Net Zero

1. Jumping the queue
2. Power ranking
3. Elon on the ballot
4. Even more tariffs
5. IPO reluctance

“The most American city,” and Trump’s new energy whisperer.

Renewable energy alone can’t save Ukraine’s faltering grid

A top US energy company said it will prioritize Ukraine for the delivery of vital, backlogged hardware as the country fights to keep the lights on after losing half of its power capacity due to Russian attacks.

At a Ukraine recovery conference in Berlin on Tuesday GE Vernova signed an agreement with Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko, committing to sell the country critical electricity hardware including small mobile gas turbines, microgrids, renewables, and utility-scale batteries.

“We have years and years of backlogs for a lot of this equipment,” Roger Martella, the company’s chief sustainability officer, told Semafor. “Instead of just answering the phones in the order in which they ring, we’re having very serious conversations at the highest levels of the company about how we can move equipment around and reallocate it so that we’re putting Ukraine first and foremost.”

GE Vernova’s deal with Kyiv represents one of the biggest forays by a foreign energy company into Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. Blackouts are increasingly common in Kyiv and other cities, and promise only to worsen once temperatures rise in the summer, requiring increased use of air conditioning, before they begin to plummet again and force a surge in demand for heating.

Long-term, Ukraine has incredible clean energy potential. But reconstruction work on the damaged grid is being held back by a combination of factors including labor and equipment shortages; insufficient defensive rockets to protect infrastructure from repeat attacks; and cold feet by many foreign energy companies about operating in a war zone. And before Ukraine can reach its clean energy future, it’s going to need more fossil fuels.

Power ranking

Most renewable energy systems in the US are far cheaper to build than their fossil fuel counterparts, the latest review of US data from the financial services firm Lazard found.

The much-watched annual “levelized cost of electricity” report gives a good overview of how much a unit of electricity must sell for to turn a profit, and considers the construction and operating costs of different forms of generation over their usual lifespan. Counting Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, power from onshore wind and utility-scale solar is nearly free to produce. Nuclear remains the most expensive. Compared to last year’s report, the cost ranges for renewables have narrowed, Lazard said, as a result of tech improvements that keep the high-end costs down along with supply chain snags that have pushed the low end up a bit.

Elon on the ballot

Tomorrow is the decisive moment for Elon Musk’s pay package at Tesla. Polls will close overnight for shareholders to decide whether Musk deserves to earn roughly $46 billion leading the EV company. Tesla has recently lost market share to BYD and other competitors, while it struggles to introduce new, lower-cost models to expand its reach. California’s public pension plan and some other major shareholders have said they will vote against the package, arguing that Musk is overpaid relative to the value he brings to the company and that the structure of his compensation encourages him to pursue flashy ideas, like the Cybertruck, that push share prices up in the short term but are bad for the company’s long-term health. An unusually high portion of Tesla shares are held by retail investors, whose behavior is hard to predict, though. The outcome of the vote will either entrench one of the world’s most influential climate companies in its current direction — or be a sign that a major pivot is needed.

The most powerful people in the media are gathering in Cannes next week, and we’re on the ground to cover it all. Starting next Monday, Semafor’s Ben Smith and Max Tani will hop between panels, parties, and yachts to bring you the essential guide to marketing and media’s most consequential event.

Whether you’re jetting to Cannes or just want to stay in the loop, subscribe to our pop-up newsletter, Semafor Cannes.

Sign up here.

Even more tariffs

Maximum tariff that will be applied to Chinese electric vehicles imported into the European Union, under a policy Brussels adopted Wednesday. The bloc has been much more cautious than the US about escalating a clean energy trade war with China, and the new tariffs are still far lower than the 100% tariff proposed by the Biden administration last month. Chinese brands account for only about 7% of Europe’s EV sales — but that number is rising quickly, and Chinese automakers will likely plow ahead in Europe despite the tariffs, especially as they remain boxed out of the US. However, the tariffs raise the risk of retaliatory measures from China, which is an important market for European automakers like Volkswagen and BMW.

IPO hesistancy

One of Britain’s most valuable private energy companies will not necessarily choose London when it comes time for its initial public offering, its chief executive told Semafor in an interview.

The remarks by Greg Jackson — the founder and chief executive of Octopus Energy, the country’s largest electricity supplier — pile further pressure on the British capital’s premier stock exchange, which has seen a series of companies either opt to publicly list in New York or threaten to do so. London has for years been fighting a mostly losing battle in its global competition with New York for retaining big-name listings: Last year, the chip design firm Arm — headquartered in Cambridge, England — opted to list on the New York Stock Exchange. Major companies like Flutter (which owns the gambling site FanDuel) and CRH have dropped their London listings in favor of New York, and the oil and gas giant Shell has publicly suggested it may follow suit.

Octopus was valued at $9 billion in a fundraising round last month, a 15% increase compared to a valuation announced just six months prior. Beyond its ostensibly vanilla energy utility, Jackson said investors place equal weight on its Kraken software platform, which is used by other utilities to manage their backend operations and customer service. Because much of the world lives in markets in which energy and water are provided by state-owned or regulated monopolies, Kraken allows Octopus Energy to sell into parts of the world where its utility arm could not normally compete. In particular, Octopus wants to sell its Kraken software in the US, which Jackson described as a “top tier” target for future sales, adding that Octopus was “in deep conversations with several significant US utilities.”

For more on Ukraine’s power struggles, and more stories from Tim’s globetrotting coverage of the energy transition, check out today’s edition of Wicked Problems, a podcast and newsletter from our friend Richard Delevan, who “aims to be your business intelligence source for climate tech.”

New Energy

• The UK’s biggest solar farm is dividing the neighboring community. In Italy, meanwhile, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is throwing shade on the country’s solar boom.
• Siemens Energy is developing the world’s largest wind turbine in a bid to confront Chinese companies that currently dominate the mega-wind market.

Fossil Fuels

• The consolidation continues: Offshore oil rig contractor Noble Corp. will buy its smaller competitor Diamond Offshore for $1.6 billion.
• Most of the investors who snapped up shares of Saudi Aramco offered by the Saudi government last week were foreigners, a reversal from the company’s last share sale and an outcome placing more control of the company back outside the country for the first time since it was nationalized in 1980.
• The OECD wants to pressure its member countries to adopt banking rules that would block new financing for coal-fired power plants, according to a draft plan that is set to be taken up at COP29.

Finance

• Following the rollout of voluntary guidelines to curb greenwashing, Wall Street is preparing for a turnaround in the beleaguered carbon credit market.
• Several of the world’s largest banks have weak policies to limit their financing of oil and gas drilling in the Amazon, according to a report by activist groups. Only HSBC has a policy to block finance for drilling in 100% of the Amazon.

Tech

• Bill Gates broke ground in Wyoming on a next-gen small nuclear power plant that he thinks will set off a revolution in global clean energy production.

Politics & Policy

• Global climate finance talks in Bonn ended in stalemate, raising the stakes for COP29 in Azerbaijan.

• Donald Trump is taking more of his cues on energy policy from North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a leading contender for Trump’s VP pick, who has been a champion of his state’s fracking industry.
• California attorney general Rob Bonta wants to confiscate oil companies’ profits, an escalation in a lawsuit he is pursuing in response to what he sees as illegal marketing practices by the industry.

Minerals & Mining

• New York-based mining firm Critical Metals Corp. bought a controlling stake in one of the world’s largest rare earths deposits, in Greenland, for $211 million.
• Despite record-high prices for copper, one struggling copper mining company in Nevada went bankrupt following a number of technical setbacks at its projects.

George Packer, staff writer at The Atlantic, whose cover story this week is a profile of the climate change challenges in “the most American city,” and who would like to remind all reporters that no matter how many big awards you win you’re still under your editor’s thumb.

• Blackstone’s high-class problem: too many rich dentists.
• Democrats are planning a resistance playbook for Trump’s return.
• Biden has a TikTok problem. His superfans want to help.