Business

PICTURE A MECCANO set, but one made for gods. Blades as long as Big Ben is tall, rotors and tower sections the size of school buildings, shafts and generators so heavy they must be rotated every 20 minutes so as not to be crushed by their own weight: all these parts are strewn across an area the size of 150 football pitches. Clicked together, they form edifices rivalling the Eiffel Tower, except more useful—wind turbines to be planted somewhere in the North Sea.Welcome to Esbjerg, the hub of Europe’s offshore-wind industry. Two-thirds of the turbines currently spinning off its coast, enough to power 40m European homes, were put together in the Danish port town of 72,000. And Esbjerg’s gods have only started tinkering. The city’s port operator plans to nearly triple capacity to handle wind projects by 2026. Local engineering firms that once catered chiefly to the fossil-fuel industry now supply the windpower industry instead. Meta has bought 212 hectares of farmland outside Esbjerg to build a renewables-powered data centre for its social networks. Out on the sea, cables that will ferry 30% of the international data traffic into Norway are being laid down. Esbjerg’s mayor has travelled as far as Vietnam and Washington, DC to share its success story. With a dose of strategic thinking, and a bit of luck, a constellation of Esbjergs could combine and scale up into a new North Sea economy. This would help Europe achieve its ambitious climate goals and rebalance its energy sources away from countries ruled by tyrants such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Its newly minted corporate champions could offer Europe’s best, and perhaps last, chance to stay globally relevant. And it could alter the continent’s political and economic balance by creating an alternative to the sputtering Franco-German engine.The North Sea has always been economically important. Bordered by six European countries—Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway—it is where many important shipping routes intersect. Its strong tides, which sweep nutrients to its shallow seabed, are a boon for fishermen. In the 20th century oil and gas were discovered beneath the seabed. At their peak in the 1990s Britain and Norway, the two largest North Sea producers, together cranked out 6m barrels a day, half as much again as the United Arab Emirates does today. One Scottish field, Brent, lent its name to the global price benchmark. Now as that bounty runs out—and demand for what remains dwindles because of growing concerns about climate change—the turbulent body of water is finding lucrative new uses. Spin doctrineThe biggest bet is on a resource of which the sea has an infinite amount—awful weather. With average wind speeds of ten metres per second, the basin is one of the gustiest in the world. The day your correspondent visited Esbjerg speeds were twice that, enough to push the wholesale price of electricity down to nearly zero. The North Sea floor is mostly soft, which makes it easier to affix turbines to the seabed (the floating kind have yet to be deployed at scale anywhere in the world). It is also typically no more than 90 metres deep, which allows wind farms to be placed farther away from the coast, where winds are more consistent. Ed Northam of Macquarie Group, an investment firm with stakes in 40% of all British offshore wind farms in operation, says his offshore turbines work at up to 60% of capacity, compared with the 30-40% that is typical onshore. In 2022 North Sea countries auctioned off 25 gigawatts (GW) in capacity, making it the busiest year by far. Nearly 30GW-worth of tenders have already been scheduled for the next three years. Yearly new connections are expected to grow from under 4GW today to more than 10GW by the late 2020s. At a meeting in Esbjerg in May the European Commission and four countries bordering the North Sea agreed to install 150GW of windpower by 2050, five times Europe’s and three times the world’s current total. In September this group and another five countries raised the number to 260GW, equivalent to 24,000 of today’s largest turbines. This ambition is made possible by wind’s version of Moore’s law, which described the exponential rise in computing power. Three decades ago the world’s first offshore wind farm—Vindeby in Denmark, made up of 11 turbines—had a total capacity of five megawatts (MW). Today a single turbine can generate 14MW, and one farm may contain more than 100 of them. More robust cables and transformers at sea to convert windpower from alternating into direct current, which can travel over long distances without big losses, enable more electricity to be generated farther away.The result is that several wind farms being installed now surpass 1GW in capacity, the typical output of a nuclear plant. The Dogger Bank wind farm, located between 130km and 200km off the British coast and due to start operating in the summer of 2023, will clock in at a record 3.6GW at full capacity in 2026. Economies of scale are driving down costs, making offshore wind competitive with other sources of power. In July Britain awarded contracts to five projects, including Dogger Bank, at a price of £37 ($44) per megawatt-hour—less than a sixth of the country’s wholesale electricity price in December.The awful weather is not always a boon: its vagaries can also stress the grid. Helpfully, technology and falling costs are allowing windpower operators to combat the elements. One way to do this is with more interconnections, first between the farms and land—today most wind farms have one link to the shore, which is inefficient—then among the farms themselves. Half of the 3GW to be tendered by Norway will have the option to create links to more countries. Phil Sandy of National Grid, which runs Britain’s power infrastructure, predicts a future of complex undersea grids similar to that on land. Another way to manage the variability of windpower is to use it to split water molecules to produce “green” fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia. In May the European Commission and heavy-industry bosses pledged a ten-fold increase of EU manufacturing capacity for electrolysers, which do the splitting, by 2025. This would allow it to produce 10m tonnes of green fuels by 2030. The commission has also proposed a “hydrogen bank”, capitalised with €3bn ($3.2bn), to help finance the projects. Investors are giddy. In August Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), a private-equity firm, said it had raised €3bn for a fund that will invest solely in hydrogen assets. A dozen projects have been announced in Europe; the three largest together amount to 20GW of green power. Topsoe, a Danish firm that provides technology for such ventures, says its orders add up to 86GW.Eventually the North Sea’s power system could take the form of an archipelago of “energy islands” that host wind-farm repair staff, aggregate electricity and produce hydrogen in bulk, to be transported onshore by ship or pipeline. As many as ten such schemes are being considered, according to SINTEF, a research firm. North Sea Energy Island, an artificial atoll 100km off the Danish coast, is due to be tendered in 2023. It will serve as a hub for ten surrounding wind farms, with links to neighbouring countries. One bidder, a joint venture between Orsted, a Danish offshore wind developer that is the world’s largest, and ATP, a local $150bn pension fund, envisages a modular design, with components made onshore and assembled at sea. “We expect it to still be functional in 100 years’ time,” says Brendan Bradley of Arup, an engineering firm that is advising the bid. Thomas Dalsgaard of CIP, which is part of a rival consortium, reckons that producing green fuels offshore will not only help reduce pressure on grids but also save money: hydrogen pipelines are one-fifth the cost of high-capacity power-transmission lines.Grids unlockedThere is more to the new North Sea economy than the energy sector. For electricity and hydrogen will not be the only things to be coursing across the North Sea floor. So will carbon dioxide. Some industries, such as cement-making or chemicals, are hard or impossible to decarbonise. But their CO2 can be collected and pumped into depleted gasfields in the North Sea. Such carbon capture and storage (CCS) used to seem an unappealing way to fight climate change, because of its high cost and unpopularity among environmentalists, who worry it would prolong the life of fossil fuels. Now, as with wind, the costs are falling, political resistance easing and projects multiplying. One seeking approval in Rotterdam, called Porthos, would connect Europe’s biggest port via a pipeline to a compressor station, and then out to an empty offshore gasfield. Although a court recently delayed its start, the project has already received the green light from Dutch regulators. Once operational, it would take in about 2.5m tonnes of CO2 annually for 15 years, nearly 2% of Dutch carbon emissions. The port of Amsterdam is planning something similar. Farther north, near the Norwegian city of Bergen, Equinor, an energy company, and its partners have already finished drilling operations for a CO2 injection well as part of a project called Northern Lights. According to Guloren Turan of the Global CCS Institute, a think-tank, Europe now has more than 70 such facilities in various stages of development.The last valuable product increasingly criss-crossing the North Sea is information. If you follow one of the newer transatlantic submarine data cables that land in Esbjerg, called Havfrue, and then turn right at a fork in the middle of the North Sea, you end up in Kristiansand, a city in southern Norway. It is the home of N01 Campus, the “world’s largest data-centre campus powered by 100% green energy”, according to its owner, Bulk Infrastructure. “We want to build a platform for sustainable digital services,” says Peder Naerbo, the firm’s founder.North Sea countries are an excellent place to store and process data. Low electricity prices make for cheaper number-crunching, which is energy-intensive. A cold climate means data centres can be cooled just by circulating outside air instead of using costly cooling systems. The region boasts a highly skilled workforce, stable institutions and some of the world’s most enlightened data laws. Latency, the time it takes to move data in and out of the computing clouds, is becoming less of a problem as the technology improves, so digital workloads can be processed in ever more far-flung facilities. And data centres are hitting limits elsewhere in Europe. In 2021 Irish data centres and other digital uses consumed 17% of the country’s power. To prevent blackouts, EirGrid, a state-owned Irish utility, will no longer supply electricity to new server farms.According to TeleGeography, a data provider, 13 new cables have been installed in the North Sea since 2020, compared with five in all of the 2010s. Data centres, too, are springing up, as big cloud providers vow to decarbonise their supply chains. Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, the two largest cloud providers, have built server farms in the Nordics. Meta has its plot outside Esbjerg. Older industries are also moving more of their computing north. Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen have computers sitting in former mines in Norway; these simulate wind-tunnel and crash tests for their cars. On average, estimates Altman Solon, a consultancy, demand for data centres in the Nordics will grow by 17% a year until the end of the decade.Go north, old industrialistMore European economic activity could be drawn north. “Abundance of energy tends to attract industry,” says Nikolaus Wolf, an economic historian at Humboldt University in Berlin. That is what happened in the early 19th century, when abundant hydropower helped attract the cotton industry to Lancashire. Mr Wolf and Nicholas Crafts of the University of Warwick calculate that a 10% decline in Lancashire’s hydropower would have led to a 10% decline in textile employment by 1838 in key places.Energy is easier to distribute via grids and pipelines today than it was in the Industrial Revolution, and existing industrial centres across Europe exert their own pull. Transplanting cement-making kilns to North Sea shores would mean transporting limestone to them and cement back to customers, making the process uneconomical (and, until the advent of zero-emissions lorries, climate-unfriendly). Giant steam crackers, which split hydrocarbons into smaller molecules at chemical factories, will not be moving north soon, either: they are too big an investment, too integrated in existing supply chains, and already in the process of being electrified.But Mr Wolf’s principle still holds for some industries—and may benefit other northerly locations not directly on the North Sea. In Narvik, farther north on the Norwegian Sea, Aker Horizons, a firm that invests in renewable energy, wants to establish a green industrial hub powered by offshore wind. In Boden, a Swedish town near the eastern coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula, H2 Green Steel is erecting a new steel mill, Europe’s first in half a century. The factory will run not on coal or natural gas but on green hydrogen, created in one of the world’s largest electrolysis plants using onshore wind and hydroelectric power. Besides exporting steel, H2 Green Steel hopes to export its hydrogen and sponge iron, an intermediate product that has already taken in much of the energy needed in the steelmaking process. This would amount to splitting the steel industry in two, explains Henrik Henriksson, the firm’s chief executive. The energy-intensive bits of the process would migrate to where they can be done most efficiently: right next to the sources of renewable energy. The more labour- and knowledge-intensive parts could remain in Europe’s steelmaking heartlands like the Ruhr valley. In Wilhelmshaven, a German city on the North Sea, Uniper, a state-owned energy company, has just completed Germany’s first terminal for imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), to replace some of the Russian gas no longer flowing through pipelines from Siberia. The firm is planning to erect crackers to produce hydrogen from ammonia next to the LNG terminal. In another corner of the port, close to a decommissioned coal plant, Uniper will build its own hydrogen plant and provide plenty of space for energy-hungry businesses. “Wilhelmshaven will play an important role as the place where green energy comes onshore,” says Holger Kreetz, who is in charge of managing Uniper’s assets.Other companies flocking north include manufacturers of electric-vehicle batteries, which also require lots of energy to make, and producers of wind turbines, which have suffered from recent supply-chain snarls. Vestas, the world’s biggest turbine-maker, is closing a factory in China and will open one in Poland, in part to be close to a new wind farm on the Baltic Sea. As with all such shifts, some see problems. Renewable energy will be even cheaper elsewhere, warns Christer Tryggestad of McKinsey, another consultancy. Rather than investing in and around the North Sea, firms could move to sun-kissed places such as the Middle East or Spain. Not everyone is convinced that the EU can meet its ambitious goals to ramp up the production of offshore windpower. Vestas and its fellow turbine-makers are already complaining bitterly that permits for new wind parks can take a decade or more to secure. The offshore-wind-services firms warn that they may soon run out of people and machinery to keep customers happy.The last obstacle comes from across the Atlantic. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act includes $370bn in subsidies and tax credits for climate-friendly products and services, so long as they are made in America. The EU worries that the handouts will lure investors away from its shores. The bloc is looking into whether the law breaches international trade rules.If these problems can be overcome, the new North Sea economy’s impact on the continent will be momentous. As Europe’s economic epicentre moves north, so will its political one, predicts Frank Peter of Agora Energiewende, a German think-tank. This could shift the balance of power within littoral countries. Coastal Bremen, one of Germany’s poorest states, could gain clout at the expense of rich but landlocked Bavaria. At the European level, France and Germany, whose industrial might underpinned the European Coal and Steel Community, the EU’s forebear, may lose some influence to a new bloc led by Denmark, the Netherlands and, outside the EU, Britain and Norway. The French and Bavarians may bristle at the idea of a de facto Windpower and Hydrogen Community centred on the North Sea. But it would give Europe as a whole a much-needed economic and geopolitical boost. ■ More

When starting a business, it’s sometimes hard to know what to prioritize, and going at it alone can be overwhelming. But there are strategies you can use to avoid common pitfalls.
My mission is to teach people how to earn money from their passions. It’s what I did: I went from living on food stamps to building two online businesses.

Today, I run a music blog, The Recording Revolution, and a entrepreneurship coaching company. I work just five hours a week from my home office and make $160,000 a month in passive income.
Here’s what I tell my 3,000 clients to think about in the first 30 days of starting a business:

1. Be clear about how you want to spend your time.

Many new business owners I meet know only one thing: how much money they want to make. 
While that’s a great starting point, it’s incomplete. Your business should serve your life, not the other way around. So make sure it aligns with your hopes, dreams and goals.
To get clear about the type of business and life you want, ask three questions:

What does a perfect day look like to you? Don’t just think about your typical workday. Consider other life activities you want to fit into your day, like exercising or spending time with family.
How many hours do you want to work a week? You don’t have to follow the standard 40-hour workweek. Knowing exactly how many hours you want to work will help you better prioritize tasks.
How important is time off? Some people don’t care much about taking time off, as long as they love what they do. Others value extended time off. In order to have money flowing in when you’re not working, you’ll need to have some sort of passive income stream.

2. Simplify your business model.

When I started my music education business, people told me I needed to test my sales pages, throw launch parties and pre-record a bunch of ads in order to grow.
Rather than stretching myself thin doing things that didn’t make sense to me, I kept it simple and focused on three things: creating weekly content for my blog and YouTube channel, growing my email list from that audience, and promoting the paid products I created to that list.
If you’re just starting out, develop content around your expertise to grow an audience. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You can iterate as you go and design new products based on what your customers want more of.

3. Cut out unnecessary daily tasks.

Identify what daily activities will help you earn more. Don’t waste time or burn yourself out focusing on unimportant tasks.
It might feel good to get to inbox zero or change the color of the buttons on your website, especially in the early days where you want to feel like you’ve achieved a goal. But neither of those things will make you money.
Before you start a new task, ask yourself three questions:

What’s the expected outcome for doing this task? 
Does it lead to more money?
Can I point to a direct link between doing that task and earning income?
What’s the cost of doing this instead of something else? 

4. Prioritize having fun.

People can tell if you’re just doing something for the money or if you actually love what you do. That authenticity will connect you deeper to your customers and it will sustain you for the long haul. 
You don’t want to burn out because you spent all your time doing things that weren’t meaningful to you.
I always give my students this framework when they are beginning their entrepreneur journey: Build a business around something you see yourself doing and enjoying for the next 10 years. 
Graham Cochrane is founder of The Recording Revolution and author of “How to Get Paid for What You Know.” He has helped more than 3,000 people launch and improve their own businesses. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter.
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As the calendar turns to a new year, about half of all states are expected to implement a higher minimum wage.
Here’s where hourly pay is increasing amid a push for a higher federal minimum rate.

Labor activists hold a rally in support of a national $15 minimum wage on May 19, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images News | Getty Images

As the calendar turns to 2023, workers in more than half of all states have something to look forward to this year: a higher minimum wage.
That’s occurring as the federal minimum wage stands pat at $7.25 per hour — the same rate since 2009.

But many states and cities have put their own rates in place, and most of them are poised to increase in the new year.
A total of 26 states have announced that higher minimum wages will be introduced during 2023, with one more state likely to see an adjustment in July, according to research from payroll experts at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.
Meanwhile, 23 states and Washington, D.C., according to the Economic Policy Institute, will implement higher minimum wages on Jan. 1. Those increases, which will range from 23 cents to $1.50 per hour, will affect 8 million workers.

The state poised to provide the highest minimum pay rate is Washington, at $15.74 per hour, according to Wolters Kluwer.
Workers under the age of 16 in that state will be paid $13.38 per hour starting in 2023, or 85% of the adult minimum wage.

The minimum wage in Washington, D.C., will be $16.10 per hour.
Washington, D.C., and 13 states tie their minimum wages to the consumer price index, a government measure for the average change consumers pay for certain goods and services.

“There’s quite a few states across the country that will be seeing quite big jumps in the minimum wage because of the higher rate of inflation this past year,” said Deirdre Kennedy, senior payroll analyst at Wolters Kluwer.
Other states will continue to phase in increases passed through legislation. States that are not seeing minimum wage hikes in 2023 still tie their base pay to the $7.25 per hour federal rate.

How the federal minimum wage affects workers

President Joe Biden has campaigned to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. He signed an executive order in 2022 raising it to that level for federal workers and contractors.
But a broader change to $15 per hour nationally would have to be done through Congress. Efforts to raise the rate nationally failed to make it into Covid-19 relief legislation in 2021.
“As the gap between that and the federal minimum wage increases, it will be interesting to see if that can kind of spur more momentum for more states to increase their wages or try and get more momentum on the federal level,” said Kevin Werner, research associate at the Income and Benefits Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
More from Personal Finance:From ‘Quiet Quitting’ to ‘Loud Layoffs,’ career trends to watch in 2023How to use pay transparency to negotiate a better salary’This is a crisis.’ Why more workers need access to retirement savings
Raising the minimum wage nationally to $15 per hour would affect 56 million workers, according to an Urban Institute report released in September.
The research modeled possible results where a new $15 minimum wage resulted in either no job losses and two different scenarios where extended job losses occurred.
“Even in our highest job loss scenario, we still found that on average, the average worker was better off, and that poverty declined overall,” Werner said.
“Even though some individual people who lost their jobs may have been worse off, the net effect was still positive,” he said.

There’s quite a few states across the country that will be seeing quite big jumps in the minimum wage because of the higher rate of inflation this past year.

Deirdre Kennedy
senior payroll analyst at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.

The majority of workers who would be affected by a $15 minimum wage are over the age of 25, according to Werner. About one-third are the sole income earners for their families.
Workers who depend on the minimum wage are also much more likely to be people of color and living in poverty. Consequently, raising the minimum pay nationally would help vulnerable people, Werner said.
Raising minimum wages can also help increase consumer demand and put money back into local economies, said Holly Sklar, CEO of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a national network of business organizations, owners and executives that support higher minimum wages.
“Putting needed raises in minimum wage workers’ pockets [is] really the most efficient way you can boost the economy,” Sklar said. “Those are the people who have to go right back around and spend it.”

With federal action to raise the minimum wage uncertain, some big name companies have already stepped up to raise their pay rates.
Costco has raised its minimum wage for U.S. store workers to $16 per hour, while Target, Amazon and Walmart have all moved to pay hourly workers $15 per hour.
As the economy has continued to open up following the Covid shutdown, competition for workers has prompted employers to offer higher wages and starting bonuses for workers on the lower end of the income spectrum, Werner noted.
“It’s giving low-income workers more leverage than they had before,” he said.

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Despite a difficult 2022, experts say there are key opportunities to boost your finances in the new year.
Rising inflation has prompted updates from the IRS, broadly affecting Americans’ finances, including retirement savings and taxes.
And recent legislation, including “Secure 2.0” provisions, may present further options for 2023.

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1. Bigger contribution limits on retirement accounts

If you’re eager to boost your retirement savings, there’s good news for 2023: higher contribution limits for your 401(k) and individual retirement account.
In 2023, the employee deferral limit is $22,500, up from $20,500, and catch-up deposits for savers age 50 and older jump to $7,500, up from $6,500. These increases also apply to 403(b) plans, most 457 plans and Thrift Savings Plans.
“That’s a big change for a lot of people,” said certified financial planner Brandon Opre, founder of TrustTree Financial in Huntersville, North Carolina. 

But without a reminder from an advisor or your 401(k) plan provider, these increases “might go undetected,” he said. 
The contribution limits have also increased for IRAs, allowing you to save up to $6,500 for 2023, up from $6,000 in 2022. While the catch-up deposit remains at $1,000 for 2023, it will index to inflation starting in 2024.

2. Tax savings with inflation-adjusted brackets

Scott Bishop, a CFP and executive director of wealth solutions at Houston-based Avidian Wealth Solutions, said some of the biggest personal finance changes for 2023 are tied to inflation.
For example, the IRS in October announced “some relief” with higher federal income tax brackets for 2023, he said, which means you can earn more before hitting the next tier.
Each bracket shows how much you’ll owe for federal income taxes for each portion of your “taxable income,” calculated by subtracting the greater of the standard or itemized deductions from your adjusted gross income.

The standard deduction also increases in 2023, rising to $27,700 for married couples filing jointly, up from $25,900 in 2022. Single filers may claim $13,850 in 2023, a jump from $12,950.

3. Higher threshold for 0% long-term capital gains

If you’re planning to sell investments from a taxable portfolio in 2023, you’re less likely to trigger a bill for long-term capital gains taxes, experts say.
Based on inflation, the IRS also bumped up the income thresholds for 0%, 15% and 20% long-term capital gains brackets for 2023, applying to profitable assets owned for more than one year.
“It’s going to be pretty significant,” Tommy Lucas, a CFP and enrolled agent at Moisand Fitzgerald Tamayo in Orlando, Florida, recently told CNBC.

With higher standard deductions and income thresholds for long-term capital gains in 2023, you’re more likely to fall into the 0% bracket, Lucas said. 
For 2023, you may qualify for the 0% rate with taxable income of $44,625 or less for single filers and $89,250 or less for married couples filing together.

4. Higher income limit for Roth IRA contributions

The 2023 inflation adjustments also mean more investors may qualify for Roth IRA contributions, experts say.
“We talk a lot about Roth conversions,” said Lawrence Pon, a CFP and CPA at Pon & Associates in Redwood City, California, referring to a strategy that converts pretax IRA funds to a Roth IRA for future tax-free growth.
“But how about Roth [IRA] contributions?” he said, speaking at the Financial Planning Association’s annual conference in December, pointing to higher income limits for 2023.

More Americans may be eligible in 2023 because the adjusted gross income phaseout range rises to between $138,000 and $153,000 for single filers and $218,000 and $228,000 for married couples filing jointly.
While some investors may seek “complicated” moves, like so-called backdoor Roth conversions, which transfer after-tax 401(k) contributions to a Roth IRA, Pon urges investors to double-check Roth IRA contribution eligibility first. 

5. More time for required minimum distributions

On Dec. 23, Congress passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations bill, including dozens of retirement provisions known as “Secure 2.0.”
One of the provisions for 2023 is a change to required minimum distributions, or RMDs, which must be taken annually from certain retirement accounts. 
Currently, RMDs start when you turn 72, with a deadline of April 1 of the following year for your first withdrawal, and a Dec. 31 due date for future years. However, Secure 2.0 shifts the starting age to 73 in 2023 and age 75 in 2033.
“Those already taking RMDs will not be affected, even if you’re 72 right now,” said Nicholas Bunio, a CFP with Retirement Wealth Advisors in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
But the change may provide some “great planning opportunities” if you’re younger and don’t need the RMDs, such as possible Roth conversions, he said.

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The Covid omicron XBB.1.5 variant has nearly doubled in prevalence over the past week and now represents about 41% of new cases in the U.S., according to CDC data.
XBB.1.5 is highly immune evasive and appears to bind better to cells than other members of the XBB omicron subvariant family.
Scientists at Columbia University have warned that the rise of subvariants such as the XBB family could “result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections.”

Gilnature | Istock | Getty Images

The Covid omicron XBB.1.5 variant is rapidly becoming dominant in the U.S. because it is highly immune evasive and appears more effective at binding to cells than related subvariants, scientists say.
XBB.1.5 now represents about 41% of new cases nationwide in the U.S., nearly doubling in prevalence over the past week, according to the data published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The subvariant more than doubled as a share of cases every week through Dec. 24. In the past week, it nearly doubled from 21.7% prevalence.

Scientists and public health officials have been closely monitoring the XBB subvariant family for months because the strains have many mutations that could render the Covid-19 vaccines, including the omicron boosters, less effective and cause even more breakthrough infections.

XBB was first identified in India in August. It quickly become dominant there, as well as in Singapore. It has since evolved into a family of subvariants including XBB.1 and XBB.1.5.
Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University, said XBB.1.5 is different from its family members because it has an additional mutation that makes it bind better to cells.
“The virus needs to bind tightly to cells to be more efficient at getting in and that could help the virus be a little bit more efficient at infecting people,” Pekosz said.
Yunlong Richard Cao, a scientist and assistant professor at Peking University, published data on Twitter Tuesday that indicated XBB.1.5 not only evades protective antibodies as effectively as the XBB.1 variant, which was highly immune evasive, but also is better at binding to cells through a key receptor.

Scientists at Columbia University, in a study published earlier this month in the journal Cell, warned that the rise of subvariants such as XBB could “further compromise the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and result in a surge of breakthrough infections as well as re-infections.”
The XBB subvariants are also resistant to Evusheld, an antibody cocktail that many people with weak immune systems rely on for protection against Covid infection because they don’t mount a strong response to the vaccines.
The scientists described the resistance of the XBB subvariants to antibodies from vaccination and infection as “alarming.” The XBB subvariants were even more effective at dodging protection from the omicron boosters than the BQ subvariants, which are also highly immune evasive, the scientists found.

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Dr. David Ho, an author on the Columbia study, agreed with the other scientists that XBB.1.5 probably has a growth advantage because it binds better to cells than its XBB relatives. Ho also said XBB.1.5 is about as immune evasive as XBB and XBB.1, which were two of the subvariants most resistant to protective antibodies from infection and vaccination so far.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is leaving his role as White House chief medical advisor, has previously said that the XBB subvariants reduce the protection the boosters provide against infection “multifold.”
“You could expect some protection, but not the optimal protection,” Fauci told reporters during a White House briefing in November.
Fauci said he was encouraged by the case of Singapore, which had a major surge of infections from XBB but did not see hospitalizations rise at the same rate. Pekosz said XBB.1.5, in combination with holiday travel, could cause cases to rise in the U.S. But he said the boosters appear to be preventing severe disease.
“It does look like the vaccine, the bivalent booster is providing continued protection against hospitalization with these variants,” Pekosz said. “It really emphasizes the need to get a booster particularly into vulnerable populations to provide continued protection from severe disease with these new variants.”
Health officials in the U.S. have repeatedly called on the elderly in particular to make sure they are up to date on their vaccines and get treated with the antiviral Paxlovid if they have a breakthrough infection.

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The 37-year old Portugal team captain is a free agent after leaving major British club Manchester United following a dramatic fallout with some of its management.
The news of Ronaldo’s signing Friday follows months of rumors and speculation as to whether he would join a Saudi team, as he had already received offers for lucrative Saudi contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo poses for a photo with the jersey after signing with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr Football Club in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 30, 2022.
Al Nassr Football Club / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is joining Saudi Arabian club team Al Nassr in a deal that will see him play until June 2025.
“History in the making,” Al Nassr FC wrote in a Twitter post on its official English-language account.

“This is a signing that will not only inspire our club to achieve even greater success but inspire our league, our nation and future generations, boys and girls to be the best version of themselves. Welcome Cristiano to your new home AlNassrFC.”
The Saudi club quoted Ronaldo as saying he is “eager to experience a new football league in a different country.”
The 37-year old Portugal team captain is a free agent after leaving major British club Manchester United following a dramatic fallout with some of its management.
The news of Ronaldo’s signing Friday follows months of rumors and speculation as to whether he would join a Saudi team, as more than one had made sizeable offers in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
In the summer, Ronaldo turned down an offer from a different Saudi club, Al Hilal, which would have given him a roughly $370 million contract over a number of years. A the time, he chose to stay at Manchester United, saying he was happy there.

Multiple outlets have cited Ronaldo’s salary with Al Nassr at around $200 million per year when commercial agreements are included — which, if confirmed, would be the largest-ever salary in the history of the sport.
Prominent soccer reporter Fabrizio Romano outlined the contract deal in a tweet, calling it the “biggest salary ever in football.”
At 37, Ronaldo is at the normal retirement age for a professional soccer player, so his signing extends his career with a significant financial return. Ronaldo’s contract at Manchester United saw him earning an eye-watering $605,000 per week. He is one of the highest-paid athletes in history.
The Al Nassr contract will reportedly see Ronaldo taking home more than $1 million per week.
Al Nassr, founded in Riyadh in 1955, is one Saudi Arabia’s oldest soccer clubs and has won nine Saudi Premier League titles. The team’s current manager is French national Rudi Garcia, whose resume includes managing top-tier European clubs like Roma, Olympique de Marseille and Lille.

Cristiano Ronaldo scores from the penalty spot for Portugal during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 match between Portugal and Ghana on November 24, 2022 in Doha, Qatar.
Visionhaus | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

Saudi clubs are known for their ability to offer foreign players large paychecks, particularly as the oil-rich and conservative kingdom builds up its sports, entertainment and other industries to attract tourism, talent and investment that will help diversify its economy. Saudi Arabia has made a bid to host the 2030 FIFA World Cup.
Ronaldo is the highest goal-scorer in the history of professional soccer, with a total of 819 career goals scored as of the end of 2022. He scored a whopping 450 goals for Spanish team Real Madrid, 145 goals in 346 games for Manchester United, 118 for the Portuguese national team, and 101 for Italian club Juventus.
In addition to Ronaldo’s soccer achievements is his immense social media following — something likely of high value to the Saudi kingdom as it seeks to draw more positive attention to the country. Ronaldo became the first athlete to surpass a combined 500 million followers Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in 2021, and currently has 525 million Instagram followers alone.
Ronaldo played in his last World Cup during the Qatar 2022 tournament, setting a new record as the first man to score in five different FIFA World Cups when he made the winning goal against Ghana. The Portuguese team was later knocked out of the tournament by Morocco.

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The Biden administration this year signed into law a historic climate and tax deal that will funnel billions of dollars into programs designed to speed the transition to clean energy.
The Inflation Reduction Act will have major implications for energy and manufacturing businesses, climate startups and consumers in the upcoming years.
As 2022 comes to a close, here’s a look back at the key elements in the deal that climate and clean energy advocates will be watching closely in 2023.

U.S. President Joe Biden holds out his pen to U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and U.S. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) look on after Biden signed “The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” into law during a ceremony in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, August 16, 2022.
Leah Millis | Reuters

The Biden administration this year signed a historic climate and tax deal that will funnel billions of dollars into programs designed to speed the country’s clean energy transition and battle climate change.
As the U.S. this year grappled with climate-related disasters from Hurricane Ian in Florida to the Mosquito Fire in California, the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains $369 billion in climate provisions, was a monumental development to mitigate the effects of climate change across the country. 

The bill, which President Joe Biden signed into law in August, is the most aggressive climate investment ever taken by Congress and is expected to slash the country’s planet-warming carbon emissions by about 40% this decade and move the country toward a net-zero economy by 2050.

The IRA’s provisions have major implications for clean energy and manufacturing businesses, climate startups and consumers in the coming years. As 2022 comes to a close, here’s a look back at the key elements in the legislation that climate and clean energy advocates will be monitoring in 2023.

Incentives for electric vehicles

The deal offers a federal tax credit worth up to $7,500 to households that buy new electric vehicles, as well as a used EV credit worth up to $4,000 for vehicles that are at least two years old. Starting Jan. 1, people making $150,000 a year or less, or $300,000 for joint filers, are eligible for the new car credit, while people making $75,000 or less, or $150,000 for joint filers, are eligible for the used car credit.
Despite a rise in EV sales in recent years, the transportation sector is still the country’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, with the lack of convenient charging stations being one of the barriers to expansion. The Biden administration has set a goal of 50% electric vehicle sales by 2030.
The IRA limits EV tax credits to vehicles assembled in North America and is intended to wean the U.S. off battery materials from China, which accounts for 70% of the global supply of battery cells for the vehicles. An additional $1 billion in the deal will provide funding for zero-emissions school buses, heavy-duty trucks and public transit buses.

U.S. President Joe Biden gestures after driving a Hummer EV during a tour at the General Motors ‘Factory ZERO’ electric vehicle assembly plant in Detroit, Michigan, November 17, 2021.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Stephanie Searle, a program director at the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, said the combination of the IRA tax credits and state policies will bolster EV sales. The agency projects that roughly 50% or more of passenger cars, SUVs and pickups sold in 2030 will be electric. For electric trucks and buses, the number will be 40% or higher, the group said.
In the upcoming year, Searle said the agency is monitoring the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to propose new greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles starting in the 2027 model year.
“With the IRA already promoting electric vehicles, EPA can and should be bold in setting ambitious standards for cars and trucks,” Searle said. “This is one of the Biden administration’s last chances for strong climate action within this term and they should make good use of it.”

Taking aim at methane gas emissions

Some pumpjacks operate while others stand idle in the Belridge oil field near McKittrick, California. Oil prices rose in early Asian trade on the prospect that a stalled Iran nuclear deal and Moscow’s new mobilization campaign would restrict global supplies.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

The package imposes a tax on energy producers that exceed a certain level of methane gas emissions. Polluters pay a penalty of $900 per metric ton of methane emissions emitted in 2024 that surpass federal limits, increasing to $1,500 per metric ton in 2026.
It’s the first time the federal government has imposed a fee on the emission of any greenhouse gas. Global methane emissions are the second-biggest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide and come primarily from oil and gas extraction, landfills and wastewater and livestock farming.
Methane is a key component of natural gas and is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide, but doesn’t last as long in the atmosphere. Scientists have contended that limiting methane is needed to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. 

The Harris Cattle Ranch feedlot, located along Interstate 5, is the largest producer of beef in California and can produce 150 million pounds of beef a year as viewed on May 31, 2021, near Harris Ranch, California.
George Rose | Getty Images

Robert Kleinberg, a researcher at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said the methane emitted by the oil and gas industry each year would be worth about $2 billion if it was instead used to generate electricity or heat homes.
“Reducing methane emissions is the fastest way to moderate climate change. Congress recognized this in passing the IRA,” Kleinberg said. “The methane fee is a draconian tax on methane emitted by the oil and gas industry in 2024 and beyond.”
In addition to the IRA provision on methane, the Biden Interior Department this year proposed rules to curb methane leaks from drilling, which it said will generate $39.8 million a year in royalties for the U.S. and prevent billions of cubic feet of gas from being wasted through venting, flaring and leaks. 

Boosting clean energy manufacturing

The bill provides $60 billion for clean energy manufacturing, including $30 billion for production tax credits to accelerate domestic manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical minerals processing, and a $10 billion investment tax credit to manufacturing facilities that are building EVs and clean energy technology.
There’s also $27 billion going toward a green bank called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which will provide funding to deploy clean energy across the country, but particularly in overburdened communities. And the bill has a hydrogen production tax credit, which provides hydrogen producers with a credit based on the climate attributes of their production methods.

Solar panels are set up in the solar farm at the University of California, Merced, in Merced, California, August 17, 2022.
Nathan Frandino | Reuters

Emily Kent, the U.S. director of zero-carbon fuels at the Clean Air Task Force, a global climate nonprofit, said the bill’s support for low-emissions hydrogen is particularly notable since it could address sectors like heavy transportation and heavy industry, which are hard to decarbonize.
“U.S. climate policy has taken a major step forward on zero-carbon fuels in the U.S. and globally this year,” Kent said. “We look forward to seeing the impacts of these policies realized as the hydrogen tax credit, along with the hydrogen hubs program, accelerate progress toward creating a global market for zero-carbon fuels.”
The clean energy manufacturing provisions in the IRA will also have major implications for startups in the climate space and the big venture capital firms that back them. Carmichael Roberts, head of investment at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has said the climate initiatives under the IRA will give private investors more confidence in the climate space and could even lead to the creation of up to 1,000 companies.
“Everybody wants to be part of this,” Roberts told CNBC following the passage of the bill in August. Even before the measure passed, “there was already a big groundswell around climate,” he said.

Investing in communities burdened by pollution

The legislation invests more than $60 billion to address the unequal effects of pollution and climate change on low-income communities and communities of color. The funding includes grants for zero-emissions technology and vehicles, and will help clean up Superfund sites, improve air quality monitoring capacity, and provide money to community-led initiatives through Environmental and Climate Justice block grants.

Smoke hangs over the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2020. Powerful, dry winds are sweeping across Northern California for a third day, driving up the risk of wildfires in a region thats been battered by heat waves, freak lightning storms and dangerously poor air quality from blazes.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Research published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters found that communities of color are systematically exposed to higher levels of air pollution than white communities due to redlining, a federal housing discrimination practice. Black Americans are also 75% more likely than white Americans to live near hazardous waste facilities and are three times more likely to die from exposure to pollutants, according to the Clean Air Task Force.
Biden signed an executive order after taking office aimed to prioritize environmental justice and help mitigate pollution in marginalized communities. The administration established the Justice40 Initiative to deliver 40% of the benefits from federal investments in climate change and clean energy to disadvantaged communities. 
More recently, the EPA in September launched an office focused on supporting and delivering grant money from the IRA to these communities.

Cutting ag emissions

The deal includes $20 billion for programs to slash emissions from the agriculture sector, which accounts for more than 10% of U.S. emissions, according to EPA estimates.
The president has pledged to reduce emissions from the agriculture industry in half by 2030. The IRA funds grants for agricultural conservation practices that directly improve soil carbon, as well as projects that help protect forests prone to wildfires.

Farmer Roger Hadley harvests corn from his fields in his John Deere combine in this aerial photograph taken over Woodburn, Indiana.
Bing Guan | Reuters

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The Biden administration on Friday issued a rule that defines which types of waterways in the U.S. will receive federal water quality protections under the 1972 Clean Water Act, repealing a Trump-era rule that federal courts rejected and that environmental groups argued left waterways open to pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army said the revised rule is based on definitions that were in place before 2015, when the Obama administration sought to expand federal protections.
Officials said the rule restores protections for hundreds of thousands of rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands and other bodies of water and provides a more durable definition of the “waters of the United States” that receive federal protection.

Saltwater wetland, Waquoit Bay Estuarine Research Reserve, Mass. 
Photo: Ariana Sutton-Grier, CC BY-ND

The Biden administration on Friday issued a rule that defines which types of waterways in the U.S. will receive federal water quality protections under the 1972 Clean Water Act, repealing a Trump-era rule that federal courts rejected and that environmental groups argued left waterways open to pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army said the revised rule is based on definitions that were in place before 2015, when the Obama administration sought to expand federal protections.

Officials said the rule provides a more durable definition of the “waters of the United States” that receive federal protection and restores shields for hundreds of thousands of rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands and other bodies of water. Federally protected waters qualify for government programs focused on maintaining water quality and preventing oil spills, among other things.
Environmental groups have long argued that efforts to loosen federal water protections would significantly harm the country’s sources of safe drinking water. Farming groups, oil and gas producers, and real estate developers have criticized such regulations as overbearing and burdensome to business, and many supported the 2020 Trump administration rule that attempted to dismantle protections.

Michael Regan, the EPA’s administrator, said in a statement that the agency is “working to deliver a durable definition of WOTUS that safeguards our nation’s waters, strengthens economic opportunity, and protects people’s health while providing greater certainty for farmers, ranchers, and landowners.”

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The EPA rule applies federal protections to wetlands, tributaries and other waters that have a solid connection to navigable waters or if wetlands are relatively permanent. The rule also doesn’t impose a certain distance for when adjacent wetlands are protected, as officials said that various factors can affect whether the wetland and the waterway can impact the water quality of each other.
The rule includes changes that clarify certain qualifications for waters that are excluded from regulation, such as wetlands that were converted to cropland before 1985, waste treatment centers and artificially irrigated areas.

The agency said the rule’s definition of waterways will reduce uncertainty from changing regulatory definitions that have “harmed communities and our nation’s waters.”
“While the nation still has significant work to do to fully protect important waters, it’s encouraging to see the country taking a step in the right direction to protect the waters we need for everyone’s health and the environment,” said Jon Devine, director of federal water policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The rule comes ahead of a Supreme Court ruling set for next year that could challenge the EPA’s ability to protect wetlands and other waters and upend Friday’s revisions. The case, called Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, challenges the government’s determination that a wetland on private land in Idaho is protected under the Clean Water Act.

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