcena, an appointee of Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum, also a climate scientist.
 
With proper management techniques, cattle herds can help increase plant biodiversity and soil health — The Pacific Northwest Inlander
Amy’s take: Full disclosure! This is my family’s ranch, and I’m quoted in this (as is my family). That aside, this is an impressively clear story about improving sustainability in agriculture.
 
How to build a nuclear tomb to last millennia — BBC
Anca’s take: I like how the reporter takes us through his personal experience and sensations during his visit in France. The metaphors and comparisons allow us to understand the magnitude of the task.
 
How Europe’s battery champion descended into crisis — Financial Times (subscription)
Bill’s take: “We are late to the party,” says one executive, summing up what it’s been like competing with Chinese manufacturers.

DOE delivers $2B to expand grid for renewables, extreme weather — E&E News (subscription)
Amena’s take: U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told news reporters, "we’re investing in resilience,” while reducing interconnection queues and "meeting rising demand from data centers."

 
Germany moves to strengthen domestic wind power industry — Reuters
Anca’s take: Europe is starting to take a tougher stance on China and this is the latest example. The measures will focus on improving cybersecurity and reducing dependency for critical components.
 
Supreme Court Allows EPA Power Plant Pollution Curbs for Now — Bloomberg
Amena’s take: Evidently, the nation's highest court doesn't want to block rules before a federal appeals court has had a chance to weigh in. It did so a week earlier with federal mercury and methane rules.

More of what we're reading:

• Cop29 host Azerbaijan set for major fossil gas expansion, report says — The Guardian

• Cuba’s Government Struggles to Restore Power After Nationwide Blackout — The Wall Street Journal
• DOE makes $3B commitment to two sustainable aviation fuel projects — Canary Media
• Arkansas May Have Vast Lithium Reserves, Researchers Say — The New York Times

We denote ‘(subscription)’ when publications don’t provide any complimentary articles, but many others may ultimately allow you to read only a limited number each month before subscribing. We encourage those who can afford it to support the journalism you love most!

What it takes to build green energy in fossil fuel-dependent Wisconsin

Illustration by Nadya Nickels.

BY: CAT CLIFFORD

WISCONSIN RAPIDS, Wisconsin — Driving through Wood County on the outskirts of Wisconsin Rapids, a town in central Wisconsin hit hard by paper mill closings, miles of farmland roll by where potatoes, corn, green beans and carrots grow.

Just a few miles from town, nearly 400,000 solar panels line both sides of a small back road, spread over 1,200 acres.

This 150-megawatt solar field installed by utility giant Alliant Energy, headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, produces enough electricity to power 40,000 homes, a rare sight in the state. Only 9% of the electricity generated in 2023 in Wisconsin came from renewable sources, according to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).

In Wisconsin, Alliant has been moving away from coal and toward solar; it is retiring one of its last two coal-fired plants by mid-2026 and will convert the other to natural gas in 2028.

Alliant’s move away from coal mirrors the same transition in the state writ large, which is being driven by economics, said Greg Nemet, professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“It’s too expensive to run a coal power plant. That’s the bottom line. And there’s cheaper alternatives,” he told Cipher.

Talking about cost-savings was the key to convincing Wisconsin Rapids to go solar, said Doug Machon, a former Wisconsin Rapids town chairman.

“You can’t speak about climate change. That’s a political issue. So, you have to drive everything through a financial aspect,” Machon told Cipher. “It’s cheaper to produce electricity with sunlight, and so why wouldn’t you be taking advantage of it?”

Saratoga, the township where the Wood County Solar field is located, gets an annual payment of $340,000 for having the solar field located on its land, Lorelei Fuehrer, chairwoman and zoning administrator of Saratoga, told Cipher. That payout comes from a long-standing shared revenue program operated by the state of Wisconsin.

Utilities like Alliant pay into the fund and Wisconsin distributes the money to municipalities. “That helps tremendously to keep our roads up,” Fuehrer told Cipher.

Read the full article on Cipher’s website.

In Wisconsin, I saw how the global energy transition is a local challenge

Illustration by Nadya Nickels.

BY: CAT CLIFFORD

Making a big global transition from fossil fuel power to clean energy is going to require a whole lot of careful, patient communication and education on the local level. And that will take time — individual by individual, community by community.

This thought keeps rolling around in the back of my mind after traveling to Wisconsin to see how solar fields get built and wind turbine generators are made in the state.

Shortly after returning from what is often called the cheese capital of the world, I listened to a conference call hosted by officials from the Biden administration about new federal investments to build transmission lines. As with constructing solar fields, transmission lines require land.

"The truth is, if we can't build critical clean energy projects through a few backyards, then the climate crisis will wreak havoc on everyone's backyard," John Podesta, senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, said on the call.

I know Podesta is correct. I also saw so clearly during my Wisconsin visit how much effort, education and compromise it takes to build clean energy “through a few backyards.”

Read the full article on Cipher’s website.

Latin America is buying more cheap solar this year

Source: BloombergNEF: Unlocking Investment to Triple Renewables by 2030 • The data compares investment between first halves of 2024 and 2023. The data shows change in spending, not overall spending amounts, per country.

BY: AMENA H. SAIYID

Brazil’s voracious appetite for cheap, small-scale solar energy drove a surge in spending on renewable energy in Latin America in the first half of this year, according to recent findings from BloombergNEF (BNEF).

Growth of clean energy around the world is critical to driving down demand for fossil fuels and meeting the goal set at last year’s United Nations’ climate summit in Dubai of tripling global renewable capacity by 2030.

Cheap solar in particular is driving the growth in many markets in Latin America and across the globe, Meredith Annex, head of BNEF Global Power and co-author of the report, told Cipher.

Led by Brazil, Latin America spent 64% more on solar and — to a lesser extent — wind, in the first half of 2024 than the region did during the first half of 2023. Brazil, which accounted for nearly 80% of the investment flows into the region, added cheap solar projects under five megawatts with its net-metering scheme, which allows households and commercial consumers to claim credit for power generated, BNEF said.

In contrast, Japan’s investments in renewable energy in the first six months of 2024 dropped 25% compared with the same period last year.

Annex said renewables in Japan are facing a combination of challenges, including lack of easy to develop land, trouble connecting to the grid and the government’s shifting focus.

“The Japanese government is putting a big emphasis on nuclear restarts, probably faster than we at BNEF think is possible,” she added.

China still invested far more overall in wind and solar than any other country or region in the first half of this year — $130 billion — but the country spent 4% less in the first half of this year compared to 2023. Likewise, the United States, ranked second in global renewables investments at $38.5 billion, spent about 3% less compared with the first half of 2023, primarily due to permitting bottlenecks and grid congestion.

AND FINALLY...
IEA visit!

Bonjour from Paris! I’m in town for a series of meetings, including my first-ever visit to the International Energy Agency’s headquarters, which you can see is a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower. On the day of my visit, the agency announced it had opened its first office outside of Paris — in Singapore, to collaborate more closely with Southeast Asian nations.

Each week, we feature a photo that is somehow related to energy, the thing we all need but don’t notice until it’s expensive or gone. Email your ideas and photos to news@ciphernews.com.

Editor’s note: In addition to supporting Cipher, Breakthrough Energy also supports and partners with a range of entities working to tackle climate change, including nonprofits, corporations, startups and research firms. For more information on Cipher’s editorial policy, click here.