Europe

Knowledge Intensive Balkan Regions

Nima Sanandaji — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 19:18:28 -0500

The Balkan region has impressive potential for knowledge intensive jobs in Europe. While Albania is far behind, there is a strong growth of knowledge intensive jobs. Serbia and North Macedonia have strong growth and even further potential for growth due to relatively high expert density. Croatia and Slovenia already overperform in brain business jobs relative to their expert density, and the Zagreb capital region is amongst the top-10 most knowledge intensive regions in all of Europe.

In Albania, 1.7 percent of the working age adults are employed in brain business jobs during 2025. This is a term for employment in knowledge-intensive firms in tech, information and communications technology, advanced services, and creative professions. While the lowest rate in all Europe, the share of knowledge intensive workers has increased significantly from 1.4 percent the year before. A significant growth of knowledge intensive jobs is occurring in Albania, signifying catch-up. Albania has particular relative strengths in telecommunications, where 4 300 are employed. The country has also recently developed a relatively strong IT services sector, with 2 900 employees.

North Macedonia performs somewhat better, with 4.7 percent of the adults employed in highly knowledge intensive jobs. This region is also catching up significantly, with share of adults in brain business jobs climbing from 4.1 percent a year ago. There is strong opportunity for further growth, as North Macedonia underperforms in terms of share of brain business jobs amongst the adults, and the share of adults who are engineers and scientists. There is a talent pool with competitive wages, to fill in more knowledge-intensive jobs, in North Macedonia. North Macedonia has particular relative strengths in IT services, where 3 050 are employed. The country has also recently developed a relatively strong pharmaceutical sector, with 2 650 employees.

In Serbia, 5.4 percent of the adults work in brain business jobs, up from 5.2 the year before. This means that Serbia is nearly as knowledge intensive as Spain and Italy, just lagging behind due to low share of adults employed in design and other creative professions. With integration in European service trade, and focus on competitive taxation and regulation, Serbia has significant potential for growth. The country has a relatively high share of adults who are engineers and scientists. In relation to the share of knowledge intensive jobs Serbia has a surplus of experts, which signals potential for further growth.

Higher up in the knowledge intensive jobs ladder is Croatia, where 7.0 percent of adults work in brain business jobs. This is a major increase from 6.6 percent the year before. The level has risen from 3.7 percent in 2014, nearly doubling since. Croatia overperforms in share of adults in brain business jobs, as related to share of adults who are engineers and scientists. This indicates that taxation and business policy, and more trade integration within Europe, allows Croatia to overperform in relation to its expert density, while Serbia and North Macedonia underperform and have massive opportunity to catch-up.

Croatia has particular relative strengths in telecommunications, where 10 550 are employed. The country has recently developed a relatively strong engineering & architecture sector, with 33 300 employees. In the Zagreb region as many as 18.9 percent of the adults are employed in brain business jobs, this is the 8th highest share in a regional comparison, with all European regions that data exists for. The Jadranska Hrvatska region also has a relatively high share, 4.9 percent.

The star of the region is Slovenia, where fully 9.2 percent of the adults work in brain business jobs. This is a significant improvement from 8.6 percent the year before. The level has grown from 5.4 percent in 2014. Thanks to this strong growth, Slovenia currently has the eight-highest share of brain business jobs in Europe. Much like Croatia, Slovenia overperforms in share of adults in brain business jobs, compared to share of adults who are engineers and scientists.

Attractive taxation and business policy allow for more jobs than expert density alone would predict. Slovenia has particular relative strengths in pharmaceuticals, where 12 300 are employed. The country has also recently developed a relatively strong research & development sector, with 4 950 employees. In the Ljubljana capital region, fully 11.8 percent of adults are employed in brain business jobs. This is significantly higher than 6.7 percent in the Vzhodna Slovenija region.

There is significant opportunities for growth of brain business jobs in the Balkan region. Slovenia and Croatia have strong performance, while Serbia and North Macedonia have strong growth and due to high expert density continued growth potential. Albania lags the rest of Europe, but is growing steadily with knowledge intensive jobs. The capital region of Zagreb in particular is interesting, since it is amongst the top-10 European regions with highest share of knowledge intensive jobs. This region illustrates how expert density and competitive policy with lower taxes can promote knowledge intensive jobs growth, also the Balkan region can today reach the top of the European knowledge leader.

The Balkans should not be underestimated, much like the Baltic region to the north of Europe, this group of smaller countries can with continued institutional competition, transform into vibrant growing knowledge economies of Europe. While the larger European nations stagnate with high taxes and rigid government control, it is the smaller ones that through institutional competition outpace in growth and welfare.

Author: Nima Sanandaji, Director European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform.

Lead image: Central square of the city of Zabreb, Croatia, by Miroslav Vajdić, under CC 2.0 License.

Housing Reforms are Needed to Stop Stockholm from Stagnation

Peter Zonabend - Per Arwidsson - Nima Sanandaji — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 19:28:38 -0400

New companies face obstacles growing in Stockholm, in part this stagnation is due to the combination of a regulated rental market and too high prices for new housing development. Growing companies find it difficult to expand in urban regions with lack of housing, this adds to Sweden already being at a disadvantage due to relatively high taxes.

A study written by Tobias Lundberg, senior partner at McKinsey warns that Sweden is stagnating in growth and prosperity, with 70 percent of the total value of startup companies ending up in other countries.

This is not only because Sweden has high taxes on business and labor, but also because new companies have a hard time expanding in a city that has insufficient housing growth. The need for construction is 20,000 homes per year, in the capital city of Stockholm, but the households of the region can only afford 13,600.

Stockholm can be compared with the Irish capital region of Dublin and the Swiss capital region of Zurich. In Zurich, 13.9 percent of the residents are engineers and researchers, in Dublin the level is clearly lower, 9.2 percent. Stockholm has the second highest level in Europe; 13.1 percent of adults are engineers and researchers.

At the same time, Dublin and Zurich now have just over 50 percent higher prosperity per inhabitant compared to Stockholm, illustrating the need for growth reforms. This is shown by a report about conditions for a growing Stockholm, commissioned by Arwidsro real estate company and produced by ECEPR. In Stockholm, GDP per capita, expressed in the equivalent March 2025 krona exchange rate, is 787,100 kronor. That is how much value creation takes place in the economy per adult inhabitant. The level can be compared with 1,269,050 kronor per capita in Dublin and 1,199,350 in Zurich.

Europe's second most knowledge-intensive capital region has a stagnant housing market, which leads to stagnant growth. The new study calculates the economic value that would be created if reforms lowered the cost of construction, so that a thousand more households could afford to establish themselves in the housing market. In that case, individuals could contribute an additional SEK 2.2 billion ($230 million) in value added to the total gross domestic product in Sweden over the course of their careers. Discounted because future gains are worth less today, the social gain is converted to a present value of SEK 1.2 billion ($130 million). This is the productivity gain created by more housing on the margin in the capital region, on top of which there is also extensive value created through capital formation. If the reforms that are implemented are long-term, there will be a similar growth effect every year.

Three reforms that are needed include lowering of the VAT on housing construction, to the lowest level of 6% that is allowed in Sweden. It is problematic that VAT is even charged at all on the construction of private housing, as renting out property is generally exempt from VAT. Balance targets in the planning process are needed, so that social benefit is also weighed up, not just formalities. Planning processes are currently treated so that they are analyzed for what could be considered reasons to stop the plans, without considering the opportunity cost of not building housing.

The Swedish Real Estate Association has pointed out in an analysis that overall Sweden has the highest moving taxes in the EU, and that reforms such as a phased-down capital gains tax where those who have owned the same home for a long time are eventually exempted from the tax. By lowering the thresholds for mobility, moving chains can make more homes available.

Stockholm needs to be a city where more affordable housing is built, allowing more individuals to join the more productive capital region economy, and more of the growing companies of the region to keep growing at home rather than relocating due to growth obstacles.

Authors
Peter Zonabend is CEO of Arwidsro Fastighets AB.
Per Arwidsson is President of Arwidsro Fastighets AB.
Nima Sanandaji is Director of ECEPR (European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform).

Photo: Stockholm, by Jonatan Svensson Glad via Wikimedia, under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License. Chart: Comparison of real wealth per inhabitant of Stockholm vs. other European capital regions since 2014; courtesy the authors.

Brussels is Capital of Many Institutions But Can Grow With Knowledge Jobs

Nima Sanandaji — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union, the capital of Belgium, the capital of NATO and hosts many international diplomats and UN offices. Yet the share of adults in knowledge intensive regions is lower than in many other European capital regions. Instead, the Brabant Wallon region to the south with a smaller population is amongst the top ten most knowledge intensive in Europe.

While the European Union has no official capital region, Brussels is its de facto capital. This region hosts the European Commission, Council of the European Union, and European Council. Together with Strasbourg in France it is also the seat of the European Parliament. NATO additionally has its headquarters in Brussels, it is a hub for international diplomats and hosts several UN offices.

Due to having so many high-level institutions, Brussels is the seat of many head offices, with 30,000 employed in head office & management. The region also has 18,600 who work in programming, and 11,700 employees in engineering & architecture. In total, 12.5 percent of the adults in Brussels are employed in highly knowledge intensive jobs. This is the finding of the geography of Europe’s brain business jobs index, produced by the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR), with support from Nordic Capital.

Brussels is behind in share of adults employed in highly knowledge-intensive jobs compared to the leading Central European capital regions of Bratislava, Prague, Budapest and Copenhagen where 21.5-24.5 percent of adults are employed in brain business jobs. The Nordic capital regions of Copenhagen and Stockholm have a higher share of engineers and scientists amongst the population but also higher taxes which crowd out private sector activity, they have 19.2-20.8 percents of adults in brain business jobs.

On seventh position in the ranking of 240 European regions ranks the Belgian province of Brabant Wallon, just south of Brussels. Here 19.2 percent of the adults are employed in brain business jobs. Brussels itself is behind the Brabant Wallon region, and also has lower share of brain business jobs compared to some other Western European capital regions such as Dublin (17.8 percent), Berlin (15.9 percent), Amsterdam (15.3 percent), Paris (14.4 percent), and even slightly behind Vienna (12.6 percent).

There are in total 23 regions in Europe which have a higher share of adults in brain business jobs, than the capital region of Brussels.

While Brussels certainly is a knowledge intensive region, it is mainly a region of bureaucracy which does not fully utilize the benefits of being the seat of so much high-level decision making. Instead, the Brabant Wallon region is the seat of knowledge-intensive jobs. In this region the number of adults is one third of that compared to the capital region just north. Yet there are 21,300 jobs combined in pharmaceuticals and in research & development, some 8,400 in head offices & management and 7,700 in programming.

This is a good example of how capital regions, by having high costs, local regulatory bureaucracy that limits growth of housing and commercial properties, can crowd out private business growth to neighboring regions. Brussels seems so focused on international bodies of politics, that it crowd out private sector development.

Brussels in short has a lot of potentials, but needs to aim to become as expert dense as its southern neighbor Brabant Wallon. If it managed to, then Brussels would evolve to Europe’s knowledge intensive capital region. Regulatory and tax reforms in Belgium, as well as regulatory and growth initiatives regionally, are needed for Brussels to realize its potential.

Currently there are few regions of the world that are more important for global politics than Brussels. The next step is to also develop into Europe’s brain business jobs hub, with inspiration from the success of Brabant Wallon to the south.

Brain Business Jobs per Capita
Brabant Wallon	19.2%
Brussels	12.5%
Vlaams-Brabant	10.5%
Antwerpen	9.0%
Oost-Vlaanderen	7.1%
West-Vlaanderen	5.5%
Limburg (BE)	5.2%
Liège	3.9%
Namur	3.7%
Hainaut	2.8%
Luxembourg (BE)	1.3%

Author: Nima Sanandaji, Director European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform.

Lead image: chart by the author.

Yes, Fascism is a Threat, But It's Coming From the Left

Joel Kotkin — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Fascism is in the air, on television and print. We read about American progressive celebrities and academics fleeing to other countries like the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada to exercise their notion of a free society. In her campaign, after all, Kamala Harris called Donald Trump a “president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

To be sure, Trump’s hysterical antics remind one of Benito Mussolini, but the long-term undermining of such things as free speech comes not primarily from MAGA land but in the favoured precincts of the progressives. The defenders of democracy, like Anne Applebaum, a brilliant analyst of Communist repression, and noted fascism scholar Timothy Snyder, now at the University of Toronto, focus their current angst almost exclusively on Trump, the nationalist and religious right.

What they ignore is the more fashionable fascism of the respectable establishments in both Europe and North America. This left-of-center authoritarianism is particularly evident in Europe, where established “moderate” and left parties in places like Germany, Romania and France have worked to keep populist candidates off the battlefield. In the U.S., progressives even tried to prevent Trump from running, although unsuccessfully.

In Keir Starmer’s Britain, you can go to jail for violating speech codes and also experience “two-tier” law enforcement, one for native Brits and another for newcomers, including the undocumented. And just wait till they pass their definition of “Islamophobia” which no doubt concerns them far more than antisemitism, which has been growing at a much faster pace.

Then there’s Ireland, where anti-Israel sentiments are strong, and where officials have pushed for censorship of online speech, most of it taking place on U.S. platforms. This drew opposition from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But perhaps nowhere is the hypocrisy greater than in Canada. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada attempted to pass an online harms bill widely seen as draconian. Mercifully, it has not yet been passed. Trudeau, particularly during COVID, repressed basic rights, and during the truckers’ protests froze the fundraising efforts of dissidents. In a country that seems unwilling to arrest antisemites and rampaging Islamists, opposing government policy by middle-class Canadians risks jail time.

Read the rest of this piece at: National Post.

Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.

Photo: William F. Hertha, under CC 4.0 License.

Paris is a Knowledge Leader but France as a Nation Lags Behind

Nima Sanandaji — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:28:32 -0400

Paris hosts some of the world´s leading technology companies, has several of the leading technological universities and is the European region with highest total number of knowledge intensive jobs. France as a country however lags as a knowledge economy, with limited progress outside the capital region.

Together with London and Zurich, Paris is one of the three European cities which has the highest concentration of world´s 500 leading deep tech companies. It is strong in the areas of photonics, clean energy, biotechnology and quantum computing.

Those regions which tend to have a high share of world leading technology firms, are usually also where some of the highest-ranking technological universities of the world are found. France hosts four out of the world´s QS World University Rankings top 100 leading institutes in engineering and technology. These are Institute Polytechnique de Paris, Université Paris-Saclay, Université PSL and Sorbonne University.

The common theme of the four leading universities is that they are all found in the French capital region. Likewise, while some of the leading technological companies of France are found outside Paris, in Rennes and Lille, most are focused to the capital region.

In Paris 14.4 percent of the adult population is employed in brain business jobs, a term for employment in knowledge-intensive firms in tech, information and communications technology, advanced services, and creative professions. This is not quite as high as leaders Bratislava and Prague that have 24.5 and 23.8 percent of their adults in brain business jobs, but is still one of the highest levels in Europe. However, in total numbers Bratislava only has 107,600 brain business jobs, while Prague has 190,300. Paris is the only European region with more than one million adults employed in highly knowledge intensive jobs. There are nearly twice as many brain business jobs in total in Paris than in Madrid.

Ranking and Total Number Brain Business Jobs
1	Paris	1,066,200
2	Madrid	586,000
3	Lombardia	550,000
4	Oberbayern	453,200
5	Cataluña	365,800
6	Warsaw	344,900
7	Berlin	343,600
8	Darmstadt	297,900
9	Bucharest	284,200
10	Dublin	280,700

(Note: UK and thus London not included, stopped publishing data following Brexit. Previously when data for London was published, the city has somewhat fewer total brain business jobs than what Paris did).

As a country, France however lags behind in knowledge. In Switzerland 1.56 of the world’s leading 500 deep tech companies exist per million adults. The same share is 0.79 in the Netherlands and the UK, 0.61 in Sweden, and 0.58 in Ireland. In France there are merely 0.17 world leading deep tech 500 companies per million adults, above Spain (0.13) and twice that of Italy (0.08) but not amongst the European top.

In total 6.4 percent of the adult population in France is employed in highly knowledge intensive jobs. This is quite far from the leaders Switzerland and Ireland (11.2 percent) as well as Sweden (10.3 percent).

Even in Southern Europe, Malta (9.4 percent) and Cyprus (9.0) percent have a significant lead in knowledge intensity to France. Portugal (7.8 percent) likewise has a significantly higher share of its population in knowledge intensive jobs.

Paris has a strong performance, since it combines a very large size with relatively high knowledge density. Yet France as a whole has limited knowledge intensive jobs, world leading technology companies and world leading universities in technology and mathematics outside of the capital region.

France has strong opportunities to be Europe’s leading knowledge intensive hub, but high taxes and correspondingly high government expenditure are crowding out private sector growth. Strengthening education and implementing more favorable taxation and business policy, is needed for France as a whole to grow as a knowledge intensive region. For Paris itself, a challenge is to boost growth of new housing, since if growing knowledge intensive companies find it difficult to find housing for their staff, it gives them another reason on top of taxation and regulation to locate to a competing knowledge intensive region, such as the capital regions of Central European nations.

Brain Business Jobs per Capita, Paris and Other Cities in France
	Brain business jobs per capita		Brain business jobs per capita
Paris	14.4%	Auvergne	3.4%
Rhône-Alpes	6.8%	Basse-Normandie	3.0%
Midi-Pyrénées	6.6%	Franche-Comté	2.6%
Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur	5.2%	Poitou-Charentes	2.5%
Pays de la Loire	5.1%	Bourgogne	2.4%
Aquitaine	4.9%	Lorraine	2.3%
Bretagne	4.5%	Champagne-Ardenne	2.3%
Alsace	4.5%	Limousin	2.3%
Nord-Pas de Calais	4.0%	Picardie	2.2%
Haute-Normandie	3.7%	Corse	2.1%
Languedoc-Roussillon	3.7%

Author: Nima Sanandaji, Director European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform.

Chart: adapted from public domain map

Mediterranean Connectivity

Nima Sanandaji — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 20:28:38 -0400

The Mediterranean Sea region plays a key role in global connectivity infrastructure, this is the message of a new report by DC Byte. Indeed, several knowledge intensive hubs of Europe exist in the Mediterranean region, and are increasingly interconnected as subsea cable networks are expanded. The growing IT-infrastructure will further regional integration, including the regions on the Western coast of North Africa.

Already in the mid-19th century, telegraph cables running under water connected countries together. Messages have since then been transmitted across long distances, such as across the Atlantic. In the modern age, underground cables are a key part of the digital connectivity infrastructure.

The European city which is connected by most subsea cables is Marseille. Fully 12 live subsea cables land in this second largest city of France. It is also a relatively knowledge intensive province. Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, in which Marseille is located, has 5.2 percent of the adult population employed in highly knowledge intensive brain business jobs. After the capital region of Paris, Rhône-Alpes, and Midi-Pyrénées, this is the fourth highest rate in France. The province in which Marseille is located has 59,500 employed in high technology and 49,300 in the ICT sector.

Crete in Greece is leading in terms of IT-capacity growth compared to the same period last year, according to the DC Byte study. Crete experienced more than double the growth rate of capacity compared to Marseille. The region, with the formal name Kriti, has 3.3 percent of adults in brain business jobs. This is the same as the Kentriki Makedonia region and, compared with the rest of Greece, second only to the Athens capital region. In Kriti there are some 4,900 high technology jobs, and 3,500 jobs in advanced services.

Barcelona in Spain is experiencing a strong growth of pipeline capacity. In total 177 MW total pipeline capacity is live, under construction, committed or early-stage developments, according to the DC Byte report. The broader urban region around Barcelona is the fifth most populous urban area in the European Union.

In total numbers, Barcelona is indeed a leading brain business hub of Europe. In total numbers, there are 1.1 million brain business jobs in the French capital region Paris, 586,000 in the Spanish capital region Madrid, 550,000 in the north Italian region Lombardia, 453,200 in the German region Oberbayern including Munich, and 365,800 in Spanish Cataluña including Barcelona. Cataluña, the region in which Barcelona is located, has 7.5 percent of its adult population employed in highly knowledge-intensive brain business jobs. This is second to the capital Madrid region the highest share in Spain. Barcelona is further to this a site of world leading deep tech development, in biochemistry, according to the deep tech index.

The larger countries in the Mediterranean region suffer from high taxes and regulatory burden, which limits their progress in terms of knowledge intensive jobs. The smaller countries with more competitive economic policies are already ahead. The highest share of adults employed in highly knowledge-intensive brain business jobs in the Mediterranean region is found in Malta (9.4 percent). This small free market island also now leads the healthy life span league of newborn girls and boys, surpassing Sweden which used to have the lead until recently.

The second highest share of adults employed in brain business jobs in the Mediterranean region is in Slovenia (9.2 percent), followed by Cyprus (9.0 percent). Portugal (7.8 percent) also is relatively knowledge intensive. France (6.4 percent), Italy (5.5 percent) and Spain (5.4 percent) are relatively far behind, while Greece (4.7 percent) has amongst the lowest shares of knowledge intensive jobs in Europe.

The Mediterranean countries of Europe have significant differences in knowledge intensity. As they become increasingly more connected, through cables, air travel and European economic integration, this will allow for further collaboration and institutional competition.

Currently, The Medusa cable system plays a key role in Mediterranean connectivity. This 8,760 km submarine cable system connects France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus with Algeria, Egypt, Marocco and Tunisia.

Recently, AFR-IX Telecom secured €3.7 million from the European Commission for the ATMED Malta project, which will connect Malta to the Medusa network. This would add a sixth underwater cable to Malta. The Medusa subsea cable network is being expanded into the western coastline of North Africa, with a €14.3 million grant from the European Commission.

Mediterranean connectivity growth is important for the whole region. Particularly the Western part of North Africa will be more connected to Europe, which allows for economic integration and growth.

France
	Brain business jobs per capita
Paris	14.4%
Rhône-Alpes	6.8%
Midi-Pyrénées	6.6%
Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur	5.2%
Pays de la Loire	5.1%
Aquitaine	4.9%
Bretagne	4.5%
Alsace	4.5%
Nord-Pas de Calais	4.0%
Haute-Normandie	3.7%
Languedoc-Roussillon	3.7%
Auvergne	3.4%
Basse-Normandie	3.0%
Franche-Comté	2.6%
Poitou-Charentes	2.5%
Bourgogne	2.4%
Lorraine	2.3%
Champagne-Ardenne	2.3%
Limousin	2.3%
Picardie	2.2%
Corse	2.1%

Greece
	Brain business jobs per capita
Athens	8.5%
Kriti	3.3%
Kentriki Makedonia	3.3%
Dytiki Ellada	2.4%
Ionia Nisia	2.4%
Ipeiros	2.4%
Notio Aigaio	2.4%
Thessalia	2.2%
Anatoliki Makedonia Thraki	2.1%
Peloponnisos	2.0%
Dytiki Makedonia	2.0%
Voreio Aigaio	1.8%
Sterea Ellada	1.8%

Spain
	Brain business jobs per capita
Madrid	13.7%
Cataluña	7.5%
País Vasco	5.2%
Comunidad Foral de Navarra	4.3%
Aragón	3.8%
Galicia	3.7%
Principado de Asturias	3.5%
Comunidad Valenciana	3.5%
Illes Balears	3.2%
Andalucía	3.1%
La Rioja	2.9%
Región de Murcia	2.9%
Castilla y León	2.8%
Canarias	2.7%
Cantabria	2.7%
Castilla-la Mancha	1.9%
Extremadura	1.8%
Ciudad de Ceuta	1.1%
Ciudad de Melilla	0.9%

Nima Sanandaji, Director, European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR)

Photo: screenshot of Medusa network, via AFR-IX.

Spain’s Impossible Dream of ‘Green’ Electricity

Paul Driessen — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

Updated Man of La Mancha lyrics could read: “To dream the impossible dream of clean, green, net-zero electricity, to fight the unbeatable foe of manmade climate cataclysms, we must run where the brave dare not go.”

Don Quixote saw windmills as malevolent and dangerous dragons. Spain’s governing classes view them from the Chinese perspective: benevolent and magical dragons.

They’ve erected over 22,000 gigantic windmills, to harness the wind and generate electricity. Portugal has nearly 3,000. Together, when conditions are perfect, they can generate almost 38 gigawatts.

Like Cervantes’ hero, the elites also want “to reach the unreachable star” – or at least capture the energy from one star: the sun. Spain and Portugal together also have 38 GW of photovoltaic solar panels.

However, the Iberian Peninsula neighbors have long ignored the dark sides of the forces they seek to commandeer.

Those wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines sprawl across some 2,000,000 acres of Spanish and Portuguese vistas, habitats and croplands. That’s equal to Delaware and Rhode Island combined.

They kill eagles, bustards, vultures, and other raptors and birds. Building them requires mining, pollution and child labor on historically unprecedented scales. Solar panels are easily destroyed by storms.

Worst, they provide intermittent, weather-dependent electricity – necessitating expensive backup power and making the electrical grid unstable. Just how unstable was demonstrated recently, and dramatically.

On April 16, for the first time, for a few minutes, Spain generated 100% of its electricity with wind, solar and hydro power.

A fortnight later, on April 28, a prolonged blackout sent Iberia into chaos. Lights, televisions, refrigerators, cell phones and traffic lights went dark. Trains, subways and elevators trapped passengers. Airports canceled flights. Hospital backup power provided only basic and emergency services.

The outage even struck parts of France and Belgium. It was Europe’s biggest blackout ever. If France hadn’t shut off its connection to Spain’s cascading problems, all of Europe could have shut down.

Just a week later, another blackout hit Spain’s Canary Islands.

Power outages are nothing new. But the Spain-Portugal blackouts underscore fundamental problems with the supposedly “inevitable transition” from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear electricity to wind, solar and battery power.

Read the rest of this piece at Heartland Institute.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books, reports and articles on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.

Photo: Andasol Solar Power Station via Wikimedia under CC 4.0 License.

Why No Unicorns in Italy?

Andrea Zorzetto — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

I’m on a panel about this tonight.

A unicorn is a privately owned startup company worth more than $1 billion.

Cool.

But what does that really mean in practice?

It means super fast growth.

What’s the opposite of that?

Stagnation.

And what country has been stagnating in the last 30 years, the age of the unicorns?

Italy, you guessed that right.

There you go.

Why we have no unicorns. It’s really that simple. It’s really that complicated.

Take the opposite: how come China is full of recently founded companies that are now huge?

Well, if you have 1.3 billion people going from North Korea to California within a couple of generations, growing on average 10% per year… you will get lots of entrepreneurs quickly becoming very rich.

Low VC volumes are over-discussed

In my bubble, people focus a lot on the little amount of capital invested.

I used to say that it’s a symptom, not a cause.

In the end, capital is way more mobile than other assets, and if we had lots of great startups, foreign funds would move in.

Then I realized innovation is a complex system, and there is no scientific way to break down cause-effect relations. It’s all interlinked.

Sure, VC invested is a metric, but you can also argue that in the early stages, local capital matters a lot, and the risk aversion of our VC funds (and more upstream, of their LPs), does create problems.

Still, this is only one piece of the puzzle.

On a micro level, a good startup needs a kickass team and a growing market with an appetite for new solutions.

On the macro level, you have supply of and demand for innovation.

Read the rest of this piece at AndreaZorzetto Substack.

Andrea Zorzetto is Founder and President at Poliferie and Co-Founder and CEO of Peoplerank, a review platform of startup founders and investors for the Italian market.

Photo: Vincent van Zeijst, sculpture of unicorn with its foal, roaming in the courtyard of the Bernhoven Hospital in Uden (Netherlands), via Wikimedia under CC 4.0 License.

Global Tally Of Alt-Energy Rejections Passes 1,000

Robert Bryce — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

The rejections keep coming. Since the beginning of May, a provincial government in Queensland has rejected an enormous wind project, a county board in Illinois spiked a solar project, and a district council in East Devon vetoed a battery project.

Let’s take those in order.

Last week, a $1 billion wind project in central Queensland was rejected by provincial authorities. The 450-megawatt project, which included battery storage, faced fierce opposition from local residents. According to one news report, 142 residents responded to the government’s request for comments, and 88% opposed the project.

One of the project opponents was a grazier (the Aussie’s word for rancher) named John Ellrott. He told a reporter from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that “the Moonlight Range has got some very significant flora and fauna on it that needs conserving and doesn't need to be flattened...We don't need all our ranges covered in wind towers.” The rejection of the wind project adds more friction to the Australian government’s barmy plan to achieve net zero by 2050. (More on that below.)

Solar projects continue to see fierce opposition. In mid-May, county officials in Will County, Illinois, voted 16-5 to reject plans for a solar facility in New Lenox Township that was opposed by the township and nearby homeowners. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, “More than 80 residents of the nearby Fieldstone Subdivision signed a petition stating the commercial solar energy facility would negatively impact their property values.”

Battery projects are also being rejected. In mid-May, the BBC reported that planners with the East Devon District Council rejected a lithium-ion battery storage project “after a three-and-a-half hour debate which saw residents raise concerns about fire risks and pollution. Despite the developer stating its equipment was 100% safe, examples of BESS [battery energy storage system] fires around the country were highlighted as evidence about why the scheme should be refused.”

As I have explained many times, these rejections don’t fit the narrative that’s relentlessly promoted by climate activists and their myriad allies in the legacy media about “green” energy. But the numbers are real, the numbers are growing, and they provide irrefutable evidence that land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the growth of alt-energy. In all, when combining the 814 rejections of wind and solar projects in the US that I have documented in the Renewable Rejection Database with the global rejections of solar, wind, and batteries, the total number of alt-energy rejections or restrictions now exceeds 1,000 — it’s 1,011 to be exact.

Read the rest of this piece at Robert Bryce Substack.

Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, journalist, film producer, and podcaster. His articles have appeared in a myriad of publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Time, Austin Chronicle, and Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: Queensland cattle rancher John Ellrott has refused to lease his property to Big Wind. Credit: ABC News & Ellie Willcox.

The Shifting Geography of US Deep Tech

Nima Sanandaji — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 20:28:38 -0400

A systematic mapping of where the world’s global leading companies in deep tech are located shows a massive lead for the USA – however the leading edge of particularly Santa Clara Valley shows signs of gradual normalization relative to the rest of the world.

The vast majority of globally leading deep tech companies are found in North America. North America has particularly strong dominance in the areas of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, robotic & communication, quantum & computing and pharmaceuticals. In these five fields of deep tech, around four out of five of the world-leading deep tech companies are found in North America.

In the USA alone, fully 61.6 percent of the globally leading deep tech companies are located. This is the finding of the Deep Tech Index, conducted annually by the European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR) with the support of Nordic Capital, which maps and evaluates the global deep tech landscape.

However, while the latest data from the end of 2024 shows that close to two thirds of the world-leading deep tech companies are located in the USA, this is less than the previous year. At the end of 2023 fully 68.4 percent of the world-leading deep tech companies existed in the USA.

Santa Clara Valley, Los Angeles, Austin and Chicago are the leading robotic & communication tech regions. Santa Clara Valley, Boston as well as Vancouver in Canada are centers for quantum and computing development.

The share of global deep tech companies in North America has fallen by 5 percentage points since last year, representing a normalization process. Particularly the USA but also Canada remain dominant, but competition is on the rise.

Besides Santa Clara Valley, the USA also has numerous other world-leading deep tech companies. In Boston fully 6.4 percent of the world-leading deep tech companies are located. Also New York (6.0 percent), Los Angeles (3.8 percent), Chicago and Seattle (2.2 percent each), and Austin (1.8 percent) each host significant share of the world´s deep tech companies. These regions have more deep tech companies in them than most European countries individually, as comparison.

There are also numerous other deep tech companies spread throughout the USA outside the main hubs. Fully 18.8 percent of the world-leading deep tech companies exist in the USA outside of the main urban tech regions.

The share of US-based world-leading deep tech companies that exist in Santa Clara Valley has between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024 fallen from 35 to 33 percent. The share of all world-leading deep tech companies in the USA that are located outside the major urban hubs has also been reduced slightly, from 32 to 31 percent. At the same time the share in the other major urban hubs except Santa Clara Valley (Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and Austin) has grown from 33 to 36 percent.

Two different economic forces are influencing the development. The first is the advantages of specialization. Thomas Edison founded the world’s first industrial innovation laboratory in this valley 150 years ago, and it has since become the most significant region for development of new technologies. The capital, knowledge and entrepreneurship networks needed are in place in Santa Clara Valley, more than any place else in the world. Similarly, the USA is dominant as a nation, compared to the rest of the world.

Yet, the success brings higher costs, for Santa Clara Valley as well as the USA. There are ample talents around the world, at lower prices than the talents of the USA and particularly of the expensive main tech hubs. Current policies relating to trade and international talents is also likely to influence. The trend is that Europe which is second best in deep tech and willing to trade, is catching up somewhat to the USA. Institutional competition will also be significant gradually more from places such as India. Much of globally leading universities in technology and mathematics, as well as global technology firms, are strongly dependent on Indian students and researchers.

The USA retains its dominant leading position, particularly medium-sized regions such as Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle. Yet the global competition is growing, hinting at gradual further normalization. Within the coming years, it is likely that we will pass a milestone where less than half of the global deep tech companies are situated in the USA, while no other single country can catch up all the rest of the world combines will do so within coming years. However, the USA can still remain dominant particularly in specific areas. Deep technology is closely linked to prosperity, lower unemployment and national security. Countries around the world need constructive policies to foster deep tech.

The deep tech index demonstrates that countries with a high density of deep tech firms per million adults typically enjoy robust property rights, low capital gains taxes, strong educational outcomes in PISA tests, and prestigious universities specializing in mathematics and engineering disciplines. Boosting universities remains a key challenge now, given the current development in the USA. It is important to remember that Europe and Asia each already have a higher number of the world´s 100 leading universities in mathematics and engineering, the competition is already underway.

Nima Sanandaji, Director, European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform (ECEPR)

Photo: cover of Deep Tech Index, 2025 edition.