There are countless renewable energy jobs appearing soon in Grimsby and we need to get ourselves ready to embrace them. The Capture for Growth project is a major resource in getting these jobs off the ground.
Capture for Growth is an ongoing initiative established by the Zero Carbon Humber Partnership with an overall aim of creating the world’s first zero carbon industrial cluster. It will target climate change and protect jobs, and the Grimsby region of the Humber is playing a pivotal role in its development, as detailed in its published report.
Grimsby is an important area for renewable energy as far as wind energy is concerned, but the South Humber area in particular across the Grimsby and Cleethorpes constituencies have organisations such as Phillips 66, who develop different ways of generating hydrogen, along with Orsted and Drax.
The Humber is the biggest industrial producer of CO2 in the UK and that needs reducing if we are to meet the government’s environmental targets. Grimsby’s inclusion in the Capture for Growth report shows that there’s a recognition for the town within the industry. The Zero Carbon Humber strategy is led by Drax and aims to capture carbon via a pipeline and then storing that carbon off the coast of the seabed near Grimsby.
Because of Grimsby’s geography within the Humber and our history with oil manufacturing, there’s a lot of opportunity to store what’s termed as sequester carbon back underneath the sea bed. This would be something that’s going to create more green jobs and is an exciting source of regeneration for Grimsby.
Capture for Growth is a siren call to local people that says we need to prepare ourselves with the right skills that these industries will demand. Historically, Grimsby doesn’t score well with secondary school attainment or people with higher education qualifications. I’ll be starting to work with schools and colleges in the area to get the message out there that these jobs are on their way and that we want local people to be ready for them.
This report will be a springboard for me to start going out into local communities to say that these new jobs and careers will need the right people with the right skills to take them on board.
