- Shell Energy Europe BV will supply Amazon with green energy from an offshore wind farm.
- Increasing US building retrofits with energy-efficient US-made products would create 170,000 jobs.
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Amazon and Shell
Royal Dutch Shell and Amazon today announced that Shell Energy Europe BV will supply Amazon with green energy from a subsidy-free offshore wind farm off the Netherlands coast.
The CrossWind consortium, a joint venture between Shell and Dutch sustainable energy company Eneco, will operate the wind farm. Starting in 2024, Amazon will use 250 megawatts from Shell and 130 megawatts from Eneco, for a total of 380 MW.
This will enable Amazon to power its business completely using clean energy by 2025, five years before its original target of 2030. Amazon has pledged to become net-zero by 2040. Shell has pledged to be net-zero by 2050 or sooner.
Five days ago, Amazon officially started using Rivian electric vans to make customer deliveries. Amazon is buying 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian.
Deep retrofits = US jobs
A new report released by BuildingClean.org, an initiative of the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation, a US environmental group-labor union alliance, found that increasing the rate of US residential deep retrofits with energy-efficient housing products with the implementation of Buy American procurement policies could create more than 190,000 American manufacturing jobs.
Deep retrofits go beyond basic weatherization and feature exterior continuous insulation; energy-efficient appliances; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); and windows.
The report, “Manufacturing Efficiency: How Buy America Policy Can Boost Jobs Manufacturing Energy-Efficient Products,” compares the manufacturing job creation potential of strengthening all retrofits to full deep retrofits, increasing the retrofit rate, and implementing Buy American policies.
At the current estimated retrofit rate of 2%, just strengthening retrofits to full deep retrofits would support 132,000 manufacturing jobs. Adding a Buy American policy to a deep retrofit rate of 2% would create another 20,000 jobs. Finally, the report explored the impact of increasing the deep retrofit rate to 4% while also enacting a Buy American policy. Under this scenario, more than 170,000 additional US jobs would be created.
Jason Walsh, president of the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation, said:
The creation of manufacturing jobs in communities across the nation will help our nation heal from the devastating economic impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Stopping energy waste will strengthen our fight against climate change. And, ramping up residential deep retrofits — especially in affordable housing — will make the buildings we live and work in healthier and safer.
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Author: Michelle Lewis
Source: Electrek
