[semi-effortpost] Northvolt: the flagship of green tech

Meet Peter Carlsson, graduate of Stockholm School of Economics, former logistics and purchasing manager at such hits as Ericsson and Tesla.

He was also a board member of the star company Fingerprint Cards from 2016 to 2017, which went great Their offices got raided three times, with a few arrests of CEOs and board members for insider trading.

Enter Harald Mix, a MBA graduate from Harvard, with a lot of venture capital to spare. He would later found the futuristic steel-making company H2 Green Steel, getting a lot of funding from the Swedish government and the EU, as well as private investors. They've started building a production site, but it's still quite unclear who would want to buy steel for a quite-a-bit-higher-than-market price for a dubious environmental stamp. Keep your eyes open for news on this

Together they found Northvolt in 2016, with plans to produce batteries, primarily for the EV market, with a focus on a green supply chain all the way from mining the minerals. Again, with a lot of funding in loans from the Swedish government and the EU, they've managed to build a few factories. Northvolt Ett, in Skellefteå, northern Sweden, with a planned output of 60 GWh of batteries per year, opened in 2022 and in 2023 managed to produce about 80 MWh, or 0.13% of the target. This plant also managed to produce a few other interesting things, more on that later.

The Northvolt Drei gigafactory was greenlit in January 2024 with funding of €902 million in EU aid, but put on hold soon thereafter due to high electricity prices at the planned location in Dithmarschen, Germany.

Likewise, the R&D factory Northvolt Labs, in Mälardalen in the middle of Sweden, was called "absolutely bonkers", by a representative of the Swedish government-owned power transmission company Svenska kraftnät.

If you establish server halls in the wrong places, you reinforce the internal transmission problems we have in Sweden. My impression is that various actors, from the government to export authorities, have been very clueless

says the former CEO of Svenska kraftnät.

The company also has plans for two more gigafactories Northvolt Fem and Northvolt Six, in Borlänge, Sweden and Montreal, Canada, respectively. However, they recently announced a delay in these plans, with details to come later. In the same announcement, they are seeking a buyer for their production facility in Poland, Northvolt Dwa.

But back to the juicy stuff, the company's crown jewel, the Skellefteå battery plant, which is suffering from health-and-safety problems, involving an explosion in 2023 and a series of unexplained worker deaths during 2024.

Eritrean father of three Mahari Bakari, 33, who worked as a janitor complained to a friend about strange smells at the factory. He died in his sleep following a shift at Northvolt.

Amateur magician and entertainer Per-Håkan Söderström, 59, had just been to the doctor for a routine checkup and was said to be as healthy as a 25-year-old. He was found dead on his balcony after a shift as a maintenance worker at Nortvolt.

Another unnamed 19-year-old Eritrean, working his first job at Northvolt (reportedly feeling a bit uncomfortable about the danger and extensive PPE required), ended his night shift and set his alarm for early next morning, to go to the gym. He was found dead in his bed by his mom.

Arbetsmiljöverket, the Swedish OSHA, announced inspections into the company, however, before they could finish, there was a leak of poison gas hospitalizing four people. Workers had previously complained about routinely having to evacuate the plant due to leaks.

All of this resulted in the aforementioned scaling down of operations, involving closing parts of the troubled Skellefteå plant, and reductions in personnel, to be announced later. Meanwhile, the company has had 228 invoices go to collections, with a total debt of €10.5 million and rising.

Stay tuned for the conclusion to this exciting tale of green startups, moneymaking schemes, and death