Why Some Countries Find It Hard to Move Away From Fossil Fuels (NYT)

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Trinidad and Tobago is the No. 2 exporter of liquefied natural gas in the Americas. Its output has been falling, but it remains committed to fossil fuels.

Yara Trinidad, which makes ammonia and other chemicals in Trinidad and Tobago, is exploring alternatives to natural gas.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

NYT By Clifford Krauss, May 15, 2023

*Clifford Krauss, who has covered the energy industry for more than a decade, spent 10 days reporting in Trinidad and Tobago.

Ribboned shovel in hand, Prime Minister Keith Rowley joined a ceremonial groundbreaking last month to celebrate Trinidad and Tobago’s first large solar farm project expected to generate power for 42,000 homes.

But if anyone thought the project symbolized the twilight of the island nation’s long embrace of fossil fuels, Mr. Rowley set them straight.

“We will continue to extract the hydrocarbons available to us as long as there is an international market,” Mr. Rowley said, as BP and Shell executives looked on. “If we are going to sell the last barrel of oil or the last molecule of gas, so be it.”

Trinidad and Tobago is known for its white sandy beaches, mountainous rainforests and steel pan drums. But its economy depends on oil and natural gas, not tourism.

It is one of the largest producers of fossil fuels in the Western Hemisphere, and more than a century of drilling has left its mark. The major highways on the main island are clogged by traffic and lined with industrial warehouses. Oil is stitched in the culture, a theme in many calypso songs. Even the steel pan drums originated from the lids of used oil barrels.

If Trinidad seems to be zigging and zagging on climate change policy, it is hardly the only one. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States are also building large solar farms while exploring for new oil gushers. Developing nations with fossil fuel riches — a group that includes Guyana, Nigeria and Namibia as well as Trinidad — say they cannot easily leapfrog to renewable energy because they lack capital and because their poor rely on cheap power and oil revenues for social programs.

President Biden and European leaders have no easy response. Industrialized countries are still producers and users of fossil fuels and have failed to put up the $100 billion a year they had pledged to a green fund for poor nations starting in 2020.

“The countries in the south are telling the countries in the north, ‘You are the ones who caused the climate issue, so why don’t you move first since you have the capital and technologies to advance renewables?’” said Anthony Paul, a former official in Trinidad’s energy ministry who has consulted with governments and companies in several African countries.

The Atlantic LNG export terminal is filling up shipping tankers less frequently than a few years ago because of declining natural gas production.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Trinidad has a population of just 1.5 million people, but it has long punched above its weight in energy. As the second largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in the Western Hemisphere after the United States, it has one of the highest per capita incomes in the Caribbean. It is also a leading producer of petrochemicals like ammonia and methanol.

But with its oil and gas fields aging, oil production has fallen to 58,000 barrels a day, from 230,000 barrels a day at its peak in 1978. The country’s only oil refinery was shut four years ago. Gas production has declined 40 percent since 2010, forcing the country to close one of its four export terminals for liquefied natural gas and three of its 18 petrochemical plants.

At the same time, the country is feeling the effects of a changing climate, with wetter rainy seasons and dryer dry seasons reducing farm yields and stormier seas punishing fishermen and flooding coastal roads and homes.

“We’re facing a huge decision, whether to pivot to a new direction,” said Ryun Singh, president of the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Energy Engineers. “If we don’t get it right, we face economic ruin.”

For now, Mr. Rowley’s government wants to double down on fossil fuels by trying to get energy companies to develop new offshore fields.

The oil and gas business “is the basis for our middle class,” said Ainka Granderson, an environmental scientist at the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute, a research organization in San Juan, a city on the main island. “Oil and gas was once the nation’s spine, but it’s now the crutch that props us up.”

That crutch is becoming increasingly rickety.

On a recent April afternoon, a tanker ship arrived at the Atlantic LNG terminal at Point Fortin to pick up a load of deep-chilled gas for Britain. “Trinidad to the rescue,” said a smiling Jean Andre Celestain, the plant’s chief operating officer.

But because the country’s gas production has been declining, the plant fills just one tanker every 66 hours these days, down from one every 48 hours four years ago.

“There is an urgency to get gas supply,” said Ronald Adams, Atlantic LNG’s chief executive.

Oil companies have found some new small fields, but analysts still expect production to decline over the next few years.

Because of declining energy export earnings, the nation’s gross domestic product dropped by 20 percent from 2015 to 2021. The jump in oil and gas prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a new gas discovery by Shell have led to a small rebound over the past year.

But that is not enough to stem the decline in energy production and revenues, energy experts say.

In an effort to compensate for the shortfall, the country is seeking to reduce domestic use of natural gas so more can be exported. That is the main mission of the solar farms being built on Trinidad by BP and Shell. To drive down domestic demand for gas, energy regulators are proposing to raise electricity rates for residents and businesses. That proposal faces stiff political opposition.

“When you are an oil-and-gas-producing nation, you are always behind in renewables because people enjoy the cheaper rates of electricity that come with fossil fuels,” said David Alexander, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Trinidad and Tobago.

Dr. Alexander and another professor are leading an effort to map a “carbon-capture atlas” of depleted oil and gas fields that can be used to store carbon captured from Trinidadian petrochemical plants to help the country offset most or all of its greenhouse gas emissions.

There are other plans to try to turn Trinidad and Tobago away from gas and oil. Some entrepreneurs said the country should become a major exporter of products made from renewable energy like hydrogen, fertilizers and clean shipping fuel.

A homegrown energy company, Kenesjay Green, is working to produce hydrogen in the Point Lisas petrochemical complex. The company plans to use renewable energy and waste heat from power plants to split hydrogen from water. “Trinidad is uniquely poised to take off in the energy transition dramatically,” said Philip Julien, chairman of Kenesjay. “There’s huge potential and a lot of work to be done.”

Kenesjay is working with Yara Trinidad, an ammonia producer, to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by replacing gas with water in its production process. Yara Trinidad hopes that it can eventually reopen one of the three ammonia plants it mothballed because of a lack of gas supplies.

Although the government supports these efforts, its focus remains on natural gas. “Gas is going to be around for decades, all right?” Stuart Young, Trinidad and Tobago’s energy minister, said in an interview.

BP and Shell plan to build two large solar farms, one at this site, that they expect to eventually provide up to 10 percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s electricity, freeing up more natural gas for export.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

To increase gas production and exports, the country is pinning its hopes on new offshore fields. One, the Manatee field adjacent to the maritime border with Venezuela, is being developed by Shell.

Just over the maritime border, there is a medium-size shallow-water field called Dragon. Trinidad and Venezuela have been negotiating for five years about how to produce and export the Dragon gas. Shell would operate the field, and a pipeline could connect the field to Trinidad and Tobago’s export terminals in three to four years.

But first, Trinidad must reach a deal with the Biden administration and the Venezuelan government that would allow Trinidad to export natural gas from the Dragon field in Venezuela without violating U.S. sanctions.

The Biden administration granted a two-year license to the Trinidadian government to do business with Venezuela in January, but only if the government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela did not receive cash payments. Trinidad and Tobago has offered to pay for the gas in food and medicine, but Mr. Maduro has rejected that offer.

Another potential prospect is the Calypso field, off the coast of the island of Tobago, which could be the nation’s first deepwater gas field.

Woodside Energy, an Australian company, is developing Calypso with BP. But Calypso’s geology is complicated. The field is made up of unconnected pockets of gas, meaning that multiple wells would be needed, making drilling more expensive.

“We’re working through the concepts and trying to figure out how do we get something that will work for everybody,” said Meg O’Neill, chief executive of Woodside.

Analysts said Trinidad needed to move fast or risk losing gas customers to other exporters, like the United States and Qatar, that are building newer and more efficient liquefied natural gas terminals.

That might be a tall order, and even some Trinidadians who have long worked in oil and gas worry that little can be done to halt their industry’s decline.

Ronnie Beharry worked in various field positions before becoming a manager at a gas field operated by Touchstone Exploration. He has only a high school education but can afford to send his eldest daughter to college.

“I tell them to look at other options because we’ve started to go green,” he said, referring to his three children. “I don’t know where things are headed. Sometimes I think the country has a backup plan, and sometimes I don’t.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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News round-up, May 15, 2023

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Quote of the day…

…”It will take a huge effort for us to support the energy transition to carbon-free sources like nuclear energy. In fact, according to historian Richard Rhodes, it could take from 50 to 100 years on average. That's why it's crucial to invest in all types of renewable energy, explore carbon capture for petroleum, and continue scientific research into fusion and advanced nuclear technology. Additionally, we should prioritize the immediate expansion of fission energy (is a remarkable process through nuclear reactions, generating an amazing quantity of power—far more than is possible from conventional sources), a proven and already-existing technology both in the U.S. and worldwide. There's no better time than now to make nuclear energy expansion a bipartisan priority.

TIME BY CHARLES OPPENHEIMER, MAY 11, 2023 

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Most read…

Nuclear Energy's Moment Has Come

In a new documentary released last week and available on VOD, director Oliver Stone's "Nuclear Now," we can see a comprehensive and compelling history of the rise of the anti-nuclear movement and a thoughtful argument for the utility of nuclear energy to address today's severe energy crises.

TIME BY CHARLES OPPENHEIMER, MAY 11, 2023 

Energy Stocks Are in the Doldrums After Last Year’s Big Rally

Worries about economy and demand weigh on oil and gas prices

WSJ By Hannah Miao, TODAY 

Investors Are Nervous—and That Could Support Stocks

Fund managers have lowest exposure to stocks relative to bonds since 2009

WSJ By Jack Pitcher, May 14, 2023

World’s most important election…

Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu square up for likely 2nd-round clash in Turkey

Neither the president nor his rival looks set to pass the 50 percent threshold needed for an outright win.

POLITICO EU BY CHRISTIAN OLIVER AND ELÇIN POYRAZLAR, MAY 14, 2023 

Exclusive: G7 leaders to target Russian energy, trade in new sanctions steps

Western allies hunt for new ways to tighten already restrictive sanctions on Russia, from export controls to visa restrictions and an oil price cap, which has put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin but not halted the full-scale invasion that started over a year ago.

REUTERS By Trevor Hunnicutt and Andreas Rinke, NOW

Wagner head offered to reveal Russian troop locations to Ukraine - Washington Post

Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has publicly threatened to withdraw his mercenaries from the area around Bakhmut due to a severe lack of ammunition. These actions could severely affect the ongoing Russian offensive in the region.

Reuters, editing by Germán & Co

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant owned by PG&E is scheduled to close in 2024 and 2025, but an effort is underway to extend the life of the plant. David Middlemamp-San Luis Obispo Tribune/Tribune News Service/Editing by Germán & Co

Nuclear Energy's Moment Has Come

In a new documentary released last week and available on VOD, director Oliver Stone's "Nuclear Now," we can see a comprehensive and compelling history of the rise of the anti-nuclear movement and a thoughtful argument for the utility of nuclear energy to address today's severe energy crises.

TIME BY CHARLES OPPENHEIMER, Editing by Germán & com, MAY 11, 2023 

*Oppenheimer is an entrepreneur and investor, representing the family of J. Robert Oppenheimer. You can follow his work at https://oppenheimerproject.org or on Twitter @choppen5.

For all the recent talk about clean energy and a shift away from coal, there’s a major problem in our goal to transition to a net zero-carbon economy. Despite all the growth and advances in renewable energy, globally we consume more fossil fuels than ever, and our rate of CO2 production is in fact increasing, not heading to zero.

But there’s a bipartisan, environmentally friendly solution still sitting on the table, still waiting for its moment — if only we can overcome our predetermined bias.

As J. Robert Oppenheimer’s grandson, I believe that my grandfather would support the expansion of nuclear energy as an environmentally friendly solution to address both the world’s energy problems and, perhaps counterintuitively, as a catalyst for peace and unity.

Most known as the physicist in charge of the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos Laboratory during WWII, JRO (as we refer to him in the family) and many other prominent scientists noted that humanity reached a new milestone following the detonation of the first atomic bomb.In witnessing a technology sufficiently powerful to destroy humanity, they also recognized its potential for collective good — that it required a new level of unity to address common threats. JRO and others recommended that the only safe path forward was global scientific cooperation, especially in an effort to avoid international arms races. That level of cooperation is necessary to face today’s threats from exponential technological growth.

Indeed, nuclear energy has the ability to be scaled at an industrial level, globally: Uranium 235 has millions more times energy than coal or oil.

It’s also important to underscore that nuclear energy became unpopular in part due to its association with nuclear weapons and fears about its safety. But the actual safety record shows it is one of the safest sources of energy, and it is becoming more popular to be an environmentalist and pro-nuclear. We must get over our cognitive and political bias: Nuclear energy is necessary and safe, and not the same as nuclear weapons.

In a new documentary released last week and available on VOD starting June 6 from director Oliver Stone, “Nuclear Now,” we see a comprehensive and compelling history of the rise of the anti-nuclear movement, and a thoughtful argument for the utility in nuclear energy to address today’s severe energy crises. “Nuclear Now” also shows us that energy expansion is becoming a unifying issue, domestically and abroad. Today, we must expand the development of nuclear energy to meet our carbon-free energy transition, because nuclear energy is indeed environmentally friendly, and necessary. 

The support for nuclear energy has risen to 60 percent across the country — practically unheard of in modern political terms — including a spike among Democrats support from roughly 38 percent in 2018 to 59 percent today. Despite the decades of ringing alarm bells over the perceived dangers that nuclear energy might bring—in part of course due to its association with nuclear weapons—our energy crisis is too urgent to ignore nuclear anymore. And more than that, it’s equally important to dispel the misinformation surrounding it.

With rising bipartisan support, it can only go up from here.

It will take a huge effort for us to support the energy transition to carbon-free sources like nuclear energy, a process the historian Richard Rhodes has said takes 50 to 100 years on average. That should include all types of renewables, carbon capture for petroleum, and scientific research into fusion and advanced nuclear. And there should be an immediate expansion in fission energy, a proven, already-existing technology both in the U.S. and worldwide. There is a great opportunity right now to pursue nuclear energy expansion as a bipartisan issue.

As my family observes my grandfather’s birthday, it’s time to call for a “Manhattan Project” for carbon-free energy production. For as much doom and gloom the climate change narrative brings, we can also focus on what can be done to plan for a more sustainable future. Chief among them is an industrial-scale production of carbon-free nuclear energy. We’ve done it for defense, we can do it for energy.

Internationally there is great hope for nuclear energy development increasing cooperation that my grandfather, Neils Bohr, Einstein, and other scientists said was our path to a safe future. They recognized that there was only one way humans could survive when we possessed technology as powerful as atomic bombs: and that is to cooperate on a shared, safer, cleaner future.

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Image by Germán & Co

Energy Stocks Are in the Doldrums After Last Year’s Big Rally

Worries about economy and demand weigh on oil and gas prices

WSJ By Hannah Miao, TODAY 

Shares of oil-and-gas companies led the market last year. This year, they are the biggest laggards.

Energy stocks comprise the worst-performing sector of the S&P 500 this year, down 10%, compared with the broad index’s 7.6% gain. Shares of Chevron are down 13% this year, while Exxon Mobil has shed 4.1%. Warren Buffett’s darling, Occidental Petroleum, has pulled back 8%.

That comes after the S&P 500 energy sector rallied 59% in 2022, the only segment of the index to end the year with gains and the sector’s best year on record according to FactSet data going back to 1990. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year shocked energy markets, sending commodity prices soaring alongside energy stocks. 

This year concerns about a slowing global economy and energy demand have weighed on oil and gas prices, taking shares of energy companies down with them. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, has dropped 13% this year, falling to $74.98 a barrel.

“The performance of an energy stock is going to be driven by supply and demand of oil,” said Fernando Soto, a senior vice president in Brown Brothers Harriman’s private banking division. “It’s very, very difficult to predict that.”

Mr. Soto said being underweight in energy shares hurt in the past couple of years, but is helping drive outperformance this year.

On the supply side, Russian oil production has continued to flow, testing Western sanctions. On the demand side, tumult in the U.S. banking sector has heightened concern about a slowdown in the world’s largest economy. Meanwhile, options-hedging has turbocharged volatility in oil prices.

Adding to the unpredictability regarding energy demand is the state of China’s reopening after the pandemic. Trade data released this week signaled the world’s second-largest economy is revving up slower than expected.

“It’s a challenging time for any sector at this particular point in time with all of the near- term uncertainty,” said Leslie Thompson, chief investment officer of Spectrum Wealth Management. “In the last couple of years energy has outperformed significantly, so I think there’s a little bit of reversion to the mean and taking some profits.”

Investors are shunning mutual funds and exchange-traded funds tracking energy stocks. They have pulled more than $7 billion out of energy-equity funds in 2023 on a net basis, according to Refinitiv Lipper fund-flows data as of Wednesday.

Still, some investors believe oil prices and energy stocks could stabilize as fears of a global slowdown abate. Supply remains tight; U.S. oil-and-gas companies have given priority to returning profit to shareholders over expanding production capacity.

Energy stocks only make up roughly 5% of weighting in the S&P 500, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, but have an outsize impact on profits within the index. Companies in the S&P 500 are set to log a 2.5% annualized decrease in profit in the first quarter, according to FactSet, based on a blend of actual results and estimates for companies yet to report. Without the energy sector, the S&P 500 blended earnings decline would deepen to 3.8%.

The earnings power of energy companies make the sector look relatively cheap from a valuation standpoint. Companies in the S&P 500 energy sector are trading at roughly 10 times projected earnings over the next 12 months, according to FactSet. That compares with the broad index’s multiple of around 18.

Ben Cook, Hennessy Funds’ energy-transition fund portfolio manager, said the fund has remained more heavily weighted in oil-and-gas companies relative to renewable-energy shares, estimating that the oil market could begin to recover in the second half of the year.

“Oil price volatility is inescapable as an investment driver of performance and it’s certainly something that needs to be watched, but we feel there’s an opportunity to attract investor capital into the sector over time, given the strength in earnings,” said Mr. Cook.

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EMIL LENDOF/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/Editing by Germán & Co

Investors Are Nervous—and That Could Support Stocks

Fund managers have lowest exposure to stocks relative to bonds since 2009

WSJ By Jack Pitcher, May 14, 2023

Investors have a sour outlook on U.S. stocks. Contrarians say that is good news for the market. 

Turmoil in the banking sector has dragged fund managers’ enthusiasm for stocks to a 2023 ebb, according to Bank of America’s most recent monthly survey. The stress adds to worries including lingering inflation, higher interest rates and a slowing economy that have driven them to cut their stockholdings to their lowest levels relative to bonds since 2009. 

Institutions have pulled a net $333.9 billion from stocks over the past 12 months, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data, while individual investors have yanked another $28 billion. Billions have flowed into cash equivalents, driving total assets in money markets to a record $5.3 trillion as of May 10, according to the Investment Company Institute. 

To some, all that doom and gloom looks like a sign of hope. Many on Wall Street view extremes in sentiment one way or the other as the time to do the opposite. Warren Buffett famously advised investors to “be greedy when others are fearful.” 

The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% this past week and has made little progress since the end of March, stalling after a strong start to the year for highflying tech companies that has left the index up 7.4% for the year. This week, investors will get a fresh look at the health of the economy with the release of April retail-sales data and earnings reports from retailers Walmart, Home Depot and Target.

“The technicals and the sentiment side of the equation to us are just way offsides,” said Jack Janasiewicz, lead portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers, a $1.2 trillion asset manager. “Not only does that limit the downside, but if you get any more positive news, that could easily squeeze the market higher.” 

Cautious stock picking hasn’t offered much advantage in the market turmoil so far, and the longer that managers lag behind, the more pressure they will be under to add risk back into portfolios, Mr. Janasiewicz said. Active fund managers have largely underperformed the S&P 500 this year, with only one in three actively managed large-cap mutual funds beating their benchmarks in the first quarter. 

Individual investors share institutions’ bearish view, according to the long-running weekly survey from the American Association of Individual Investors. The survey showed 41% of individual investors expect stock prices will fall over the next six months, down from a recent high of 61% in September that preceded this year’s rebound but above the 31% historical average. The survey is commonly used as a contrarian tool, with investors expecting higher returns following extreme levels of bearishness and lower returns when sentiment is particularly upbeat.

Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments, said her firm has added more new equity positions than normal in recent weeks as indexes stalled and attitudes soured. After the firm trimmed winning trades earlier this year and ran its cash allocation to a mid-single-digit percentage—higher than normal—it has been looking for bouts of volatility to put money back into stocks. 

“You’ve got all this money on the sidelines,” said Ms. Tengler. “In our view, when bearishness is that universal, it’s historically always been a great time to look for opportunities.”

Analysts at UBS Global Wealth Management have for weeks warned that stock valuations look high and markets are betting on a too-rosy outcome for the economy. That very caution may help put a floor under any fresh market drop, said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at the bank’s wealth-management arm.

One potential catalyst for a rebound: investors front-running the Federal Reserve. After announcing another quarter-point interest-rate increase at the Fed’s May policy meeting, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the central bank may be done raising the policy rate for now. Traders in interest-rate futures are betting that the Fed will begin cutting rates as soon as this fall. 

That could prompt traders to pile in ahead of any potential rate cuts, he said. Rate cuts are typically viewed as a boost to stocks, which start to look comparatively more attractive than bonds. 

“Positioning data suggests there’s a lot of money waiting to be put back into equities,” said Mr. Haefele. “That possibility could bias investors to be early rather than late in adding risk, with a decent pullback in equities viewed as a buying opportunity even before the first rate cut. Investors’ desire to be early on the Fed rate cuts may prevent equities from declining more than 10%.” 

The Fed has given no indication that it plans to cut, and if the central bank lowers rates soon, many believe it will be due to further turmoil with banks or a sudden recession—either of which could hurt stock prices.

And the last time fund managers were positioned as favorably toward bonds, in 2009, rates were near zero, so bonds paid little interest. The rally that followed gave birth to Wall Street sayings like “there is no alternative” to U.S. stocks. Today, high-yield savings accounts are paying 4%. 

One group that hasn’t stopped buying this year: hedge funds. They have increased their stock exposure by a net $30.8 billion since the start of the year, according to S&P.

Still, few in the market appear interested in adding risk right now, added Mr. Janasiewicz of Natixis.

“I’ve been out sharing my optimistic view in meetings with clients, and I’m taking a lot of flack for it,” he said.  

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Image by Germán & Co

World’s most important election…

Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu square up for likely 2nd-round clash in Turkey

Neither the president nor his rival looks set to pass the 50 percent threshold needed for an outright win.

POLITICO EU BY CHRISTIAN OLIVER AND ELÇIN POYRAZLAR, MAY 14, 2023 

ISTANBUL — A singing, grinning President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told supporters he was ready to fight a second round in Turkey’s election on May 28, sensing he had the momentum to beat his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who undershot expectations in Sunday’s first round.

With 92 percent of votes counted, Turkey’s Supreme Election Council said in the early hours of Monday that Erdoğan had won 49.49 percent of the vote, only narrowly shy of the 50 percent needed for an outright win. Kılıçdaroğlu had secured 44.79 percent, disappointing a poll consensus that he had a narrow lead.

A veteran electoral campaigner, a grandstanding Erdoğan appeared on a balcony of his AK party headquarters in Ankara with a microphone singing: “We love you so much” to the crowd and praising them for the “feast of democracy” they had just served up. Dismissing the opposition’s claims of foul play, he even predicted the final trickle of results on Sunday could push him over the 50 percent needed for another five-year stint in power.

Mocking Kılıçdaroğlu, who had filmed in his campaign ads in his modest kitchen, he said: “Some people are in the kitchen, we are on the balcony.”

“We don’t know whether the presidential election will be finished in the first round. If it ends in this round then there is no issue. If our people have decided to finish it in the second round then that’s most welcome too. We believe we will finish the election in the first round successfully.”

A visibly angry Kılıçdaroğlu, whose party accused Erdoğan’s camp of widespread electoral malpractice overnight, snapped back: “Despite all his slander and insults Erdoğan could not get the result he expected. The election cannot be won on the balcony. Data is still coming in.”

“If our people say there’s a second round, we will respect that,” the 74-year-old former bureaucrat added. “We will definitely win this election in the second round … Erdoğan didn’t win the vote of confidence he was expecting … In the next 15 days we will fight for rights, laws and justice in this country.” 

The prospect of a second round will focus attention on where the 5 percent who voted for Sinan Oğan — a former nationalist parliamentarian running as an independent — will take their votes on May 28.

World’s most important election

Turkey’s presidential election has turned into one of the world’s most closely watched political contests this year because of the massive implications both for the future of democracy in the NATO member of 85 million people and for security in Europe and the Middle East.

Heading into the vote, the increasingly authoritarian Erdoğan looked more vulnerable than at any time over his 20-year dominance of Turkey’s politics because of a blazing cost of living crisis, which has pushed the prices of many staples such as onions, meat and cucumbers out of the reach of many consumers. 

Adding to his woes, Erdoğan has also found himself pitted against a united six-party opposition under Kılıçdaroğlu, whose presidential candidacy was also supported by the pro-Kurdish HDP party. 

However, the Islamist populist is able to rely on a strong conservative base and is still held in high esteem because of his massive infrastructure and welfare programs, along with his increased positioning of Turkey as a geopolitical heavyweight.

Despite Erdoğan saying he was on course to win by a hefty margin, the opposition has been predicting it would narrow the gap because of the number of votes still to come from big cities where it is stronger. Kılıçdaroğlu accused government electoral observers of deliberately avoiding adding large numbers of votes from polling stations in opposition strongholds, by continually contesting the count there. 

He said 300 ballot boxes were being held up in Ankara, and 783 in Istanbul. “They are blocking the system at the ballot boxes where our votes are high with repeated objections,” he complained. “Don’t be afraid of the people’s will. Don’t block the people’s will. I call on democracy workers in the field not to leave the ballot boxes. We are here until every vote is counted.”

In a sign of the furor over the degree to which the AK party was demanding recounts, Yunus Başaran, a candidate for the Workers’ Party of Turkey from the southern coastal city of Antalya, said some ballot boxes had been counted seven times. “This time they’ve found this path,” he said.

Journalist Nevșin Mengü tweeted she had information that in the Ankara neighborhood of Çankaya — a traditional opposition bastion — one ballot box had been counted 11 times. Alper Taşdelen, mayor of Çankaya, said almost all of the ballot boxes there were being contested.

Anger over the count

From early evening on Sunday, the counting of the results triggered a bitter political debate, with the opposition accusing Erdoğan’s AK party of several forms of electoral skulduggery.

Two of Turkey’s most senior opposition politicians, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş, cried foul over the way the state-run Anadolu news agency was reporting results. This is a highly sensitive topic as Anadolu’s feed is widely used by TV channels for their live election coverage. Initially, Anadolu had put Erdoğan on course for a 54 percent to 40 percent win.

The mayors said the agency was giving an exaggerated picture of Erdoğan’s lead early in the evening by cherry-picking results only from districts where the AK party was strong. The intention was to dishearten electoral observers from the opposition camp, who would leave before all ballots had been counted, which would allow ballots to potentially be manipulated.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s opposition vowed that their officials would stay up to head off the problem. Slamming the public announcement of the results by the Anadolu agency as a “fiction,” opposition leader Kılıçdaroğlu called on his teams to stay vigilant. “We will not sleep tonight,” he said.

The opposition mayors pointed out that Anadolu had resorted to the same tactic in the mayoral elections of 2019, initially saying the votes meant the AK party was on course for big wins, while the opposition eventually took Istanbul and Ankara in late counting.

Erdoğan and his AK party officials accused the opposition of deceit, and using the fraud accusation as an excuse for losing.

“Our nation has made its decision. You don’t need to find new excuses. We will see our nation’s will when we have the final results.”

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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The logo of the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors' meeting is displayed at Niigata station, ahead of the meeting, in Niigata, Japan, May 10, 2023. REUTERS/Issei Kato/Editing by Germán & Co

Exclusive: G7 leaders to target Russian energy, trade in new sanctions steps

Western allies hunt for new ways to tighten already restrictive sanctions on Russia, from export controls to visa restrictions and an oil price cap, which has put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin but not halted the full-scale invasion that started over a year ago.

REUTERS By Trevor Hunnicutt and Andreas Rinke, NOW

WASHINGTON/BERLIN, May 14 (Reuters) - Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations plan to tighten sanctions on Russia at their summit in Japan this week, with steps aimed at energy and exports aiding Moscow's war effort, said officials with direct knowledge of the discussions.

New measures announced by the leaders during the May 19-21 meetings will target sanctions evasion involving third countries, and seek to undermine Russia's future energy production and curb trade that supports Russia's military, the people said.

Separately, U.S. officials also expect G7 members will agree to adjust their approach to sanctions so that, at least for certain categories of goods, all exports are automatically banned unless they are on a list of approved items.

The Biden administration has previously pushed G7 allies to reverse the group's sanctions approach, which today allows all goods to be sold to Russia unless they are explicitly blacklisted.

That change could make it harder for Moscow to find gaps in the sanctions regime.

While the allies have not agreed to apply the more-restrictive approach broadly, U.S. officials expect that in the most sensitive areas for Russia's military G7 members will adopt a presumption that exports are banned unless they are on a designated list.

The exact areas where these new rules would apply are still being discussed.

"You should expect to see, in a handful of spaces, particularly relating to Russia's defense industrial base, that change in presumption happen," said a U.S. official who declined to be named.

The precise language of the G7 leaders' joint declarations is still subject to negotiation and adjustment before it is released during the summit. The G7 comprises the United States, Japan, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The G7 leaders' action on Russia comes as Ukraine's Western allies hunt for new ways to tighten already restrictive sanctions on Russia, from export controls to visa restrictions and an oil price cap, which have put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin but not halted the full-scale invasion that started over a year ago.

Some U.S. allies have resisted the idea of banning trade broadly and then issuing category-by-category exemptions.

The European Union, for instance, has its own approach and is also currently negotiating its 11th package of sanctions since Russia invaded Ukraine, with the bulk focused on people and countries circumventing existing trade restrictions.

"The sometimes-discussed approach of 'we ban everything first and allow exceptions' will not work in our view," said one top German government official. "We want to be very, very precise and we want to avoid unintended side effects."

Meanwhile, any change in language, including language specifying that certain trade is banned unless specifically exempted, by the G7 leaders may not necessarily lead to more bans immediately or indeed any change in Russia's posture.

"At least on day one, that change in presumption doesn't change the substance of what's allowed, but it matters for the long-term trajectory of where we're going and the restrictiveness of the overall regime," the U.S. official said.

Ukraine, backed by Western arms and cash, is expected to launch major counter-offensive operations in the coming weeks to try to recapture tracts of its east and south from Russian forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been in Europe this week for meetings with Pope Francis as well as with leaders from France, Italy and Germany. He is expected to address G7 leaders, either virtually or in-person, during their summit in Hiroshima, the officials said.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said last month a G7 move to ban exports to the country would cause Moscow to terminate a Black Sea grain deal that enables vital exports of grain from Ukraine. Food security in the aftermath of the war is also expected to be a major topic at the G7.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves a cemetery before the funeral of a Russian military blogger who was killed in a bomb attack in a St Petersburg cafe, in Moscow, Russia, April 8, 2023. REUTERS/Yulia Morozova/Editing by Germán & Co

Wagner head offered to reveal Russian troop locations to Ukraine - Washington Post

Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has publicly threatened to withdraw his mercenaries from the area around Bakhmut due to a severe lack of ammunition. These actions could severely affect the ongoing Russian offensive in the region.

Reuters, editing by Germán & Co

May 14 (Reuters) - Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary force, offered to reveal the position of Russian troops to the Ukranian government, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing leaked U.S. intelligence documents.

Wagner's soldiers have been at the forefront of a bloody Russian offensive to take the city of Bakhmut. In exchange for Ukraine withdrawing its soldiers from the area, Prigozhin in January offered to tell its intelligence service the positions of Russian forces, the Post reported.

The paper said Ukraine rejected the offer.

Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has publicly threatened to withdraw his mercenaries from the area around Bakhmut, where they are at the vanguard of the Russian offensive, unless they receive much-needed ammunition.

He said Tuesday in an audio message that he and his men would be regarded as traitors if they abandoned the area.

The Post reported Prigozhin's offer came through his contacts with Ukraine's intelligence service.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the report, which was based on secret U.S. documents leaked to the group-chat platform Discord.

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News round-up, May 12, 2023

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Quote of the day…

A Fundamental Debate over Hydrogen in Brussels:

…”Not everyone is on board with repurposing old gas networks for future use. German companies and municipal utilities hope to make the switch. Still, the issue is being debated in Brussels over an EU directive called the Hydrogen and Gas Market Decarbonization Package. All of this is a part of the larger "Green Deal" program, which aims to greener Europe.

"If we don't use the gas grid for the energy transition, we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot."

Carsten Rolle of the Federation of German Industries

Spiegel 

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Most read…

How Germany's Hydrogen Boom Stalled

Green hydrogen has the potential to heat millions of homes and keep German industry humming. So far, though, a lack of the environmentally friendly gas and the infrastructure needed to transport it have prevented its wide-scale use.

Spiegel By Claus Hecking, Isabell Hülsen, Benedikt Müller-Arnold, Michael Sauga and Gerald Traufetter, 11.05.2023

Europe First: Macron hits the gas in transatlantic subsidy race with EU carmaking cash

French president takes first concrete step in countering Biden’s ‘Buy American’ green subsidies.

POLITICO EU BY GIORGIO LEALI AND JOSHUA POSANER, MAY 11, 2023

Don’t isolate China, Brussels tells EU capitals

Get ready for the Taiwan crisis to blow up but don’t make China ‘more foreign,’ EU document recommends.

POLITICO EU BY STUART LAU, JACOPO BARIGAZZI AND SUZANNE LYNCH, MAY 11, 2023 

OPEC’s Output Slipped in April Ahead of Saudi-Led Production Cuts

Oil prices have tumbled in recent weeks over concerns about the health of U.S. banks

WSJ By Will Horner,  May 11, 2023

The West Needs Russia to Power Its Nuclear Comeback

U.S., Europe add reactors but still heavily dependent on Moscow for crucial ingredients to produce fuel

WSJ by Jennifer Hiller, Daniel Michaels, and Kim Mackrael, May 10, 2023

Henry Kissinger's Shifting Views on Ukraine

Kissinger, a key figure in U.S. Cold War policy towards the Soviet Union during his time under Presidents Nixon and Ford, has always maintained that Ukraine should maintain neutrality and refrain from joining NATO. However, he recently stated at the Davos conference that if Russia were to invade, Ukraine joining the Transatlantic Alliance could be a viable solution.

NEWSWEEK BY JACK DUTTON ON 1/18/23

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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A simulation of the Aquaventus initiative in the North Sea: Electrolyzers will use wind power to produce hydrogen that is to be transported to the mainland via a pipeline. Jakob Martens / AquaVentus/Editing by Germán & Co

How Germany's Hydrogen Boom Stalled

Green hydrogen has the potential to heat millions of homes and keep German industry humming. So far, though, a lack of the environmentally friendly gas and the infrastructure needed to transport it have prevented its wide-scale use.

Spiegel By Claus Hecking, Isabell Hülsen, Benedikt Müller-Arnold, Michael Sauga and Gerald Traufetter, 11.05.2023

The pipe, it seems, just can't get around the seals. On a windy day this winter, hundreds of seals populate the beach at the dune near the island of Helgoland in Germany. They grunt quietly when you get close to them. "Let's keep our distance," says Thilo Thunhorst. "Then the seals don't feel so disturbed."

The animals are a problem for Thunhorst. The 52-year-old is an engineer with Gascade, an energy network operator. On the small island neighboring Helgoland, the company plans to lay a pipeline for the Aquaventus pilot project, one of the most ambitious hydrogen initiatives in the world. After its completion, climate-friendly hydrogen will soon be transported from an offshore wind farm equipped with electrolyzers, to the mainland. German utility company RWE and Shell are among the companies involved.

But not even the pilot project – a single wind turbine with the pipeline connection to Helgoland – is in place yet. The test facility is expected to be up and running in three years – that is, if Thunhorst can get past the seals. Helgoland is surrounded by nature reserves, anchoring zones for tankers and ferries, fisheries and areas which may contain unexploded bombs from World War II.

Thunhorst has to lay the pipeline amid all of that. "If I pay heed to the conservation area, then I have no choice but to run the line through the anchoring zones and the suspected munitions areas," he says.

The only alternative is to cross the dune, the seals' habitat. Or by drilling under the island, an undertaking that would cost several million euros more.

Without Hydrogen, There Can Be No Demand

Welcome to the sobering hydrogen reality. While Germany hopes that it will soon be able to run basement gas heating systems on hydrogen, steel manufacturers are converting their production to the green gas at a cost of billions and energy companies are planning new power plants that will generate electricity from hydrogen, almost everything needed to make the climate-neutral dreams a reality in the near future is still lacking. The environmentally friendly hydrogen is missing, as are the pipeline networks to carry it across the country, not to mention reliable business models.

This plethora of issues has created a chicken-and-egg problem in the industry: So long as there isn't sufficient hydrogen, there won't be demand from customers. And without demand, no one will build a pipeline network, which in turn means no demand.

German Economics Minister Robert Habeck, whose ministry is responsible for the mammoth undertaking, recently complained: "When the Dutch energy minister wants a pipeline to be built, he just calls Gasunie." The state-owned company then sets about getting the work done. In Germany, though, the minister has to deal with 16 long-distance gas network operators, countless municipal utilities and regional network providers, stubborn government coalition partners and powerful lobbying associations.

The hype is thus contradicted by the figures: 44 terawatt hours (TWh) of hydrogen were produced in Germany last year, of which not even 1 percent was produced using climate-neutral green electricity. The rest is "gray" hydrogen and comes primarily from natural gas. By comparison: Last year, Germany required 866 TWh of natural gas for heating, power plants and industry. With the amount of hydrogen that the largest existing electrolyzer can produce each year, natural gas could be replaced in this country for only a half an hour.

There's still a long way to go before green hydrogen can contribute to a secure energy supply. Currently, only 417 kilometers (259 miles) of hydrogen pipelines are in operation across Germany, compared to tens of thousands of kilometers of natural gas networks.

The German government has set itself the bold goal of building electrolyzers with a capacity of 10 gigawatts by 2030. And, indeed, corporations like BP and RWE are planning numerous large-scale plants.

However, final investment decisions are still pending for most of the projects. And that's where things look dire. The United States is currently courting climate-neutral investments with billions in tax subsidies. "Some industries in this country are asking themselves whether hydrogen should still be produced in Europe at all, or whether it would be better to produce it in the U.S.," says Gabriël Clemens, who is responsible for hydrogen and environmentally friendly gases at E.on, a German energy utility company.

"We are discussing petty issues in Germany," complains Uwe Lauber, the CEO of MAN Energy Solutions, which builds such plants, and a member of the National Hydrogen Council, an advisory body to the German government. "But what we need to be doing is to build plants now, big plants." He argues that smaller electrolyzers won't make hydrogen any cheaper and will keep the market from taking off.

A Showcase Project

If there is one place that displays both the progress and backwardness in the quest for hydrogen energy in equal measure, it's the Ruhrchemie plant in the city of Oberhausen. It is a convoluted agglomeration of factories and pipe bridges. Air Liquide, a French company, uses it to produce gray hydrogen from natural gas and distributes it across its own 240-kilometer network, the largest in Germany to date. It winds its way largely underground from Leverkusen, a city that is home to major chemicals manufacturing, with a few branches to the Ruhr region. The pipeline is connected to, among other things, a refinery, plastics factories and the ThyssenKrupp steel mill in nearby Duisburg.

By the end of the year, Air Liquide's network is set to become a little bit greener. An electrolyzer is currently being built in Oberhausen that will produce hydrogen using green electricity. It's a flagship project, which even prompted German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to pay a visit last week.

Although the plant will be one of the largest water electrolyzers in Germany, with a capacity of 20 megawatts, the volume it produces will only be enough to meet one-sixth of the needs of the factories connected to the pipeline. Why isn't the company thinking in much bigger terms?

Green hydrogen is still twice as expensive as gray hydrogen, explains Gilles Le Van, who is the head of Air Liquide's division for industrial customers in Central Europe. High gas prices and more expensive CO2 emission rights have recently made gray hydrogen significantly costlier, but the production costs for the green alternative hinge on the price of electricity. And electricity prices are at a record high in Germany right now.

The capacity of Air Liquide's network is also limited. With a diameter of no more than 30 centimeters, the pipeline is significantly smaller than long-distance gas pipelines, which easily reach 80 centimeters. Le Van is hoping that natural gas network operators will rededicate at least part of their lines to hydrogen so that the Oberhausen project doesn't remain a lone venture.

Can Existing Gas Pipelines Be Tapped?

When Ontras boss Ralph Bahke wants to know whether hydrogen could flow through his pipes in the future, he pulls out a pipe inspection gauge. The device, which is equipped with sensors, looks like a cross between a space probe and a chimney brush. It can be used to measure the finest cracks and damage inside the steel pipes. If the steel is undamaged, the tube is potentially suitable for the fine hydrogen molecules, meaning it is H2-ready.

Ontras, a subsidiary of German energy utility EnBW, owns around 7,700 kilometers of gas networks in eastern Germany. Large plants such as the Leuna Chemical Complex and the Piesteritz nitrogen works are directly connected to the network. Because gas demand is expected to drop dramatically in the next few years, Bahke is aware that he needs an alternative use for his pipelines, like hydrogen.

Bahke has already tested around half of his network for its suitability for hydrogen. And the majority so far would work, at least in principle. It's good news, Bahke says, "because repurposing costs only one-fifth of what it would cost to build a new network."

Nevertheless, hundreds of kilometers of pipelines still need to be built in order to supply the company's customers with hydrogen on a broad scale, in part because some potential customers weren't even connected to the gas network before. Two model projects in the region alone are expected to devour several hundred million euros in investment by 2030. Will it pay off? "We're doing a lot of the upfront work now," Bahke says.

It's unlikely there won't be enough demand. In a survey conducted by the long-distance gas network operators of their customers in 2021, the reported hydrogen demand increased tenfold compared to 2020. The only problem is that very few of them know who can supply them with hydrogen, in what quantities and at what price. And that's a problem for network operators. Because the lines have to be financed through customer-use fees. If only one customer were to use the network in the beginning, then that customer would also theoretically have to pay the network charge on their own, which would be unimaginable. "We wouldn't be able to muster the revenues we would need," says Bahke.

He argues that the state will have to step in as the guarantor in the development of the hydrogen network. Network operators are already discussing one possible solution with Habeck's Economics Ministry: Charges for the new network could be capped initially so that the customers who are the first to use the lines don't get penalized. If there aren't enough revenues, then the government could step in. "Ideally, demand will be so great by then that no public money will be needed at all," Bahke says in support of the idea.

With the exception of a small project in Bad Lauchstädt, it will be around four years before hydrogen starts flowing through the new Ontras pipelines, in part because they are seeking European Union subsidies in Brussels earmarked for what are called IPCEI projects. These subsidies are intended for projects that are in the EU's interest and deemed to be particularly worthy of support. The processing of the paperwork has been delayed because the European Commission lacks the staff to handle the flood of applications. "We're running out of time," Bahke warns.

To turn the patchwork of regional pilot projects into a national network, the Ontras manager would like to work with the other long-distance gas network operators to design a German start-up network, a kind of highway map for hydrogen. So far, efforts to implement that have collided with the legal situation. Whereas the natural gas network is under the supervision of the Federal Network Agency, which requires suppliers to build and operate pipelines and work together to do so, the hydrogen network has largely been left to the free market so far. Anyone who wants to build a network can do so, provided they have the approval of the regional authorities. At first glance, that looks like a lot of freedom. But German competition law prohibits network operators from colluding. And the Federal Network Agency has so far lacked the legal basis to sign off on the plan for a national network. This is another reason that many plans haven't moved forward.

Since last week, though, it appears that Economics Minister Habeck has come to understand the dilemma. By the summer, the minister wants to amend the Energy Industry Act to enable the rapid development of a start-up network. Habeck initially wants to commission the construction of 1,800 kilometers as part of IPCEI projects. The Federal Network Agency and the operators of the long-distance gas pipelines would also be allowed to design it together. Habeck has also held out the prospect of money to close the financing gap from the initially meager grid fees.

A Fundamental Debate over Hydrogen in Brussels

The hope of companies like Ontras and many municipal utilities to repurpose as many kilometers as possible of their old gas network for future use is by no means universally accepted. Especially not in Brussels, where a lobbying battle is currently raging over an EU directive known as the Hydrogen and Gas Market Decarbonization Package. It is part of the "Green Deal" with which the European Commission wants to transform Europe into a climate-friendly continent.

"If we don't use the gas grid for the energy transition, we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot."

Carsten Rolle of the Federation of German Industries

So far, hydrogen has played only a modest role in those rules. The Commission's argument: The direct use of electricity – in heat pumps and electric motors, for example – is much more efficient than conversion to hydrogen, a process in which considerable energy is lost. Because the green fuel will be scarce and expensive for quite some time to come, they expect it will only be used in a few industries, such as steel and chemicals, as well as in shipping and heavy-duty transport. The remaining energy requirements are to be covered by green electricity and batteries. That would mean that a large part of the network wouldn't even be needed.

A repurposing of gas pipelines for hydrogen, the European Commission fears, could slow down rather than accelerate the transition to clean energies. This is why the Commission is pushing forward with unbundling regulation that would require gas network operators to hand over their pipes in the long term if they enter into the hydrogen business. Unbundling fits with the assumption that hydrogen is likely to be used primarily in industry and heavy-goods transport: If that is the case, why should private citizens help finance the development of this infrastructure with their gas network fees?

The industry recently protested loudly against the Commission's plans. They argue that the regulation would choke off any incentive to invest in hydrogen networks. Papers published by lobbyists speak of "economic nonsense" that makes it more difficult to achieve the climate targets. "If we don't use the gas grid for the energy transition, we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot," warns Carsten Rolle, head of the energy and climate policy department at the Federation of German Industries (BDI). Germany's second legislative chamber, the Bundesrat, which represents the federal states and has traditionally been sympathetic to representatives of the municipal sector, urged the federal government to push for changes to the proposed regulation.

"As industrial centers, Germany and Europe have no time to lose."

Jens Geier, member of the European Parliament

One person who holds a similar view is Jens Geier, the head of the center-left German Social Democratic Party (SPD's) party group in the European Parliament. The gas industry will have to change, says Geier, who is leading negotiations on the regulation for the European Parliament. "That's why it should also take responsibility for the development of the hydrogen networks," he says. "This is important for the timely supply of energy-intensive industry."

In February, members of the European Parliament decided that distribution network operators controlled by municipal authorities should be permitted to transport hydrogen without major restrictions. It was a victory for the gas industry, but only a temporary one. That's because the European Council, which represents the member states, still has to approve the regulation, and it remains controversial there. France, for example, couldn't care less about preserving the German gas network. The government in Paris wants to protect its own electricity sector. In a country with 57 nuclear power plants, electricity had traditionally been more important than gas for energy supply. If Paris had its way, nuclear power would flow directly to electrolyzers located near the factories, eliminating the need for any large hydrogen pipelines.

The gas lobby fears that consensus for that opinion could also develop in Germany. The reason behind that is a recently published paper by the think tank Agora Energiewende, which had been headed for years by Patrick Graichen, the state secretary responsible for the issue at the Economics Ministry, which is led by the Green Party. The Agora study sees no future for more than 90 percent of gas distribution networks in Germany. Instead, it states, the "orderly and timely decommissioning" is a central task of the transition away from natural gas to other technologies for heating.

If, on the other hand, the phase-out were postponed, it would lead to the stranding of up to 10 billion euros in assets. In the end, these costs would be borne by consumers, who, according to Agora's philosophy, should in the future get their heating primarily through heat pumps or district heating.

EU parliamentarian Geier is proposing a compromise. "The EU should put regulation of competition for the hydrogen economy in the hands of individual member states." Then each country could decide for itself which regime best suits its energy system. "As industrial centers," he says, "Germany and Europe have no time to lose."

The German Heating Illusion

E.on executive Gabriël Clemens doesn't want to wait that long. He has been talking to some of his customers about building electrolyzers on site, even if small plants are significantly less efficient than those on a gigawatt scale.

Clemens points out that a supraregional transmission network would be of little help to most German companies. "Small and medium-sized enterprises, the core of the German economy, are connected to the distribution networks." He is thinking primarily of businesses that require high temperatures – glassworks, foundries or ceramics manufacturers, for example. The intricate distribution network would also be needed to realize some politicians' hope of potentially supplying every private boiler room with hydrogen in the near future.

"Hydrogen in the building sector is a niche topic."

Stefan Schönberger, Boston Consulting Group

In contrast to the long-distance gas network, where several pipes run parallel along many routes, the distribution network consists of only a single pipe in many places. Adding hydrogen in these locations is considered a waste of the scarce energy carrier. However, operators such as E.on could only convert entire network sections to 100 percent hydrogen if all connected consumers were able to handle it. Most gas heating systems currently installed allow at most a 20 to 30 percent admixture of hydrogen. And that's not even mentioning the lack of efficiency in the field. "Hydrogen in the building sector is a niche topic," says Stefan Schönberger of the consulting firm Boston Consulting Group.

Despite all the difficulties, E.on has formed partnerships with companies from Canada and Australia to bring hydrogen – in the form of ammonia, for example – to Europe. Ammonia is a compound of hydrogen and nitrogen that can be transported by ship and train and cracked, or broken down, into pure hydrogen on site. "So there are a lot of possibilities, even without pipelines," Clemens says.

Time-Consuming Approval Processes

Meanwhile, on the island of Helgoland, Thunhorst, the engineer, looks out over the sea and points to an imaginary point in the distance where the pilot wind turbine will one day stand. It will be built as far away as possible and close to existing wind farms "so that it is less visibly noticeable," Thunhorst explains. After all, they don't need protests from locals on top of everything else.

Pipeline expert Thilo Thunhorst at the beach populated by seals on a small island near Helgoland

Foto: Claus Hecking / DER SPIEGEL/Editing by Germán & Co

In addition to the seals, Thunhorst has already identified the next problem. A few steps away from the possible landing point of the pipeline on Helgoland, he points to a curly plant on the side of the road. "Real sea kale," he says. "It's protected by nature conservation laws." Before digging can be done here, a biotope type mapping must be done that shows protected plant and animal species in the area.

The pilot project alone requires four permitting processes, with each demanding hundreds of pages of expert opinions. For the full Aquaventus project, five additional permitting processes would be needed. Even in the best-case scenario, that would take years. They are already considering shifting the focus away from Helgoland, across the North Sea.

And why did the planning start so late in the first place? "People believed in cheap natural gas," Thunhorst said. No one could have imagined that one day it would just suddenly stop flowing. Himself included, he says.

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France's President Emmanuel Macron sits inside the Hopium Machina Vision hydrogen-powered car | Pooled photo by Gonzalo Fuentes/AFP/Editing by Germán & Co

Europe First: Macron hits the gas in transatlantic subsidy race with EU carmaking cash

French president takes first concrete step in countering Biden’s ‘Buy American’ green subsidies.

POLITICO EU BY GIORGIO LEALI AND JOSHUA POSANER, MAY 11, 2023

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…”Macron, a student of Kissinger

Don’t repeat this in front of the 26 other European heads of state or government meeting this Monday. [30] and Tuesday [31 mai] in Brussels for a new extraordinary summit dedicated to Ukraine: 44-year-old Emmanuel Macron is following in the footsteps of the most respected and criticized master diplomat of the last century, the American Henry Kissinger.

thenewsdept.com by James, May 31, 2022

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PARIS — Emmanuel Macron took his war of words with Washington to the mat Thursday by proposing a concrete counter to Washington's electric car subsidies — a move likely to further heighten transatlantic tensions.

France, home to major carmakers like Renault and Stellantis, will tailor its existing measures that encourage green vehicle purchases to specifically reward European manufacturers by the end of this year, the president said, calling on the rest of the European Union to take similar action.

"We will be the first European country to reform the criteria for the allocation of the car bonus," Macron said in a speech at the Elysée Palace during an event on re-industrialization, where EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton also took the floor. "It's a small revolution that we want to bring to the European level," Macron said.

Macron has been a combative voice hitting out at the subsidies under Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which encourages consumers to "Buy American" when it comes to electric cars and offers other perks to the domestic green industry. He further stirred the pot with Washington last month after a visit to Beijing when he argued Europe should not act as "followers" of the U.S. when it comes to defending Taiwan from China.

The new French measures would, however, also take aim at China, which also subsidizes local carmakers.

"Why should we be the only space in the world that supports what is produced by competitors? We will not close the door to them, but since they already have uncooperative policies, we are not going to further help them with aid measures," he said, referring to the fact that American and Chinese companies can currently benefit from French incentives for consumers who buy eco-friendly goods like electric vehicles and solar panels.

"This doesn't mean that we are protectionist, we are not going to close the market, but we don't want to use the French taxpayers' money to accelerate non-European industrialization," Macron added.

EU leaders are generally worried about Biden's green subsidy scheme, fearing it will hinder production on the Continent and drive companies toward the U.S. to benefit from the $369 billion package. The European Commission has taken its concerns to the World Trade Organization, along with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, arguing it unfairly discriminates against foreign manufacturers.

But France under Macron has played a more pronounced role as bad cop in talks with Washington meant to find a solution.

"We don't want to depend; we are not meant to become consumers for the American industry," Macron said Thursday.

The new measures will be part of an upcoming "green industry bill," which is set to be adopted during a Cabinet meeting next week and go through parliament this summer. The text, proposed by Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, will also include other measures inspired by the U.S. plan, such as tax credits for sectors including batteries, heat pumps, wind and solar power, which, according to Macron, could generate €20 billion in new investments by 2030.

"It will allow us to massively reduce imports of strategic parts from other countries ... by doing this, we'll realign with China and the United States," Macron said.

China in the rearview mirror

While much of Brussels' focus has been on the U.S. scheme's impact on carmakers, many experts argue France has more to fear from Beijing than Washington when it comes to electric vehicles.

Tweaking clean car subsidies to make sure they only benefit local production is exactly the kind of policymaking car executives have been demanding for months to bolster their own efforts to counter both America’s investment splurge and China’s insurgent car brands.

Chinese carmakers — already global leaders in battery technology — have this year doubled down on efforts to crack open the European car market, with brands such as BYD, Nio and Great Wall ramping up their sales plans on the Continent.

“The French are most exposed to the Chinese automotive invasion because they are going straight for their price segment and local carmakers don’t have as much brand value like they do in Germany,” said Matthias Schmidt, an automotive market analyst.

That poses a major threat to European legacy brands, which are already encumbered by the costs of switching away from combustion engines under new EU rules that mandate a transition to only selling all-electric models by 2035.

That's why Macron is now urging Brussels to adopt a similar approach to favor European battery production over foreign competitors.

"I do not want Europe to support batteries that are not made in Europe under its battery legislation, because neither the Americans nor the Chinese are helping batteries made in Europe," he said.

*Giorgio Leali reported from Paris, Joshua Posaner reported from Berlin.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping | Pooled photo by Thibault Camus/AFP/Editing by Germán & Co

Don’t isolate China, Brussels tells EU capitals

Get ready for the Taiwan crisis to blow up but don’t make China ‘more foreign,’ EU document recommends.

POLITICO EU BY STUART LAU, JACOPO BARIGAZZI AND SUZANNE LYNCH, MAY 11, 2023 

BRUSSELS — The EU’s high command is calling on European governments to keep talking to China amid deepening tensions between Washington and Beijing. 

The European Union’s diplomatic arm wants member countries to “be prepared” for a potentially critical escalation in the crisis over Taiwan, warning that a military conflict would upend the vital supply of microchips to Europe. 

But while there’s a need to reduce risks to Europe, it may not seal itself off from China, according to an internal document drafted by the European External Action Service and seen by POLITICO. 

The document, which will be discussed by the bloc’s foreign ministers at a gathering in Stockholm on Friday, comes at a crucial time for the EU as it navigates an increasingly complex relationship with China. The U.S. is doubling down on its hawkish stance toward Beijing, while European leaders have not yet agreed on a unified approach.  ‘terrorist group’

The paper triggered immediate backlash from some of Europe’s more hawkish governments. “With all possible alarm lights flashing, we seem to prefer hitting a snooze button again,” one senior EU diplomat said on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive issues.

In the document, prepared by the EU executive’s diplomatic officials, the bloc’s 27 member countries are urged to seize “a window of opportunity” to reduce the risk of China’s growing influence over economic and security matters. 

A chance remains for Europe to speak directly to President Xi Jinping’s government, the paper says. “China and Europe cannot become more foreign to each other. Otherwise there is a risk that misunderstandings will grow and spread to other areas,” according to the draft. 

“Systemic rivalry may feature in almost all areas of engagement. But this must not deter the EU from maintaining open channels of communication and seeking constructive cooperation with China […] Such cooperation can serve to break through a growing self-induced isolation of the Chinese leadership but most importantly should advance the EU’s core interests,” the paper continued.

Friday’s debate at an informal meeting of foreign ministers in Sweden will fire the starting gun on a discussion over the EU’s relationship with China that is expected to dominate policymaking in the coming months, with a more comprehensive debate expected at an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels this June. 

De-risking Beijing

The paper calls on member countries to speed up plans for “de-risking” and reducing overdependence on China. 

“De-risking can ensure predictability and transparency in our economic and trade relations, while promoting a secure, rules-based approach,” the paper says. 

The call for de-risking comes as Beijing appears increasingly impatient with the narrative that it poses a threat to the West. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, speaking in Berlin this week, criticized European politicians for attempting to “get rid of China” in the name of de-risking. 

The paper also tackles the politically sensitive issue of Taiwan, with ministers due to discuss this issue as well on Friday. French President Emmanuel Macron told POLITICO in an interview last month that Europe should avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own. 

On Taiwan, the paper says: “The EU is […] adamant that any unilateral change of the status quo and use of force could have massive economic, political and security consequences, at global level, especially considering Taiwan’s primary role as supplier of the most advanced semiconductors.” 

The document continues: “The EU needs to be prepared for scenarios in which tensions increase significantly. The risk of escalation in the Taiwan Strait clearly shows the necessity to work with partners to deter the erosion of the status quo in the interest of all.”

Some 90 percent of advanced semiconductors imported into the EU come from Taiwan, according to the bloc’s own estimates.

Taiwan’s semiconductor giant TSMC has been under pressure to relocate some of its manufacturing capabilities, but so far it has only moved in the direction of Taiwan’s two presumed security providers — the U.S. and Japan.  

On Ukraine, the EU is not impressed with China’s latest diplomatic show, marked by President Xi Jinping’s belated first call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“China’s ’12-point position paper on the Ukraine Crisis’ […] confirms its firmly pro-Russian stance,” the document said. “Direct dialogue between China and Ukraine would be the best opportunity for China to contribute to a fair political settlement,” it continued.

EU member countries should keep warning Beijing to refrain from supporting Russia, including by circumventing sanctions, the same paper added.

The paper also casts gloom on the outlook for China’s domestic development, saying the Asian superpower “is likely to face unprecedented economic and political challenges internally” due to the deceleration of economic growth and demographic change. 

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Photo/ Editing by Germán & Co by Shutterstock

OPEC’s Output Slipped in April Ahead of Saudi-Led Production Cuts

Oil prices have tumbled in recent weeks over concerns about the health of U.S. banks

WSJ By Will Horner,  May 11, 2023

Supply disruptions in Iraq and Nigeria caused OPEC to pump less oil in April, further straining an already tight oil market as some of the group’s largest producers are set to slash output sharply within weeks. 

The declines come as the Vienna-based oil producers’ group left its forecasts for global oil demand and supply unchanged, meaning it continues to foresee stronger demand later this year which the oil market could struggle to satisfy—raising the threat of higher oil prices. 

In its monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said its production fell by 191,000 barrels a day in April to 28.60 million barrels a day due to production problems in Nigeria and a legal dispute in Iraq. 

Iraq’s production fell by 203,000 barrels a day in April from the previous month, OPEC said, citing data collated from several independent data providers such as S&P Global Platts and Argus Media. Nigeria’s output slipped by 170,000 barrels a day. Together the declines outweighed a modest increase in output in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Iraq’s output has slipped because a pipeline linking its oil-rich semiautonomous Kurdish region with an export terminal on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast has been closed for over a month amid a legal dispute involving Baghdad, the Kurds and Turkey. Talks to resolve the issue have shown signs of progress but flows through the pipeline are yet to resume. 

The declines come as the oil producers’ cartel, which has consistently struggled to meet its own production targets, plans to further reduce its production levels. A group of the cartel’s largest members, including Saudi Arabia—its de facto leader—said last month they plan to reduce output by over 1 million barrels a day starting in May. 

That move has puzzled analysts, who broadly see a need for more barrels of oil this year, not fewer, to meet demand from growing economies in Asia, in particular, China. OPEC’s own forecasts, which it left unchanged in Thursday’s report, also foresee growing demand this year to the tune of 2.3 million barrels a day.  

Russia, meanwhile, which is allied with OPEC in a grouping known as OPEC+, appears to have maintained its output despite saying earlier this year that it would reduce its output by 500,000 barrels a day. As part of the Saudi-led action, Moscow said it would extend those cuts until the end of the year.

Despite initially rising following those cuts, oil prices have tumbled in recent weeks over concerns about the health of U.S. banks heightening fears of a recession that would crimp demand for crude. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, earlier this month hit its lowest level since December 2021. It fell 1.9% to close Thursday at $74.98 a barrel. The main U.S. oil price shed $1.69 to end at $70.87. 

The declines have added to analysts’ expectations that OPEC+ could use a meeting early next month to recommend reducing its collective output further in an effort to prevent further falls in oil prices. OPEC says it makes changes to output based on demand forecasts and doesn’t seek to direct oil prices.

“OPEC+ hasn’t really even started cutting yet,” said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB, in a note. “OPEC+ has lots of ‘dry powder’ for further cuts if needed.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image by Germán & Co/Shutterstock

The West Needs Russia to Power Its Nuclear Comeback

U.S., Europe add reactors but still heavily dependent on Moscow for crucial ingredients to produce fuel

WSJ by Jennifer Hiller, Daniel Michaels, and Kim Mackrael, May 10, 2023

Nuclear power in the West is having a long-awaited revival, with new reactors opening in the U.S. and Europe and fresh momentum toward building more soon.

A gaping hole in the plan: The West doesn’t have enough nuclear fuel—and lacks the capacity to swiftly ramp up production. Even more vexing, the biggest source of critical ingredients is Russia and its state monopoly, Rosatom, which is implicated in supporting the war in Ukraine.

Nuclear power supplies nearly 20% of U.S. electricity, and roughly 25% of European electricity, but in recent decades has struggled to gain traction in most of the West as a green alternative to fossil fuels, for reasons ranging from cost to waste disposal and an erosion of expertise in building reactors.

Pockets of stiff resistance remain: Germany closed its last reactors in April, in a phaseout that began more than a decade ago.

But there are signs of a shift back in nuclear power’s direction, as governments are drawn to its carbon-free electricity as a tool for fighting climate change and lessening dependence on Russian oil and gas.

In the U.S., after years of delays and billions in cost overruns, a nuclear reactor in Georgia in March began splitting atoms for the first time, a crucial step toward reaching commercial operation. Another reactor at the facility, owned by a unit of Atlanta-based Southern, is scheduled to be operational next year. 

Finland last month started regular electricity output at Europe’s largest nuclear reactor, the continent’s first to open in 16 years, which will eventually produce one-third of the country’s electricity. 

Poland in November chose the U.S. company Westinghouse Electric to build its first nuclear-power plant, which will include three reactors and cost about $20 billion.

A recent Gallup poll found that Americans are more supportive of the technology than at any point in the past decade.

Westinghouse, a storied pioneer of electric power, has struggled in the nuclear sector and repeatedly changed hands amid market swings and tighter industry regulation after the reactor accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

A group including private-equity firm Brookfield Asset Management bought Westinghouse for almost $8 billion in October, in a move billed as a bet on nuclear power’s resurgence.

Finland has begun regular electricity production at Europe’s largest nuclear reactor. PHOTO: OLIVIER MORIN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Editing by Germán & Co

Westinghouse said this month that it next plans to launch a line of smaller reactors that could cost as little as $1 billion each.

Westinghouse Chief Executive Patrick Fragman said there is a growing public acceptance of nuclear power and that the company has corrected previous mistakes. “We are in a radically different place and we have taken a lot of the lessons of the past,” he said in an interview.

Despite the industry’s progress, the dependence on Russian enriched uranium for nuclear fuel has proven intractable. 

Nuclear fuel is one of the few Russian energy sources not banned by the West as a result of the war in Ukraine. The reason is rooted in a program from the early 1990s, soon after the Cold War ended, aimed at shrinking the threat of Soviet nuclear warheads falling into the wrong hands.

Under the 1993 deal, the brainchild of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher named Thomas Neff and dubbed Megatons to Megawatts, the U.S. bought 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium, enough for 20,000 warheads, and had it converted into reactor fuel. 

A nuclear reactor in Georgia started to split atoms in March after years of delays and billions in cost overruns. PHOTO: JOHN BAZEMORE/ASSOCIATED PRESS/Editing by Germán 

Arms-control advocates hailed it as a win-win: Moscow got urgently needed cash, Washington reduced its proliferation headache and U.S. utilities got inexpensive fuel. It remains one of the world’s most successful nuclear-disarmament programs.

The deal “did what was promised,” Dr. Neff said in an interview. “We have many fewer nuclear weapons and stuff to make them out of than we did.”

The problem, critics said, was that the deal delivered Russian nuclear fuel so cheaply that rival suppliers struggled to compete. Before long, U.S. and European companies were scaling back and Russia was the world’s biggest supplier of enriched uranium, with nearly half of global capacity.

Before the deal ended in 2013, Russian suppliers, now organized as Rosatom, signed a new contract with the U.S. private sector to provide commercial fuel beyond the government-to-government program. Rosatom still supplies as much as one-fourth of U.S. nuclear fuel.

U.S. companies collectively sent almost $1 billion last year to Rosatom, according to a recent analysis from Darya Dolzikova at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Russia has seized Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant, the largest in Europe. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Editing by Germán & Co

“That’s money that’s going right into the defense complex in Russia,” said Scott Melbye, executive vice president of uranium miner Uranium Energy and president of the Uranium Producers of America, an industry group. “We’re funding both sides of the war.”

Rosatom was formed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2007 from various parts of the country’s nuclear-power industry and is closely controlled by the Kremlin. Its top managers have been deeply involved in running Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant, Europe’s largest, which Russia seized last year and has used as a base for attacks on territory controlled by Kyiv.

Pressure is growing to expand Western uranium-enrichment capacity, not only because a big part of the U.S. economy relies on Russian fuel. A proposed new generation of reactors, which proponents and investors including Microsoft founder Bill Gates are touting as less risky and more environmentally friendly than current reactor designs, requires a special type of fuel that is the nuclear equivalent of high-octane gasoline.

The only source of that fuel today is Rosatom.

“We need fuel to turn our reactor on,” said Jeff Navin, director of external affairs at TerraPower, the Gates-backed company that plans to build its first reactor in Wyoming. He said the U.S. is paying the price for its yearslong unwillingness to build a domestic supply chain for nuclear fuel. “Our options are either build it out now, or hope for some magical solution emerging in another country,” Mr. Navin said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting last year with Alexey Likhachev, CEO of state-run nuclear company Rosatom. PHOTO: MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Editing by Germán 6 Co

The multinational Urenco owns one of only two uranium-processing facilities in the U.S., in Eunice, N.M., just across the Texas border. The company says it is spending roughly $200 million on new capacity and can invest much more if Russian uranium is sanctioned.

The catch: It wants government guarantees on quantities allowed in the market.

How do you see nuclear power fitting into the West’s energy future? Join the conversation below.

Urenco’s fear, said Kirk Schnoebelen, head of U.S. sales, is that in several years low-price Russian enriched uranium might swamp world markets, tanking prices.

Mr. Schnoebelen said the concern is born of history. Urenco in the 1990s began planning what was to be the first new uranium-enrichment plant in the U.S. in decades.

But because of the Megatons deal, “the business case for that project was utterly destroyed,” he said. Today that history “absolutely” informs the U.S. nuclear industry’s thinking and makes corporate boards reluctant to invest the necessary billions, he added.

Cylinders of Russian uranium were loaded on a truck in Dunkirk, France, earlier this year. PHOTO: SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Editing by Germán & Co

A bipartisan group in Congress is now pushing legislation to ban U.S. use of Russian uranium, build a national uranium reserve, boost domestic ability to refine uranium into fuel and add uranium to the country’s critical minerals list.

“When the Ukraine war is over, it is not going to be over,” said Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, a Republican and co-author of the legislation. “It’s going to take generations before there’s any trust again in the Russians.” 

Westinghouse’s Mr. Fragman said the legislation is long overdue.

“Governments need to keep an eye on what is going on in the nuclear industry,” he said. “At some point when a certain number of Western facilities shut down there should have been an alarm bell.”

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Image: Germán & Co by Shutterstock

Henry Kissinger's Shifting Views on Ukraine

Kissinger, a key figure in U.S. Cold War policy towards the Soviet Union during his time under Presidents Nixon and Ford, has always maintained that Ukraine should maintain neutrality and refrain from joining NATO. However, he recently stated at the Davos conference that if Russia were to invade, Ukraine joining the Transatlantic Alliance could be a viable solution.

NEWSWEEK BY JACK DUTTON ON 1/18/23

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He can find no leader who excites him, with the possible exception of France’s Emmanuel Macron. “I can’t yet say he’s effective because he’s just started but I like his style,” says Kissinger. “Among other European statesmen, Angela Merkel is very local. I like her personally and I respect her but she’s not a transcendent figure.”

www.henryakissinger.com/interviews/lunch-ft-henry-kissinger/

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"I don't think Putin is a Hitler-like character," Kissinger replies. "He comes out of Dostoevsky."

Portofalio magazine interview of Mr. Henry Kissinger in the French restaurant Jubilee in downtown Manhattan in New York on July 27, 2018 

energycentral.com/c/gn/riddle-non-nord-stream-return

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Former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger's stance on Ukraine has changed over the years, including on whether the country should become a NATO member.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, the 99-year-old Kissinger said: "Before this war, I was opposed to membership of Ukraine in NATO because I feared that it would start exactly the process that we have seen now.

"The idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful."

Kissinger, who was instrumental to U.S. Cold War policy toward the Soviet Union when he served under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, has long said Ukraine should remain neutral and not join NATO. Despite this, he said at Davos that the country joining the Transatlantic alliance could be an "appropriate outcome" of Russia's invasion.

He said that dialogue must be kept open between Russia and other countries even as the war rages on in Ukraine.

Kissinger said that Ukraine should recapture territory that has been annexed by Russia while holding negotiations to end the war, which has been going for nearly 11 months.

He said that a diplomatic process could help Russia "re-evaluate its historic position, which was an amalgam of an attraction to the culture of Europe and a fear of domination by Europe."

"Each side needs to consider for itself how the threat to human survival of the destructiveness of weapons, coupled with making them almost conscious in their application, can be dealt with," he said.

But for months before Davos, Kissinger has advocated for a ceasefire that would see Ukraine accept some of the annexed territory as Russian land.

Last May, he suggested a ceasefire that would see Russia withdraw to what the frontlines were before the February invasion, but the status of Crimea would be the subject of "negotiation." But Ukrainian President Volodymr has repeatedly said that all annexed territory, including Crimea, would have to be returned to his country if there is to be peace with Russia.

In 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea, Kissinger said that Ukraine should be neutral.

'If Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other—it should function as a bridge between them,' he wrote in a Washington Post column.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the threat of Ukraine joining NATO was one of the reasons he launched the invasion last February 24.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has said that it was up to Ukraine as to whether it should join NATO. But there has been little support for Ukraine joining the alliance as other members were concerned of guaranteeing mutual security to a country that has been at war with Russia since 2014 over the eastern Crimean Peninsula.

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News round-up, May 11, 2023

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Quote of the day…

Aristotle says that character virtue is acquired by habituation (1103a14–18), and that virtuous people perform virtuous acts not only from good dispositions of action and passion, but also with the appropriate sort of knowledge, and the appropriate motivation (1105a31–33). Habituation can provide good habits of action and passion. Most commentators supplement Aristotle’s explicit statements by telling a story about how learners gain the relevant knowledge. But how, according to Aristotle, do learners come to be well-motivated? How do they come to choose acts for their own sake, or (equivalently, according to Jimenez) for the love of the noble (kalon)?

Marta Jimenez, Aristotle on Shame and Learning to Be Good, Oxford University Press, 2020

What a shame! What a shame!

…”Ex-German chancellor criticised for attending event at Russian embassy

Bild publishes leaked photos showing Gerhard Schröder with his wife and others at Victory Day reception in Berlin

THE GUARDIAN by Kate Connolly in Berlin, Thu 11 May 2023 

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Most read…

E.P.A. Proposes First Limits on Climate Pollution From Existing Power Plants

It’s the last in a string of major regulations proposed by the Biden administration to sharply cut the greenhouse gases produced by the United States.

NYT By Coral Davenport, Reporting from Washington, May 11, 2023

Gazprom mercenary claims turn up heat on EU gas buyers

There are growing reports that the gas giant is financing private militias fighting in Ukraineis , but the EU is unlikely to crack down on the company.

POLITICO BY VICTOR JACK AND GABRIEL GAVIN, MAY 8, 2023

Exclusive: Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Is Giving a Once Pacifist Japan a More Assertive Role on the Global Stage

When U.S. President George H.W. Bush became ill during a luncheon in 1992, puking onto Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's lap before falling out, the bad energy spread across the Pacific. Despite a supposedly successful exorcism by Shinto priests, a connection with demonic spirits was established. The house remained abandoned for nine years until Prime Minister Fumio Kishida moved in shortly after taking office in October 2021.

TIME BY CHARLIE CAMPBELL / TOKYO, MAY 9, 2023 9:00 PM EDT

A Supreme Court Ruling the Fossil-Fuel Industry Doesn’t Like

Communities can now sue in state courts for compensation for the costs of climate change—something oil companies have fought against for years.

THE NEW YORKER By Bill McKibben, May 10, 2023

Ex-German chancellor criticised for attending event at Russian embassy

Bild publishes leaked photos showing Gerhard Schröder with his wife and others at Victory Day reception in Berlin

THE GUARDIAN by Kate Connolly in Berlin, Thu 11 May 2023 

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Source: Media/Editing by Germán & Co

E.P.A. Proposes First Limits on Climate Pollution From Existing Power Plants

It’s the last in a string of major regulations proposed by the Biden administration to sharply cut the greenhouse gases produced by the United States.

NYT By Coral Davenport, Reporting from Washington, May 11, 2023

The Biden administration on Thursday will announce the first regulations to limit greenhouse pollution from existing power plants, capping an unparalleled string of climate policies that, taken together, could substantially reduce the nation’s contribution to global warming.

The proposals are designed to effectively eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s electricity sector by 2040.

The regulations governing power plants come on the heels of other Biden administration plans to cut tailpipe emissions by speeding up the country’s transition to electric vehicles, to curb methane leaks from oil and gas wells and to phase down the use of a planet-warming chemical in refrigerants. Together with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which is pouring more than $370 billion into clean energy programs, the actions would catapult the United States to the forefront of the fight to constrain global warming.

“We are in the decisive decade for climate action, and the president’s been clear about his goals in this space, and we will meet them,” Mr. Biden’s senior climate adviser, Ali Zaidi, said in a telephone call with reporters on Wednesday.

The government is not mandating the use of equipment to capture carbon emissions before they leave the smokestack, a nascent and expensive technology. Rather, it is setting caps on pollution rates, which power plant operators would have to meet. They could do that by using a different technology or, in the case of gas plants, switching to a fuel source like green hydrogen, which does not emit carbon.

The nation’s 3,400 coal- and gas-fired power plants currently generate about 25 percent of greenhouse gases produced by the United States, pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

The plan is sure to face opposition from the fossil fuel industry, power plant operators and their allies in Congress. It is likely to draw an immediate legal challenge from a group of Republican attorneys general that has already sued the Biden administration to stop other climate policies. A future administration could also weaken the regulation.

“This proposal will further strain America’s electric grid and undermine decades of work to reliably keep the lights on across the nation,” said Jim Matheson, president of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which operates power plants serving the nation’s least developed communities.

Senator Joe Manchin III, the West Virginia Democrat who has long fought any threat to his home state’s coal industry, said Wednesday that he would oppose all of Mr. Biden’s nominees to the E.P.A. unless the administration dropped the regulation — a threat that carries teeth in the narrowly divided Senate.

“This administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made it clear they are hellbent on doing everything in their power to regulate coal- and gas-fueled power plants out of existence, no matter the cost to energy security and reliability,” said Mr. Manchin, who has earned millions from his family’s coal business. Mr. Manchin faces a potentially difficult re-election campaign next year that could pit him against Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican who has announced he will run for the Senate in 2024. West Virginia has increasingly shifted to the right; voters there backed Donald J. Trump over Mr. Biden by 39 points in 2020.

The Biden Administration’s Environmental Agenda

• A Toxic Chemical Zone: As the Biden administration moves to curb health threats caused by toxic chemicals, the debate is hitting home for families living near petrochemical plants.

• Climate Tax Breaks: President Biden’s signature climate law appears to be encouraging more investment in American manufacturing than initially expected. But all that new economic activity is also driving up costs for taxpayers, who are subsidizing the green technology boom.

• Greenhouse Gases: Will the president’s plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants work? Its success could depend on the use of carbon capture technology.

• Protecting the Amazon: Biden pledged $500 million to fight deforestation in Brazil and more than $1 billion to help developing countries transition away from fossil fuels.

Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, which drafted the regulations, plans to announce them in a speech on the campus of the University of Maryland on Thursday. E.P.A. officials chose the university setting to appeal to youth climate activists who they hope will help turn out the vote for Mr. Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign.

Many of those activists have been criticizing Mr. Biden after his decision in March to approve an enormous oil drilling project on pristine federal land in Alaska, known as Willow. They view the president’s actions as a betrayal of his 2020 campaign promise to halt new oil and gas drilling on public land.

The White House argues that the collective impact of Mr. Biden’s climate regulations and legislation, in terms of reduced emissions, outweighs any environmental damage that would be caused by the Willow project.

Burning oil drilled at the Willow site would emit an estimated 280 million tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide, according to the White House. The new rules on power plants would lower emissions by 617 million tons between 2028 and 2042, according to the E.P.A. Adding the other proposed E.P.A. regulations would bring the total amount of eliminated emissions to 15 billion tons by 2055 — roughly the amount of pollution generated by the entire United States economy over three years. Several analyses have projected that the Inflation Reduction Act will cut emissions by at least another billion tons by 2030.

That could put the nation on track to meet Mr. Biden’s pledge that the United States would cut its greenhouse gases in half by 2030 and stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere altogether by 2050, although analysts point out that more policies will need to be enacted to reach the latter target.

That is the action required of all major industrialized countries, scientists say, to keep average global temperatures from increasing by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with preindustrial levels. Beyond that point, the effects of catastrophic heat waves, flooding, drought, crop failure and species extinction would become significantly harder for humanity to handle. The planet has already warmed by an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius.

“Each of these several regulations from the E.P.A. are contributing to the whole picture that is necessary to steer this ocean liner away from the worst climate disaster,” said Dallas Burtraw, an economist with Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan research organization that focuses on energy and environmental policy.

E.P.A. officials say the proposed regulations are designed to offer flexibility to industry and ensure that the lights remain on and that electricity bills will not soar. For example, coal plants that are already scheduled to retire before 2032 may not have to install new pollution controls like carbon capture technology. About a quarter of operating coal-fired power plants are already scheduled to retire by 2029, according to the Energy Information Administration.

While the proposed rules would increase costs for power plant operators, the E.P.A. estimates that limiting pollution from smokestacks would produce a net economic benefit of up to $85 billion by 2042 through improved public health from lower levels of soot and sulfur dioxide, which also spew from coal-fired power plants.

By 2030, the proposed standards would prevent about 1,300 premature deaths, more than 800 hospital and emergency room visits, more than 300,000 cases of asthma attacks, 38,000 school absences and 66,000 lost workdays, according to the E.P.A.

In some ways, the E.P.A. regulation is designed to speed up changes that are already underway in the energy industry.

Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is in decline — no new coal plants have been built in the United States in the last decade. In the same time frame, the cost of wind and solar power has plummeted, and electricity generation from wind turbines and solar panels has more than tripled. Wind now generates more than 10 percent of the nation’s electricity, and solar power now generates about 3 percent and is growing fast. As a result, planet-warming pollution from power plant smokestacks has dropped by about a 25 percent in the last decade, absent any direct regulation.

In recent years, many large electric utilities have announced targets to stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2045 or 2050.

“Our emissions continue to go down as a sector, and we predict that will continue to happen regardless of the rule,” said Emily Fisher, executive vice president of clean energy and general counsel at the Edison Electric Institute, an organization that lobbies on behalf of investor-owned electric utilities.

Lawyers and lobbyists with the Edison Electric Institute have met with E.P.A. officials at least two dozen times over the past two years to discuss the climate rule and other power plant regulations.

But some lobbyists say that despite that input, the new rules will push the industry to do more than it can achieve.

“There is a lot of consternation that those targets are as fast as they can go,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a lawyer who represents fossil fuel companies and electric utilities with the firm Bracewell L.L.P. “They didn’t just come up with those targets on the back of an envelope. If the idea is to go significantly faster than that, then companies are going to have real concerns.”

Lissa Lynch, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, said that electric utilities had complained about new clean air regulations for decades but had ultimately managed to comply. “The industry always claims they are impossible to meet, cost too much money, threaten reliability and the economy,” she said of the regulations. “Ultimately they go on to innovate and comply, often well in advance of the deadlines that are set.”

Nearly a decade ago, Mr. Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, tried to regulate emissions from power plants. His administration wrote broad and ambitious rules that were designed to replace coal-fired plants with wind farms and solar panels.

That policy was never implemented. It was first blocked by the Supreme Court and later rolled back by President Donald J. Trump.

Last summer, the Supreme Court confirmed that the E.P.A. had the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, but in a limited way.

Biden administration officials involved with the new power plant rule — many of whom worked on the defunct Obama rule — have sought to ensure that this time, it will stand up to scrutiny.

“In light of what the Supreme Court ruled, they’re not swinging for a home run,” said Richard Lazarus, an environmental law professor at Harvard Law School. “They’re swinging for a hit.”

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GERMÁN & CO/POLITICO: A Russian serviceman patrols on the promenade in Berdyansk in June 2022 | Yuri Kadobnov/AF

Gazprom mercenary claims turn up heat on EU gas buyers

There are growing reports that the gas giant is financing private militias fighting in Ukraineis , but the EU is unlikely to crack down on the company.

POLITICO BY VICTOR JACK AND GABRIEL GAVIN, MAY 8, 2023

BRUSSELS — Russian gas exporter Gazprom is set to escape this week's EU 11th sanctions package, despite increasing proof it is financing mercenaries fighting in Ukraine.

“I don't think it's a matter of evidence, but of political will,” said an EU national diplomat, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about internal country dynamics. 

The claims Gazprom is directly involved in Russia's invasion of Ukraine have been coming thick and fast.

A series of reports and videos supposedly from fighters on the front lines indicate Gazprom's internal security personnel have formed into volunteer units — the most prominent of which is called Potok, or “stream,” the same name that figures in Gazprom's now-defunct Nord Stream pipelines running under the Baltic Sea.

Potok is reportedly supplied and equipped by Gazprom, although details of how it operates and just how many men it might have are shrouded in secrecy.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, who runs the infamous Wagner mercenary group, claimed on social media last month to have spoken to several recruits from Potok.

Ukrainian intelligence made similar claims in February, alleging a Gazprom subsidiary had set up its own private military unit.

Gazprom didn't respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.

Cutting ties

The Ukrainian government said such reports should prompt Western companies to cut ties with the Russian gas giant.

“This certainly puts Gazprom beyond purely commercial activities and makes it an accomplice to war crimes in Ukraine,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko told POLITICO.

“Now they have reached a new level of being an outright participant in criminally punishable acts,” he said, adding that a “company whose money pays for war crimes and murders cannot be a participant in a civilized market.”

Some EU capitals agree.

“Such facts should only stimulate further discussion … on how we can distance ourselves as much as possible from Gazprom,” one Lithuanian diplomat said.

But that's unlikely to mean a change in EU policy toward Gazprom.

While the bloc has introduced a near-total ban on imports of Moscow’s oil, coal and refined products, natural gas and Gazprom have been spared.

Before the war, Gazprom supplied about 45 percent of the EU's gas imports; that dropped to about 7 percent as of the end of April, according to the Bruegel think tank. Much of that is due to Russia limiting flows and the shut-down of the Nord Stream pipeline, but several EU countries — most prominently Hungary, but also including Austria and Slovakia — still receive some pipeline gas from Gazprom.

Greece's DEPA and Italy's Eni also have ongoing contracts with Gazprom, according to Aura Sabadus, a senior analyst at the ICIS market intelligence firm.

Because EU sanctions are decided unanimously, there's not much chance of finding consensus on punishing Gazprom. In contrast, both the U.S. and the U.K. have imposed sanctions against Gazprom chief Alexey Miller.

From the Commission's point of view, “The risk is that unanimity will not be there in Council, because at least one country, but not only one, has not fully diversified away from Russian gas,” said a senior Commission official, who requested anonymity as they were not permitted to speak publicly.

The claims Gazprom is financing mercenaries fighting in Ukraine have been coming thick and fast | Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images

The reports of Gazprom militias in Ukraine aren't enough to change those views, said diplomats from two EU countries briefed on sanctions discussions.

“While this might increase pressure on some of the holdouts slightly, I don't think it'll convince the real opponents of these sanctions,” said the first national diplomat.

Austria's foreign ministry said there was “no independently verified information” on the existence of Potok but that Vienna was doing “everything possible to further reduce gas dependency.”

A Slovak diplomat said Gazprom sanctions are “not on the table” but “if that happens, we are ready to deal with it seriously.”

That means “the pressure for now is more on [EU countries] taking voluntary commitments,” the senior Commission official said.

Blood and gas

Although details remain scarce on Gazprom’s mercenary unit, the existence of its own armed force is no surprise, experts say.

The company “has for years had its own private security force to guard energy installations and provide security,” said Tracey German, professor of conflict and security at King’s College London. She believes private mercenary groups are being used to fill gaps in the Russian armed forces and also to shroud the true number of casualties incurred in the invasion.

It’s likely Gazprom's forces are well-equipped and have experience in a security service or the military, but "they obviously don’t have the manpower of Wagner," said Konrad Muzyka, a defense analyst at Rochan Consulting.

“These more niche [mercenary groups] are likely to be better trained and the quality of soldiers is likely to be better,” he said, adding they’re probably “tasked with guarding energy infrastructure and their combat operations are better planned … to avoid the kind of losses Wagner has incurred.”

Groups like Potok afford a “very significant source of flexibility” for the Kremlin to achieve its goals in an opaque way outside the law, said Adnan Vatansever, a senior lecturer and Russia energy expert at King's College London.

It’s also a “very desirable scenario” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, who likes to foster competition between elites to stop one group like Wagner becoming dominant and challenging him.

“Gazprom has been a very central player in that power competition,” Vatansever said. “In Russia, there is a saying: ‘Whoever controls Gazprom controls the country.’” 

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Photograph by Ko Tsuchiya for TIME TIME

Exclusive: Prime Minister Fumio Kishida Is Giving a Once Pacifist Japan a More Assertive Role on the Global Stage

When U.S. President George H.W. Bush became ill during a luncheon in 1992, puking onto Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's lap before falling out, the bad energy spread across the Pacific. Despite a supposedly successful exorcism by Shinto priests, a connection with demonic spirits was established. The house remained abandoned for nine years until Prime Minister Fumio Kishida moved in shortly after taking office in October 2021.

TIME BY CHARLIE CAMPBELL / TOKYO, MAY 9, 2023 9:00 PM EDT

The official residence of Japan’s Prime Minister is a spooky place. Inspired by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the stone and brick mansion in central Tokyo had been around for only three years when young naval officers charged in and assassinated Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai in 1932. Four years later, Prime Minister Keisuke Okada was forced to hide in a closet during another attempted coup d’état, which killed five and left bullet holes that still pepper the building’s Art Deco facade.

The bad energy became transpacific when, in 1992, U.S. President George H.W. Bush became ill during a banquet here, vomiting onto the lap of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa before passing out. Despite a reported exorcism by Shinto priests, an association with malevolent spirits was sealed, and the residence went unoccupied for nine years until Prime Minister Fumio Kishida moved in soon after taking power in October 2021.

“I have been warned by my predecessors that you will encounter ghosts in this building,” Kishida, 65, tells TIME in an exclusive interview inside the red-carpeted residence, gazing around at the expressionist wall motifs, which include at least one rather menacing concrete gargoyle. “Of course, it is an old building, so I hear sounds from time to time. But fortunately, I have yet to encounter a ghost.”

Kishida is preoccupied by more earthly issues. In Japan, he has launched a “new model of capitalism” to grow the middle class through redistributive policies. Overseas, he has set about revolutionizing the East Asian nation’s foreign relations: soothing historical grievances with South Korea, strengthening security alliances with the U.S. and others, and boosting defense spending by over 50%. Buoyed by a White House eager for influential partners to check China’s growing clout, Kishida has set about turning the world’s No. 3 economy back into a global power with a military presence to match. 

But that’s not to say Kishida is untroubled by ghosts. His family hails from Japan’s southern city of Hiroshima, which he still represents as a lawmaker, and he lost several relatives to the atomic bomb dropped by the U.S. in 1945. His earliest memories include sitting on his grandmother’s knee in the beleaguered city and hearing horrific tales of local suffering. “The unspeakable devastation experienced by Hiroshima and its people was inscribed vividly in my memory,” he says. “This childhood experience has been a major driver of my pursuit … of a world without nuclear weapons.”

It’s to Hiroshima that Kishida welcomes leaders of the G7 from May 19 to 21, when he’ll hope to leverage the city’s tragic history to convince the world’s most powerful democracies that only collective resolve can face down the authoritarian threat of an increasingly belligerent Russia, China, and North Korea. Tokyo may be 5,000 miles from Kyiv, but the war in Ukraine has alerted Japan to a more perilous world, not least since Japan remains entangled in land and sea territorial disputes with Russia, and regularly sees North Korean ballistic missiles flying overhead. Even more worrisome for Japan has been China’s aggression against Taiwan, the self-ruling island that authoritarian President Xi Jinping has repeatedly vowed to bring to heel. When Beijing launched military drills last summer to protest U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei, five missiles fell into the waters of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone, through which Chinese naval vessels and aircraft regularly intrude.

Against this backdrop, Kishida in December unveiled Japan’s biggest military buildup since World War II, mirroring upticks in defense spending across Europe, including Germany, which like Japan was humbled by that war. The commitment would raise defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027, giving Japan the world’s third largest defense budget. And while previous Japanese leaders dithered over imposing international sanctions, Kishida has joined U.S.-led measures with alacrity.

It’s a transformation that had long been touted by Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who belonged to the same right-leaning Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and was assassinated during a campaign stop in July. But while Abe’s hawkish reputation was divisive, Kishida’s dovish persona has enabled him to enact security reform without significant pushback.

Still, Japan’s martial resurgence isn’t without controversy. The nation has a pacifist constitution, and critics say its military buildup pours fuel on an already combustive regional security picture. And given that China is Japan’s top trading partner, it’s unclear how Kishida can fund an ambitious domestic agenda while turning the screws on America’s superpower rival, which has proved all too willing to mete out economic retribution. More fundamentally, some believe that Japan’s rearmament chafes with Kishida’s longstanding pledges to work toward a nuclear-free world. The Prime Minister, for his part, says his only goal is to prevent tragedies like Hiroshima unfolding once again: “Today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia.”

Kishida’s tenure has already encountered drama that belies his reputation as a bland functionary. On April 15, Kishida narrowly avoided joining the ghosts stalking the Prime Minister’s residence when a homemade pipe bomb was hurled at him during a campaign speech, injuring a policeman. “I am living in the world of politics,” he shrugs when asked about the incident. “All sorts of events and developments could happen.”

When he took office 18 months ago, he was thought of as a steady but uninspiring politician, unscarred by scandal but lacking major accomplishments. His father and grandfather were both lawmakers, and he spent part of his childhood in the U.S., attending a public school in Queens. Classes were filled with children of myriad cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and Kishida says he found communication “very challenging.” But because of this, “I was reminded of the importance of listening carefully to the views of others,” he says. “As a child, I was inspired by what makes America the United States, which is respect for freedom and an abundance of energy.”

Kishida was an average student, failing his law school entrance exam three times. After cutting his teeth in banking, Kishida entered politics in 1993. He rose to various cabinet posts and was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2012, serving in the position for five years, a Japanese record. He forged a reputation as a consensus builder, coordinating policy in back rooms by deliberating with various factions. Aides say Kishida takes advice, but once his mind is made up, he doesn’t waver.

As Prime Minister, he’s proved himself a prodigious worker. Kishida has made a dizzying 16 overseas trips since taking office. The day after he sat down with TIME inside his official residence’s vaulted Great Hall, he departed for a four-nation tour of Africa. Aides say he’s barely managed to take any time for himself. “After the [parliamentary] session is over, if some time remains, I hope I will be able to play some golf,” he says with a grin.

But it has not all been smooth on the domestic front. Kishida’s approval ratings plummeted following a backlash to his decision to hold a state funeral for Abe, over both the expense and Abe’s polarizing character. Late last year, Kishida fired four cabinet ministers in two months over a variety of scandals. In February, he dismissed a close aide for saying “quite a few people would abandon this country” if same-sex marriage were legalized, despite a majority of the population’s supporting it. In response, Kishida tells TIME that he is committed to “realizing a society where diversity is respected.” Kishida’s approval rating has since picked up, and his LDP won key seats in local elections in April.

“He may not be an inspiring leader,” says Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Tokyo’s Temple University. “But he has proven to be fairly effective in terms of promoting his agenda.”

It’s an ambitious one. Japan has the world’s second most educated population and boasts its longest life expectancy, lowest murder rate, little unemployment, and unusually smooth political transitions. But it also has one of the world’s lowest birth rates, stagnated growth, and a severely aging population. In the late 1980s, Japanese people earned more than Americans. Now they earn 40% less on average. Kishida’s mission is to drag Japan back up. He has embarked on a sweeping modernization drive, recently green-lighting the nation’s first casino as well as a dedicated autonomous driving lane for the Shin-Tōmei Expressway, a key logistics artery.

Kishida’s domestic agenda rests on a nebulous “income-doubling plan” to boost household earnings, but his big problem is how to pay for redistribution without alienating the affluent. Japan’s ratio of public debt to GDP stands at 256%—about double that of the U.S.—and Kishida has little wiggle room to keep borrowing. When he floated the idea of raising taxes on stock transfers and dividends, Japan’s bourses tanked. “Mr. Kishida has to be pretty careful to keep key right-wing support,” says Mieko Nakabayashi, a professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University and a former Japanese lawmaker.

Kishida also wants to get more women and seniors into gainful employment. Japan ranked 116th among 146 countries—the lowest of developed economies—in the World Economic Forum’s 2022 gender-gap report. But while Kishida’s government has set targets to reach 30% female executives at big firms by 2030, “I don’t think it has clearly stated what kind of action plan it will actually take to achieve the goal,” says Makiko Ono, CEO of Suntory Beverages & Food, Japan’s most valuable company with a female boss.

Ultimately, Japan remains over 30% less productive than the U.S. Kishida has charged Japan’s Digital Agency to cut red tape and boost efficiency. Digital Minister Taro Kono tells TIME that he’s discovered 9,000 government regulations that still require handling via antiquated technology, such as faxes, floppy disks, and the hanko—an iconic carved stamp that is obligatory for many official documents.

But Kono has only 800 officials to serve Japan’s population of 125 million, complaining that his agency is “desperately understaffed.” It’s a monumental challenge; embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution is crucial for developed societies everywhere, though perhaps none more so than Japan, whose shrinking, aging population has “no precedent in the world,” says Kishida. “This is a matter of survival.”

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Photo/ Editing by Germán & Co by Shutterstock

A Supreme Court Ruling the Fossil-Fuel Industry Doesn’t Like

Communities can now sue in state courts for compensation for the costs of climate change—something oil companies have fought against for years.

THE NEW YORKER By Bill McKibben, May 10, 2023

It was Representative Pat Schroeder, the twelve-term Colorado Democrat, who—while frying eggs one morning—coined the term “Teflon President” for Ronald Reagan. “He sees to it that nothing sticks to him,” she said later, in Congress. Schroeder, who died in March, was the first woman to represent Colorado in the House and an advocate for the environment—she introduced the legislation to establish the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge—and she could have said the same about the fossil-fuel industry. Of all the powerful institutions that we’ve failed to hold to account, none is currently flying higher, despite the fact that the industry’s products have raised the temperature of the Earth to the point where scientists are in near-panic. ExxonMobil, coming off a year of record profits after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, continued to show record earnings in the first quarter of 2023; Chevron, too, reported first-quarter profits that more than doubled its average over the past decade. Asset-management giants such as BlackRock have boosted their stakes in the oil giants, despite the investment firms’ protestations of concern about the climate crisis. ConocoPhillips just won approval from the Biden Administration for a vast new drilling complex in Alaska; Exxon said in late April that it was moving ahead with a giant project off the coast of Guyana. And Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House, is threatening to wreck the world economy, by defaulting on America’s debt, unless, among other things, President Biden’s efforts to move us toward clean energy are repealed. The U.N. Secretary-General, António Guterres, told the industry, earlier this year, that “your core product is our core problem,” but his straight talk hasn’t accomplished much. For now, statements from men such as Exxon’s C.E.O., Darren Woods, hold sway. “We are growing value by increasing production from our advantaged assets to meet global demand,” Woods said, as the news of those robust profits was announced.

Yet last month saw an unexpected development, and it came in the Supreme Court: with only Brett Kavanaugh issuing a public dissent, the Justices declined to review a petition from Exxon and Suncor Energy to move a case from state to federal court. (Simultaneously, the Court denied the same appeal from other major oil companies in four more cases.) Three communities in Pat Schroeder’s state—the City of Boulder, Boulder County, and San Miguel County—had brought suit against the two corporations, seeking compensation for damage wrought there by a warming planet, which, the plaintiffs claim, was caused in part by the companies’ products. That procedural victory may not sound like much, but it could turn out to be a signal moment in the climate fight.

In September, 2015, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Web site Inside Climate News published the first installment of a nine-part series, “The Road Not Taken,” which drew on document archives and interviews with whistle-blowers to show that, as far back as the late nineteen-seventies, Exxon had known about what was then called the greenhouse effect. Company scientists had outfitted an oil tanker to study atmospheric carbon levels as it sailed the seas, and had used computer models to predict the effects of those levels. A corporate primer prepared in 1982—which, according to the contents, was “given wide circulation to Exxon management”—stated that heading off global warming “would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion.” Without those reductions, “there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered,” the primer states, citing independent experts, and “once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible.” But Exxon didn’t tell the public; instead, as Inside Climate News reported, after the nasa scientist James Hansen had testified before Congress about the dangers of climate change, in 1988—at a hearing called by Senator Timothy Wirth, of Colorado—and public concern began to rise,

Exxon helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition, an alliance of some of the world’s largest companies seeking to halt government efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions. Exxon used the American Petroleum Institute, right-wing think tanks, campaign contributions and its own lobbying to push a narrative that climate science was too uncertain to necessitate cuts in fossil fuel emissions.

Exxon, we now know, was far from alone—within the energy and utility industries there was widespread understanding that their products were doing damage. For instance, last month a Dutch climate activist released Shell records from the nineteen-seventies and eighties, including a 1989 document in which the company’s experts predicted that, if temperature increases went well beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (which is precisely the path on which we are currently travelling), the results would be dire:

Perhaps those in industrial countries could cope with a rise in sea level (the Dutch example) but for poor countries such defences are not possible. The potential refugee problem .&nbsp.&nbsp. could be unprecedented. Africans would push into Europe, Chinese into the Soviet Union, Latins into the United States, Indonesians into Australia. Boundaries would count for little—overwhelmed by the numbers. Conflicts would abound. Civilisation could prove a fragile thing.

(A Shell spokesperson told The New Yorker, in an e-mail, “The Shell Group did not have unique knowledge about climate change. The issue of climate change and how to tackle it has long been part of public discussion and scientific research that has evolved over many decades.” The spokesperson added, “We’ve been advocating for a CO2 trading system for 30 years and, in 1997, publicly supported the Kyoto Protocol.”)

But the impact of Inside Climate News’ 2015 reports and others can hardly be overstated. Worried that the evidence would just disappear into the news cycle, I went to a Mobil station in Burlington, the biggest city in Vermont, where I live, and sat in front of a pump with a sign alerting people to the stories; I blocked business for a few minutes, until I was arrested. A few months later, I paid a fine of a couple hundred dollars, which may have been the only legal repercussion so far of those revelations. After last month’s Supreme Court ruling, however, it likely won’t be the last.

With the new evidence in hand, cities and states around the country began filing lawsuits against oil companies. Some argued simply that the taxpayers in their constituencies should not have to solely bear the cost of damages caused by global warming; others argued that the companies were guilty of consumer fraud or false advertising for insisting that their products were safe; some combined those arguments. The plaintiffs in Colorado are asking that the companies be ordered to compensate them for some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that the communities have spent and will spend trying to mitigate the effects of climate change in the area: Exxon produces a lot of oil and natural gas from Colorado reserves; Suncor, which is headquartered in Canada, operates a large refinery in Commerce City, near Denver. Moreover, the original complaint states that the defendants should help pay because they “knowingly and substantially contributed to the climate crisis by producing, promoting and selling a substantial portion of the fossil fuels that are causing and exacerbating climate change, while concealing and misrepresenting the dangers associated with their intended use.” An Exxon spokesman told The New Yorker, “Those who talk about how ‘Exxon Knew’ are wrong in their conclusions,” and insisted that the corporation’s “understanding of climate science has developed along with that of the broader scientific community.” He added that fighting the state suits will be a “waste of time” and won’t “do anything to meaningfully address climate change.” The plaintiffs note that Suncor may also have conducted independent research but that, in any event, the potential perils of global warming had been known inside the industry for decades. (Suncor did not respond to a request for comment.)

The industry responded to the lawsuits by retaining lawyers who have spent the past half decade arguing that the cases should not be heard in state courts but, instead, should be consigned to the federal judiciary system. Marco Simons, the nonprofit EarthRights International’s general counsel, who is representing the three Colorado communities, said that the companies “argued that any case involving essentially interstate environmental harm or interstate pollution has to be decided under federal law, and that, because climate change is inherently an interstate issue, only federal law can apply. And then they argued that, while only federal law can apply, federal law provides no remedy. Because, they said, federal law in this area is entirely governed by the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Air Act does not directly provide a remedy.” For the industry, a federal process was clearly more attractive—instead of dozens of different venues, they’d have a more manageable process, under one set of rules, that would end in an appeal to the Supreme Court, which lately has been very corporate-friendly.

Six federal appeals courts across the country had heard those arguments over the years, and all six rejected them. (Each appeal required empanelling a three-judge review team, and because one circuit heard multiple appeals before two panels of judges, and because one judge died before he could offer his opinion, the industry lost 20–0 in these forums. One panel consisted of three judges all appointed by President Donald Trump.) But the industry persisted, appealing to the Supreme Court. Cities and states, for their part, argued before the Court that these claims were precisely the kind that state courts are used to adjudicating, and that there was no compelling reason to shift jurisdiction. In October, the Court asked the Biden Administration to weigh in, through its Solicitor General, Elizabeth Barchas Prelogar. Her office reversed the advice given by her predecessor in the previous Administration, and recommended that state courts be allowed to hear the cases. Finally, last month, the Supreme Court agreed. (Though only Justice Kavanaugh publicly dissented, Justice Samuel Alito recused himself; he gave no reason, but reportedly, according to a disclosure filing, either he or his wife has holdings in oil stocks.)

Simons said, “The reason we won in every court is that it was a straightforward application of extremely long-standing rules.” But, he added, “if you take into consideration the fact that it involves some of the most powerful economic actors on claims arising out of climate change, with many of the top corporate law firms begging the Supreme Court to weigh in, you could at least see why the defendants were hoping the Supreme Court would have taken the case. From a strict legal analysis, the decision was not surprising, but from a legal realist power analysis, there were a lot of people who were worried.” As Sam Sankar, the senior vice-president for programs at the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, told me, “I clerked at the Supreme Court twenty years ago, and it would have been a no-brainer to turn this case down back then. But with this Court you never really know—it does previously unthinkable things surprisingly often.”

So now the cases can proceed in state courts. In at least one instance, the defendants had already filed arguments to dismiss, which were left pending while the Supreme Court made up its mind. But, assuming that cases survive dismissal motions, two things are likely to happen. One is that many more suits may be filed. Lee Wasserman, the director of the Rockefeller Family Fund, which has helped coördinate advocacy groups to hold oil companies accountable (among other things, it has funded 350.org, where I volunteered for many years), said, “The major law firms may have stayed away from these cases to date because they’re so speculative, but one such firm has taken on a big Puerto Rican case, and I think that’s a tell-tale of what we can anticipate in the months ahead.” Sankar told me, “I think there are a lot of plaintiffs’ lawyers who will say, ‘Can’t win if you don’t play.’ They’ll be telling cities, ‘If you don’t bring a suit, you may be missing out on something.’ ” EarthRights International’s Simons added that “there’s no reason injured private parties couldn’t join in. There’s already one case from a Pacific Coast fishermen’s association, arguing that the shellfish harvest has been harmed.” The other thing that is likely to happen is that discovery will begin, in case after case, with lawyers deposing executives and combing through records. “You saw in the Fox case how important that can be,” Sankar said. And, if one team of lawyers finds a significant document, it will quickly become common knowledge: “If Baltimore finds a smoking gun,” he noted, “the information is going to move.”

None of this means that the cases will be simple to prove. For one thing, events that happen in nature have multiple causes. And even when experts can attribute damage to a changed climate—a scientific field that is maturing rapidly—apportioning the blame to particular companies can be difficult. “You can certainly make a determination of how much carbon these companies are responsible for, but in our view that doesn’t completely define their responsibility,” Simons said. “Take Exxon as an example. They’re a participant in the market in many ways—producer, refiner, marketer, and seller. But we also believe that Exxon’s campaign of concealment and deception contributed to the problem. That’s much harder to put a number on, but an essential part of their responsibility and fault.” He added, “We’re not saying they’re a hundred-per-cent responsible, we’re just saying they’re not zero-per-cent responsible. How much is for a jury to decide.”

That’s provided that a jury gets the case. Although the lawsuits in Colorado, and those from other jurisdictions, are now back in state court, this doesn’t mean that federal law doesn’t apply—just as you can use the First Amendment to protect speech in a state court, oil-company lawyers can argue, for example, that the Clean Air Act should take precedence, and someday those arguments may wind up back before the Supreme Court. “This is not a decision that these claims are meritorious or even valid,” Sankar said, of last month’s ruling. “It’s a refusal to say they have to be heard in federal court.”

But assume that such cases do play out. Polling shows that “make polluters pay” is a popular argument that crosses partisan boundaries. And as Wasserman, of the Rockefeller Family Fund, said, “If, as a corporation, you’re found to have deceived the public, there are consequences.” Those consequences could conceivably lead to some kind of general settlement, as happened when a wave of lawsuits forced the tobacco industry not only to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to fund related health-care costs that states had to bear but also to support anti-smoking education programs and even to wind down the corporations’ lobbying front groups. But, Wasserman said, before companies might face that kind of financial peril, they would likely ask Congress to intervene, arguing that “this is the end of being able to pump gas into your car, that Congress has to come up with some kind of release for the industry.” He added that there are models Congress might draw on to wind down the industry, if such negotiations were ever to begin: “In World War Two, the government controlled industries and what they produced. Or think about investor-owned utilities: in the past, the government used to say how much energy they can produce, what their profits will be, what their dividends should be. We can do this—it’s not that complicated.”

Yet, before any pressure like that can build in Congress (or in the stock market), plaintiffs will need to win some cases. “The courts have been the one place where those seeking to right important wrongs and grievances have an equal shot against the most powerful actors in society,” Wasserman said. For example, in the middle of the twentieth century, the civil-rights movement was slowly building a “societal recognition that we needed to change our laws and customs,” and, as it did so, Thurgood Marshall filed case after case, winning most but not all of them. “Then finally, in 1954, came Brown v. Board of Education, and the world was different going forward,” Wasserman said. “The climate movement has suffered from not having a deep and robust litigation strategy, and I think we’re finally overcoming that.”

It’s fitting that the Boulder area is represented in the case the Supreme Court refused to move to federal court. The city’s mayor, Aaron Brockett, told me that the community has worked hard to lower its carbon emissions. (I reached him as he was waiting for a bus to take him thirty miles home from a conference in Denver.) “We’re working on natural climate solutions, our nearby power plant no longer burns coal, our hundred-per-cent renewable-electricity goal by 2030 looks very doable,” he said. And Boulder is home to both the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the noaa Earth System Research Laboratories—there are probably more top-level climate scientists per capita in the area than anywhere else in the world.

The Court’s ruling came almost five years to the day after the Colorado suit was filed. Brett Fleishman—a Boulder resident and longtime climate activist whom I’ve known and worked with for many years, and who now serves as the senior climate strategist for the county government—was at a 2018 rally announcing the suit, with his then three-year-old son, Sequoia, on his shoulders. The Times took a picture of them holding a sign that read “Exxon Suncor = Floods Fires less snow” (The lawsuit states that the E.P.A., among others, has noted that hotter temperatures and droughts, if not Exxon specifically, have increased the risk of forest fires.)

The three largest wildfires in the state’s history occurred in 2020. Then, on December 30, 2021—the day before the latest recorded date in the winter season that the Boulder County area had ever gone without significant snow—the Marshall wildfire, the most destructive fire ever recorded in the state, swept across the region, burning a thousand homes and leaving two people dead. (Different factors play into the spread of winter wildfires, but experts concur that climate change contributes to the conditions for them.) There is footage of people being told by the Boulder County sheriff’s office to immediately evacuate a Costco and “head east,” and video from a Chuck E. Cheese in which parents and kids struggle to open a door against a wind whipping flames across the parking lot. Paul Chinowsky, a professor emeritus at the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, who served as a consultant for the scientific and economic rationale for the lawsuit, was at his home when the Marshall fire hit, and had just minutes to grab his research data and flee. In a video about that day’s events, he recalls sitting in a line of cars, trying to escape the blaze alongside thousands of other people. “I picked up my phone and called one of my research assistants,” he says, and told him, “Everything we thought about climate and fire risk is wrong. It has to be changed.” He adds, “Even with all the modelling we’ve ever done, that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Susie Strife, the Boulder County director of climate action, sustainability, and resilience, told me that the region’s costs from climate change are clearly higher now than when the suit was filed—the Marshall fire did more than two billion dollars’ worth of property damage—and that, along with working on reducing carbon emissions, her team now spends much of its time trying to “get people rehomed, deal with insurance claims, all of that.” She added, “What often gets left out are the emotional and social costs—the long time it takes a family to secure new housing, or the time it takes kids to settle into a new school. These wounds are unquantifiable in today’s economic system—the fact that now we have real anxiety when the wind picks up. We’re Coloradans, we chose to live here because we love the outdoors. And that’s getting lost.”

The Colorado lawsuit, she says, is asking players like Exxon to pay their fair share. But it could come to more than that. “I think the outcome could be an awakening that there has been some serious bad acting going on, some misinformation and disinformation from these companies that have led us to chase our tails, to focus on our own carbon footprints, and not on the massive shift we need to see. This could be our moment of system change.” 

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Schröder and his wife, So-yeon Schröder-Kim, reportedly rubbed shoulders at the event on Tuesday with Egon Krenz, 86, the last Communist leader of East Germany (GDR). Collage: Editing by Germán & Co

Ex-German chancellor criticised for attending event at Russian embassy

Bild publishes leaked photos showing Gerhard Schröder with his wife and others at Victory Day reception in Berlin

THE GUARDIAN by Kate Connolly in Berlin, Thu 11 May 2023 

Leaked photographs have emerged in the German press of the former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who has refused to denounce his friendship and business ties with Vladimir Putin, as the guest of honour at a reception hosted by the Russian embassy in Berlin.

Schröder and his wife, So-yeon Schröder-Kim, reportedly rubbed shoulders at the event on Tuesday with Egon Krenz, 86, the last Communist leader of East Germany (GDR). Krenz was forced to resign when the Berlin Wall fell, and was later sentenced to six and a half years in prison for his role in the crimes of the Communist regime, in particular the fatal shootings of people trying to escape the GDR.

Other guests included the leadership of the far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) and high-ranking members of the far-left Die Linke. Guests were served champagne and caviar, according to reports.

Schröder, who was chancellor from 1998 to 2005, was a strong advocate for the Nord Stream gas pipeline during his time in office. He has since had roles in the companies Rosneft and Gazprom, which he has now officially renounced. After his resignation from the board of Rosneft over EU sanction concerns, he was spotted in Moscow a year ago by a German reporter, to whom he said: “I’m having a few days holiday in Moscow – it’s a beautiful city.”

Pictures of the Schröders and other guests at the embassy – at a reception to mark Victory Day, or the role of the Soviet Red Army in conquering Nazi Germany in 1945 – were leaked to the tabloid Bild.

The guests would have entered the embassy after passing a protest site against Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is a permanent presence outside the building. Protesters have renamed the space in front of the embassy Freedom Square.

A makeshift memorial to war victims outside the Russian embassy in Berlin. Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

Franz Josef Wagner, a veteran columnist for Bild, responded with an angry swipe at Schröder. “Our ex-chancellor eats caviar while Putin is slaughtering people, kidnapping children, letting women be raped. Every sensitive person can smell the sulphur in the embassy – the smell of death. Gerhard Schröder has lost his sense of smell,” he wrote.

Schröder-Kim confirmed to Der Spiegel magazine that the couple had attended the event and said she was “amazed” that this should be viewed with scorn.

Schröder has been isolated by his party, the Social Democrats, for his refusal to denounce Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and over his longstanding gas industry ties with Moscow. He recently failed in an attempt to overturn a ban on his use of taxpayer-funded Bundestag offices and staff amid scathing criticism for his links to Moscow. Attempts to throw him out of the SPD have so far failed.

Tino Chrupalla, the AfD leader, also confirmed his participation, together with Alexander Gauland, who previously held the same role. He told the news agency DPA that he had received an invitation to the reception “as I’m sure all parliamentary faction leaders did”.

Traditionally, he said, 9 May “was until recently a memorial day in which it was taken for granted that German politicians of all parties represented in the Bundestag would take part”. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should not change this, he said. “This dialogue should not be broken off in times of crisis.”

The free press is under attack from multiple forces. Media outlets are closing their doors, victims to a broken business model. In much of the world, journalism is morphing into propaganda, as governments dictate what can and can’t be printed. In the last year alone, hundreds of reporters have been killed or imprisoned for doing their jobs. The UN reports that 85% of the world’s population experienced a decline in press freedom in their country in recent years. 

Last week marked the 30th annual World Press Freedom Day, a day for everyone to reflect on the importance of free expression as fundamental for all other rights. It is also an opportunity to pledge support for independent media – because without a robust and free press, a healthy democracy is impossible.

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News round-up, May 10, 2023

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Most read…

The Vindication of E. Jean Carroll

In response to a writer’s accusation of sexual assault, nine jurors in Manhattan finally held Donald Trump accountable.

THE NEW YORKER By Eric Lach, May 9, 2023

Big Oil Has $150 Billion in Cash and Investors Want a Share

Companies boost shareholder returns and keep funds for when the boom goes bust

WSJ By David Uberti,  May 8, 2023 

Vladimir Putin Is the World’s Most Dangerous Fool

That's a big issue because that's where this war started, and it didn't come from his cabinet or military leaders, as we now know, and it certainly didn't come from the Russian people as a whole. Therefore, whether Russia wins or loses in Ukraine, it will only be halted if Putin decides.

THE NEW YORK TIME, Opinion Columnist By Thomas L. Friedman, May 9, 2023

Explainer: How will China's clampdown on mislabelled cargoes affect sanctioned oil?

In the past year, a group of Chinese refiners nicknamed "teapots" have become the leading purchasers of Iranian and Venezuelan oil. These independent refiners make up over 20% of China's crude imports and have secured deals with these countries despite international sanctions.

REUTERS By Chen Aizhu and Muyu Xu/ Editing by Germán & Co

Exclusive: Chevron aims to boost Venezuela oil output to accelerate debt recovery -sources

PDVSA and the Venezuelan oil ministry did not respond to requests for comment. In accordance with "all rules and regulations, as well as the sanctions framework supplied by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control," Chevron stated it will continue to operate.

REUTERS By Marianna Parraga and Deisy Buitrago/ Editing by GermÁn & Co

The west must be ready for this moment of opportunity and risk in Ukraine

Ukrainians are preparing for a make-or-break counteroffensive. They have a theory of victory. Do we?

The Guardian by Timothy Garton Ash, Wed 10 May 2023 

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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“E. Jean Carroll wasn’t hiding anything,” Carroll’s lead lawyer said on Monday, as her lawsuit against former President Donald Trump reached its conclusion. Photo: Editing by Germán & Co

The Vindication of E. Jean Carroll

In response to a writer’s accusation of sexual assault, nine jurors in Manhattan finally held Donald Trump accountable.

THE NEW YORKER By Eric Lach, May 9, 2023

Famously, Donald Trump once fantasized about committing murder on the street outside his apartment. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” he said, during a 2016 campaign stop in Sioux Center, Iowa. In the recent civil trial that the writer E. Jean Carroll brought against Trump in New York, she didn’t accuse the former President of shooting her outside Trump Tower. She said that he had raped her, just up the block, in the nineteen-nineties. A jury in Manhattan, after listening to the evidence presented to them during the past two weeks, awarded her five million dollars in damages in a civil battery and defamation case. (They stopped short of branding Trump a rapist, settling for a definition of “battery” that includes “sexual abuse.”)

Carroll, ​​a former advice columnist for Elle and media personality, went public with her allegations in 2019, in a New York magazine article, in which she wrote that Trump forced himself on her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. When she first filed a lawsuit against Trump, a few months after the article ran, he was still the President, and many considered the suit hopeless. How could a private citizen get justice through the courts in a case like this, against Trump of all people? And yet on Tuesday, Carroll was vindicated, in a trial that marks the first time jurors have been tasked with determining whether a former President was a rapist or merely a sexual abuser.

Carroll’s lawyers called Carroll herself to the stand (she was also cross-examined by Trump’s lawyers for two days), and then called two friends whom Carroll told about the encounter with Trump shortly after it happened. They also called two other women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual assault—Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff—as well as an expert in psychological trauma, and two former employees of Bergdorf Goodman, who both supported elements of Carroll’s account, with one testifying that he had seen Trump in the store. Trump skipped the trial, and his lawyers called no witnesses of their own. Joseph Tacopina, Trump’s lead lawyer, said that his client didn’t need to mount a defense, because his case had “emerged” through cross-examination of Carroll’s witnesses. He also pointed to dredged-up text messages and e-mails in which Carroll’s friends seemed to express concerns and frustrations with her. And he offered a number of implausible counter-theories, such as one in which Carroll and her friends had concocted a scheme to frame Trump based on the plot of a 2012 episode of “Law & Order: SVU.” Carroll’s lawyers made much of Trump’s absence. They also didn’t shy away from politics. Several times during the trial, they played the contents of the “Access Hollywood” tape for the jury, including Trump’s boasts of grabbing women “by the pussy.” During closing arguments, one of Carroll’s lawyers suggested to the jury that they consider the “Access Hollywood” video a “confession.”

“You saw for yourself, E. Jean Carroll wasn’t hiding anything,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lead lawyer, told the jury on Monday, as the trial reached its conclusion. As her lawyers readily acknowledged, Carroll could not remember exactly what night her encounter with Trump took place. She could find no witnesses who saw the two of them together. And though she told two friends about the assault soon after it occurred, she otherwise kept the story to herself for more than two decades. Trump’s lawyers argued that these gaps undercut Carroll’s credibility. “What they want is for you to hate him enough that you’ll ignore the facts,” Tacopina told the jury during his own summation. Carroll, Tacopina said, was abusing the system, bringing a false claim. “We cannot let her profit to the tune of millions of dollars.” Those lines might have played well with Tacopina’s client, but they didn’t sway the jury, which unanimously found in Carroll’s favor after less than three hours of deliberation. (Trump told Fox News Digital that he plans to appeal, and has “no idea” who Carroll is.)

Trump, despite his denials, appeared to understand the seriousness of Carroll’s claims, as both a legal matter and a political one. “She’s accusing me of rape, of raping her, the worst thing you can do, the worst charge,” he said, in a deposition taken last year. Trump is once again running for President, and recent polling suggests that his opponents in the Republican primaries are wilting in the face of his popularity and the pressure he puts on others to fight on his terms. And yet every month this year has brought escalating legal peril to Trump. Seven years ago, he imagined what his supporters would do if he committed a heinous act on Fifth Avenue. Now it’s no longer hypothetical. It’s a matter of record. ♦

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMIL LENDOF/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/Editing by Germán & Co

Big Oil Has $150 Billion in Cash and Investors Want a Share

Companies boost shareholder returns and keep funds for when the boom goes bust

WSJ By David Uberti,  May 8, 2023 

Oil-and-gas companies have built up a mountain of cash with few precedents in recent history. Wall Street has a few ideas on how to spend it—and new drilling isn’t near the top of the list. 

Many companies are cutting costs and raining cash on stock pickers like Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett, who believe the world’s thirst for oil will continue for years, if not decades, to come. The promise of money returned to shareholders helped turn energy shares into some of the few bright spots in a dark moment for markets last year, fueled by commodity prices that skyrocketed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Even as an uncertain economic outlook has weighed on crude in 2023, making the energy sector the S&P 500’s worst performer, cash has continued flowing. Companies that previously chased growth and funneled money into speculative drilling investments, weighing down their stocks, have instead tried to appease Wall Street by boosting dividends and repurchasing shares. 

The cash has helped make up for stock prices that often seesaw alongside volatile commodity markets. Steady returns also buoy an industry with an uncertain long-term outlook as governments, markets and the global economy gradually shift toward cleaner energy. 

“They’ve paid dividends forever. That’s been a hallmark,” said Rob Thummel, managing director at Tortoise, an energy investment firm. “But now there’s excess cash beyond dividends to do buybacks.”

Source: FactSet

Six companies often described as Big Oil—Italy’s Eni, France’s TotalEnergies TTE -0.60%decrease; red down pointing triangle, the U.K.’s Shell SHEL -0.03%decrease; red down pointing triangle and BP BP -0.11%decrease; red down pointing triangle, and domestically headquartered Chevron CVX -0.29%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Exxon Mobil XOM 0.03%increase; green up pointing triangle—reported nearly $160 billion in cash and cash equivalents across their balance sheets at the end of the first quarter. State-owned companies and smaller businesses have tens of billions more. 

Chevron and Exxon Mobil hold $48.3 billion of such assets, up $1 billion from the beginning of the year, according to FactSet. Before the cash pileup in recent months, the last time they collectively surpassed $40 billion was in the final weeks of George W. Bush’s presidency as U.S. crude neared the end of a monthslong retreat from a record $145 a barrel. 

Oil profits last year ballooned after Russia’s war on Ukraine pushed up prices and turned gasoline into a street-level reminder that inflation neared 40-year highs. As benchmark U.S. crude prices have dropped 8.8% this year, to $73.16 a barrel, international oil majors, U.S. fuel-makers, independent drillers, Texas wildcatters and Appalachian frackers have kept gobs of cash on hand—partially as insurance if the slide continues.

“We know the good times don’t last,” Chevron Chief Financial Officer Pierre Breber told analysts in an earnings call. 

President Biden has called on producers to ramp up output in a bid to lower prices at the pump. “These balance sheets make clear that there is nothing stopping oil companies from boosting production except their own decision to pad wealthy shareholder pockets and then sit on whatever is left,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Abdullah Hasan said.

But investors have favored financial discipline, and executives are increasingly compensated based on shareholder returns. It marks an about-face in the U.S. oil patch, where companies for years chased production growth by tapping gushers of crude in regions such as the Permian Basin in Texas and Bakken shale in North Dakota. 

By June 2020, as the pandemic brought parts of the country to a standstill, Chevron and Exxon Mobil had together devoted more cash to capital expenditures than shareholder returns for at least 28 straight quarters, according to FactSet. The ratio has been the opposite every quarter since, with the companies paying out $14.8 billion in dividends and buybacks in the first three months of this year, compared with $8.4 billion in capital investment. 

Source: FactSet

Mr. Breber said the San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron, which boasts almost $15.7 billion in cash and cash equivalents, could operate with a balance sheet one-third the size. 

“We want to return it [to shareholders] through the cycle in a steady way,” he told analysts.

Other U.S. companies have more recently followed the majors’ lead. At ConocoPhillips COP 0.62%increase; green up pointing triangle and 48 smaller publicly traded oil-and-gas firms, executives in the fourth quarter of 2022 funneled 42% of the cash they used into shareholder returns, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by Evaluate Energy. Capital investments comprised 35% of such funds in that period—down from 67% in the first quarter of 2020. 

“U.S. oil-and-gas producers are less focused on capital spending than they have been in years,” said Mark Young, a senior analyst at Evaluate Energy. 

The cash buildup owes itself to other factors as well. Many companies have paid off debt racked up during growth mode, when they dug much of the top-tier territory for wells. While some companies have pledged huge sums to carbon-capture technology or hydrogen production, clean-energy investment has been slowed by lower expected returns and the wait for yet-to-be-finalized regulations in Mr. Biden’s climate package. 

Large companies such as Exxon Mobil have also explored acquisitions to scoop up independent or privately held drillers with faster-growing shale output, The Wall Street Journal has reported. 

Exxon dwarfed other U.S. companies in the first quarter with nearly $32.7 billion cash on hand, up about $3 billion from the end of last year. With yields on short-term investments such as Treasurys higher than what Exxon pays on its debt, “we’re not incurring a negative cost of carry on that cash balance,” Chief Financial Officer Kathryn Mikells told analysts on an earnings call. 

That financial reality, brought on in part by Federal Reserve interest-rate increases aimed at slowing the economy, is changing the idea of what makes an optimal balance sheet for oil companies in an unpredictable market, said Sam Margolin, an analyst at Wolfe Research. 

“It definitely takes the pressure off of trying to jettison cash as quickly as possible,” he said.  

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Image: by Germán & Co

Vladimir Putin Is the World’s Most Dangerous Fool

That's a big issue because that's where this war started, and it didn't come from his cabinet or military leaders, as we now know, and it certainly didn't come from the Russian people as a whole. Therefore, whether Russia wins or loses in Ukraine, it will only be halted if Putin decides.

THE NEW YORK TIME, Opinion Columnist By Thomas L. Friedman, May 9, 2023

I have not written much about the war in Ukraine lately because so little has changed strategically since the first few months of this conflict, when three overarching facts pretty much drove everything — and still do.

Fact No. 1: As I wrote at the outset, when a war of this magnitude begins, the key question you ask yourself as a foreign affairs columnist is very simple: Where should I be? Should I be in Kyiv, the Donbas, Crimea, Moscow, Warsaw, Berlin, Brussels or Washington?

And from the start of this war, there has been only one place to be to understand its timing and direction — and that’s in Vladimir Putin’s head. Unfortunately, Putin doesn’t grant visas to his brain.

That’s a real problem because this war emerged entirely from there — with, we now know, almost no input from his cabinet or military commanders — and certainly with no mass urging from the Russian people. So Russia will be stopped in Ukraine, whether it’s winning or losing, only when Putin decides to stop.

Which leads to fact No. 2: Putin never had a Plan B. It’s now obvious that he thought he was going to waltz into Kyiv, seize it in a week, install a lackey as president, tuck Ukraine into his pocket and put to an end any further European Union, NATO or Western cultural expansion toward Russia. He would then cast his shadow across all of Europe.

This leads to fact No. 3: Putin has put himself in a situation where he can’t win, can’t lose and can’t stop. There’s no way he can seize control of all of Ukraine anymore. But at the same time, he can’t afford to be defeated, after all the Russian lives and treasure he has expended. So he can’t stop.

To put it differently, because Putin never had a Plan B, he’s defaulted to a punitive, often indiscriminate rocketing of Ukrainian towns and civilian infrastructure — a grinding war of attrition — with the hope that he can somehow drain enough blood from Ukrainians, and instill enough exhaustion in Kyiv’s Western allies, that they give him a big enough slice of Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine he can sell to the Russian people as a great victory.

Putin’s Plan B is to disguise that Putin’s Plan A has failed. If this military operation had an honest name, it would be called Operation Save My Face.

Which makes this one of the sickest, most senseless wars in modern times — a leader destroying another country’s civilian infrastructure until it gives him enough cover to hide the fact that he’s been a towering fool.

You can see from Putin’s Victory Day speech in Moscow on Tuesday that he is now grasping for any rationale to justify a war he started out of his personal fantasy that Ukraine is not a real country but part of Russia. He claimed his invasion was provoked by Western “globalists and elites” who “talk about their exclusivity, pit people and split society, provoke bloody conflicts and upheavals, sow hatred, Russophobia, aggressive nationalism and destroy traditional family values that make a person a person.”

Wow. Putin invaded Ukraine to preserve Russian family values. Who knew? That’s a leader struggling to explain to his people why he started a war with a puny neighbor that he says is not a real country.

You might ask, why does a dictator like Putin feel he needs a disguise? Can’t he make his people believe whatever he wants?

I don’t think so. If you look at his behavior, it seems that Putin is quite frightened today by two subjects: arithmetic and Russian history.

To understand why these subjects frighten him, you need to first consider the atmosphere enveloping him — something neatly captured, as it happens, in lyrics from the song “Everybody Talks” by one of my favorite rock groups, Neon Trees. The key refrain is:

Hey, baby, won’t you look my way?
I can be your new addiction.
Hey, baby, what you got to say?
All you’re giving me is fiction.
I’m a sorry sucker, and this happens all the time.
I find out that everybody talks.
Everybody talks, everybody talks.
It started with a whisper.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a foreign affairs writer reporting from autocratic countries is that no matter how tightly controlled a place is, no matter how brutal and iron-fisted its dictator, EVERYBODY TALKS.

They know who is stealing, who is cheating, who is lying, who is having an affair with whom. It starts with a whisper and often stays there, but everybody talks.

Putin clearly knows this, too. He knows that even if he gets a few more kilometers of eastern Ukraine and holds Crimea, the minute he stops this war, his people will all do the cruel arithmetic on his Plan B — starting with subtraction.

The White House reported last week that an estimated 100,000 Russian fighters have been killed or wounded in Ukraine in just the past five months and roughly 200,000 killed or wounded since Putin started this war in February 2022.

That is a big number of casualties — even in a big country — and you can see that Putin is worried that his people are talking about it, because, beyond criminalizing any form of dissent, in April he rushed through a new law cracking down on draft dodging. Now anyone who doesn’t show up will face restrictions on banking, selling property, even getting a driver’s license.

Putin would not be going to such lengths if he was not fearful that, despite his best efforts, everyone was whispering about how badly the war is going and how to avoid serving there.

Read the recent essay in The Washington Post by Leon Aron, a historian of Putin’s Russia and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, about Putin’s visit in March to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

“Two days after the International Criminal Court charged Putin with war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest,” Aron wrote, “the Russian president came to Mariupol for a few hours. He was filmed stopping by the ‘Nevsky microdistrict,’ inspecting a new apartment and listening for a few minutes to the effusively grateful occupants. As he was leaving, a barely audible voice is heard on the video, crying out from a distance: ‘Eto vsyo nepravda!’ — ‘It’s all lies!’”

Aron told me that the Russian media later scrubbed “It’s all lies” from the audio, but the fact that it had been left in there may have been a subversive act by someone in the official Russian media hierarchy. Everybody talks.

Which leads to the other thing Putin knows: “The gods of Russian history are extremely unforgiving of military defeat,” Aron said. In the modern era, “when a Russian leader ends a war in a clear defeat — or with no win — usually there is a change of regime. We saw that after the first Crimean War, after the Russo-Japanese war, after Russia’s setbacks in World War I, after Khrushchev’s retreat from Cuba in 1962 and after Brezhnev and company’s Afghanistan quagmire, which hastened Gorbachev’s perestroika-and-glasnost revolution. The Russian people, for all their renowned patience, will forgive a lot of things — but not military defeat.”

It’s for these reasons that Aron, who just finished a book about Putin’s Russia, argues that this Ukraine conflict is far from over and could get a lot worse before it is.

“There are now two ways for Putin to end this war he cannot win and cannot walk away from,” Aron said. “One is to continue until Ukraine is bled dry and/or the Ukraine fatigue sets in in the West.”

And the other, he argued, “is to somehow force a direct confrontation with the U.S. — bring us to the precipice of an all-out strategic nuclear exchange — and then step back and propose to a scared West an overall settlement, which would include a neutral, disarmed Ukraine and his holding on to the Crimea and Donbas.”

It’s impossible to get into Putin’s head and predict his next move, but color me worried. Because what we do know, from Putin’s actions, is that he knows his Plan A has failed. And he will now do anything to produce a Plan B to justify the terrible losses that he has piled up in the name of a country where everybody talks and where defeated leaders don’t retire peacefully.

Thomas L. Friedman is the foreign affairs Op-Ed columnist. He joined the paper in 1981, and has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem,” which won the National Book Award. @tomfriedman • Facebook

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Source: Media

Explainer: How will China's clampdown on mislabelled cargoes affect sanctioned oil?

In the past year, a group of Chinese refiners nicknamed "teapots" have become the leading purchasers of Iranian and Venezuelan oil. These independent refiners make up over 20% of China's crude imports and have secured deals with these countries despite international sanctions.

REUTERS By Chen Aizhu and Muyu Xu/ Editing by Germán & Co

SINGAPORE, May 4 (Reuters) - Chinese customs authorities are stepping up inspection checks on cargoes of heavy crude oil after uncovering several Iranian shipments that were mislabelled as diluted bitumen in an effort to bypass import quotas.

The checks, begun a month ago, are delaying oil discharges into the eastern refining hub of Shandong province.

They are also adding to uncertainty over the risk of disruption to shipments from Iran and Venezuela, while cutting into refining operations just as fuel demand recovers.

China's independent refiners known as teapots, which account for more than a fifth of its crude imports, have become top customers of Iranian and Venezuelan oil since late 2019.

That has followed tough U.S. sanctions on the two exporters, which have supplied China for more than two decades.

The Chinese refiners have increasingly decoupled from the mainstream global oil market to focus almost solely on discounted oil from Iran and Venezuela, and more recently Russian oil in the aftermath of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

China has repeatedly condemned Washington's unilateral sanctions and defended trade with Iran and Venezuela as normal business practice in line with international law.

WILL THE CHECKS WIDEN TO ALL IRANIAN CARGOES?

This is unlikely. Traders said they believed the checks were technical rather than political, and aimed to regulate the domestic market and toughen scrutiny of the use of crude oil quotas.

Beijing sets no quotas for state-run refiners, but allots them for independent plants, recently giving greater volumes to "mega" private refiners while cutting back on quotas for smaller plants.

The inspections have primarily targeted shipments of oil with density of less than 950 kg a cubic metre (kg/m3) - mostly Iranian heavy crudes Pars Oil and Soroosh - that account for about 10% to 20% of the Middle East nation's oil into China, compared with dominant Iranian Light and Iranian Heavy.

China's Iranian oil imports, often branded as originating from Malaysia, Oman or the United Arab Emirates, were estimated at 640,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2023, according to tanker tracker Vortexa Analytics.

That is up from 490,000 bpd a year earlier and down from 960,000 bpd in the fourth quarter of 2022, Vortexa estimated.

VENEZUELAN FUEL

Traders expressed worry that inspections might extend to Venezuelan crude, long used as a feedstock for road-paving bitumen with a density of 950 kg/m3, or higher, and which has been marketed into China in recent years labelled as Malaysian crude or bitumen mix with little hassle.

Vortexa estimated China's first-quarter imports of Venezuelan crude, mostly its main grade Merey, at 430,000 bpd, steady with the previous quarter but up from 300,000 bpd a year earlier.

China has not officially reported any crude imports from Venezuela since October 2019. Only a handful of Iranian oil shipments were officially recorded, often destined for state reserves, after independents took over the business in late 2019.

WHY THE MISLABELLING?

Some independent refiners do not have, or are short of, crude oil import quotas.

Cargoes labelled as diluted bitumen do not require quotas, but are subject to consumption tax of 1,218 yuan ($176) a tonne, and an import tariff of 8%. Refiners can receive partial rebates of the consumption tax after processing.

Traders said the mislabelling was encouraged by steep discounts for Iranian oil, last heard at benchmark Brent futures minus $12.5 a barrel, and recovering demand in China for gasoline, aviation fuel and bitumen.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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An oil pump jack is seen in an oil field near Lake Maracaibo, in Cabimas, Venezuela October 14, 2022. REUTERS/Issac Urrutia/File Photo/ Editing by Germán & Co

Exclusive: Chevron aims to boost Venezuela oil output to accelerate debt recovery -sources

PDVSA and the Venezuelan oil ministry did not respond to requests for comment. In accordance with "all rules and regulations, as well as the sanctions framework supplied by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control," Chevron stated it will continue to operate.

REUTERS By Marianna Parraga and Deisy Buitrago/ Editing by GermÁn & Co

HOUSTON/CARACAS, May 10 (Reuters) - Chevron Corp's (CVX.N) renewed oil operations in Venezuela begin a new phase next month that will boost production with the goal of accelerating a plan to recover all of the $3 billion of debt owed by the OPEC member by the end of 2025, four people close to the matter said.

Washington in November issued a six-month, automatically renewing license to the U.S. oil company to revive largely dormant operations in Venezuela and resume crude exports to the U.S. under an exemption to sanctions on the South American country.

To back up its license application, Chevron last year signed an oil-for-debt swap with Venezuela's state-run PDVSA.

Under the deal, Chevron aims to recover some $750 million in unpaid debts and dividends by year-end, and all $3 billion outstanding by the end of 2025, one of the people said. So far, it has recovered some $220 million, the source said.

The plan shows both Chevron and PDVSA are getting what they wanted from the agreement: Venezuelan oil flowing to the U.S. and the OPEC nation getting royalties, worker benefits and a chance for future profits.

Chevron this year has reactivated crude output at its four joint ventures with PDVSA, exported an average 102,500 barrels per day (bpd), taken a role in procuring supplies and appointed new managers to the ventures' boards.

The initial exports have rapidly drained the ventures' oil inventories, which had built up for years. Chevron plans to continue pushing up heavy crude output mainly at oilfields in eastern and western Venezuela belonging to its Petropiar and Petroboscan projects, according to the sources.

MORE EFFICIENT OPERATIONS

In the second phase, Chevron plans to drive crude production to up to 160,000 bpd this year and about 200,000 bpd in 2024, one of the people said.

To optimize exports, the oil major has proposed to help Venezuela prepare a study on dredging Lake Maracaibo's navigation channel, which would let it load larger tankers, three of the people said.

Chevron also has asked PDVSA to assign it dedicated storage tanks for its joint ventures to improve handling of imported diluents and crude from the Orinoco Belt, Venezuela's largest producing region.

To motivate their joint venture workers, Chevron and PDVSA have agreed to pay bonuses for food and personal care to the staff, and improve their health insurance coverage, they added.

Venezuela's oil ministry and PDVSA did not reply to a request for comment. Chevron said it continues to conduct business "in compliance with all laws and regulations, as well as the sanctions framework provided by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control."

More robust work and investment plans will have to wait, according to the sources.

At the Petropiar joint venture, urgent repairs are needed to its crude upgrader, which converts the Orinoco heavy crude into exportable grades. But major maintenance at the facility and a long-delayed new drilling plan are not expected in the short term, the people said.

"They will continue doing well workover only," one person said.

Chevron CEO Michael Wirth last month said the company's output in Venezuela was expected to reach 150,000 bpd this year without significant new investment and under existing license terms.

GOLDEN TICKET

Chevron's license broke a four-year U.S. prohibition on Venezuelan oil exports to the United States designed to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

Even though the license bans any cash payments to Maduro's administration, it has helped Venezuela stabilize its currency by injecting U.S. dollars into its economy and benefited U.S. Gulf Coast refiners receiving the oil.

According to the oil-for-debt swap's terms, sales proceeds since January are going to the ventures' foreign bank accounts, Reuters has learned.

From there, one portion goes to debt repayment, a second to taxes and royalties through foreign currency exchange transactions by banks in Venezuela, and a third covers operational expenses, the sources said.

Because the license automatically renews every month for six more months, Chevron has dealt with fewer policy changes compared with the system it had until 2020, which required a full renewal of terms at every license's expiration.

The license will keep renewing unless the U.S. decides to rescind it or changes its terms, sources in Washington, Houston and Caracas said.

Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston and Deisy Buitrago in Caracas. Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Sabrina Valle in Houston Editing by Marguerita Choy

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Ukrainian soldiers near Maryinka, a city in the eastern region of Donetsk, where fierce battles against Russian forces have been taking place. Photograph: LIBKOS/AP/Editing by Germán & Co

The west must be ready for this moment of opportunity and risk in Ukraine

Ukrainians are preparing for a make-or-break counteroffensive. They have a theory of victory. Do we?

The Guardian by Timothy Garton Ash, Wed 10 May 2023 

As you read this, thousands of young Ukrainian men and women are going through their last training drills, checking their weapons and waiting for D-day. In the big Ukrainian counteroffensive that may start any time now, some of them will be killed and many more will be wounded. None will emerge unchanged. We thought we had said goodbye to all that in 1945, but this is Europe in 2023.

Nobody knows what will happen in this campaign. Nobody. But we can at least be clear what we want to happen – and firm in supporting the Ukrainians to achieve it. Decisive Ukrainian victory is now the only sure path to a lasting peace, a free Europe and ultimately a better Russia. This alone would be the new VE Day.

Ukrainians have a theory of victory. It goes from success on the battlefield to change in Moscow. For preference, that would be a change of regime, getting rid of the war criminal in the Kremlin. But in the highly unlikely event that Vladimir Putin were to acknowledge his own failure and withdraw his troops, while still remaining in power, that would be victory too.

US and UK tell Russia to stop using hunger as leverage in Ukraine conflict – as it happened

How do they think this might happen, given Russia’s dug-in defending forces and major advantages in numbers and air power? One answer is: the way it happened before in Russian history, with military setbacks triggering the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. If the Ukrainian army can push rapidly south to the Sea of Azov, encircle a large number of demoralised Russian forces and cut the supply lines to the Crimean peninsula, there might be some non-linear collapse of Russian military morale on the ground and regime cohesion in Moscow.

Crimea is the key to this scenario. Ukrainians want to head for the peninsula (but not immediately try to occupy it) for precisely the reason that many western policymakers wish them not to: because Crimea is the thing that really matters to Russia. They add that Ukraine can never have long-term security while Crimea is a giant Russian aircraft carrier pointed at its heart.

It’s a bold and risky theory of victory, but does anyone in the west have a better one? Many western policymakers seem almost as afraid of Ukrainian success as they are of Ukrainian failure, fearing that Putin will escalate in response. So, they nourish a confused idea that there’s a Goldilocks outcome – not too hot, not too cold – that will open the way to the nirvana of a “negotiated solution”. Or, more cynically (self-styled “realistically”), they are privately prepared for Ukraine to end up losing perhaps one-sixth of its sovereign territory, in a partition that they can call “peace”. But at best this would be a semi-frozen conflict, pending renewed war. Here we encounter, once again, the unrealism of “realism”.

Most Western military analysts think that Ukraine is unlikely to achieve a decisive victory, thus making moot the question of whether this would trigger the hoped-for political consequences in Moscow. If you have two exhausted armies, that favours defence over offence. Ukraine has great vulnerabilities in its air defences. The fact that there’s only one obvious path towards Crimea means that Russia is prepared to defend that line. (So it’s possible Ukraine might try something else, but even taking back a substantial chunk of Donbas would not have the same psychological effect in Russia as a threat to Crimea.)

The counteroffensive can deploy nine new western-equipped and trained brigades, but these have a mix-and-match zoo of different western weapons and scant experience in the complex combined arms operations needed to overcome Russia’s defensive lines. Because capitals such as Washington and Berlin have been nervously pondering every item, the Ukrainians don’t have the quantity and quality of western tanks, armoured vehicles, long-range missiles and fighter planes they might have had if the west had not held back for fear of escalation.

The next six months will be decisive. If, come next winter, Ukrainian forces are still bogged down halfway, the west may not deliver a comparable military boost for another offensive next spring. Beside objective difficulties in gearing up our defence industries, there might be waning political support, especially in the US in the run-up to next autumn’s presidential election. There would then be disillusionment in Ukraine. Putin would still be in power. He could use his propaganda apparatus at home to sell his partial occupation of Ukrainian territory as a historical restoration of Catherine the Great’s empire.

The alternative, perhaps unlikely but still possible, is a decisive Ukrainian victory. Since that would mean a defeat that even Putin’s state lie-machine could not conceal, the path to victory would bring a moment of increased risk. Although nobody knows exactly what’s going on inside the Kremlin black box, intelligence-based analysis suggests that Putin has wargamed and rejected the option of using tactical nuclear weapons, as this would bring no clear military advantage and alienate China and India. But the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant, which was seized by Russia in February 2022 and around which the occupiers have now evacuated the local population, is extremely worrying. He also has other possible asymmetric responses, such as a cyber-attack or targeting a gas pipeline.

Understanding Vladimir Putin, the man who fooled the world

What should we do about this? Don’t be scared, be prepared. There is no risk-free way forward. Avoiding an immediate risk can mean creating larger risks down the road (which is the mistake the west made after 2014 when it allowed Russia to keep Crimea and negotiated the sticking plaster Minsk Agreement for occupied eastern Ukriane). These risks include not only recurrent armed conflict in Ukraine but also encouraging China to have a go at Taiwan. I’ve lost count of the number of times Ukrainians have said to me that the west’s biggest problem is fear. “The choice is between freedom and fear,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently told the Atlantic. So we have to keep our nerve and show just a little of the fortitude that those thousands of young Ukrainians are demonstrating, as they prepare to risk their lives to defend their freedom.

I’m acutely aware of the need to avoid any hint of armchair heroism. Even if I travel to Ukraine occasionally during this war, I’m not taking a small fraction of the personal risk that Ukrainians face. Responsible governments must recognise, anticipate and carefully weigh the real dangers of escalation. Prudence is not cowardice. But there’s also another thing to avoid: the woolly talk of “peace” and “responsibility”, which actually means urging, or ultimately even compelling, other people to sacrifice their own homes, freedom and security, so that citizens of countries such as Germany, France or Italy can, if only in the short term, go on enjoying these things for themselves.

The west has done that many times before to people in central and eastern Europe. Let’s not do it again.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist

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News round-up, May, 9, 2023

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Most read…

Biden Casts Himself as the Trump Beater. Polls Suggest That’s No Sure Thing.

While the president argues that he is the one best positioned to stop his predecessor from returning to the White House, surveys indicate that he starts the 2024 race facing enormous challenges.

NYT By Peter Baker, May 8, 2023

Why Texas, a clean energy powerhouse, is about to hit the brakes

The state’s clean energy boom could be impeded by Texas leaders’ push for legislation that would boost natural gas and place new restrictions on wind and solar projects

WP By Anna Phillips, May 8, 2023

‘Over Our Dead Bodies’: Backlash Builds Against $3 Trillion Clean-Energy Push

Ballooning size of wind and solar projects draws local ire as they march closer to populated areas

WSJ TODAY

EU targets Central Asia in drive to stop sanctioned goods reaching Russia  

Several EU countries fear Brussels risk opening a Pandora’s box with a new measure that could eventually be used against China and Turkey.

POLITICO EU BY BARBARA MOENS, LEONIE KIJEWSKI AND SUZANNE LYNCH, MAY 8, 2023 

Analysis: Chile’s constitution will struggle to escape Pinochet’s shadow

This result has made it easier for far-right candidates like Kast to win elections: "Kast, a lawyer and supporter of the terrible Pinochet regime.

REUTERS By Alexander Villegas and Natalia A. Ramos Miranda

‘Mind-boggling’ methane emissions from Turkmenistan revealed

Leaks of potent greenhouse gas could be easily fixed, say experts, and would rapidly reduce global heating

The Guardian by Damian Carrington Environment editor, Tue 9 May 2023 

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Mr. Biden has dismissed the importance of polls, saying that he is no different from other presidents at this point in their terms.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times/ Editing by Germán & Co

Biden Casts Himself as the Trump Beater. Polls Suggest That’s No Sure Thing.

While the president argues that he is the one best positioned to stop his predecessor from returning to the White House, surveys indicate that he starts the 2024 race facing enormous challenges.

NYT By Peter Baker, May 8, 2023

WASHINGTON — Boiled down, President Biden’s argument for running for a second term rather than ceding the ground to the next generation is that he is the Democrat most assured of beating former President Donald J. Trump next year.

But a striking new poll challenged that case in a way that had much of the capital buzzing the last couple of days. Taken at face value, the poll showed Mr. Biden trailing Mr. Trump by six percentage points in a theoretical rematch, raising the question of whether the president is as well positioned as he maintains.

No single poll means all that much, especially so early in an election cycle, and the president’s strategists as well as some independent analysts questioned its methodology. But even if it is an outlier, other recent surveys have indicated that the race is effectively tied, with either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump holding narrow leads within the margin of error. Taken together, they suggest that the president opens the 2024 campaign facing enormous challenges with no guarantee of victory over Mr. Trump.

The data has left many Democrats feeling anywhere from queasy to alarmed. Mr. Biden’s case for being the pair of safe hands at a volatile moment is undermined in their view if a president who passed major legislation and presides over the lowest unemployment in generations cannot outperform a twice-impeached challenger who instigated an insurrection, has been indicted on multiple felonies, is on civil trial accused of rape and faces more potential criminal charges in the months to come.

“The poll demonstrates that the president still has work to do, not only in convincing the American people that he’s up for the job that he wishes to complete,” said Donna Brazile, a former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee who said she lost sleep over the “ominous signs” in the latest survey results. “More importantly, it’s a good forecast of the challenges he will face in rebuilding the remarkable coalition that elected him in 2020.”

“I don’t think that they should panic because you can’t panic after one poll,” said Ms. Brazile, who managed Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000. A survey is “just one gauge” among many on the long road to the voting booth. “But it’s an important barometer of where the electorate is today, some 547 days away from the November 2024 election.”

The survey by The Washington Post and ABC News found that the president’s approval rating has slipped to 36 percent and that Mr. Trump would beat him by 44 percent to 38 percent if the election were held today. Just as worrisome for Democrats, respondents considered Mr. Trump, 76, more physically and mentally fit than Mr. Biden, 80, and concluded that the former president managed the economy better than the incumbent has.

“The poll really is trash, and I don’t say that lightly because I’ve had respect for their polling in the past,” said Cornell Belcher, who was President Barack Obama’s pollster. “However, their methodological decision here is problematic,” he added of the way the survey was constructed.

Others cautioned against overanalyzing data this early, noting that anything can happen in the next 18 months and recalling that projections based on polling — or misinterpretations of polling — proved to be poor predictors in recent cycles, including the 2022 midterm elections when a forecast “red wave” did not materialize.

“Polls in May 2024 will be of dubious value,” said David Plouffe, who was Mr. Obama’s campaign manager. “Polls in May 2023 are worth as much as Theranos stock.”

The White House expressed no concern over the latest surveys. “President Biden’s average job approval is higher now than in early November when poll-based reporting widely prophesied a supposedly inevitable red wave that never arrived,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the fledgling Biden campaign, said the president would win on issues like lowering prescription drugs and protecting Social Security. “Americans voted for Joe Biden’s America in 2020 and 2022, and regardless of what today’s Beltway insider says, they will again in 2024,” he said.

While not predictive, recent surveys provide a foundational baseline at the start of a race potentially between two universally known figures, foreshadowing a campaign without a clear front-runner. Polls by Yahoo News, The Wall Street Journal and Morning Consult have found the president slightly ahead while surveys by The Economist and the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies found him tied or trailing by several points. Mr. Biden faces similarly mixed results against Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the strongest challenger to Mr. Trump for the Republican nomination.

The results point to a calcification in American politics where the leaders of both parties have a similarly sized core of support among voters not open to the other side regardless of developments in the news. The days when presidents could enjoy approval ratings above 50 percent or double-digit leads over challengers for any sustained period of time appear to be long over. And so if widespread support is no longer achievable, the challenge for Mr. Biden is to reassemble the coalition that provided him a 4.5-percentage-point victory nearly three years ago.

Mr. Biden has dismissed the importance of polls, saying that he is no different from other presidents at this point in their terms. “Every major one who won re-election, their polling numbers were where mine are now,” he told Stephanie Ruhle on “The 11th Hour” on MSNBC on Friday.

But in fact, only two of the past 13 presidents had approval ratings lower than Mr. Biden has at this point, according to an aggregate compilation by FiveThirtyEight.com — Mr. Trump and Jimmy Carter, both of whom lost re-election. More encouraging for Mr. Biden is the example of Ronald Reagan, who was just one-tenth of a point above where the current president is at this stage of his presidency, but came back to win a landslide re-election in 1984.

Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant, said it was telling that Mr. Biden was essentially tied or behind “a former president carrying more baggage than a loaded 747” and warned Democrats against complacency.

“Democrats are in denial if they think Biden cannot lose to Trump in 2024,” he said. “Trump can most certainly win. Joe Biden is asking the country to elect a candidate who will be 82 years old, who has clearly lost a step, running with a vice president whom almost no one in either party thinks is ready for prime time.”

The Post-ABC poll and other surveys contain grim news for Republicans as well. While Mr. Trump leads or keeps relatively even with the president, he may have a ceiling beyond which he cannot rise, while Mr. Biden can still win over ambivalent independents who dislike the former president, analysts said.

“While the poll is not great news for Biden, it’s not great news for the Republicans either,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. “Only about a third say they are strong supporters for Biden, DeSantis and Trump. It feels more unsettled than anything else.”

She said that the real choice between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, should it come to that, would force ambivalent Democrats and independents to come off the fence. “I noticed more softness among Democrats, but I have no doubt that no matter what skepticism Democrats tell pollsters right now, they are going to vote for Joe Biden,” she said.

Stuart Stevens, who ran Mitt Romney’s campaign against Mr. Obama in 2012 and is a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, noted that the Republican establishment worries that the former president cannot win even though he leads in some polls. “We seem to be in this weird moment when Republican elite are panicked that Trump can’t beat Biden,” he said. “I think that’s because they know that Trump is deeply flawed.”

David Axelrod, the former Obama senior adviser who was on the other side of that race from Mr. Stevens, agreed with his assessment. “What Biden has that no one else does is a record of having beaten Trump, which weighs heavily in conversations among Democrats about the race,” Mr. Axelrod said. “He also has a record to run on and a party out of the mainstream on some important issues to run against, with a deeply flawed front-runner.”

“The worry for Democrats is that the re-elect is subject to a lot of variables Biden can’t entirely control — including his own health and aging process,” Mr. Axelrod added. “Any setback will exacerbate public concerns already apparent in the polls about his condition and ability to handle four more years.”

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Wind turbines are seen at sunset on a wind farm near Del Rio, Texas. Lawmakers in the Lone Star state are considering legislation that would slow the growth of new solar and wind projects. (Eric Gay/AP)

Why Texas, a clean energy powerhouse, is about to hit the brakes

The state’s clean energy boom could be impeded by Texas leaders’ push for legislation that would boost natural gas and place new restrictions on wind and solar projects

WP By Anna Phillips, May 8, 2023

Already No. 1 in wind power, and home to a fast-growing solar industry, Texas is poised to become a renewable energy powerhouse — timely because President Biden’s climate bill is about to deliver billions in subsidies.

But instead of embracing the green boom, Texas’ Republican-controlled legislature has introduced a spate of bills that could slow the growth of wind and solar industries, which has their leaders alarmed.

“Every state has legislation related to the placement of projects, but what we’re seeing in Texas is far beyond anything we’ve seen anywhere else,” said Jeff Clark, chief executive of the Advanced Power Alliance, an Austin-based trade group for renewable energy companies. “The aggressiveness of some of this legislation and the volume is unprecedented.”

Texas embraces a famously laissez-faire approach to energy development, but now some of its most anti-regulatory lawmakers are pushing new rules and permitting requirements for solar and wind, while backing measures that would bolster natural gas. Some Republicans have justified these moves by arguing that renewable energy is inherently unreliable and that more fossil fuels are needed to avoid another electricity blackout crisis — even though most of the loss of generating capacity during the 2021 outage came from gas power plants.

Other GOP officials say they are acting, in part, because the rapid expansion of solar and wind projects threatens the scenic character and way of the life of the state’s rural communities.

Solar and wind developers and environmental groups say these arguments are a cover for a politically driven effort to penalize renewables. After years of enjoying a hands-off environment, they say renewable energy has gotten caught up in a polarized culture war that has conservative state lawmakers attacking the industry to establish their national bona fides.

One of the bills in question would require large-scale wind and solar farms to win the approval of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, whose members are appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R), a staunch supporter of fossil fuels. New projects would be subject to a state environmental impact review, developers would have to pay a yearly fee, and they would need a new permit anytime they made significant changes to existing projects. Senate Bill 624 would also require wind turbines to be built at least 3,000 feet from any property lines — a little more than half a mile — a distance Clark called “absurd.”

The bill’s supporters include Houston billionaire Dan Friedkin, chairman and chief executive of the Friedkin Group, a collection of automotive and travel companies. Friedkin — who also co-owns film production and marketing companies — has not said why he is backing the measure. A lobbyist for the company who registered its support did not respond to messages seeking comment.

But some rural landowners in Texas have banded together to torpedo solar and wind projects, and Friedkin is the owner of the sprawling Comanche Maverick Ranch near Carrizo Springs. State records show he has previously intervened to prevent an electric transmission line from being built on the property, saying it would harm the ranch’s aesthetics, fragment wildlife habitat and lead to increased illegal drug trafficking.

Friedkin is not alone — standing behind the bill is a group of landowners, called the Texas Real Estate Advocacy and Defense Coalition, whose members say they are alarmed by the size and number of solar farms popping up across the state, particularly near pristine landscapes and in areas where developers have cut down trees to clear land. While some landowners have cited environmental concerns, others have claimed that nearby renewable projects are lowering their property values.

Jessica Karlsruher, the coalition’s executive director, cited the case of a landowner near the town of Waco whose property will eventually be surrounded by a solar farm. “That is not a NIMBY issue. That [solar project] has changed the way she wanted to steward her land,” Karlsruher said. “We wanted to see if we could do something about putting up guardrails.”

Yet major environmental groups in Texas have opposed the bill, saying it unfairly targets renewable energy in a state where oversight of the oil, gas and petrochemical industries is lax. A state government review last year found the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s leaders have become “reluctant regulators,” and, rather than emphasizing enforcement, its policies encourage “industry members to self-govern and self-police.”

“This feels like weaponizing regulations,” said Adrian Shelley, director of the advocacy group Public Citizen’s Texas office. “If the bill’s author were serious about this, she’d be applying it to all sources of energy.”

The renewable energy industry’s lagging political support might seem surprising in a state where wind and solar projects have proliferated. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that Texas will get almost 40 percent of its power this year from carbon-free sources.

But Nathan Jensen, a government professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said the industry, as a whole, has not excelled at coalition-building either within the business community or among environmental groups. He also noted that some wind and solar developers have been bad neighbors, barely communicating with nearby property owners and aggressively pursuing tax breaks.

“A lot of people thought that as you build out wind and solar and it becomes mainstream, their political power is going to increase dramatically,” Jensen said. “And this is a point in contrast.”

Other bills that have made it through the Texas Senate and are pending in the House would increase Texas’s use of natural gas. One measure calls for spending taxpayer dollars to build a fleet of new gas-fired power plants — it has the backing of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Another would replace the state’s multibillion-dollar corporate tax break program with a new version that excludes wind and solar energy projects, preventing them from taking advantage of the incentives. Lawmakers in the House approved the measure last week. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) had championed the change, claiming that most of the benefits were going to the wind industry.

Renewable energy advocates said this package of bills could bring the industry’s growth to a sudden halt.

In 2023, for the second year in a row, the EIA expects Texas to lead the nation in solar power growth by installing roughly 7.7 gigawatts of new capacity — beating California’s expected 4.2 gigawatts. Its wind industry, which has been steadily expanding for more than a decade, is expected to lead the United States as well in new development.

While this rapid expansion has angered some rural landowners, it has benefited others eager to lease their property. It has also boosted local governments’ tax revenue.

For years before the wind industry came to town, the Robert Lee Independent School District in West Texas was operating out of a 1954 building with asbestos tiles and no air conditioning, said Aaron Hood, the district’s superintendent. But as wind turbines began to dot the landscape, and the local tax base increased, the district of about 280 students was able to issue a bond to pay for a new school building.

“Wind and solar have been really the only economic development that exists in our area. Samsung and Tesla are not going to come to West Texas,” said Hood. As president of the Texas Association of Rural Schools, he worries that other small school districts poised to benefit from the state’s solar boom may not be able to cash in if lawmakers pass the slate of bills.

“Without these projects coming to Texas, they would have no hope of any true increase in revenue,” he said.

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Image: Wind turbines dot the landscape in Waverly, Kansas./Editing by Germán & Co

‘Over Our Dead Bodies’: Backlash Builds Against $3 Trillion Clean-Energy Push

Ballooning size of wind and solar projects draws local ire as they march closer to populated areas

WSJ TODAY

LAWRENCE, Kan.—The federal government has ignited a green-energy investment spree that’s expected to reach as high as $3 trillion over the next decade. The road to spending that money, though, is increasingly hitting speed bumps from the likes of Gerry Coffman.

About an hour southwest of Kansas City, she turned down a wind lease last year on a farm that has been in her family since 1866. Someone knocked on her door a few months later, paperwork in hand, and offered $6,000 to hang a wind-power transmission line across her land. If she agreed to store construction equipment, she stood to make an additional $4,000. Ms. Coffman said no.

Ms. Coffman rotates corn and soybeans and has cattle pasture on her part of the family farm, which includes a wooded ribbon of water called Eight Mile Creek. Ms. Coffman doesn’t want to see native forest or prairie disturbed and thinks the industrial nature of towering wind turbines would change the community for the worse if a proposed project were built. 

“A year ago we were a nice, quiet neighborhood,” said Ms. Coffman, who has attended a series of contentious public meetings over several months as the county considers revising regulations for wind-energy development.

County-by-county battles are raging as wind and solar projects balloon in size, edge closer to cities and encounter mounting pushback in communities from Niagara Falls to the Great Plains and beyond. Projects have slowed. Even in states with a long history of building renewables, developers don’t know if they can get local permits or how long it might take. 

In Kansas, wind power grew rapidly for two decades and supplies around 45% of the electricity generated in-state, ranking it third in the nation. But at least five counties in more-populous eastern Kansas have recently placed moratoriums or bans on new wind or solar projects, joining 18 others that already restricted wind development to preserve the tallgrass prairie ecosystem. Kansas lagged behind nearly every state in large project construction and new clean power capacity last year, according to the American Clean Power Association, an industry group for wind, solar and battery storage.

President Biden’s signature legislative accomplishment, the Inflation Reduction Act, aims to make the nation’s electric grid and fuel industries cleaner. Companies have already announced plans for $150 billion in investment in renewables and battery storage in the eight months following the law’s passage, according to the American Clean Power Association. 

Potential private investment over the next decade spurred by federal tax incentives and loans could include $900 billion in renewable-energy projects and $100 billion in battery storage, according to Goldman Sachs. Adding investments in such areas as carbon capture and electric vehicles, total spending could reach $3 trillion, the firm estimates. 

Eight Mile Creek runs through Gerry Coffman’s farm in rural Douglas County, Kansas, where opponents are rallying against wind power.

Ms. Coffman, whose farm has been in the family for 150 years, worries that towering wind turbines would change the community for the worse.

The U.S., though, is a patchwork of state and local governments with different rules on development, and opposition to projects has mounted for myriad reasons. Increasingly, many communities are concerned that the rapidly expanding size of wind and solar farms will irreparably alter the complexion of where they live.

In a pattern familiar across the U.S., Kansas wind developers years ago snapped up the rights to tracts of rural land in the less-populous western part of the state. That filled capacity on large transmission lines that deliver electricity over long distances, pushing newer projects east into more-populous areas such as Douglas County, a place where many people commute to jobs in Kansas City and Topeka and large farms are interspersed with smaller plots.

Market demand and economies of scale have pushed solar and wind farm size to hundreds or thousands of acres. They may not sit on contiguous parcels, but instead spread throughout a community, increasing the odds of friction. 

In Michigan, a typical solar project once covered 60 acres but now would take up 1,200, said Sarah Mills, a senior project manager at the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute. Ms. Mills said they may need to get smaller—and more expensive—to be more socially acceptable. A refrain emerging at community meetings she attends is, “What you’re asking our rural community to host is way more than our fair share.”

Projects aren’t evenly distributed throughout the U.S. They are placed where the wind or sunshine is plentiful, or where state policies have required the addition of renewables. Wind farms are concentrated in the Great Plains, Midwest and Texas, while solar is clustering in the West, Southeast and Northeast.

The National Renewable Energy Lab has tracked more than 2,000 local wind ordinances and 1,000 solar ordinances that outline rules for development such as project size. Figuring out whether regulations bar or allow development can be tricky, as bans aren’t always explicit—communities can create rules that amount to de facto denials—but the landscape changes each time developers cross a county line.

“It can be very localized,” said Rebecca Kujawa, president and CEO of NextEra Energy Resources. “It can be one county where a couple of stakeholders are very vocal and literally right over the border they’re very receptive.”

In Iowa, which has the second-highest installed wind power capacity in the country after Texas, a 2022 study of wind ordinances found that 16 of 99 counties had prohibitive rules or a ban against new projects, most of them approved in the previous four years. Between moratoriums and requirements for setbacks between turbines and things such as neighboring property lines, roads or buildings, developers won’t even consider projects on around half to three quarters of land with good wind resources, according to a study by the nonprofit research firm ClearPath and consulting group LucidCatalyst. 

Despite soaring demand and available capital even before the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, U.S. clean power installations dipped 16% last year and 12% over 2020, according to the American Clean Power Association. It was the worst year for land-based wind installations since 2018.

Many projects will eventually get built, say developers and analysts, but they could take longer and cost more than expected. At the federal level, there is some bipartisan support for speeding up permitting for transmission or pipeline projects, and Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, has relaunched a legislative effort that stalled last year. Some states are pushing back on their own against local roadblocks.

New regulations in New York give the state project-siting authority when conflicts arise over what it considers unreasonably burdensome local rules, part of an effort to add more renewable energy to the grid. Illinois has a similar effort: A new law says local rules can’t be more stringent than those the state sets.

In Cambria, N.Y., near Niagara Falls, a proposed 900-acre solar project across several parcels of land would neighbor around 350 residents, said town supervisor Wright Ellis. The town opposes the project, but likely cannot halt it. 

“We are not against solar,” Mr. Ellis said. “It’s the industrial size.”

That doesn’t mean the process is swift, though. The Cambria solar project was first proposed in 2017.

Landowner John Ohol, 44, wants to lease his property for the solar farm but fears further delays as the developer and township wrangle in court over the state’s draft permit. His family had a dairy farm in Cambria for 90 years, but he believes solar would be a more secure income stream. It is unrealistic for the community to expect that nothing would ever be developed on the property, Mr. Ohol said.

The developer says the site is ideal for solar. “Running right through our project site are two to three very large transmission lines,” said Keith Silliman of Cypress Creek Renewables. “That’s the A-number one reason that we’re there.”

New York has ambitious plans to have 70% of its electricity produced by renewables by 2030. Around 32% of New York’s electricity in 2021 came from renewables, most of it from longtime hydropower plants that would be difficult to impossible to build today. 

Adding more renewables has been slow so far. New York added just 262 megawatts of large wind and solar projects in 2022, less than Montana and South Dakota, according to the American Clean Power Association.

The Douglas County Board of Commissioners held a hearing in February on a request by NextEra Energy to put up a meteorological tower and other equipment.

Many Douglas County landowners object to renewable energy projects, which they say will harm local businesses, wildlife and property values.

On a cold February night in Kansas, Douglas County residents filed into dark wooden pews in the county courthouse and waited turns at the microphone. The meeting was focused on permits for a meteorological tower and other weather measurement equipment that is needed for  wind projects. The applications from power company NextEra Energy drew so much opposition that the meeting stretched four hours.

“Do you see the wounds that are being caused?” asked Debbie Yarnell, who owns a cow and sheep farm.

NextEra declined to comment on the meeting or its plans in Douglas County, but Chief Executive John Ketchum said in an interview in March that the company tries to do community outreach on the benefits of renewable energy and has an early-state development team that identifies places that would both welcome projects and have a good solar or wind resource. 

“The one thing we do that is really, really hard to do in this country is create economic development opportunities for rural communities,” Mr. Ketchum said. 

Alan Anderson, vice chair of the Polsinelli law firm’s national energy practice, represented the company at the Kansas meeting. He has traversed the state for such meetings for the last 15 years. The mood changed around 2015 when one of Mr. Anderson’s clients called and said they had been turned down for a meteorological tower, which until then had received routine approvals.

“It was the first of what became a pretty constant onslaught of challenges to projects,” said Mr. Anderson, who attributes the change to the conversation shifting from renewables as an economic boost to political debates and misinformation.

Some opponents don’t like the idea of locally produced energy getting exported out of the state, or that the government is singling out particular technologies for special tax treatment. Other objections are more tangible. Communities often complain about the rhythmic blinking red lights that flash atop turbines at night or the whooshing noise of blades. They also raise concerns about taking farmland out of production or the impact on wildlife.

Plenty of Kansans do want to host projects—wind is already the biggest source of electricity in the state, followed by coal at 35%, according to government data. Supporters view energy exports as akin to shipments of products like wheat or beef, and point to the amount of the corn crop that is grown for ethanol. 

The state’s residential electricity prices have generally been at or below the national average, while low-cost wind production drives down wholesale power prices, according to government and grid operator reports.

Many Kansans are girding for a long fight over this and future projects. Michael Forth helped start an opposition group which gained 1,200 petition signatures from residents who own a collective 40,000 acres. He traces his Douglas County family farm back to 1904 and moved back seven years ago from Colorado and built a house. “I’m wondering if I didn’t make the biggest mistake of my life,” he said.

Mr. Forth’s sister, Laurie Shuck, recently purchased a stack of “no trespassing” signs to post around her fences to try to keep out NextEra representatives offering wind leases or transmission easements. One late afternoon as light faded at her farm, the moon rose in the east and a flock of geese honked overhead. She paused to watch. Mrs. Shuck said she and her brother would lease land for wind projects, “over our dead bodies.” 

 “I was here first,” she said, and walked to feed her horses.

Michael Forth and his family have owned land in Douglas County since 1904. He moved back seven years ago, but with the influx of renewable-energy projects, said, ‘I’m wondering if I didn’t make the biggest mistake of my life.’

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Source: Media

EU targets Central Asia in drive to stop sanctioned goods reaching Russia  

Several EU countries fear Brussels risk opening a Pandora’s box with a new measure that could eventually be used against China and Turkey.

POLITICO EU BY BARBARA MOENS, LEONIE KIJEWSKI AND SUZANNE LYNCH, MAY 8, 2023 

Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are the most likely first targets of a radical new EU proposal to stop Russia busting sanctions by importing the high-tech components required to wage war through its neighbors.

The EU is moving toward its 11th package of sanctions against Russia to try to sap President Vladimir Putin's military machine and, for the first time, its proposal will include counter-measures against countries helping Moscow dodge Brussels' trade embargo. China and Turkey are the nations most often credited with throwing Russia an economic lifeline — but EU diplomats cautioned that Ankara and Beijing were not their immediate targets, and that measures against such significant geostrategic trade partners risked backfiring.

Instead, three EU diplomats said the hope was that the EU's impending proposals on sanctions circumvention would encourage Central Asian states to fall into line. The full 11th sanctions package could be unveiled as early as Tuesday, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visits Kyiv to mark Europe Day.

EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan has traveled to Turkey, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in recent weeks in a bid to gauge the scale of sanctions circumvention.

Under the proposal for the 11th package, seen by POLITICO, the Commission wants to target “persons and entities circumventing the Union’s restrictive measures by activities which have the aim or result of frustrating the prohibitions in those measures. This concerns, for example, companies established in third countries, which obtain goods subject to restrictions from companies established in the Union and which are then supplied to Russia, directly or through intermediaries.”

Significantly, no specific countries or products are named in the two annexes to the proposal — instead it will be up to EU countries to make that decision. In addition to the new proposal, the 11th sanctions package also currently includes listings of 72 individuals and 31 entities.

The central plank of this new EU measure would be to restrict European companies from selling sensitive goods to one of Russia's neighbors if there were circumvention. The sanctions would first list sensitive products in terms of circumvention, then the countries where they are being shipped.

EU ambassadors will offer their first impressions on the proposal on Wednesday. EU diplomats don’t expect a deal on the new package until next week, or even the week after. The Kazakh and Uzbek embassies to the EU did not have an immediate response.

Not so fast

But that doesn’t mean the anti-circumvention measures will win a quick sign-off.

Several EU countries fear Brussels risks opening a Pandora’s box with the proposal. By establishing the principle that countries who breach EU sanctions, deliberately or not, could be targeted, the move opens up the possibility that other countries such as Turkey or China could be next in the firing line.

One EU diplomat seeking a tougher line on the bigger targets said he was "hoping for a loaded gun on the table, but right now the gun isn't even loaded."  

The U.S. has been pushing Brussels to take a more hawkish line on China but the EU is reluctant to further alienate Beijing. 

Similarly, confronting Turkey is also seen as a major political risk, given the volatility of Turkish politics as it approaches this weekend’s election, and Ankara’s leverage when it comes to issues like migration, given that Turkey has long acted as a buffer between the EU and the Middle East. 

While the Commission believes the threat of punishing Central Asian countries will be enough of an economic stick to change their behavior, one diplomat said Europe “should be sure we are ready to follow through” with a threat before making it. Another diplomat said Brussels needs to find a balance between cracking down on sanction circumvention and maintaining economic ties with key trading partners such as Turkey or China.  

Beijing on Monday was already adamantly opposed to a separate EU measure in the 11th sanctions package, which targets seven Chinese companies suspected of sending prohibited goods to Russia either directly or through intermediaries. This direct targeting of the seven companies is distinct from the proposed broader circumvention measure to draw up specific lists of products that should not be sold from Europe to companies in countries neighboring Russia, which has not yet been approved.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin warned the EU not to go ahead. “We urge the EU not to go on this wrong path, otherwise China will take firm actions to safeguard our legitimate and lawful interests,” he said. 

But the Commission is confident that the circumvention package gives EU countries enough wiggle-room to apply the brakes if a proposed measure is seen as too politically sensitive. 

Under the proposal, every decision to add a product or country needs to be approved by all 27 EU capitals. 

This may help to get EU countries on board with the politically sensitive new idea; at the same time, it makes the procedure very burdensome, giving every capital a potential veto power.

Focusing minds has been the looming G7 summit in Japan later this month, where the group of the world’s strongest economies are expected to focus on strengthening sanctions on Russia and combatting circumvention. 

For Ukraine’s supporters, the new package to be considered by member states Wednesday is good news. “I'm satisfied with that [package] as long as the final decision has been made … All the sanctions which are harming the Russian war machine, we are supporting them,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told POLITICO.

Jakob Hanke Vela and Stuart Lau contributed reporting.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Augusto Pinochet, in full Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, (born November 25, 1915, Valparaiso, Chile—died December 10, 2006, Santiago), leader of the military junta that overthrew the socialist government of Pres. Salvador Allende of Chile on September 11, 1973. Pinochet was head of Chile’s military government (1974–90). During his dictatorial reign tens of thousands of opponents of his regime were tortured/Source Britannica.com/ Image: Media/ Editing by Germán & Co

Analysis: Chile’s constitution will struggle to escape Pinochet’s shadow

This result has made it easier for far-right candidates like Kast to win elections: "Kast, a lawyer and supporter of the terrible Pinochet regime.

REUTERS By Alexander Villegas and Natalia A. Ramos Miranda

SANTIAGO, May 8 (Reuters) - Chile's new constitution may end up looking a lot like the current text, which dates back to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship - but without his name on it - after the political right took charge of the redraft process in a harsh nationwide electoral defeat for leftist President Gabriel Boric.

Chile's Republican Party, led by far-right firebrand Jose Antonio Kast, secured over a third of the national vote on Sunday to elect advisers to draw up the new constitution, a sharp shift from a progressive majority that led the failed first attempt.

The win for the right will likely set the foundations for a far more conservative rewrite of the neoliberal original text, which was credited for propelling decades of strong growth in the copper mining nation, but criticized for causing wide economic inequalities that sparked months of social justice protests in 2019.

"This is the right's best chance for people to pick a Pinochet constitution without Pinochet's signature," said Patricio Navia a political scientist at New York University.

"If it includes some upgrades and demands from the left, we're going to have a constitution very similar to Pinochet's, but signed by Gabriel Boric and ministers of the Communist Party (part of the governing coalition)."

Boric, a former student protest leader, rose to power representing the Social Convergence Party on a hopeful mandate of reform, pledging to support a major progressive overhaul of the constitution. That process ended in failure last year when voters rejected the proposed new text.

Boric and progressives had called for a new democratic drafting process led by citizens with a focus on Indigenous and minority rights, powers of collective bargaining, water and land rights, as well as healthcare, education and pension reforms.

This time around, Boric's approval rating has fallen amid concerns about inflation and insecurity.

"The political climate in Chile isn't the same as in 2019 or 2020," said political analyst Cristobal Bellolio. "After a pandemic, and amid an economic and security crisis, people are favoring options that reduce uncertainty."

That's opened the door to far-right politicians like Kast, a lawyer who lost to Boric in the 2021 presidential elections and has defended the legacy of the brutal Pinochet dictatorship. An estimated 3,200 Chileans were murdered and another 28,000 tortured by the state during Pinochet's rule. Many of the victims were affiliated with the socialist government of Salvador Allende, who was deposed in a 1973 coup.

Kast's party won 23 of 50 seats on the new constitutional council, while a separate coalition of conservative parties won 11 seats. With a three-fifths majority needed to pass new articles, the right could push things through on its own.

Analysts said, however, that the right would likely agree to some changes to appease voters, including on areas like expanded social rights, consumer protections and Indigenous recognitions.

"The issue is that if it's more right then Pinochet's constitution, people are going to reject it," Navia added, who added the loss for Boric left the leader who once promised to bury Chile's market-led model sorely wounded.

"Boric said that if Chile was the cradle of neo-liberalism, it would also be its grave. But neo-liberalism is still healthy and now Boric is in the ICU," he said.

The loss comes weeks after Boric presented his most-recent ambitious proposal to take control of the country's lithium industry and create a new national lithium company. The plan already faces technical and political challenges as a key part must pass through Congress.

Rossana Castiglioni, a political science professor at Diego Portales University in Chile, said she was surprised by the low support for centrist parties and high number of null and blank votes, saying it was a message for progressives in the region.

"It's not enough to win an election, what happens in between is very important," Castiglioni said, adding that the economic landscape was very different than a previous leftist tide in Latin America during the economic boom of the early 2000s.

"The lesson is that there has to be a strategic adaption on the left if it wants to win elections in contexts were the economy is more adverse."

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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A Nasa satellite image of methane plumes east of Hazar, Turkmenistan, in October 2022. Photograph: Nasa/JPL-Caltech/AFP/Editing by Germán & Co

‘Mind-boggling’ methane emissions from Turkmenistan revealed

Leaks of potent greenhouse gas could be easily fixed, say experts, and would rapidly reduce global heating

The Guardian by Damian Carrington Environment editor, Tue 9 May 2023 

Methane leaks alone from Turkmenistan’s two main fossil fuel fields caused more global heating in 2022 than the entire carbon emissions of the UK, satellite data has revealed.

Emissions of the potent greenhouse gas from the oil- and gas-rich country are “mind-boggling”, and an “infuriating” problem that should be easy to fix, experts have told the Guardian.

The data produced by Kayrros for the Guardian found that the western fossil fuel field in Turkmenistan, on the Caspian coast, leaked 2.6m tonnes of methane in 2022. The eastern field emitted 1.8m tonnes. Together, the two fields released emissions equivalent to 366m tonnes of CO2, more than the UK’s annual emissions, which are the 17th-biggest in the world.

Methane emissions have surged alarmingly since 2007 and this acceleration may be the biggest threat to keeping below 1.5C of global heating, according to scientists. It also seriously risks triggering catastrophic climate tipping points, researchers say.

The Guardian recently revealed that Turkmenistan was the worst in the world for methane “super emitting” leaks. Separate research suggests a switch from the flaring of methane to venting may be behind some of these vast outpourings.

Flaring is used to burn unwanted gas, putting CO2 into the atmosphere, but is easy to detect and has been increasingly frowned upon in recent years. Venting simply releases the invisible methane into the air unburned, which, until recent developments in satellite technology, had been hard to detect. Methane traps 80 times more heat than CO2 over 20 years, making venting far worse for the climate.

Experts told the Guardian that the Cop28 UN climate summit being hosted in the United Arab Emirates in December was an opportunity to drive methane-cutting action in Turkmenistan. The two petrostates have close ties and there is pressure on the UAE to dispel doubts that a big oil and gas producer can deliver strong outcomes from the summit.

Tackling leaks from fossil fuel sites is the fastest and cheapest way to slash methane emissions, and therefore global heating. Action to stem leaks often pays for itself, as the gas captured can be sold. But the maintenance of infrastructure in Turkmenistan is very poor, according to experts.

‘Out of control’

“Methane is responsible for almost half of short-term [climate] warming and has absolutely not been managed up to now – it was completely out of control,” said Antoine Rostand, the president of Kayrros.

“We know where the super emitters are and who is doing it,” he said. “We just need the policymakers and investors to do their job, which is to crack down on methane emissions. There is no comparable action in terms of [reducing] short-term climate impacts.”

Super-emissions from oil and gas installations were readily ended, Rostand said, by fixing valves or pipes or, at the very least, relighting flares: “It’s very simple to do, it has no cost for the citizen, and for the producers, the cost is completely marginal.”

The satellite data used by Kayrros to detect methane has been collected since the start of 2019 and Turkmenistan’s overall emissions show a level trend since then. Satellites have also detected 840 super-emitting events, ie leaks from single wells, tanks or pipes at a rate of a few tonnes an hour or more, the most from any nation.

Most of the facilities leaking the methane were owned by Turkmenoil, the national oil company, Kayrros said. Further undetected methane emissions will be coming from Turkmenistan’s offshore oil and gas installations in the Caspian Sea, but the ability of satellites to measure methane leaks over water is still being developed.

Kayrros also did some high-resolution monitoring of the North Bugdayly field in western Turkmenistan. The number of super-emitter events there doubled to almost 60 between 2021 and 2022, with one recent super-emitter pouring out methane for almost six weeks.

Turkmenistan is China’s biggest supplier of gas and is planning to double its exports to the country. Until 2018, Turkmen citizens had received free gas and electricity. However, the country is also very vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, with the likelihood of severe drought projected to increase “very significantly” over the 21st century and yields of major crops expected to fall.

‘Huge opportunity’

Speaking freely about the repressive and authoritarian state is difficult but sources told the Guardian it was a “very depressing” situation, with Turkmenistan probably the worst country in the world in dealing with methane leaks.

They said preventing or fixing the leaks represented a “huge opportunity” but that the lack of action was “infuriating”. Turkmenistan could stop the leaks from ageing Soviet-era equipment and practices, they said, and the country could be the “world’s biggest methane reducer”. But the huge gas resources on tap meant “they never cared if it leaked”.

It was also not a priority for the president, Serdar Berdimuhamedov, they said, without whose approval little happens. This is despite Berdimuhamedov, then deputy chair of the cabinet of ministers, telling the UN climate summit Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021 that Turkmenistan was reducing greenhouse gas emissions “by introducing modern technologies in all spheres of the state’s economy”, with “special attention” to the reduction of methane emissions.

Turkmenistan’s president, Serdar Berdimuhamedov, at his inauguration ceremony in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, in March 2022. Photograph: AP

Berdimuhamedov also welcomed the Global Methane Pledge (GMP) to cut emissions, but Turkmenistan has failed to join the 150 nations now signed. Neither are Turkmenoil and Turkengas, the state companies, members of a voluntary UN initiative to cut leaks, the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (OGMP2), which covers about 40% of global oil and gas production. “The president hasn’t followed up,” said a source.

Largest hotspot

Recent scientific research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, found that the west coast of Turkmenistan was “one of the largest methane hotspots in the world”.

Detailed analysis of satellite data revealed 29 different super-emitter events between 2017 and 2020, although older satellite data showed that “this type of emission has been occurring for decades”.

The researchers said 24 of the 29 super-emitter events came from flare stacks that had been extinguished and were then venting methane directly into the air, and that all were managed by state companies. The other five were linked to pipeline leaks. The scientists said that “the more frequent emitters would conflict with Turkmen law, which bans continuous gas flaring and venting”.

“Flaring is very easy to identify from the flame itself,” said Itziar Irakulis-Loitxate, of the Universitat Politècnica de València in Spain, who led the study. “But venting was something that you could not identify easily until two years ago.” The switch to venting, a far worse environmental practice, was “mind-boggling”, according to another expert.

The scientists said the prevalence of venting “points to the risks of penalising flaring without effective measures to control venting”. The World Bank founded a global initiative to end flaring in 2015.

‘Forcing mechanism’

The UN climate summit in December represented an opportunity for change, sources said, as it is being hosted by the UAE, which has strong links with Turkmenistan and expertise in oil and gas production. The most recent visit by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, the UAE’s deputy prime minister, to Turkmenistan was in February. He met Berdimuhamedov and discussed with him bilateral cooperation “in vital sectors such as oil and gas”.

The UAE is a member of the Global Methane Pledge and the state oil company, Adnoc, is a member of the OGMP2. Adnoc recently announced a partnership to develop a “supergiant gas field” called Galkynysh and other energy projects in Turkmenistan. However, Adnoc did not respond to a request for information on how the company would help limit methane emissions in the country.

The Guardian understands diplomatic efforts are being made to urge Turkmenistan to cut its methane emissions. “We are really hoping Cop28 is a forcing mechanism,” a source said.

The Guardian contacted Turkmenoil, Turkmengaz, the Turkmenistan ministry of foreign affairs and the Turkmen embassy in the UK for comment, but none responded.

News round-up, May, 8, 2023

Monday's thoughts

Waking up hopeless in a world where bad news rains down is a nightmare.

The article published by this blog in September 2022 named: “Beware of starving the enemy of oxygen …, was one of the first pieces of media to analyze China's potential role in the current war between Russia and Ukraine from a historical perspective.

…”  Following the conclusions of the bilateral meeting between the republics of China and Russia within the framework of the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the city of Samarkand in the Republic of Uzbekistan on September 16 of this year, the dangers of the current Russian military invasion of Ukraine have deepened....  As a result of the cautious position of the forgotten ally of the West during the Second World War, China, after the conclusion of the meeting.  In a statement by President Vladimir Putin himself, he acknowledges and simultaneously understands China's concerns about the current conflict.  Obviously, for the president of the Russian federation, it must not have been easy to publicly acknowledge China's political stance concerning the present war labyrinth with threats of incalculable dangers in its escalation. (https://energycentral.com/c/og/beware-starving-enemy-oxygen)

Although it may be an illusion (and we hope not a dilution), news from today's issue of The Wall Street Journal, regarding the negotiations China is leading for a ceasefire between Russia and its allies against Ukraine and the rest of the world, gives a glimmer of hope.

It has been a slow, steady process in a world that has undermined the so-called normality stage brewing since the end of the Cold War.  It has also been a disruptive process, weakening the global political system and undermining its leaders' political management capacity to care for the most disadvantaged.  Adding to all this is the inflationary process of the 1970s that widened the inequality gap.  The 2008 recession and the volcanic social and economic upheaval (inflationary processes) in many regions of the world, first due to the pandemic and now to war, have contributed to disorientation and frustration, weakening the bonds of coexistence.  The world has changed so much, it is becoming increasingly difficult to envisage that we will ever be the same again.  How we live, work, and relate to each other has changed forever, and all we do is try desperately to adapt to the new reality.  It is difficult, but we can get through it together in a mean-spirited and polarised world.

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Most read…

U.S. and Allies Look at Potential China Role in Ending Ukraine War

An expected offensive by Ukraine is seen as paving way for negotiations with Russia

WSJ By Bojan Pancevski and Laurence Norman, May 7, 2023

China's return to global stage checked by national security focus

Since abandoning pandemic controls that would effectively close its borders after 2020, Beijing has recently launched several diplomatic and commercial actions that appear to contradict each other.

REUTERS By Yew Lun Tian and James Pomfret, TODAY

The ‘Peace Dividend’ Is Over in Europe. Now Come the Hard Tradeoffs.

Defending against an unpredictable Russia in years to come will mean bumping up against a strained social safety net and ambitious climate transition plans.

NYT By Patricia Cohen and Liz Alderman, May 3, 2023

Israel to boost energy storage with eye on facilitating Sabbath supplies

Globally, there is a growing need for stored energy to utilize solar power at night and support the transition to electricity-powered transportation.

Reuters, NOW

In Germany, the construction of the Northvolt battery factory is under threat from US subsidies

The Swedish battery developer is considering abandoning their plans to build a factory in northern Germany to instead build it in the United States where subsidies for decarbonized industrial projects are more favorable.

Le Monde By Cécile Boutelet,  April 27, 2023. 

Climate Activists Have a New Target: Civilians…

On The Street Whit The Suv- Busting: Tire Extenguisher

POLITICO EU BY KARL MATHIESEN, MAY 2, 2023 

Chile: Far right ahead in key vote for new constitution

It was a major defeat for Chile's center-left president, Gabriel Boric, with the vote also widely viewed as a referendum on his government.

Le Monde with AP, TODAY

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron met in China last month. PHOTO: JACQUES WITT/PRESS POOL/ Editing by Germán & Co

U.S. and Allies Look at Potential China Role in Ending Ukraine War

An expected offensive by Ukraine is seen as paving way for negotiations with Russia

WSJ By Bojan Pancevski and Laurence Norman in Berlin and Vivian Salama in Washington, May 7, 2023

Some U.S. and European officials said they believe that Ukraine’s planned spring offensive could pave the way for negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow by the end of the year, and that China could help bring Russia to the table.

The willingness to encourage negotiations and seek out a role for China in talks represents a shift in Western thinking, particularly in the U.S., which has been highly skeptical of any involvement for Beijing given China’s longstanding support for Moscow. Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly expressed cautious optimism recently that Beijing could help defuse the conflict. 

The approach is based on the belief that neither side has the ability to continue fighting indefinitely, and that Beijing’s willingness to play a role in international peace talks should be tested, the officials said. Still, they remain uncertain about Russia’s willingness to negotiate a cease-fire under Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The interest in negotiations brings Washington in closer alignment with some European countries, which are eager to see the conflict end, or at the very least moderate in intensity, and have been the most intent on discussing some resolution this year. The U.S., the U.K. and other countries have been publicly saying that Ukraine should be supported as long as it takes to defeat Russia. 

“We have been clear that we will continue to support Ukraine as they defend their country from Russia’s unprovoked invasion, and that support will continue,” said Adam Hodge, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “Unfortunately, we see no signs that Russia is preparing to stop its attacks on the Ukrainian people. That’s why we are committed to continuing to help Ukraine protect its people against Russian aggression.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has been the most explicit in pushing Ukraine to seek negotiations with the Kremlin after the spring offensive. Officials at the White House and State Department have long maintained that all wars end at the negotiating table, but said that it will require a genuine interest on the part of Russia to approach any talks in good faith. The military aid dispatched to Ukraine is designed to put Kyiv in a stronger negotiating position.

Key U.S. officials on the National Security Council are in favor of negotiations, according to European officials, while the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have been more skeptical, eager to see how the offensive goes before pitching for a diplomatic off-ramp.

An NSC spokesperson disputed European accounts that there is division within the administration. The State Department and the CIA didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Senior officials in Paris and Berlin who are familiar with their leaders’ discussions with President Biden say they expect the White House to attempt to facilitate talks following the Ukrainian offensive’s anticipated gains.

The aim is for Ukraine to regain important territory in the south, a development that could be interpreted as a success even if Russia retains chunks of territory its forces have occupied.  

Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, will host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin this month on what is set to be his first trip to Germany since Russia invaded in February 2022. While Mr. Scholz won’t pressure Mr. Zelensky into talks, Mr. Biden is expected to signal to the Ukrainian leader that cease-fire talks might be opportune in the coming months, European officials said.

The push to negotiate comes in the midst of concern on both sides of the Atlantic that the scale of support provided by allies to Ukraine for the coming push will be hard to match in the future if the war grinds into a stalemate. The supply of ammunition is a key problem because Western industrial capacity has proven unable to meet its own demands while supporting Ukraine, several officials and industry leaders said.

A number of senior officials across European governments expressed concern about the high attrition rates of troops and materiel in Ukraine, whose population is less than one-third of Russia’s.

The European push for negotiations isn’t a consensus. Poland, the Baltic states, other smaller nations and some officials from the U.K. believe that Ukraine should be given the time it needs to make gains—even if the coming spring offensive doesn’t reshape the battlefield.

Russia faces challenges sustaining its war effort, which some believe could force it to the negotiating table. Testifying May 4 on Capitol Hill, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Mr. Putin has little interest in negotiating a definitive settlement of the conflict and is still assuming that the West’s will to support Ukraine will erode over time. 

“We continue to assess that Putin most likely calculates that time works in his favor,” said Ms. Haines. 

She added that the Russian leader has probably scaled back his near-term goals in Ukraine of consolidating control in the east and south of the country and ensuring that Kyiv never joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. If Mr. Putin accedes to a “negotiated pause” in the conflict, she said, his goal might be to use the time to rebuild Russia’s forces for future offensive operations.

It couldn’t be determined what any sort of negotiations would look like, but officials in Paris and Berlin said they are interested in a broadly framed cease-fire agreement that would potentially involve China among its guarantors.

In February, China called for peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, outlining its plan in a 12-point document, and casting itself as a neutral mediator. 

That same month, Mr. Macron offered in private to Mr. Zelensky to host a peace conference in Paris to negotiate a cease-fire when Kyiv decides the time is right. Mr. Zelensky said he would only participate if Mr. Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping attended. 

“China will continue to promote negotiations for peace and make its own efforts for an early cease-fire and restoration of peace,” the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement.

Mr. Macron and his officials, as well as other Europeans officials, have since prodded Beijing to play a constructive role in diplomacy. Those efforts culminated in Mr. Xi calling Mr. Zelensky in April for the first time since the war began, although officials briefed on the conversation said the call deflated hopes that the Chinese leader would shift away from supporting Russia and contained no clear commitments to uphold Ukraine’s demands. 

Mr. Xi, who made a high-profile visit in March to the Kremlin, where he expressed support for Mr. Putin, will soon dispatch an envoy to Kyiv. 

“It is too early to be able to say anything, and we are now waiting for Xi’s representative to arrive in Kyiv,” said a senior member of the Ukrainian government.

Nonetheless, key European leaders are now confident that China is eager to remain involved in eventual cease-fire negotiations, several European officials said.

That sentiment was echoed by Mr. Blinken. “In principle, there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said last week at a Washington Post forum. He added that if there are countries with significant influence “that are prepared to pursue a just and durable peace, we would welcome that. And it’s certainly possible that China would have a role to play in that effort.” Mr. Blinken also said he wasn’t sure that Beijing accepted the proposition that Moscow was the aggressor.

When would be the right time for Ukraine to hold peace talks with Russia? Join the conversation below.

Until recently, a number of U.S. and European officials were saying that China’s open support for Russia since the war began made Beijing unpalatable as a negotiating partner for ending the war.

Kyiv welcomes any country that can play a constructive role in their pursuit of peace, but didn’t believe Beijing was crucial, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, said recently.

Western leaders are now slowly moving toward a consensus that halting the conflict might be the best option, said Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official responsible for Russian policy, now with the Brookings Institution.

“This seems to be where we are trending,” she said. “Freeze the conflict and stop the slaughter, because everybody would like this to stop.” 

Mr. Putin has shown no public sign of winding down the war or his objectives, despite mounting losses. Any durable arrangement will most likely involve Mr. Zelensky’s acceptance of occupation of Ukrainian territory by Russia, Ms. Hill said.

“Is it sufficient for Ukraine to have effectively given up territory and countless lives and to say, ‘OK, this is what we died for?’ ” Ms. Hill asked.

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A cutout depicting Chinese President Xi Jinping is on display outside a gift shop in Moscow, Russia May 3, 2023. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/ Editing by Germán & Co

China's return to global stage checked by national security focus

Since abandoning pandemic controls that would effectively close its borders after 2020, Beijing has recently launched several diplomatic and commercial actions that appear to contradict each other.

REUTERS By Yew Lun Tian and James Pomfret, TODAY

BEIJING/HONG KONG, May 8 (Reuters) - China's increasing focus on its own security and intensifying rivalry with the United States threatens to turn its re-engagement with the world after years of COVID curbs into a new era of isolation from the West, analysts say.

Since casting off pandemic controls that effectively shut its borders since 2020, Beijing has in recent months embarked on a series of seemingly contradictory diplomatic and business steps that have left many observers questioning its motives.

These have included: promoting peace in Ukraine while holding talks with the aggressor Russia, rolling out the red carpet to Western leaders while escalating tensions over democratic Taiwan, and wooing foreign CEOs while taking measures seen as stifling China's business environment.

Analysts say what may appear as mixed messaging is the result of President Xi Jinping's renewed focus on national security, steeled by rock-bottom relations with rival superpower, the United States.

"The stark reality in China...is that security now trumps everything, from economy to diplomacy," said Alfred Wu, associate dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.

Wu said the overwhelming focus on security is hurting some of China's diplomatic ties and its plans to rejuvenate the world's second largest economy, even as it seeks to stamp its authority on key geopolitical issues including the Ukraine crisis.

"For all that China says about wanting to be open to the outside world, it has progressively closed up."

Xi singled out national security, a broad concept incorporating issues ranging from politics and economics to technology and territorial disputes, in a speech after securing a precedent-breaking third leadership term in October.

A later speech in March at the National People's Congress was more pointed: China's security is being challenged by U.S. attempts to contain its rise, he said.

While national security has always been among Xi's top concerns since taking office in 2012, his first two terms focused more on domestic issues like dissidents, rights activists and Muslim ethnic groups in China's northwestern Xinjiang region.

In his October speech, he added "external security" and "international security", in what analysts say signals a new focus to counter foreign threats, namely Washington.

Asked for its response to a list of questions for this story, China's foreign ministry said it was "not aware of the situation".

Ministry officials have repeatedly asserted that China is a responsible power that supports multilateralism and globalisation and have accused other countries of hyping up the "China threat".

'DIVERGENCE UNDERNEATH'

But China's obsession with security has tainted several of its recent diplomatic initiatives, say analysts.

For example, China's attempts to promote a peace plan for Ukraine has been met with scepticism due to its refusal to condemn Moscow, a close ally and its biggest oil supplier.

When Xi last month held his first call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since the war started more than a year ago - an effort to stress Beijing is not taking sides - several analysts cast it as "damage control" after China's ambassador to France questioned Ukraine's sovereignty.

Charles Parton, a fellow at British think tank Council of Geostrategy, said China's calls for peace in Ukraine are related to its own battle with the U.S.

"Beijing does not care if its peacemaking works...what matters is that this is an opportunity to portray the Americans in a bad light," he said, referring to China's assertions that the U.S. and its allies are fanning the flames of war by arming Kyiv.

Michael Butler, associate professor of political science at Clark University in Boston, said Ukraine was a litmus test for U.S. resolve with parallels for Taiwan, the democratically ruled island China claims as its own.

"Of particular concern to Xi is gauging the lengths to which the U.S. will – or won’t – go to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty from Russian aggression, while publicly positioning China as a sober voice of reason and the U.S. as a meddlesome aggressor," he said.

China's attempt to woo US allies in Europe is also part of its strategy to counter Washington's influence, but has had mixed success, say analysts.

They point to last month's meeting in China between Xi and French President Emmanuel Macron. What appeared to be a friendly, constructive encounter was marred by Beijing beginning war games around Taiwan hours after Macron left.

This, alongside comments by Macron perceived as weak on Taiwan, fuelled criticism of the trip in Europe as pandering to China. EU officials subsequently took a tougher line on China.

BUSINESS JITTERS

China's security focus also risks isolating the country economically.

At a pair of high-profile business summits in China in March, officials were at pains to stress the country was open for business after COVID.

But in recent weeks, China has also passed a wide-ranging update of its anti-espionage law and taken what the U.S. said was "punitive" action toward some overseas firms in China.

"The security forces in China seem to have been emboldened, at the same time that China seeks to attract more foreign investment," Lester Ross, the head of the American Chamber of Commerce’s China policy committee, told Reuters.

Chinese foreign ministry officials have previously said Beijing welcomes foreign firms as long as they abide by its laws.

Instead of optimism about China's reopening, decades-long foreign bullishness on its capital markets is breaking down, with China's rivalry with the U.S. topping investor concerns.

Ray Dalio, the founder of one of the world's biggest hedge funds Bridgewater and a high profile Sinophile, is among those concerned.

"(China and the U.S.) are very close to crossing red lines that, if crossed, will irrevocably push them over the brink into some type of war that damages these two countries and causes damage to the world order in severe and irrevocable ways," Dalio, who retired earlier this year, recently wrote on his personal LinkedIn account.

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Image: The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Last year, military spending in Europe had its biggest annual rise in three decades, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported.Credit...Patrick Junker for The New York Times / Editing by Germán & Co 

The ‘Peace Dividend’ Is Over in Europe. Now Come the Hard Tradeoffs.

Defending against an unpredictable Russia in years to come will mean bumping up against a strained social safety net and ambitious climate transition plans.

NYT By Patricia Cohen and Liz Alderman, May 3, 2023

*Patricia Cohen covers the global economy from London, and Liz Alderman the European economy from Paris.

In the 30 years since the Iron Curtain came crashing down, trillions of dollars that had been dedicated to Cold War armies and weapons systems were gradually diverted to health care, housing and schools.

That era — when security took a back seat to trade and economic growth — abruptly ended with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

“The peace dividend is gone,” Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, recently declared, referring to the mountains of cash that were freed up when military budgets shrank. “Defense expenditures have to go up.”

The urgent need to combat a brutal and unpredictable Russia has forced European leaders to make excruciating budgetary decisions that will enormously affect peoples’ everyday lives. Do they spend more on howitzers or hospitals, tanks or teachers, rockets or roadways? And how to pay for it: raise taxes or borrow more? Or both?

The sudden security demands, which will last well beyond an end to the war in Ukraine, come at a moment when colossal outlays are also needed to care for rapidly aging populations, as well as to avoid potentially disastrous climate change. The European Union’s ambitious goal to be carbon neutral by 2050 alone is estimated to cost between $175 billion and $250 billion each year for the next 27 years.

“The spending pressures on Europe will be huge, and that’s not even taking into account the green transition,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard. “The whole European social safety net is very vulnerable to these big needs.”

After the Berlin Wall fell, social spending shot up. Denmark doubled the money it funneled to health care between 1994 and 2022, according to the latest figures compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, while Britain increased its spending by more than 90 percent.

Over the same period, Poland more than doubled funding for culture and recreation programs. Germany ramped up investments in the economy. The Czech Republic increased its education budget.

Military spending by European members of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Canada reached a low point in 2014 as the demand for battle tanks, fighter jets and submarines plummeted. After Russia annexed Crimea that year, budgets started to rise again, but most countries still fell well below NATO’s target of 2 percent of national output.

“The end of the peace dividend is a big rupture,” said Daniel Daianu, chairman of the Fiscal Council in Romania and a former finance minister.

Before war broke out in Ukraine, military spending by the European members of NATO was expected to reach nearly $1.8 trillion by 2026, a 14 percent increase over five years, according to research by McKinsey & Company. Now, spending is estimated to rise between 53 and 65 percent.

That means hundreds of billions of dollars that otherwise could have been used to, say, invest in bridge and highway repairs, child care, cancer research, refugee resettlement or public orchestras is expected to be redirected to the military.

Last week, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that military spending in Europe last year had its biggest annual rise in three decades. And the spendathon is just beginning.

The demand for military spending will be on display Wednesday when the European Union’s trade commissioner, Thierry Breton, is expected to discuss his fact-finding tour to determine whether European nations and weapons manufacturers can produce one million rounds of 155-millimeter shells for Ukraine this year, and how production can be increased.

Poland has pledged to spend 4 percent of its national output on defense. The German defense minister has asked for an additional $11 billion next year, a 20 percent increase in military spending. President Emmanuel Macron of France has promised to lift military spending by more than a third through 2030 and to “transform” France’s nuclear-armed military.

Some analysts argue that at times cuts in military budgets were so deep that they compromised basic readiness. And surveys have shown that there is public support for increased military spending, pointedly illustrated by Finland and Sweden’s about-face in wanting to join NATO.

But in most of Europe, the painful budgetary trade-offs or tax increases that will be required have not yet trickled down to daily life. Much of the belt-tightening last year that squeezed households was the result of skyrocketing energy prices and stinging inflation.

Going forward, the game board has changed. “France has entered into a war economy that I believe we will be in for a long time,” Mr. Macron said in a speech shortly after announcing his spending blueprint.

But the crucial question of how to pay for the momentous shift in national priorities remains. In France, for instance, government spending as a percentage of the economy, at 1.4 trillion euros ($1.54 trillion), is the highest in Europe. Of that, nearly half was spent on the nation’s generous social safety net, which includes unemployment benefits and pensions. Debt has also spiraled in the wake of the pandemic. Yet Mr. Macron has vowed not to increase what is already one of the highest tax levels in Europe for fear of scaring off investors.

Debates over competing priorities are playing out in other capitals across the region — even if the trade-offs are not explicitly mentioned.

In Britain, on the same day in March that the government unveiled a budget that included a $6.25 billion bump in military spending, teachers, doctors and transport workers joined strikes over pay and working conditions. It was just one in a series of walkouts by public workers who complained that underfunding, double-digit inflation and the pandemic’s aftermath have crippled essential services like health care, transportation and education. The budget included a $4.1 billion increase for the National Health Service over the same two-year period.

Romania, which has been running up its public debt over the years, has pledged to lift military spending this year by 0.5 percent of national output. And this month it agreed to buy an undisclosed number of F-35 fighter jets, which have a list price of $80 million a piece. While the increase will enable the country to hit NATO’s budget target, it will undercut efforts to meet the debt limits set by the European Union.

The shift in government spending is perhaps most striking in Germany, where defense outlays plunged after the reunification of the former East and West German nations in 1990.

“Defense was always the place to save, because it was not very popular,” said Hubertus Bardt, the managing director of the Institute of the German Economy.

Germany, the largest and most powerful economy in Europe, has consistently devoted less money to the military as a percentage of gross domestic output than either France or Britain.

It’s a “historic turning point,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said when he announced a special $112 billion defense fund last year. Yet that pot of money did not include any spending for ammunition. And when the fund is depleted, Germany will need to find an additional $38 billion to level up with its NATO partners.

Mr. Rogoff, the Harvard economist, said that most Europeans have not yet absorbed how big the long-term effects of a fading peace dividend will be. This is a new reality, he said, “and governments are going to have to figure out how to rebalance things.”

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An Israeli power distribution plant is seen in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank January 22, 2020. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma/Editing by Germán & Co

Israel to boost energy storage with eye on facilitating Sabbath supplies

Globally, there is a growing need for stored energy to utilize solar power at night and support the transition to electricity-powered transportation.

Reuters, NOW

JERUSALEM, May 7 (Reuters) - Israel approved on Sunday a plan to create an energy storage network in cities to produce off-peak electricity, which will also supply "kosher" electricity for ultra-Orthodox Jews observing the Sabbath.

Demand for stored energy is on the rise worldwide as a way to use solar power at night and to help shift to electricity-based transport.

In Israel, with a new government that has strong religious representation, there is an added interest for ultra-Orthodox communities that strictly observe Jewish law, including restrictions on electricity use on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath.

Observant Jews do not turn on electric appliances on Saturdays, though systems like air conditioners or water heaters can be turned on beforehand and run throughout the day.

In some neighbourhoods generators are activated ahead of time and provide electricity for the day, which is expensive, polluting and can be dangerous, Israel's energy ministry says.

"Storing electrical energy will be one way to allow the expansion of electricity production from renewable energies," said the ministry. "At the same time, in Israel there are populations interested in consuming 'kosher electricity' that was not generated on Sabbath."

The government approved a pilot - a 24-megawatt battery facility - to store excess power from peak production times that will be drawn on by some 3,000 households in the city of Bnei Barak, an ultra-Orthodox enclave in central Israel.

It will be built by state-owned Israel Electric Corp for up to 120 million shekels ($33 million) and privatised after three years. If successful, hundreds of megawatts in storage facilities will be built nationwide, the ministry said, without giving a timeframe.

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Image: Picture taken on October 19, 2017 shows Northvolt's CEO Peter Carlsson during a press conference in Stockholm. ANDERS WIKLUND / AFP/ Editing by Germán & Co

In Germany, the construction of the Northvolt battery factory is under threat from US subsidies

The Swedish battery developer is considering abandoning their plans to build a factory in northern Germany to instead build it in the United States where subsidies for decarbonized industrial projects are more favorable.

Le Monde By Cécile Boutelet(Berlin (Germany) correspondent),  April 27, 2023. 

A few kilometers from the North Sea coast, standing on the moors of Schleswig-Holstein, Heide is one of those typical villages of Germany's northernmost state: a rural community, swept by the sea winds, where manufacturing has become rare.

For several months now, though, Heide has been at the heart of a battle that has become almost existential for "made in Germany:" The Swedish group Northvolt, which was planning to set up a huge car battery factory in Heide, is threatening to build it in the United States instead, mainly because the cost of electricity in Germany is too high.

If Heide were to be abandoned, it would be catastrophic for the German industrial site. A year ago, in March 2022, Berlin and the Schleswig-Holstein region celebrated the announcement of Northvolt's move to the region, which promised an investment of €4.5 billion and the creation of 3,000 jobs.

The Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Change Robert Habeck was particularly pleased. A native of Schleswig-Holstein, where he was a regional minister, he has played a major role in making the region self-sufficient in green energy by developing an ambitious wind power program. It was the local abundance of renewable electricity that convinced Northvolt to locate in Heide. The vision of environmentalist Habeck was realized: It is possible to combine industry with carbon neutrality.

Intense negotiations

A few months later, Northvolt's boss, the Swede Peter Carlsson, dashed hopes of a rapid opening of the Heide plant. In the columns of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in October, the 52-year-old founder and former Tesla executive explained that the highly anticipated factory project was now facing headwinds. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which massively subsidizes projects for low-carbon technologies produced in the United States, has reshuffled the deck, as has the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

"With current electricity prices, we consider the profitability of energy-intensive projects in Germany to be at risk," said Carlsson. "We want to continue to be a European champion and market leader. But we are now at a point where it is possible that we will prioritize expansion in the US over Europe."

These statements chilled Berlin and triggered a phase of intense negotiations between the Swedish group and the German and European authorities, which is not yet over. But no decision has been taken, the Northvolt group confirmed to Le Monde. It hopes that the matter will be decided "in the course of the year." In practical terms, it is a question of knowing to what extent the Swedish group can benefit from the European response to the very attractive American subsidies, and above all, within what timeframe. Habeck continues to throw all his weight behind Heide's investment: He personally visited Northvolt's research center in Västeras, Sweden, in February 2023. "We continue to work on the Heide project," Carlsson said after the visit.

But the most sensitive matter remains the cost of electricity. Compared to the north of Sweden, the gap is huge. In Skelleftea, where Northvolt has been operating its first gigafactory since the end of 2021, "electricity from renewable sources is 3 cents per kilowatt hour," said Martin Höfelmann, spokesman for Northvolt in Germany. "In Germany, the price of electricity for industry is currently around 15 cents. About 5 cents would be required to make the plant profitable. There would also be the possibility of directly using locally produced surplus wind power, which the grid cannot absorb. But there are major administrative barriers to this solution," Höfelmann said.

Unattainable ambition

Heide is emblematic of the current dilemma of the European automotive industry. All carmakers are pushing their electric programs and urgently need batteries – ideally made in Europe – to reduce dependence on external suppliers. But this ambition seems increasingly unattainable. Volkswagen, the largest shareholder in Northvolt with a 20% stake, and which itself plans to build six battery factories, is not indifferent to the sirens of the IRA: in March, the group announced its intention to build its third gigafactory in Canada (which benefits from American subsidies) rather than in Slovakia as originally planned.

The debate reinforces concerns currently expressed by German imanufacturing, which gathered at the Hannover Fair this week, the world's largest industrial trade fair. "German competitiveness is eroding," said Siegfried Russwurm, president of the industry federation, at the opening of the meeting on Monday, April 17, in front of Chancellor Scholz. "We have reached a point where German companies are thinking twice before investing," he continued, pointing to high electricity prices as one of the main reasons for the current loss of market share for "made in Germany."

The trade unions deplore the already perceptible consequences of this development on industrial employment. According to a recent survey by IG Metall in Baden-Württemberg, almost every second automotive supplier is currently relocating jobs abroad, either to cut costs or to produce closer to the end customer, following the global trend away from free trade to relocating production.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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llustrations by Wayne Mills for POLITICO
Photos by Karl Mathiesen and Ina Fassbender/AFP 
Animation by Dato Parulava

Climate Activists Have a New Target: Civilians…

On The Street Whit The Suv- Busting: Tire Extenguisher

POLITICO EU BY KARL MATHIESEN, MAY 2, 2023 

BRUSSELS — Claude stood watch on the dark, glistening street as Samuel crouched down to jam a lentil into the tire valve of an SUV. “Of course, it will piss them off,” Claude said. An hour later, the vehicle would be slumped against the curb on a flat tire. By the end of the night, the Belgian cell of the Tyre Extinguishers — a loose collective of anarchic climate activists — would claim they had “disarmed” 194 SUVs across Brussels and nearby Ghent.

“We don’t want them to think that they can buy a big car and just enjoy their life and ignore what’s going on in the world,” Claude explained to me. He and his two accomplices gave false names as a condition of allowing me to observe their nighttime expedition. The vehicles weren’t damaged, but they’d need a refill or a tire change. Before he left, Claude stuck a leaflet to the windscreen saying, in French: “Don’t take it personally. You are not our target, it’s your car.”

If you live on planet Earth, you might have noticed that climate change activists have become increasingly annoying in recent years, splattering masterpieces with soup, halting football and tennis matches, shutting down highways and petrol stations and — in the case of the Tyre Extinguishers, who take their instructions from an anonymized website — claiming to have disabled more than 11,000 SUVs in 17 countries around the world.

I met up with Claude and his friends to witness a new development in climate activism. A small but significant wing of the green movement has crossed the Rubicon: It’s not just fossil fuel executives and politicians being targeted; for activists like Claude and those who support them, civilians are now fair game.

Claude and his fellow travelers see their actions as annoying, yes, but also part of an existential struggle — the next necessary step after exhausting normal democratic acts like voting, peaceful protests, lobbying and disinvestment. Western government officials may tout a recent surge in climate spending and legislation, but activists point to investments in coal plants or the expansion of oil and gas production as evidence that humanity is continuing to nurture its own apocalypse. “I don’t know how you can’t see it,” Claude told me. What are a few flat tires in the face of a potentially civilization-ending climate crisis?

“We need to wake up,” said Margaret Klein Salamon, executive director of the U.S.-based Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), which has channeled millions of dollars to 95 “disruptive activism” groups since it was set up in 2019. “I think of the activists as shaking us, trying anything that they can think of and putting themselves at very significant risk … but they’re doing it because they’re terrified.”

Attitudes like Claude’s are reinforcing a long-held view among some law enforcement officials, academics and parts of the green movement that this escalation was inevitable. If activists who view the world in increasingly millenarian terms really are done trying to win the public’s approval, what’s to stop these slightly goofy stunts from turning into something more serious? Cases of arson and sabotage are breaking into the news more often. Could more extreme forms of violence be next?

“The movement is getting more confrontational,” said Jamie Henn, a U.S.-based activist and organizer who co-founded the 350.org climate group in 2007. “Marching around with clever signs isn’t going to get Exxon to keep fossil fuels in the ground, so folks are finding other ways to apply pressure.”

“And then, you’ll always just have some young folks who want to fuck shit up,” he added.

‘How to blow up a pipeline’

There is a bit of cloak and dagger in arranging my meeting with the Tyre Extinguishers: hidden phone numbers, encrypted emails and code names. But Claude and his little gang aren’t hardcore militants — at least, not yet.

On the street, they take amateurish precautions, such as face coverings (which often slip down) or sharing a series of signals in case they spot cops or angry car owners. Claude also acknowledged that what they do could be “dangerous for people, because they could get in an accident.” The flyers he sticks to the windscreens serve not only as an explanation for the group’s actions but as a warning for people who might otherwise drive off on a flat tire. Cars with kids’ seats, disability stickers and medic tags get a pass.

The Tyre Extinguishers’ goal is to make SUV ownership socially toxic — to shatter it as a symbol of wealth, comfort and power. The massive vehicles are, after all, one of the largest drivers of carbon dioxide emissions growth. In 2022, they accounted for a record 46 percent of new car sales globally, according to the International Energy Agency. Their bulk makes them 20 percent less energy efficient than a regular car, and considerably more dangerous to pedestrians. The Tyre Extinguishers want to make them impossible to own, if only because you might wake up one morning and find your ride is neither pimped nor pumped.

The group’s website appears to be run by a British group that started taking credit for SUV hits up and down the U.K in 2021. It encourages anyone to steal its campaign: “We have no leader,” the site says. The idea itself is stolen — a reboot of the activities of a Swedish group, called the Indians of the Concrete Jungle, which claimed it had temporarily depressed SUV sales across the country in 2007.

One of the members of that group was Andreas Malm, an academic whose 2021 book “How to Blow up a Pipeline” galvanized a new wave of activists who want to go beyond protests and sit-ins and start attacking the machines that cause climate change. (A feature film based on the book debuted in the United States on April 7). In his book, which is more a manifesto than an instruction manual, Malm goads the mostly peaceful green movement for valuing nonviolence more than the urgent cause they’re fighting for.

Malm’s message has resonated with activists who have fallen out of love with marching. Greta Thunberg inspired school strikes that brought millions of young people into the streets between 2018 and 2020, but that is over. “Battling with that sense of defeat is part of where we’re at now,” said Dominika Lasota, a Polish activist and a leader of the Fridays For Future climate protest movement.

“COVID really knocked the wind out of the sails,” said Klein Salamon. “Earth Day 2020 was supposed to be the largest environmental demonstration in history. And instead, it was a live stream.”

Groups like the Tyre Extinguishers offer a relatively low risk on-ramp for involvement in what activists call “direct action.” There’s a solemn purpose, sure. But it’s also a night out — and a gleeful element to the lawless hijinks.

Roaming the streets of Uccle, an affluent southern Brussels suburb, Claude and his friends let out yelps of joy when they spotted a Tesla. No! Two Teslas! It wasn’t long before the battery-fueled cars were sinking hissing to their haunches.

The Tyre Extinguishers have rules on their website, outlining what should or shouldn’t be targeted. Hitting high-end electric vehicles is considered kosher, because of the harm caused by mining precious minerals for their batteries. Claude explained that big cars of all sorts were unacceptable. “It’s just rich people who pretend to believe in ecology,” he said of the Tesla owners. A few minutes later, just as he was labeling a windscreen, a man in a nearby house lurched to his palatial front window. The group fast-walked away, looking suspicious as hell.

A few streets over, it happened again. This time, with the likely owner of the targeted SUV glaring through his window just a few feet from my head, there was no time to stick the leaflet on the windshield. It was a breach of the safety procedure. But the group cut its losses and melted away to other parts of the city.

Any means necessary

The tension between nonviolence and militancy is as old as protest itself. Yet, amid the escalating climate crisis, the debate over how to confront the forces driving environmental destruction has taken on an existential urgency.

The big question hanging over groups like the Tyre Extinguishers is: If this ratcheting up of public irritation fails, will they, or others like them, take things further?

The iconic moment in this new spate of protest-by-annoyance took place last October, when two British activists from the Just Stop Oil group made international news by splattering cans of Heinz tomato soup across Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London.

The resulting public fury wasn’t unexpected, said James Skeet, a spokesperson for the group. It was the point. “If you’re not getting millions of eyeballs, you’re not in the ballpark of achieving significant societal change,” he said. He noted that when the group attacked a series of oil terminals, the public paid almost no heed. A video of the act taken by Guardian journalist Damian Gayle has been viewed more than 50 million times on Twitter.

Orange is the chosen color of many of these groups: garish and impossible to ignore. On Monday, a Just Stop Oil protester launched himself onto the table at the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield showering himself in colored dust, like a worshiper at the Hindu Holi festival. The orange powder stained the green felt as the commentator intoned: “Terrible, terrible scenes here.”

By contrast, when the famously disruptive protest group Extinction Rebellion held a peaceful march in London last weekend, the media coverage was … crickets. “Disruption or Nonexistence,” mused Roger Hallam, one of the group’s founders, on Twitter. “Sometimes Life only gives you two options.”

Elsewhere, environmental demonstrations have already escalated. Recent protests in France against the construction of agricultural water reservoirs that critics say will unfairly favor corporate farms have included arson, sabotage and clashes between protesters and police. Claude, the Tyre Extinguisher, was present at a recent clash with the cops that left one activist in a coma.

In northwestern Germany, a long-running battle over the expansion of a network of coal mines has been the site of acts of sabotage and attacks on vehicles and police. In 2020, an excavator at a construction site owned by the energy company RWE was torched. In January, an anonymous poster on the left-wing blog indymedia.org declared that “two strategically placed incendiary devices” had disabled a coal train in Cologne. “Our action is part of a militant campaign … against global climate destruction,” the poster said. “RWE deserves nothing but our deepest hatred!”

RWE declined to comment on the post nor confirm that the attack had taken place, referring questions to the police.

A connection to climate activism is “likely,” said Andreas Müller, a spokesperson for the Aachen police. He confirmed incendiary devices were placed on RWE rail infrastructure but would provide no further details other than adding that no arrests had been made. “Some of the groups are under surveillance by the government,” he added.

A spokesman for the interior ministry of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia described Ende Gelände as a “hinge” connecting far-left “extremist violent criminals” to a democratic protest movement. The government said it recorded 43 fire crimes, 25 dangerous interventions in rail traffic and 216 incidents of property damage around the coal mines between 2019 and 2022.

Ende Gelände has rejected the extremist label. But last week, in a tweet that was subsequently deleted, the group said it would be necessary to “abolish democracy” to tackle the climate crisis. In recent months, another group, Letzte Generation, has eclipsed both Fridays For Future and Ende Gelände as the noisiest, most disruptive force in German climate activism.

Many mainstream activists view groups like these as a force that can help the rest of the movement achieve its goals. Malm likes to point to how the U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized the threat posed by black militants like Malcolm X to push forward his cause. Suffragettes pushing for the right of women to vote not only marched; they smashed windows, attacked ballot boxes with acid and carried out a campaign of bombing and arson; one suffragette even attacked a young Winston Churchill, cutting his face with a dog whip.

“We should not forget that in the past, it is always through these movements of civil disobedience that the law and practice have been changed,” said Michel Forst, the U.N. special rapporteur for environmental defenders. “I met many young people who told me how they had decided to break the law because the emergency commanded it … I think it’s something that’s not illegitimate.”

Government response in the form of harsh anti-protest laws proposed in Italy and Britain has rallied support for activists from the wider left. In Germany, dozens of left-wing and green groups, including mainstream NGOs like BUND and Oxfam, signed a letter condemning the government for targeting Ende Gelände as extremist.

Crucially, more militant actions have not alienated the American philanthropic community that funds much of the global climate movement. Arguably, the tactics of groups like Ende Gelände, Letzte Generation and Just Stop Oil have made them even more attractive to a certain type of funder. The three organizations and eight others have banded together to form the A22 network, which has pledged constant “mass civil disobedience.” They are financed by the Climate Emergency Fund, which says it distributed $5.3 million to “organizations who tell the truth, disrupt normalcy, and demand transformation at emergency speed” last year.

Founded by the Getty oil heiress Aileen Getty, the CEF’s two other big donors are Rory Kennedy — the youngest child of Robert Kennedy, the former U.S. attorney general and senator who was assassinated in 1968 — and the film director Adam McKay. Together they represent a trinity of liberal American guilt: Big Oil, Big Politics and Hollywood.

The CEF is a regulated charity in the U.S., meaning it can’t fund lawbreaking directly. “Climate Emergency Fund does not support sabotage,” said Klein Salamon. “We only fund legal activities.” She emphasized their requirement for activists to undergo nonviolent training. However, groups that receive its money have openly broken the law. Just Stop Oil hosts a “Court and Prison” section on its website, which doubles as a hall of fame, with dozens of activists proudly going down for their mischief.

“We have, basically, engaged in sabotage,” said Skeet.

‘How everything can collapse’

Some members of the Tyre Extinguishers are already taking things beyond flat tires.

In the U.K. city of Bristol, Chris Bailey, the owner of a Range Rover found his car spray-painted in early April with the words: “THIS MACHINE KILLS KIDS” after his tires had been let down just three weeks earlier. Although he agreed that global warming was a serious issue, Bailey told local media the perpetrators were “causing a negative connotation with climate change” and making people “very resentful towards the movement.”

Meanwhile, in Brussels, Claude, thinks the climate movement needs to become more radical. The day after I ran with the Tyre Extinguishers through the city’s darkened streets, Claude and I met in a pub in a hipstery square where Brussels students party each weekend.

A newcomer to the cause, Claude gave his age as between 25 and 35. Three years ago, he was launching a corporate career. “I was promised a big job in a big company.” Then he read the book “How Everything Can Collapse,” by the theorists Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens, which makes the case that environmental pressures could soon nudge our civilization into oblivion. Ten days later, he quit his job.

“I don’t want to have regrets,” he told me, opting for a soda while I took a beer. “If it goes wrong, OK, I would have done everything I could. That’s my way of thinking.”

“I’m part of this generation which is willing to go deeper,” he said.

But what does that mean, specifically? Would he harm a person?

“I would never kill someone … I don’t think I did any violent action yet. And I’m not planning to do one.”

What about blowing something up or other forms of sabotage?

“For me sabotage is not violence because I am not targeting people … So yeah, sabotage, I could do it without problem.”

He added: “I think it’s important to show the government and the firms that if what we did was not enough to make them move, then we are willing to move even more deeper, faster and stronger.”

It might be bluster. It’s certainly easy to say such threatening and scary things to a reporter who doesn’t know your real name. But here’s a thought: Five years after Thunberg turned millions of young people on to climate activism, a significant number of them are disillusioned with protest-as-normal — but just as angry and scared as they ever were. How many of them are out there, sitting in bars near you, contemplating how far they are willing to go?

Coal mines, highways, SUVs, snooker matches, metro stations, museum masterpieces — the list is already extensive. How long will it be before anyone, anything, anywhere becomes a potential target for disruption, or even violence? Those are questions that struck me as even more ominous when, an hour after my drink with Claude, I bumped into him again: The would-be eco-militant staring at me awkwardly in the beer aisle of a Carrefour supermarket.

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Republican party members celebrate obtaining the largest number of representatives after the election for the Constitutional Council, which will draft a new constitution proposal in Santiago, on May 7, 2023. ESTEBAN FELIX / AP/ Editing by Germán & Co

Chile: Far right ahead in key vote for new constitution

It was a major defeat for Chile's center-left president, Gabriel Boric, with the vote also widely viewed as a referendum on his government.

Le Monde with AP, TODAY

A far-right party led in the vote count on Sunday, May 7, after Chileans cast ballots for a 50-member commission that is to draft a new constitution after voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed charter last year that was considered one of the world’s most progressive.

It was a major defeat for Chile's center-left president, Gabriel Boric, with the vote also widely viewed as a referendum on his government, which currently has an approval rating of around 30%. With 91% of polling stations reporting, the Republican Party, led by far-right José Antonio Kast, who lost the presidential runoff to Boric in 2021, led with 35% of the vote. The Republican Party has long opposed changing the constitution that was imposed by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

A coalition of left-leaning parties allied with Boric, Unity for Chile, was in second place with 28% of the vote. A center-right alliance, Safe Chile, was in third with 21%. Null or blank votes made up 21% of the total. Preliminary calculations pointed to the Republican Party ending up with about 22 representatives on the constitutional council, compared to 17 for Unity for Chile and 11 for Safe Chile.

Boric's allies will have little room to influence final text

If the two right-of-center groups, the Republicans and Safe Chile, unite it could leave Boric's allies with very little room to influence the final text. The preliminary count suggested left-leaning coalitions would not reach the 21 seats necessary to veto proposals or force consensus on certain issues.

Sunday's vote marked a key step in the effort to come up with a new proposal for a constitution after 62% of voters rejected the previously proposed charter in September. It had been the first in the world to be written by a convention split equally between male and female delegates.

Critics said the document was too long, lacked clarity and went too far in some of its measures, which included characterizing Chile as a plurinational state, establishing autonomous Indigenous territories, and prioritizing the environment and gender parity.

Once installed, the commission's 50 members will not start from scratch but rather work from a preliminary document drafted by 24 experts who were approved by Congress. The body's proposal is to be put before the plebiscite in December.

The path to rewriting Chile’s constitution began after violent student-led protests in 2019 that were sparked by a hike in public transportation prices but quickly expanded into broader demands for greater equality and more social protections. Congress managed to get the protests under control by calling for a referendum on whether to draw up a new constitution, which almost 80% of voters agreed was needed.

Much of that enthusiasm appears to have vanished, though. Before Sunday's vote, polls said there was broad disinterest in the constitutional process. Luis Rodríguez, a 70-year-old retiree who cast a ballot, said: "I decided to vote because it's mandatory... I don't care about the result." Another retiree, David Pino, 65, said he also voted out of obligation. Fines for those who do not vote can be as high as $230.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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News round-up, May, 2, 2023

Quote of the day…

For Whom the Bell Tolls?

Horror Scenario

Germany Prepares for Possible Re-Election of Donald Trump

Berlin is preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump could beat Joe Biden in the next election. That outcome would likely be a disaster for Ukraine, NATO and the looming climate crisis. Diplomats have begun establishing contacts with the former president's camp to avoid being blindsided as they were in 2016.

Spiegel

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Most read…

Biden seeks debt ceiling talks, as U.S. faces possible June 1 default

The updated deadline comes less than a week after Republicans adopted a bill coupling an increase in the debt ceiling with spending cuts, defying a veto threat from President Biden

WP By Tony Romm, Tyler Pager and Liz Goodwin, May 1, 2023

Explosions Near Ukraine’s Giant Nuclear Plant Prompt Diplomatic Push

U.N. agency struggles to end Russia-Kyiv dispute over how to avert disaster at Zaporizhzhia

WSJ By Laurence Norman in Berlin and Drew Hinshaw in Vienna, April 29, 2023

This power plant offers a peek into the future

In Texas, an energy company is building a power plant that can run on hydrogen, a fuel that is gaining steam because of new tax credits and upcoming federal regulations

WP By Timothy Puko, May 1, 2023

AI: the key battleground for Cold War 2.0?

It’s becoming impossible to distinguish between the AI hype and warning of a conflict with China. What’s certain is that the hype will be monetised.

Le Monde Diplomatique by Evgeny Morozov

Chilean military sent to border to stem flow of migrants

In February left-wing President Gabriel Boric decided to send units to patrol the north of the country, where Venezuelan refugees cross into the country. Many immigrants have found themselves in a legal gray area.

Le Monde By Flora Genoux, (Iquique (Chile) special correspondent),  Published today at 12:53 am (Paris)

Horror Scenario

Germany Prepares for Possible Re-Election of Donald Trump

Berlin is preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump could beat Joe Biden in the next election.

Renewable energy's share of German power use tops 50% in Q1

By 2030, Germany intends to generate green energy from solar, wind, biomass, and hydropower to account for 80% of its energy mix.

Reuters

Israel planning 800 MW energy storage project -Energy Ministry

The plan calls for four storage facilities with a combined 800-megawatt capacity, which will be done "in stages in accordance with the system needs and with various storage technologies."

Reuters

BP's profit rises to $5 billion as share buyback slows

BP reported a substantial profit due to excellent gas marketing and trading results.

Reuters By Ron Bousso and Shadia Nasralla

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Image: PHOTO: Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen-. / Editing by Germán & Co 

Biden seeks debt ceiling talks, as U.S. faces possible June 1 default

The updated deadline comes less than a week after Republicans adopted a bill coupling an increase in the debt ceiling with spending cuts, defying a veto threat from President Biden

WP By Tony Romm, Tyler Pager and Liz Goodwin, May 1, 2023

President Biden invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other congressional leaders to the White House next week to discuss the debt ceiling, as Washington scrambled Monday to respond to news that the government could default on its obligations as soon as June 1.

Biden’s request for talks followed a jarring new projection from the Treasury Department that the government could run out of cash to pay its bills in as few as four weeks without additional borrowing authority — an unprecedented event that could rattle world financial markets and tip the fragile U.S. economy into another recession.

The debt ceiling imposes a legal limit on the amount of money the U.S. government can borrow, currently set at $31 trillion. Since the national debt hit the cap in January, the Biden administration has adopted special budgetary maneuvers to conserve cash and buy time for lawmakers either to raise the limit or to suspend its enforcement.

Republican lawmakers — who took control of the House in January — have tried to seize on the looming deadline to extract spending cuts and other policy concessions from the White House. Last week, the House approved a Republican measure that would briefly raise the debt ceiling while cutting billions of dollars in federal spending and repealing some of Biden’s recent legislative accomplishments.

The president has threatened to veto the measure and called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling without conditions. Until Monday, Biden had also refused to haggle with Republicans over an issue that poses such immense risks to the economy.

But with Monday’s news that default could come as soon as next month, the president set in motion a plan to hold talks on May 9, personally calling McCarthy as well as Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), according to a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

The Treasury Department, meanwhile, sounded an urgent alarm about the need for haste: In a letter to lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said the agency may be “unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations by early June, and potentially as early as June 1.”

Yellen cautioned that the projection is imprecise, given the variability of federal tax receipts, which have come in lower than anticipated in recent months. But she said she was certain about the economic consequences of inaction, warning that it could cause “severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests.”

“I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting as soon as possible,” Yellen said.

With time running out, the flurry of activity revealed a growing sense of anxiety in Washington. Few debates carry such high political and economic stakes: The nation has never defaulted on its financial obligations, and the failure to make payments to bondholders — as well as to federal employees and to beneficiaries of government programs such as Social Security — could send shock waves through the entire global financial system.

Adding to the uncertainty, the federal government and private economists have offered mixed, and sometimes conflicting, estimates as to the actual debt ceiling deadline, known in the nation’s capital as the “x date.” In its own projection, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Monday reported that there is now a “significantly greater risk” that the United States could run out of funds in early June. The CBO had earlier projected that lawmakers had as late as September to act.

Previously, Republicans have raised the debt ceiling without issuing demands. Three times, they addressed the borrowing cap under President Donald Trump without demanding fiscal reforms. Each time, Democrats serving in the minority also supplied their votes in a bid to avert a crisis.

Under Biden, Republican lawmakers have adopted a more aggressive posture, aiming to use the threat of a fiscal crisis as a political tool while blaming Democrats for the burgeoning debt. In reality, policies supported by both parties have contributed to a growing tide of red ink that could exceed $50 trillion over the next 10 years.

In a bill adopted last week, House Republicans spelled out their demands: They seek billions of dollars in spending cuts, the repeal of federal funds to fight climate change and pursue tax cheats, a set of new work requirements on welfare recipients, and an end to Biden’s plan to cancel student debts. Heralding the outcome at a brief news conference, McCarthy portrayed the so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act as a tool meant to force Biden to negotiate.

“The sad part here is, now the Democrats need to do their job,” McCarthy said after the vote. “The president can no longer ignore [it] by not negotiating.”

For the past three months, though, the two men have not met. The president has said he is open to discussing other fiscal issues with the House speaker, but only if the GOP lays out its plan for balancing federal spending and tax revenue, a difficult task the party has yet to tackle.

Even Monday, as Biden invited lawmakers to new discussions, he again slammed House Republicans for their legislation, saying “their extreme MAGA plan would cut critical funding for education, public safety, including cut 60,000 public schoolteachers, take health care and food assistance away from millions of working families.” The president also blamed Trump and his predecessors for incurring “200 years of debt,” adding: “We’re not paying for what we’re spending right now.”

McCarthy, who is on an official trip to Israel, responded to Biden’s invitation by criticizing the president for having “refused to do his job” and “threatening to bumble our nation into its first default.”

“After three months of the Biden administration’s inaction, the House acted, and there is a bill sitting in the Senate as we speak that would put the risk of default to rest. The Senate and the President need to get to work — and soon,” McCarthy said in a statement.

Understanding the debt ceiling

What is the debt ceiling?

It’s a restriction Congress has put on on how much money the federal government can borrow to pay its bills, which has been in place since 1917. Because the government usually spends more than it takes in, Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling fairly frequently to pay for its operations. (Sort of like a credit card bill.)

What is a default?

If Congress doesn’t raise the debt ceiling, the government can’t borrow and might not be able to pay its bills on time (like bond interest). That’s called a default, and it’s never happened before on this scale (though the U.S. got close in 2011). It would likely tip the U.S. into a recession and shake the global economy.

Why does the U.S. keep raising the debt limit?

Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. can keep issuing bonds, which investors around the world buy because they’re seen as a safe and reliable investment. In turn, the government can fund projects from the military to social programs.

Why is raising the debt limit a fight?

Until recently, it was routine for Congress to raise the debt ceiling. Since 1960, Congress has intervened 78 times to change it in some way. But it has become a political battle because it is one of the few must-pass bills, so lately Republicans have seen it as an opportunity to make demands.

In the Senate, meanwhile, Schumer has signaled that he has no plans to approve the House bill. On Monday, he promised that lawmakers instead would hold hearings that “expose the true impact of this reckless legislation on everyday Americans.” Schumer also took the first procedural steps toward ensuring the Senate could act swiftly on legislation to increase the debt ceiling, including potentially a two-year increase.

Some Senate Democrats responded with pessimism to the idea of talks at the White House, arguing that Biden should continue to refuse to negotiate.

“There’s no deal to cut here,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said Monday, before news broke about the president’s invitation. “The premise here is that there should be no policy concessions in exchange for preventing default.”

Some Senate Republicans appeared equally unenthusiastic about Biden’s outreach, reiterating their unwillingness to get involved in what they believe should be a negotiation solely between Biden and McCarthy.

“What we’ve said all along is the only thing that can get 60 votes in the Senate is something that’s negotiated between the president and the House Republican leadership,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), McConnell’s deputy. “And so I’m not sure at this point what Schumer or McConnell add to the debt conversation.”

The looming deadline and the lack of a path forward raised the grim specter of 2011, when Washington came within days of breaching the debt limit. Then the standoff between Republican lawmakers and a Democratic president spooked the stock market and triggered a downgrade in the nation’s credit rating, which ultimately cost taxpayers an estimated $1 billion in higher interest rates on government bonds.

This year, investors already have started to hedge against the potential for another disruption, shifting away from bonds that mature around the date of the debt ceiling deadline. In another ominous sign, Fitch Ratings, which evaluates debt, warned last week that persistent dysfunction could result in another downgrade of the nation’s credit rating.

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Image: IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi, in cap, visited Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in late March. PHOTO: SERGEI ILNITSKY/SHUTTERSTOCK/ Editing by Germán & Co

Explosions Near Ukraine’s Giant Nuclear Plant Prompt Diplomatic Push

U.N. agency struggles to end Russia-Kyiv dispute over how to avert disaster at Zaporizhzhia

WSJ By Laurence Norman in Berlin and Drew Hinshaw in Vienna, April 29, 2023

The United Nations atomic energy agency is racing to prevent Russia’s war in Ukraine from endangering the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, as fighting nearby intensifies.

Artillery fire and explosions now ring out nearly every day at the six-reactor plant that sprawls near an active front line and is occupied by Russian security agents.

Each side accuses the other of shelling across a two-mile-wide bend in the Dnipro River that separates the plant from a Ukrainian-held shore. Both deny doing so.

A team of United Nations nuclear safety inspectors last week had to take shelter inside the facility. Twice this month, Russian land mines ringing the plant to prevent an amphibious assault have exploded. Russian troops in the neighboring city of Enerhodar raid apartments and search streets, seeking evidence of an insurgency network they suspect of spotting targets for Ukrainian troops lurking nearby.

On the roofs of several reactors, Russian forces have built sandbag fighting positions, the first indications that Moscow is planning to use the nuclear reactors as defensive positions, the British defense ministry said on Thursday.

“Something is definitely going on,” said a plant worker, sheltering in his apartment. “We hear very powerful booms around the perimeter of the city. Dogs howl, children get scared, car alarms go off

Since September, the U.N. atomic agency has sought agreement from the two warring nations to not position heavy military equipment at the plant or fire artillery from or toward it. Those negotiations have been one of the principal diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the war, and a test case for broader negotiations around the conflict.

A breakthrough remains elusive. On Wednesday, in a fresh bid for progress, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before flying to Turkey for talks with Alexey Likhachev, the head of Russia’s state-owned Rosatom nuclear company and a primary interlocutor on securing Zaporizhzhia.

Complicating the fight over Zaporizhzhia is tension between the IAEA and the U.N. over how to handle the crisis. The IAEA is an independent agency but it reports to the U.N.

For weeks, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’s team has been telling diplomats and others that they believe the IAEA initiative has failed, according to people familiar with the dispute. Senior U.N. officials have said since February that they planned to take over the diplomatic efforts, according to one of the people, and in recent days the U.N. chief has huddled with the two sides to discuss new ideas, two diplomats said.

A spokesman for Mr. Guterres declined to comment. An IAEA spokesman said that the secretary-general has expressed his full support for the IAEA’s work.

A U.S. State Department official said Washington backs Mr. Grossi’s efforts. “We absolutely share his concerns,” the official said. “Russia is playing a very dangerous game with its military seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant.”

Ukraine has been wary of the IAEA’s proposals, seeing them as permitting the presence of Russian armed forces currently occupying the plant. After a phone call between Messrs. Grossi and Zelensky on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president said Zaporizhzhia can only be safely secured by returning it to Ukrainian hands.

However a Ukrainian official said that the IAEA chief later presented some new ideas to encourage Kyiv to sign on.

Mr. Grossi has insisted he would continue his diplomacy and last week foreign ministers from the Group of Seven advanced democracies backed him.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Workers help manufacture a Mitsubishi Power M501JAC gas turbine at Savannah Machinery Works. Such technology will be used in some of the newest power plants in development, including a planned Entergy facility in Texas. (Mitsubishi Power Americas)

This power plant offers a peek into the future

In Texas, an energy company is building a power plant that can run on hydrogen, a fuel that is gaining steam because of new tax credits and upcoming federal regulations

WP By Timothy Puko, May 1, 2023

PORT ARTHUR, Tex. — A half-hour’s drive from where the modern oil and gas industry was born, a new power plant provides a glimpse into one possible future for fossil fuels.

In this Texas region called the Golden Triangle — named for the riches produced a century ago from the first modern oil field — the electricity producer Entergy is building what it calls the most advanced power station in its fleet. The $1.5 billion project comes with added capability: In addition to burning gas, its turbines can also run on hydrogen, a fuel that burns with no greenhouse gas emissions.

Technology such as this would probably become an imperative for many energy companies under historic power plant rules the Biden administration is expected to unveil this month. Those regulations, if they survive near-certain legal challenges, will play a critical role in the United States meeting its promises to cut carbon emissions.

“This is a way to keep growing gas, but make it cleaner over time,” said Steve Fleishman, a utility analyst with Wolfe Research. To reduce emissions but keep the power grid reliable, he added, “the system cannot rely just on adding renewables.”

Yet the Entergy plant also underscores the technological and political challenges that U.S. electricity generation faces as it transforms. Hydrogen power and other technologies — such as those that allow companies to capture carbon emissions and store them rather than releasing them into the atmosphere — are still far from proven solutions for large-scale deployment.

And even as Texas and other Republican-leaning states produce huge amounts of carbon-free electricity, lawmakers in those places and in Washington are often hostile to clean energy. Just last week, as part of legislation to lift the federal debt limit, House Republicans passed a bill to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that devotes hundreds of billions of dollars to subsidizing such transformations.

At a recent groundbreaking for Entergy’s plant — the Orange County Advanced Power Station — executives made no mention of the politics playing out in Washington. The company’s chief executive, Drew Marsh, didn’t mention gas once during his nearly five minutes of remarks. He mentioned hydrogen nine times.

“People are talking about hydrogen hubs,” Marsh said. “Affordable, reliable and clean energy is what our customers are looking for. And with this investment, they’ll get to check all three boxes.”

EPC Consortium of Mitsubishi Power, TIC and Sargent & Lundy to Build Entergy Texas’ New, Cleaner and More Reliable Power Station Representative illustration of the 2 on 1 combined cycle project, including two M501JAC enhanced air-cooled gas turbines, steam turbine, heat recovery steam generator, and advanced control system. (Business Wire via AP)

As operators of fossil fuel-burning plants are pressured to eliminate or at least reduce their planet-warming emissions, Washington has come through with subsidies for carbon capture and hydrogen to help. And the latest push from the Environmental Protection Agency involves new emissions limits that are so stringent, gas- and coal-burning power plants would need carbon-capture or hydrogen technology to comply, The Washington Post and others have reported.

With roughly a dozen projects such as Entergy’s nationwide, some power companies are trying to get ahead of that push from federal regulators, Fleishman said.

Both hydrogen and carbon capture are still developing — and often controversial — technologies. The infrastructure needs for both are massive, and it may not be a viable business solution for most companies, especially outside of the Gulf Coast and a few other select geographic areas, Fleishman said.

During the Obama era, the Department of Energy spent $1.1 billion to help launch 11 carbon capture demonstration projects. Only two of them are operational today. A study by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that 10 of the world’s 13 biggest capture projects are either underperforming by large margins — trapping as little as half of the carbon dioxide promised — or have shut down.

When burned, hydrogen fuel produces no greenhouse gas emissions. But the fuel can have significant climate impacts depending on how it is produced, stored and transported.

Just producing it can create greenhouse gases. Currently, the most common way of producing hydrogen is to combine large amounts of natural gas with high-temperature steam. The process is highly energy intensive and creates carbon-dioxide emissions — unless it is paired with a carbon-capture system to control them.

Using a different process instead, producing hydrogen with solar, wind, geothermal or even nuclear energy, can avoid those emissions. But many environmental groups say that is a much riskier and less efficient use of that zero-carbon energy than just sending power from those sources onto the grid.

“If clean hydrogen is going to play a niche role in the power sector, then that hydrogen must have very low greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of its production, no matter how it’s produced,” said Emily Kent, the U.S. director of zero-carbon fuels at the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental organization.

If hydrogen is not properly stored and transported, it could also leak into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect. The Environmental Defense Fund and other groups say there is little data indicating whether the industry has a properly leak-proofed system.

“We currently do not have a very clean system for moving natural gas, and hydrogen is going to be even harder,” said Steven Hamburg, the fund’s senior vice president and chief scientist. “It’s still going to help us in the long term, without a doubt. So hydrogen has a role to play, but we have to get it right.”

But there are also signs that hydrogen and carbon capture technologies are becoming more viable. Their advocates often point to the Petra Nova project southwest of Houston, which used a system that captured more than 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from its flue gas — although that success was tempered by extensive outages, according to the Energy Department’s 2020 conclusions about the project.

The energy industry has changed dramatically since the Obama administration first targeted power-sector emissions through its Clean Power Plan nearly a decade ago.

In 2014, coal was the country’s top source of electric power, and the industry was the country’s top source of emissions, responsible for nearly a third of the nationwide total. Since, electric power has dropped to No. 2, with emissions down 20 percent, according to EPA data, as power companies closed waves of old coal-fired plants and replaced them almost exclusively with wind, solar and new, more efficient gas-burning units.

Despite that change, the grid is still reliant on fossil fuels, and its plants often support union members and working-class voters. Gas and coal still fuel roughly 60 percent of U.S. power. Both the White House and Congress have responded by pledging billions in new spending to develop new systems — such as carbon capture — that can preserve jobs and keep the lights on.

Carbon capture typically works through a chemical process to separate carbon dioxide from industrial gases. In many existing operations, it is then compressed into a liquid and routed to storage, or repurposed for industrial uses, keeping it from entering the atmosphere and warming the planet.

Four power plants nationwide actively use carbon capture, according to a count from the Clean Air Task Force. Coal-fired plants in the U.S. have the capability to capture 3 million to 4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, and newly announced projects are on pace to raise that number more than sevenfold by 2025, according to Bloomberg data published last month in a U.S. Energy Department report.

A hydrogen storage facility at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. Fortescue Future Industries and Forrest are investing heavily in green hydrogen production, with the goal to move the world to green energy as quickly as possible. (Chet Strange for The Washington Post)

The first major hydrogen-fueled power plant in the United States was completed in 2021, according to S&P Global. It is one of about a dozen similar projects in development, as tracked by the nonprofit Clean Energy Group, though most are smaller and sometimes just pilot projects.

Hydrogen production done in conjunction with carbon capture is expected to soar in the coming years, according to the Energy Department report, with an expected yearly capacity of 33 million tons of carbon sequestration by 2030, up from nothing today.

Much of that momentum has come from major subsidies approved in Washington. The bipartisan infrastructure spending package of 2021 included nearly $18 billion combined for carbon capture and hydrogen.

Last year’s climate-spending package passed by Democrats, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, then expanded on tax credits offered for every ton of carbon captured. Electric generators and industrial companies — including hydrogen producers — can now claim as much as $85 a ton, up from $50. Hydrogen producers also have the option of instead claiming a tax credit specifically for them.

While there’s uncertainty around the new EPA rules, the climate spending law can help make these technologies competitive with gas, said Bill Newsom, chief executive of Mitsubishi Power Americas.

“The key thing is cost. If we can get hydrogen and carbon capture cost competitive, then yes, it’ll play significantly in the marketplace,” said Newsom.

Mitsubishi Power is making the two turbines for Entergy’s Orange County project, part of a model the company is selling that can burn 30 percent hydrogen along with gas without any changes — and go to 100 percent hydrogen with what Newsom said are “small modifications.” The Japanese company is also the contractor for a Utah plant that is replacing 1,800 megawatts of coal power.

Newsom said the hope is to start both projects still at 70 percent natural gas, but to go to only hydrogen eventually, pending decisions from the plant owners and regulators. The Utah site also has a production and storage facility, creating the type of hub that the company hopes will perfect the process and drive down costs.

An Entergy spokeswoman said the plant may benefit from those tax credits in the future but did not detail how. The company declined a request for interviews with executives. State regulators must still approve use of hydrogen at the plant, and consumer demand and other market conditions will determine how much of it is used, a company spokeswoman said.

The Inflation Reduction Act tax credits will be available later, once the hydrogen gets produced and used — or the carbon gets captured — but tax lawyers say companies can start borrowing off those expected credits now to finance deals and new developments. That’s part of what is feeding this surge of development, building off consumer demand for zero-emissions energy that has also been growing in recent years, attorneys and executives said.

For the Biden administration, that momentum feeds into its regulatory plans. To impose more stringent limits on emissions, the EPA must be able to justify the costs it is imposing on industry. The federal subsidies, combined with these investments and growing development, should lead to technological improvements that make compliance less expensive, advocates say.

The advancements will allow the EPA to bolster the rules it sets through the Clean Air Act, and that’ll help the country fulfill Biden’s commitment to cut nationwide emissions in half by 2030 compared with 2005 levels, White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi said earlier this year.

“They’re not going to ignore the fact that there’s a transformation going on in American industry,” Zaidi said in a February speech at the Georgetown University Law Center. “We have a whole new set of tools — including through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act — that makes our job easier. So number one is using both of those tools and using them in tandem.”

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Image: Playing Tetris: visitors to the observatory at the Abeno Harukas skyscraper in Osaka can play the game projected on a huge wall, 30 November 2017 
The Asahi Shimbun/ Editing Germán & Co

AI: the key battleground for Cold War 2.0?

It’s becoming impossible to distinguish between the AI hype and warning of a conflict with China. What’s certain is that the hype will be monetised.

Le Monde Diplomatique by Evgeny Morozov

‘The Cold War Is Over’ proclaimed a flashy 1988 marketing brochure for a strange new computer game, an unlikely hit from behind the Iron Curtain. Then came the teaser: ‘Almost…’ Perhaps they got it right, but for the wrong reasons. The brochure, now at the National Museum of American History in Washington, was the brainchild of Spectrum HoloByte, a Silicon Valley software company then owned by Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine) (1). Featuring a drawing of the Kremlin with some geometric figures in front, the brochure warned of the ‘Soviet challenge’, announcing that ‘just when East/West tensions are beginning to ease, the Soviets have scored a direct hit on the US.’

That hit was Tetris, the cult computer game, whose Cyrillic name Тетрис – in bold yellow letters – was proudly displayed on the brochure’s bright-red cover page (the Soviet hammer and sickle replacing the final ‘s’). Spectrum HoloByte, the game’s US distributor, leveraged all the right cold-war themes – from Russian folk music to the images of the Soviet cosmonauts – to make Tetris a hit in Reagan-era America. Even then, some in Silicon Valley knew how to cash in on the cold war.

Fast forward to 2023. Gilman Louie, then the company’s CEO, is now a key figure in what some in Washington excitedly call Cold War 2.0 – the ongoing battle between China and the US for the commanding heights of the global economy. As the battle expands to technological and even military fronts, it’s no longer about Tetris. It’s now about artificial intelligence.

‘Unlock the American heartland’

Gilman Louie’s career path is a quintessential American journey. He made his name in the early 1980s designing flight simulator games. They were so successful that the US Air Force got in touch. Eventually, one of Louie’s startups appeared on Maxwell’s radar and he snapped it up.

By the late 1990s, Louie ran In-Q-Tel, CIA’s own venture capital fund, a nonprofit entity whose most famous bet led to the technology behind Google Earth. As the Trump administration began making noises about losing the technological race to China, Louie resurfaced as a member of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a high-profile advisory group led by Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google.

The tech industry and military contractors don’t always see eye to eye. Many American tech companies don’t want to lose the Chinese civilian market due to its sheer size. The military contractors have no such constraints

Just a few years later, that connection with Schmidt has blossomed into a closer partnership – so close that Louie is now CEO of the Schmidt-backed America’s Frontier Fund (AFF), an In-Q-Tel-like nonprofit venture, with a mission to help Washington ‘win the 21st century global technology competition’. The fund styles itself as a panacea, promising to ‘revitalise manufacturing, create jobs, bolster local economies, and unlock the American heartland’. And it has a most impressive board, which includes the ex-CEO of IBM and Trump’s former National Security Advisor.

‘Frontier technologies’

China’s growing influence in the so-called ‘deep tech’ or ‘frontier technologies’ like artificial intelligence and quantum computing is what led to AFF’s creation. ‘Frontier tech can’t be built in a garage,’ proclaims AFF’s website, departing from Silicon Valley’s faith in the genius entrepreneur. Between the novels of Ayn Rand and government subsidies, they choose the latter.

Ironically, Gilman Louie, the man who leveraged Cold War 1.0 to hype up Tetris, is now leveraging Cold War 2.0 to hype up AI. Or perhaps vice versa. In today’s Washington, these two operations have become almost indistinguishable, and the only certainty is that all that hype will be monetised.

To work in the age of AI, the old Tetris slogan needs some polishing. ‘The Cold War Is Over. Almost…’ sounds dated. However, ‘The New Cold War Is Here. Almost…’ is a message that many in America – from tech companies to defence contractors to hawkish thinktanks – find appealing.

For all the rhetoric, some ideological shifts are unmistakable. All the recent anxiety about losing the AI race to China seems to have stirred America’s policy elites from their slumber in the magical land of free markets. They sound like a group no longer bound by the dogmas of the Washington Consensus. Some even sound like they have cast in their lot with the Beijing Consensus.

A recent essay in Foreign Affairs (2), the publication of choice of the US foreign policy establishment, reveals not only a new-found enthusiasm for a strong, AI-boosting state, but a re-examination of policy errors of the past. Co-written by Eric Schmidt, the essay chides Washington’s earlier fascination with globalisation for distracting America from ‘strategic considerations’ and also attacks the venture capital industry’s short-termism.

It celebrates instead ‘grants, government-backed loans and purchase commitments’ as the right vehicle for accomplishing Washington’s long-term tech objectives. Obviously, such grants would probably be disbursed through entities like AFF, which, unlike conventional VCs, would know how to spend it with long-term interest in mind.

At times, the essay is just a few steps away from demanding a robust industrial policy. But it never quite gets there, saying that it remains a ‘fraught label’. As things stand, the revised Washington Consensus expects more public handouts to the private sector – and uses the fear of the US losing the next cold war as the main rationale.

Such arguments are usually framed to appeal to both sides of the aisle, making it imperative to complement geopolitical considerations with economic ones. And so it is this time, with the push for AI framed as a way to make America great abroad and at home, in the latter case by turbocharging new AI-enabled industries.

Thus, while some have mistaken the new American consensus for the emergence of ‘post-neoliberalism’, it has all the trappings of the cold war-era ‘military Keynesianism’ whereby greater military spending was supposed to help beat the Soviet Union and ensure American economic prosperity.

The Pentagon stands back

Yet, erasing the last three decades of neoliberal statecraft is proving difficult. Apparently, one can’t simply go back to the cold-war days, with nearly unrestrained funding flowing to a handful of military contractors. Today, one has to play lean and entrepreneurial, and generals don’t dream of relaunching themselves as Silicon Valley startups. The Pentagon has even been reluctant to operate its own In-Q-Tel-like venture fund, walking away from the money the US Congress has allocated it (Fortune.com, 17 March 2023). This might explain why AFF had to be created as a private venture.

Still, the links between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley have undeniably grown stronger. The US Defense Department has even recently created the new post of Chief Digital and AI officer – a position filled by Craig Martell, former head of machine learning at the ride-sharing platform Lyft. And, for all the ethical concerns from their employees, America’s tech companies continue making inroads into the military’s procurement budgets.

Thus, while Alphabet may have shelved its plans to work on the Pentagon’s controversial Project Maven – a computer vision project that prompted protests among its engineers – it went ahead and formed Google Public Service, an innocent-sounding unit which does offer cloud services to the military.

It’s hardly alone. Silicon Valley’s cloud and machine learning capabilities remain crucial to the Pentagon’s vision of building a system to integrate data coming from terrestrial and air sensors – these are no longer limited to radar – from across all branches of the armed forces. The idea is to crunch them with artificial intelligence, so as to mount an effective joint response. To that end, in late 2022 the Pentagon awarded four tech giants – Microsoft, Google, Oracle and Amazon – a $9bn contract to develop the infrastructure for this bold effort (defensescoop.com, 7 December 2022).

But, unlike in the old cold-war days, it’s not at all clear how much of this money would trickle down, Keynesian-style, to ordinary Americans. When it comes to AI, the labour costs accrue either to the star engineers – and we are talking hundreds, not millions of them – or to the numerous low-paid contractors who toil to help train the AI models. Most of them are not even in America, with OpenAI relying on contractors in Kenya to prevent ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot, from showing obscene images and text.

As for cloud computing, it’s also not clear how its expansion would help. Building data centres is expensive and their positive effects on the economy have yet to be seen. They do tend to drive up the cost of real estate. And the environmental costs of both AI and cloud computing are not trivial. So the multiplier effect of pouring all this money into military AI might be a mirage.

So perhaps this Cold War 2.0 would not feature a return to ‘military Keynesianism’. Short of AI leading to the much-awaited Singularity, merely dumping more money in the tech industry won’t suddenly bring Keynes to life. Perhaps we are more likely to witness the weird new regime of ‘military neoliberalism’ in which ever-greater government spending on AI- and cloud-related matters would widen inequality and enrich the tech giants’ shareholders.

Return of Google’s ex-chief

No wonder some of them are so keen to restart the cold war. In fact, it’s Google’s former boss Eric Schmidt who’s done more than anyone to shape this new consensus (3). Worth roughly $20bn, Schmidt has been a fixture in Washington’s policy circles ever since campaigning for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. Between 2016 and 2020 he chaired the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Advisory Board – for whom he visited some hundred US military bases around the world. He then made a quick transition to chair of the AI commission and has now resurfaced on a government commission on emerging biotechnology.

Schmidt’s many ventures to push his cold war narrative make it hard to keep track. There’s Innovation Endeavors, Schmidt’s venture capital fund, which lavishly funds startups that specialise in military AI. The highest-profile of them, Rebellion AI, has been recently described as an ‘early-stage WeWork and Theranos’ – a reference to the overblown promises made by its founders (Vox.com, 14 December 2022).

While Schmidt chaired the two government entities – the Pentagon’s board and the AI commission – he and his business partners invested more than $2bn in AI-related startups. Given that the commission recommended pouring more government money into such startups, one can only wonder what Schmidt’s advocacy is all about.

Elizabeth Warren, the firebrand Democratic senator, has even pressed the Pentagon for more details on Schmidt’s involvement with the US administration, suggesting that the Defense Department may have ‘failed to protect public interest’ in granting Schmidt so much influence. Now that he’s joined the new biotech commission, raising some eyebrows, his investments in this sector – through yet another venture capital fund – have attracted more criticism (CNBC.com, 13 December 2022).

The case of Schmidt Futures

Then there’s Schmidt Futures, his philanthropic foundation, which on closer examination turns out to be a for-profit company (4). It was recently in the news for funding the salaries of staffers working in the US government (5) – including in positions related to AI policy and tech regulation. Eric Schmidt (and indirectly Schmidt Futures) even played a role in helping Lyft’s Craig Martell to become the Pentagon’s AI chief.

How could a company possibly be paying the salaries of administration officials? Well, there’s a loophole: certain nonprofits are allowed to do that, and, as nonprofits, they can even receive money from companies. In this case, the nonprofit that receives money from Schmidt Futures (but not only them) is the Federation of American Scientists, a venerated cold-war thinktank that traces its origins to the Manhattan Project. Conveniently, its current chairman is that same Gilman Louie of Tetris fame (6).

Schmidt’s most effective cold war publicity gamble has been to recruit to his cause Henry Kissinger, not known for shunning billionaires. Perhaps, as a result of Schmidt’s influence, the 99-year-old Kissinger opining on AI sounds much like a 19-year-old describing their first LSD trip. ‘I think the technology companies have led the way into a new period of human consciousness,’ Kissinger said in a recent interview, adding that it is akin to what ‘the Enlightenment generations did when they moved from religion to reason’. By this logic, Eric Schmidt must be the new Voltaire.

Schmidt, Kissinger and a third collaborator have even penned a book-length manifesto (7) about this new era, in which they warn that AI warfare may lead to ‘inherently destabilising’ situations that are like those ‘created by nuclear weapons’. They ask, ‘Will terrorists engineer AI attacks? Will they be able to (falsely) attribute them to states or other actors?’ But they offer no answers. At times, it seems just a rehashing of the old talking points around the inevitable ‘cyber 9/11’, the earlier rallying cry of defence contractors eager to pillage public budgets.

After all this fearmongering, they arrive at a logical conclusion. What the world needs is a ‘concept of arms control for AI’. That’s all they say. The book remains vague on detail, opting for open-ended philosophical questions over analysis.

Schmidt is so keen to leverage whatever is left of Kissinger’s reputation that in 2021 he even launched a dedicated AI thinktank – Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) – modelled on a similar initiative that Kissinger himself ran at the height of the cold war in the late 1950s. At the time, Kissinger was far from advocating arms control of any kind. Rather, he was one of the most vocal proponents of the view that a limited nuclear conflict with the Soviets was all but inevitable, and probably a good thing for America.

Kissinger’s first cold-war initiative was itself a power-grabbing vanity project of another billionaire, Nelson Rockefeller. Its most high-profile report, released in 1958, called for continued increases in defence spending of roughly 1% a year and the overall ratcheting-up of America’s military preparedness. Its stance on arms control was unequivocal: ‘The illusion of security brought about by a spurious agreement to disarm would be a poor substitute for vigilance based on strength’ (8).

SCSP’s new ‘offset strategy’

For all the ‘AI arms control’ speculations of the Schmidt-Kissinger book, the policies advocated by SCSP point in the opposite direction. Of those, one stands out in particular: SCSP’s efforts to shape the next ‘offset strategy’ – a push SCSP markets under the catchy name of Offset-X. During the cold war, ‘offset strategy’ referred to the Pentagon’s efforts to leverage the latest technology, from battlefield nuclear weapons to airborne sensors, in order make up for its numerical inferiority with regard to Soviet tanks, planes and troops. From the mid-1940s, there have been three such ‘offset strategies’, all of them relying on different technologies and assumptions.

SCSP’s Offset-X advocacy assumes that, should a war between China and the US break out, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will go after US networks – and the US must be prepared. Thus, according to a recent SCSP report (9), ‘the outcome of a potential war with the PLA will increasingly come down to superiority and resilience of sensors, networks, software, interfaces between humans and machines, logistics and – especially – the systems that connect or empower them all together.’ This doesn’t exactly sound like arms control, does it?

To the uninitiated, it may sound awe-inspiring, but anyone familiar with Pentagon thinking over the past decade would probably yawn. Much of this was already part of Offset Three, which ran between 2014 and 2018, spearheaded by, among others, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, who’s now resurfaced on SCSP’s board of advisors.

The primary audience for SCSP reports is not military types, but the general public. It’s they who need to be persuaded to increase the Pentagon’s AI budgets. And to do that, one must make a convincing argument that China is not only winning the AI war, but that its victory would crush the US militarily. The second assumption remains the stuff of science fiction. But is China winning that AI war?

US culture wars

To judge by its inability to offer an alternative to America’s ChatGPT, Beijing is still a long way off winning the AI race. Baidu’s launch of its ChatGPT competitor, ERNIE Bot, went so badly its stock price tanked.

To some extent, Silicon Valley’s leadership in the so-called Large Language Models – the type of deep learning AI behind ChatGPT – is a consequence of America’s cultural hegemony. The reason OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is so far ahead of the competition is, in part, because its model is trained on vast holdings of English texts, abundant online. You won’t find as much Mandarin content.

Those who have been worrying about cultural imperialism have a great cause for concern now: ChatGPT may well emerge as the default provider of answers to the world’s questions. However, with ChatGPT, one is likely to be treated only to the blandest and most politically correct answers. We might all become prisoners of America’s culture wars.

Viewed outside of the narrow confines of ChatGPT-like language models, one may suspect China’s technology push is still going strong. A recent report by a prominent Australian thinktank suggests that it leads in 37 out of 44 critical technologies (10), a list that spans defence, space, robotics, energy, the environment, biotechnology, AI, advanced materials and key quantum technology areas.

The problem with most of such studies is that they focus – almost excessively – on research indicators tied to the relative performance of academic institutions, the number of publications and the degrees of individual researchers. Though this can be a useful proxy for dominance in a particular field, all these research papers count for nothing without the capacity to implement their findings.

And it’s here that US attempts to break China’s rise are bearing fruit – from efforts to cripple Huawei’s dominance in 5G to policies aimed at preventing Beijing from achieving self-sufficiency in the manufacture of advanced chips.

The tech industry and military contractors don’t always see eye to eye. Many American tech companies don’t want to lose the Chinese civilian market due to its sheer size. They definitely don’t want a full-blown Cold War 2.0, which would adversely affect their own sales there.

The military contractors, who don’t have many civilian contracts to begin with and who cannot work with the Chinese military without losing their Pentagon ties, have no such constraints. They want Cold War 2.0 – and they want it now. And some probably wouldn’t mind a hot war either.

Uneasy compromise

The Biden administration’s policy towards China’s tech ascendancy – slow but profitable strangulation – reflects the uneasy compromise between the two sides. Washington tightens the noose around Beijing’s neck by cajoling allies like the Netherlands, South Korea and Japan to stop selling their own critical technologies to China. As usual, it is also using cold war-era legal instruments – like the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule – which can limit what foreign companies can ship to China, as long as their products are made using American technology.

This is not to say that Chinese companies have been completely cut off from the US hardware they need to continue their work on AI self-sufficiency. Instead of buying chips, they are now directed to rent them, sometimes at exorbitant prices, which has allowed some US tech giants to profit from Washington’s crackdown on Beijing.

The idea is to make AI development costly – but not prohibitively costly – thus profiting from Beijing’s desire for autonomy. And since Biden’s policies also slow down the pace at which Beijing achieves its goals, they give the US time to sort out its own AI-related problems (which by and large are to do with having too many eggs in Taiwan’s chip basket).

Keeping ‘China reliant on foreign chips’

At least no one in Washington is hiding the fact that maintaining and monetising China’s dependence – the one-time complaint of dependency theorists like Andre Gunder Frank or Ruy Mauro Marini – is the explicit objective.

Thus, another recent article in Foreign Affairs (11) – predictably, by someone in the Eric Schmidt universe – holds that ‘instead of implementing broad bands, US policymakers should work closely with allies to maintain China’s dependence on foreign chips’ and that ‘ensuring that Washington maintains the upper hand as the AI revolution progresses’ requires keeping ‘China reliant on foreign chips’.

Beijing is not taking any of this lying down. Recently, it insisted that Japan should think twice about joining Washington’s campaign to limit China’s access to advanced chips, all while starting a cybersecurity probe into Micron, an important US chipmaker.

What isn’t yet clear is whether Beijing would be able to steer an international coalition of some kind to support its agenda. Washington has not been acting alone to counter China, tapping into or even spearheading international initiatives such as Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence and AI Partnership for Defense. Recently AFF – the Schmidt fund run by Gilman Louie – announced a joint fund with India, Japan and Australia under the auspices of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a joint military initiative of the four countries aimed at restraining China.

Most of these efforts are taking place under the banner of promoting democracy and world peace, even if getting there requires boosting defence budgets and letting technology companies and their shareholders get even richer.

Europe is mostly absent from these efforts, for the obvious reason that on military matters it follows the US lead. And when changes occur, they are usually smallscale. It was recently announced that the Netherlands will host the investment management arm of the new €1bn innovation fund announced by NATO. That’s peanuts.

While the war in Ukraine has boosted European defence budgets, it will probably be American companies like Peter Thiel’s Palantir that will get most of the new AI-related funds. At this point, it’s Europe’s privacy laws – and not active public policy – that prevents US giants from advancing even further and faster. And it’s not just the recent case of Italy banning ChatGPT. A recent court ruling in Germany has found that the police use of Palantir-supplied data analysis software to prevent crime before it happens is unconstitutional. How long these privacy defences might last is anyone’s guess.

Judging by recent high-profile speeches by European Commission officials, they find Washington’s rhetoric of Cold War 2.0 quite convincing. This is likely to have an adverse impact on EU-China relations, while pushing the EU further into the arms of US tech giants. A much smarter strategy for the EU would have been to play the two sides against each other, something that Brussels has tried to do in the past, at least on some issues.

Absence of a cold-war enemy

In her 2014 book on how America’s national security state (rather than Silicon Valley) has been the true engine of the country’s technological leadership (12), the political scientist Linda Weiss noted that the absence of a cold-war enemy has undermined the Pentagon’s ability to create ground-breaking innovations. She even asked ‘why China has not yet metamorphosed into a rival that spurs innovation like the Soviet Union and Japan’.

It turns out this was just a matter of time. Then, Weiss argued that if the US was serious about preserving its technological leadership, it would need to get over its obsession with what she called ‘financialism’, put Wall Street’s interests aside and focus on rebuilding its manufacturing industry.

Financialism, of course, never ended. What we got instead is something much weirder. While some re-shoring does, in fact, take place, it’s anyone’s guess whether America will really reinvent itself as the world’s primary chip manufacturer.

Surprisingly, it’s not the downfall of Wall Street but the rise of Silicon Valley, with its desire to capitalise on the AI hype, that may have awakened the US from its slumber, while turning China into the strategic enemy that the Soviet Union once was.

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Image: Chilean soldiers monitor the international route taken by migrants that have been stranded for 14 days in the city of Arica, at the border with Peru. This photo was taken on April 27, 2023. PATRICIO BANDA / EPA/ Editing by Germán & Co

Chilean military sent to border to stem flow of migrants

In February left-wing President Gabriel Boric decided to send units to patrol the north of the country, where Venezuelan refugees cross into the country. Many immigrants have found themselves in a legal gray area.

Le Monde By Flora Genoux, (Iquique (Chile) special correspondent),  Published today at 12:53 am (Paris)

What day is it? "I've lost track of time," said Daniel, a 30-year-old Venezuelan migrant, sitting in a square in Iquique, a Chilean city in the Tarapaca region, some 1,700 kilometers north of Santiago. It was mid-April. "Last night, we slept outside. Me, just a few minutes. I was afraid we would be robbed," he said, pointing to his partner, Joselin, 26, and their daughter, Alanna, soon to be 3.

They had left Venezuela two months earlier because "they could no longer eat every day," they said. After traveling by bus and hitchhiking, they had reached their destination, Chile, a week earlier, after entering the country from Peru. Like thousands of other migrants, the majority of them poor Venezuelans, they crossed illegally, not having the means to pay for a passport and a visa in their country of origin. They hoped to land a job immediately. "We've asked everywhere, but we can't find anything. Being on the street makes us ashamed," said Daniel. A passer-by offered them two boxes of chicken and rice. But the Chileans they met warned them: migrants were not welcome here.

In an effort to stem the influx from Bolivia and Peru, on February 27 Chile's leftist President Gabriel Boric deployed the military to guard the border with both countries for a period of 90 days. The soldiers have the right to conduct identity checks and apprehend people crossing the border. "The country was not sufficiently prepared to receive this huge number of migrants," said Boric on March 15. "Unfortunately, some of them also come with criminal intent (...). We will look for them and, within the rule of law, we will make their lives impossible," he added.

A climate of suspicion

This measure reversed Boric's previous policy. Before he took office in March 2022, he pledged to have a migration policy based on human rights and a registry of foreigners without residence permits – a far cry from this military scenario. Instead, on April 18, the Parliament approved two bills tightening migration controls and conditions for deportation.

According to the Chilean Interior Ministry, the deployment of the military – a popular measure in the country – has reduced the number of illegal immigrants crossing the border by 55% compared to the same period last year, with an average of 440 arrivals per week. But the militarization highlights the state's shortcomings, the government's struggle to implement a coherent migration policy and the fragility of a social fabric riven by xenophobia.

Under a bright sun, facing the ocean with the foothills of the Andes behind him, 52-year-old garage owner Cristian (a pseudonym) was sipping a beer on the beach in Iquique, the migrant transit city closest to the northern border. He was proud of himself. In January 2022, during an anti-foreigner demonstration, he forcibly dislodged some migrants who were camping. In September 2021, another rally gave way to xenophobic scenes as residents burned the belongings of migrants camping in a city square, now fenced off. "They were delinquents," said the 50-year-old. "Not all of them," he added, "but these migrants bring us more harm than good. Because of them, the city has become dangerous. We are afraid."

Criminal organizations and lone offenders mix with the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Venezuela's humanitarian crisis, which has created a climate rife with suspicion in Chile. According to the Tarapaca prosecutor's office, the region has the highest (and rising) homicide rate per capita. In 2022, 37% of those indicted were foreigners, compared to 19% in 2018. In Chile, the 1.5 million foreigners made up 7.5% of the population at the end of 2021. Their number doubled between 2018 and 2021.

Militarizing the border "is a purely political decision, a way for Gabriel Boric to show that he is in control," said Felipe Pardo, project development coordinator at the local Christian Churches' Social Aid Foundation (FASIC). But the dissuasive presence of the army is not enough to seal off the 1,000-kilometer border. In fact, the number of recorded arrivals is still higher than at the end of 2022. According to FASIC, the military are engaging in informal deportations, ordering migrants to turn back. But Chile also has to face Bolivia's refusal to accept non-Bolivians who have been deported – a policy that was also implemented in Peru since the end of April.

"Who are [the migrants]? Where are they? How many are they? The state can't reliably answer," said Daniel Quinteros Rojas, the state representative in the Tarapaca region. He himself advocates extraordinary regularization.

Requested to self-report

Chilean authorities require migrants to self-report. The state calls it a monitoring mechanism, but it is also often the first step before an expulsion order is issued (there were 1,034 between March and November 2022). However, self-reporting is recommended by some migrant aid organizations. It would allow people lacking a residence permit to formalize their presence on Chilean territory and, if necessary, to appeal the expulsion order in order to obtain regularization. "But this is not the way to get regularization," said Pardo, adding, "Everything pushes migrants to remain in clandestinity and precariousness."

"What do you advise me to do, to regularize myself?" asked 22-year-old Evelyn (a pseudonym) to the leaders of World Vision, an organization helping migrants in Iquique. She arrived in December 2022 with her two small children and her underage sister, after a risky five-hour walk from Bolivia to Chile. She did not self-report to the authorities. "I'm thinking of doing it to be regularized. But I am afraid that I will be expelled," said the young woman. She found a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant, working 11 hours a day with no days off and for a very low pay.

In a March report, Amnesty International condemned what it called an administrative gray area, placing migrants who are neither deported nor regularized in limbo. "Migrants' human rights are not respected in Chile," said World Vision regional manager Victoria Cardemil. Is this true? "Yes," replied Quinteros Rojas, reluctantly. "We have added more spots [from 400 to 500] in the emergency reception centers in Colchane [a Chilean village on the Bolivian border] and in Iquique. The conditions in the centers are better than before. Since Gabriel Boric's arrival, there have been no more anti-migrant demonstrations," he added.

After another night on the streets, Daniel, Joselin and their daughter showed up at World Vision headquarters. They wanted to rest and take a shower. But upon their arrival, the reception center staff apologized, saying there was no room left. The family left for the streets of Iquique. They continue to sleep far from the squares and other areas with high foot traffic. They know they have to keep a low profile.

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Image: Former President Donald Trump has said he plans to run again next year. Foto: Joe Raedle / AFP / Editing by Germán & Co

Horror Scenario

Germany Prepares for Possible Re-Election of Donald Trump

Berlin is preparing for the possibility that Donald Trump could beat Joe Biden in the next election. That outcome would likely be a disaster for Ukraine, NATO and the looming climate crisis. Diplomats have begun establishing contacts with the former president's camp to avoid being blindsided as they were in 2016.

Spiegel By Markus Becker, Markus Feldenkirchen, Marina Kormbaki, Veit Medick, Ralf Neukirch, Christian Reiermann, Jonas Schaible and Gerald Traufetter,  28.04.2023

It seemed like the 45th United States president, whose ancestors came from Germany, had an obsession with the country , but not a positive one. It often seemed as though he regarded Germany as America's greatest enemy, even as he got along splendidly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and others of his ilk. At least those ties were better than his relationship with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

ANZEIGE

"The Germans are bad, very bad," Trump declared in May 2017 at a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels, where one of the issues under discussion was Germany's trade surplus. "See the millions of cars they are selling in the U.S. Terrible. We will stop this," he said.

Over and over, he let the world know how he viewed the Germans: a nation of parasites who have taken "advantage of us for many years." He also saw the country as being unreliable, if not controlled outright by external forces. "Germany is totally controlled by Russia," he railed in July 2018. And later: "So, we're supposed to protect you against Russia and you pay billions of dollars to Russia."

Despite his penchant for preposterous rhetoric, Trump wasn't always wrong, sometimes even recognizing German hypocrisy or inconsistencies before the Germans did themselves. Still, Berlin was elated when Trump lost to his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in autumn 2020. The tenor in both Berlin and Brussels is that the trans-Atlantic relationship probably wouldn't have survived a second Trump term.

But now, that is exactly what could happen.

Trump announced his intention to run for a second term in the White House several months ago. In polls, Trump is far ahead of potential rivals from his own party, including Florida Governor Ron de Santis, who is widely considered to have the best chance to beat Trump in the primaries.

Since this week, it has been pretty certain that Joe Biden will be Trump's opponent again. The incumbent president would be 82 years old when he took office for his second term, and 86 when it ended. Trump, who is himself already 76, may not seem more serious by comparison, but he is definitely more dynamic. And the last race between the two of them was already a nail-biter.

A second presidency is actually a realistic outcome for Trump. At the very least, forward-looking politicians are considering the possible scenarios, especially in Berlin and Brussels, where Trump's favorite opponents are based: NATO, the European Union and Germany

Necessary Precautions

Michael Link is the German government's coordinator for trans-Atlantic cooperation. If Trump were to be re-elected, it would make his job a lot tougher. "Trump would be a greater challenge for Germany, Europe and the world in a second term than he was in his first term," says the politician, who is a member of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP). "He would probably govern in an even more unrestrained, unpredictable and defiant manner."

Preparations for the 2024 U.S. elections have already become a significant component of his job, and he is planning on traveling to the U.S. more often in the near future. "In the end, what counts are steady contacts in the executive and legislative branches of government," he says. "Individual senators can have a decisive influence on whether and how a bill is passed. If the going gets tough, they can be important allies."

Agnieszka Brugger, deputy head of the Green Party group in Germany parliament, also argues that preparations must be made for the possibility of Trump 2.0. She says the Europeans need to be more self-reliant and less vulnerable, regardless who is the current president of the U.S. "Even though we in the EU have become better in the technological, economic and security fields with regard to the crises of this world, we are still too slow," Brugger says. She says Germany and the EU should broaden their horizons and expand partnerships and alliances, "especially with countries of the Global South."

Disastrous for Climate Protection

Some in the German government believe that if Trump returns to office, it will be a horror scenario for climate protection. The Greens, in particular, recall with dismay his first term, when he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Trump also rolled back over 100 environmental protection policies, made it easier for companies to drill for oil and gas in the ocean and allowed a controversial pipeline project to go through. Most crucially, though, he weakened the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by putting people at its helm who trivialized climate change.

Under Trump, the U.S. "would probably immediately withdraw from international climate finance," says Lukas Köhler, who is deputy head of the FDP's parliamentary group and responsible for his party's climate protection policy. He says it would have been difficult to move forward with commitments to establish a fund for offsetting climate damage without commitments at the last global climate summit. The system's future would be in question without funding from Washington.

At the G-7 summit in Germany last summer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Joe Biden continued to hone the idea of a climate club, a community of countries that want to move their economies toward climate neutrality. Such a fundamental transformation requires significant investments and puts companies at a disadvantage relative to those corporations who can continue producing in a manner deleterious to the climate in other countries. The idea of the club is to support each other and prevent competitive disadvantages for their own industry. Its members now include countries like Chile, Argentina and Indonesia. "Right now, the U.S. is showing what it is made of in terms of climate policy," says Green Party head Ricarda Lang. "If that were to change again, a key driver for climate action worldwide would be lost."

The Threat of a Trade War

The most dangerous conflict for Germany in trans-Atlantic relations played out in the realm of trade policy. During his second year in office in 2018, Trump launched a trade war, declaring steel and aluminum imports from the EU a threat to national security and slapping a 25 percent punitive tariff on them. The EU retaliated with tariffs of their own on traditional American products like jeans, bourbon, whiskey, motorcycles and peanut butter.

The tone between Washington and the European Commission, the EU's executive, has unsurprisingly improved dramatically since President Joe Biden took office. But in terms of substance, little has changed. Like Trump, Biden is also pursuing an "America First" policy.

At first, it looked as though the situation might become less tense. Both sides basically suspended the punitive tariffs at the end of 2021. Officials also reached agreement in the dispute over subsidies for aircraft manufacturers Airbus and Boeing, which had been simmering for years. There was also a great deal of euphoria when Biden made a big push to transform the U.S. economy at the end of last year. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a huge subsidy program of over $370 billion for climate-friendly products ranging from electric cars to wind turbines. Upon closer examination, however, Germans and Europeans discovered that the IRA contains a strong protectionist component: The rules only allow domestic producers to benefit from the subsidies.

With billions in subsidies and low energy prices, the U.S. is in a position to lure companies away from the EU, especially in the field of important green technologies. Car companies could also migrate to the U.S. given the significantly lower cost of electricity. "In terms of security policy, the EU and U.S. are close, but on trade issue, Washington shows no willingness to make any concessions," says Bernd Lange of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), who is the chair of the European Parliament's Foreign Trade Committee. And if Trump were to return to the White House, Lange believes, he would "likely tighten the protectionist stance seen in his first term."

FDP foreign policy point man Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, on the other hand, is more optimistic. "I am confident that the sensible Republicans in Congress could prevent the worst from happening," he says. "Even under Biden, not everything is easy – just look at his protectionist stance on economic issues, for example."

"Biden is saving our asses in Europe."

Michael Roth, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German parliament

International financial markets are also likely to react extremely sensitively if Trump is re-elected. They are very good at sniffing out incompetence, which Trump demonstrated plenty of during his one term in office.

For example, he repeatedly tried to force the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is supposed to be independent of politics, to lower interest rates. He also drove up the U.S. national debt with big promises. It is true that the national debt also rose during Joe Biden's term in office. But there was no turbulence on currency markets. Investors trust Biden and his team to act professionally.

There are a number of foreign policy experts who are urging people not to lose their composure over the upcoming election. "NATO isn't dependent on just one person," says Sergey Lagodinsky, a member of the European Parliament with the Green Party. "A second term for Trump should be an incentive for us to strengthen European political self-sufficiency."

That's also the view taken by leading foreign policy experts in Berlin. "Biden is saving our asses in Europe," Michael Roth, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German parliament and a member of the SPD, says of Europe's dependence on the U.S. He argues that Germany needs to do more for its own and European security, "regardless of whether the next president is named Biden, Trump or something else." Roth ticks off a list that are unlikely to draw any applause at any of his center-left party's conventions: "the steady increase in defense budgets to at least 2 percent of gross domestic product, the strengthening of the European defense industry and the expansion of Europe's strategic capacities." Marie-Agnes Strack of the FDP also calls for greater German self-reliance. "It makes no sense whatsoever to 'prepare' for different presidents," says Strack, who chairs the Defense Committee in German parliament. "We can't influence that, anyway."

Ukraine Would Probably Be Lost without the U.S.

So far, Europe hasn't been great at demonstrating its self-sufficiency. There are no disputes within the alliance about the overall goal of Europe's strategic autonomy, which French President Emmanuel Macron has emphasized repeatedly. But there are differences of opinion about what, exactly, that means. The Eastern European countries, above all Poland and the Baltic states, are opposed to a stronger military role for the EU. They want Europe to do more within NATO to bind the Americans more closely to the Continent. Macron, on the other hand, wants the EU to become an independent player on the global stage, also militarily. Berlin is somewhere in-between. These conflicts will erupt in full if Trump becomes president again.

A return of Trump to the White House would also be disastrous for Ukraine. In recent weeks, Trump has again revealed in several interviews his impassivity toward Russia's breach of international law and his lack of empathy toward the suffering of Ukrainians. He has claimed that if re-elected, he would end the war in Ukraine "within 24 hours." And if it were up to him, Russia would have been allowed to "take over" parts of Ukraine. They would be "very simple negotiations," Trump says, because he gets along very well with Vladimir Putin.

Trump has always admired Putin, probably even more than Kim Jong Un. Russia's influence on the 2016 U.S. election in favor of Trump is likely one reason for this loyalty. Even on the eve of the Russian attack, Trump described Putin's action as "pretty smart." He has never spoken that enthusiastically about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. One possible reason is that Trump reportedly urged the Ukrainian president to open an investigation into the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Biden's son Hunter was once employed. But Zelenskyy refused – and Trump is widely known to be vindictive.

Ukraine probably would have lost already if it weren't for support from the U.S. Western military assistance for Kyiv didn't gain momentum until Washington took over coordination. And Brussels is currently demonstrating what happens as soon as Washington lowers the pressure: Europe becomes entangled in minute details. At the end of March, EU leaders announced that they would deliver 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition to Ukraine within 12 months and that they would jointly procure ammunition in the future. Since then, however, they have been arguing about the small print. "The inability of the EU to implement its own decision on the joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine is frustrating," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter last week. "For Ukraine, the cost of inaction is measured in human lives."

If Trump were to beat Biden next year, Ukraine would almost surely grow even more frustrated. Trump tends toward isolationism. If it were up to him, the U.S. would increasingly stay out of other countries' conflicts and invest even more in the domestic economy. His foreign policy reflexes are guided by economic interest rather than values.

A resolution recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives by a group of Trump supporters ahead of the first anniversary of the invasion offered a preview of Trump's possible Ukraine policy. Its title: "Ukraine Fatigue." In it, 11 Republicans call for an end to military and financial aid for Ukraine. The motion shows clearly that a completely different U.S. Ukraine policy is conceivable.

Diplomats Approach the Trump Camp

In Berlin, a second term for Trump would likely result in the most changes for Annalena Baerbock. The German foreign minister, a member of the Green Party, maintains an amiable relationship with her U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken. Both have played some role in keeping the West in close alignment on sanctions against Russia. If Trump were to win the election, Baerbock would lose more than just a trusted partner. It would also weaken the kind of values-oriented foreign policy approach she has sought, not to mention her vision of a feminist foreign policy . Both are likely to be totally foreign concepts to Trump.

At the Foreign Ministry in Berlin, officials want to at least be prepared for that scenario. As such, the priority in German policy toward America is to establish contacts with U.S. Republicans. It won't be an easy project: Ties to the Republican camp have either been dormant for a long time, or they simply do not exist.

Staff at Germany's embassy and consulates in the U.S. have been tasked by headquarters to identify all potentially relevant individuals. From this point on, anyone traveling to the U.S. with the Foreign Ministry or other government ministries is expected to meet with U.S. conservatives, even in destinations far away from Washington. In particular, Andreas Michaelis, who will take up his post as the new German ambassador in Washington this autumn, is reportedly establishing targeted contacts in the Trump camp in order to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. It is a lesson learned from Trump's first election as president. In 2016, the German government was counting on victory by Hillary Clinton and had not bothered to establish contacts within Trump's team until it was far too late. The idea is to prevent that from happening again.

Moreover, Baerbock's diplomats have identified issues with which the Germans might be able to find some common ground with Republicans. One example on this list is the promotion of electric cars. Since the emergence of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, this issue is no longer relegated exclusively to the realm of the leftist fringe.

Another issue is China. Under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry, Germany is currently developing a China strategy that, on balance, advocates adopting a greater distance from the People's Republic. There are few other issues over which the U.S. Republicans and Democrats are as united as on their tough stance toward China. Berlin's China strategy is being designed in a way to show the Americans that Germany can also be an ally in the Indo-Pacific realm. It is unclear, however, whether German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will ultimately support the Foreign Ministry's robust China stance.

Neither Scholz nor those close to him want to see the status quo in trans-Atlantic relations change too quickly. They argue that it has been years since diplomatic contacts with Washington have been as close as they are right now and they point out that a hotline to all key players in the Biden administration currently exists.

Besides, Trump and Scholz seem like two men from different planets. Trump's brand of politics is frenetic, while Scholz consistently seems as though he has just been taken out of cold storage. While Trump follows his instincts or wants to make a quick headline, Scholz trusts only his wits or Wolfgang Schmidt, his devoted chief of staff in the Chancellery. How are those two world's supposed to fit together?

A President Trump could actually create some advantages for Scholz personally. Some on the chancellor's team recall Angela Merkel in this context: Internationally, she was only able to rise to the position of defender of the free world because there was someone in Washington who was seen as its destroyer. Scholz, according to the interpretation of those close to him, could also play himself off as Trump's foe if need be.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image: Wind turbines, including some from RWE's new Kaskasi offshore wind farm, are pictured during the opening of the RWE-Offshore-Windpark Kaskasi, north of Helgoland, Germany, March 23, 2023. Christian Charisius/Pool via REUTERS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY/Editing by Germán & Co

Renewable energy's share of German power use tops 50% in Q1

By 2030, Germany intends to generate green energy from solar, wind, biomass, and hydropower to account for 80% of its energy mix.

Reuters

FRANKFURT, April 28 (Reuters) - Renewable energy accounted for 50.3% of Germany's power consumption in the first three months of the year, data from utility group BDEW and the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) showed on Friday.

Germany wants green power from solar, wind, biomass and hydroelectric generation to account for 80% of its energy mix by 2030, as it abandons nuclear power and aims to cut most of its coal generation, using gas plants mostly for grid back-up.

The preliminary figures partly reflected lower power consumption in the first three months of 2023 when electricity usage fell 6.4% year-on-year to 138.1 terawatt hours (TWh), BDEW noted in a statement.

Renewables accounted for 49.2% of the mix in the first three months of 2022.

The data was calculated under European Union requirements that base the share on usage rather than production, a method also adopted by the Berlin government for its climate target definitions, BDEW said.

"Because the renewable share is measured by its share in overall usage, lower (electricity) consumption means a higher relative share and vice versa," it added.

Looking at domestic electricity production, the two research bodies recorded a fall of 8.3% to 147.5 TWh in the three-month period, including production volumes directed for export.

Within the output total, renewables, at 69.5 TWh, accounted for a share of 47.1%, up from 45.1% in the first three months of 2022, even as green power production volumes dropped 4.3%.

Conventional energy sources - nuclear, coal, natural gas and oil - provided 78 TWh within the generation total, down from 88.3 TWh a year earlier.

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Image: FLUENCE Sunstack™ was specifically designed to optimize solar capture and delivery. The Sunstack system architecture unites batteries and PV on the same side of the DC bus in order to take advantage of higher PV-to-inverter ratios, maximize solar yield, and simplify the interconnection process.

Israel planning 800 MW energy storage project -Energy Ministry

The plan calls for four storage facilities with a combined 800-megawatt capacity, which will be done "in stages in accordance with the system needs and with various storage technologies."

Reuters

JERUSALEM, May 2 (Reuters) - Israel's Energy Ministry said on Tuesday that it was moving forward with a plan to build the country's first large-scale energy storage project.

The plan is for four storage facilities with a combined capacity of approximately 800 megawatts, which will be built "in stages according to the needs of the system and with different storage technologies."

The project was given a green light by Israel's national planning council and will be brought for approval by the government.

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Image: The BP logo is seen at a BP gas station in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 24, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/ Editing by Germán & Co

BP's profit rises to $5 billion as share buyback slows

BP reported a substantial profit due to excellent gas marketing and trading results.

Reuters By Ron Bousso and Shadia Nasralla

LONDON, May 2 (Reuters) - BP (BP.L) made a profit of $5 billion in the first quarter of 2023, up from the previous three months on the back of strong oil and gas trading, but the company's shares fell as it slowed a share buyback programme.

BP's results, which beat forecasts, follow a strong showing from rivals including Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and Chevron last week as oil majors continue to benefit from energy prices that remain strong despite some softening since the start of the year.

BP's shares, however, had fallen around 4.5% by 0735 GMT - compared with a drop of around 1.2% for an index of European oil companies (.SXEP) - after it said it would repurchase $1.75 billion worth of shares over the next three months, down from $2.75 billion in the previous three.

First-quarter underlying replacement cost profit, the company's definition of net income, reached $4.96 billion, up from $4.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 and above expectations of $4.3 billion in a company-provided survey of analysts.

The profit reflects "an exceptional gas marketing and trading result, a lower level of refinery turnaround activity and a very strong oil trading result", BP said, noting the partial offset from lower oil and gas prices and refining margins.

BP had reported a $6.25 billion profit in the first quarter of 2022.

The lower share buyback "will more than offset the good operational performance as BP is the first international oil company...to cut buybacks this quarter," Jefferies analysts said in a note.

BP repurchased $11.7 billion of shares in 2022 and the $1.75 billion indicated on Tuesday still means the company will exceeded its goal of using 60% of surplus cash for the purpose.

Its dividend remained unchanged at 6.61 cents per share after a 10% increase in February. BP had previously halved its payout in the wake of the pandemic.

Reuters Graphics

WEAKER DIESEL

The London-based company said it expects oil and European gas prices to remain strong in the second quarter even as refining profit margins are expected to weaken due to lower diesel prices.

BP shares have outperformed in the sector so far this year, up 10% compared to a 6% rise for Exxon and a 3% gain for Shell.

Benchmark Brent crude oil prices averaged $81 per barrel in the first three months of the year, down 16% from a year earlier and 7% from the fourth-quarter.

BP's profit hit a record $28 billion in 2022 on soaring energy prices and market volatility which benefited its large trading business.

Reuters Graphics

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Geothermal Core revolutionizes renewable energy source…

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Geothermal Core is a game changer. Its innovative approach to harnessing the Earth's heat promises to provide a sustainable and reliable energy source for future generations…

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Source: Geothermal Core/Editing by Germán & Co

By Germán & Co, Karlstad, Sweden, June 12, 2023

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…“Iceland is far from the economic and geopolitical challenges faced by their counterparts in the Baltic Sea region. The complexity and intelligence behind the creation of our biospheres and humanity's conception are fascinating. Ecosystem diversity is endlessly fascinating, but many mysteries remain. Iceland brings together different paradigms. During summer, the "midnight sun" occurs when the solar constellation emits intense light, causing continuous daylight for twenty-four hours. Unconventional to outsiders. The bright stream of light fades in autumn and disappears in winter, leaving eternal darkness that can trouble the soul. We explored environmental biodiversity. Iceland is habitable in the Arctic. This remote rock near the North Pole has abundant geothermal energy from active volcanoes. The island’s caverns hold a force that fractures the ground and creates geysers. Hot water and steam spew high. Iceland's geothermal energy makes it self-sufficient in electricity. The delta's biodiversity supports human life in an otherwise uninhabitable environment. Iceland's small population of 400,000 people is one of the happiest societies on Earth.

Germán & Co

https://energycentral.com/c/og/fischer-vs-spassky-draw-game-no-20-reykjav%C3%ADk-1972

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In this matter, "The Florence Declaration", WORKING TOGETHER TO PROMOTE GEOTHERMAL ENERGY TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FUTURE, signed in the city of Florence in Italy on September 11-12, 2017, by political leaders from 25 nations, is a significant step in addressing climate change. The declaration aims to increase geothermal power generation by 500% globally by 2030. Geothermal energy accounts for just 0.3% of global renewable energy capacity. Reducing emissions can save costs. Geothermal energy adoption is hindered by geography and finances. Geothermal power plants rely on natural hydrothermal reservoirs, limiting their potential to specific regions. Funding challenges have impeded progress in geothermal energy initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region. IRENA's report suggests transparent regulations and better capital access for exploration and drilling to create a stable environment Geothermal energy is believed to have originated during the early stages of the Earth's formation, approximately 4.5 billion years ago, which coincided with the creation of the solar system. Geothermal energy is commonly recognized as a sustainable and eco-friendly energy source due to its inherent connection with the natural processes of the Earth. The geothermal industry has undergone significant development since the establishment of the first commercial geothermal plant in Italy in 1904. Geothermal resources exist in various forms, such as dry steam, hot steam, hot water, and hot rock. Various types of geothermal plants have been developed and implemented based on the unique characteristics of each geothermal resource. Single-flash for renewable energy developers and investors. Addressing these issues can unlock geothermal energy's potential as a sustainable source and contributes to global greenhouse gas emission reduction.

Before discussing Joy's journey in the Geothermal Core, I would like to address two current aspects of the sector that I recently discussed with Matt Chester of EnergyCentral.

Dr. Jay Patel

Chairman & CEO

…”In a world full of bad news. Hasty decisions made to weather the current situation may be attributed to these challenges. The world has changed drastically, and it is difficult to imagine a return to the past. Our lives, work, and relationships have been permanently altered, and we are struggling to adapt. It is crucial to be cautious, especially when following trends. One scenario resulted from a political mistake regarding energy infrastructure… This reminds us to prioritize safety and well-being by making wise choices.

G&C: Please, Jay, share some information about yourself and your perspective on the current and future state of the industry…

JP:

How and when was Goethermal Core created?

JP:

GEOTHERMAL CORE PROJECT MAP

G&C: What can you tell us about current and future projects?

JP:

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the industry? Low-Carbon Electricity is Expected to Cover New Power Demand in 2030 and 50? Is it possible?

JP:

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News round-up, April, 27, 2023

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Most read…

Rooftop Solar: Ain’t No Sunshine

Enphase points out rising interest rates and new net metering rules in California are casting a shadow over rooftop solar growth prospects

Higher interest rates have made rooftop solar a much harder sell in states with lower utility rates.

WSJ Jinjoo Lee, April 26, 2023

Why resuming tariffs on Chinese solar firms threatens U.S. climate goals

An increasing number of Democratic lawmakers are supporting a proposal to reverse President Biden's temporary hold on crushing taxes on specific imports of solar energy.

Analysis by Maxine Joselow with research by Vanessa Montalbano, April 27, 2023

Colombia’s President Replaces Market-Friendly Finance Minister in Cabinet Reshuffle

The changes come in the wake of the breakup of his governing coalition and prompt the peso to weaken

WSJ By Juan Forero, April 26, 2023 

The EU lacks a credible economic security strategy

The bloc needs to develop a strategy that anticipates future threats and leverages its most valuable security asset — its position as the largest economy in the world.

POLITICO EU BY TOM KEATINGE, APRIL 27, 2023 

The North Seas can be the world’s biggest power plant

Tomorrow, we will be taking another crucial step toward a green and independent Europe.

POLITICO EU BY ALEXANDER DE CROO, MARK RUTTE, XAVIER BETTEL, EMMANUEL MACRON, OLAF SCHOLZ, LEO VARADKAR, JONAS GAHR STØRE, RISHI SUNAK AND METTE FREDERIKSEN, APRIL 23, 2023 

The Climate Crisis Gives Sailing Ships a Second Wind

Cargo vessels are some of the dirtiest vehicles in existence. Can a centuries-old technology help to clean them up?

The era of sailing ships may seem like a distant memory, but it's important to remember that they were only partially replaced by diesel vessels. The Avontuur, a sailing schooner constructed in 1920 by a Dutch shipyard, is a prime example. Despite being over 90 years old, the Avontuur operated as a passenger liner on the Dutch coast in 2012. However, the United Nations issued a climate assessment that year, warning that the planet was heading towards a future of extreme weather conditions and disasters caused by intensifying heat waves, fires, and storms. We must take action and end our reliance on fossil fuels before it's too late.

Germán & Co

The New Yorker By Pagan Kennedy, April 27, 2023

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Image: PHOTO: RICK BOWMER/ASSOCIATED PRESS/ Editing by Germán & Co 

Rooftop Solar: Ain’t No Sunshine

Enphase points out rising interest rates and new net metering rules in California are casting a shadow over rooftop solar growth prospects

Higher interest rates have made rooftop solar a much harder sell in states with lower utility rates.

WSJ Jinjoo Lee, April 26, 2023

The U.S. rooftop solar business has grown with two essential catalysts: Low interest rates, which make such installations affordable for consumers, and state-level policy that handsomely rewards households with such solar systems for selling excess solar energy back to the grid. Both of those are going in exactly the wrong direction at the moment.

Enphase ENPH -25.73% Energy, a company that manufactures micro-inverters for rooftop solar panels and energy storage systems, confirmed their direction on its earnings call late Tuesday. Its stock fell 24% in morning trading, dragging down other solar company stocks. SunPower and SolarEdge Technologies SEDG -10.43% were each down about 10% on Wednesday morning.

Cold PlungeStock price performanceSource: FactSet

SunPowerSolarEdge TechnologiesEnphase EnergyApril 20April 26-30-20-10010%

The company itself had solid high-level numbers to report for its first quarter: Total revenue was roughly flat compared with a quarter earlier, largely as Wall Street analysts expected. Net income was 46% higher than what analysts had penciled in. Revenue guidance for the second quarter, though, was weaker than their expectations, and commentary about the U.S. market was a sobering reminder of near-term challenges for the solar industry.

Enphase said its sell-through of micro inverters in the U.S. was 21% lower in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter, which was worse than the typical seasonal decline of 15%. Sell-through was particularly weak in states with lower utility rates such as Texas, Florida and Arizona, according to the company. In such states, higher interest rates have made rooftop solar a much harder sell to households compared with states in the Northeast where utility rates are higher. The recent banking turmoil has also raised financing costs and tightened credit standards for solar loans, according to a recent report from Zoë Gaston, analyst at research firm Wood Mackenzie.

Another source of uncertainty comes from California, the largest rooftop solar market. The state last year changed the way rooftop solar customers get compensated from selling excess solar energy back to the grid. The new rule—known as net energy metering 3.0—effectively reduced the amount rooftop solar customers get for selling excess energy by 20%-30%, according to ClearView Energy Partners. In the near-term, the change actually boosted demand in California as customers rushed to install solar systems before the new rules kicked in for solar systems. The older, more generous solar rates still apply to systems for which interconnection applications were submitted before April 15. Wood Mackenzie expects the U.S. residential solar market to contract by 3% in 2024, which would be the first full year affected by California’s new rules. 

Enphase thinks these challenges are temporary and said California’s policy change should boost its energy storage business over the long term. Notably, under the new rules, the rate that solar or solar-plus-storage customers receive is based on the avoided cost to utilities, or the marginal cost utilities would avoid if these home energy systems provided power instead of themselves. In peak air-conditioning months, such as August and September, when energy demand stays high in the evening while supply is tight after the sun goes down, homes with battery storage would benefit from higher compensation.

That may be true but, as Enphase itself says, it could take time for customers to realize that benefit. Meanwhile, there is no visibility on when interest rate hikes will pause. As long as those two shadows persist, investors will find it difficult to focus on the glimmering, long-term promises to solar offered by the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s Bait and Switch

Sensible energy policies would avert the economic harm the measure’s climate extremism could inflict.

WSJ By John Barrasso, April 20, 2023

Promise one thing, deliver another. It’s a tactic Democrats have used time and again: the bait and switch.

Last year, Democrats enacted their reckless green spending spree, and labeled it the Inflation Reduction Act. Starting with the name, just about every assurance Democrats made about the bill is false. Among other claims, the White House asserted that spending a tidal wave of taxpayer money would reduce the deficit, lower costs for families, grow the economy and create jobs.

Will it? Thanks to recent modeling results from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we can say with confidence the answer is no. The Energy Information Administration is one of the world’s premier energy modeling institutions. Every year it issues a “business as usual” reference forecast that includes, to the extent possible, all current laws and rules affecting the energy sector. It also issues forecasts based on different policy, economic and technology assumptions.

Among the many scenarios the Energy Information Administration just released was one without the Democrat law (“No IRA”) and one in which businesses and consumers make full use of the law’s provisions (“High IRA Uptake”). The one with the Democrats’ energy and climate plans fails to produce a stronger economy, more jobs or more disposable income. That’s not what the sales pitch said.

The good news is that there is a way to expand our economy, help American families thrive and begin to tackle our enormous budget deficit. The Energy Information Administration examined what might happen in a future with significantly greater oil and natural gas output (“High Oil and Gas Supply”).

Compared with the High IRA scenario, the results are astonishing. From 2023 to 2050, the high oil and gas supply case produces $35 trillion more in total gross domestic product. That’s more than the entire federal debt of $32 trillion.

The federal government typically collects about 20% of GDP in revenue. That greater growth would translate into an additional $7 trillion in federal tax revenue through 2050. That’s 2.5 times the amount in the Social Security trust fund at the beginning of 2023.

Compare this to the spending binge Democrats rammed through Congress. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget tallied up the costs and found the law will add more than $4.8 trillion to deficits between 2021 and 2031.

Despite Democrat promises, it turns out going green means going further into the red. With Social Security and Medicare facing fiscal challenges, climate extremism will only make addressing our fiscal problems worse.

The benefits of a robust oil and gas sector don’t stop with GDP and revenue. Energy Information Administration data show the average number of U.S. jobs would be 4.5 million higher each year compared with the High IRA case. Families and businesses would enjoy lower prices for electricity, gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, natural gas and propane. Disposable income would average $645 billion more per year. Carbon-dioxide emissions from energy would be 11% lower in 2050 than in 2022.

The president’s blind loyalty to climate extremists is driving him to shut down conventional energy production and deny the American people its benefits. The president let slip during his State of the Union speech that he believes we’ll need oil and gas only for another decade. His climate envoy John Kerry offered seven or eight years.

They’re living in a fantasy world. In the real world, every reputable energy forecast shows that people will use huge amounts of oil, gas and coal at least to 2050.

Someone will have to supply that energy to a growing world. America is perfectly positioned to do so. We can do it more cleanly, more efficiently and more securely than anyone else. Russia, Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia will fill whatever void we leave.

Forecast models don’t provide answers. They provide insights. The key insight from the Energy Information Administration’s modeling—and one that has been consistent over the years—is that a strong, vibrant oil and gas sector is vital to a healthy U.S. economy. It underpins growth. It’s a source of revenue. It stimulates job creation. It lowers energy costs for families. It enhances our competitiveness. It advances our geopolitical interests.

The Biden administration brags about erecting obstacles to traditional energy production. It is trying to ban gas stoves, eliminate conventional cars, and end the use of fossil fuels. The goals are completely unrealistic, but the policies have dramatic and negative consequences for our economy and security.

The permitting reform and energy bills Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and I will introduce and similar legislation the House just passed will help revive the “all of the above” energy strategy that has served the country so well.

One of America’s biggest economic and geopolitical assets is its energy resources. It’s time we put them back to work.

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Image: A solar farm near Deport, Tex., on March 5, 2022. (Cooper Neill for The Washington Post)

Why resuming tariffs on Chinese solar firms threatens U.S. climate goals

An increasing number of Democratic lawmakers are supporting a proposal to reverse President Biden's temporary hold on crushing taxes on specific imports of solar energy.

Analysis by Maxine Joselow with research by Vanessa Montalbano, April 27, 2023

Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Below, we have an exclusive on a new permitting proposal from Reps. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) and Mike Levin (D-Calif.).

A growing number of congressional Democrats are backing a measure that would undo President Biden’s temporary pause on crushing tariffs on certain solar imports.

It’s the latest example of how mounting anti-China sentiment in Washington has scrambled traditional political alliances and unnerved America’s clean-energy sector, we report with our colleague Evan Halper.

The outcome of the unfolding political drama could have major consequences — not just for solar energy companies, but also for homeowners hoping to add solar panels to their roofs, motorists wanting to charge electric vehicles with clean power and utilities trying to reduce their carbon footprints. 

China dominates solar supply chains. Figures provided by the research firm BloombergNEF show that Chinese companies make more than 95 percent of the wafers and ingots essential to assembling solar panels.

The details

The measure would undo Biden’s two-year suspension of the tariffs, which apply to solar cells and panels made by Chinese companies but sold out of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. 

• The White House announced the suspension last summer in an effort to reassure the domestic solar industry, which had been paralyzed by a Commerce Department investigation into alleged tariff dodging by Chinese cell- and panel-makers.

• But in December, Commerce issued a preliminary finding that the Chinese manufacturers were, in fact, dodging tariffs. In response, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a resolution to overturn Biden’s pause, saying China needed to be punished for circumventing U.S. trade law.

• The measure was introduced using the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to nullify the administration’s decisions with a simple majority vote within 60 legislative days. 

Many lobbyists and analysts expect the measure to garner the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate — requiring at least 11 Democrats to support it. 

While Biden has vowed to veto the resolution if it reaches his desk, the solar industry and its allies fear that supporters could reintroduce the proposal as an amendment to must-pass legislation.

“I’m worried that if you give them 60 [votes] in the Senate, Republicans will keep coming back for more bites at the apple,” said a House Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. “They’re going to find every possible way to make us take hard votes on that.”

Democratic defections

The resolution — which could pass the House as soon as today — has put some Democrats in the awkward position of defying the president.

• Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), who represents a battleground state where Biden won by 80,555 votes in 2020, said in an interview that he would vote for the resolution because “China’s got to be held accountable.”

• Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) — another red-state Democrat who is up for reelection in 2024 — said Wednesday he would vote to restore the tariffs. “The Chinese government will do anything to undermine American manufacturing, and would like nothing more than to kill the American solar manufacturing industry before it takes off,” Brown said in a statement.

• Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the most protectionist senators, told reporters he would also vote for the proposal to support “red, white and blue manufacturing jobs.”

And Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he was fed up with U.S. reliance on China for its energy transition. “I cannot fathom why the Administration and Congress would consider extending that reliance any longer and am proud to join this CRA to rescind the rule,” he said in a statement. 

The consequences

If tariffs were reimposed, leaders in the U.S. solar industry say the impact on jobs and climate targets would be devastating.

• The Commerce investigation carries the threat of retroactive tariffs. That means if the two-year pause is lifted, U.S. solar developers could be forced to pay $1 billion in retroactive fees, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. 

• The resulting uncertainty in the industry would eliminate 30,000 well-paying jobs and $4.2 billion in domestic investment, the group has estimated, while 4 gigawatts of solar projects would be canceled, increasing planet-warming carbon emissions by 42 million metric tons.

“I would have to lay off thousands of people,” said George Hershman, CEO of SOLV Energy, a San Diego-based developer of large solar projects around the nation. 

“When you are talking about jobs that cost $300 million to $400 million, you can’t stop and start them easily,” he added. “I don’t know why anyone would support this.”

On the Hill

Reps. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) and Mike Levin (D-Calif.) today will unveil a discussion draft of legislation aimed at accelerating the permitting process for clean energy and transmission lines while ensuring community input, according to a copy of the proposal shared first with The Climate 202.

The lawmakers, who co-chair the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition’s task force on clean-energy deployment, say they’re hoping to juice permitting negotiations after Democratic leaders tried unsuccessfully to pass a permitting bill from Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) last year.

“We were very frustrated that the only vehicle that was being discussed for permitting reform was the Senate Manchin package, which frankly has got a lot of completely unnecessary oil and gas provisions,” Casten told The Climate 202. “There has never been a proper package with the right policies.”

The Clean Electricity and Transmission Acceleration Act differs significantly from Manchin’s measure as well as the permitting provisions in House Republicans’ energy package, which passed the chamber last month and primarily focused on boosting fossil fuel projects.

The legislation would accomplish the following goals, according to a section-by-section summary from Casten’s office:

• Give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission siting authority for national interest transmission lines, or those that cross at least two states and have a capacity greater than 1,000 megawatts.

• Establish an Office of Electricity Transmission at the commission.

• Authorize $2.1 billion to address the shortage of electricity transformers through the Defense Production Act.

• Require federal agencies to hold multiple hearings in environmental justice communities on proposals that affect them.

Casten expressed confidence that these proposals could garner broad support within the Democratic conference, although he acknowledged that most Republicans would probably reject them in favor of the GOP energy package.

“We’ll see what happens on the politics,” he said. “But you’ve got to define what your policy goals are.”

The Senate on Wednesday voted 50-49 to advance a GOP-led effort to revoke the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule aimed at slashing tailpipe pollution from heavy-duty trucks, Rachel Frazin reports for the Hill.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat to vote with Republicans on the Congressional Review Act resolution. 

Proponents of the rule argue that curbing nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks can help protect public health and prevent childhood asthma cases. But critics say it would increase burdens on the trucking industry and worsen inflation. 

Despite the resolution’s approval, President Biden said Wednesday he would veto it if it landed on his desk. And the effort is unlikely to receive enough Democratic support to gain the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

House Republicans on Wednesday approved a bill that would raise the debt ceiling, slash federal spending and repeal some of President Biden’s programs to combat climate change, The Washington Post’s Tony Romm, Marianna Sotomayor and Leigh Ann Caldwell report. 

The 217-215 vote escalated a high-stakes feud with the White House, with as few as six weeks left before the government could default. The bill would roll back many of the clean-energy tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act, including those for electric vehicles and wind and solar energy. 

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) — who on Tuesday threatened to vote against the bill because of concerns about scrapping clean-energy subsidies — ultimately supported the measure. Midwestern Republicans also backed the bill after GOP leadership agreed late Tuesday to restore tax credits for corn-based ethanol and other biofuels.

The only four Republican defections were Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Ken Buck (Colo.) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.), all members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday voted along party lines to advance the nominations of two of President Biden’s top picks for key Environmental Protection Agency roles, months after deadlocking on both. 

By a vote of 10-9, the panel approved the nomination of Joseph Goffman to helm the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation, which he has led on an acting basis since January 2021. The panel deadlocked 10-10 on the nomination in November, with Republicans criticizing Goffman’s role in writing the Obama-era Clean Power Plan that aimed to significantly cut planet-warming pollution from power plants.

Lawmakers also approved the nomination of David Uhlmann, Biden’s pick for the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, by voice vote. The office holds companies accountable when they violate the nation’s environmental laws.

In addition, the committee on Wednesday approved bipartisan legislation to improve the nation’s recycling and composting systems. The Recycling and Composting Accountability Act is co-sponsored by Chair Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.). 

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Image: President Gustavo Petro has seen some of his signature proposals stall in Congress or run into political opposition.

PHOTO: OLIVER CONTRERAS/BLOOMBERG NEWS/ Editing Germán & Co

Colombia’s President Replaces Market-Friendly Finance Minister in Cabinet Reshuffle

The changes come in the wake of the breakup of his governing coalition and prompt the peso to weaken

WSJ By Juan Forero, April 26, 2023 

BOGOTÁ, Colombia—Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a leftist who has pressed for broadscale social reforms in eight months in office, replaced his market-friendly finance minister on Wednesday amid the breakup of his congressional coalition.

José Antonio Ocampo, a Columbia University professor who was seen by the markets as a stabilizing force, was replaced as finance minister in a cabinet shuffle that saw seven ministers ousted. The shake-up weakened the long-battered Colombian peso and sent bonds tumbling.

The Colombian stock market’s benchmark Colcap index fell 1%, and the peso weakened 3.1% to 4,641 against the U.S. dollar from 4,496 on Tuesday.

“This is going to generate uncertainty and lots of nervousness in the markets,” said Daniel Mejía, an economist at Los Andes University. “The departure of Ocampo is a very serious development for the Colombian economy.”

José Antonio Ocampo was replaced as Colombia’s finance minster on Wednesday.

The removal of ministers in the 19-member cabinet came as Mr. Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, has seen some of his signature proposals stall in Congress or run into political opposition.

A ruling coalition that had included centrist and conservative parties had crumbled in recent weeks as the president pressed for broad changes in a healthcare system that polls showed most Colombians favor. Other far-reaching proposals by Mr. Petro include starting peace talks with armed groups, undertaking a land redistribution for poor farmers, transitioning from oil to renewable energy, and a pension overhaul.

In a statement posted on his Twitter page, the 63-year-old leader said officials “will persist with our program and our vocation for big national accords.”

“We reaffirm our commitment to remain loyal to the popular mandate we have received,” he said in the statement, “and we have decided to create a cabinet to redouble our agenda for social change for the great majority of citizens.”

Ricardo Bonilla, who headed the finance department for Bogotá when Mr. Petro was mayor, is the new finance minister. Mr. Petro also replaced his ministers of interior, agriculture and health, sectors the president has said need far-reaching changes to improve the lives of poorer Colombians. Mr. Petro had already won approval for higher taxes, and has called for more spending on the poor.

Mr. Bonilla said via Twitter that he would “maintain economic stability.”

A longtime aide to Mr. Petro, Mr. Bonilla was known as having a steady hand during his time in Bogotá City Hall. But Sergio Guzmán, director of the political consulting firm Colombia Risk Analysis, said the markets may question him in his new role and whether he can damp inclinations Mr. Petro might have to increase spending.

“Will Ricardo Bonilla be able to stand up to the president and say no when proposals imply economic risk?” Mr. Guzmán said. “I think the markets don’t perceive Bonilla as independent, as having the political clout to be able to say no to Petro.”

*—Jenny Carolina González and Anthony Harrup contributed to this article.

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Image: The key lesson for the EU from previous financial crisis is the importance of developing an overall economic security strategy | Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/ Editing by Germán & Co

The EU lacks a credible economic security strategy

The bloc needs to develop a strategy that anticipates future threats and leverages its most valuable security asset — its position as the largest economy in the world.

POLITICO EU BY TOM KEATINGE, APRIL 27, 2023 

Tom Keatinge is the founding director of the Center for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute.

In the summer of 2014, newspaper headlines were unanimous: Western nations had responded to the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and its complicity in shooting down a Malaysian passenger airliner in Ukrainian airspace by imposing sweeping economic sanctions against Russia. The reality of the European Union’s actions, however, is rather different.

The EU provides a handy timeline of the restrictive measures it’s imposed on Russia over the past nine years — and it is a record of inaction and failure.

Compared to the sanctions imposed over the past 12 months to “cripple the Kremlin’s ability to finance the war,” the 2014 measures were far from sweeping. And, in a lesson for today’s political leaders, interest in maintaining economic pressure on Russia and its war machine evaporated quickly, with key members of the bloc doubling down on economic engagement with its belligerent neighbor, perpetuating a misconstrued notion of Wandel durch Handel, or “change through trade,” instead.

It was an approach that left Russia’s military with continued capacity to develop weaponry, import needed components and stock its arsenal for the onslaught on its peaceful neighbor, despite clearly failing to meet President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions. But just imagine the extent to which eight years of properly implemented and maintained economic restrictions on Russia’s military could have neutered the Kremlin’s aspirations in Ukraine.

And here lies the EU’s central failing — it manages from “crisis to crisis.” Radical thinking and remediation only occur when vulnerabilities are exposed and action is forced upon Brussels.

Consider the series of steps taken by the European Commission on a topic like money laundering, triggered in the main by revelation and scandal. Changes and improvements are only a function of milestone events like the Panama Papers — leaked documents on offshore entities and the financial activities of politicians — or the exposure of extreme failings, such as the case of the Danske Bank Estonia scandal.

Similarly, in confronting Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has been running fast just to stand still. Eurocrats and their counterparts across member countries hurried to design and agree on a raft of sanctions packages, which are genuinely sweeping. Meanwhile, with the appointment of a sanctions envoy and having recognized that member country implementation and third country compliance aren’t yet what they should be, revisiting the substance of last year’s work is now an important task for 2023.

But, again, all of this is reactive. New structures, directives and regulations are built on the ashes of disaster. However, managing from crisis to crisis isn’t a strategy — it’s a sign of failure.

So, what should the EU do? What lessons should it learn from the last 12 months of frantic activity?

The key lesson is the importance of developing an overall economic security strategy —one that not only ensures the reliability of the supply chains the EU counts on, but one that recognizes and leverages the bloc’s position as the largest economy in the world, the top trading partner for 80 countries and the world’s largest trader of goods and services.

This is an unrivaled position, yet a security strategy based on the EU’s economic dominance is absent.  And while championing “openness” is to be applauded, it can become an existential vulnerability when accompanied by naivety.

The key lesson is developing an overall economic security strategy that recognizes the bloc’s position as the world’s largest trader of goods and services | Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images

Of course, some member countries have already gone ahead with this, weaning themselves off Russian energy supplies, “de-Russifying” their economies to the greatest extent possible without waiting for Brussels to lead. But a fragmented, ad hoc and reactive response to such future security crises will once again expose the EU as weak and unprepared.

And on no topic is the issue of economic security more pressing than it currently is with China.

The magnitude of economic connections between the EU and China makes the failure to prioritize the development of an economic security strategy — even if it means reversing the EU’s dearly held vision of being an open and competitive economy — grossly irresponsible. EU leaders should be engaging with like-minded partners — notably the United States — to develop a collaborative economic security strategy that leverages the strengths and opportunities each has to offer — not taking sycophantic and grandstanding trips to Beijing.

And while, for some, government involvement in the private sector might herald a return to the inept government-led industrial strategies of the 1970s and early 1980s, economic security in the 21st century is going to require close collaboration between policymaking and private sector investment. The instincts of the profit-centered industrialist are going to need to be guided by smart, forward-thinking government policies, which incentivize investment decisions that don’t expose a nation to unacceptable economic security risks.

From critical minerals to foreign direct investment and technology supply chains, security — and partnership with allies — should be at the center of decision-making. And it shouldn’t be merely defensive either.

Utilizing their wealth and trading opportunity, Western nations should be securing expanded alliances around the world with countries facing an “East vs. West” choice. Yet, the harsh reality is that while the EU has vacillated, China has forged economic alliances in its favor across the world, and Russia has secured support — or at least acquiescence — via its provision of security.

So, yes, 2023 should be about ensuring the greatest possible restrictions are placed on the Russian economy and its ability to fund and resource its illegal war in Ukraine. But it should also be about thinking ahead, learning lessons from failed policy and ensuring the EU develops an economic security strategy that anticipates future threats and leverages its most valuable security asset — namely, its position as the largest economy in the world.

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Image:  Off-shore wind turbines in the North Sea are essential to reach global climate goals | Pool photo by Christian Charisius/AFP/ Editing by Germán & Co

The North Seas can be the world’s biggest power plant

Tomorrow, we will be taking another crucial step toward a green and independent Europe.

POLITICO EU BY ALEXANDER DE CROO, MARK RUTTE, XAVIER BETTEL, EMMANUEL MACRON, OLAF SCHOLZ, LEO VARADKAR, JONAS GAHR STØRE, RISHI SUNAK AND METTE FREDERIKSEN, APRIL 23, 2023 

Alexander De Croo is the prime minister of Belgium. Mark Rutte is the prime minister of the Netherlands. Xavier Bettel is the prime minister of Luxembourg. Emmanuel Macron is the president of France. Olaf Scholz is the chancellor of Germany. Leo Varadkar is the prime minister of Ireland. Jonas Gahr Støre is the prime minister of Norway. Rishi Sunak is the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Mette Frederiksen is the prime minister of Denmark.

We need offshore wind turbines— and we need a lot of them.

We need them to reach our climate goals, and to rid ourselves of Russian gas, ensuring a more secure and independent Europe.

Held for the first time last year, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands came together for the inaugural North Sea Summit in the Danish harbor town of Esbjerg, setting historic goals for offshore wind with the Esbjerg Declaration. It paved the way for making the North Seas a green power plant for Europe, as well as a major contributor to climate neutrality and strengthening energy security.

This Monday, nine countries will meet for the next North Sea Summit — this time in the Belgian town of Ostend — where France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Norway and the United Kingdom will also put their political weight behind developing green energy in the North Seas, including the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish and Celtic Seas. Together, we will combine and coordinate our ambitions for deploying offshore wind and developing an offshore electricity grid, putting Europe on the path toward a green economy fueled by offshore green power plants.

Collectively, our target for offshore wind in the North Seas is now 120 gigawatts by 2030, and a minimum of 300 gigawatts by 2050 — larger than any of the co-signatories’ existing generation capacity at a national level. And to deliver on this ambition, we are committing to building an entire electricity system in the North Seas based on renewable energy by developing cooperation projects.

This is a massive undertaking and a true example of the green transition in the making. It also requires huge investments in infrastructure, both offshore and on land.

It presents us with a political and environmental dilemma as well: We are facing a climate crisis at the same time some of our ecosystems are in decline, and offshore wind is an integral part of both climate action and safeguarding our energy security. Thus, time is of the essence, and we must follow up on the progress already made on reining in the burden of bureaucracy for renewable projects.

We cannot wait years for permitting processes while global temperatures rise, and autocratic regimes have the power to turn the lights off in our living rooms and halt production in our industries. Instead, we must work toward rapid deployment of offshore wind, while making every effort to safeguard our healthy and robust marine ecosystems for future generations.

Crucially, the green transition is also a cornerstone for maintaining our competitiveness in the global economy. And while the North Seas will be a major provider of clean, affordable energy for our industries and businesses in the form of electricity and hydrogen, we must ensure we don’t simply move from one dependence to another. As such, we need to make space for European value chains when it comes to green tech and diversify our sources of critical raw materials for wind turbines, batteries and the like. We will work together within NATO and the European Union to increase the security of offshore and underwater infrastructure, stepping up efforts to react effectively to growing traditional and hybrid threats.

Tomorrow, we will be taking another crucial step toward a green and competitive Europe, with even more turbines spinning in the North Seas. And every turbine gets us closer to a green future.

We know the way — now, it’s a matter of picking up the pace.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image: NATO needs to address the fact that deterrence can no longer be seen as just a bipolar equation when it comes to nuclear weapons | Sean Gallup/Editing by Germán & Co

Facing Europe’s nuclear necessities

Deterrence can no longer be seen as just a bipolar equation — and it’s time NATO addresses this fact.

POLITICO EU BY MAXIMILIAN TERHALLE AND KEES KLOMPENHOUWER, APRIL 22, 2023 

Maximilian Terhalle is a visiting professor of strategic studies at the London School of Economics (LSE IDEAS). Kees Klompenhouwer is a former Ambassador of the Netherlands.

The euphoria in NATO surrounding Finland’s new membership demonstrates a grim reality: Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has searingly exposed Europe’s strategic vulnerability.

It is clear now that the West’s war efforts thus far would have been inconceivable without the United States, and Russia’s shrill nuclear rhetoric has been slowly degrading the Continent’s long-standing political unwillingness to address the nuclear elephant in the room.

With only a handful of strategic thinkers engaged with the nuclear problem, for years this issue has gone largely unnoticed, and curiously, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s departure from power has faded his threats to leave NATO from European memory. As the 2024 U.S. presidential election may once again result in an isolationist Republican victor, however, doubts regarding Washington’s nuclear defense commitment to Europe may well soon return.

Meanwhile, China’s revisionist ambitions — a bipartisan concern for the U.S. — are stretching America’s role of security guardianship to an extent that the U.S. could eventually be obliged to make some hard choices. And as intimated by former Defense Secretary James Mattis’s succinct response of “No, Sir!” when asked whether America could fight two major wars simultaneously, these choices wouldn’t be to the advantage of European security.

As such, deterrence can no longer be seen as just a bipolar equation — and it’s time NATO addresses this fact.

In 2011, as part of the “New START” nuclear arms reduction treaty — which imposed limits on deployed long-range nuclear weapons — both Russia and the U.S. had agreed on an equal number of said strategic arms. However, not only is this treaty set to expire by 2026, but Russian President Vladimir Putin recently suspended it.

In addition, China is currently aiming to increase the total number of nuclear warheads at its disposal from 400 to 1,000 in the next few years, it’s nuclear rise thus starting to shape a tripolar set of deterrence equations. This isn’t only undermining the notion of nuclear strategic parity and making U.S. deterrence much more difficult to manage, but it’s also contributed to the demise of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which had limited the number of short- and intermediate-range — or sub-strategic — nuclear weapons in Europe, and a similar fate may now await the New START treaty too.

At the same time, Russia has been modernizing its sub-strategic nuclear arsenal as well, and consolidating its nuclear superiority when it comes to Europe. While Moscow now has 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads targeting the Continent; Europe has at its disposal merely 100 U.S. free-fall bombs that can be delivered by so-called dual-capable aircrafts (DCA) — i.e. fighter jets that could carry nuclear bombs into Russia. Otherwise, the United Kingdom has some 225 strategic nuclear warheads carried by submarines, while France has 290 strategic nuclear warheads of which approximately 50 are medium-range air to surface missiles (ASMP) — but that’s it.

Moreover, Russia has now developed a hypersonic glide missile that’s nuclear capable and with a range of 2,000 kilometers, against which there is apparently no current effective defense.

Crucially, this combination of China’s aggressive nuclear weapons program, Russia’s growing sub-strategic nuclear superiority over Europe, and possible renewed American isolationism would spell the erosion of the U.S. nuclear umbrella’s global credibility, pushing nations in East Asia and Europe to come up with national solutions — something that would effectively spell the end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is the cornerstone of nuclear arms control.

This means that China is essentially changing the strategic calculations that NATO allies have to make.

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has searingly exposed Europe’s strategic vulnerability | Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

As U.S. and Chinese political rhetoric have escalated, diplomatic relations between the two great powers have dangerously deteriorated. China now also appears determined to exercise sovereign control over Taiwan and the Western Pacific — something that will be difficult to deter. And though neither side is yet militarily ready for a direct confrontation, if diplomacy and statecraft fail, a military confrontation over Taiwan will become more likely — not least since the U.S. president has pledged to intervene directly in such a case, despite formally recognizing China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

In such a scenario the U.S. would then have to withdraw military assets from Europe, and European allies would be called upon to provide the bulk of the conventional force in the European theater to defend and deter against Russia.

Thus, NATO now needs to think much harder about how to prepare the alliance prior to such a worst-case scenario, and this reevaluation needs to include the question of what the alliance should do in the nuclear realm — a question so far left untouched.

And critically, rethinking NATO’s nuclear strategy in this way will likely lead to the alliance abandoning some of the axioms it now holds.

For instance, based on global American strategic supremacy, the very idea of autonomous European defense has long been considered detrimental to the vital transatlantic link. However, with global strategic challenges growing fast, this principle is no longer tenable. And while addressing this will be a major political challenge, there’s an undeniable need for a new approach that strengthens NATO by compensating for foreseeable gaps in the transatlantic nuclear deterrence posture.

Three mutually reinforcing paths could provide a way forward here: First, upgrading the U.S. contribution to European sub-strategic nuclear deterrence, modernizing weapons and enlarging the number of DCA-capable nations in Europe. Second, starting a new dialogue on how the independent French and British deterrents could fit into this strategy. And third, nonnuclear European allies’ strengthening their conventional forces to support NATO’s overall deterrence strategy, including the link to U.S. nuclear deterrence.

Given today’s growing challenges, now is the time for NATO to adapt its concept of “peace through strength.” And in order to do so, it must rethink its nuclear deterrence strategy — there is no time to waste.

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Image: Illustration by Owen D. Pomery

The Climate Crisis Gives Sailing Ships a Second Wind

Cargo vessels are some of the dirtiest vehicles in existence. Can a centuries-old technology help to clean them up?

The era of sailing ships may seem like a distant memory, but it's important to remember that they were only partially replaced by diesel vessels. The Avontuur, a sailing schooner constructed in 1920 by a Dutch shipyard, is a prime example. Despite being over 90 years old, the Avontuur operated as a passenger liner on the Dutch coast in 2012. However, the United Nations issued a climate assessment that year, warning that the planet was heading towards a future of extreme weather conditions and disasters caused by intensifying heat waves, fires, and storms. We must take action and end our reliance on fossil fuels before it's too late.

Germán & Co

The New Yorker By Pagan Kennedy, April 27, 2023

In February, 1912, Londoners packed a dock on the River Thames to gawk at the Selandia, a ship that could race through the water without any sails or smokestacks. Winston Churchill, then the minister in charge of the British Royal Navy, declared it “the most perfect maritime masterpiece of the twentieth century.” But, as the Selandia continued its journey around the world, some onlookers were so spooked that they called it the Devil Ship.

The Selandia, a Danish vessel that measured three hundred and seventy feet, was one of the first oceangoing ships to run on diesel power. So-called devil ships inaugurated a new age of petroleum on the high seas; by the twenty-first century, nearly ninety per cent of the world’s products spent time on diesel-powered vessels. The shipping industry created a mind-bending supply chain in which an apple from halfway around the world often costs less than one from a nearby orchard.

Diesel ships never entirely stamped out the sailing ships that once reigned supreme, however. In 1920, a Dutch shipbuilder fashioned a sailing schooner named the Avontuur and put it to work carrying cargo, which it did for the rest of the century. By 2012, the Avontuur was ferrying passengers on the Dutch coast; at more than ninety years old, it probably seemed destined for a maritime museum or a scrap heap. But that year a United Nations climate report warned that the planet was careening toward an era of extreme weather and disasters, in which escalating heat waves, fires, and storms could become the norm. Humans had the power to avert these crises—but only if they took rapid action to end their dependence on fossil fuels.

Two years later, Cornelius Bockermann, a German sea captain who had worked with oil companies, bought the Avontuur and made it the flagship of a company called Timbercoast. His mission was to eliminate pollution caused by cargo shipping. Bockermann had witnessed the harms of diesel ships; on the high seas, beyond the reach of most environmental regulations, the descendants of the Selandia burn millions of gallons of thick sludge left over from the oil-refining process. The shipping industry, he knew, was one of the dirtiest on the planet, spewing roughly three per cent of the world’s climate pollution—as much as the aviation industry. After having the Avontuur restored, he captained the ship, hired a small crew, recruited some volunteer shipmates, and put the vessel back to work. It could carry only about a hundred tons of cargo—a tiny amount compared with the more than twenty thousand tons that a container ship can carry—but customers hired Timbercoast to deliver coffee, cocoa, rum, and olive oil.

Bockermann’s company is one of several founded on a provocative idea: What if shipping’s history could inspire its future? For centuries, the cargo industry ran on clean wind power—and it could again. As the climate crisis has escalated, and the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in global supply chains, the movement to decarbonize shipping has spread. What was once the dream of a few enterprising idealists has become a business opportunity that startups and sprawling multinationals alike are chasing.

Christiaan De Beukelaer, an anthropologist who was researching the nascent field of eco-friendly shipping, came aboard the Avontuur as a shipmate in February, 2020. He was about three weeks into his voyage when, on March 17th, the ship’s temperamental dot-matrix printer spewed out an emergency message that Bockermann had sent from shore. “The world as you know it no longer exists,” the dispatch said. Coronavirus lockdowns had shut borders and ports in dozens of countries. De Beukelaer and the rest of the crew were now marooned indefinitely aboard the Avontuur.

In the Gulf of Mexico, they rediscovered the difficult realities of wind-powered transport. “We were going around in circles, taking the sails down and up again because of the squalls,” De Beukelaer told me. The ship zigzagged for weeks, and supplies dwindled. After the fruits and vegetables were gone, the crew ate short rations. The cook worried that they’d run out of gas for the stove. But elsewhere, the pandemic was revealing just how vulnerable the entire shipping industry might be.

In 2020, with so many ports clogged and ships stuck at sea, store shelves emptied, and customers waited months for items such as cars and refrigerators. The following year, the Ever Given, a container ship about the size of the Empire State Building, ran aground in the middle of the Suez Canal. It delayed shipping traffic between Europe and Asia for months, a seeming metaphor for a world held hostage by diesel-guzzling behemoths. Oil prices rose while tankers, carrying almost ten per cent of the world’s daily oil consumption, waited their turn. A meme christened the ship the Least Fucks Ever Given.

Shipping’s sudden visibility reinvigorated activist organizations, which have long pressured cargo owners to clean up their operations, De Beukelaer told me. Members from the environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion spun off a political-art collective called Ocean Rebellion; its inaugural demonstration projected messages like “TAX SHIPPING FUEL NOW” onto the side of a cruise ship. In 2021, a consortium of climate and public-health groups launched the Ship It Zero campaign, calling on big retailers, including Target and Walmart, to transport their products with cargo carriers that are “taking immediate steps to end emissions,” and to “sign contracts now to ship your goods on the world’s first zero-emissions ships.”

In January, De Beukelaer published “Trade Winds,” a book about his five months at sea during the pandemic. His story doubles as a plea to clean up the shipping industry. It takes “fifty thousand Londons worth of air pollution,” he writes, to ship eleven billion tons of cargo each year—about one and a half tons for each person on the planet. In his view, consumers and corporations must take responsibility for the environmental mayhem that they cause. And they can start to do that, he writes, if sailing ships make an epic comeback.

For wind power to push the shipping industry forward, it will need to reach the biggest players in the business. In 2018, Cargill, the largest privately held American company, pledged to cut its direct greenhouse-gas emissions by ten per cent within seven years. Five months later, the company’s maritime division, which manages a fleet of about six hundred ships, announced a CO2 Challenge. Inventors around the world were invited to propose novel ways to reduce carbon emissions of cargo vessels.

Cargill transports more than two hundred million tons of cargo, including soybeans, fertilizers, and iron ore, each year. It’s not easy to decarbonize such a sprawling business; in 2017, Cargill’s global operations emitted as much as several million cars. That same year, an environmental group, Mighty Earth, reported that the company was fuelling deforestation in South America, by buying soybeans in places where megafarms were swallowing woodlands. Because forests store carbon, deforestation has a major carbon footprint. (Cargill once pledged to eliminate deforestation from its supply chains by 2020, but says it is now working toward a target of 2030.)

The CO2 Challenge identified other areas in which Cargill could reduce its climate pollution. “We opened it up to everyone out there,” Jan Dieleman, the head of the division, told me. “We got something like a hundred and eighty ideas, including some crazy ones.” One proposal suggested freezing CO2 emissions into dry ice. Another recommended nuclear-powered ships. A third went so big on batteries that it left little room for cargo. Some of the winning entries sounded as daffy as the rejects. One of them, from a startup called BAR Technologies, imagined airplane-style wings rising nearly a hundred and fifty feet from the deck of a cargo ship.

The idea of powering ships with rigid wings dates back at least to the nineteen-sixties, when an English aeronautics engineer named John Walker spent his weekends in a cranky, old yacht. One day, he was hopping around the cockpit, trying to coax the mainsail to swing into position, and he failed to notice that a rope had wrapped around his ankles. When the sail caught the wind, the rope pulled him into the air. After that humiliating incident, he began to wonder why sailboats had evolved so little in hundreds of years. Wasn’t there some way to improve on this messy system of ropes and booms?

In 1969, news footage showed Walker—a trim and bearded Old Spice sort of man—at the helm of what he called the Plane-Sail Trimaran. Piloting the boat, he once said, felt like flying a plane. Where the mainsail should have been, four rigid sails stuck straight up into the air, like window blinds turned vertically; each one had the shape of an airfoil and generated forward thrust. They also allowed him to carve the wind with more control than a cloth sail would allow: instead of turning the entire boat at an angle to catch the wind, by either tacking or jibing, Walker could simply spin a crank, and the wings above his head would swivel into a configuration that would drive the boat forward, sideways, or even in reverse. He became obsessed with his creation. “My wife complained that I’m not the man she married and she is right,” he told a reporter, in 1970.

During the energy crisis of the nineteen-seventies, Walker wondered whether his winged yacht could also help to solve environmental problems. He founded a company called Walker Wingsails, built demonstration vessels, and, in 1989, advertised a “wingsail cruising yacht” with “fingertip control by a single person.” His vision of no-emissions shipping now seems far ahead of its time. “Using only the free clean ocean winds, the Walker wingsail technology can make a valuable contribution to the control of pollution and the greenhouse effect,” the ad declared. In 1991, the New York Times deemed his winged innovation “the most radical sailboat to ever slip into the harbor.” But not all the reviews were positive. A few years later, when a sailing magazine questioned the performance of his wings, Walker sued for libel and became tangled up in a high-profile case. Though he eventually won, his company went bust.

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, boat designers experimented with winglike sails for a different reason: they wanted to break speed records on racing yachts. Competitors in the America’s Cup, the most prestigious U.S. yacht prize, showed that a combination of rigid wing sails and hydrofoils, which work like underwater airplane wings, propels the yachts along the surface of the water. The winged catamarans, which looked like seabirds skimming for fish, proved to be so blazingly fast that in 2010 the Cup put them into a class of their own. After the Cup banned competitors from testing out their models in water tanks or wind tunnels, many of the teams embraced computer modelling and created elaborate simulations of yachts gliding across virtual oceans.

In advance of the 2017 America’s Cup, a British team hired a group of engineers and created one of the world’s most powerful wing sails. Their entry lost the race, but the designers weren’t ready to part ways and instead spun off BAR Technologies. The team decided, “We’re not going to lose all these great people, and we’re not going to lose all these simulation tools,” John Cooper, the company’s C.E.O., told me. A year later, it won a contract with Cargill to fit its proprietary wing sails, WindWings, onto a bulk carrier.

A diesel ship retrofitted with wing sails could reduce its fuel consumption by as much as thirty per cent, according to a BAR Technologies simulation. When I ran that figure by Elizabeth Lindstad, a chief scientist at sintef Ocean, an independent think tank that advises maritime companies, she described it as optimistic but possible, at least along trade routes with the right wind conditions. Paul Sclavounos, a professor of naval architecture and mechanical engineering at M.I.T., agreed. Savings on that scale, he said, could reshape the economics of shipping. Many multinational companies, including Cargill, lease their vessels from shipbuilders and pay for fuel expenses. It can cost more than twenty-four thousand dollars per day to fuel a bulk carrier; a company that adds wing sails to one ship could save thousands per day, and “pay back its investment in a year or two,” Sclavounos told me. The wings could then provide decades of propulsion for only the price of maintenance. “It’s clearly a relatively inexpensive technology,” he said. “It makes a lot of sense.”

Wind propulsion will help some ships more than others. Container ships are responsible for about twenty-three per cent of shipping emissions, according to a report from the International Council on Clean Transportation, but it’s difficult to squeeze sails onto a deck that’s cluttered with metal boxes. In contrast, bulk carriers, which are responsible for roughly nineteen per cent of shipping emissions, are perfect laboratories for wind propulsion, thanks to their open decks and relatively small size. The same goes for more specialized vessels that carry vehicles such as cars, trucks, and trains. These Ro-Ro ships—short for “roll on, roll off”—don’t need any help from cranes when they sail into port, and they tend to stash their cargo in a hold, leaving plenty of room on deck for sails.

Of course, you can’t just slap an airplane wing onto the deck of a ship and expect it to work. Airplane wings provide lift, but rely on jet engines to provide thrust; a wing sail, in contrast, must provide thrust of its own. Engineers are now studying how many wings they can cram onto the deck of a ship, and how high they can go without threatening the stability of the vessel. Some are building wing sails that fold or telescope so that they don’t bump into bridges or cranes. Cargill plans to try out its first set of WindWings on a commercial route in early July; BAR Technologies is also installing WindWings on a ship owned by Berge Bulk this year. Cooper told me, “If you fast-forward three or four years, we’re looking at building hundreds of wings.”

Adiesel ship that’s retrofitted with wing sails will pollute much less than its peers—but it still won’t be clean. “We know that wind alone is not going to bring us to zero carbon,” Dieleman told me. In the future, ships will likely need to swap out dirty fuels for alternatives with low carbon footprints. Cargill has four vessels in production that run on methanol, which produces far lower emissions at sea. At the moment, though, most of the methanol on the market is “brown,” Dieleman said—in other words, made from fossil fuels. Bio-methanol can be made from agricultural waste or seaweed, and another fuel, green hydrogen, can be generated from water and clean electricity. But they are still a kind of Unobtanium, because no one has yet figured out how to produce trillions of gallons at low cost.

Then again, why not rethink cargo ships entirely—from the keel up—so as to squeeze as much power as possible from the wind? Lindstad, the scientist at sintef Ocean, and her research partners have argued that the ships of the future should combine wind propulsion with slender hulls that reduce drag. They estimate that some vessels designed in this way could cut down fuel use by as much as fifty per cent. Cargo ships may also need to chart new courses, following trade winds that were largely ignored in the age of diesel.

A few months ago, I travelled to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, a Canadian port town known for its fisheries and shipyards, to meet Danielle Southcott, a sustainable-shipping entrepreneur who’d recently moved there. On the day we met, in a loft that serves as an event space, she was introducing her company, Veer Group, to about fifty people, mostly from the local shipping community. The crowd was a blur of leather jackets, scruffy beards, interesting glasses, and knit caps: artsy, but also appropriately attired to carve a mizzenmast or hack some barnacles off a hull. Southcott, at thirty-three, fit right in—she wore all black, and her long, dark hair curtained her face each time she glanced down at her notes.

When she flashed a rendering of a sailing ship onto the screen, I could sense the collective puzzlement in the room. It looked like the ghost of a traditional three-masted clipper, with no visible cables or ropes.

A man raised his hand. “I don’t see any rigging,” he said.

Southcott explained that Veer was using a sailing system called the DynaRig, which had been tested on two luxury yachts, the Maltese Falcon and the Black Pearl. Though the sails are made from cloth rather than rigid panels, they have something in common with wing sails: they’re shaped much like broad airplane wings and are controlled through a computer. Each mast can rotate more than a hundred and eighty degrees.

The ideal cargo for Veer’s first ship, Southcott said, would be something like designer shoes: they have high markups and low weights, and customers pay a premium for the latest and greatest. Imagine the fashionistas, she went on, who would pay upmarket prices for net-zero delivery. According to design plans, the ship could attain speeds of eighteen knots, or more than twenty miles per hour, on wind alone. As she explained her stiletto-heeled business model to her steel-toe-boot audience, the mood seemed to shift from skepticism to glee. She was questioning a basic assumption in the shipping industry—the cheaper, the better—and imagining a new one: the better, the better.

Later that evening, some audience members decamped to a creaky wooden pub called the Knot, and I eavesdropped as two master mariners vented about the shoddiness of container ships. The ships would be more fuel efficient with rounded hulls, they observed, but they’re built like steel boxes to save money. The think tank at the bar agreed that a Veer-style ship would work just fine from a technical standpoint—one guy even assured Southcott that gantry cranes, which pluck boxes off of ships, would be able to maneuver around masts without knocking them over. But they wondered whether she could build a business in an industry that usually competes on rock-bottom prices.

In Southcott’s telling, the key variable for upscale retailers is not cost but speed. She’d learned that lesson in 2021, she told me, when she was running a company that built wooden sailing ships for freight delivery. Her potential clients were eager to lease a net-zero cargo vessel—but not if it plodded along so slowly that it added days or weeks to the delivery date. So she contacted a friend at Dykstra Naval Architects, a Dutch firm that designs classic and modern yachts. Southcott brought preliminary renderings of a Veer ship, to be built from composite materials and steel, to the cop26 climate conference, in Glasgow. Soon after she announced her venture, she raised six hundred thousand dollars from four investors. She used the money to hire Dykstra engineers to draw up technical plans for the first ship, and to assemble a startup team.

Southcott told me that her investors have now pledged more than two million dollars, enough for her to seek financing from a bank and submit bids to shipyards that could build Veer’s first ship. She hopes to build it in a country where she can use “green steel,” which is manufactured without fossil fuels. If she succeeds, she’ll be working in a new slice of the shipping sector—one that’s far smaller than the world of container ships and bulk carriers, but one with a clearer path toward zero emissions. The C.E.O. of Dykstra, Thys Nikkels, told me that, with souped-up sails and turbines that can charge batteries, it’s already possible to build a speedy ship with a small footprint. “On a sailing yacht, that’s quite feasible,” he said. “But it hasn’t been done on a commercially operated cargo vessel.”

There’s at least one other direction in which cargo ships could innovate: up. “The higher you go, the higher the wind velocity,” Mikael Razola, the technical director at Oceanbird, a Swedish company affiliated with the shipping company Wallenius Marine, told me. Oceanbird researchers have used lidar imaging to map wind pressure from the surface of the ocean to an altitude of nearly seven hundred feet. The company has designed wings for a Ro-Ro ship, set to launch next year, that will be outfitted with six towering wing sails that reach more than one hundred and thirty feet into the air. The wings will be paired with a special lightweight hull that is aerodynamic and reduces drag. The company claims that the design will reduce the ship’s emissions by a striking sixty per cent. But the trade-off for that efficiency is speed: on existing routes, the car carrier with sails will take days longer than other ships.

In February, I opened my laptop and beamed into a factory outside of Shanghai, where workers were hurrying to build WindWings for Cargill’s fleet. A representative of Yara Marine Technologies, which is leading the installation, had agreed to a virtual tour of the factory on the condition that I refrain from quoting the “cameraman”—a factory worker who walked me around the facility with his phone. As it turned out, the language barrier was big enough that my guide communicated mostly through gestures. He started his tour by pointing his phone at a simplified diagram of the wings, which looked like the instructions for some ikea furniture. A mast—basically, a metal tube with arms—would be fitted with panels to catch the wind; this assembly would sit on a swivelling base that could turn the wings around. The ikea vibes ended there. When my guide pointed his phone up, I saw the huge steel frame of a WindWing waiting to be filled with hydraulic piping and wiring for sensors, which will detect air pressure.

The guide walked me to a welding platform, where workers scurried around a mast that had been tipped onto its side. Laid horizontally, the steel frame turned into a kind of enormous hallway, with eight or ten feet of headroom for the welders who worked inside it. As I watched a man in white coveralls climb into the base of one of the masts, its scale sank in. The man looked like an action figure. The tour continued to a nearby dock, where the masts would be fitted onto ships. The wings would be so immense that they would block the sight lines across the deck, so, rather than navigating with the naked eye, the crew would depend on digital cameras.

One chapter in “Trade Winds,” De Beukelaer’s book about his voyages on the Avontuur, is titled “Ship Earth.” The planet, he writes, has something in common with a seagoing vessel. Earth is always at risk of a new emergency, and its inhabitants have little choice but to work together with finite resources. He quotes Ellen MacArthur, a British sailor who once set a world record for the fastest round-the-world voyage on a solo sailboat. “Your boat is your entire world,” MacArthur later said. “What we have out there is all we have. There is no more.” After retiring from sailing, in 2010, she created a foundation committed to creating a circular economy, which aims in part to eliminate waste and climate pollution.

De Beukelaer told me that when wind waylaid the Avontuur in the Gulf of Mexico, the crew agonized about dwindling supplies and looked for unconventional ways to use what they had. They tried reinforcing a sail with glue. They scoured the deck with a thermometer, looking for places where they might try solar cooking. When that failed, the bosun fashioned insulation pads for their cooking pots, which stretched out their limited supply of gas. At the end of their six-month voyage, the crew of the Avontuur published a joint statement. “We have learned—by stitching a patch on a torn sail, splicing together a frayed rope, being creative with limited resources—that nothing is ever truly broken,” they wrote. “Solutions and innovations abound when your whole world is contained within a steel hull.” 

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News round-up, April, 26, 2023

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Most read…

A new front in the water wars: Your Internet use

In the American West, data centers are clashing with local communities that want to preserve water amid drought

WP By Shannon Osaka, April 25, 2023

Eyes on the prize: Lula’s outbursts won’t deter EU from chasing Mercosur deal

Brazilian leader’s erratic geopolitics are testing the nerves of EU trade negotiators.

POLITICO EU BY CAMILLE GIJS AND SARAH ANNE AARUP, APRIL 25, 2023 

Belgium's De Croo: 'It's time for Europe to move away from a purely national approach on energy'

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who is hosting a summit of North Sea countries in Ostend on Monday, promotes coordinated development of renewables

LE MONDE By Jean-Pierre Stroobants(Brussels, Europe bureau) ,  Published on April 24, 2023

Who are the candidates for the 2024 US presidential election?

There are already seven candidates vying for the Democratic and Republican nominations, including frontrunners Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Le Monde with AFP, Published yesterday at 11:27 pm (Paris)

Inside Biden’s Renewed Promise to Protect South Korea From Nuclear Weapons

President Biden’s emphasis on America’s willingness to defend South Korea is a striking admission that North Korea’s arsenal is here to stay

NYT By David E. Sanger and Choe Sang-Hun, April 26, 2023

France to continue subsidizing electricity bills until 2025

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced the extension as the country's electricity providers continue to suffer the effects of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Le Monde with AFP, TODAY

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Image: By Germán & Co 

A new front in the water wars: Your Internet use

In the American West, data centers are clashing with local communities that want to preserve water amid drought

WP By Shannon Osaka, April 25, 2023

When Jenn Duff heard that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, wanted to build yet another data center in Mesa, Ariz., she was immediately suspicious. “My first reaction was concern for our water,” Duff said. The desert city of half a million residents was already home to large data centers owned by Google, Apple and other tech giants, and Duff, a city council member, feared for the city’s future water supply.

“It’s not like we’re sitting fat and happy in water,” she said. “We’re still constantly looking at the drought situation.”

Mesa is only one of many cities and towns in the West wrestling with the expansion of water-guzzling data centers. For years, data centers have come under scrutiny for their carbon emissions. But now, as a “megadrought” continues to ravage the Southwest and the Colorado River dwindles, some communities charge that the centers are also draining local water supplies.

In The Dalles, Ore., a local paper fought to unearth information revealing that a Google data center uses over a quarter of the city’s water. In Los Lunas, N.M., farmers protested a decision by the city to allow a Meta data center to move into the area.

In a small Dutch town, a fight with Meta over a massive data center

More than 30 percent of the world’s data centers are located in the United States; the power required to run those centers already accounts for about 2 percent of the nation’s electricity use. As the data storage requirements of the planet escalate — and as water becomes scarcer because of climate change — these operations may attract greater scrutiny.

It’s common to think of the stuff of digital life — the photos, the videos, the webpages, the e-books, the reams and reams of data — as somehow lighter than air, existing in “the cloud” or zipping along global wireless networks. The reality, however, is much more concrete. The dozens of zettabytes of data produced every year (a zettabyte is a gigantic unit of data, equal to about 250 billion DVDs) are increasingly stored in thousands of data centers around the world, where massive servers keep the internet afloat.

Those servers require a great deal of energy and produce a great deal of heat. Without adequate cooling, the servers can overheat, fail or even catch fire. Companies can either use traditional air conditioning to cool the servers, which is expensive, or use water for evaporative cooling. The latter is cheaper, but it also sucks up millions of gallons of water. A large data center, researchers say, can gobble up anywhere between 1 million and 5 million gallons of water a day — as much as a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

According to a Virginia Tech study, data centers rank among the top 10 water-consuming commercial industries in the United States, using approximately 513 million cubic meters of water in 2018. Much of that water use comes from electricity use — coal, nuclear and natural gas plants take water to operate, and hydropower also consumes water — but about a quarter is due to using water for direct cooling.

The researchers also found that a lot of data centers operate where water is scarce.

Part of the problem is that tech companies put many of these centers in areas where power is cheap and low-carbon — such as Arizona or other states with plentiful solar or wind power — to help meet their own climate targets. Water in those regions is scarce. Meanwhile, areas where water is plentiful, like in the East, have higher-carbon sources of power.

“You have to think about how much of the western United States is water-stressed,” said Landon Marston, a professor of water resources engineering at Virginia Tech and one of the study’s authors. California, for example, has at least 239 data centers; desert Arizona has at least 49.

Ben Townsend, Google’s global head of infrastructure and water strategy, said there is a trade-off between using more water for cooling, thus saving precious drops, and using more energy for cooling through traditional air conditioning, which emits more greenhouse gases. The right combination depends on where the center is located.

Compared with agriculture and urban demands, data centers take up a small proportion of the West’s water. But in small towns and rural areas, the proportion can seem much larger, and spark conflict. In The Dalles, Google was embroiled in a 13-month legal fight to keep the water usage of its local data centers private. Eventually, the company disclosed that its data centers now consume more than 25 percent of the town’s supply. Google then became the first company to publicize its data centers’ water usage worldwide.

John DeVoe, adviser for the environmental group WaterWatch of Oregon, worries that data centers in The Dalles are taking away precious water that could be used to help support species in nearby wetlands and rivers. “It’s an already difficult situation where too much water is promised to too many interests,” DeVoe said. “And now you have a new use coming in and saying, ‘Hey, we want our share too.’”

In the nearby Cascade Locks, Ore., residents are also pushing back against a proposed data center that they worry will raise electricity rates and suck up precious water.

The good news is that data centers’ efficiency has improved dramatically over the past decade or so. In the mid-2000s, Marston said, researchers projected that data center electricity use would expand to take up huge proportions of the world’s electricity demand. But while data centers’ workloads increased fivefold between 2010 and 2018, their electricity consumption only increased 6 percent.

Still, as the world lives more and more online, data storage requirements are climbing. Newsha Ajami, director of urban water policy at Stanford University’s Water in the West center, said even if data centers’ water use is relatively small, the region’s long-term megadrought means every use is up for debate. “We have really limited amounts of water,” she said. “Every drop counts.”

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Image: Germán & Co by Shutterstock

Eyes on the prize: Lula’s outbursts won’t deter EU from chasing Mercosur deal

Brazilian leader’s erratic geopolitics are testing the nerves of EU trade negotiators.

POLITICO EU BY CAMILLE GIJS AND SARAH ANNE AARUP, APRIL 25, 2023 

BRUSSELS — The European Union might have been put out by the latest anti-Western antics of Brazil's maverick president, but that's not going to deter it from pushing ahead to conclude a trade deal with Latin American countries that’s been in the making for decades. 

The EU is on a charm offensive as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tours Portugal and Spain — part of a courtship that seeks to mark progress on a deal with the Mercosur trading bloc at a major EU-Latin America summit in Brussels in July.

Lula's behavior of late has hardly helped the cause: He had been due to welcome European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen a couple of weeks back, but instead flew to China. There, he railed against the West in general, and the United States in particular, calling on Washington to "stop encouraging war” in Ukraine. Lula's comments triggered a storm of criticism from Washington and Brussels, amid concern that that the West had lost the Brazilian leader just months after he returned to power.

But in the corridors of power in Brussels, diplomats say the public acrimony won’t be enough to derail the crucial trade deal.

“Obviously, it is important to push back strongly against any comments that would look to question the realities of the war in Ukraine, wherever they come from," said one EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to freely discuss sensitive topics. “However, the EU doesn’t take such big decisions based on issues like this. Mercosur is an important long-term strategy.”

Europe sighed with relief after Lula won reelection last year to lead Brazil — which with its GDP of $1.6 trillion is the region's largest economy — hoping this would put an end to the tumultuous years under far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula is being hosted on his Iberian tour by two of the staunchest supporters of the EU-Mercosur agreement. On the Portugal leg of the visit, he signed a dozen business deals. He was due to attend a business forum in Madrid on Tuesday before meeting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Wednesday.

Won't let you go

“Now that Brazil is back, we won't let Brazil go,” said Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa after meeting with Lula. “Brazil can also always count on Portugal as a spearhead in the work we must continue to complete the EU-Mercosur agreement.”

Madrid, for its part, aims to strengthen the EU’s economic ties with Latin America during its turn at the helm of the Council starting in July.

“Lula will find [it] hard to explain his position in EU capitals, but the finalization of the EU-Mercosur association agreement will continue — and other issues, like agriculture or the environment, rather than Ukraine, will become the real stumbling blocks,” said Oscar Guinea from Brussels-based think tank ECIPE.

Support in the EU for Mercosur is not, however, unanimous: France and Austria are among the countries that expressed skepticism on the proposed trade deal at a summit of EU leaders last month. Their longstanding pushback is motivated by concerns over deforestation in the Amazon as well as fears of a surge in agricultural imports.

Securing an accord with the Mercosur countries — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — thereby winning a market of over 260 million people would be a welcome boost for Brussels, which is ramping up so-called values-based trade with like-minded partners around the world to cut the EU's trade dependency on countries like Russia and China.

Intensified talks between EU and Mercosur negotiators are scheduled in the coming months in the hopes of touting significant progress on the deal at the July summit.

But trip-ups could still jeopardize the deal. Chief negotiators were supposed to meet in person in Buenos Aires last week, but the visit was canceled at the last minute. The Mercosur side still needs to formulate its counterproposal to the EU’s sustainability side-letter, which is a key condition laid down by EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis for closing the deal.

Balancing act

The EU is keen to point out that it's not the only entity with its eyes set on Latin American markets.

“If we don't negotiate that agreement ourselves, the Chinese and other powers will come in and do it,” said a senior EU official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the topic.

China is now Brazil’s No. 1 trading partner; it was a sign of the new geopolitical pecking order that Lula decided to visit Beijing earlier this month rather than host von der Leyen in Brasília.

While in Beijing, Lula made clear that he doesn’t see the world as Washington does. 

“Every night I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar,” Lula said, adding that Brazilian-Chinese ties would be crucial to building “new geopolitics.”

In Portugal over the weekend, the Brazilian leader stressed the so-called neutral stance of his country on the war, and said that he didn’t want to “please anyone”; just “build a path for peace in Ukraine.”

Lula’s statements “are perceived in different ways in Europe and in Latin America and in Brazil,” pointed out Lucia Ortiz from the nongovernmental organization Friends of the Earth Brazil. She added that Lula’s comments stress his willingness to engage Brazil in “a diversity of relationships in terms of trade, cooperation with different states, more multilateralism.”

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking ahead of the July summit.

The agreement “will give us a stronghold, not just from a trade point of view [but] from a geostrategic point of view, into that region,” the senior EU official said. “If we don't manage to conclude this agreement — well, others are waiting. And the Chinese are already formally or informally voicing their interest to conclude [an] agreement.”

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Image: Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander De Croo speaks during a plenary session of the Chamber at the Federal Parliament in Brussels on April 20, 2023. NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / AFP

Belgium's De Croo: 'It's time for Europe to move away from a purely national approach on energy'

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who is hosting a summit of North Sea countries in Ostend on Monday, promotes coordinated development of renewables

LE MONDE By Jean-Pierre Stroobants(Brussels, Europe bureau) ,  Published on April 24, 2023

Flemish liberal Alexander De Croo, 47, has been leading a seven-party Belgian coalition government since 2020. On Monday, April 24, he is to host a summit of North Sea countries in Ostend with representatives of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and Luxembourg. The European Commission will also take part.

What is the objective of this meeting?

The primary goal is to move from announcements to action, and from innovation to industrialization, in the field of renewable energy. This field is now of geostrategic importance. The nine countries concerned must agree on the objectives to be achieved, the standardization and the interconnection processes. It is time for Europe to use all the advantages of its size and to move away from a purely national logic in the field of energy.

Did the war in Ukraine accelerate this project?

The conflict has obviously turned energy policy into a major geopolitical issue. And, furthermore, securing energy infrastructure has become a key issue. The crisis we have experienced was caused by our dependence on fossil fuels produced by a country with which we have a fundamental disagreement. Exploiting Europe's technological leadership is the only way to protect ourselves against exorbitant price increases: Renewable energy is one of our best weapons for this. In my country, which has a small maritime area and only 67 kilometers of coastline, it covered almost a quarter of consumption in February.

The North Sea energy infrastructure has apparently already been the target of Russian espionage...

Yes, and Belgium is, more generally, a central location for political and military decision-making. We are aware of this special role. In particular, we plan to double the number of our intelligence services during this legislature in order to safeguard all our institutions and those based here. The recent exposure of the scandal of alleged corruption in the European Parliament by foreign states is a case in point. Like other countries, we have already expelled Russian diplomats.

Ukraine is demanding more resources and the translation of European commitments into action, particularly with regard to weaponry. Is the European Union procrastinating so as not to show its differences?

The unity that we have displayed displeases Russia, which did everything it could, long before the war, to try to break it. And it cannot be denied that our Ukrainian partner has a tendency to push us to go further, which means that we sometimes take the time to think about aligning our positions. There may of course be differences between us, but we can be proud of the action we are taking and will take in the long term. It is understandable that President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling for more weapons faster. But we must constantly find a balance between his demands and our own security and strategic imperatives. This is not easy.

Do you believe in the possibility of a negotiated solution to this conflict?

My hope is that this war will end as soon as possible and any ending includes the element of negotiation. But it is understandable that Ukraine does not consider negotiation when it has lost a large part of its territory. Let us not forget, on the other hand, what history teaches us: wars sometimes end because of unforeseeable events.

The conflict has upset the balance between Europe, the United States and China. How does your country position itself?

My priority is the affirmation of a common, clear European position, without constant reference to others. The European Union is a world leader in all areas except the military. This is an area in which it is being remobilized, however, and this should lead to a rebalancing within NATO. The transatlantic relationship remains essential in my view, and we share fundamental values with the US, not with China.

The balance between China and Taiwan is delicate. I think it must be respected and if it is disturbed, the Europeans should react.

One of the problems facing Europe and Belgium – especially in Flanders, where the far right is on the rise – is getting people to stick to a political project. Do you have any remedies for this?

The financial crisis, the pandemic, the energy crisis and the climate-related crises have led to the collapse of our certainties, the migration issue has fueled extremist discourses, and our societies are complex. But do we believe that authoritarian regimes offer better results than democratic states in terms of mutual respect, prosperity and solutions? Democratic countries do not wage war. As for the disaffection of public opinion, for me, it is a motivating factor. The coalition that I lead will show in the coming year, before the elections, what it is capable of. We have 400 days left to provide answers and concrete solutions.

With a surge of the extreme right in Flanders, and of the extreme left in Wallonia, will your country play out a new and prolonged crisis in 2024 once again?

This country cannot afford to engage in another round of institutional debate while the world moves on. Our priorities are to get our public finances in order, increase employment and maintain an innovative industry. Anything else would be a waste of time.

But in Flanders, nationalist parties are claiming that Belgium will not escape its problems without a new major negotiation between its communities...

It is a simplistic discourse that leads them to hide behind a supposed impossibility not to act. They talk about the risk of blockage, whereas their goal is precisely to organize this blockage.

I know France well and I have a good perception of the French protest fiber, which sometimes leads the population to oppose things that, from a foreign point of view, do not seem staggering. And then they find solutions.

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Image: / US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at the Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, on January 15, 2023, en route to Atlanta, Georgia. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP/ Editing by Germán & Co

Who are the candidates for the 2024 US presidential election?

There are already seven candidates vying for the Democratic and Republican nominations, including frontrunners Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

Le Monde with AFP, Published yesterday at 11:27 pm (Paris)

With the two candidates from the United States' previous election now campaigning for the next one, the 2024 US presidential election could be a rematch of 2020. Former Republican President Donald Trump has been in the running since the fall, while current Democratic President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday, April 25 that he would run for reelection.

With just over a year and a half to go before the election set for November 5, 2024, the number of primary candidates for the two major US parties keeps getting bigger. In any case, the Biden and Trump candidacies appear, for the time being, to be the strongest. For the Democrats, there doesn't appear to be a credible alternative to Biden while on the Republican side, Trump, although somewhat weakened, is still the man to beat.

Below, Le Monde gives an overview of the profiles of the seven declared candidates, and of two others who could potentially change the odds on the Republican side, more than five hundred days before the election.

Among Republicans

Donald Trump, the outrageous ex-president with a myriad of legal problems

Aged 76, the 45th president of the United States (2016-2020) officially declared his candidacy on November 15, 2022. Surrounded by investigations into his financial affairs, his pressuring of election officials in Georgia during the 2020 election and even his management of White House archives, he is throwing himself headlong into his new election campaign, regularly decrying "a witch hunt" against him. He recently became the first former president to face criminal indictment.

While still very popular with many parts of the American public, his new campaign effort could be stymied within the Grand Old Party itself, where dissenting voices have been growing since 2020.

His age – he will be 82 at the end of his term if elected in 2024 – is also seen as problematic, along with his repeated outbursts that, over time, have grown tiresome to some conservative voters. In the absence of a strong opponent, he remains the top-polling Republican for the moment.

Nikki Haley, a former Trump loyalist who advocates change

The former governor of South Carolina (2011-2017) and former US ambassador to the United Nations (2017-2018) was the first Republican to officially enter the race for the presidential nomination against Trump on February 14 at a rally in Charleston, South Carolina.

At 51, the self-assured conservative was a loyal ally of the US president, whom she served as chief of staff for two years. However, she has decided to take a step back and present herself as an alternative to Trump.

In her announcement speech, she called, among other things, for generational change. She is also banking on potential interest from minority voters, as her party is dominated by white male figures. She offers a certain sophistication in terms of appearance and speaking that sets her apart from the more virulent Trump supporters in Congress.

Ron DeSantis, the main challenger, not yet announced

Many skeptical Republicans are pinning their hopes on the possible candidacy of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who, at only 44 years old, is seen as the rising star of the hard right. He could be the most serious challenger to Trump in the Republican camp but has not yet announced his candidacy.

In 2018, the former naval officer was narrowly elected to lead the southern US state after receiving an endorsement from Trump, whose ideas he shares – although at times he is critical of his excesses. Since then, he has distanced himself and gained in popularity by repeatedly making ultra-conservative strides on education and immigration.

"I've only begun to fight," he said in early November, after his comfortable re-election to the top job in his state, which fueled speculation. However, a formal announcement of candidacy is not expected before the summer.

Mike Pence, Trump's former right-hand man, expected to announce

After years of unwavering loyalty to President Trump, his former vice president, Mike Pence, changed his tune after the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, when the former president publicly pressured him to not certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The 63-year-old evangelical Christian, a fervent opponent of abortion, now seems determined to enter the race for the White House. He is traveling across the country, regularly speaking in states that could make a difference in the Republican primary.

While he has not yet formally announced his candidacy, he said he would make his final decision within "weeks, not months," with an announcement expected "well before the end of June," according to an interview with CBS on April 22.

The 'minor' candidates: Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson

Vivek Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old multimillionaire entrepreneur and author, has become known for his "anti-woke" positions and his strong conservative stance. In particular, he denounced what he calls a "national identity crisis" in the United States. He announced his candidacy on February 21 on the set of FoxNews, the show of the conservative channel's recently departed star anchor, Tucker Carlson.

Former Arkansas governor (2015-2023) Asa Hutchinson, 73, who has been a candidate since April 2, is one of the few Republican elected officials who have dared to openly criticize Trump, particularly during the 2020 election. The conservative former governor has a strong anti-abortion stance and signed a law banning abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, in his state in 2021.

Among Democrats

President Joe Biden, candidate for a second term at 80

After months without any real suspense, Biden officially announced that he is running for a second term on Tuesday, April 25, in a video published across his social media accounts. The current American president, already the oldest who has ever held office, would complete his second term at the age of 86 if re-elected in 2024. A point that raises concerns and is especially used as a political argument by his Republican opponents, who seize on every opportunity to criticize his sometimes slurred speech, public gaffes or moments of confusion.

Nevertheless, Biden has tried to be reassuring, presenting himself, since his inauguration, as dynamic and resilient while not hesitating to prove his "good health" through medical check-ups.

In this new campaign, Biden is betting above all on continuity, repeating his desire to restore the "dignity" of the "forgotten" working class America, part of which Trump has been able to seduce. He is counting in particular on his favorable economic record, as well as on his initiatives in the areas of employment, health care and education to achieve re-election. He is also the defender of individual rights and freedoms for all, including women and minorities, and presents himself as a bulwark for American democracy.

While Democrats have been waiting for him to officially declare his candidacy, no serious candidate has emerged to challenge the incumbent's leadership internally.

The 'minor' candidates: Robert Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson

Robert Kennedy Jr., the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination at a rally in Boston, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, April 19. The 69-year-old environmental lawyer is a controversial figure, and for good reason: since 2005, he has been known as an activist and spokesperson for vaccine conspiracy theories, linking autism to one of their components.

Marianne Williamson, 70, re-entered the race for the 2024 Democratic Party nomination on March 4 after briefly running in the previous presidential election. A best-selling author of books on spirituality and personal development, she is best known for being Oprah Winfrey's spiritual advisor and is regularly noted for her lyrical rants about the power of "love." During her few months of campaigning in 2019-2020, she had advocated for the creation of a State Department of Peace, promoted questionable healthcare practices and denounced Trump's success as a "symptom" of America's malaise, among other things.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image: A South Korean news program displaying a North Korean missile test.Credit...Lee Jin-Man/Associated Press

Inside Biden’s Renewed Promise to Protect South Korea From Nuclear Weapons

President Biden’s emphasis on America’s willingness to defend South Korea is a striking admission that North Korea’s arsenal is here to stay

NYT By David E. Sanger and Choe Sang-Hun, April 26, 2023

*David Sanger has covered the North Korean nuclear program since the late 1980s. Choe Sang-Hun covers South Korean politics and security

WASHINGTON — In the four years since President Donald J. Trump’s leader-to-leader diplomacy with Kim Jong-un of North Korea collapsed after a failed meeting in Hanoi, the North’s arsenal of nuclear weapons has expanded so fast that American and South Korean officials admit they have stopped trying to keep a precise count.

North Korea’s missile tests are so frequent that they prompt more shrugs than big headlines in Seoul.

So when President Biden welcomes President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea to the White House on Wednesday, only the second state visit of Mr. Biden’s presidency, there will be few pretenses that disarming North Korea remains a plausible goal.

Instead, American officials say, Mr. Biden’s most vivid commitment to Mr. Yoon will focus on what arms control experts call “extended deterrence,” renewing a vow that America’s nuclear arsenal will be used, if necessary, to dissuade or respond to a North Korean nuclear attack on the South.

The emphasis on deterrence is a striking admission that all other efforts over the past three decades to rein in the Pyongyang’s nuclear program, including diplomatic persuasion, crushing sanctions and episodic promises of development aid, have all failed. It is also intended to tamp down a growing call in South Korea for its own independent arsenal, on the very remote chance that North Korea would make the suicidal decision to use a nuclear weapon.

The North’s arsenal will hardly be the only topic under discussion during Mr. Yoon’s visit. He and Mr. Biden will also celebrate the 70th anniversary of the alliance between their countries, commitments for more South Korean investment in manufacturing semiconductors and plans to bolster Seoul’s always-fraught relationship with Japan.

But the rapid expansion of North Korea’s capabilities is a subject of perpetual mutual concern for both countries. At a recent security conference held by the Harvard Korea Project, several experts said they believed Mr. Kim’s goal was to approach the size of Britain’s and France’s arsenals, which hold 200 to 300 weapons each.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Yoon are expected to hold out the possibility of pursuing a diplomatic solution toward what a succession of administrations have called the “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” But the North, administration officials say, has declined to respond to a series of public and private messages from Mr. Biden and his aides.

And what seems irreversible now is North Korea’s entrenched and advanced program.

With China expanding its arsenal to 1,500 weapons by around 2035, according to Pentagon estimates, and Russia threatening to use tactical weapons in Ukraine, “this is not an external environment in which it’s easy to have a conversation with North Korea,” said Victor Cha, a professor at Georgetown University who directed policy toward the North during the George W. Bush administration. “They look around their neighborhood and they say, ‘I don’t think so.’”

Mr. Trump vowed “fire and fury like the world has never seen” when North Korea greeted his presidency with missile launches; he ultimately tried the innovative approach of direct diplomacy with Mr. Kim. He emerged at one point predicting that Mr. Kim would begin disarming within six months and declaring at another that the North was “no longer a nuclear threat.” The arsenal just kept growing.

On Friday, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, repeating a line that has been uttered by her government frequently in recent months, said the North’s status “as a world-class nuclear power is final and irreversible.”

Few experts believe the shift in rhetoric or the threats about first strikes indicate a greater willingness by the North to employ nuclear weapons. The response would be devastating. But gone are the days when American officials thought that the arsenal was a bargaining chip, something to be bartered away for trade deals, or for the string of hotels that Mr. Trump said America would help build on the North Korean beaches.

There was a mistaken belief, said Joseph S. Nye, who oversaw one of the first intelligence estimates of North Korea for the U.S. government, “that they would try to cash in their chips and get something” for the nuclear weapons. But rather than developing the country, he said at the Harvard conference, the North’s highest goal was “to preserve the dynasty,” and that meant holding on to the arsenal, and expanding it.

North Korea’s new confidence in expanding the arsenal, American officials said in interviews, is partly explained by a change in the relationship with China. Previously, the United States worked with Beijing — the supplier of critical energy and trade to the North — to rein in the country. In the mid-2000s, the Chinese even hosted the so-called six-party talks — North Korea, along with Japan, Russia, the United States and South Korea — to resolve the nuclear issue. When Pyongyang conducted nuclear tests, Beijing often voted for sanctions, and imposed a few.

Now, rather than view North Korea as an unruly, angry neighbor, China has welcomed it, along with Russia and Iran, as part of what White House officials call a coalition of the aggrieved. While Chinese officials presumably fear North Korea’s nuclear tests could go awry, creating a radioactive cloud, it appears perfectly happy to have the North unsettling the United States and its allies with regular missile tests.

Pyongyang’s most recent tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles — including one powered by solid fuel, which makes it quick to roll out of hiding and launch — suggest that North Korea can now almost certainly reach American territory, even if its ability to hit specific targets is imprecise. And over the past year, the North has enshrined its nuclear capability in its laws and started talking about its first-strike capabilities, rather than casting its arsenal as purely defensive.

On March 27, North Korea also released photos of Mr. Kim inspecting Hwasan-31, a small standardized nuclear warhead kit that can be mounted on its various nuclear-capable missiles and drones.

If the module was a real thing, the photos mean that the North is showing off an ability to mass-produce standardized nuclear warheads, said Hong Min, an expert on North Korean weapons at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. Mr. Kim has also called for mass-producing nuclear warheads for an “exponential” increase in the country’s nuclear arsenal. Last month, he ordered his government to step up the production of weapons-grade nuclear materials.

South Korean officials said that some of the North’s claims, like the purported capabilities of its underwater drones and supersonic missiles, were exaggerated. The reaction in Washington and Seoul has been to vow to strengthen their alliance — made easier by the fact that Mr. Yoon takes a far more hawkish view of how to deal with the North than did his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, who visited Mr. Biden in May 2021.

So the two leaders are expected to speak at length, publicly, about “extended deterrence,” with Mr. Biden offering more regular, visible visits of nuclear-armed submarines and aircraft to South Korea, bolstering the recently reinstated and expanded joint military exercises. (The exercises were variously suspended and scaled down under Mr. Trump.)

Kim Tae-hyo, a deputy national security adviser for Mr. Yoon, said that a top agenda item at the summit was how to boost South Korean confidence in Washington’s commitment to protect its ally with its nuclear umbrella. But Korean officials say that is more dependent on their confidence in the sitting American president — and whether, in the midst of a North Korean attack on the South that employed tactical nuclear weapons, Washington would be willing to take the risk to enter nuclear combat.

Mr. Biden’s words at a news conference on Wednesday will be picked apart for what they may, or may not, say about his determination to take the risks of nuclear engagement.

A new cyberinitiative will also be announced: The North funds the nuclear program with thefts of cryptocurrency and attacks on central bank reserves, and the South, though it rarely discusses it, has developed a skilled offensive cybercorps loosely based on the U.S. Cyber Command.

Outsiders will also be looking for signs of temporary or permanent damage from the leaks of Pentagon and C.I.A. documents in recent weeks that made clear the United States was listening in on top South Korean national security officials as they debated whether to send artillery rounds to Ukraine. The revelation was highly embarrassing for Mr. Yoon, because it suggested an absence of trust by his biggest ally.

But officials say they believe Mr. Yoon will move past it, celebrating cultural ties with the United States and booming investment by South Korean companies in semiconductor plants.

There is one thing South Korean officials say they will not ask for: a return of American tactical nuclear weapons to their country. They were withdrawn in 1991.

Mr. Yoon’s aides say they do not want them back.

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Image: Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire arrives at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters in Washington, DC, on April 12, 2023. STEFANI REYNOLDS / AFP/ Editing by Germán & Co

France to continue subsidizing electricity bills until 2025

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced the extension as the country's electricity providers continue to suffer the effects of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Le Monde with AFP, TODAY

The French government will continue subsidizing electricity bills into 2025 as prices suffer from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and part of the country's nuclear reactor fleet remaining offline, the finance minister said on Friday, April 21. With bills still "very high" compared to late 2021, "I'm giving us two years to end" electricity subsidies by early 2025, Bruno Le Maire told broadcaster LCI – a day after vowing to slash France's debt and deficits with cuts to public spending.

State-owned energy firm EDF produced its lowest amount of electricity in 30 years last year, as many nuclear reactors – the heart of France's energy system – have been taken offline due to corrosion discovered in emergency cooling systems. Energy prices have also been mounting across Europe from the throttling of the flow of Russian gas since Moscow attacked Ukraine last year.

Increases in electricity bills have been less sharp in France thanks to government subsidies, at 4% in 2022 and 15% this year – at a projected cost of €45 billion in 2023. But Le Maire said there was "no longer a need to keep up" subsidies for gas, as prices have fallen back, vowing to end them this year.

The finance minister had on Thursday said it was time to cut public spending to rein in annual budget deficits and France's overall debt, one of the highest burdens in the 27-member European Union.

Both figures had swollen from Paris' "whatever it takes" response to the coronavirus crisis and the energy price surge. "It's vital to speed up debt reduction" between now and the end of President Emmanuel Macron's second term in 2027, Le Maire insisted in an interview with regional daily Courrier Picard.

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News round-up, April, 25, 2023

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Most read…

The Climate Solutions We Can’t Live Without

The climate crisis is full of interconnected problems—but some are more connected than others. A former energy secretary, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, lamented at the time, "We are a major superpower with a third-world electrical grid."

NEW YORKER By Daniel A. Gross, April 24, 2023

Geopolitical tensions are a new obstacle to restructuring the debt of poor countries

China has become the largest creditor for low-income countries. Finding agreements to reduce the debts of nations in severe difficulty requires a consensus among creditors – but they all have different strategies.

Le Monde by Julien Bouissou Published yesterday at 7:06 pm (Paris)

Floating wind power gains traction but can it set sail?

In 2023 will determine just how successful this is if the next decade is to see the acceptance of floating offshore wind and its rise into a leading market.

REUTERS By Nina Chestney and Susanna Twidale

Argentina's lithium pipeline promises 'white gold' boom as Chile tightens control

According to Benjamin Gedan, head of the Latin America program at The Wilson Center, "Argentina's lithium sector has grown through a decentralized, pro-market strategy." In contrast, Bolivia's lithium sector "repeatedly stopped as a result of heavy governmental control."

Reuters By Lucila Sigal, Today

Putin ally: We are probably on verge of a new world war

MOSCOW, April 25 (Reuters) - An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the world was probably on the verge of a new world war and the risks of a nuclear confrontation were rising.

Reuters

American takeover of French nuclear firm raises concerns in Paris

French government looks to prevent France-based Segault from falling under US ownership via a takeover deal.

POLITICO. EU BY GIORGIO LEALI, APRIL 21, 2023

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Image: Germán & Co by Shutterstock

The Climate Solutions We Can’t Live Without

The climate crisis is full of interconnected problems—but some are more connected than others. A former energy secretary, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, lamented at the time, "We are a major superpower with a third-world electrical grid."

NEW YORKER By Daniel A. Gross, April 24, 2023

The biggest blackout in U.S. history began on a warm Thursday afternoon in August, 2003. In the span of seven minutes, it spread to at least eight states and the Canadian province of Ontario, an area in which some fifty million people lived. In New York City, elevators froze between floors. One woman in midtown walked down eighteen flights of stairs, collapsed, and could not be resuscitated. Transit workers hustled thousands of panicked passengers out of dark subway tunnels. That evening, the city’s skyline was dark; in satellite photographs, a shadow appeared to have fallen across swaths of the Northeast.

Immediately, people theorized about the origins of the breakdown. Canadian officials blamed power plants in New York State; New York officials argued that the blackout had begun somewhere west of the Ontario power system. But neither of these hypotheses could fully explain why thousands of miles of electrical wires had suddenly gone dark. “We are a major superpower with a third-world electrical grid,” Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a former energy secretary, complained at the time. Representatives for utility companies pointed specifically to overtaxed transmission lines, which carried power between different parts of North America. “If there had been more lines available at the time that this event occurred, it’s possible they could have absorbed the load and kept the failure from spreading,” one observed.

“We’ve got excess power in upstate New York, but there’s no way to get it to New York City because of the bottlenecks,” another said.

A joint U.S.-Canada report ultimately concluded that the outage had likely originated with some overgrown trees in northern Ohio. On warm days, the metal in wires tends to heat up and expand, and, that afternoon, a warm line sagged into a tree branch. This tripped the line and caused a short circuit to ground; the local utility company wasn’t alerted because its alarm system was broken. So many other power lines were close enough to capacity that the rerouted electricity overloaded and tripped them, and, by 4:06 p.m., power could no longer flow to the south of the state. Instead, it went northwest, to Michigan, where it overloaded more lines; to the east, a cascade of failures extended all the way to Massachusetts and New York. By 4:13 p.m., hundreds of power plants were shutting down. The blackout inflicted billions of dollars in economic damage, and a study later found that it contributed to about a hundred excess deaths.

In any complex system, there are points of special weakness. Problems in those places cause many more problems. Those weaknesses, however, can also present opportunities: strengthen the right spots, and everything gets easier. More than a year before the blackout, a Department of Energy report addressed to President George W. Bush had identified fifty places in the eastern U.S. where a power surge could overwhelm overtaxed lines. “These bottlenecks,” the authors wrote, “increase the risk of blackouts.” The upside was that power companies and government agencies could focus their efforts on the weakest links. But the report also described the obstacles to this rational course. A decade earlier, utilities had proposed adding a power line between West Virginia and Virginia—a connection that could make a “cascading outage” across the eastern U.S. less likely. At the time, the project was still waiting for final approval from state regulators and the U.S. Forest Service. (It was approved several months later, and then it took an additional three years to construct.)

The 2003 Northeast Blackout has something to teach us about the challenge of climate change. Right now, the planet is getting warmer, and unprecedented heat waves, floods, and fires are claiming lives and livelihoods. There’s hardly any time left to pivot away from fossil fuels and toward clean power sources like wind and solar. And, in this effort, there are weak points—problems that are causing many more problems.

One such area is the grid itself. There still aren’t enough lines connecting windy, sunny places to locales that need the most electricity; meanwhile, the grid is so delicately balanced that many clean-energy projects now wait about four years, in an “interconnection queue,” simply to be plugged in. The grid has become a bottleneck in the fight to protect the climate. Other bottlenecks can be found in our daily lives and our global economy. We will need to swap out our dirty stoves and heaters for cleaner ones—but we can’t make these kinds of upgrades without training more electricians and plumbers. We will need to drive more electric cars—but we can’t power them until we can responsibly mine and recycle enough lithium for the batteries. We need to get our methane emissions under control—but it’s difficult to plug the leaks without new tools to show us where the gas is coming from. There’s a general principle at work here: if we’re quick to find and fix the bottlenecks, progress is possible. If we can’t fix them, we face a breakdown.

Afew years ago, a report funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation investigated the prototypical bottleneck: the traffic jam. Historically, Americans have blamed traffic on a lack of capacity—“not enough lanes” or “too many cars.” As a result, the authors argued, we have often tried to “build our way out” by widening entire highways at enormous expense. But bad traffic often starts with a local logjam—for example, at a single place where three lanes narrow into two—and then cascades across the system. This means that the government doesn’t need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on major highway projects. Instead, it can spend, perhaps, a million dollars to widen a bottleneck with an additional lane. Better yet, it can do what the Texas Department of Transportation did to a bottleneck on U.S. Route 183, in North Austin: spend fifty-five thousand dollars to restripe the road, so that two lanes become three. “If it was this easy and this cheap, what took you so long?” one local asked, when the traffic dissipated.

Bottlenecks, according to the report, are often the places where targeted efforts can make the most difference. Turn this lens onto the energy system and new insights may come into view. In many parts of the U.S., it’s clear from the line to join the grid that there’s an abundance of wind and solar and battery projects. For that reason, a million dollars might be better spent on electrical-system upgrades than on new subsidies to incentivize clean-energy projects. A subsidy primarily benefits the project that receives it, but even a small improvement in the interconnection queue could benefit all the projects that are waiting in line. Likewise, if you’re in the mood to badger your lawmakers about something, consider badgering them about whichever government agencies are standing in the way of new transmission lines. On a national level, the Biden Administration could staff up federal agencies that review permits, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Forest Service; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which already approves regional natural-gas pipelines, could be empowered to approve regional transmission lines. It’s also possible to find routes around the bottlenecks: it’s sometimes argued that clean-energy projects shouldn’t pool their electricity on a rickety grid in the first place, and should instead power local microgrids, such as university campuses or apartment complexes.

The theory of bottlenecks could amount to a hopeful strategy for supercharging the fight against climate change. The basic principle is to look for the sources of gridlock in the system, and to focus on restoring flow before worrying about individual cars. A functional citywide composting system is worth far more than a few isolated piles of food scraps; similarly, a new car-charging station, in a neighborhood where it’s hard to find one, could cut emissions more than any one person’s pledge to drive less. These structural changes will not come easily, but they can help us focus our efforts. A city or state that wants to spur rooftop solar should look for where the longest lines are forming: if solar panels are piling up in warehouses because customers can’t afford them, subsidies might help; if those who’ve bought panels are waiting months for an someone to hook them up, the government could consider launching a free certification program for solar installers, or a clean-energy vocational scholarship through a local trade school. And, if the longest lines are for permits at city hall, then maybe it’s time to hire more office workers. “An hour lost at a bottleneck is an hour lost for the entire system,” Eliyahu M. Goldratt, a business consultant and process theorist who authored several novels about management—among them “It’s Not Luck,” “Necessary but Not Sufficient,” and “Isn’t It Obvious?”—once wrote.

Over time, if clean-energy investments are successful, the bottlenecks will move. After America has trained a million new tradespeople, we might find ourselves waiting on solar companies to build new factories. When the interconnection queue shrinks to one year, it might be time to badger your legislators about wind and solar projects, not wires. The same logic can also be applied to fossil-fuel infrastructure, but in the opposite direction. One argument for protesting against oil and gas pipelines is that they’re bottlenecks. This is also why climate activists were so disappointed when the Biden Administration approved ConocoPhillips’s sprawling Willow oil project, in Alaska: red tape might have been enough to keep that oil in the ground.

Other breakthroughs have the potential to cascade across large sectors of the economy. If shipping companies succeed in decarbonizing cargo ships, some of the dirtiest vehicles on earth will get a little less dirty, and the carbon footprint of virtually every consumer will go down. A small advance in cooling technology, like a cheaper heat pump or a superefficient air-conditioner, will be multiplied by the billions of people who will need one as the planet warms. And, given that many machines, from heat pumps to cars, will be in service for decades to come, a dollar spent on research and development is probably worth a lot more today than years from now. Of course, pessimistic scenarios flow from these same principles, too: even a step in the right direction may be meaningless if a bottleneck later stops you in your tracks. “An hour saved at a non-bottleneck is a mirage,” Goldratt warns.

Not so long ago, coverage of the climate focussed on the small signs that big changes were coming. The trees were blooming a few weeks early; the butterflies had moved north; the sand on the beach was washing away. These stories were necessary but not sufficient. Nowadays, we are more likely to report that the trees are burning and the butterflies are dead. When the crisis is in the present tense, as it is now, and the window for halting it is slamming shut, all we can aim for is action. If this decade is our last best chance to avert the worst consequences of climate change, how should we spend it?

In this week’s digital issue, inventive and passionate people try to solve a hard problem—maybe the hardest problem—in surprising ways. They look for bottlenecks and try to alleviate them. Because the fight against climate pollution is hamstrung by the difficulty of detecting emissions, they set out to launch a satellite that can essentially catch polluters red-handed. Because enormous solar farms often can’t be constructed without the buy-in of local people, they imagine new models that can win community support. Because the melting of certain ice sheets will have outsized consequences, they try to figure out if it’s possible to save some. These stories don’t aim to bear witness or raise awareness. They start from the premise that the planet does not care whether we care—only whether we act, and act quickly, in useful places.

The interventions considered in these stories reveal something about the architecture of our global problem. Here’s how the pipes and walls and wires fit together; here are the doorways you can walk through; here are the places that can catch fire, and the extinguishers that can put those fires out—and the exits, when all else fails. If a building’s weakest link is its single exit, it’s unwise to begin by widening the upstairs hallway. We can build a second exit. We can look for better ways to wire, and for materials that will not burn, and for walls that could become doorways. We can find the fixes that make other fixes possible. 

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Image: Germán & Co by Shuttersstock

Geopolitical tensions are a new obstacle to restructuring the debt of poor countries

China has become the largest creditor for low-income countries. Finding agreements to reduce the debts of nations in severe difficulty requires a consensus among creditors – but they all have different strategies.

Le Monde by Julien Bouissou Published yesterday at 7:06 pm (Paris)

The debt that most threatens rich countries is not so much theirs as that of poor countries. At least 54 countries are over-indebted or nearly over-indebted. If nothing is done to lighten their burden, the situation could deteriorate and resemble that of the 1980s and 1990s. The consequences are well known: rampant inflation, riots, political instability and stunted development. The widening gap between rich and poor could add to geopolitical tensions in an already unstable world.

Debt is not just an abstract, painless string of numbers. It is because of debt that subsidies on food purchases in Pakistan have been removed, that the Laos health budget has been cut, and that 56,000 Sri Lankan children suffer from severe malnutrition. The United Nations Development Programme has calculated that the 25 most indebted countries now allocate 20% of their tax revenues to debt repayment.

The new context of geopolitical fragmentation complicates debt restructuring. The profile of creditors has changed in recent decades. The members of the Paris Club (22 countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom) held 39% of the debts of low-income countries in 1996, whereas they hold only 11% of the total today. New countries have emerged, primarily China, which has become the largest creditor for half of the low-income nations. According to the AidData lab at the US University of William & Mary, it has lent $843 billion (€770 billion) in the past 20 years. This reconfiguration "adds to debt restructuring difficulties," reads an International Monetary Fund (IMF) study published in April, as "non-Paris Club creditors have often provided debt treatment to debtor nations on a case-by-case basis."

Fragmentation

China's debt is no longer just a problem for poor countries but for the whole world. For restructuring to take place, all creditors must agree. This is where the difficulties begin. As Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the IMF, explained in early April, geopolitical fragmentation "will make it harder to resolve sovereign debt crises, especially if key official creditors are divided along geopolitical lines."

Western countries, especially the United States, accuse Beijing of slowing down negotiations. In February, at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Bengaluru, India, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on China to participate more fully "in meaningful debt treatments for developing countries and emerging markets in distress." Among the points of disagreement, Beijing is said to require that international financial institutions, like the IMF and the World Bank, participate in restructuring efforts by waiving part of their debts and renouncing their status of "preferred creditor" which allows them to be repaid before others.

But Western countries are opposed to this, arguing that the World Bank could see its rating downgraded and no longer be able to lend to countries at low rates. Beijing adds that it is being asked to apply rules that were put in place without it 30 years ago, and points the finger at the responsibility of private creditors. This is not wrong: the latter hold 19% of the outstanding debt of poor countries, compared to 8% 25 years ago. It is no longer a few banks that only needed to be brought together to obtain an agreement on a restructuring plan, but much more numerous bondholders who are reluctant to make concessions.

Survival

The IMF adds that "new debt instruments used by low-income countries tend to be increasingly risky and difficult to restructure," especially when they are not reflected in public accounts or are backed by commodities or infrastructure. A common restructuring framework was put in place by the G20, in order for China and the Paris Club to find an agreement, but without success. As economist Brad Setser wrote in a blog post published by the US think tank Council on Foreign Relations, "no framework for coordination among official creditors can work if official creditors don't have enough in common to work together."

While creditors are negotiating, countries that are close to or already in default, such as Tunisia, Ghana and Egypt, are fighting for their survival. Zambia has been negotiating a deal on its debt for two and a half years now. Restructuring forces countries to cut spending and resort to emergency loans at high rates. "I don't think we'll have many defaults, because it's very expensive for governments," said Masood Ahmed, president of the US-based think tank Center for Global Development, in January.

A payment default risks downgrading the sovereign rating and increasing the cost of borrowing on the markets for governments. "The payment of unsustainable debt service will lead to development crises rather than debt crises," concluded Ahmed. In other words, a deep crisis that will result from cuts in social and infrastructure spending by governments. If they don't come to an agreement as soon as possible, China, the United States and Europe will bear a heavy responsibility for the delay in development in countries that are home to one-fifth of the world's inhabitants.

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Image: Hywind Tampen floating wind farm structures are being assembled at the Wergeland Base in Gulen, Norway, June 7, 2022.  Ole Jorgen Bratland – Equinor/Handout via REUTERS/ Editing by Germán & Co

Floating wind power gains traction but can it set sail?

In 2023 will determine just how successful this is if the next decade is to see the acceptance of floating offshore wind and its rise into a leading market.

REUTERS By Nina Chestney and Susanna Twidale

LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - After a bumper year for floating offshore wind farm tenders, the nascent industry is poised for explosive growth in the coming decade as countries strive to cut their carbon emissions.

But it's unlikely to be all plain sailing.

Rising costs and supply chain bottlenecks have hit some projects and without investment in infrastructure to launch the vast turbines and tow them to sea, hopes of harnessing the full power of the ocean's winds to hit climate targets could be dashed, industry experts say.

"If the next decade is to see the adoption of floating offshore wind, and its growth into a leading market, the work that we do in 2023 will dictate just how successful this is," said Felipe Cornago, commercial director offshore wind at BayWa (BYWGnx.DE), which is developing a wind farm off Scotland.

About 80% of the world's offshore wind power potential lies in waters deeper than 60 metres, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), meaning floating turbines will be vital for some countries with little space left on land and steep coastal shelves to decarbonise their power sectors.

Winds are stronger and more continuous further out to sea so floating turbines can generate more power than those fixed to the seabed near to shore - and they less visible from the coast, reducing the risk of resistance from local communities.

By the end of 2022, plans for about 48 gigawatts (GW) of floating wind capacity around the world were in place, nearly double the amount in the first quarter last year, according to Fitch Solutions, with European companies driving the expansion.

Since then, new tenders have been launched in Norway and more are planned this year - but so far there are only just over 120 megawatts (MW) in operation worldwide.

Consultancy DNV forecasts that about 300 GW will be installed by 2050, representing 15% of all offshore wind capacity, but wind turbine makers are already struggling to meet rising demand due to rising inflation and raw material costs.

BOTTLENECKS AND COSTS

The largest project to date, the 88 MW Hywind Tampen project being developed by oil and gas company Equinor (EQNR.OL) off Norway, was meant to be fully commissioned in 2022 but delays due to some steel parts not being of sufficient quality for four of the towers has pushed the start to later this year.

Last year, oil company Shell (SHEL.L) and state-owned Chinese energy company CGN dropped a plan for a floating wind project off France's Brittany coast, citing inflation and supply chain problems among other reasons.

GWEC said supply bottlenecks for turbines and components could continue or even be compounded by incentives in the United States for low-carbon energy deployment, as well as increased demand in China, Europe and emerging markets.

As most commercial-scale floating wind farms are only expected to be up and running from 2030, there could be time for such problems to be resolved, said Francesco Cacciabue, partner and CFO at renewable energy investor Glennmont Partners.

At the moment, technology costs for floating wind are far higher than for fixed turbines but companies hope to reduce those costs sharply as larger projects come on stream.

According to DNV, the average levelized cost of energy (LCOE) - which compares the total lifetime cost of building and running a power plant to its lifetime output - for floating wind was about 250 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) in 2020, compared with around 50 euros/MWh for fixed turbines.

But by 2035, the LCOE for floating wind is expected to fall to about 60 euros/MWh.

"For floating, the expectation is that it will sell power at a higher price than fixed-foundation offshore wind for several years while it industrialises and gets to a point where it can compete on a like-for-like basis," said Jonathan Cole, chief executive of Corio Generation, part of Macquarie's (MQG.AX) Green Investment Group.

OFFSHORE PLANS

Norway's Equinor kick-started the floating wind industry after two of its oil and gas engineers saw a marker buoy they thought could be a structure to hold a floating turbine.

The company installed a pilot floating turbine in 2009 and has seen costs fall by 70% from the demonstration project to its 30 MW Hywind Scotland project. It expects a further 40% cost reduction for Hywind Tampen.

"It's about having larger turbines which are more efficient offshore," said Steinar Berge, head of floating wind at Equinor.

"The journey going forward is more reliant upon putting full-scale projects into action because then you will see much more innovation and investments in the supply chain which will drive costs further down," he said.

Still, higher costs in the medium term haven't dulled investor appetite for tenders. For some countries, floating wind might be the best option due to their seabed conditions, such as Japan, South Korea and the west coast of the United States.

"These are huge areas with the energy demands to match their huge populations, and they have a mandate to decarbonise as quickly as possible," said Cacciabue at Glennmont Partners.

The United States wants to develop 15 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2035 and its Wind Shot research and development programme hopes to cut the cost to $45/MWh by 2035.

Japan wants to install up to 10 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030, and up to 45 GW by 2040, including floating. It plans to set a specific target for floating wind this year. South Korea, meanwhile, is aiming for 9 GW of floating wind by 2030.

Several countries in Europe have also set targets such as Spain which is seeking up to 3 GW of floating capacity by 2030.

PORTS AND SHIPS

Floating offshore wind farms are made up of huge turbines installed on floating platforms anchored to the seabed with flexible anchors, chains or steel cables.

But at the moment, there are at least 50 designs under development, so narrowing down the concepts is important for standardisation and enabling mass production, experts say.

They believe that can be achieved, as many oil companies have significant expertise operating in deep waters such as Shell, Equinor, BP (BP.L) and Aker Solutions (AKSOA.OL) - and some are teaming up with renewable developers to bid in floating wind tenders.

For now, Equinor's Berge said one of the biggest challenges was having enough large ports to assemble the turbines and move them out to sea. Many of his peers agree.

According to a DNV survey of 244 experts, the biggest supply chain risk they identified was having enough suitable ports, followed by the availability of installation vessels.

Ports where towers measuring more than 150 m to the centre of the rotor and their giant floating bases can be manufactured and assembled are ideal - and they will also need enough access channels, berths, land areas and storage space for handling large, heavy structures, experts say.

But in many countries, such ports are sorely lacking.

Britain aims to have 5 GW of floating wind installed by 2030 but a report by the UK Floating Wind Offshore Wind Taskforce, said 34 GW could be installed by 2040 if ports were upgraded.

It said up to 11 ports will need to be transformed into hubs to enable the roll-out of floating offshore wind at scale - along with investment of at least 4 billion pounds ($5 billion).

Britain's Crown Estate will launch a tender for 4 GW of floating wind in the Celtic Sea off Wales this year but said the area had the potential to produce more than 20 GW.

While Britain wants to lead the world on floating wind, some experts say South Korea could be the real winner given its existing ports and large-scale engineering capacity.

"South Korea will be commercial the quickest," said Cole at Corio Generation, which has 1.5 GW of floating wind under development there. "People want to buy low-carbon products so how South Korea produces its electricity and how it will decarbonise is a really important thing for the entire economy."

Another issue is the lack of vessels needed to tow structures to their offshore sites, install them and connect the turbines to the onshore power grid.

"Even the largest vessels from the oil and gas industry have limited capacity for efficient installation of the latest floating wind farms," said DNV.

Reporting by Nina Chestney and Susanna Twidale; Additional reporting by Charlie Devreux in Madrid, Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo, Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Veronica Brown and David Clarke

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Image: A brine pool used to extract lithium is seen at a salt flat of Cauchari Olaroz, near Susques, Argentina, November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Juliana Castilla/ Editing by Germán & Co

Argentina's lithium pipeline promises 'white gold' boom as Chile tightens control

According to Benjamin Gedan, head of the Latin America program at The Wilson Center, "Argentina's lithium sector has grown through a decentralized, pro-market strategy." In contrast, Bolivia's lithium sector "repeatedly stopped as a result of heavy governmental control."

Reuters By Lucila Sigal, Today

BUENOS AIRES, April 24 (Reuters) - In Argentina's mountainous north, a strong pipeline of lithium projects close to coming online looks set to unlock a wave of production that could see its output of the key electric vehicle battery metal as much as triple within the next two years.

The world’s fourth largest producer of the silvery-white metal sits within the so-called "lithium triangle" and has been luring investment from Canadian to Chinese mining firms with a regional and market-led model, even as a wave of resource nationalism has spread in the region.

Neighboring Chile, the region's top lithium producer, last week unveiled plans for a state-led public-private model, spooking investors. Bolivia has long maintained strict control over its huge though largely untapped resources, while Mexico nationalized its lithium deposits last year.

In Argentina, despite state energy firm YPF (YPFD.BA) starting to explore for lithium last year, the sector has largely been driven by private enterprise and regular approvals of new projects as the government has looked to bring in more export dollars through mining, a rare bright spot amid economic turmoil.

"Argentina has granted concessions to projects for the last 10 years," said Franco Mignacco, president of Argentina's Chamber of Mining Business. "That's why today we have this level of lithium investment and development and the chance of growth."

Mignacco estimated that Argentina's current 40,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate production could triple by 2024-2025 to 120,000 tonnes, which could take it past China and closer to Chile which currently produces some 180,000 tonnes per year.

That would be driven by new projects coming online on top of the two currently in production. The country has six lithium projects under construction and 15 in the advanced exploration or feasibility stage, Mignacco said.

That contrasts with Chile, where the industry is dominated by established players SQM (SQMA.SN) and Albemarle (ALB.N), with few new projects underway. In Bolivia the government only recently okayed a new project by a Chinese consortium.

Argentina's production boost would come from the expansion of the only two producing operations - U.S. firm Livent's Fénix project in Catamarca and Australian Allkem Ltd's (AKE.AX) Salar de Olaroz mine in Jujuy - both expected to double output to 42,500 tonnes in the years ahead.

These would be joined by the Cauchari-Olaroz project, owned by China's Ganfeng Lithium Co (002460.SZ) and Canada's Lithium Americas Corp (LAC.TO), which in the second half of 2023 is set to begin production with capacity for 40,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate.

'PRO-MARKET STRATEGY'

Argentina, Bolivia and Chile together sit atop half of the world's resources of the mineral under otherworldly salt flats in the high-altitude Andean plains.

But strategies for developing it are diverging.

"Argentina's lithium sector has thrived through a decentralized, pro-market strategy," said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America program at The Wilson Center, adding in contrast Bolivia's lithium sector had "repeatedly stalled as a result of excessive state control."

Chile, he said, may have found a "savvy middle ground" with its public-private model, which would hand the state majority control over all new lithium projects in a nationalist shift, but would still give private enterprise a key role to play.

The wave of resource nationalism had prompted some talk amongst officials of a potential OPEC-style lithium cartel in the region, though analysts see it as unrealistic given the diverse industry models and levels of development.

Argentina, meanwhile, faces challenges including economic turmoil with high inflation and capital controls which complicate business, while the country is headed for general elections in October creating political uncertainty.

Its lithium pipeline, though, may keep the sector bubbling and even gaining ground on rivals. Overtaking neighbor Chile would be highly unlikely but some analysts were aiming high.

"Chile today produces and exports much more lithium than Argentina," said Natacha Izquierdo, analyst at consultancy ABCEB. "But if the projects we have here today come to fruition, Argentina could overtake it."

Reporting by Lucila Sigal; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Marguerita Choy

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image: Deputy head of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev listens during an interview with Russian media at a residence outside Moscow, Russia, March 23, 2023. Sputnik/Yekaterina Shtukina/Pool via REUTERS

Putin ally: We are probably on verge of a new world war

Reuters

MOSCOW, April 25 (Reuters) - An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the world was probably on the verge of a new world war and the risks of a nuclear confrontation were rising.

"The world is sick and quite probably is on the verge of a new world war," Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Putin's powerful security council, told a conference in Moscow.

He said such a new world war was not inevitable but the risks of a nuclear confrontation were growing and more serious than concerns about climate change.

Putin says the world faces the most dangerous decade since World War Two. He casts the war in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West, and has said that Russia will use all available means to protect itself against any aggressor.

The United States and its allies have condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab. Ukraine has vowed to fight until all Russian troops withdraw from its territory, and says Russian rhetoric on nuclear war is intended to intimidate the West into curbing military aid.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Alison Williams

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Image: Bruno Le Maire's quest for a French buyer might be a tough mission to accomplish | Teresa Suarez/EPA-EFE/ Editing by Germán & Co

American takeover of French nuclear firm raises concerns in Paris

French government looks to prevent France-based Segault from falling under US ownership via a takeover deal.

POLITICO. EU BY GIORGIO LEALI, APRIL 21, 2023

PARIS — France's feisty Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has another opportunity to pick a fight with Washington as a sensitive investment screening case is about to land on his desk.

The French government wants to prevent nuclear-submarine parts supplier Segault from falling into American hands just as France and the U.S. are experiencing new tensions over the Inflation Reduction Act, a $369 billion package of green subsidies and tax breaks that Paris and Brussels slammed as a protectionist move in breach of global trade rules.

The two countries have seen an ebb and flow in tensions in recent years that reached worrying levels back in 2021, when the U.S. infuriated France by snatching away a multibillion-euro submarine contract Paris had signed with Canberra. 

Now, the American takeover of the small France-based company with less than 100 employees, which was virtually unknown to most French people until a few weeks ago, is turning into a test of France's industrial sovereignty ambitions.

Segault's current owner, Canada’s industrial valves group Velan, is being bought by American industrial machinery giant Flowserve in a takeover deal announced earlier this year. Segault supplies components for nuclear-propelled submarines built by state-owned shipbuilder Naval Group and also makes industrial valves that are used on France’s flagship Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier. If the deal goes through, Segault would become American-controlled, raising concerns in Paris' halls of power that Washington would then have access to strategic French technology. 

The deal has become a hot political issue in recent weeks, with right-wing MPs urging Le Maire to block the American buyer, and with a surprise left-wing candidate emerging as a bidder.

The government is currently “looking for a French buyer,” according to a spokesperson for France’s defense ministry, who declined to comment on offers received so far, noting that the French economy ministry has the final word on it.

Under French law, the economy ministry must be informed of the takeover of companies in strategic sectors in order to green-light or veto deals. The government confirmed that Segault's takeover falls within the scope of France’s investment screening powers and will be examined as soon as it is officially notified to French authorities.

Investment screening decisions are first assessed at the technical level within France’s powerful economy ministry, known as Bercy, but they also have a political dimension as they are ultimately taken by the economy minister himself via a decree. In the past, Le Maire has not hesitated to use his veto powers for politically sensitive cases, turning investment screening cases into political battles. In a bid to cast himself as a defender of French industrial jewels, Le Maire widened the scope of investment screening powers in 2019, during his first term.

As in many other EU countries, the scope of France's veto powers was further extended during the coronavirus pandemic, to prevent the risk that companies weakened by the crisis could be bought by foreign investors. Those new powers, which were meant to be temporary, have been repeatedly extended amid the economic crisis linked to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Segault case is also seen as an opportunity for Paris to show its muscle.

For socialist Michel Sapin, who served several times as France’s finance and economy minister, the deal gives the government an opportunity to present itself as a defender of national gems by taking “a braggart position on re-industrialization and industrial sovereignty” that, according to him, has not been backed up by action so far. 

“We can’t deny that we have some irritants with Americans, especially the IRA in this phase,” said Macron’s ally Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, vice chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, while noting that France’s investment screening won’t discriminate against U.S. buyers. 

But Macron's allies were also quick to insist that Paris’ efforts to take Segault away from its American buyer was not a protectionist attempt to block a U.S. investment.

“The criteria won’t be friendship or mistrust toward Washington,” said a French minister, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, adding that “the context” should not prevent Paris from “controlling some sovereignty aspects” of the deal.  

For Vedrenne, Macron's ally in the European Parliament, "the Americans are first of all in a mindset of prior defense of their interests and we see it with this case … sovereignty is at stake so we have to be vigilant whatever the nationality [of the buyer] is, even if it is an ally, because the defense of the French interests must be examined above all.”

Despite some displays of friendship, tensions between Paris and Washington have risen at a steady pace over recent months and increased after French President Emmanuel Macron told POLITICO that Europe should not be “America’s followers” when it comes to China policy. 

Le Maire has also been particularly harsh with the U.S., accusing Washington of using Russia’s war in Ukraine to establish “economic domination” and of breaching WTO rules with its massive subsidy package, the Inflation Reduction Act. Earlier this month, he said that Europe should, much like the the U.S. and China, put first its own industrial interests and stop obeying the free-trade dogma. 

Earlier in the month, as he visited Washington, he accused "some" in the U.S. of applying double standards when it comes to trade with China. "I see that the volume of trade between China and the United States has never been so high ... we are asking Europe to give up trade that has increased between the United States and China. We don't want to be the village idiots, who get screwed and let other powers trade with China while we would no longer have the right to do so," the minister said.

Should France decide to veto the deal, Segault could be carved out from Flowserve's acquisition of Velan. However it is unclear whether the American buyer would still be interested in buying Velan without Segault.

Le Maire's quest for a French buyer might be a tough mission to accomplish.

Another former economy minister and “Made in France” champion, socialist Arnaud Montebourg urged Le Maire to block the deal earlier this month and offered to buy Segault together with the help of Pierre-Edouard Stérin, a businessman who in the past has been close to far-right former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour.

A person with direct knowledge of the file but who was not authorized to speak publicly said that it is unlikely Le Maire would back Montebourg's offer.

Elisa Braun contributed reporting.

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News round-up, April, 24, 2023

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Dear friends:

Although the human being is the result of the fusion of male and female gametes, two people are inevitably needed for procreation.  However, due to this dual nature and the fact that we build our lives within a tribe, humans are inclined to become selfish, possessive, and jealous of their territory, which takes them further away from their beginnings.

However, I have had the great fortune to have the support of human beings who are far from insignificant and who persevere in their human vocation. Today is the day of the moon; it could be just another Monday that begins the so-called "week," but this lunar day of April 24, 2023, invokes gratitude within me.  Therefore, I want to recall the philosophical writings of St Thomas Aquinas on appreciation – or "moral debt" as he called it.  From the bottom of my heart, I thank Bernerd, Juan Ignacio, Ricardo, Bredyg, Armando, Gonzalo, Madelka, Mayka, Paula, Matt, and those who remain in the inkwell for the journey of memory.

Finally, I want to share some indicators—just cold numbers—of what this blog has achieved in its short life.  We have more than 250K on Twitter and 200K on LinkedIn, and at Energy Central, we have 61K readings with a 96K reputation – reaching the number 12 spot among top influencers, all thanks to you.

I wish you the best and, above all, good health.

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Source: EnergyCentral

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EPA plan would impose drastic cuts on power plant emissions by 2040

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Image: Steam rises from Duke Energy’s Marshall Power Plant in Sherrills Ford, N.C., in November 2018. (Chris Keane/Reuters)/ Editing by Germán & Co

EPA plan would impose drastic cuts on power plant emissions by 2040

A long-awaited climate rule, which is sure to face legal challenges, would push plants that burn fossil fuels to use carbon-capture technology or hydrogen

WP; By Timothy Puko, TODAY

The Biden administration is preparing to unveil a proposal to require power plants to drastically reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 2040, another attempt to regulate one of the country’s biggest contributors to climate change after the Supreme Court struck down the first effort, according to three people familiar with the plans.

If implemented, the Environmental Protection Agency would set limits so stringent that fossil-fuel-burning power plants probably would have to use technology to capture their carbon dioxide emissions from their smokestacks or switch to other fuels to comply, according to the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a plan that is not yet public. The proposal is still under final analysis at the White House and could change before the EPA completes and announces it.

The limits could nearly eliminate emissions from fossil-fuel burning plants after the most stringent standards go fully into effect, the people said. Another source familiar with the proposal said that there will be significant cuts to emissions from these plants, but potentially not as dramatic or extreme as others have suggested.

The EPA has been planning an announcement for the coming days, but final details are in flux, and a formal proposal could be more than a week away, according to several people familiar with the planning. Turning that proposal into a final rule package would be likely to take months more, and, according to two of the people familiar with the details, many of the proposal’s most stringent standards would not take effect until the 2030s, giving industry years to come into compliance gradually.

Although its greenhouse-gas emissions have been declining, the electric-power sector remains the country’s second-largest contributor to climate change, being responsible for a quarter of such emissions nationwide in 2021, according to EPA data. That has long made power plants a top target for climate regulations, and President Biden has previously promised to eliminate their emissions by 2035.

The Supreme Court has loomed over the effort. It ruled last year that the EPA during the Obama administration had exceeded its authority by building the first attempt at such regulations around a new system to push power companies to switch fuels across their fleets, and replace coal with cleaner options. The updated rules that Biden has promised have been held up for months in part because the agency has been trying to craft them in accordance with that decision so they might survive a conservative-majority court.

The administration’s plan is to stick with rules that apply within a plant’s fence line, with limits on the amount of what each plant can emit, according to four people familiar with the effort. They will be applied through rules for new gas-fired plants, and existing gas-and-coal-fired plants, those people said.

The policy would not mandate any type of technology or fuel, according to the three people familiar with the latest details. But they said the limits it sets would be so stringent that to meet them, fossil-fuel-burning plants most likely would need to use carbon-capture technology or be capable of switching to use hydrogen, which burns without greenhouse-gas emissions.

Some of these details were previously reported by the New York Times.

“EPA cannot comment because the proposals are currently under interagency review,” agency spokeswoman Maria Michalos said in an emailed statement. “But we have been clear from the start that we will use all of our legally-upheld tools, grounded in decades-old bipartisan laws, to address dangerous air pollution and protect the air our children breathe today and for generations to come.”

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The agency has been issuing a raft of new rule proposals just in recent weeks as it attempts to fulfill Biden’s big climate promises before he faces reelection. The administration spent most of its first year pushing its climate agenda through legislation, and now that Congress approved nearly $370 billion in new climate spending, Biden officials are trying to finish accompanying regulations before Republicans have a chance to take power and undo them.

Fossil-fuel advocates — including several Republican-led states — have vowed to fight these moves in court. And if Republicans take majorities in Congress, they could also use the Congressional Review Act to repeal any regulations that weren’t finalized within 60 legislative days of it being implemented.

Many of the new proposals aim to reduce air pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions from the power sector. Just last week the EPA announced the strictest restrictions ever on emissions for cars and trucks, the country’s largest source of planet-warming emissions. It has also promised later this year to finish a proposed rule on the oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, which traps roughly 85 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

Researchers who model emissions say that this collection of regulations is essential for meeting Biden’s commitment to cut total U.S. emissions in half from 2005 levels by 2030. Last year’s climate spending bill, called the Inflation Reduction Act, would get the country on course to reduce emissions by up to 42 percent by that target date. The executive actions on power plants, vehicles and methane would take it most of the rest of the way, another 6 percentage points of reduction, according to analysis released last month by the Rhodium Group.

But environmental groups are concerned the specifics of the EPA’s power-plant proposal may not be strong enough, and are planning to push for faster timelines, according to two people familiar with the response granted anonymity to speak about plans that aren’t yet public. Several leading environmental groups declined to analyze the proposal Saturday, saying they would need to wait until the EPA makes details public.

Urgency will be a top concern, and a 2040 timeline does not match Biden’s initial promise to zero out the sector’s emissions by 2035, said John Paul Mejia, national spokesman for the Sunrise Movement. He also noted concerns about any plan that relies on carbon capture and hydrogen technology, which are opposed by environmental justice groups that advocate for minority and poor communities and say those technologies are ways to sustain historical polluters like the oil and gas industry.

“This is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be much more stringent,” Mejia said. “This proposal should be in line with the scale of ambitions that were promised to us.”

Fossil fuels — almost exclusively gas and coal — still accounted for roughly 60 percent of the country’s electricity last year, according to Energy Department data. Utilities have been moving to zero-emissions sources, mostly wind and solar, retiring a lot of fossil fuels, especially coal, and that trend shows signs of slowing. After retiring about 11 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity annually from 2015 to 2020, the industry plans to shutter 8.9 gigawatts this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

To help them reduce their emissions, Congress has provided subsidies to develop carbon-capture technology and make it more profitable. A federal tax credit provides as much as $180 per metric ton for businesses that use it. The Inflation Reduction Act also boosts by 70 percent the tax credit for the troubled legacy carbon capture technologies oil and gas companies have traditionally used to get more oil out of the ground, increasing it to $60 per ton.

Changes like those factor into EPA rulemaking. If the technology needed to comply is cheaper and more efficient, the agency can use that in its rulemaking to raise standards on the basis that it should be easier for businesses to meet them.

The agency is also factoring in flexibilities for plants, according to two people familiar with the details. Targets will vary at each plant based on size and use, and some coal-fired plants scheduled to retire in the coming years may not have to meet the new standards at all, the people said.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Image: Billionaires, clockwise from lower left, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Marc Benioff, Vinod Khosla and Peter Thiel. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMIL LENDOF/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; PHOTOS / Editing by Germán & Co

Tech Billionaires Bet on Fusion as Holy Grail for Business

Avalanche Energy, a Lowercarbon Capital venture, recently closed a $40 million Series A financing. CEO of Avalanche Energy, Robin Langtry, stated that the business focuses on fast developing and testing remote systems using equipment readily available in the marketplace, such as an ultrahigh vacuum chamber bought on eBay.

Germán & Co

Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among titans chasing almost Iimitless energy source

WSI By Jennifer Hiller, April 23, 2023 

Sam Altman became a tech sensation this year as the CEO of OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence startup that seems pulled from science fiction. 

But Mr. Altman, who has been among Silicon Valley’s most prominent investors for more than a decade, has placed one of the biggest bets of his career on a company that might be even more futuristic: a nuclear-fusion startup called Helion Energy Inc. 

He is one of a number of tech founders and billionaires who hope to harness the process that powers the sun and stars to deliver almost limitless energy. Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates and Marc Benioff are among those betting that the decadeslong goal of building fusion reactors is now within years of being reality.

Mr. Benioff calls fusion a “tremendous dream.”

“It’s the holy grail. It’s the mythical unicorn,” said Mr. Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce Inc., who invested in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinout called Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which aims to create compact power plants. Mr. Gates is also an investor. 

Fusion has long been seen as a clean-energy alternative to sources that burn fossil fuels and release greenhouse gases. Other technologies and applications being developed in the race for fusion power include powerful magnets, better lasers or radiation therapy for cancer research.

Fusion, Mr. Benioff added, “has no limits if you can get it to work.”

Developers mostly in the U.S., Canada and Europe have been riding a wave of momentum since August 2021, when scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory came close to achieving more energy in a fusion reaction than was put in with lasers, a goal known as net gain.

Many grew to believe that a breakthrough was imminent. It came in December when the national lab achieved net gain for the first time.

Nuclear fusion occurs when two light atomic nuclei merge to form a single heavier one. That process releases huge amounts of energy, no carbon emissions and limited radioactivity, but companies would have to sustain fusion reactions and engineer a way to turn that energy into net power. 

The old saw about fusion is that it is a mirage years away and always will be. It is a long-shot bet even with the high-risk world of venture funding. 

Mr. Benioff said he was persuaded by Vinod Khosla, the Sun Microsystems co-founder who was an early investor in private fusion, historically the province of academia and national labs.

Mr. Khosla’s interest hinged on the ability to build a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet. He spent 15 months on due diligence and hired three teams to evaluate the design before investing. 

He thinks that several fusion designs should be tested and is investing in another firm, Realta Fusion, a spinout from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Even if one of them can work, the planet is much better off is how I look at it,” he said.

As an investor, Mr. Khosla sees fusion this way: “Financially either you lose one times your money or you can make a thousand times your money,” Mr. Khosla said. “That’s the math of fusion.”

Industrial firms, major oil companies and sovereign-wealth funds are backing efforts along with the Department of Defense, which is in search of a toaster-sized power system for satellite propulsion.

“There’s a reasonable probability at least one, maybe two companies will demonstrate fusion conditions in this decade,” said Ernest Moniz, who is the chief executive of the nonprofit research group Energy Futures Initiative and a former U.S. Energy Secretary.

Mr. Moniz, a physicist, said that improvements in large-scale machine learning have sped experiments and helped several companies achieve or approach the extreme temperatures and pressures needed for fusion reactions.

Firms and their backers see parallels with recent advances in artificial intelligence, which also requires colossal amounts of computing power to run models.

Mr. Altman, whose company OpenAI is behind the viral artificial-intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, has put $375 million into Helion.

Everett, Wash.-based Helion uses a technology called magneto-inertial fusion and aims to prove it can produce net electricity next year. 

At Helion, Mr. Altman is more than a passive investor. “I send people for him to vet and interview,” said Helion Chief Executive David Kirtley.

Some Helion employees have started using ChatGPT to see how it can speed up engineering work, Mr. Kirtley said. Other investors, including Mr. Thiel’s Mithril Capital, have previously joined calls to help Helion negotiate with suppliers.  

The Fusion Industry Association, based in Washington, D.C., has tracked more than $5 billion in private funding, with seven firms raising at least $200 million. Around 75% of fusion fundraising has happened since 2021, according to PitchBook.

A company called Lowercarbon Capital, founded by early Twitter and Uber venture investor Chris Sacca, launched a fusion fund last year with investors that include endowments, corporations and family offices.

Clay Dumas, a founding partner, said Lowercarbon Capital was persuaded that fusion was at a turning point because regardless of the design, firms were notching technical milestones.

“Growing access to computational power and breakthroughs in materials science were accelerating their progress faster than anyone expected,” Mr. Dumas said.

Lowercarbon Capital’s investments include Avalanche Energy, which has closed a $40 million Series A round. Avalanche Energy CEO Robin Langtry said the company is focused on small systems it can build and test quickly with commercially available equipment, including an ultrahigh vacuum chamber purchased on eBay.

“We want to build the smallest fusion reactor in the world. Then we’re talking about a project that’s maybe tens of millions of dollars, not billions, and you could actually do it with a small team,” he said.

Air Force Maj. Ryan Weed, a plasma physicist and test pilot with the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, which contracted with the company, said that testing such an approach 20 years ago might have cost $50 million, but much of the work can now take place on a computer at minimal cost.

The DIU wants a nuclear power source that could provide electrical power out of a device the size of a toaster oven or microwave some time in the next five years, said Mr. Weed, who pointed to a need for small satellite propulsion systems in cislunar space, the area between Earth and the moon.

Do you think fusion will be the next business breakthrough? Join the conversation below.

Achieving fusion is so difficult that firms are developing other products as they test machines. That intellectual property has value independent of fusion, said Adam Rodman, founder of the hedge fund Segra Capital Management LLC, which invested in Canadian company General Fusion. Mr. Bezos, founder of Amazon Inc., has also backed General Fusion.

Technologies will eventually need to show a path to profit and not just scientific breakthroughs.

“A lot of these are not businesses—they are tech developers,” said Barbara Burger, who is former president of Chevron Technology Ventures and holds several advisory and board positions. “Until you have revenue, you don’t have a business.” 

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Image: President Biden listens during a climate forum at the White House on Thursday. The administration faces a looming deadline to find a way to get Congress to raise the U.S. debt limit. (Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post)/ Editing by Germán & Co

Biden is running out of time to avoid calamitous debt ceiling outcomes

The GOP’s willingness to court economic disaster without major spending cuts leaves White House aides in a bind

WP, by Jeff Stein, April 22, 2023

President Biden is running out of time and options to avert an unprecedented default on the federal debt, as House Republicans make increasingly clear that they are willing to court economic catastrophe unless they secure major policy concessions from the White House.

Since Republicans took control of the House in January, Biden’s top aides have expressed confidence both privately and publicly that they can force the GOP to raise the limit on federal borrowing without even partially acquiescing to conservative demands to cut spending.

House GOP unveils bill to cut spending, lift debt ceiling. Here’s how?

But so far, that strategy does not seem have worked. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) released a plan on Wednesday that his caucus broadly backed, and GOP leaders hope to pass it in the House next week. There’s little indication yet that Republicans will break off and agree to lift the debt ceiling without conditions, as Biden insists. And attempts by the administration to enlist corporate executives to build pressure haven’t yielded much either, at least not yet.

Instead, many GOP lawmakers appear to be prepared to allow the nation to default without major spending cuts and policy changes — setting up what appears to be a choice between two outcomes that White House officials consider unacceptable.

“At this point, there is no indication whatsoever that moderate Republicans would agree to lift the debt limit with no reforms from the administration,” said Brian Riedl, a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a center-right think tank. “I don’t see that happening. They would be crucified within their own caucus.”

Inside the White House, the GOP’s hardening position on the debt limit has been met with anger and frustration. Biden aides adamantly reject the idea they should agree to anything resembling the spending cuts and policy changes that McCarthy has put forward — both because they oppose the substance of the ideas and because they do not want to reward the GOP for what they regard as its efforts to take the U.S. economy hostage. Biden aides are further frustrated by claims that the GOP has a popular mandate behind it, since Republicans failed to retake the Senate and only captured the House by a handful of seats.

One person familiar with the White House’s thinking, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, emphasized that House Republicans would be forced to go on record supporting McCarthy’s bill, which would impose new work requirements, reduce the number of Internal Revenue Service agents and block Biden’s move to cut student debt — measures the administration believes will prove highly unpopular with the American public.

Analysis: So much for that promise: Debt bill talks again done in the backroom

Biden has welcomed the possibility of negotiations with McCarthy on government spending levels — talks that could resolve the debt ceiling debate while allowing the administration to claim it is not negotiating over the nation’s spending limit. The person familiar with the White House’s thinking said “they are going to have to start having conversations on budget and spending, as the president has all along.” The president told congressional Democrats earlier this week that the administration is ready for a separate negotiation with Republicans over the budget, according to a White House statement.

“Let’s be clear about the Speaker’s position: unless the President and the Senate agree to their entire reckless agenda, they are going to crash the economy. That’s not just unreasonable — it’s dangerous,” White House spokesman Michael Kikukawa said in a statement. “The President has been clear: we must avoid default — that’s nonnegotiable — but he will gladly have a separate conversation about the budget with congressional leaders.

If Congress doesn’t increase the limit on how much the Treasury Department can borrow, the federal government will not have enough money to pay all its obligations by as early as June. Such a breach of the debt ceiling — the legal limit on borrowing — would represent an unprecedented breakdown, which economists believe could spark a global financial panic and lead to a recession in the United States.

White House aides have held numerous internal strategy meetings that have explored the potential downsides of trying to lift the debt ceiling unilaterally, without Congress, according to three people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. Many economists believe such any such move could lead to a permanent increase in U.S. borrowing costs, because investors would demand higher interest rates for buying U.S. bonds of legally dubious status.

Mint the coin? Buy back bonds? 7 ‘gimmicks’ for dodging the debt limit.

Democratic officials have cited as a hopeful precedent the dynamics of past debt ceiling fights, in which pressure from business executives forced the GOP to lift the limit.

“If we do actually start to get close to the drop dead date, and you can’t pay the bills, I’m sure we’ll see a reaction in financial markets and people will put pressure on Republicans for trying to wreck the economy,” said Dean Baker, a White House ally and economist at the Center for Economic Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank. “If we get to that point, you’ll see them backing down.”

And yet, with as few as six weeks to go, little evidence has materialized to suggest that will happen. Financial markets have thus far shrugged off the debt ceiling drama, with almost no discernible movement even in the price of U.S. Treasury bonds. The relative calm in markets has, in turn, relieved pressure on lawmakers to act — which could increase the odds Congress fails to lift the debt limit in time.

Fiscal crisis nears as McCarthy takes debt ceiling plan to Wall Street

“I don’t think lawmakers act until they get calls from investors and others in the business community saying: ‘What are you doing?’ But we’re not hearing those voices yet, because they think lawmakers have always done the right thing and acted just in time,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. “It’s a very dangerous drama playing out here.”

The administration’s attempts to enlist the support of business executives may also prove unsuccessful. White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients has personally asked top business leaders to advocate for a solution to the debt ceiling debate, according to two people familiar with the matter, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private remarks. But corporate America doesn’t have as much clout with the GOP as it did in the Obama years, and it’s not clear such measures will be effective with the House conservatives who nearly derailed McCarthy’s leadership bid earlier this year.

“What are we going to do, call them and say, ‘Hey, the debt limit is important?’ They know it’s important,” said one business executive who had been asked by administration officials to press the GOP on the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations.

White House aides may have less time than they anticipated. An economic slowdown could lead to less revenue coming into the Treasury Department, which would hasten the deadline. While acknowledging the data was preliminary, Goldman Sachs analysts said earlier this week that “weak” tax collections in April suggested that the debt limit could be reached in the first half of June, earlier than initially forecast.

Biden aides want to force GOP to abandon debt limit threats

The war of words between the Democratic president and the Republican speaker of the House has become increasingly pitched — and occasionally petty.

On Wednesday, McCarthy said Biden is “giving America’s debt the Southern border treatment — ignore it and hope it goes away.” For his part, Biden is increasingly accusing McCarthy of being reckless with the credit of the United States, beholden to MAGA extremists and misleading Americans about his plan. Last month, McCarthy offered to bring “soft food” to a meeting with Biden at the White House to entice him into a confab about the debt ceiling, an apparent dig at the 80-year-old president’s age.

On Wednesday, it took Biden all of 72 seconds to get through introductory remarks before dinging McCarthy.

“I’m here in this union hall with you when, just two days ago, the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, went to Wall Street to describe the MAGA economic vision for America,” he said, the first of five times that he’d mention McCarthy by name.

Some Democrats say House Republicans face even more political backlash in a debt ceiling breach than Biden, arguing the president is right to hammer the GOP over its proposed spending cuts. Traditionally, Democratic candidates have had low approval ratings on the economy, but a GOP-caused default could give them an opening to change that, said Celinda Lake, a pollster who worked for Biden in 2020.

“We have a huge advantage in selling this contrast,” Lake said. “If Republicans get blamed for shutting down the economy, that will change the dynamics.”

But other Biden allies point out that the economic devastation from a default could persist into next year, affecting the 2024 presidential election. Presidential approval ratings tend to be closely tied to economic performance, and the long-feared recession could materialize if the U.S. government suddenly can’t pay its bills.

“The two endpoints on the spectrum of outcomes — the full GOP policy wish list on the one hand, or a catastrophic default on the other — are both totally unacceptable to them,” said one person in communication with senior White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to frankly describe private conversations. “But no progress has been made on making sure there’s a resolution that’s between those two options.”

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Image: How Wall Street investors react to a possible default is crucial because they’re the ones who finance the country’s enormous debt. | Bebeto Matthews/AP Photo/ Editing by Germán & Co

Wall Street starts to fear a debt limit crisis

The government has until the summer to strike a deal…

WSJ By BEN WHITE, SAM SUTTON and ELEANOR MUELLER, 04/24/2023

NEW YORK — For months, Wall Street has barely focused on the possibility that the government might default on its debt. It’s paying attention now.

As the drop-dead date to raise the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling looms with no deal in sight, traders and executives are starting to get nervous that President Joe Biden and Republicans won’t resolve the impasse until it’s too late. That’s sparked increasing concern about a potential threat that could rock markets and tilt the world’s largest economy into recession.

“There is this view in D.C. that the market isn’t freaking out enough, and that may be true to an extent,” said Alec Phillips, chief political economist at Goldman Sachs. “But I’ve been dealing almost exclusively with this issue the last few weeks, and there is actually more concern now than even in 2011,” when Standard & Poor’s downgraded U.S. debt during a similar standoff. “It’s just that nobody knows when it’s going to happen or what to do about it.”

How Wall Street investors react to a possible default is crucial because they’re the ones who finance the country’s enormous debt by buying the securities that Treasury sells to fund the government. If they shy away from the market, interest rates could skyrocket, squeezing the government, businesses and consumers.

That’s why their level of confidence can serve as the strongest force to drive Washington partisans to make a deal.

Schumer: GOP risks ‘economic disaster’ over debt ceiling

For most of this year, many on Wall Street assumed that lessons learned from the 2011 crisis — including voters furious over declines in their retirement accounts as stocks plunged — would prevent such an event from happening again. That faith is starting to fade.

“Debt ceiling negotiations are essentially nowhere,” Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at investment bank Stifel, wrote in a note to clients. Gardner added that while a last-minute deal could certainly emerge, “the GOP’s narrow majority and the Speaker’s tenuous political position make the pathway to an agreement more uncertain than usual.”

To be clear, it’s nowhere near all-out panic. The government has until the summer to strike a deal, when the Treasury Department is likely to run out of room to keep paying the nation’s bills and servicing its existing debt.

But signs of stress are piling up, especially after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came to the New York Stock Exchange on April 17 to make the GOP case that any hike in the borrowing limit must come with significant spending cuts. That’s something the White House and congressional Democrats say they won’t consider.

The shift from general nonchalance to rising concern can be seen in an obscure corner of the markets: the soaring cost of insuring against exposure to U.S. debt through instruments called credit default swaps, which mitigate risk for large holders of Treasury securities.

The cost of insuring against a U.S. default rose to its highest level in over a decade on Thursday as JPMorgan analysts said there was a “non-trivial risk” of at least a technical default on the government’s debt in which the nation runs out of borrowing ability for even a short period before a deal is reached.

Manchin: Holding the debt ceiling 'hostage' doesn't work

Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer of Wells Fargo’s wealth and investment management division, said his biggest worry is that the “X-Date” — the moment when emergency moves to forestall default are exhausted — gets pulled forward to early-to-mid June with 2022 tax receipts likely weak after a brutal year for markets.

Goldman Sachs researchers said they also expect a much shorter timeline due to a steep reduction in capital gains revenue. And McCarthy’s hardline position — as well as questions about whether he can unify House Republicans over any strategy at all — have amped up alarms. “People seem to be dug in a little bit more in the trenches,” Cronk said.

“People seem to be dug in a little bit more in the trenches.”

Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer, Wells Fargo wealth and investment management division

Some bank executives said they are growing more concerned about the state of play in Washington but remain unsure how to inject themselves into the debate. Speaking out would be unlikely to sway hard-line conservatives, they fear, given that such calls would probably be dismissed as special pleading by rich Wall Streeters.

So for now, they are mostly issuing anodyne statements arguing for the importance of not allowing the U.S. to default, in a bid to nudge the two sides toward a solution.

Following McCarthy’s address, congressional Republicans urged bankers to press Biden to engage with the GOP.

“Obviously, people [on Wall Street] are worried,” Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said in an interview. “We’ll just say, ‘Look, it’s a two-party system. And Kevin McCarthy gets to make the first shot across the bow, but they need to put pressure on Joe Biden, to the extent they’re able to, to actually come to the negotiating table.’”

Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said he’s telling bankers that “the only way that we’re going to not default later is if we start taking corrective action now.”

“Joe Biden’s plan is to not take corrective action now,” said Davidson, a member of the House Freedom Caucus. “That’s a nonstarter. We’re not going to move his ‘no action now’ bill,” he said, referring to Democrats’ hopes of passing a “clean” debt limit hike with no spending cuts.

Democrats expressed frustration that the financial world hasn’t exerted more pressure on Republicans.

“Wall Street and business need to start getting energized and put pressure on Republicans to do what we’ve done all these years, which is pay for the debt that we incurred and not hold the American people hostage,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he was confident Wall Street would eventually speak up. “But I think that it’s telling that McCarthy went to Wall Street to talk about all this because he’s Wall Street’s guy,” Brown added. “So we’ll see.”

Meanwhile, concerns over the impact that a nasty fight over the debt limit could have on the economy are showing up on bank earnings calls.

Goldman CEO David Solomon identified uncertainty over the debt limit as a potential source of volatility during the bank’s call on Tuesday. An hour earlier, responding to a question from POLITICO, Bank of America CFO Alastair Borthwick told reporters he didn’t have much to say on the status of non-existent negotiations between the White House and McCarthy.

“Obviously, we’re all hoping that gets resolved successfully,” he added.

Citi CEO Jane Fraser said her bank believes it’s “now more likely that the U.S. will enter into a shallow recession” later this year. “The biggest unknown,” she told analysts on the bank’s recent earnings call, is “how the debt ceiling plays out.”

BlackRock Vice Chair Philipp Hildebrand warned at the Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Europe Forum on Thursday that default would undermine “a basic anchor” of the world’s financial system and “must not happen.”

“All we can do is to pray that everyone in the United States understands how important the sanctity of the sovereign signature of the leading currency, of the leading bond market, of the leading economy in the world is,” Hildebrand said.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image: Fighting in Khartoum: Large parts of the city are no without electricity and water. Foto:
Abdullah Moneim / dpaREUTERS/Christian Mang/ Editing by Germán & Co

The Battle of the Generals

A Bloody Turn in Africa's Story of Hope

Two rival generals have sparked a war that has buried hopes for a peaceful and democratic fresh start in Sudan. The activists who once brought down the dictatorship are now fearing for the future – and for their lives.

By Heiner Hoffmann und Fritz Schaap in Nairobi, Kenya, 22.04.2023

A dull bang, first further away, then louder and louder. Shadin Alfadil is still in bed when she begins hearing the sounds early on Saturday morning. But she's already familiar with it from the demonstrations she has regularly been attending for more than four years now.

She has heard it immediately before fellow campaigners, friends, collapsed dead, their blood spilling out on the asphalt. She knows what gunshots sound like. And she knows all too well what they can do.

Alfadil, a young Sudanese woman with a serious face and a firm voice, reaches for her smartphone, with new messages constantly popping up on the screen. "Shots fired downtown." Or later: "Airstrikes in Khartoum." She related her story in a telephone interview with DER SPIEGEL.

Shadin Alfadil: "We had to prevail with the revolution."

It is, for now, the nadir in the history of a revolution that filled not just Sudan, but the whole world with hope. It has been four years since Alfadil first joined thousands of others on the streets of Khartoum in a death-defying act of protest. Starting in December 2018, the Sudanese wrote one of the most impressive chapters of the Arab democracy movements for their country - one which has been ravaged by massacres, famine and crises over the years. They managed to achieve what no one had believed possible: They protested until they drove dictator Omar al-Bashir from office. After 30 years of dictatorship, democracy suddenly seemed within reach. Sudan had become emblematic of what can be achieved through peaceful resistance.

Since then, though, hopes for democracy have been further and further destroyed by the country's powerful military. And now, those dreams could be buried for good in a hail of bombs.

Fighting in the Backyard

Alfadil has shifted into emergency gear. With the violence spreading, she checked her supplies of food and water on Monday. And quickly realized that she wasn't in good shape. It was still Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, during which many of the faithful eat only after sundown and with only scant supplies of food at home. "I try not to get too full so that the supplies will last for a while," she told DER SPIEGEL by phone on Monday. "We haven't had any running water since yesterday."

Alfadil speaks fluent English and works for an international organization. But none of that is of any help to her now. The fighting outside her door continues, and few in Khartoum dare to go outside. She says that one of her parents' neighbors was shot to death on Sunday.

Since the early hours of Saturday morning, Africa's third-largest country has been in a state of war. There is fighting in almost all parts of the country, with two rival generals and their armies facing off against each other. On one side is Sudan's regular armed forces, commanded by the de facto president, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. On the other is the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), under the command of his deputy Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemeti. Hemeti's forces are estimated to include around 100,000 fighters.

A Failed Transition of Power

It is a power struggle between two men, a civil war without civilians, being waged entirely by the military - but with heavy weapons, artillery and fighter jets. By Thursday, hundreds of people had already died, and thousands were injured. The Khartoum airport has been badly damaged and there are no more scheduled flights. Fighter jets circle overhead and shells are exploding in the middle of residential areas. Those who can have been fleeing the city, and the rest, like Shadin Alfadil, have entrenched themselves in their apartments and basements.

It was supposed to be a month of hope. An agreement had been signed back in December according to which Burhan and Hemeti agreed to hand over power to a civilian-led government. It was supposed to have happened on April 11.

It could have been a new attempt to finally complete the revolution. That, at least, is what people like Alfadil had hoped.

For that to happen, though, the two men would have had to reach agreement on how to combine their two forces, a step that is a key part of the agreement. Burhan wanted to integrate the RSF into the regular army within two years. But Hemeti had insisted on a 10-year transition period. The question of what the future command structure should look like also produced irreconcilable differences, as did the prospect that they could eventually be tried for crimes themselves. Out of fear of losing their own influence, the generals turned on each other.

Pressure from Abroad

It's hard to say who has the upper hand in the fighting. Sudan expert Alex de Waal, director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University near Boston, sees the army as having an advantage, at least in the short term. But therein lies another danger. "I think they will try to press their advantage and keep fighting, and the window of opportunity for negotiations will pass," he says. But winning, de Waal is certain, is something the army cannot do, at least not across the entire country.

He argues that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, countries that wield a fair amount of influence in Sudan, need to quickly move to exert pressure. "With every day that passes without them (the regional powers) getting their act together, the dangers escalate because the conflict becomes more complex. And then it will become a long and complicated, multi-sided civil war."

Shadin Alfadil huddled in her apartment over the ensuing days as shots continued to be fired outside and artillery and fighter jets turned buildings into rubble. The life story she has to tell is one that is closely tied to her country's recent history. In telephone conversations, she spoke about her hopes for change, the myriad setbacks and her firm conviction to never give up.

A Victorious Revolution

Alfadil was there in December 2018, in her early 30s at the time, when thousands took to the streets to protest against Bashir. She didn't want to spend her whole life in an authoritarian country with rigid moral norms, oppressed by a violent leader. "We wanted to fight for freedom," she says. The protests went on for four months. Finally, on April 11, 2019, jubilation broke out and activists embraced each other on the streets when the military turned on Bashir and arrested him. "That was a moment of hope," Alfadil says. "I believed in a better Sudan." But the euphoria didn't last long. The military showed no interest in relinquishing power.

Two generals are now determining the country's fate: Burhan and Hemeti. But the power struggle currently plunging the country into chaos began taking shape behind the scenes quite some time ago. Many observers already saw Hemeti as the country's true strongman back in 2019.

His career as a brutal commander began in 2003, during the rebellion in Darfur, which saw African-descended groups there rise up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. Dictator Bashir mobilized Arab youth to put down the uprising, which led to the emergence of the notorious Janjaweed militias. Hemeti became one of their most important commanders.

During the first, particularly brutal, years of the war in Darfur, several hundred thousand civilians were killed and more than 2 million people displaced. Hemeti's Janjaweed rode into villages, slaughtered the inhabitants, raped the women, robbed and looted. The International Criminal Court later issued an arrest warrant against Bashir in connection with these crimes, including genocide.

Looting, Murders and Mass Rapes

Hemeti acted brutally, but more than anything else, loyally. Bashir thus put him in charge of the newly established Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in 2013, and Hemeti took many of his old fighters with him to the new unit. The RSF went on to commit looting, murder and mass rape in a number of regions in the country. Bashir had created an uncontrollable monster.

The dictator transformed the troops into a kind of bodyguard to protect him from protests – even more importantly, though, from coup attempts by the army. Alongside the army and the intelligence service, the RSF became a third power within the Sudanese security apparatus. When revolution swept the country in 2018, Hemeti used it to his advantage, abandoning his loyalty to the dictator and baking his ouster.

When the protests continued even after Bashir's overthrow, Burhan and Hemeti finally agreed to a compromise and created a transitional council. They promised change, but activist Alfadil and her fellow campaigners didn't trust them. The protesters once again took to the streets. Hemeti quickly showed his true face. On June 3, 2019, RSF units burned down protesters' tents, shot indiscriminately into the crowd and beat up participants. More than 100 people died, with many bodies simply being thrown into the Nile River. "I was also attacked," Alfadil says. "But we didn't give up. We had to prevail with the revolution."

After months of negotiations, a council was again formed, this time called the Sovereign Council, staffed half by civilians and half by the military. Free elections were to finally to be held at the end of this transition.

A State within the State

From the beginning, though, the military part of the newly created transitional government showed little interest in actually pursuing reform: The generals were afraid of losing their power – and their access to money. Because in Sudan, the army is basically a state within the state: High-ranking military officers are often firmly established in the business world and they rake in huge amounts of money thanks to widespread corruption. Among his business interests, for example, Hemeti works together with mercenaries of Russia's Wagner Group at his gold mines.

What followed were ups and downs, a tug-of-war for power, until, on October 25, 2021, the army and the RSF staged another coup and dissolved the interim government. They were still working side by side at the time.

The old familiar pattern quickly reestablished itself: Shadin Alfadil and her fellow campaigners took to the streets, and again people died. In the end, the generals again promised a transition to civilian rule.

But in the first months of this year, tensions between the two men increased. Hemeti sought to present himself as a true supporter of democracy and the possible next leader of Sudan and forged an alliance with a coalition of civilian political parties. But Burhan apparently feared Hemeti's growing power. When the RSF moved more units into Khartoum last week, it was apparently one provocation too many.

A Humanitarian Disaster

On Tuesday, the fourth day of the war, the situation for Shadin Alfadil grew increasingly fraught. She lives alone, and her concerns began mounting. What do I do if I get caught up in it? If a bullet hits me? How long will it take before someone finds me? The power went out for hours. It was becoming increasingly clear that a humanitarian catastrophe was developing. The World Food Program has suspended its operations after three of its staff members were killed. Looting took place at the warehouses of other humanitarian organizations. Even before the conflict, more than a third of the population had been dependent on aid.

On Tuesday evening, even though a time had been agreed for DER SPIEGEL to speak to her by phone, Alfadil could no longer be reached. A cease-fire was supposedly in place to enable people to flee or obtain basic necessities, but the fighting continued unabated, and in some parts of the city, it is growing even fiercer.

Eyewitnesses have shared accounts of bodies in the streets that haven't been recovered for days, of the stench of decay, of looting RSF units.

Holding Doctors Against Their Will

Various medical organizations have reported that most hospitals are no longer in operation and that the health-care system in Khartoum is on the verge of collapse.

Some hospitals have been bombed, reports doctor Sara Mohamed, while others lack medical staff. In addition, the doctors' committee made a serious mistake, publishing the names of hospitals that were still in operation. "Shortly after that, the RSF deployed and occupied them because they didn't know how else to take care of their wounded," Mohamed says. She says a doctor friend had just managed to escape, but others were still being held.

The situation is terrible, she says. "There are no words for it. I don't know if I will ever see my family again."

On Wednesday morning, activist Alfadil finally wrote a message, apologizing for her silence. She says she sufferred a mental breakdown. Two hours later, we held a phone call, but it lasted only two minutes and 20 seconds. Her voice sounded different than it had in the previous days - filled with fear. "I can only stay on for a second," she says, "we have to escape." She said a projectile had landed in her yard and exploded, instantly killing the gardener, the guard and one of her friends. "It's so random, there are no targets here," Alfadil says.

Fleeing Khartoum

She takes her sister and her sister's mother-in-law with her, and they drove two hours south, out of Khartoum, through the fighting. But as they guided themselves to safety, fearing for their lives, other activists were already beginning to organize again. They created WhatsApp groups where people needing help can put in requests, and help is then organized for them.

Videos are circulating on Facebook showing activists spray-painting walls with antiwar graffiti. Fighting can be heard in the background. Men singing songs against military rule. The civilian resistance is back in action. Shadin Alfadil is certain: She, too, will join the protests on the streets again. "Whoever wins this war threatens to become Sudan's new dictator," she says. "And one thing is clear to us: We will never accept a dictator again. Never!"

But experts are critical. Alan Boswell, responsible for the Horn of Africa at the International Crisis Group think tank, says: "It's the absolute nightmare scenario for the transition to democracy." Boswell says the intention of the two sides at the moment is clear: "They want to resolve the conflict militarily." But Boswell believes it is highly unlikely that either side can win the war.

It seems just as unlikely, though, that they will be able to find a compromise. The two sides are also fighting each other in the crisis-ridden region of Darfur. Experts are closely watching the escalation there with great concern. "Darfur is going to become a world of hurt. We'll probably see huge devastation and really scary amounts of potential carnage there, which is where Hemeti's stronghold is," Boswell says. The potential for terrible bloodshed, he adds, is high.

Alfadil finally arrived in the southern part of the country on Wednesday night after making her way by car through the fighting. On Thursday morning, she sent two short messages on WhatsApp: "super exhausted," followed by, "It's very safe here." No shots and no bombs. It's a calm that should be prevailing across the country following agreement on a third cease-fire, but in Khartoum, it hasn't held once again. Alfadil is tired. She has no idea what to do next. She does know one thing, though: Giving up isn't an option.

*With additional reporting by Mohamed Alamin

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Image: The NSO Group, the manufacturer of Pegasus spyware, is housed in a few top floors of this building complex in Israel.Credit...Amit Elkayam for The New York Times/ Editing by Germán & Co

How Mexico Became the Biggest User of the World’s Most Notorious Spy Tool

A Times investigation reveals the story behind how Mexico became the first and most prolific user of Pegasus. It’s still using it, despite promising to stop.

NYT By Natalie Kitroeff and Ronen Bergman, Natalie Kitroeff reported this article from Mexico City, and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. April 18, 2023

The Israelis had come to Mexico to clinch a major sale: The Mexican military was about to become the first client ever to buy their product, the world’s most advanced spyware.

But before they could close the deal, an argument erupted over price and how quickly the spy tool could be delivered. A Mexican general overseeing the negotiations called for a pause until later that evening, according to two people present and a third with knowledge of the talks.

“We’ll pick you up at your hotel and make sure to arrange a better atmosphere,” they recalled the general saying.

That night, a convoy of cars arrived at the Israeli executives’ hotel and took them to a new spot for the fateful negotiations: a strip club in the heart of Mexico City.

The general’s security team ordered all the other clientele to leave the club, the three people said, and the talks resumed.

It was in that dark cabaret in March 2011, among women dancing onstage and shots of tequila, that the most powerful cyberweapon in existence got its start.

The spyware, known as Pegasus, has since become a global byword for the chilling reach of state surveillance, a tool used by governments from Europe to the Middle East to hack into thousands of cellphones.

No place has had more experience with the promise and the peril of the technology than Mexico, the country that inaugurated its spread around the globe.

A New York Times investigation based on interviews, documents and forensic tests of hacked phones shows the secret dealings that led Mexico to become Pegasus’ first client, and reveals that the country grew into the most prolific user of the world’s most infamous spyware.

Mexico went on to wield the surveillance tool against civilians who stand up to the state — abuses the country insists it has stopped. But The Times found that Mexico has continued to use Pegasus to spy on people who defend human rights, even in recent months.

Many tools can infiltrate your digital life, but Pegasus is exceptionally potent. It can infect your phone without any sign of intrusion and extract everything on it — every email, text message, photo, calendar appointment — while monitoring everything you do with it, in real time.

It can record every keystroke, even when you’re using encrypted applications, and watch through your phone’s camera or listen through its microphone, even if your phone appears to be turned off.

It has been used to fight crime, helping to break up child-abuse rings and arrest notorious figures like Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo.

But it has also been deployed illegally, again and again, with governments using Pegasus to spy on and stifle human rights defenders, democracy advocates, journalists and other citizens who challenge corruption and abuse.

Alarmed at how Pegasus has been used to “maliciously target” dissidents across the globe, the Biden administration in 2021 blacklisted NSO Group, the Israeli company that manufactures the spyware.

Soon after, Israel’s defense ministry — which must approve the export of Pegasus to other nations — said it would ban sales to countries where there was a risk of human rights violations.

Yet, despite ample evidence of Pegasus abuses in Mexico, the Israeli government has not ordered an end to its use in Mexico, according to four people with knowledge of the contracts for the technology.

In fact, Mexico’s military is not only Pegasus’ longest-running client, the four people say, but it has also targeted more cellphones with the spyware than any other government agency in the world.

And the spy tool continues to be deployed in the country, not just to combat crime.

After the revelations that Pegasus had been wielded against government critics tarred his predecessor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who came to office in 2018, promised to stop what he called the “illegal” spying of the past.

He did not. Previously undisclosed tests show that, as recently as the second half of 2022, Pegasus infiltrated the cellphones of two of the country’s leading human rights defenders, who provide legal representation to the victims of one of the most notorious mass disappearances in Mexican history.

A military patrol last year in Michoacan, Mexico. The Mexican military has used spyware to track down leaders of drug cartels, but has also used it to spy on human rights defenders, a Times investigation found.Credit...Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

The military has a history of human rights abuses, and its role in the mass disappearance has been a focus of the investigation for years. As new allegations against the military surfaced in the case last year, the two advocates were targeted by Pegasus repeatedly, according to forensic testing conducted by Citizen Lab, a watchdog group based at the University of Toronto.

The Mexican military is the only entity in the country currently operating Pegasus, the four people familiar with the contracts said.

The Israeli defense ministry declined requests for comment. The Mexican defense ministry would not discuss the recent hack but said it followed the government’s position, which asserts that intelligence gathering is “in no way aimed” at invading the private life of political, civic and media figures.

This was the second wave of attacks on the phone of Santiago Aguirre, one of the human rights defenders. He had been targeted with Pegasus during the previous administration, too, Citizen Lab found.

“This government made so many promises that things would be different,” Mr. Aguirre said. “Our first reaction was to say, ‘This can’t be happening again.’”

A spokesman for the Mexican president declined to comment. In a statement, NSO Group said it “adheres to strict regulation and cannot disclose the identity of its customers.” The company challenged the conclusiveness of Citizen Lab’s forensic analyses, while Citizen Lab said it had no doubts about its findings.

To verify whether Pegasus hacked the two Mexican human rights advocates in recent months, NSO Group said it would need to be “given access to the data.” But the advocates said they were not willing to give the government’s spying partner any more of their private information.

Pegasus’ beginnings in Mexico have long been shrouded in secrecy. After the night at the strip club, the Israeli executives of NSO Group, then a fledgling start-up, returned to Tel Aviv with the outlines of their first sale. The next step was an actual contract.

So, a few months later, a team of NSO representatives returned to Mexico to show off the spyware to some of the most powerful people in the country.

On May 25, 2011, Eran Reshef, an Israeli defense industry executive who helped broker the deal, said in an email to NSO’s chairman and its two founders that “the demo to the Secretary of Defense and President will take place next Friday,” referring to the president at the time, Felipe Calderón, and his secretary of defense, Guillermo Galván Galván. A copy of the email surfaced in an Israeli lawsuit over commissions from the sale of Pegasus to Mexico.

Two of the people at the demonstration said it had taken place on a sprawling military base on the outskirts of Mexico City, where the first Pegasus machine would be installed.

Fearing leaks, the Mexican Army made the Israeli executives wait in a tiny room where cleaning supplies were kept so no one would see them before they made their presentation. An armed soldier was stationed outside the door.

When Mr. Calderón and Mr. Galván Galván arrived, they sat in front of large screens on the wall — and watched a phone get hacked, the attendees said.

Udi Doenyas, the chief technology officer of NSO Group who invented the Pegasus architecture and led the team that wrote the code behind the first version of the spyware, confirmed that he had connected the Pegasus system to a screen and handed a BlackBerry phone to senior Mexican officials. He asked them to use it.

As they did, the phone showed no signs of being compromised, but the Pegasus system methodically began extracting every piece of data, beaming it onto the screen for all to see.

This was the spyware’s superpower: the sneak attack.

Miguel Ángel Sosa, a spokesman for Mr. Calderón, acknowledged that the former president had paid a visit to a military facility, where he was “given various presentations about the tasks” being carried out, “including the gathering of information and intelligence.”

But he said Mr. Calderón was never informed whether the spyware was eventually purchased, and that the former president was never told — “nor did he inquire” — what tools were used to capture criminals.

At the time, Mexico desperately needed a way to reliably crack into BlackBerry phones, a device of choice for the nation’s fearsome drug cartels. From the start of his term in 2006, Mr. Calderón had pushed a so-called kingpin strategy for confronting organized crime, focusing on the groups’ top leaders.

Pinpointing the drug lords required technology that allowed spies to follow their location constantly. The criminals were careful, former law enforcement officials said, moving around and shutting down their phones to avoid being captured.

“It didn’t give you enough time to launch an operation,” said Guillermo Valdés, the former director of CISEN, which was the country’s equivalent of the C.I.A., from 2007 to 2011. “If someone turned off his phone, we no longer knew where he was.”

Up to that point, Mexico had relied heavily on the United States.

“The pressure on the military to raise its game in terms of intelligence capabilities was intense,” said Alejandro Hope, a former intelligence officer during the Calderón administration. A potential draw of Pegasus, he said, is that it would give Mexico its own capabilities.

“They no longer wanted to be dependent on the Americans,” Mr. Hope said.

The military signed the contract to buy the spyware soon after the demonstration.

In September 2011, about 30 NSO employees, most of the company’s staff, flew to Mexico to set up Pegasus, test it and instruct a team of about 30 Mexican soldiers and officers how to operate the technology, according to three people familiar with the installation. The Mexican unit chosen to operate it was called the Military Intelligence Center, a secretive arm of the army about which little has been made public.

Once the Mexicans were ready to run Pegasus on their own, a short ceremony took place that December as a way of “handing over the keys,” two of the people said.

A document from 2019, unearthed in an enormous hack of Mexican military emails last year, indicates that the Mexican intelligence center is housed in a horseshoe-shape complex. Three people familiar with it say commanders can watch through internal glass walls as information unspools on huge screens.

In a 2021 document, also made public by the hack, the army says that one of the main risks facing the center is “that the activities carried out by this center are revealed to the public.”

Pegasus was quickly embraced by the Mexican authorities, and after Enrique Peña Nieto took office as president in 2012, two more government agencies bought it: the attorney general’s office and CISEN, according to Mexican officials and three people with knowledge of the contracts.

Within a few years, the spyware began infiltrating the phones of some of Mexico’s most prominent human rights lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists — surveillance that strayed far from the agreement with the Israelis to target serious crime and terrorism.

Condemnation came swiftly from at home and abroad, and the scandal clung to Mr. Peña Nieto for the rest of his presidency. In all, Mexico has spent more than $60 million on Pegasus, according to Mexican officials, citing spending by past administrations.

The Mexican military has acknowledged having Pegasus only from 2011 to 2013. But a group of independent experts investigating the disappearance of 43 students who were planning to attend a protest said the military had Pegasus when they were abducted in 2014, and was spying on the phones of people involved in the crime on the night the events unfolded.

It is not clear why the military was spying, but the intelligence was not used to help find the students, the experts said.

After Mr. López Obrador took office in 2018, he dissolved the federal police and replaced the Mexican spy agency with a new entity.

From 2019 through today, only the military has had Pegasus, four people with knowledge of the contracts say. And during that time, the spyware has continued to be deployed against journalists, human rights defenders and an opposition politician, according to Citizen Lab’s analyses.

Under Mexican law, government entities need a judge’s authorization to spy on private communications. But in public disclosures, the military has said it has not made any request to do that kind of surveillance in recent years.

On a Thursday afternoon last December, Mr. Aguirre got an email that read like something out of a spy novel.

“Apple believes you are being targeted by state-sponsored attackers who are trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID,” said the message, which was reviewed by The Times. “These attackers are likely targeting you individually because of who you are or what you do.”

In 2021, Apple announced it would begin sending warnings like this to users whose cellphones had been hacked by sophisticated spyware. The email went on to say that “sensitive data” on Mr. Aguirre’s phone may be compromised, “even the camera and microphone.”

Mr. Aguirre, the executive director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, had been targeted years earlier with Pegasus.

His stomach sank thinking of government spies poring over his entire digital life, from messages with torture survivors to family photos with his young daughter.

Then it hit him: Others might be compromised, too.

He ran down the hall to the office of María Luisa Aguilar, the lead advocate handling the group’s international work. She had gotten the same email.

The two advocates contacted the Mexican digital rights group known as R3D, which had their phone data analyzed by Citizen Lab. It confirmed that both were hacked multiple times by Pegasus from June through September 2022.

“In the eyes of the armed forces, we represent a risk,” Ms. Aguilar said. “They don’t want to lose the power they have accumulated.”

*Natalie Kitroeff reported from Mexico City, and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. Natalie Kitroeff is The Times’s bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. @Nataliekitro

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News round-up, April, 20, 2023

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Most read…

Fox News Remains an Aberration in American Journalism

“People inclined to believe that all news organizations deliberately lie to build their audience may not consider Fox’s actions to be the least bit aberrant. But if that were true, there would be a lot more trials like the one that almost happened in this case. In fact, there have been very few media trials in recent years…

NYT By David Firestone, April 19, 2023, Mr. Firestone is a member of the editorial board.

Climate: EU on track to meet Paris Agreement goals

On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted several bills reforming the European carbon market. Some environmental aspects of the Green Deal are much less advanced.

LE MONDE By Virginie Malingre(Brussels, Europe bureau),  Published yesterday at 3:01 pm (Paris)

Why China’s police state has a precinct near you

Recently arrested New York City Chinese “police station” operators are the tip of a global iceberg of Beijing’s overseas repression operations.

POLITICO. com By PHELIM KINE, CRISTINA GALLARDO and JOSEPH GEDEON, 04/19/2023 

G7 vows more effort on renewables but sets no coal phaseout deadline

Group aims to boost its solar power capacity by 1 terawatt and offshore wind by 150 gigawatts by 2030.

POLITICO.COM BY EDDY WAX, APRIL 16, 2023

Oil prices at three-week low as strong dollar, rate hikes weigh

Following a 2% fall on Wednesday, both benchmarks are at their lowest since late March, just before a surprise OPEC+ production cut announcement.

Reuters By Shadia Nasralla, Editing by Germán & co

NATO chief visits wartime Ukraine ahead of counteroffensive

On St. Michael's Square in the nation's capital, Stoltenberg lay a wreath in memory of Ukrainian service members who had died while engaged in combat in the country's east and looked over captured Russian armored vehicles.

REUTERS By Gleb Garanich, EDITING by Germán & Co

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Andrés Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

How can strategic investment achieve both economic growth and social progress?… What is the role of renewable energy and battery storage in achieving the goals of the low-carbon economy?…

The AES Corporation President Andrés Gluski, Dominican Republic Minister of Industry and Commerce Victor Bisonó, and Rolando González-Bunster, CEO of InterEnergy Group, spoke at the Latin American Cities Conferences panel on "Facilitating Sustainable Investment in Strategic Sectors" on April 12 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Image: NYT/Drew Angerer/Editing by Germán & Co

Fox News Remains an Aberration in American Journalism

“People inclined to believe that all news organizations deliberately lie to build their audience may not consider Fox’s actions to be the least bit aberrant. But if that were true, there would be a lot more trials like the one that almost happened in this case. In fact, there have been very few media trials in recent years…

NYT By David Firestone, April 19, 2023, Mr. Firestone is a member of the editorial board.

The decision by Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday to settle its defamation suit against Fox News is no doubt a disappointment to the many people who have been viciously demeaned and insulted by the network’s hosts over the years and who now won’t get to see those hosts writhe on the witness stand as they are forced to admit their lies. But the settlement is also a lost opportunity for the profession of journalism.

A six-week trial, especially if it ended in a victory for Dominion, could have demonstrated to the public in painstaking detail what an abject aberration Fox has become among American news organizations. In-person testimony would have illustrated what the pre-trial evidence had begun to show: that Fox hosts and executives knew full well that the conspiracy theories they peddled about the outcome of the 2020 election were false, but they broadcast them anyway to hang on to viewers who didn’t want to hear the truth. A loss by Fox, with a staggering damage award, would have demonstrated that its behavior was so exceptional and outrageous that it had to be punished.

People inclined to believe that all news organizations deliberately lie to build their audience may not consider Fox’s actions to be the least bit aberrant. But if that were true, there would be a lot more trials like the one that almost happened in this case. In fact, there have been very few media trials in recent years — usually in the single digits each year, according to one study — compared with the thousands of civil trials each year. Most defamation cases are dismissed before they ever get near a trial, in part because the plaintiff could not come close to proving a news organization met the “actual malice” standard set out in the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case of 1964, but also often because the plaintiff couldn’t even convince the judge that the defamatory material was false. News organizations also win dismissals by persuading judges that the material at issue was a legitimate opinion or was a “fair report” of allegations made at a public meeting or trial.

Fox couldn’t persuade a judge of any of those defenses. In fact, the judge in this case, Eric Davis, ruled in March that it “is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true” — a decision that was a huge setback for Fox and may have led to its eagerness to settle the case.

Most defamation cases that are not dismissed are settled before trial, and the Dominion case essentially fits that pattern even though a jury had already been selected. But the size of the monetary settlement that Fox must pay, $787.5 million, also makes it a huge outlier. The next-largest publicly disclosed settlement of a defamation case against a major news organization was reached in 2017, when ABC News settled a case for at least $177 million. (Alex Jones, who was ordered last year to pay over $1.4 billion to families of victims in the Sandy Hook shooting, is not part of a legitimate news organization.)

Still, nothing would have compared with a full-length trial in this case and a victory for Dominion, which many legal experts said was a strong possibility. That kind of defeat for a major news organization almost never happens, and the reason is that unlike their counterparts at Fox, journalists in conventional newsrooms don’t actually plot to deceive their audiences. They might make mistakes, they might be misled by a source or cast a story in a way they later regret, but with very rare exceptions they don’t deliberately lie.

The emails and text messages demonstrating Fox’s knowing deceit, which came out in pre-trial discovery, were shocking both in their cynicism and in their deviation from industry norms. Vociferous press critics on the right and the left will scoff at this notion, but the fact is that journalists in functional newsrooms want to tell the truth. And they do so not because they fear getting sued but because that’s why they got into the business. I’ve worked for more than four decades in six American newsrooms, large and small, and the pattern of behavior shown by Fox would have been unthinkable in any of them at any time.

That’s why a loss by Fox would not have raised significant press freedom issues, nor would it have increased the threat that journalists would regularly be sued for defamation. Because of the Sullivan case, news organizations are protected from libel judgments if they do not recklessly disregard the truth or engage in actual malice, which almost all newsrooms scrupulously avoid doing. Fox, however, sped right past those red lights, got caught and then spent an enormous amount of money to avoid the stain of a potential guilty verdict and the spectacle of its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, testifying to its dysfunction. (The company again demonstrated its disdain for the truth by issuing a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying the settlement demonstrated its “commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”) A second chance at clarity is coming with a libel suit against Fox by a different voting-technology company, Smartmatic. Maybe this time the opportunity to perform a public service by conducting a trial will outweigh the temptation of a Fox settlement offer.

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Image: Rep. Mike Gallagher, chair of the House Select Committee on China, said in a statement that the Chinese police outposts raise the risk of the U.S. becoming “a hunting ground for dictators.” | Alex Wong

Why China’s police state has a precinct near you

Recently arrested New York City Chinese “police station” operators are the tip of a global iceberg of Beijing’s overseas repression operations.

POLITICO. com By PHELIM KINE, CRISTINA GALLARDO and JOSEPH GEDEON, 04/19/2023 

Beijing has been operating an overseas police station in New York. And London. And Rome. And Tokyo. And Toronto.

The Department of Justice’s indictment of two Chinese citizens this week for using the unlawful Chinese police station in Manhattan to go after dissidents highlights the growing tentacles of Beijing’s overseas operations, which it uses to harass and silence critics around the world.

The network also shows the extent to which Beijing has managed to conduct influence campaigns inside Western countries and violate others’ sovereignty while mostly evading law enforcement.

Security agencies across Europe and the Americas are investigating more than 100 facilities that an advocacy organization exposed in September as overseas outposts of China’s security apparatus. In the U.S., that includes at least two others besides the one targeted this week.

“These secret police stations reveal the CCP’s blatant disregard and disrespect for the American rules and privacy,” said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of House Foreign Affairs Committee, using the abbreviation for the Chinese Communist Party. McCaul urged the Biden administration to “root out these encroachments on U.S. sovereignty.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House Select Committee on China, said in a statement Tuesday that the Chinese police outposts raise the risk of the U.S. becoming “a hunting ground for dictators.”

Here’s what we know about the network of Chinese police stations across the world:

It’s a sprawling network

The Spain-based nonprofit advocacy organization Safeguard Defenders published data from China’s Ministry of Public Security in September that revealed that Beijing had announced its “first batch” of “30 overseas police service stations in 25 cities in 21 countries.” By December, Safeguard Defender’s tally of such facilities had grown to more than 100 in countries including the U.S., Canada, Nigeria, Japan, Argentina and Spain.

The stations appear to provide civilian cover for Chinese government operations deemed too risky for official Chinese diplomats to pull off. They provide toeholds in neighborhoods with large ethnic Chinese and Asian communities — the Manhattan facility was in Chinatown — that allow those operatives to function with relative anonymity.

They’re a “perfect platform to advance operations that are favorable to Chinese government interests, including misinformation and disinformation,” said Heather McMahon, a former senior director at the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which monitors the intelligence community’s compliance with the Constitution and relevant laws. Safeguard Defenders has reported that one of the purposes of these stations has been to “persuade” Chinese citizens who are implicated in crimes to return to China.

Authorities in at least five countries have confirmed that at least some of these are indeed Chinese government operations that violate laws barring the activities of foreign police personnel inside their borders. Investigations into other outposts are ongoing in countries including the United Kingdom, Japan and the Netherlands, but there have been no arrests of individuals connected with those operations.

It’s unclear how extensive the network is and whether the Safeguard Defenders’ report — and follow-up by individual governments confirming the existence of such outposts — has prompted Beijing to scale back the program to avoid detection.

The European offensive is underway, and embattled

Revelations about dozens of unlawful Chinese police facilities in Europe prompted Italian EU Parliament member Alessandra Basso to ask the European Commission in December if there was an EU-wide strategy “to close down these police stations and put an end to their activities.” The response: EU member states are on their own in probing “any alleged violation of their laws or … internal security occurring on their territory,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement published last month.

EU governments are doing precisely that, with limited success. The German government revealed last month that Beijing was refusing to comply with Berlin’s demands for the shutdown of two unlawful Chinese police stations in the country. Greek police announced in December that they were investigating a similar operation in downtown Athens. Dutch media reported in October the existence of two unlawful Chinese police outposts, prompting denials from Beijing and a Dutch government pledge to probe those allegations. That same month the Irish government ordered the closure of a similar facility in Dublin.

But activists say that’s inadequate given the scale of the problem. Many European governments are clearly “not taking this issue seriously at all,” argued Safeguard Defenders Campaign Director Laura Harth.

Harth criticized the “absence of a strong and unified public message” from affected countries “on the illegality of these operations and the measures or investigations in place to counter these activities.”

Complicating the situation: Chinese law enforcement has legal footholds in Italy, Croatia and Serbia through deals that allow for “the stationing and deployment of Chinese police officers” in those countries. Those Chinese police deploy on joint patrols with local counterparts in areas that attract large numbers of Chinese tourists. But that declaration — signed by EU lawmakers from countries including Germany, France, Denmark and Estonia — urged EU countries to reconsider such agreements “with a country disrespecting human rights, the rule of law and democratic values.”

In the U.K., where at least three alleged Chinese police stations are reportedly operating, police investigations continue, Home Office Minister Chris Philp said Wednesday.

Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP who chairs the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said she is “exasperated that six months since this issue was first raised in the House, that members are still needing to ask the government why Chinese police stations are operating in at least three locations on U.K. soil.”

“These stations are a very real example of transnational repression being conducted by an authoritarian state, and the government must take action to shut down these stations immediately,” she added.

U.S. officials and policymakers have been worried about American outposts for awhile

Gallagher, the House China committee chair, held a press conference outside the now-abandoned Chinese police outpost in New York in February and warned of “at least two more on United States’ soil.” Safeguard Defenders has reported the existence of a second such facility in an unidentified location in New York City and another in Los Angeles.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate hearing in November that he was aware of such an operation in New York City and was “very concerned” about it. That culminated with the arrest Monday of Chinese nationals Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping for conspiring to act as Chinese government agents.

That same day, the Department of Justice charged 44 individuals — including 40 members of China’s Ministry of Public Security and two officials from the Cyberspace Administration of China — with “transnational repression offenses targeting U.S. residents.” Those suspects “created and used fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate PRC dissidents residing abroad and sought to suppress the dissidents’ free speech,” said a DOJ statement published Monday.

'The time to act is now': Rep. Gallagher previews first House hearing on China

It’s an issue north of the U.S. border, too

Safeguard Defenders has reported four such locations in the Toronto area, three in the Vancouver area and two more were found unlisted in the Montreal area. And allegations last month that Beijing meddled in Canada’s federal elections in 2019 and 2021 have made China’s potential malign activities in the country a hot-button issue.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have since begun a nationwide investigation into foreign interference following the report’s findings, including into the Wenzhou Friendship Society in British Columbia.

Canada, unlike the United States, doesn’t force foreign agents to register with the government. But amid growing calls for change following the recent bombshell reports of China’s alleged interference, Canada’s Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino announced that the Liberal government has started consultations running until early May to consider establishing its own registry system.

Beijing is in denial mode

Beijing denies that it operates unlawful overseas police outposts. Instead it insists it operates “service centers” where Chinese people residing abroad can “get their driver’s licenses renewed and receive physical check-ups,” the spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Washington, D.C., Liu Pengyu, said in November.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called the U.S. allegations “slanders and smears … There are simply no so-called ‘overseas police stations.’”

The FBI is on the hunt for more such facilities

There are concerns on Capitol Hill that the existence of such outposts goes beyond just one location in Manhattan.

“Today’s arrests are only the tip of the iceberg,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla) tweeted on Monday.

The FBI is clearly not stopping at the arrests of Chen and Lu in New York City’s Chinatown. The agency has a dedicated transnational repression website where the public can report such unlawful activities.

“We’re increasingly conducting outreach in order to raise awareness of how some countries harass and intimidate their own citizens living in the U.S.,” the FBI said in a statement.

And the New York City and DOJ indictments Monday suggest that the authorities are closing in on any remaining Chinese unlawful police outposts.

Christopher Johnson, a former senior China analyst at the CIA, argued that the investigations simply need to be allowed to run their course.

The U.S. government should “not overly freak out about these police stations — where we discover them we should roll them up and prosecute,” said Johnson, now the head of the China Strategies Group political risk consultancy. “But there’s no need to paint [them] as an existential threat to U.S. freedom and democracy.”

Finding and shuttering these outposts is tricky

China’s unlawful police outposts aren’t easy to find.

Beijing positions them inside what appear to be legitimate businesses or organizations that provide them a front to conduct their operations. They operate discreetly and don’t advertise their actual purpose. Members of local communities who are aware of such facilities are hesitant to contact authorities for fear of possible Chinese government reprisals against them in the U.S. or against family members in China.

“I think there are definitely more, it’s just that they’re not listed on some public website,” said Human Rights Watch senior China researcher Yaqiu Wang.

Some in Europe hope the indictments in New York will help spur more action globally.

Reinhard Bütikofer, chair of the European Parliament’s China relations delegation, said Europe should “take advantage” of the opportunity that the U.S. action in New York offers to rally democracies together and “show China its limits.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Climate: EU on track to meet Paris Agreement goals

On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted several bills reforming the European carbon market. Some environmental aspects of the Green Deal are much less advanced.

LE MONDE By Virginie Malingre(Brussels, Europe bureau),  Published yesterday at 3:01 pm (Paris)

The European Union has taken a crucial step on its road to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. In Strasbourg, the European Parliament on Tuesday, April 18, adopted several bills at the heart of the legislative package designed to bring Europe in line with the Paris Agreement. They still need to be validated by the member states on April 25, but, barring any surprises, this should be a mere formality.

On Tuesday, MEPs first ratified the reform of the carbon market (known as "ETS" for Emissions Trading System), in which energy companies and polluting industries (cement, steel and aluminum) trade allowances to pollute. When it was created in 2005, it was decided that emissions would decrease by 43% over the course of 25 years in order to raise the price of the ton of CO2 and encourage industries to emit less. It is now agreed that they will have to have fallen by 62% between 2005 and 2030 and that free allowances will eventually disappear.

What's more, the carbon market's scope will be expanded: It will eventually cover 65% of Europe's CO2 emissions, compared to 40% today. Not only will it be extended to the maritime sector and intra-European flights, but a second carbon market, known as "ETS 2," will also be created, which will affect consumers at the pump and on their electricity bill.

Opposition of the French Greens

Fearing that Yellow Vests would take hold of all European traffic circles as they did in France over a proposed carbon tax, some MEPs and member states, including France, nevertheless obtained changes to the Commission's initial proposal.buildings and road transport fuels, but with a cap set at €45 per ton of CO2 until 2030.

"Then the Commission will have to make a new proposal," said Pascal Canfin, MEP in the Renew group and chairman of the European Parliament's environment committee, who was opposed to the Commission's proposal. He said that "the amended scheme will have no impact on the purchasing power of the French" because the price of a ton of CO2 in France is €44.60.

The French Greens and their colleagues from La France Insoumise (LFI, radical left) do not see things the same way and remain opposed to the final compromise. "Nothing has been learned from the Yellow Vests movement," said Manon Aubry (LFI), president of The Left group in the European Parliament. "The French Greens were the only Greens to vote against the reform of the carbon market," pointed out Canfin.

In order to help member states support households and micro-businesses in this transition, the Europeans have decided to create a Social Climate Fund in 2026, with a budget of €86.7 billion, which will be financed mainly by the revenues of the ETS 2.

'The first climate-neutral continent'

On Tuesday, MEPs also gave the green light for the carbon border tax starting in 2026, which will subject the most polluting imported products to a levy if they are not manufactured under the same environmental conditions as their European competitors. This unprecedented measure, which France has been calling for for a very long time – President Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) supported such a project – will provide European manufacturers and energy companies with the conditions for fair competition.

"Together, we will make Europe the first climate-neutral continent," said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen again on Tuesday. One thing is certain: The Europeans have shown a rare speed in fulfilling their commitment to the Paris Agreement. In less than two years, they have almost completed the legislative package presented by the Commission on July 14, 2021.

Of the 14 legislative proposals, 12 have now been adopted or are in the process of being adopted. Others are on the way: the development of renewable energies, a country-by-country description of the energy savings to be made by various sectors, and the phasing out of internal combustion engines for cars.

Ultimately, only the reform of energy taxation, which requires a unanimous vote by the 27 member states, is likely be left on the drawing board. "We have raised the level of ambition. The legislative package being adopted will allow us to reduce CO2 emissions by 57% by 2030, when the Commission was counting on a drop of at least 55%," said Canfin.

Devices dedicated to the environment

However, these bills, which focus on the fight against global warming, are only part of the European Green Deal, which brings together some 50 draft directives and regulations. The Commission's more recent proposals to improve the energy performance of buildings and to end the use of internal combustion engines in buses and trucks should also reduce CO2 emissions. The U-turn made by Germany, which, after having validated the end of combustion engines for cars in 2035, went back on its commitments before changing its mind once again, shows the sensitivity of these issues.

The Commission has also provided for a series of measures devoted to the environment, to fight against pollution and the decline in biodiversity. Some – such as legislation on nature restoration, air quality, animal welfare and packaging – are still under negotiation in the European Parliament and the Council. Others – on soil health, waste and the revision of the chemicals regulation (Reach) – are being written at the Commission. "We still have a mountain to climb," said the deputy director of the Commission's directorate-general for environment, Patrick Child, on March 22.

Several of these bills concerning agriculture, livestock and fisheries are particularly difficult to negotiate at the moment. "For these sectors, the debate remains very polarized. We have been able to make progress on the decarbonization of industry, energy and transport because we have been able to find a path with the economic actors concerned, a common roadmap," said Canfin.

Systematic obstruction

But that is not all. In the European Parliament, the conservatives in the European People's Party (EPP) are putting up more and more resistance. They argue that the war in Ukraine and the accompanying inflationary context justify a moratorium on a series of legislative projects. Some conservatives, led by the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Spanish People's Party (PP), are even systematically obstructing.

"The EPP's political project is to unite the right" with the far right, said Stéphane Séjourné, president of the liberal group Renew, on Tuesday. This weakens von der Leyen's parliamentary majority, which was built around the EPP, the Social Democrats (S&D) and Renew, and reduces its ability to adopt ambitious reforms on the environment.

This is especially true as the window of opportunity is narrowing, with the European elections, scheduled for May 2024, approaching. "Some member states may be tempted to delay negotiations and wait for the election of the next Parliament, in the hope that it will be less favorable to environmental protection," Spanish Socialist MEP Javi Lopez told the website Contexte on 22 March. The next few weeks will be crucial in this respect.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Image: POLITICO.COM, Editing by Germán & Co

G7 vows more effort on renewables but sets no coal phaseout deadline

Group aims to boost its solar power capacity by 1 terawatt and offshore wind by 150 gigawatts by 2030.

POLITICO.COM BY EDDY WAX, APRIL 16, 2023

The Group of Seven richest countries set higher 2030 targets for generating renewable energy, amid an energy crisis provoked by Russia's war on Ukraine, but they set no deadline to phase out coal-fired power plants.

At a meeting hosted by Japan, ministers from Japan, the U.S., Canada, Italy, France, Germany and the U.K. reaffirmed their commitment to reach zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century, and said they aimed to collectively increase solar power capacity by 1 terawatt and offshore wind by 150 gigawatts by the end of this decade.

"The G7 contributes to expanding renewable energy globally and bringing down costs by strengthening capacity including through a collective increase in offshore wind capacity ... and a collective increase of solar ...," the energy and environment ministers said in a 36-page communiqué issued after the two-day meeting.

"In the midst of an unprecedented energy crisis, it's important to come up with measures to tackle climate change and promote energy security at the same time," Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told a news conference, according to Reuters.

The ministers' statement also condemned Russia's "illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked" invasion of Ukraine and its "devastating" impact on the environment. The ministers vowed to support a green recovery and reconstruction in Ukraine.

They also published a five-point plan for securing access to critical raw materials that will be crucial for the green transition.

Before the meeting, Japan was facing criticism from green groups over its push to keep the door open to continued investments in natural gas, a fossil fuel. The final agreed text said such investments "can be appropriate" to deal with the crisis if they are consistent with climate objectives.

The ministers' meeting in the northern city of Sapporo comes just over a month before a G7 leaders' summit in Hiroshima.

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Crude oil storage tanks are seen in an aerial photograph at the Cushing oil hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, U.S. April 21, 2020. REUTERS/Drone Base/Editing by Germán & Co

Oil prices at three-week low as strong dollar, rate hikes weigh

Following a 2% fall on Wednesday, both benchmarks are at their lowest since late March, just before a surprise OPEC+ production cut announcement.

Reuters By Shadia Nasralla, Editing by Germán & co

TOKYO, April 20 (Reuters) - Oil prices fell to their lowest in about three weeks on Thursday, depressed by a firmer dollar and rate hike expectations which outweighed lower U.S. crude stocks.

Brent crude futures were down $1.12, or 1.4%, to trade at $82.00 a barrel at 0819 GMT. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) futures dropped $1.02, or 1.3%, to $78.14 a barrel.

Both benchmarks, following a 2% fall on Wednesday, are at their lowest since late March, just before a surprise OPEC+ production cut announcement, although not all gains from that move have been wiped out yet.

The U.S. dollar index has moved up around 0.3% this week so far, on course for its strongest week since late February. A strengthening greenback makes oil more expensive for holders of other currencies.

U.S. economic activity was little changed in recent weeks, according to a Federal Reserve report.

Fed policymakers have signalled they are nearing the end of what has been the most aggressive spate of policy tightening in 40 years, with most pencilling one last quarter-percentage-point hike.

On the other side of the Atlantic, persistent double-digit inflation in Britain has bolstered expectations of a further Bank of England rate hike.

Meanwhile, U.S. crude stockpiles fell by 4.6 million barrels as refinery runs and exports rose, while gasoline inventories jumped unexpectedly on disappointing demand, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). ,

The crude stockpile decline was far steeper than analysts' and the American Petroleum Institute's estimates.

On the supply side, oil loading from Russia's western ports in April is likely to rise to the highest since 2019, despite Moscow's pledge to cut output, trading and shipping sources said.

Pakistan has placed its first order for discounted Russian crude under a new deal which could cover 100,000 barrels per day, the country's petroleum minister said.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image: REUTERS/Christian Mang/Editing by Germán & Co

NATO chief visits wartime Ukraine ahead of counteroffensive

On St. Michael's Square in the nation's capital, Stoltenberg lay a wreath in memory of Ukrainian service members who had died while engaged in combat in the country's east and looked over captured Russian armored vehicles.

REUTERS By Gleb Garanich, EDITING by Germán & Co

[1/5] NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg visits the Wall of Remembrance to pay tribute to killed Ukrainian soldiers, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine April 20, 2023. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

KYIV, April 20 (Reuters) - NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg visited Kyiv on Thursday for the first time since Russia's full-scale invasion, showing the military alliance's support for Ukraine as it prepares to launch a counteroffensive.

Stoltenberg laid a wreathe to honour Ukrainian soldiers who have been killed fighting in the east of the country, and reviewed captured Russian armoured vehicles on the capital's St Michael's Square.

Ukrainian leaders and NATO officials did not immediately make any announcements about the trip. Wartime visits by foreign officials are often shrouded in secrecy but top leaders visiting Kyiv often hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Stoltenberg began his unannounced trip at a vital juncture in Russia's almost 14-month-old invasion which has killed thousands, uprooted millions, destroyed cities and devastated the Ukrainian economy.

After weathering a Russian winter and spring offensive that has made only small advances in the east, Ukraine now hopes to retake land in its south and east in a counteroffensive in the coming weeks or months.

After paying his respects to Ukrainian soldiers, the NATO secretary-general got into a car and drove off after the event, a Reuters photographer said.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has supported Ukraine throughout the war, with member states sending weapons but not fighting troops. Kyiv has repeatedly called for more weapons from its allies.

Ukraine sees its future in the alliance and last September announced a bid for fast-track membership after the Kremlin said it had have annexed four Ukrainian regions that its troops have partially occupied.

Moscow regards NATO as a hostile military bloc bent on encroaching on what it sees as its sphere of influence. Ukraine gained independence from the Russia-led Soviet Union in 1991.

Russia did not immediately comment on Stoltenberg's visit.

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News round-up, April, 19, 2023

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Words from the editor…

Food shortages, moldy apartments, a lack of medical workers: The United Kingdom is facing a perfect storm of struggle, and millions are sliding into poverty. There is little to suggest that improvement will come anytime soon. 

Spiegel.de

How do you describe the ludicrous maze through which Britain's current economic situation is wandering, growing more wretched by the day, unable to find a haven from which to emerge?

All this shame on the day of a pompous royal coronation…

Two artistic facts give us a possible explanation for this bizarre circumstance…

The enigmatic British artist Banksy's work "Love Is in the Bin," originally titled "Girl with Balloon," was resold.  It was partially shredded after being purchased at a Sotheby's auction in 2018.  After competition from a total of nine bidders, it was bought by a client over the phone for a price that beat Banksy's previous auction record of $23.2 million.  Banksy's Red Balloon Girl self-destructed after selling for £1 million at Sotheby's in 2008.

The other explanation can be found in the absurd but hyper-real chapter 41 of Hopscotch by Brussels-born Argentinian writer Julio Cortazar…

Oliveira spends the afternoon in his apartment, where the sun is scorching, the heat is out of control, and he tries to straighten crooked nails for no apparent reason.  To make matters worse, he has run out of -mate- and is tempted to wake Traveler, who is asleep in the other room. He is bored to death and needs the company of Traveler, who eventually wakes up. He asks him for grass and nails, though he cannot explain what he needs them for. While he waits, Horacio tries to write some games. Traveler arrives with the nails, but he forgets the -mate- but he thinks throwing them from window to window is risky as his aim could be better. So they decide to make planks to build a bridge and put the nails to good use. They set about building the absurd bridge, but the big problem was how to tie the planks connecting the two windows if they came from different places. Hammering in the air is a challenging task.

Hence, it is difficult to conclude that the world is mad… No easy task for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

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Most read…

The UK Faces a Steep Climb Out of a Deep Hole

Food shortages, moldy apartments, a lack of medical workers: The United Kingdom is facing a perfect storm of struggle, and millions are sliding into poverty. There is little to suggest that improvement will come anytime soon.

Spiegel by Jörg Schindler in London, 18.04.2023

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“We’re living in a volatile world…

it’s easy to get distracted by things like changeable commodity prices or a shortage of solar panels. But this wouldn’t be true to our purpose – we can’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our end goal; said Andres Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

Image: by Germán & Co

The UK Faces a Steep Climb Out of a Deep Hole

Food shortages, moldy apartments, a lack of medical workers: The United Kingdom is facing a perfect storm of struggle, and millions are sliding into poverty. There is little to suggest that improvement will come anytime soon.

Spiegel by Jörg Schindler in London, 18.04.2023

In the innermost chambers of the old palace, Britannia is still just as large as it once was. Vast paintings stretching up to the ceiling narrate the glorious triumphs of a stupendous global empire – of battles against the Danes, Napoleon, the Spanish Armada, of the subjugation of India and the settling of America.

Those wishing to enter Westminster Palace, for centuries the seat of British Parliament, must pass by bronze statues of pioneers, commanders and thinkers – Walpole, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Thatcher – and a life-sized Winston Churchill, who still seems to be watching over the lower house, once destroyed by German bombs.

With every echoing step, British parliamentarians are reminded by these weighty premises of their own importance.

It is rather rare, however, that one of them makes their way from the halls of parliament into the underworld of the old palace, which was once built on a swampy island in the Thames. Here, in the low-ceilinged, labyrinthine catacombs, the foundation of Britannia’s democracy is literally rotting away, largely out of sight and out of mind. Most of the structure is contaminated by asbestos, while thick tangles of cables hang chaotically from the ceiling and pipes suddenly come to an end, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

Gas, power and water lines – all bunched together – run for several kilometers through the damp cellars. The fire alarm has been triggered more than 40 times here in the last 10 years, and fire experts are allegedly on patrol in the building 24 hours a day.

Seven years ago, an internal report outlined a "substantial and growing risk of … a catastrophic event," and the 1,000-room neo-Gothic monument with its 100 staircases is long overdue for a comprehensive renovation. It would take decades to complete and cost up to 22 billion pounds. But thus far, the honorable members of parliament have been unable to agree on when and how.

Instead, inside the gold, brocade and hardwood-trimmed imperial halls upstairs, the country’s representatives continue to put on a show of democracy week after week while a time bomb continues to tick below them.

The old palace, in fact, has become a perfect symbol for the United Kingdom of today.

Boarded Up Windows

Things aren’t going well for the United Kingdom these days. For the past several months, the flow of bad news has been constant, the country’s coffers are empty, public administration is ineffective and the nation’s corporations are struggling. As this winter came to an end, more than 7 million people were waiting for a doctor’s appointment, including tens of thousands of people suffering from heart disease and cancer. According to government estimates, some 650,000 legal cases are still waiting to be addressed in a court of law. And those needing a passport or driver’s license must frequently wait for several months.

Boarded up windows and signs reading "To Let" and "To Rent" have become a common sight on the country’s high streets, while numerous products have disappeared from supermarket shelves. Recently, a number of chains announced that they would be rationing cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers for the foreseeable future.

"Whereas the number of billionaires in the UK – at 177 – is higher than it has ever been, millions of Britons have slid into poverty."

Last year, 560 pubs closed their doors forever, with thousands more soon to follow, according to the industry association. Without Oxfam, the Salvation Army and other charitable organizations that operate second-hand stores, numerous city centers would have almost no shops left at all.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund forecast that in no other industrialized nation would the economy develop as poorly as in Britain this year. Even Russia is expected to end up ahead of the UK.

One Pound Wonders

Whereas the number of billionaires in the UK – at 177 – is higher than it has ever been, millions of Britons have slid into poverty. Newspapers and television channels are full of cheap recipes and shows like Jamie Oliver’s "£1 Wonders." Since December, hardly a day has passed without a strike by bus drivers, medical workers, teachers, public servants, university employees or rail workers. Last week, assistant doctors across the country went on strike for four days, with the media calling on the populace to avoid all activities that could result in injury.

For many, the situation is reminiscent of the 1970s, when high debt, punishing inflation and widespread protests brought the country to its knees – leading Henry Kissinger, who was U.S. secretary of state at the time, to grumble from across the Atlantic: "Britain is a tragedy, reduced to begging, borrowing and stealing."

To be sure, after two years of pandemic and one year of war, the rest of Europe isn’t doing particularly well either. But nowhere is the feeling of having "lost the future" stronger than in Britain, according to the public opinion pollsters from Ipsos. In 2008, the year of the banking and financial crisis, 12 percent of people in the UK believed that their children would be worse off than them. Now, that number is 41 percent, Ipsos has found.

One significant reason for that pessimism is the fact that many simply no longer trust their speechifying politicians in Westminster to get much done. The Tory party, which has been in power now for a dozen years, has gone through four prime ministers since 2016 alone.

And even if the fifth in the series, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is doing all he can to leave behind the period of sloganeering and slapstick, the UK isn’t likely to recover from his predecessors any time soon. Particularly not from Boris Johnson, who still refuses to admit any personal responsibility for the plight in which Britain finds itself and continues to bleat in a huff from the sidelines.

Even as his country slid further and further into the abyss, Johnson spent years absorbing all political momentum like a black hole, instead throwing his energy into projects like bringing back imperial measurements, announcing his intent to build a sinfully expensive royal yacht named Britannia and convincing the populace that he was building a "global," or even a "galactic Britain," a reference to the country’s budding space program.

Yet in early January, when the first 11 satellites ever to be launched from British soil were to head into space from Cornwall, the mission failed, and they ended up in the Atlantic instead. Excitement about the launch had been limited anyway, with an earthly populace that would have been happy with functioning school toilets.

Even before the failure, the Economist wrote: "A country that likes to think of itself as a model of common sense and good-humored stability has become an international laughing stock." No longer is it a single government or political party that seems dysfunctional, the magazine intimated, "Britain itself can seem to be kaput."

The question is: Who broke it? Was it just the pandemic and the warmonger to the east, as the current government never tires of insisting? Or did the unstoppable decline of the kingdom perhaps begin much earlier? On the search for answers to these questions, it is helpful to take a trip to the edges of a now modestly sized empire – to the people who no longer expect much from the political classes in faraway London.

"You probably won’t believe this, but this used to be one of our most fashionable areas," says Simon Cartmell, as he comes to a stop on Bond Street in Blackpool one Wednesday morning in winter. A cold wind is blowing in from the Irish Sea and the drizzle is falling almost horizontally, but Cartmell, a friendly 50-year-old wearing a colorful scarf, can’t stop gushing about times past. "There were banks, boutiques, an old bingo parlor, a cinema, and right there, the red-brick building, was once a busy hotel."

Over the phone, Cartmell – head of the local employment agency – had said: "Come to Bloomfield." This neighborhood in the south of the city, one of the poorest not just in the city, but in the entire country, is, he continued, the best place to see what has happened to Blackpool. "Just a couple of paces away from the sea, and you’re already in the middle of a Dickens novel."

Countless shops have closed their doors in recent years, with only bargain stores, cheap supermarkets and fast-food chains remaining. Almost all of the empty lots are filled with trash, while signs on the walls announce the spaces as perfect for advertising.

The people here have lost a lot over the years, but not, apparently, their sense of humor. Entire streets are lined with bed-and-breakfasts bearing names like Sweet Dreams Hotel, Fortuna House, Great Escape Hotel and Hollywood Apartments, even as most of them have become home to welfare recipients.

The local pub is called Last Resort. Even the screeching of the seagulls sounds like a sarcastic commentary on the current times.

When Prince William and his wife Kate visited the place a few years ago to show solidarity with the poor, the local community garden was quickly replanted, says Cartmell. They wanted to present at least a little bit of the town’s past glory to the royal couple.

Yet no matter how hard one might try, it is impossible to deny the dismal reality of Blackpool’s present. This "Las Vegas of the North" may still attract more than a million visitors every summer who relive their childhoods between the glaring neon of the beach promenade and the Pleasure Beach amusement park. But the "Golden Mile" has long since declined into a crumbling Potemkin façade along which gleamingly modern street cars – funded by the EU – run.

The city’s decline came in waves. Like other cities in northern England, Blackpool profited many centuries ago from the British empire’s involvement in trading slaves and other wares. The wealth of Lancashire County, where Blackpool is located, was primarily the result of the local textile industry. Following the deindustrialization of the north, mass tourism kept the city’s 140,000 residents afloat for a time. But budget airlines soon began flying to sunny southern destinations, and Blackpool has had a hard time competing.

And since then, the place has been left largely to its own devices. The young and energetic have left, while many who failed to make it elsewhere have come to Blackpool for old times' sake.

The city was already on its knees when the conservative-liberal government of David Cameron announced an era of austerity in order to recoup the fantastical sums the government had injected into the banking industry during the financial crisis. And there was hardly another area of the country that was hit as hard by the savings measures as Lancashire. Blackpool had to slash far more than a billion pounds in public spending, and there was little left over for the poor. The city then had to close its doors to holidaymakers for two years during the pandemic.

Today, Blackpool is a place of records. No other city in the country is home to as many run-down neighborhoods. The life expectancy of male residents is just under five years below the national average, while that for women is almost four years lower. Almost one in five residents suffers from what local doctors call "shit life syndrome," while anti-depressants are prescribed here twice as often as in the rest of the country.

Brexit, this grandiose promise of restoring lost greatness, found a willing audience in Blackpool, ready to grasp onto any straw – as was the case across northern and central England, where production had plunged over time and hardly anything grew in its place. Aside from inequality.

"If you are poor, sick, weak or tired, don’t come to Blackpool," says Simon Cartmell at the end of his stroll through the present. "Nobody will help you here." Nor will the 40 million pounds pledged by the government in London to the university as part of a national Leveling Up Fund – money intended to create a carbon-neutral campus. "It’s like giving a beggar 10 pounds after taking his house."

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took it upon himself to personally announce the windfall for Blackpool and several additional municipalities in the north a few weeks ago, and even flew into the airport in Blackpool for the event. Cartmell, who is running as the local Labour Party candidate in the next parliamentary elections, was in front of the airport to shoot a campaign video.

As he was waiting, he says a construction worker suddenly appeared with a shovel and a bucket to fill in a pothole in the airport’s access road. "And 90 seconds before Sunak’s limousine drove past, the road was once again in passable condition."

Pain Pills and Yorkshire Tea

It’s one of those days when Jo McReynolds doesn’t know what to do first. On the screen in front of her is a seemingly endless list of food items. Thirty trays of bread, two pallets of mixed vegetables, hundreds of cans of chicken tikka masala, 600 kilograms of Maris Piper potatoes, 52 packages of frozen buttermilk scones, 144 cartons of veggie meat, 200 crates of yogurt, 318 packets of Caesar dressing – and those are just the items that came in early that morning.

Ideally, most of it should be shipped today. McReynolds laughs. "I begin each day with a nervous breakdown, and things get worse from there," she says. On her desk in Hall 2 is a tabloid newspaper with Putin’s face on the cover, pain pills and a package of Yorkshire tea.

A blond, 62-year-old with a nasal piercing and wearing a reflective vest, Jo McReynolds is the manager of the FareShare outlet in Birmingham. To fight both food waste and hunger, FareShare collects food that is no longer completely fresh, but which has not yet expired, from supermarkets and producers, distributing it to schools, food banks and other facilities. When McReynolds started as a volunteer 10 years ago, FareShare had six small outlets in the UK, but it now runs 30 regional centers with 1,500 employees and around 5,000 volunteer assistants.

Feeding the needy has turned into big business.

In the Nechells district north of the Birmingham city center, McReynolds now oversees four brick warehouses filled to the roof with nonperishable food. Forklifts are in constant motion as they load up delivery vans, while countless, mostly good-natured workers are bustling about in their reflective vests marked with the words: "Food Hero."

The Nechells site processes six to eight tons of food every single day, with the daily nationwide total in December reaching 3,300 tons – a new record. And they still aren’t able to keep up with demand. The waiting list, says McReynolds, is longer than her forearm. "It is frightening. For Christ's sake, we can send people to the moon, but we aren’t able to feed our own people."

Hunger has been the focus of numerous recent stories coming out of the United Kingdom. Stories about a government that was planning on making cuts to the school dinners program before a football star intervened. About how even UNICEF stepped in to help feed children in a country with the sixth largest economy in the world. And about the skyrocketing popularity of Asian instant noodles, popular because they are filling and cheap, and because they take almost no time to cook – a huge advantage given that spiking energy prices have made electricity unaffordable for many Britons.

Indeed, in addition to the almost 3,000 food banks in the country – more than three times the number found in the much larger country of Germany – facilities in the UK like churches, museums, public libraries and schools opened up "warm banks" around the country this winter. The needy can also go to baby banks to pick up free diapers and formula, bedding banks for mattresses and down comforters, and fuel banks to receive vouchers for coin-operated gas and electric meters. The Blue Cross also introduced the country’s first pet-food banks this winter so that people with nothing could at least keep their dogs and cats.

And in some places, community centers have turned into multi-banks, where the needy can go to find all of the things they might be short on in one place.

The New Hutte Neighbourhood Centre in Knowsley, a 10-minute train ride from Liverpool, is one such a place. On a recent chilly Tuesday, 69-year-old Linda was there, wearing short, raspberry red hair and a leopard-patterned shirt that was far too thin for the weather. On Tuesday, the former school offers free lunch, and Linda has learned how to make her money go a long way. A former elderly care nurse, Linda tried to apply for state aid, but she was told that her 700-pound pension was 29 pence over the limit.

Since then, she’s been going to the New Hutte on Tuesdays, to the food bank at St. Hilda’s on Fridays, and to the one at St. Mary’s on Saturdays. She also frequents the Asda supermarket, where a bowl of soup and a cup of tea costs just one pound. "This is a good community," says Linda, who hardly cooks at all anymore and only turns on the heat when her youngest grandson is visiting. But she doesn’t want to complain and talks about her life as though discussing some distant relative. "Things are a bit upside-down at the moment," she says, but at least she has friends and a place to live. "And next Tuesday, they’re serving curry with rice. I’m already looking forward to it."

Killed By Mold

Someone has put up Union Jack bunting in front of the house where two-year-old Awaab died – almost as if they wanted to say: This, too, is the UK. The plastic flags are the only color on the dirty-white facade of the four-story residential block, a structure which looks exactly like all the other blocks that make up Freehold Estate in the town of Rochdale. There are no markers, no flowers and no sign to commemorate what happened here, just outside Manchester.

Awaab Ishak died shortly before Christmas 2020. But the country where he lived only took notice of his death last November. As part of a court case relating to the death, it became widely known that Awaab’s parents, who are from Sudan, had been complaining for years about the damp walls and black mold in their apartment.

Their landlord, Rochdale Bouroughwide Housing, denied all responsibility, saying that the mold was likely the product of the renters' questionable "lifestyle" and should be painted over. That ignorance cost the two-year-old his life, as the court found. Awaab died due to "prolonged exposure to mold" in an apartment that was "not fit for human habitation." The furious coroner asked: "How in the UK in 2020 does a two-year-old child die from exposure to mold in his home?"

According to research conducted by the renter rights organization Shelter, such subpar conditions are far from uncommon in the country, with 2 million apartments allegedly in a similarly miserable and unhealthy condition. Yet they remain occupied, since in the vast majority of the cases, the only alternative would be homelessness. No other country in Europe faces such a severe housing shortage, and those most frequently affected are people with low incomes or no income at all. In England alone, hundreds of thousands of men and women are waiting for the council housing to which they are legally entitled – and more than 30,000 of them have been waiting for 10 years or more.

The situation is largely the result of the vast wave of privatizations set off by the administration of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, with municipalities across the country selling their housing inventory to investors. The loss of public housing accelerated again during the financial crisis in 2008/09.

Construction continued throughout the ensuing years, of course, but little heed was paid to what the country actually needed. Whereas London is now home to almost 3 million square meters of empty office space – the equivalent of 25 Westminster Palaces – countless people in Briton are competing tooth and nail for whatever apartment they can find, even if it is drafty and moldy.

Just as is the case in Blackpool, Knowsley and so many other places in the country, Rochdale – population 200,000 – also had little choice. City officials had to cut the budget by 183 million pounds in accordance with the austerity plans imposed by London following the financial crisis. Freehold Estate, with its regiments of housing blocks, was privatized in 2010.

One evening in winter, Terry Williamson – whose name has been changed for this story – is standing in front of a fenced-in playground at the estate with her 20-month-old son. Pointing to a soccer-ball sized patch of moss on the wall of a nearby building, she says: "That’s what it looks like in my kitchen, too." Nobody, she says, was surprised by the news of Awaab’s death. "We all live in the same holes. It’s disgusting."

She says she has complained to the landlord on several occasions – about the fact that the heating unit in the bedroom is becoming dislodged; about the newly installed window that is too small, leaving a gap in the wall. "Nobody cares," says Terry, adding that she would move out immediately if she had somewhere else to go.

She doesn’t think that Awaab’s death will change anything, either, even if a government minister from London showed up in Rochdale once the case started receiving publicity. Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove, a member of the Conservative Party, toured Freehold Estate last November, expressing his disgust at the situation and announced that landlords would henceforth be forced to make improvements. The regulations, he insisted, would soon be outlined in "Awaab’s Law."

Gove insisted that a lack of money would not be accepted as an excuse. "It is a basic responsibility of the local authority ... to make sure that people are in decent homes," he said. "All this what-aboutery. Do your job, man!"

The Ambulance Arrived 15 Hours Late

It was early on a Monday morning when David Wakeley stumbled and fell on his patio in the small town of Indian Queens. The 87-year-old, already weakened by prostate cancer, broke seven ribs and a hip. His family called the ambulance at 7:34 p.m.

When it still hadn’t arrived after several hours, Wakeley’s son used tarps, a toy soccer goal and three umbrellas to shelter his father, who was still in too much pain to move, from the wind and rain. He emptied his father’s catheter several times during the night – until the paramedics finally arrived on Tuesday morning, 15-and-a-half hours after the first call went out.

The images of Wakeley’s makeshift shelter triggered widespread anger in the UK. But not for long. It was quickly replaced by anger over similar cases across the country as winter began. Images of ambulances lined up in front of countless hospitals where every single bed was occupied; reports of nurses mounting IKEA hooks on the walls in hospital hallways to be able to administer IV drips to patients; photos of a three-year-old suffering from scarlet fever and croup who finally fell asleep on plastic chairs in the waiting room, 22 hours after her parents had first called the ambulance and five hours after she had finally made it to the hospital.

The media has been rife with such reports in recent months. The National Health Service (NHS), an element of Britain’s identity on par with the BBC and the Premier League, is sinking into chaos. In December, heart attack patients were forced to wait an average of 93 minutes for the paramedics to arrive – a record. Some 54,000 hospital patients had to be parked in hallways because there were no free beds – a record. Experts believe that there are hundreds of preventable deaths in the country each week – you guessed it, a record.

Government ministers insist that the pandemic is to blame, but at most, that is only half true. Even long before 2020, London had been cutting the NHS budget, and the number of hospital beds in the country was falling. Britain spends 21 percent less on healthcare than France, and 39 percent less than Germany.

Once Brexit became reality, the country experienced an exodus of workers from other EU countries that affected all industries – including the NHS. Today, around a tenth of all healthcare jobs are unfilled. And those who are still working in the industry are at the ends of their ropes.

One of them is Kim Gordon. It’s an ice-cold Tuesday in February, and Gordon is standing on Headley Way in Oxford holding a to-go cup of coffee and a protest poster. Every few seconds, she waves at trucks, buses and cars that honk at her in encouragement. Around a hundred meters behind her is the vast, gray structure of John Radcliffe Hospital, where the photo of the young, scarlet fever patient on plastic chairs was taken. The hospital is considered to be one of the best in Britain, but today, many of its workers are out on strike.

Gordon, 56, has been working as a nurse for 39 years, and can still remember times when it was difficult to find a job in the field. "Today, people are leaving in droves. They’re already stressed before they even start."

She says she understands quite well why that is. For at least the last 10 years, the NHS has been consistently going downhill. "We haven’t been taking lunch breaks for a long time. We work 10 hours or more at a time and still only manage to do the bare minimum." If there are any beds available at all, they’re only for the direst cases, she says, and there is a shortage of important drugs. "Allegedly because of Brexit," Gordon says. During the pandemic, she says, she and several of her colleagues were even assigned tasks normally taken care of by doctors. "But of course without paying us even a penny more."

But this strike, the first one she’s ever participated in, is about more than just money for her, says Gordon. It’s about a vital profession, about her patients, and about the future. "There’s something rotten here," she says. "Nothing is as it used to be."

The longer she speaks, the more it seems as though she’s actually talking about the entire country. A country in which the famous wartime propaganda maxim "Keep Calm and Carry On" – one which tourists still like to take home on souvenir mugs – is no longer really a serious option for an increasing number of Britons.

It is a country which, thanks to its universities, its thinkers and its cultural importance, has so many opportunities, yet which makes so desperate little out of them. And that is mostly due to the fact that for decades, it has been essentially standing still, seeking its salvation in the very financial industry that collapsed so spectacularly 15 years ago, creating a situation in which billions were squandered – billions which are still lacking today.

This country was already on its knees before Brexit, before the endless phase of political trench warfare and before the pandemic.

And now, it seems as though it has dialed 999 and is waiting in vain for the paramedics to show up.

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RS-24 Yars ballistic missile system at a military parade on Red Square, 2016 / (photo credit: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/WWW.KREMLIN.RU) 7 Editing by Germán & Co

US urges NATO vigilance for signs Russia could use nuclear weapon in Ukraine

Putin denies having any intention of employing nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

By REUTERS, Published: APRIL 19, 2023 

The US and its NATO allies must remain alert for signs Russian President Vladimir Putin could use a tactical nuclear weapon in a "managed" escalation of his war in Ukraine, the second-highest US diplomat said on Tuesday.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman issued the warning during the opening session of an annual NATO arms control conference that was being held in North America for the first time since its inception in 2004.

"We have all watched and worried that Vladimir Putin would use what he considers a non-strategic tactical nuclear weapon or use some demonstration effect to escalate, but in an managed risk escalation," Sherman said. "It is very critical to remain watchful of this."

Putin's March 25 announcement that Russia is preparing to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus "is his effort to use this threat in a managed way," Sherman said.

Tactical nuclear weapons are designed for battlefield gains or for use against limited military targets.

Ukrainian serviceman reacts as he throws a grenade during a training, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Donbas region, Ukraine April 8, 2023. (credit: Yan Dorbronosov/Reuters)

Russia denies intending to use nuclear weapons

Putin denies having any intention of employing nuclear weapons in Ukraine, where his forces for months have been bogged down in fierce fighting that has been costly for both sides.

Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine and NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, provided a staging ground for part of the Russian force that invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in a failed bid to overrun the country.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who joined Sherman in opening the conference, called Putin's plan to place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus part of a years-long pattern of "dangerous, irresponsible nuclear rhetoric" that intensified with "the brutalization of Ukraine."

The alliance, he said, is "monitoring very closely what they (Russia) are doing."

Sherman said the United States would continue to "downgrade" intelligence for sharing with NATO's other 30 members "so that everyone knows...where we stand."

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Image: NYT, Editing by Germán & Co

India Is Passing China in Population. Can Its Economy Ever Do the Same?

India has a young, vast work force that is expanding as China’s ages and shrinks. But the country’s immense size also lays bare its enormous challenges.

An auto rickshaw factory in Aurangabad, India, on Tuesday.Credit...Atul Loke for The New York Times

NYT By Mujib Mashal and Alex Travelli Reporting from New Delhi, April 19, 2023

India’s leaders rarely miss a chance to cheer the nation’s many distinctions, from its status as the world’s largest democracy to its new rank as the world’s fifth-largest economy, after recently surpassing Britain, its former colonial overlord. Even its turn this year as host of the Group of 20 summit is being celebrated as announcing India’s arrival on the global stage.

Now, another milestone is approaching, though with no fanfare from Indian officials. The country will soon pass China in population, knocking it from its perch for the first time in at least three centuries, data released by the United Nations on Wednesday shows.

With size — a population that now exceeds 1.4 billion people — comes geopolitical, economic and cultural power that India has long sought. And with growth comes the prospect of a “demographic dividend.” India has a work force that is young and expanding even as those in most industrialized countries, including China, are aging and in some cases shrinking.

But India’s immense size and lasting growth also lay bare its enormous challenges, renewing in this latest spotlight moment a perennial, if still uncomfortable, question: When will it ever fulfill its vast promise and become a power on the order of China or the United States?

“The young people have a great potential to contribute to the economy,” said Poonam Muttreja, the executive director of the Population Foundation of India. “But for them to do that requires the country to make investments in not just education but health, nutrition and skilling for employability.”

There also need to be jobs. That’s a longstanding deficiency for a top-heavy and at times gridlocked economy that must somehow produce 90 million new jobs before 2030, outside agriculture, to keep employment rates steady. Even in the years immediately before the pandemic, India was falling far short of that pace.

In China, a shrinking and aging population will make it harder to sustain economic growth and achieve its geopolitical ambitions to surpass the United States. But in previous decades, when it was still growing, it found its way to transformative growth through export-driven manufacturing, like smaller East Asian countries did before it.

India has yet to be able to replicate that formula or to come up with one of its own that can achieve more than incremental gains.

India’s infrastructure, while vastly improved from where it stood a few decades ago, remains far behind China’s, hindering foreign investment, which has stagnated in recent years. Another major problem is that only one in five Indian women are in the formal work force, among the lowest rates anywhere and one that has actually declined as India has gotten more prosperous. Apart from quashing the aspirations of the country’s hundreds of millions of young women, keeping them out of formal jobs acts as a terrible brake on the economy.

“In terms of education, employment, digital access and various other parameters, girls and women do not have equal access to life-empowering tools and means as the boys and men have,” Ms. Muttreja said. “This needs to change for India to truly reap the demographic dividend.”

India’s economy has been growing much faster than its population for a generation, and the proportion of Indians living in extreme poverty has plummeted. Yet most Indians remain poor by global standards. To enter the top 10 percent by income, an Indian need make only about $300 a month. Famines are a thing of the past, but more than a third of all children are malnourished.

The country’s economic shortfalls, which have bred fierce competition even for the lowest-level jobs and stoked impatience among an aspirational Indian middle class, bring the risk of instability as dreams and realities diverge.

The rate of development across the huge country remains widely unequal, with some Indian states akin to middle-income nations and others struggling to provide the basics. The distribution of resources is increasingly becoming a tense political issue, testing India’s federal system.

When Gayathri Rajmurali, a local politician from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, found herself in India’s north for the first time this year, the disparity shocked her. “The north, they are behind 10 to 15 years to our places,” she said, pointing to indicators like basic infrastructure and average income.

And then there is the combustible environment created by the Hindu-first nationalism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, as his support base has sped up a century-old campaign to reshape India’s pluralist democratic tradition and relegate Muslims and other minorities to second-class citizenship. Demographic numbers are part of the political provocation game, with right-wing leaders often falsely portraying India’s Muslim population of 200 million as rising sharply in proportion to the Hindu population as they call on Hindu families to have more children.

Mr. Modi and his lieutenants say India is heading in only one direction: Up. They point to the undeniable gains in a country that has quadrupled the size of its economy within a generation.

Among major economies, India’s is projected to be the fastest-growing this year, with the World Bank expecting it to expand 6.3 percent in the new fiscal year after a sharp downturn early in the pandemic. A rapid increase in public investment is still improving the country’s lagging infrastructure. It has multiple dazzling tech start-up scenes and a technologically savvy middle class, and its unique system of digital public goods is lifting up the marginalized. Its culture, from popular films to a rich tradition of music, will only grow in influence as it expands its reach to new audiences.

And now it has an enviable demographic profile, with people in their most economically productive years represented in the largest numbers. While China’s extended “one-child policy” has resulted in a steep decline in population that could put dire strain on its economy, similar extreme measures in India, like forced sterilization, were short-lived.

Instead, India addressed its fears of overpopulation and reduced the growth rate through more organic and gradual ways, including serious efforts to promote contraception and smaller families. As mass education has spread, especially among girls and women, the fertility rate has dipped to just above the level required to maintain the current population size.

And India is increasingly looking to capitalize on China’s economic and diplomatic difficulties to become a higher-end manufacturing alternative — it is now producing a small share of Apple’s iPhones — and a sought-after geopolitical partner and counterweight.

“India’s time has arrived,” Mr. Modi recently declared.

Parallels

As India passes China in population — the new U.N. figures show that India has surpassed mainland China and will move past the mainland and Hong Kong combined next year — the two countries are estranged, in part over a series of clashes on their shared Himalayan border.

But not long ago, Mr. Modi saw China as a nation much like his own, striving to reclaim lost glory and a fairer place in the new world order, with lessons to offer about the pursuit of prosperity.

As a state and national leader, he has met with Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, at least 18 times — they have shared fresh coconuts as well as a seat on a swing and many waterfront and garden strolls. Beyond Mr. Modi’s penchant for the strongman power that is typical of China’s one-party rule, analysts say the Indian leader was looking to Beijing for something more fundamental: solutions to the problems posed by a huge population.

The two nations share several historical parallels. The last time they traded places in population, in the 18th century or earlier, the Mughals ruled India and the Qing dynasty was expanding the borders of China; between them they were perhaps the richest empires that had ever existed. But as European powers went on to colonize most of the planet and then industrialized at home, the people of India and China became among the world’s poorest.

As recently as 1990, the two countries were still on essentially the same footing, with a roughly equal economic output per capita. Since then, China has shaken the world by creating more wealth than any other country in history. While India, too, has picked itself back up in the three decades since it liberalized its economy, it remains well behind in many of the most basic scales.

Today, China’s economy is roughly five times the size of India’s. The average citizen of China has an economic output of almost $13,000 a year, while the average Indian’s is less than $2,500. In human-development indicators, the contrast is even sharper, with infant mortality rates much higher in India, life expectancy lower and access to sanitation less prevalent.

The divergence, analysts say, comes down largely to China’s central consolidation of policy power, serious land reform, an earlier start in opening up its economy to market forces starting in the late 1970s, and its single-minded focus on export-led growth. China took the first-mover advantage and then compounded its dominance as it pursued its plans relentlessly.

India started opening its quasi-socialist economy nearly a decade later. Its approach remained piecemeal, constrained by tricky coalition politics and the competing interests of industrialists, unions, farmers and factions across its social spectrum.

“There is that element where China is a natural role model — not for its politics, but for the sheer efficiency,” said Jabin Jacob, a professor of international relations and governance studies at Shiv Nadar University near New Delhi.

The world now has a radically different power structure than it did in 1990. China has already made itself the world’s factory, all but closing off any path India could take to competitive dominance in export-driven manufacturing.

A “Make in India” campaign, inaugurated by Mr. Modi in 2014, has been stuttering ever since. Wage costs are lower in India than in China, but much of the work force is poorly educated, and the country has struggled to attract private investment with its restrictive labor laws and other impediments to business, including lingering protectionism.

To become as rich as China, economists say, India needs to either transform its development model radically — doing whatever it takes to become a center for globalized light manufacturing — or chart a path no other country has tried before.

Where India has found success is in the higher-value range of services. Companies like Tata Consultancy Services have become world leaders, while plenty of multinational firms like Goldman Sachs have more of their global staff working from India than anywhere else in the world.

But service-sector growth can go only so far in reaping India’s promise of a demographic dividend, or blunt the peril of an unemployment crisis. Hundreds of millions of people can’t find jobs or are underemployed in work that pays too little. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, for example, 35 percent of university graduates are estimated to be unemployed, unable to find work commensurate to their credentials.

Nowhere is the competition for jobs clearer than at the coaching centers that train young Indians for the employment entrance exams at government agencies. These jobs are still coveted as private sector work remains limited and less stable.

Dhananjay Kumar, who runs a coaching center in Bihar, India’s poorest state and its youngest, with a median age of 22, estimated that 650,000 students will apply for just 600 or 700 jobs in the national civil service this year. The civil service is a tiny part of the work force, but it is prestigious — in part because it comes with job security for life. Most applicants spend years, and a big chunk of their family’s savings, and still fail to make the cut.

Mr. Kumar’s own parents worked on a small farm and never learned to read or write. After excelling in school, he trained for the civil service exams but ended up landing work overseas, at Lloyds Bank in Britain, after learning computer coding along the way.

He sees the irony in his current business endeavor, training others for a line of work that did not pan out for himself.

“Here there is no enterprise, no companies,” Mr. Kumar said. For any young person, “the question comes, ‘What next? What can I do?’”

Models

The lessons Mr. Modi is taking from China are most apparent in his push for infrastructure development, investing heavily in highways, railways and airports to improve supply chains and connectivity.

India has quintupled its annual spending on roads and railways during Mr. Modi’s nine years in power. In some weeks, he has been able to preside over ribbon cuttings at a new airport, a new highway and a new rail service.

But, analysts and critics say, what also drew him to Beijing was his aspiration for something approaching authoritarian power. Mr. Modi’s firm grip over the country’s democratic pillars at the expense of the opposition — highlighted by the recent ouster from Parliament of his most famous adversary, Rahul Gandhi — has pushed the country closer to a one-party state.

As Mr. Modi has boxed in opponents, cowed the press and overwhelmed independent elements of civil society, his government has lashed out at expressions of concern from abroad as evidence of a colonial plot to undermine India or a lack of understanding of India’s “civilizational” approach — both elements that diplomats had long heard in China’s own defensiveness.

All the while, the increasing militancy of his Hindu nationalist supporters, as arms of the state hang back and give perpetrators a free pass, exacerbates India’s religious fault lines and clashes that threaten to disrupt India’s rise.

The perpetual potential for conflagration was on display in recent weeks in episodes of violence across half a dozen states, particularly in West Bengal in the country’s east, as celebrations of the birthday of the Hindu deity Ram coincided with Ramadan.

Even as the state hosted events to celebrate India’s G20 presidency, violence there raged for days as Hindu and Muslim groups clashed, with the police shutting down the internet and carrying out marches to quell the clashes.

In Bihar, a third of those detained in connection with the violence were teenagers.

Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary, argued that India would in the end resist further centralization of power and remain democratic. That, he said, is the only way to keep India intact as a wildly diverse nation across languages, religions and caste distinctions.

“The very plurality of the country is like a safety valve,” he said.

As India’s democracy has eroded, Western powers have remained largely silent, prioritizing trade deals and courting India as a security ally. But deep down, diplomats say, there is a growing discomfort. Increasingly, many countries are drawing a distinction between engaging with India on issues such as trade and embracing India as a partner with shared values.

That could pose a problem for an India whose appeal as an alternative to China is in part a reflection of its position as the world’s largest democracy — a distinction that Mr. Modi lauds regularly even as he tightens his grip on power.

It is uncertain how much this moment, geopolitically and demographically, will turn into a lasting pivot toward India, bringing with it expanded economic opportunity for its vast work force.

Even as India tries to align its growing technological and economic capacity to capitalize on the Western tensions with China, it is determined to stick to its neutrality and maintain a balancing act between the United States and Russia. There is also the question of whether the West’s shift from China, the linchpin of the global economy, is a temporary recalibration or a more fundamental one.

In the end, Mr. Saran sees a tremendous opportunity.

“China took advantage of a favorable geopolitical moment to really transform itself by having access to technology, to capital, to markets led by the United States. It took advantage of that to build itself up,” Mr. Saran said. “This could be that moment for India.”

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Beijing made clear its ambition to deploy advanced drones in 2019 when two jet-black drones were paraded through Tiananmen Square. Few analysts considered the drones fully operational at the time. (Greg Baker/AFP/) / Editing by Germán & Co

China readies supersonic spy drone unit, leaked document says

THE DISCORD LEAKS | China’s cutting-edge drone could give it a surveillance advantage during a possible military confrontation over Taiwan

TWP by Christian Shepherd, Vic Chiang, Pei-Lin Wu and Ellen Nakashima April 18, 2023 

Beijing made clear its ambition to deploy advanced drones in 2019 when two jet-black drones were paraded through Tiananmen Square. Few analysts considered the drones fully operational at the time. (Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

The Chinese military could soon deploy a high-altitude spy drone that travels at least three times the speed of sound, according to a leaked U.S. military assessment, a development that would dramatically strengthen China’s ability to conduct surveillance operations.

A secret document from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which has not previously been reported, shows the Chinese military is making technological advances that could help it target American warships around Taiwan and military bases in the region.

The document features satellite imagery dated Aug. 9 that shows two WZ-8 rocket-propelled reconnaissance drones at an air base in eastern China, about 350 miles inland from Shanghai. The drones are a cutting-edge surveillance system that could help China gather real-time mapping data to inform strategy or carry out missile strikes in a future conflict.

The assessment says the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had “almost certainly” established its first unmanned aerial vehicle unit at the base, which falls under the Eastern Theater Command, the branch of the Chinese military responsible for enforcing Beijing’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan.

The Washington Post obtained the assessment of the WZ-8 program from a trove of images of classified files posted on Discord, a group chat service popular with gamers, allegedly by a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

The Defense Department declined to comment. China’s Ministry of National Defense did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Other documents in the trove detail a number of disclosures about Chinese spying and military modernization, including intelligence that revealed the existence of additional Chinese spy balloons and an assessment that Taiwan is ill-prepared to prevent early Chinese air superiority during an invasion.

This image is part of the leaked classified material that was circulated in a Discord chatroom and obtained by The Washington Post. The Post informed the Defense Department that this imagery would be published with this story. A document, marked secret, highlights capabilities and notional flight paths of China's supersonic reconnaissance drone, along with satellite images of its home base at Liuan Airfield. (Obtained by Washington Post)

This latest revelation about the advancement comes as intensifying military aggression around Taiwan has heightened concern about a Chinese invasion on the self-governed island democracy.

CIA Director William J. Burns has said Chinese leader Xi Jinping wants the PLA to be capable of seizing Taiwan by 2027, although he added that this does not mean Xi will order an attack at that time.

Taiwan highly vulnerable to Chinese air attack, leaked documents show

Beijing introduced the WZ-8 drones in 2019 when two of the jet-black aircraft were paraded past Tiananmen Square during celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Communist Party-run People’s Republic of China. Few analysts considered the drones fully operational at the time.

Also included in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s assessment are possible flight paths for the drone as well as for the twin-engine H6-M Badger bomber used to launch it. After taking off from its home air base, the warplane would fly to just off China’s east coast before releasing the stealthy drone, which could then enter Taiwanese or South Korean airspace at a height of 100,000 feet and fly three times the speed of sound. The document does not detail how the drone is propelled but says “engine features are primarily associated with rocket fuel.”

A map of projected routes, labeled “not necessarily authoritative,” suggests ways the drone’s “Electro-optical” cameras and sensors could gather intelligence on Taiwan’s main island and the western side of South Korea including Seoul, the capital city. The use of synthetic aperture radar would allow it to map territory at night and foggy weather.

The drone’s primary use won’t be against Taiwan but against the United States and its military bases in the Pacific, said Chi Li-pin, director of the aeronautical systems research division at the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Taiwan’s military-run weapons developer. “It’s a weapon for anti-access and area denial,” he said.

Chi added that the aircraft does not currently appear to be designed to launch attacks, but he noted modifications could allow it to conduct strikes in future. “It is difficult to detect and intercept. The existing U.S. air-to-air weapons aren’t good enough,” he said.

Dean Cheng, a nonresident senior fellow with the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, said the disclosure shows China is developing a capability to monitor the entire Indo-Pacific region. “This is not just aimed at the United States or South Korea,” said Cheng, who had not seen the documents. “Japan has to worry about it. India has to worry about it. All Southeast Asia has to worry about it.”

China, he noted, is creating a range of high-tech systems for military use — from hypersonic weapons that can use drone reconnaissance for anti-ship purposes to antisatellite weapons that they could use to try to blind the United States. “Individually, none of these things are game-changers,” he said. “Taken together, we’re looking at a PLA that is developing a reconnaissance strike complex: Find the enemy, hit the enemy, kill the enemy.”

Leaked secret documents detail up to four additional Chinese spy balloons

The airfield described in the document as “Liuan” appears to be a base in Dushan County of Lu’an city, according to coordinates in the document. (The first Chinese character in Lu’an is often pronounced ‘liu’ but it is ‘lu’ in this instance.)

It was originally built in 1970, part of leader Mao Zedong’s campaign to move crucial industries and military installations into mountainous regions, prompted after relations with the Soviet Union soured and left China’s communist leadership feeling vulnerable to attack. The hangars of the original air base, known then as the 8301 airfield, were burrowed into the hillside and had steel-plated doors that were 12 inches thick, according to Chinese state media.

A review of satellite imagery publicly available on Google Earth and provided to The Post by Planet Labs shows the base has expanded multiple times in recent years, with at least 18 new structures constructed after August 2020. Beginning in late February 2022, new, significantly wider thoroughfares that lead into the hills south of the runway were constructed. In some places, the new clearing is about 130 feet wide.

A satellite image taken on April 17 shows the expansion of an air base in the Chinese city Lu'an. (Planet Labs)

Enthusiasts who use open-source material to track the Chinese air force believe the base is home to a regiment of the Eastern Theater’s 10th bomber division, the branch most likely to conduct air attacks if China launches a full-scale assault on Taiwan.

Joseph Wen, a Taipei-based independent analyst who tracks military installations in China, says that the base was abandoned for years. It was even used as a filming location for a patriotic action film about the Sino-Japanese War.

But there have been clear signs since 2019 that the base has been brought back into service. Wen has tracked a flurry of construction activity, included widening the paths that lead to the southern cavern entrance to nearly 130 feet. The wingspan of the bomber plane used to launch the drone is 108 feet.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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German Economy Minister Robert Habeck attends a news conference to present a planned reform to the law on householding heating in Berlin, Germany, April 19, 2023. REUTERS/Christian Mang

German cabinet approves bill to phase out oil and gas heating systems

At a press conference, Economy Minister Robert Habeck assured reporters that the finance was guaranteed. Habeck declined to provide an estimate of the cost to the government, only saying that it would be "modest."

Reuters by Riham Alkousaa, and Markus Wacket, 

Berlin's ruling coalition last month agreed that almost all newly installed heating systems in Germany should run on 65% renewable energy from 2024, both in new and old buildings.

The plan is part of Germany's ambition to become climate neutral by 2045 as the construction sector was responsible for 112 million tonnes of greenhouse emissions last year or 15% of the country's emissions.

Houses could also use heat pumps that run on renewable electricity, district heating, electric heating or solar thermal systems as acceptable alternatives to fossil fuel heating, according to the bill, which was seen by Reuters.

The policy has met resistance from within Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition, with critics calling it too costly and a burden on low- and medium-income households and tenants.

Such a shift could cost Germans around 9.16 billion euros ($10 billion) annually until 2028, the draft bill showed. The costs would fall to 5 billion from 2029 as Berlin expects renewable energy expansion and a ramp up of heating pumps production to make the switch cheaper.

The government will offer a subsidy of 30% for residential properties occupied by owners and 10% extra if the owners opt for an earlier climate-friendly heating switch than required by law, regardless of the household income.

Homeowners who receive income-related welfare benefits could get 20% extra subsidy for the switch.

The money will come from the Climate and Transformation Fund, a supplementary budget to push green investments, with some 180 billion euros earmarked for 2023 to 2026.

"The financing is secured," Economy Minister Robert Habeck told journalists in a news conference presenting the bill. Habeck declined to give a figure of how much this would cost the government but the sum would be "moderate".

The bill gives some exemptions, for instance for homeowners who are over 80 years old and living in hardship.

Those who violate the new rules face a fine of 5,000 euros, said the draft law, which will be now be debated in parliament.

Germany's push to phase out gas in heating became more urgent after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine prompted Berlin to halt Russian fossil fuel imports.

Heating uses up more than 40% of Germany's annual gas consumption as almost half of the country's 41 million households heat with natural gas while almost 25% use heating oil.

"We're starting comparatively late with this. Other countries have done this earlier," Habeck said, citing the heating sector in Scandinavian countries that are much less reliant on fossil fuel to keep their homes warm.

The bill means Germany would have to shut down more than 90% of its 500,000-km (310,685-mile) gas distribution network in the next 20 years, a study by Agora think-tank showed on Tuesday.

Around 78% of Germans are against the planned law, a survey by Forsa pollster published by ntv and RTL broadcasters showed on Wednesday. About 62% of those surveyed expect heating bills to rise after a switch to renewables, the poll showed.

Germany's association of local utilities, VKU, said the law was an "emotional roller coaster" as the time given for the changes it required was too short.

"The deadlines should therefore be extended. At least transitional periods are urgently needed," VKU said in a statement.

Environmental group Greenpeace called the bill a "milestone" for climate protection in Germany, and was long "overdue".

"In this way, Germany can achieve the climate protection goals in the future, which the building sector has exceeded for three years," it said.

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News round-up, April, 18, 2023

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Most read…

Covid Emerged as Chinese Lab Faced Biosafety Issues, Senate Republican Study Finds

Report says vaccine research, other ‘circumstantial evidence’ point to laboratory leak as source of pandemic.

WSJ By Warren P. Strobel and Michael R. Gordon, April 17, 2023 

What Dominion Has to Prove in Its Case Against Fox News

Did the hosts of the country’s most popular cable news network know that Trump’s lies about the election were untrue?

The New Yorker by Clare Malone, April 17, 2023

Analysis: Norway crude mops up in Europe as Russia's Urals heads east

The EU embargo imposed in December on Russian seaborne oil imports has allowed other oil-producing countries to enter Europe. It is now the primary raw material for refineries in Germany, Poland, and Finland.

Reuters editing by Germán & Co

India and China snap up Russian oil in April above 'price cap'

The latest data from Refinitiv Eikon suggest that Russian Urals oil cargo loaded in the first half of April is mostly heading to India's and China's ports.

Reuters

The power of a volcanic eruption: This one was bigger than any U.S. nuclear blast

A new study estimated the Tonga volcanic explosion was 15 megatons, equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT

TWP by Kasha Patel, Updated April 14, 2023 

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“We’re living in a volatile world…

it’s easy to get distracted by things like changeable commodity prices or a shortage of solar panels. But this wouldn’t be true to our purpose – we can’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our end goal; said Andres Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

A campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, in 2020.
PHOTO: HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Editing by Germán & Co

Covid Emerged as Chinese Lab Faced Biosafety Issues, Senate Republican Study Finds

Report says vaccine research, other ‘circumstantial evidence’ point to laboratory leak as source of pandemic.

WSJ By Warren P. Strobel and Michael R. Gordon, April 17, 2023 

WASHINGTON—A Chinese laboratory conducting advanced coronavirus research faced a series of biosafety problems in November 2019 that drew the attention of top Beijing officials and coincided with the Covid pandemic’s emergence, according to a new report being released by Senate Republicans on the pandemic’s origins.

The report, released Monday by a Republican member of the Senate Health Committee, a final version of which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, charts a confluence of unexplained events in that month and concludes the pandemic more likely began from a lab accident than naturally, via an animal infecting humans.

Based on the work of a team of specialists, the 300-page document draws on open source reporting, including medical studies, scientific journals and numerous Chinese government documents.

It estimates that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid, first emerged between Oct. 28 and November 10, 2019—weeks earlier than the Chinese government’s timeline and close to that of an earlier assessment from the U.S. intelligence chief. 

White House Says U.S. Not Ready to Reach Consensus on Covid Origins

A Chinese researcher affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army apparently began work on a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in November 2019, the report says, citing the time needed for research that went into filings for a patent in February 2020. It notes that November 2019 is “before the known outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic” and suggests some in China had earlier knowledge of the virus.

Around the same time, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, in the Chinese city where the pandemic began, put unusual emphasis on raising its biological safety protocols, according to the report. Steps included a visit from Beijing by a high-ranking biosafety official, remedial biosafety training courses for staff and urgent measures to procure new safety equipment.

After 18 months of research, the team that worked on the Senate report acknowledged it were unable to definitively pinpoint the source of the pandemic, which has killed 6.9 million people worldwide.

Many previous pandemics began when a pathogen-carrying animal or animals infected humans, known as zoonotic transmission. Some scientists say that is how the Covid pandemic began, including some who note that genetic sequences done in 2020 indicate raccoon dogs, which are susceptible to Covid-19, were present at a Wuhan market.

The Senate committee investigators examined both hypotheses. “The preponderance of circumstantial evidence, however, supports an unintentional research-related incident,” said the Senate report. 

“Even though there seems to be precedence for these events to be zoonotic, the evidence just doesn’t support it, and what evidence there is seems to be contrary,” said Robert Kadlec, a biodefense expert and former Health and Human Services assistant secretary in the Trump administration who oversaw the research.

Dr. Kadlec led a team that included an epidemiologist, biodefense experts, lawyers and a State Department China specialist. They were aided by an outside advisory group that included retired intelligence officials, three former directors of U.S. national laboratories, and others.

Arguments over Covid’s origins have become highly politicized between virologists and other scientists who cite evidence pointing to a natural spillover and some researchers, members of the national security community and politicians, especially Republicans, who cite other evidence that they say indicates a laboratory leak. The divisions, and a lack of transparency from Beijing, have hobbled efforts to determine how the virus first infected humans. Knowing the disease’s genesis, researchers on both sides say, might be critical in preventing or curbing future pandemics. 

“It is not beyond a shadow of a doubt, but there certainly is a preponderance of evidence that shows that this virus originated from an unintentional lab leak in Wuhan, China,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.), who is releasing the report. “We won’t be able to prove this in a criminal trial. But I do think there’s enough evidence, if this was a civil case, that we would convince a jury,” said Mr. Marshall, a member of the Health Committee.

The committee’s Democratic majority, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) didn’t respond to requests for comment.

China’s National Health Commission didn’t respond to a request for comment.

China has disputed that the virus could have leaked from one of its labs and has suggested it emerged outside China. Beijing has limited access by investigators with the World Health Organization and declined to turn over some information requested by the global public health agency.

The Senate report expands on an interim version last October that also backed a research-related source for the pandemic.

The office of Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines office recently sent an expanded intelligence report to Congress that gives more detail on why the Energy Department shifted its view to conclude, with low confidence, that the pandemic likely arose from a lab leak, people familiar with the classified document said. The Journal first reported the Energy Department change in February. 

The Energy Department reached its conclusion that the Covid-19 pandemic probably arose from a laboratory leak because of new intelligence about work being done with the virus at China’s Center for Disease Control in Wuhan, the people familiar said. 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also supports a lab leak with medium confidence, a judgment made as part of an assessment the Biden administration ordered in 2021. The FBI, however, focused on coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, not the China CDC, the people familiar said.

Four other U.S. intelligence agencies lean toward the natural-transmission theory with low confidence. Despite their differences, all of the intelligence agencies assess that the hypotheses that Covid-19 arose through a laboratory-associated incident or exposure to an infected animal are each “plausible,” Ms. Haines office said in an unclassified version of the 2021 assessment. 

The new Senate report looks at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, which has long been a target of lab-leak proponents because of the extensive coronavirus research being conducted there under biosafety conditions that Western experts consider inadequate.

“China’s progress in biosafety advanced slower than its aspirations for and research of highly pathogenic microorganisms,” the report says. “It is evident that the convergence of sophisticated coronavirus research, government demands for scientific breakthroughs and biosafety problems at the WIV appears to have peaked in the late-summer or early-fall of 2019.”

A senior Chinese biosecurity official traveled from Beijing to the Wuhan Institute on Nov. 19, 2019, bearing instructions from China’s leadership on the “complex and grave situation facing (bio) security work,” the report says, citing the WIV’s own reports. That session was immediately followed by a 2 ½-day remedial biosecurity training course for the WIV and other research institutes in Wuhan, it says.

On the day of the official’s visit, the report says, the WIV issued a short-notice procurement for an air incinerator to address “some problem or failure” with a biosafety autoclave, a machine designed to kill microorganisms via heat and pressure. That was one of numerous procurement notices and patent applications issued in 2019 to address apparent shortcomings in biosecurity, it says.

The report also cites an increase in cases of flulike illness in Wuhan in October and November 2019 that tested negative for influenza, drawing from Chinese epidemiological data and observations by the U.S. consulate in Wuhan. 

At that time, satellite imagery showed an increase in vehicles parked at major hospitals in the city, an indicator that has often been associated with higher hospital occupancy rates. These, the report says, may have been unrecognized initial cases of Covid-19, which didn’t burst into full view until December.

How does the report from the Senate Health Committee change your views on the origins of Covid-19? Join the conversation below.

In early November 2019 “all the guards go up” at the WIV, said Larry Kerr, a former HHS and intelligence official who served as an outside adviser to the study. That, he said, was followed by actions “you normally would not see in a laboratory environment.” 

The report says that Zhou Yusen, a scientist and member of the Chinese military, filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine on Feb. 24, 2020, a month after China locked down Wuhan because of the outbreak. 

The patent includes data from blood tests on mice done for vaccine-related experiments, the report said. It said that based on interviews with U.S. vaccine developers, the effort detailed in Dr. Zhou’s work “represents at least two to three months of vaccine development work.” Dr. Zhou later died of unknown causes.

Moderna Inc. began work on its Covid-19 mRNA vaccine in January 2020, once the genetic sequence of the new virus was published, and had initial batches made within weeks.

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Dominion says people at Fox News—including well-known hosts, like Sean Hannity, and the very top brass, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch—knew that the statements were false.Photograph by Mark Peterson / Redux

What Dominion Has to Prove in Its Case Against Fox News

Did the hosts of the country’s most popular cable news network know that Trump’s lies about the election were untrue?

The New Yorker by Clare Malone, April 17, 2023

Downtown Wilmington was already lousy with reporters when the news broke, on Sunday evening, that the Dominion v. Fox trial would be delayed by a day. That afternoon, in an office building across from the courthouse, I caught a glimpse of Michael Wolff—“journalist enfant terrible and New York media scenester”—who is rumored to be working on a book about Fox News, picking up his press pass. In the lobby of my hotel—where Dominion’s lawyers are said to be staying—the check-in line was filled with harried men in typical reporter uniforms of button-downs and slacks. Late-night lobby talk was about what time to wake up in order to secure a spot in the courtroom. All this, even though we knew there’d be no real action; the Wall Street Journal had even reported that settlement talks between Fox and Dominion were taking place, and that Dominion seemed to have softened its position. (The company is apparently not seeking lost-profit damages, which Fox said would lower Dominion’s claim, bringing it closer to a billion dollars in damages, as opposed to the $1.6 billion that Dominion has long contended it is due.)

A few things had already been squared away in Dominion v. Fox. One was that, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Fox had aired falsehoods about the voting-systems company, claiming that its machines had flipped votes to Joe Biden. In a summary judgment released on March 31st, Judge Eric Davis of the Delaware Superior Court agreed with Dominion’s lawyers, writing that “the evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that [it] is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.” The emphatic bold capitalization was the judge’s own, and the ruling was seen as a clear setback for Fox. Davis sent the case onward to a jury trial to determine whether the network had acted with “actual malice.”

Actual malice is the legal standard for defamation that was outlined in the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. In this case, Dominion must prove that Fox aired untruths “with reckless disregard”—which can be established if Dominion proves that Fox News “entertained serious doubts as to the truth of [the] publication” or if they had a “high degree of awareness of [its] probable falsity.” That’s a notoriously difficult standard to prove, since it requires some insight into the mind-set of the people or organization that put out defamatory information. And news outlets devote a great deal of time and resources to protect themselves from defamation suits.

Fox News certainly had the infrastructure in place to, theoretically, prevent outright lies from making it to air. The network has a fact-checking-and-research department, known as the Brain Room, and its prominent hosts are supported by teams of producers and editors. Its executives are looped into conversations about coverage. But, in the weeks leading up to the trial, a deluge of texts and e-mails from Fox executives, hosts, and show staff members, which was made public in discovery, revealed a corporate culture that seemed to prioritize appealing to an increasingly hard-right segment of its audience over the actual practice of journalism. “Getting creamed by CNN!” Rupert Murdoch wrote to Fox News’ C.E.O., Suzanne Scott, in the days after the network called the election for Joe Biden. “Guess our viewers don’t want to watch it.” The Fox star Tucker Carlson wrote to a producer that the network was “playing with fire” and risked losing the trust of its viewers. “With Trump behind it,” he wrote, “an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.” Such revelations led to a gleeful frenzy of coverage about the network, but now, in Wilmington, specific facts must be proven.

The actual-malice section of the Dominion brief gives a good idea of how the company’s courtroom strategy will play out. Dominion lists twenty instances of alleged defamation, which the lawyers say occurred across Fox’s Web site, social media, and six of its shows—“Lou Dobbs Tonight,” “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo,” “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” “Fox & Friends,” “Hannity,” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight”—and at the direction of people at Fox News who Dominion says knew that the statements were false and let them air anyway. Those people include not just well-known hosts but their producers, network executives, and the very top brass: Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the father-and-son duo that controls Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp.

The Murdochs’ decision-making power at Fox News has been a hotly contested pretrial subject. A pivotal contention made by Dominion is that the network aired lies about the voting-machine company with the implicit approval of Fox Corp’s most senior decision-makers. Parts of Rupert Murdoch’s own deposition seemed to support that argument; when asked if he could have ordered Fox News to keep Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell—the two lawyers for the Trump campaign who spread lies about Dominion on Fox shows—off the network, Murdoch said, “I could have, but I didn’t.” Last week, it was reported that Murdoch was expected to testify in the early days of the trial—an outcome that Fox News’ legal team had wanted to avoid. In March, Fox’s lawyers suggested that Murdoch shouldn’t have to testify, given covid concerns. Davis, the judge, rejected the request, noting that Murdoch, who is ninety-two, had recently announced both his fifth engagement (which reportedly lasted only two weeks) and travel plans to Los Angeles, Montana, London, and New York. “Don’t make me look like an idiot,” Davis told the Fox lawyers. (A Wilmington attorney who’s argued before Davis told NPR that the judge was a bit like Cool Hand Luke—“In court, he never shows any emotion, and I mean that in a good way”—so the harsh rebuke was notable.)

Reckless: Life and Love in an Underwater City

Then, in pretrial hearings last week, Davis excoriated Fox’s lawyers for failing to disclose key information in a timely fashion, including the fact that Rupert Murdoch is a corporate officer at Fox News. Fox’s defense attorneys have long argued that Murdoch, though a chair of Fox’s parent company, had little to do with the day-to-day running of the network. In light of the disclosure, Dominion’s lawyers claimed that they had been litigating under a false premise and that they should have been able to access more documents in discovery pertaining to Murdoch. Davis said that Fox’s lawyers have “a credibility problem” and that he would likely appoint a special master to investigate Fox’s handling of the discovery process; he also said that he had previously sought clarity about Murdoch’s role at Fox News and never heard back from their legal team. “This is very serious,” Davis said. “By the way, omission is a lie.” (Fox has since apologized for the confusion.)

Dominion’s lawyers also complained that they were still learning of pertinent information not from Fox but from media reports and from court filings in a separate case. According to the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple, Dominion cited an NPR report from last week that said Fox’s chief political anchor, Bret Baier, “repeatedly sought to devote an hour-long Sunday evening special following the 2020 elections to set out and debunk the leading myths bolstering Trump’s baseless claims of fraud,” but network executives never gave him a final answer on the pitch. Dominion reportedly told the judge that they had not received any documents from Fox related to this incident. Nor, they said, had Fox informed them of the existence of tapes of Giuliani speaking with Bartiromo, which have been cited in a harassment and toxic-work-environment lawsuit against Fox News filed by Bartiromo’s former producer, Abby Grossberg. Grossberg said that she had surrendered that evidence to Fox, but that it apparently hadn’t shown up in the discovery process for Dominion. (Fox said they “produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg” when they first learned of its existence.)

Grossberg, who is likely to appear as a witness for Dominion, is a curious figure in the whole saga. A former producer for Bartiromo, she is one of the individuals listed by Dominion as personally responsible for allowing defamatory statements on air. In recent weeks, Grossberg publicly claimed that Fox’s lawyers had coached her to give misleading answers in her deposition, including a statement that the show did not have an obligation to correct false information presented by a guest. Grossberg has since said that she “had been conditioned and felt coerced to give this response that simultaneously painted her in a negative light as a professional.” (Fox has called the claims of coaching Grossberg into making misleading statements “patently false.”) She told NBC’s Cynthia McFadden that she was “bullied,” and has generally framed her involvement as a case of sexist scapegoating to spare male higher-ups. But Grossberg’s own messages reveal that she was, at least occasionally, sympathetic to the election-fraud narrative. In texts with Bartiromo, she called the former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams a “lunatic” and said that former Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler had been too “timid” in talking about purported voter fraud. Grossberg shared a video of the former Trump national-security adviser Michael Flynn pushing fraud claims and wrote “he’s brilliant.” While Grossberg’s workplace allegations are genuinely alarming—routine antisemitism and liberal use of the C-word to describe women—she herself seemed at home in the Fox culture of being only loosely tethered to the truth.

Even without damaging witnesses like Grossberg, Fox was already hobbled going into the trial. Judge Davis has ruled that the network can’t argue that it covered the lies about Dominion because Trump’s fixation on supposed voter fraud made them newsworthy. Davis also said Fox couldn’t argue it was not liable because guests like Powell said the defamatory statements, not its own hosts. “It’s a publication issue, not a who-said-it issue,” he said, meaning, a news outlet bears the ultimate responsibility for what makes it onto air.

In a statement on Friday, Fox seemed to be positioning its defense under the banner of the First Amendment: “Dominion’s lawsuit is a political crusade in search of a financial windfall, but the real cost would be cherished first amendment rights.”A Fox spokesperson also pointed to data showing that the network’s ratings have been unaffected by the case and that Dominion had outperformed revenue forecasts for 2022, casting doubt on the company’s requested damages. It was, perhaps, an indication that the network has shifted its focus to mitigating its financial exposure in the case.

At 6:30 a.m. on Monday, there were already a dozen reporters and professional line-waiters sitting on a marble bench outside the court. Television crews were setting up their shots, with bright lights that made for a harshly artificial morning sun. Around 9 a.m., Davis—tan with very white hair and thin-rimmed glasses—walked into the courtroom. He spoke to two lawyers and nine or so rows of media. “This is not a press conference,” Davis said, “I don’t do that.” He spoke so quietly that the whole room seemed to lean in simultaneously, straining to hear him over their deafening typing. Wolff, seated in the first row of spectators, cupped his hands around his ears. “This is not unusual,” the judge said of the delay. Most trials lasting longer than two weeks—this one is scheduled for six—have some delay of one kind or another. He then sidebarred with the two attorneys, with white noise playing over a speaker so reporters couldn’t hear what was going on, and adjourned for the day. Barring a settlement, proceedings are set to start again at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. ♦

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A view of the Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea, January 7, 2020. Carina Johansen/NTB Scanpix/via REUTERS / Editing by Germán & Co

Analysis: Norway crude mops up in Europe as Russia's Urals heads east

The EU embargo imposed in December on Russian seaborne oil imports has allowed other oil-producing countries to enter Europe. It is now the primary raw material for refineries in Germany, Poland, and Finland.

Reuters editing by Germán & Co

MOSCOW, April 18 (Reuters) - The clear winner in the race to replace Russian oil at Europe's refineries is Norway's Johan Sverdrup crude, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and traders.

Johan Sverdrup was launched in 2019, making it a relative newcomer compared to Russia's Urals grade.

Initially sold mostly to Asia, an EU ban on Russian seaborne oil imports imposed in December has opened up the European market where the medium sour grade has become a primary feedstock for refiners in countries such as Germany, Poland and Finland.

It is now the Russians who have to pay for the longer voyages to Asia, where India and China continue to buy, while Johan Sverdrup has become one of the most desirable crudes in northwest Europe.

Johan Sverdrup and Urals are both medium-sour grades with high diesel yields, with the Norwegian grade very close in quality to its Russian competitor and a lower sulphur content.

European refiners import a wide variety of grades from around the world including sweet crude from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Africa, for example, for producing naphtha and gasoline.

"Johan Sverdrup has become a key element in Europe's oil industry, effectively replacing Urals as the medium sour grade of reference," said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst in Kpler.

Poland's imports of Johan Sverdrup via the port of Gdansk in March jumped to record of more than 8 million barrels, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Poland stopped receiving Russian oil in February, with top refiner PKN Orlen ending its only remaining supply contract with Tatneft.

PKN Orlen's Mazeikiu refinery in Lithuania is also ramping up Johan Sverdrup purchases, taking at least two cargoes this month totalling about 1.2 million barrels.

The grade also now accounts for at least a half of Finland's monthly oil imports, the Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Johan Sverdrup exports by country

Demand has supported Johan Sverdrup differentials on a free on board (FOB) basis which firmed shortly after the EU embargo on seaborne Urals, and jumped to a premium to dated Brent for a while in February, traders said.

PRODUCTION LIMIT

Norway's Equinor (EQNR.OL) can currently produce 720,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Johan Sverdrup but has said it would explore the possibility of raising output to 755,000 bpd.

While Europe boosts its buying, Johan Sverdrup shipments to Asia have fallen off sharply.

In 2021 Asian demand topped 100 million barrels versus just 2 million barrels shipped so far this year, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

Urals crude is taking up the slack in Asia, with sales increasing 10 fold in 2022 and further this year.

Urals sales in Asia have already matched half of last year's volume, pointing to record shipments in 2023, the data showed.

Some Russian crude still reaches Europe, as well. Bulgaria received an EU waiver to continue imports of Urals crude while Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic continue to import via the Druzhba pipeline.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Flue gas and steam rise out of chimneys and smokestacks of an oil refinery during sunset on a frosty day in the Siberian city of Omsk, Russia, February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko/Editing by Germán & Co

India and China snap up Russian oil in April above 'price cap'

The latest data from Refinitiv Eikon suggest that Russian Urals oil cargo loaded in the first half of April is mostly heading to India's and China's ports.

Reuters

MOSCOW, April 17 (Reuters) - India and China have snapped up the vast majority of Russian oil so far in April at prices above the Western price cap of $60 per barrel, according to traders and Reuters calculations.

That means the Kremlin is enjoying stronger revenues despite the West's attempts to curb funds for Russia's military operations in Ukraine.

A G7 source told Reuters on Monday the Western price cap would remain unchanged for now, despite pressure from some European Union countries, such as Poland, to lower the cap to increase pressure on Moscow.

The advocates of the cap say it reduces revenues for Russia while allowing oil to flow, but its opponents say it is too soft to force Russia to backtrack on its activities in Ukraine.

The latest data from Refinitiv Eikon suggest Russian Urals oil cargoes that loaded in the first half of April are mostly heading to India's and China's ports.

India accounts for more than 70% of the seaborne supplies of the grade so far this month and China for about 20%, Reuters calculations show.

Meanwhile, lower freight rates and smaller discounts for Urals against global benchmarks nudged the daily price of the grade back above the cap earlier in April from a period of trading below.

India and China have not agreed to abide by the price cap, but the West had hoped the threat of sanctions might deter traders from helping those countries buy oil above the cap.

Average discounts for Urals were at $13 per barrel to dated Brent on a DES (delivered ex-ship) basis in Indian ports and $9 to ICE Brent in Chinese ports, according to traders, while shipping costs were $10.5 a barrel and $14 a barrel respectively for loadings from Baltic ports to India and China.

That means the Urals price on a free on board (FOB) basis in Baltic ports, allowing about $2 per barrel of additional transport costs, has been slightly above $60 per barrel so far in April, Reuters calculations show.

Shipping costs have come down significantly in recent weeks as Russian port ice conditions eased and more tankers became available.

Freight rates for Urals cargoes loading in Baltic ports for delivery to India have eased to $7.5-$7.6 million from $8-$8.1 million two weeks ago, two traders said.

The cost of tanker shipment from Baltic ports to China was $10 million, down from nearly $11 million a couple of weeks ago, they added.

During winter, freight costs for Urals cargoes jumped above $12 million for both India and China.

Lower freight costs suggest Russian oil suppliers have secured enough vessels even given long distances, the traders said.

Meanwhile, output cuts announced by the OPEC+ group of oil producers at the start of April have also boosted values for various grades around the world, including Urals.

Urals prices in Indian ports had traded at a discount of $14-$17 per barrel to dated Brent on a DES basis in March, while the price at Chinese ports was around $11 per barrel against ICE Brent.

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Overview of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai volcano before the main eruption. (Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Technologies. EDITING BY GERMAN & CO

The power of a volcanic eruption: This one was bigger than any U.S. nuclear blast

A new study estimated the Tonga volcanic explosion was 15 megatons, equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT

TWP by Kasha Patel, Updated April 14, 2023 

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the 15-megaton blast as 15,000 tons. The article has been corrected.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai undersea volcano eruption in 2022 was larger than any natural explosion in the past century or even any U.S. nuclear explosion, according to a study released Friday in Science Advances. It rivals the massive Krakatau volcanic explosion near Indonesia in 1883 that took more than 36,000 lives, though the Tongan volcanic explosion in the southwest Pacific caused four deaths.

“The only way you can make an explosion of this size is with a hydrogen bomb,” said Sam Purkis, lead author of the study and marine geoscientist at the University of Miami. “This is way off the charts of anything” in human experience.

Using satellite data, field observations and drone mapping, the team created a simulation of the eruption and resulting tsunami waves to provide a new detailed look of the explosive event. They found tsunami waves reached heights of 45 meters (148 feet) on Tonga’s Tofua Island and up to 17 meters (56 feet) on Tongatapu, the country’s most populated island and site of its capital Nukuʻalofa. The study also showed why the tsunami was particularly damaging but how it could have been much worse.

Since the Jan. 15, 2022, eruption, researchers have uncovered several records reached during the event. It released the most water vapor into the atmosphere by a volcano on record, enough to fill 58,000 swimming pools, which may temporarily warm the climate in years to come. It set a world record for highest volcano plume in the satellite record, sending ash 36 miles high into the atmosphere, surpassing what many scientists had considered physically feasible. It triggered the fastest atmospheric waves ever observed at 720 mph, circling the planet at least six times.

Weeks after the eruption, co-author Shane Cronin from the University of Auckland and his colleagues visited the area to examine the damage on the ground. Climbing mountainsides and using drone imagery, they found downed trees and vegetation high along the coast.

“For the first time now, we can really confirm on the ground that this happened,” said Purkis, chief scientist at the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation that helped gather data of the underwater terrain for the model as well. “It’s an event which is unique in modern history.”

On Jan. 15, witnesses reported hearing two blasts shortly before 5 p.m. local in Nuku‘alofa, about 40 miles away from the submarine volcano. Plumes began rising like an umbrella over the island within 30 minutes. Despite the sounds and visible plume, Purkis said these two blasts were probably small and did not trigger any meaningful tsunami. Then, two more much louder booms were reported. This time, the blasts triggered damaging tsunami waves on the western coast and city center of Nuku‘alofa.

But then came the fifth — and most powerful — blast.

Running simulations and gauging pressure changes from broken windows on surrounding islands, the team estimated the strength of the last blast wave to be 15 megatons (equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT). That’s roughly equivalent to the largest nuclear test performed by the United States.

The last blast was so large that it physically displaced large amounts of seawater, creating the massive local tsunami. If you were theoretically at the center of the blast when it occurred, you would have then been standing on dry seafloor, Purkis said. The simulation suggests that one minute after the blast, the displaced wave was 85 meters high — “mind boggling and hard to believe,” he said. By the time it reached Tonga’s Tofua Island, the team’s ground observations showed that the wave was 45 meters high, although Purkis said that might be an underestimate.

The team found that the shallower waters toward the shore played an important part in slowing down and dampening the waves. As the water moves toward the shore, it drags along the sea floor and slows down. It’s the same reason big surfer waves further out in the ocean don’t knock us off our feet on shore. One by one, the waves from each blast slowed down as they reached the coral reef platforms but remained circling in the shallow water. But Purkis said the waves from the different blasts caught up with one another, prolonging the tsunami risk.

The most powerful blast, Purkis explained, was created by seawater infiltrating into the hot magma and exploding, created a steam-generated eruption. The first four blasts probably fractured the rocks, so that a huge quantity of water could infiltrate the magma chamber and create the incredibly large fifth blast.

While not addressed in this new study, other researchers have hypothesized what caused the series of blasts to occur. Volcanologist Melissa Scruggs and her colleagues propose a “magma hammer,” or magma rushing up and hitting the volcano, then dropping back down into the magma chamber several times. Scruggs said the sudden rise of magma was caused by a sudden drop of pressure, which was observed in the seismic record at the time of the largest eruption.

“This seismic signature isn’t common for volcanic eruptions, and has never been described before,” Scruggs, a researcher at University of California at Santa Barbara, said in an email. “This isn’t to say it’s never happened, just that our scientific instruments have never recorded such a signature.”

Scruggs also points out that the volcano started erupting in December, but scientists don’t know what initially triggered the beginning of the eruption. Purkis said, “This is just what volcanoes do.” He said they occasionally come to life, and magma starts moving around in the plumbing of the beast.

Co-author Dan Slayback said he was surprised at “simply how an event of such magnitude can appear with little apparent warning.” Smaller eruptions had been occurring since December 2021 but had slowed down by mid-January.

“I don’t think anyone particularly foresaw the big bang on the [Jan.] 15,” said Slayback, a research scientist at NASA. He called the event a 1-in-500-year eruption for this region.

Given the magnitude and duration of the event, Purkis said the death toll could have been a lot worse, as with Krakatau. Yet he credits a quick response from the community and a low number of tourists in the area because of the coronavirus pandemic. It also happened during the day when people were out and about. The main city in Tonga is also sheltered behind an island in a lagoon, which provided protection from an incoming tsunami.

“This was a very serious event, but won’t be remembered in the same way as Krakatau. But that’s a good thing,” Purkis said.

The study “did exceptional work moving the research on the 2022 local tsunami forward,” said coastal engineer Ignacio Sepulveda Oyarzun, who was not involved in the study. He commended the authors’ use of information from citizens, such as the report of blasts and plume timing and broken glass, to constrain the model.

“I did not know about the tsunamigenic potential of a possible fifth blast,” said Sepulveda Oyarzun, a professor at San Diego State University, who has been studying the mechanism of even farther-reaching tsunami waves from the volcanic eruption, which led to two deaths in Peru and damage as far away as California and New Zealand.

“The effort for understanding volcanic-induced tsunamis extend beyond Tonga, since 1883 for the Krakatau tsunami,” he said. “Ultimately, our goal is to clearly understand these tsunamis and to develop predicting tools which will be of great utility for early warning systems and community preparedness.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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News round-up, April, 17, 2023

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Most read…

Economy stumbled after banking crisis, stirring renewed recession fears

The White House sees resilience in labor market, dismisses concerns

TWP by David J. Lynch, April 16, 2023

How Europe Can Best Stand Up To China

Europe has a plan for dealing with China without betraying our interests. Unfortunately, the leaders of Germany, France and other countries have so far failed to adopt it.

A DER SPIEGEL Editorial By Georg Fahrion in Beijing

G7 ministers set big new targets for solar and wind capacity

As part of a commitment made last year to reach at least a "predominantly" decarbonized power sector by 2035, the countries are prioritizing "concrete and timely efforts" towards speeding the phase-out of "domestic coal power generation."

REUTERS by Katya Golubkova, and Yuka Obayashi/Editing by Germán & Co

Brazil's Lula discusses joint Russia war mediation with China and UAE

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the two countries and others should join a 'political G20' to try to end the war, and accused the West of prolonging the conflict.

Le Monde with AFP, published yesterday at 3:17 pm (Paris)

Russia's Gazprombank deepens ties with Indian banks for bilateral trade

Gazprombank is the third-largest lender in Russia and a crucial link in the country's energy trade.

REUTERS by Nidhi Verma, Editing by Germán & Co

Saudi Arabia, U.A.E. Scoop Up Russian Oil Products at Steep Discounts

Despite U.S. objections, petroleum-rich Gulf countries are capitalizing on cut-rate prices

TWSJ by  Benoit Faucon and Summer Said, April 17, 2023 

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“We’re living in a volatile world…

it’s easy to get distracted by things like changeable commodity prices or a shortage of solar panels. But this wouldn’t be true to our purpose – we can’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our end goal; said Andres Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

A strong U.S. job market has supported steady consumer spending in the face of higher interest rates. (Matt Rourke/AP) / Editing by Germán & Co

Economy stumbled after banking crisis, stirring renewed recession fears

The White House sees resilience in labor market, dismisses concerns

TWP by David J. Lynch, April 16, 2023

A strong U.S. job market has supported steady consumer spending in the face of higher interest rates. (Matt Rourke/AP)

The U.S. economy wobbled in the weeks following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, as consumers spent less, factories slowed their assembly lines and the nation’s bankers grew more cautious in making loans.

If those trends continue, the recession that many analysts have predicted for much of the past year will finally arrive in the coming months.

But throughout the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the $26 trillion U.S. economy has defied the odds, minting new jobs at a remarkable pace and avoiding the oft-predicted downturn. Like a prizefighter absorbing a punch, it may yet recover its balance and persevere.

The news on Friday, however, was not great. Retail sales fell for the second straight month, as Americans bought fewer cars, clothes and pieces of furniture. Manufacturing output dipped. And commercial bank lending rose only slightly after two weeks of declines. New business loans in March increased by just $30 billion, the smallest monthly gain since mid-2021, when the pandemic was gathering force, according to the Federal Reserve.

“I think it’s increasingly likely we’ll end up with some form of recession,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY Parthenon. “We’re seeing more and more evidence of a slowdown in economic activity.”

Global economy faces weakest growth patch since 1990s

Aftershocks from the recent banking turmoil make a recession more likely, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, told analysts Friday. The sudden failure of two U.S. banks and the takeover by a European rival of Credit Suisse, a global titan, left other institutions more cautious about extending credit.

“Obviously, there's going to be a little bit of tightening,” he said. “So I just look at that as a kind of a thumb on the scale. It just makes the finance conditions be a little bit tighter, increases the odds of a recession.”

That view is shared by Fed staff economists, who anticipated a “mild recession starting later this year,” according to minutes of the central bank’s March 21-22 meeting, which were released this month. Citing fallout from banking industry woes, Fed experts said the economy was slowing faster than they had anticipated in January.

Their forecast of continued softening was not enough to keep the Fed from raising interest rates again. Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell has said higher credit costs will reduce the pressure on prices by slowing business activity and cutting demand for labor.

The Fed has raised rates over the past year from near zero to almost 5 percent, its fastest such move since the early 1980s. So far, the labor market has been resilient, adding more than 1 million new jobs over the past three months and driving unemployment among African Americans to a historic low.

But as the full effects of higher interest rates make themselves felt, workers will pay the price. Employment in construction — among the industries most sensitive to credit costs — fell last month for the first time since the end of 2021.

Over the next year, the Fed anticipates the unemployment rate rising to 4.6 percent from the current 3.5 percent. Some economists worry the Fed will overdo its monetary tightening, just as more Americans are starting to enjoy the benefits of a full-employment economy.

“If we get a recession, it is the Fed’s fault,” said William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO. “There is nothing else on the horizon that gets us a recession.”

The economy has shrugged off earlier bouts of weakness, including in 2022 when it shrank for two consecutive quarters to open the year. New jobs remained abundant during that period and growth swiftly resumed.

Likewise, even as analysts mark down their expectations for corporate earnings this year, some businesses remain upbeat. At Delta Air Lines, executives told investors last week that they anticipate strong consumer travel demand this summer.

“We see strength in all of our core hubs,” said Glen Hauenstein, Delta’s president.

Heartland lawmakers push bans on Chinese purchases of American farmland

Economists at Goldman Sachs said Friday that they see just a 35 percent chance of recession in the next 12 months. The latest inflation report — showing prices rising at a 5 percent annual pace — means the Fed will probably raise interest rates at its May meeting and then pause, the bank said.

For the past three years, as the economy has weathered a global pandemic, war in Europe and the highest inflation in 40 years, forecasts have often missed the mark.

But so far this year, the stock market has been largely unfazed by recession fears. The S&P 500 index has gained more than 7 percent.

Biden administration officials also insist the economy is not flagging. In public appearances this month, officials said the banking system remained sound in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure; inflation is cooling; and the labor market is strong.

Latest crisis to hit U.S. economy illustrates the costs of complacency

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s real-time tracker pegs first-quarter growth at an annual rate of 2.5 percent.

“Recent economic indicators are not consistent with a recession or even a prerecession,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday.

The bond market, however, has been flashing a warning. Short-term bonds offer investors a higher yield, or interest rate, than do longer-term securities, suggesting that investors anticipate an eventual recession.

Friday’s report card on the nation’s factories also reflected weakening. Manufacturing output in March dropped 0.5 percent from February, with motor vehicle factories particularly hard hit. The dip suggests that U.S. production has gained little from China’s reopening, Capital Economics said in a client note.

The economy’s performance for the rest of this year hinges on two players: the consumer and the banks.

Consumer spending accounts for nearly 70 percent of the economy. For much of the pandemic, Americans stuck at home splurged on purchases of electronics, furniture, clothes and other goods. As the nation reopened for businesses, they began devoting more of their money to in-person experiences, such as restaurant dining and visits to movie theaters.

At first, government stimulus payments enabled consumers to accumulate $2.4 trillion in above-trend savings, according to Daco’s estimate. That pile of excess cash now is down to about $1.4 trillion and the share of consumers who are delinquent on their credit cards is rising, meaning the end of the consumption boom is drawing near.

Just when it will arrive is unclear. Despite the head winds, consumers have more money in their pockets as a result of the strong labor market. Inflation-adjusted disposable income has increased for eight consecutive months, its best streak in almost five years.

“A recession is still very far from inevitable,” said Jason Furman, who was President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser. “In the U.S., real incomes actually are growing even as consumers run out of excess savings. Labor earnings are rising in a way that can support consumption.”

No place to hide for global investors facing mounting political risks

The big worry now is how banks react to the turmoil that convulsed the industry after the March 10 collapse of SVB, followed two days later by the failure of another midsize institution, Signature Bank of New York.

The worst fears of an unchecked financial contagion have eased. The rush by depositors’ to move their money from similarly sized banks to one of the industry’s giants, such as JPMorgan Chase or Citigroup, has tapered off. And bank demand for emergency Fed loans fell for the fourth straight week, as worries about broader problems eased.

The economic damage from the banks’ missteps could prove more consequential.

Even before the crisis erupted, lenders had begun tightening their credit standards. In the weeks since the failures, commercial banks have cut back on lending.

In the last three weeks, commercial loans fell by more than $94 billion, according to Fed data. Much of that reflects a bookkeeping change related to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s seizure of the failed institutions. But about $34 billion probably reflects an actual drop in lending.

Small businesses already are feeling the first squeeze from the credit crunch. In March, 9 percent of business owners said loans were harder to obtain, the highest figure in several years, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. Credit is available but at interest rates around 8 percent.

Some tightening by banks would help the Fed fight inflation. But if banks tighten too much, economic growth could sink.

Investors expect the Fed to raise rates at its May meeting and then stop. The extent of any emerging credit crunch could determine whether the market is correct.

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French President Emmanuel Macron in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Foto:Thibault Camus / AFP / Editing by Germán & Co

How Europe Can Best Stand Up To China

Europe has a plan for dealing with China without betraying our interests. Unfortunately, the leaders of Germany, France and other countries have so far failed to adopt it.

A DER SPIEGEL Editorial By Georg Fahrion in Beijing

There it is, finally: a strategic blueprint on how Europe should deal with authoritarian China. And what does one of the most powerful men on the Continent do with it? He torpedoes it, at least for now.

Officials in Beijing courted French President Emmanuel Macron last week, and he returned the favor with remarks that delighted his authoritarian hosts. On his return flight to Paris, he warned that Europe cannot allow itself to degenerate into a vassal of the United States. A possible escalation of the Taiwan conflict, he said, is "not ours," sending a devastating message. His China trip turned into a debacle.

But Macron had been accompanied to Beijing by a woman who at least knows how things could have been handled. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen recently gave a remarkable speech  in which she sketched the outlines of a modern China policy more clearly than any leading European politician has done before her.

Whereas Germany has for too long believed the China would transform itself into a liberal state through trade, von der Leyen recognizes the country is "becoming more repressive at home and more assertive abroad." She sees how relentlessly China is in its desire to make the world increasingly dependent on it. And she is right to say that state and party leader Xi Jinping wants to transform the international system with the goal of placing China at its center.

Wisely, von der Leyen’s conclusion is not that Europe should adopt the American concept of "decoupling." An economic decoupling would neither be desirable nor feasible, at least not with a daily trade volume of almost 1 billion euros and thousands of European companies operating their own subsidiaries and factories in China. Not every screw or kitchen appliance traded with China immediately endangers Europe’s interests.

Rather than "decoupling," von der Leyen is calling for "de-risking," the reduction of risks arising from dependencies. It’s a clever device that allows Europe to keep open its dialogue with China. And, of course, the cultural, scientific and political exchange must also continue.

In sensitive areas like quantum computing, artificial intelligence and biotechnology, the EU should not cooperate with China.

Europe should impose higher barriers in areas where China violates free competition or there are sensitive security issues. Companies that are provided with unfair subsidies must be barred from doing certain business in the EU. In sensitive areas like quantum computing, artificial intelligence and biotechnology, the EU should not cooperate with China.

The European Commission president is also right to question the previously negotiated investment agreement. Rather than deeper ties with China, what is needed is closer cooperation with other countries similar to the EU member states. This is the only way that Europe’s economy can open itself up to new sources of raw materials and markets.

So, if the EU wants to gain "strategic autonomy" vis-à-vis China, as Macron is calling for, then he should simply take his cue from von der Leyen.

Leaders in other European capitals could be bolder when it comes to going up against Xi Jinping. But their fear of being punished by Beijing runs too deep. China is very skillful at playing to the appetites of individual prime ministers and presidents. They are too tempted to create advantages for their own industry. Corporate bosses’ influence on governments is also too considerable. Volkswagen, BMW, Daimler and BASF, in particular, have exposed themselves to the Chinese market to a frightening extent and are unlikely to be able to do much extract themselves.

Allowing China to access critical infrastructure in Germany is the complete opposite of a "de-risking" strategy.

For Europe to adopt a strong position vis-à-vis Beijing, it needs to act in a united and disciplined manner. But Macron’s trip to China demonstrates once again that this is precisely what is lacking. From the Germans, too.

During his inaugural visit to Beijing in November, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz managed to find clear words on Taiwan and the human rights violations in Xinjiang. Yet he still considers the plan by the Chinese shipping company Cosco to acquire part of the Port of Hamburg to be perfectly acceptable. Allowing China to access critical infrastructure in Germany is the complete opposite of a "de-risking" strategy.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who arrived in China on Thursday, is taking a harder line, but she has proven unable to prevail against Scholz. The disunity within the German government is another reason why a smart European China policy is failing.

The EU cannot afford to be wayward on this issue. Because one thing should be clear to everyone: The strong man on the other side, Xi Jinping, knows exactly what he wants.

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Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura and other delegates attend the photo session of G7 Ministers' Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment in Sapporo, Japan April 15, 2023, in this photo released by Kyodo. Mandatory credit Kyodo via REUTERS

G7 ministers set big new targets for solar and wind capacity

As part of a commitment made last year to reach at least a "predominantly" decarbonized power sector by 2035, the countries are prioritizing "concrete and timely efforts" towards speeding the phase-out of "domestic coal power generation."

REUTERS by Katya Golubkova, and Yuka Obayashi/Editing by Germán & Co

SAPPORO, Japan, April 16 (Reuters) - The Group of Seven rich nations on Sunday set big new collective targets for solar power and offshore wind capacity, agreeing to speed up renewable energy development and move toward a quicker phase-out of fossil fuels.

But they stopped short of endorsing a 2030 deadline for phasing out coal that Canada and other members had pushed for, and left the door open for continued investment in gas, saying that sector could help address potential energy shortfalls.

"In the midst of an unprecedented energy crisis, it's important to come up with measures to tackle climate change and promote energy security at the same time," Japanese industry minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told a news conference.

"While acknowledging that there are diverse pathways to achieve carbon neutral, we agreed on the importance of aiming for a common goal toward 2050," he said.

G7 ministers finish two days of meetings on climate, energy and environmental policy in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo on Sunday. Renewable fuel sources and energy security have taken on a new urgency following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Initially people thought that climate action and action on energy security potentially were in conflict. But discussions which we had and which are reflected in the communique are that they actually work together," said Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada's minister of natural resources.

In their communique, the members pledged to collectively increase offshore wind capacity by 150 gigawatts by 2030 and solar capacity to more than 1 terawatt.

They agreed to accelerate "the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels" - the burning of fossil fuels without using technology to capture the resulting C02 emissions - to achieve net zero in energy systems by 2050 at the latest.

On coal, the countries agreed to prioritise "concrete and timely steps" towards accelerating the phase-out of "domestic, unabated coal power generation", as a part of a commitment last year to achieve at least a "predominantly" decarbonised power sector by 2035.

Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura, Environment Minister Akihiro Nishimura and other delegates attend the photo session of G7 Ministers' Meeting on Climate, Energy and Environment in Sapporo, Japan April 15, 2023, in this photo released by Kyodo. Mandatory credit Kyodo via REUTERS

Canada was clear that unabated coal-fired power should be phased out by 2030, and Ottawa, Britain and some other G7 members committed to that date, Canada's Wilkinson told Reuters.

"Others are still trying to figure out how they could get there within their relevant timeframe," Wilkinson said.

"We are trying to find ways (for) some who are more coal-dependent than others to find technical pathways how to do that," he said.

'HUGE STATEMENTS'

"The solar and wind commitments are huge statements to the importance that they will rely on the energy superpowers of solar and wind in order to phase out fossil fuels," said Dave Jones, who is head of data insights at energy think tank Ember.

"Hopefully this will provide a challenge to Japan, for which offshore wind is the missing part of the jigsaw that could see its power sector decarbonise much quicker than it thought possible."

Host country Japan, which depends on imports for nearly all its energy needs, wants to keep liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transition fuel for at least 10 to 15 years.

The G7 members said investment in the gas sector "can be appropriate" to address potential market shortfalls provoked by the crisis in Ukraine, if implemented in a manner consistent with climate objectives.

They targeted 2040 for reducing additional plastic pollution to zero, bringing the target forward by a decade.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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Image: Germán & Co by Shutterstock, São Paulo, Brasil - 08, 20, 2022

Brazil's Lula discusses joint Russia war mediation with China and UAE

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the two countries and others should join a 'political G20' to try to end the war, and accused the West of prolonging the conflict.

Le Monde with AFP, published yesterday at 3:17 pm (Paris).

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at an reception at Qasr al-Watan in Abu Dhabi, on April 15, 2023. RYAN CARTER / AFP

Brazil's president on Sunday, April 16, said he had discussed joint mediation for Russia's war in Ukraine with China and the United Arab Emirates, accusing the United States and Europe of prolonging the conflict.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was wrapping up an official visit to China and the UAE after returning for a third term in office, said the two countries and others should join a "political G20" to try to end the war.

The veteran leftist, who has faced accusations of being overly cosy with Russian President Vladimir Putin, also remarked that the war was caused "by decisions made by two countries."

"President Putin doesn't take any initiatives to stop the war. (President Volodymyr) Zelensky from Ukraine doesn't take any initiatives to stop the war," Lula, speaking through an official translator, told reporters in Abu Dhabi. "Europe and the US continue to give their way of contribution to continue the war. So they have to sit around the table and say, 'That's enough'."

While in China, Lula accused Washington of "encouraging" the war by supplying weapons to Ukraine. He also lashed out at the dollar's dominance in global trade, calling for a new currency for transactions between the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Biofuel deal

The 77-year-old said he spoke to UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Chinese President Xi Jinping about forming a group of countries to mediate, styled after the G20 group of advanced economies.

"The G20 was formed to bail out the (world) economy that was in crisis," Lula said. "Now it's important to create another kind of G20 to end this war and establish peace. This is my intent and I think that we'll manage to have great success."

"Yesterday I talked to the sheikh about the war. I talked to Xi Jinping about the war. And I think that we're meeting a set of people that prefer to talk about peace than war. And so I think we're going to have success."

Lula said he had already discussed his initiative with US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of some South American countries.

Despite his comments about the US, the 77-year-old, who returned to power in January after serving two terms from 2003 to 2010, is also seeking closer ties with Washington. His visit to China and the UAE, postponed by a bout of pneumonia, came after a meeting with US President Joe Biden in February.

Unlike Western powers, neither China nor Brazil has imposed sanctions against Moscow over Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The UAE has maintained a neutral stance in the conflict.

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A view shows a board with the logo of Gazprombank at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov/File Photo, EDITING BY GERMAN & CO

Russia's Gazprombank deepens ties with Indian banks for bilateral trade

Gazprombank is the third-largest lender in Russia and a crucial link in the country's energy trade.

REUTERS by Nidhi Verma, Editing by Germán & Co

A view shows a board with the logo of Gazprombank at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Anton Vaganov/File Photo

NEW DELHI, April 17 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprombank has expanded its links with banks in India to expedite trade between the two countries in national currencies, a key executive told Reuters on Monday, as Russia this year has become the biggest supplier of oil to India.

Trade between India and Russia has surged since the West imposed sanctions against Russia for its invasion last year of Ukraine, which has altered flows of oil and other goods.

"We worked hard to establish our level of partnership with Indian banks and our representatives here worked hard," Elena Borisenko, deputy chairman of the board of management of Gazprombank, told Reuters on the sidelines of an India-Russia business dialogue event in New Delhi on Monday.

"Now we have infrastructure, we have payments from banks ... it is much better than it was three months ago," she added.

Gazprombank is Russia's third-largest lender by assets and a key conduit of the Russian energy trade.

Due to higher purchases of oil, the trade balance is tilted increasingly in favour of Russia. That balance could be improved through Russian companies investing in infrastructure projects in India, Borisenko said.

"We are hoping that it (trade) will be better, it will be improving, and ... payments between Russia and Indian will be more and more in national currencies," the executive said.

India last year implemented a broader framework to facilitate overseas trade in rupees and since then many foreign banks, including Gazprombank and other Russian institutions, have opened vostro accounts with Indian banks.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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At Fujairah, the United Arab Emirates’ main oil-storage hub, Russia now accounts for more than one in 10 barrels of gas oil. PHOTO: KARIM SAHIB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Editing by Germán & Co

Saudi Arabia, U.A.E. Scoop Up Russian Oil Products at Steep Discounts

Despite U.S. objections, petroleum-rich Gulf countries are capitalizing on cut-rate prices

 TWSJ by  Benoit Faucon and Summer Said, April 17, 2023 

As Russia scours the globe for buyers of its energy products, it is finding eager trade partners in an unlikely place: The oil-rich petrostates of the Persian Gulf.

Since Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine cut off Russia from many of its established trading partners, state companies from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stepped in to take advantage of discounted prices for Russian products, according to oil executives and industry analysts. 

Despite U.S. objections, the Gulf countries are using the discounted Russian products internally, including for consumption and refining purposes, and exporting their own barrels at market rates, boosting their profits. 

The Gulf countries, especially the U.A.E., have also become key storage and trading hubs for Russian energy products that can’t be as easily shipped around the globe because of the war.

The counterintuitive shift, in which countries with the world’s largest reservoirs of oil are eager buyers of more, is an illustration of the unexpected consequences of Western sanctions and another example of the U.S.’s waning influence over the Middle East. 

Russian oil exports to the U.A.E. more than tripled to a record 60 million barrels last year, according to data-commodity provider Kpler. By contrast, Russian oil exports to Singapore, another large trading hub, only rose 13% to 26 million barrels in 2022, according to Kpler.

Russia now accounts for more than one in 10 barrels of gas oil stored in Fujairah, the U.A.E.’s main oil-storage hub, second only to Saudi Arabia, according to Argus Media, a market-data provider.

Russia is shipping 100,000 barrels a day to Saudi Arabia, according to Kpler, compared with virtually none before the war. That would equate to more than 36 million barrels annually.

The Saudi and Emirati trade in Russian oil and fuel products has drawn scrutiny from U.S. officials, who argue that it undermines Western efforts to tighten the screws on the Kremlin’s revenue streams.

The Treasury’s Undersecretary Brian Nelson toured the Middle East in February to try to persuade countries such as Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Turkey to enforce the Western sanctions against Russia.

The U.S. Treasury and Saudi royal court didn’t return requests for comment, while the Emirati Foreign Ministry said it couldn’t immediately comment.

There are no signs yet that the Gulf countries are turning off the spigot of Russian oil, analysts say.

Saudi Arabia is increasingly pursuing a nationalist energy policy that takes precedence over U.S. concerns. Saudi and its allies earlier this month announced an oil production cut aimed at boosting prices, going against U.S. objections that higher prices aid the Russian war machine. 

The U.A.E. has adopted a neutral stance in the war, despite its longstanding security partnership with the U.S. After the Ukraine invasion, Dubai and other emirates have become an international hub of choice for many Russian companies and wealthy individuals seeking to run their businesses and protect their money while avoiding sanctions.

But the oil trade is perhaps the most sensitive aspect of the burgeoning bilateral relationship.

Because of price caps and other sanctions, Russia’s flagship Urals crude has typically traded at a discount of over 30% to benchmark Brent in recent months. 

The arbitrage available for Gulf countries is especially pronounced in refined products such as naphtha, fuel oil and diesel. They are abundant in the Gulf “so the only reason for importing from Russia is to capitalize on the price difference,” said Elshan Aliyev, head of the Mideast Gulf product department at Argus.

Russian naphtha and diesel respectively sell $60 and $25 a ton below their equivalent produced in the Persian Gulf, he said.

In the past year, Saudi Arabia has ramped up its diesel exports to France and Italy, two countries that previously relied largely on Russia for their motor fuel, Kpler data shows.

Moscow is “pretty much satiating the [Saudi] domestic market with discounted transportation fuels and freeing up volumes for subsequent diesel exports elsewhere,” said Viktor Katona, a Russia-focused analyst at Kpler. 

On March 12, Saudi national oil company Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Aramco, reported record annual profit of $161 billion for 2022, the largest ever by an energy firm. That included a 27% boost to profits for the state-run giant’s refining unit.

Aramco declined to comment. 

Meanwhile, the U.A.E. has become a major storage and re-export hub for Russian oil products, while some traders are making a brisk business shipping Moscow’s cargoes to other destinations using the Gulf nation and its financial system as a base. 

Private trading firms import from Russia to the U.A.E. mostly for re-export purposes to Pakistan and Sri Lanka or East Africa, said Mr. Aliyev.

Some of Russia’s discounted oil cargoes are scooped up by Emirati state-run companies, including five shipments of gasoline to the Dubai-based Emirates National Oil Co. since December. In November, a cargo of 700,000 barrels of Arctic crude oil loaded by Russian government giant Gazprom PJSC was delivered to a refinery of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., which is owned by the emirate, Kpler data shows. 

ENOC and ADNOC didn’t return requests for comment.

Some transactions appear to be designed to be discreet, avoiding the scrutiny of banks and insurers involved in the trade and also because dealing with Russia is politically sensitive. 

Aramco has often been buying oil cargoes that were initially sold by Rosneft Oil Co., a Russian oil company sanctioned by the U.S. But the shipments were carried through transshipments in the Mediterranean, sometimes using Emirati intermediaries and then stored in the U.A.E. rather than delivered directly to Saudi Arabia.

Last year, Rosneft was the main source of Russian oil products entering the U.A.E., Kpler data shows. The Russian state-controlled company, which is headed by key Putin ally Igor Sechin, has been accused by Ukraine of supplying subsidized fuel to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. Rosneft has denied the allegation.

Aramco has been buying Russian fuel oil using Fujairah, rather than Saudi ports, according to a Saudi official and Kpler data.

In a case in point, a vessel loaded a cargo of vacuum gas oil—a precursor of gas oil—owned by Rosneft in the Russian Black Sea port of Tuapse on Sept. 11, according to data from Kpler, MarineTraffic and OPIS.

Rosneft then sold its cargo of 207,000 barrels to an intermediary company, U.A.E.-based Tejarinaft FZCO, which transferred it to an Aramco-chartered tanker offshore Kalamata, Greece, on Sept. 19, according to Kpler. The Saudi oil giant then stored the shipment at a commercial storage tank in Fujairah on Nov. 8, the data shows.

Tejarinaft and Rosneft didn’t return a request for comment.

Companies that trade mostly or exclusively Russian products have also set up shop in the trading hubs of the Emirates despite the shipments taking place elsewhere. 

Coral Energy and Petroruss, which are both registered at the Dubai Multi Commodities Center, have handled dozens of shipments from the Russian Black Sea to Turkey, Tunisia and even Europe since the war started, according to commodity-data providers Kpler and OPIS.

Coral, which has previously said it would stop handling Russian oil at the start of 2023, and Petroruss didn’t return a request for comment.

OPIS is an energy-data and analytics provider that is part of News Corp’s Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Last year, Russia’s largest oil-tanker company, Sovcomflot, transferred its operations to Dubai away from St. Petersburg in Russia and Cyprus, which is enforcing European Union sanctions.

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News round-up, April, 14, 2023

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Editor's thoughts…

In fact, has globalization failed?

Regarding yesterday's statements, in Shanghai, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva assents to common BRICS currency to counter US dollar dominance.

Brazil's President, Lula da Silva, called his BRICS counterparts, including Russia, India, China, and South Africa, other than Brazil, to replace the US dollar with their currencies. Lula's comments come amid efforts by India, China, and Russia to set up streams for trade in their money and expanding calls amongst BRICS nations to launch a potential common currency mechanism to trade amongst themselves. "Why can't we do trade based on our currencies," he added. "Why can't a bank like that of the BRICS have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other countries? It's difficult because we are unaccustomed [to the idea]. Everyone depends on just one currency," Lula said further, adding an apparent Brazilian consent to the calls for a common BRICS currency for trade amongst themselves.

Bloomberg and wionews, today 

——————————————————-

In this matter, Professor of Harvard Kennedy School, economist Dani Rodrik says policymakers must rethink neoliberal economic orthodoxy to build a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable global economy. For more than a quarter century, economist and Harvard Kennedy School professor Rodrik has been ringing alarm bells about the dangers of globalization. And for a long time, it didn’t seem like a whole lot of people were listening. Now as record economic inequality, a climate in crisis, and global financial shocks from to the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have exposed the vulnerabilities and shortcomings of unchecked globalism and neoliberal orthodoxy about the primacy of markets, Rodrik may be having the world’s least-satisfying “I told you so” moment.

FEATURING DANI RODRIK

JUNE 30, 2022

www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policycasthe

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Most read…

Global Economic Chiefs Split Over Rich-World Call for Resilience

-- Global finance chiefs, gathering in Washington little more than a year after the shock Russian invasion of Ukraine, are drawing sharply different conclusions about the biggest risks to the outlook, in a split showcasing the rising role of geopolitical struggles in the world economy.

Bloomberg by Enda Curran, Fri, April 14, 2023

Brazil's president wants to end dollar dominance and backs calls for BRICS nations to use their own currency

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TIME BY VERA BERGENGRUEN, APRIL 13, 2023 

OPEC+ cuts risk oil supply deficit, threaten economic recovery - IEA

The outlooks for global oil production and consumption have recently been a point of contention between OPEC+ and the IEA…

REUTERS By Noah Browning, editing Germán & Co

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“We’re living in a volatile world…

it’s easy to get distracted by things like changeable commodity prices or a shortage of solar panels. But this wouldn’t be true to our purpose – we can’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our end goal; said Andres Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Global Economic Chiefs Split Over Rich-World Call for Resilience

-- Global finance chiefs, gathering in Washington little more than a year after the shock Russian invasion of Ukraine, are drawing sharply different conclusions about the biggest risks to the outlook, in a split showcasing the rising role of geopolitical struggles in the world economy.

Bloomberg by Enda Curran, Fri, April 14, 2023

The key takeaway among rich, democratic nations: the need for more “resilience” in supply chains, to ensure their economies are better insulated from risks ranging from war and pandemics to attempts at coercion by authoritarian regimes. But others, including the International Monetary Fund, are warning against a “fragmentation” of the global economy into competing blocs that hurts growth.

Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors invoked the terms “resilient” and “resilience” a total of 15 times in their joint statement after meeting on Wednesday.

“All countries are going to want to have more resilient supply chains in a much less stable world — the lesson of Ukraine was that energy dependence on Russia was probably a mistake,” UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt told reporters Thursday. “We want to make sure that it’s not just energy dependence, but technology dependence, critical-minerals dependence, all sorts of other dependences” that are addressed, he said.

Hunt’s G-7 colleague, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, described the danger as “cluster risk” — where there’s over-reliance on trade and investment in one location. Trade relations with China, for example, “must not become a cluster risk — which is why diversification is necessary,” he told reporters Thursday.

But the danger of this new push by democratic economies to shift supply chains toward themselves — something US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen calls “friendshoring” — is a separation of the global economy into blocs, leading to less efficiency and ultimately less development.

That was the warning sounded by Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, which together with the World Bank is hosting spring meetings of world economic policymakers this week in the US capital.

The security of global supply chains “is taking a new higher priority” in economic discussions and decision making, Georgieva told reporters on Thursday. “The question is, can we be more determined to enhance security of supplies but not push the world that far that we are into a second cold war.”

While “resilience” is the new mantra of the US and its allies, “fragmentation” is the feared result among observers including Georgieva. “Getting on a path of less fragmentation in the world economy is good for everybody,” she said last week.

‘Fracturing’ Ties

The key source of that fragmentation risk is the ever-escalating tensions between the US and China, the world’s biggest and second-largest economies.

“That’s the key relationship in the world” and “that is fracturing,” Raghuram Rajan, a former IMF chief economist, said on Bloomberg Television Thursday on the sidelines of the meetings. “That is important for the rest of the world — because if you have to choose sides, countries will be in a very, very difficult position.”

That position wasn’t lost on Moroccan Finance Minister Nadia Fettah Alaoui.

“Countries like Morocco will suffer from fragmentation,” she said Thursday. “We have to push to avoid this.”

No More ‘Chinas’

Making things all the worse is a much weaker trend-growth rate for the global economy. Part of that is because major nations including China, Japan and some euro-zone members are seeing working-age populations shrink. Productivity growth rates have weakened compared with past decades. And the IMF also this week warned that high levels of debt leave the world more vulnerable.

While this year, China’s reopening will offer a burst of growth that may help support the world expansion, its medium-term trend pace of 5% or weaker is notably down from pre-pandemic rates.

“We don’t have any Chinas anymore that are growing at very high rates,” Gita Gopinath, who’s now Georgieva’s top lieutenant after previously serving as IMF chief economist, said on Bloomberg TV. “So for the global economy as a whole, we don’t have very large engines of growth.”

“The IMF is exactly right, longer-term growth looks a lot worse,” Rajan said.

So much worse that the IMF says the five-year outlook for the world is the worst in their projections, which date back to 1990. That year was effectively the book-end of the last Cold War: a year before the collapse of the Soviet Union, which helped to usher the rapid integration of once-Communist nations into a new, rapidly globalizing economy.

Today, intensifying geopolitical competition is seen also in the battle for investment dollars and disputes over debt.

The Washington meetings featured limited progress over resolving debt overhangs for Zambia and other frontier economies, with China — the world’s largest official creditor to the developing world — reluctant to accede to terms that G-7 members are insisting on.

China’s Moves

China instead is focused on strengthening its own supply chains and financial ties with the developing world — a push on display this week as it plays host to Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Amid the impasse in debt talks in Washington, Shanghai witnessed the swearing in of one of Lula’s predecessors, Dilma Rousseff, as head of the New Development Bank. The NDB is one of a number of multinational institutions and forums China has built as it places less emphasis on legacy organizations set up in an era of US domination.

Back in the US capital, the fracturing of the world order was also seen in the G-20 finance ministers failing to issue a communique — continuing the discord faced by the group since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Some developed-world policymakers are attendant to the risks even as they seek to shift supply chains. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, “We need a common strategy to avoid that fragmentation and to keep the door open for stronger cooperation.”

But others were direct about the threats they see. Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland in a Wednesday speech underscored, “These strategic vulnerabilities to authoritarian economies put our own security in jeopardy.”

--With assistance from Christopher Condon, Maria Tadeo, Brian Platt, Eric Martin, Tom Keene, Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz, Toru Fujioka, Kamil Kowalcze, Viktoria Dendrinou, Jorge Valero and Philip Aldrick.

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Image: Germán & Co by Shutterstock, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil - 08, 20, 2022

Brazil's president wants to end dollar dominance and backs calls for BRICS nations to use their own currency

"Why can't we do trade based on our own currencies?" , he said.

BLOOMBERG, Filip De Mott, Apr 13, 2023

Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has urged developing nations to find an alternative currency to the dollar, denouncing the central role of the greenback in global trade. 

Thursday's comments, from a speech made during this week's state trip to China, lend another voice to growing de-dollarization rhetoric from leaders of BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

"Why can't we do trade based on our own currencies?" he said, per The Financial Times. "Who was it that decided that the dollar was the currency after the disappearance of the gold standard?"

Speaking at the New Development Bank of Shanghai, Lula called for BRICS nations to establish a common currency to with which they could transact. 

"Why can't a bank like that of the BRICS have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other countries? It's difficult because we are unaccustomed [to the idea]. Everyone depends on just one currency."

Last year, BRICS countries were reviewing a new currency based on a basket of member currencies. The idea sprung out of incentives to move away from dollar dependence, which proved detrimental after Russia was cut off of its dollar reserves, due to its invasion of Ukraine.

And in January, in another bid to move away from the dollar's dominance, Lula announced that Brazil and Argentina were looking into the development of a common currency.

His stance also represents warming ties between China and Brazil, as Lula attempts a multilateralist approach to foreign affairs. For instance, while maintaining good relations with the US, Brazil has recently agreed to using the yuan in cross-border transactions with China.

Though it's been floated that such changes imply an important shift in the currency regime, a number of analysts have found the so-called de-dollarization of global trade highly improbable. While the dollar may weaken as the world's go-to currency, there are no likely alternatives that would be able to completely replace it.

Even the Chinese yuan, whose role in trade finance has more than doubled since the Ukraine war, is a poor contender. Not only is it virtually pegged to the dollar, China's tight control of it keeps it from adhering to free market flows.

The prospect of Brazilians casting the dollar off in the near future is also unlikely, FT reported, as the currency holds a crucial role in commodity markets and industries that Brazil is heavily involved in.

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Undated image of Jack Teixeira. Officials say Teixeira, a National Guard technology support staffer, is suspected of mishandling U.S. military security secrets. (Obtained by The Washington Post), editing by Germán & Co

What we know about 21-year-old accused of leaking top-secret documents

The FBI arrested Jack Texeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, on suspicion of leaking classified information…

TWP By Ben Brasch, April 13, 2023 

Authorities on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard suspected of leaking a trove of classified military intelligence in a case that has transfixed much of official Washington for the past week.

The arrest of Jack Teixeira follows The Post’s account of how detailed intelligence documents about an extraordinary range of subjects found their way onto Discord, an online chat platform popular with gamers, before they circulated across the internet.

Here’s what you should know about Teixeira.

Undated image of Jack Teixeira. Officials say Teixeira, a National Guard technology support staffer, is suspected of mishandling U.S. military security secrets. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

Who is Jack Teixeira?

• Teixeira is stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Mass., according to his military records.

• The base is home to the 102nd Intelligence Wing, whose website describes the 102nd’s mission as to “provide world wide precision intelligence and command and control along with trained and experienced Airmen for expeditionary combat support and homeland security.”

• Teixeira’s military record indicates that he enlisted in the National Guard on Sept. 26, 2019.

• Teixeira was mobilized for federal active duty last fall, Nahaku McFadden, a spokesperson for the National Guard Bureau, told The Post.

• His family lives in Dighton, Mass. — about 35 miles south of Boston.

• Some members of the Discord group showed The Post video of Teixiera shouting racist and antisemitic slurs before firing a rifle.

• A friend who spoke with The Post described Teixeira as patriotic, a devout Catholic and a libertarian with an interest in guns and doubts about America’s future.

What kind of information was leaked?

• The leaked documents included the whereabouts and movements of high-ranking political leaders and tactical updates on military forces along with geopolitical analysis and insights into foreign governments’ efforts to interfere with elections.

• The leak, per The Post, revealed how the United States gathers foreign intelligence — not just on Russia’s military and spy agencies but also partners like Ukraine and Israel in addition to key allies in Asia, such as South Korea.

Who leaked the documents?

Jack Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested Thursday in the investigation into leaks of hundreds of pages of classified military intelligence. The Washington Post reported that the individual who leaked the information shared documents with a small circle of online friends on the Discord chat platform.

What do the leaked documents reveal about Ukraine?

The documents reveal profound concerns about the war’s trajectory and Kyiv’s capacity to wage a successful offensive against Russian forces. According to a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment among the leaked documents, “Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023.”

What else do they show?

The files include summaries of human intelligence on high-level conversations between world leaders, as well as information about advanced satellite technology the United States uses to spy. They also include intelligence on both allies and adversaries, including Iran and North Korea, as well as Britain, Canada, South Korea and Israel.

What happens now?

The leak has far-reaching implications for the United States and its allies. In addition to the Justice Department investigation, officials in several countries said they were assessing the damage from the leaks.

Where did the documents go?

• Documents were initially posted to a Discord server named “Thug Shaker Central.”

• Roughly two dozen mostly men and boys formed the invitation-only group on Discord in 2020 with a shared love of guns, military gear and God.

What about Teixeira’s time with the Massachusetts Air National Guard?

• The Post has reported that Teixeira’s military record shows him as an Airman 1st Class with no commendations except for an Air Force Achievement Medal — a routine award given widely to airmen.

How would he allegedly have access to such sensitive information?

• Teixeira’s security clearance level isn’t clear, but he did have access to an internal Defense Department computer network for top secret information called the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), a U.S. official familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity as the investigation proceeds told The Post.

• Access to JWICS would have given Teixeira the ability to read and potentially print records classified at the same level as many of the leaked documents, per the official.

• Teixeira told members of his online group that he worked as a technology support staffer at a base on Cape Cod, and that this was how he was able to access classified documents, one member of the Discord server told The Post.

• National Guard units perform some support services for active-duty units, including intelligence support for the Joint Staff, one U.S. official told The Post.

Who can access classified information?

• Thousands of military personnel and government employees, working entry-to-low-level positions, could plausibly have access to classified documents like the ones he allegedly shared, according to U.S. officials and experts who have seen the documents reported in the media.

• The military regularly entrusts young people with classified information and elevated responsibilities, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said Thursday. “Think about a young combat platoon sergeant, and the responsibility and trust that we put into those individuals to lead troops into combat,” he said. “It’s called military discipline.”

Devlin Barrett and Shane Harris contributed to this report.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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France's nuclear push is raising hackles with other EU countries — led by Germany — that want the power source eliminated | Guillaume Souvant/AFP/ Editing by Germán & Co

Paris to Berlin: Stop fighting nuclear and help save the planet

Renewables won’t win the war on climate change alone, says the man Macron has tasked with overseeing an atomic energy revival.

POLITICO. EU BY GABRIEL GAVIN, APRIL 11, 2023

Efforts to block nuclear energy from the EU's green power plans could undermine the fight against climate change, France's atomic energy czar warned as Germany prepares to shut down its final three nuclear reactors this weekend.

Joël Barre, who was announced in October as the boss of France's effort to build new nuclear plants, said building more reactors and extending the lives of existing ones is essential to cutting down on the use of fossil fuels — a job that has seen him dubbed “Monsieur Nuclear” by the press.

“If we don’t invest, we clearly face a cliff-edge as our reactors currently in service will see the end of their life between 2040 and 2050,” Barre told POLITICO.

Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged as many as 14 new reactors would be built as part of a “renaissance” of the atomic energy industry, which generates around 70 percent of the country’s electricity. Barre’s team is now working on the construction of six advanced EPR2 reactors, to be built between 2035 and 2042 — ensuring that gas and coal-fired electricity doesn't surge when old reactors are shut down.

That's leading to frequent showdowns between the pro and anti-nuclear camps; March saw two such scraps.

One was over the EU's flagship Net-Zero Industry Act, setting targets for technologies deemed necessary to decarbonize the bloc’s economy. The spat over nuclear delayed the proposal and the end result was a fudge, with atomic power not included in a list of “strategic net-zero technologies” while elsewhere in the text, the definition of net-zero technologies included "advanced technologies to produce energy from nuclear processes with minimal waste from the fuel cycle" and "small modular reactors."

A similar battle overshadowed the EU's call to boost renewable energy targets by 2030, with France winning a marginal victory that allows nuclear in limited circumstances.

Nuclear push

Barre made it clear Paris isn't going to give up the fight.

“We want to have a strategy for nuclear in Europe,” he said. “And on the other hand, countries, mostly Germany, but also Austria and Luxembourg, are opposed to nuclear energy and this is a pity. We need to continue to try to overcome such opposition within the EU.”

He argued that atomic energy does have a role to play as the Continent races to decarbonize.

“I don’t understand the position of Germany because I don’t believe at all that up to the middle of the century they will be able to carry out a zero-carbon strategy based solely on renewable sources,” Barre said.

French President Emmanuel Macron pledged as many as 14 new reactors would be built as part of a “renaissance” of the atomic energy industry | GUillaume Souvant/AFP via Getty Images

However, critics say the French argument is undermined by the problems facing EDF, the government-controlled utility that runs the country's nuclear fleet.

“Just looking at France, half the French reactor fleet has been offline in 2022; EDF is essentially bankrupt — it’s €64 billion in debt and Macron has been forced to fully nationalize it,” said Paul Dorfman, an associate fellow at the University of Sussex’s Science Policy Research Unit.

EDF has been hit by a number of technical problems this year after faults were found at a number of its power plants. More than a dozen reactors have been taken offline while engineers carry out inspections and conduct emergency repairs and, in March, a major crack was reported at its Penly plant in the north of the country triggering a wave of new repairs that required specialists to be brought in from the U.S.

Clean power

Those championing investing more in renewables say that problems with existing reactors, plus delays and cost-overruns in building new ones, don't make it an attractive option, and nuclear should be seen as a transition technology rather than the future of clean power.

“Renewables can be put down much quicker than reactors. The key problem for nuclear is it’s too late — we don’t have the time, we don’t have the resources,” said Dorfman.

But scrapping nuclear power — especially existing plants, as Germany has done — carries its own problems, said Leon Cizelj, professor of nuclear engineering at University of Ljubljana and president of the European Nuclear Society.

"The 20 years long and very costly experiment with renewables without nuclear in Germany did not reduce the carbon footprint of German electricity production,” he said.

He also warned that unless the EU starts to invest in research and develop supply chains for new and existing nuclear power, the bloc's atomic industry will decay.

Barre insisted that nuclear does have a future.

"We cannot carry out consolidated, strong energy policy in Europe without being based on a mix of energy sources — on one side renewables and on the other side nuclear," he said. "We have to oppose efforts to say there is just one solution — we need a mix."

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Screenshots of videos posted On TikTok in March by President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, and President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela/ EDITING BY GERMAN & CO

Why Latin American Leaders Are Obsessed With TikTok

Several leaders use the app to publish brief videos of their travels, interactions with the public, and public addresses, frequently putting to songs currently trending on the social media

TIME BY VERA BERGENGRUEN, APRIL 13, 2023 

Hands held behind their heads, the prisoners in the video sprint down metal steps and into a massive concrete building. As dramatic music plays, the camera pans over thousands of men, arrayed in neat rows, clad only in white shorts, their heads shaved and bodies tattooed. High definition close-ups show their eyes glinting as they press their foreheads to their knees, before they are herded out by armed guards.

The footage shows the round-up of thousands of gang members in El Salvador’s newly opened “mega prison.” It’s not typical fare for TikTok, the video-sharing app that first became popular with teenagers for its viral dance challenges. But a pair of highly produced videos, posted by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, showing the #GuerraContraLasPandillas—the war on gangs—have garnered 25 million views on the app since being posted in the past two months, with thousands of comments in more than a dozen languages expressing their admiration. “I wish you were the president of the entire world,” one user wrote in a comment liked 16,000 times.

Bukele’s use of TikTok is part of a regional trend. While President Joe Biden and his European counterparts have stayed away from TikTok, blocking it from government devices and weighing an outright ban due to national security concerns about its Chinese ownership, Latin American heads of state are embracing the massively popular platform more than ever. As of April 12, six of the top 10 world leaders on TikTok are from Central and South America. “Almost every single Latin American leader is on the app, and you can see the impact in the figures,” says Matthias Lüfkens, a former head of digital media at the World Economic Forum who tracks world leaders’ social media accounts.

“They’re not following the U.S. lead of banning TikTok. They’re all in, [and] embracing the songs and the memes, which is very rare for any European politicians.”

Latin American heads of state have long been early adopters of new social-media platforms. Now they have seized on TikTok as a less formal, more effective tool for all sorts of political messaging. In Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro has been using the platform to share bite-sized pieces of propaganda on the alleged successes of his socialist agenda, among dozens of videos of himself dancing salsa. In Ecuador, Argentina and Chile, presidents use the app to give followers a view behind the scenes of government. In Brazil, former President Jair Bolsonaro and his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have been competing for views in the aftermath of a contested election. Many leaders use the app to post short clips of their public speeches, interactions with citizens and travels, often set to songs trending on the app.

While politicians in the U.S. and Europe have raised concerns about the app, Latin American leaders don’t see China as an adversary in the same way, says Iria Puyosa, a senior research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab who is an expert on social media and political conflict in Latin America. China has invested heavily in the continent over the past two decades and forged close economic and security ties with most Latin American countries. It’s South America’s top trading partner, as well as a key source of both lending and direct foreign investment.

“They see China as a partner,” Puyosa says. “This a way to reach people where the people are—people who distrust the news and are disengaged by electoral politics.” In much of the West, TikTok is the subject of political suspicion; in Latin America, it’s a cornerstone of political strategy.

None have done this more effectively than El Salvador’s Bukele. With 5.6 million followers, he is the most popular head of state on the app—no small feat for the leader of a Central American country with a population of 6.3 million. The son of a wealthy businessman, Bukele started his career in public relations, working for his family’s advertising firm. Since being elected in 2019, at age 35, he has set up a slick digital operation to manage his image and publicize his policies, from an experiment to adopt Bitcoin as the national currency to the declaration of a state of emergency to crack down on the gangs that have terrorized the country for decades. It has helped Bukele notch an approval rating that hovers around 90%.

TikTok is a large part of the alternative media landscape Bukele has built since his inauguration, tightly controlling and often manipulating the information disseminated through TV shows, video streaming sites, social media, and paid Internet trolls, experts say. TikTok can be easier to manipulate than other social platforms, says Alberto Escorcia, a Mexican social media analyst whose analysis of Bukeke’s profiles found an “overwhelming” amount of manipulation to shape public opinion. “A small army of operators can quickly inflate the statistics to appear in the TikTok recommendations algorithm.” (TikTok did not return a request for comment.)

This isn’t a new tactic in Latin America. Ecuador became an early pioneer in Twitter troll farms in 2013, when a company tied to then-president Rafael Correa began to monetize them by hijacking trending topics. Since then, digital armies have become a lucrative business from Brazil to Mexico, especially around presidential elections. Digital staffers who worked for other Latin American campaigns, including former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, “helped advise Bukele in the creation of this massive communications strategy,” says Escorcia.

His counterparts across the continent are using the app in different ways. The drama of Brazil’s contested presidential election has given way to a split-screen of TikTok accounts, with Bolsonaro (5.3 million followers) and Lula (4.3 million followers) both highly active in different ways. During his three-month self-imposed exile in Florida, Bolsonaro released a stream of videos, set to emotive music, that showed lines of supporters waiting to shake his hand or take a photo. In others he is giving speeches at right-wing events in the area, touting his accomplishments and vowing to return to his country. But mostly he posts humanizing, light-hearted videos—getting a haircut, cooking hot dogs in a suburban kitchen, playing with dogs and children.

“Bolsonaro was the first Brazilian president to adopt a 100% online communication strategy,” says Karina di Nubila, a lawyer and researcher at the University of Valladolid in Spain. He is using TikTok as the “soundtrack” of his comeback, says Di Nubila. “He is creating a plot: the story of the hero, the populist leader, charismatic, loved by Brazilians, who lost the election in an unfair, coup-like and fraudulent way, but who, despite everything, will not abandon his people.” On March 30, a video of his return to Brazil was viewed almost two million times.

Since his inauguration, Lula’s account has been posting frequent videos of him fulfilling presidential duties: waving atop a Brazilian-made submarine, opening health clinics, showing off tropical produce, meeting world leaders. Many of them are set to TikTok trends and popular songs, with one describing his agenda of “putting food on the table of the Brazilian people” and “job opportunities for all” as his “vibe.”

Across Brazil’s northwestern border, Venezuela’s Maduro has posted more than 90 videos on TikTok this year alone. Some are short political sound bites set to music; others show ordinary antics, like playing with a 360-degree camera in his office, or feature the president dancing. In one recent video that garnered 3.4 million views, he’s being smothered by four golden retrievers as he fruitlessly commands them to sit. The Venezuela shown through Maduro’s TikTok is vibrant and thriving—a far cry from the reality of an economy in shambles, rampant hyperinflation, and an ongoing humanitarian crisis in which most of the country struggles to afford food or access basic medicines. “We have to win the battle every day, with intelligence,” Maduro said in a speech last month. “You know how one wins this? On TikTok.”

Other Latin American leaders use the app to showcase their policies. Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, who has 1.3 million followers, speaks directly to the camera, showing the opening of housing projects and hospitals. Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s videos largely consist of clips of his speeches set to music and scenes from his daily activities. Chilean President Gabriel Boric has an account with 638,000 followers with a more somber tone, in which he shows himself visiting disaster zones and meeting with citizens. Boric, who won the presidency in 2021 at just 35, “is doing this very serious, staid thing, talking about his policy in a very formal way,” says Puyosa.

“I guess he doesn’t need to overdo it—he’s already cool.”

Latin American governments’ embrace of TikTok stands in increasingly stark contrast to the U.S. and Europe, where leaders have never had much enthusiasm for the platform. The U.S. government is clearly aware of its reach: Americans make up the world’s largest TikTok audience, with 150 million users. When the war in Ukraine broke out last year the White House hosted TikTok influencers for a briefing, acknowledging the app as a dominant source of news and information. Biden’s staff also plans to enlist hundreds of TikTok creators as part of the digital strategy for his expected re-election campaign in 2024.

But long-held fears over the app’s data access and Chinese ownership have mounted in recent months. In a high-profile hearing in March, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that TikTok “screams national security concerns.” Since then, the app has been banned from government devices in the U.S., U.K., Canada, the European Union, and an expanding list of other European countries. Several European government officials deleted accounts, including the Czech government, the European Commission, and Latvia’s foreign minister, who cited “security reasons.” Despite having an account set up under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the U.K.’s official 10 Downing Street account hasn’t posted since last summer.

One exception is French President Emmanuel Macron, who launched his TikTok account in July 2020 and has amassed 4 million followers with well-lit videos where he speaks to the camera and answers user comments. Even so, France banned TikTok on government devices last month.

“In the U.S. and in Europe, there is this disconnect right now, where you have the government saying no TikTok on government phones, and there’s a conversation around national security, but we still haven’t addressed the fact that governments are pretty out of touch with populations and the public,” says Jiore Craig, who oversees election research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that focuses on online disinformation. “Are you doing social media because you have to, or are you doing social media because you understand why it’s important?”

For many leaders in Latin America, the answer is clear—and already yielding results. In recent months, Bukele has begun adding English subtitles to his videos as he works to grow a global audience of admirers and uses the app to hit back at critics abroad. “Where did they get this sudden love for El Salvador?” he says in one TikTok, translated into English on the screen, addressing human rights organizations’ concerns over the sprawling new prisons he has highlighted in his videos.

“Up until recently, they couldn’t find it on a map.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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The OPEC logo pictured ahead of an informal meeting between members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Algiers, Algeria, September 28, 2016. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina/File Photo/ Editing by Germán & Co

OPEC+ cuts risk oil supply deficit, threaten economic recovery - IEA

The outlooks for global oil production and consumption have recently been a point of contention between OPEC+ and the IEA…

REUTERS By Noah Browning, editing Germán & Co

LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - Output cuts announced by OPEC+ producers risk exacerbating an oil supply deficit expected in the second half of the year and could hurt consumers and global economic recovery, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.

OPEC+ and the IEA have jousted in recent months over their outlooks for global oil supply and demand.

Consumer countries represented by the IEA have argued that tightening supplies drive up prices and could threaten a recession, while OPEC+ blames Western monetary policy for market volatility and inflation which undercuts the value of its oil.

"Oil market balances were already set to tighten in the second half of 2023, with the potential for a substantial supply deficit to emerge," the IEA said in its monthly oil report.

"The latest cuts risk exacerbating those strains, pushing both crude and product prices higher. Consumers currently under siege from inflation will suffer even more from higher prices."

Global oil supply/demand

Supply/Demand Balance

OPEC+ called its surprise cut decision a "precautionary measure" and in a monthly oil report published on Thursday OPEC cited downside risks to summer oil demand from high stock levels and economic challenges.

The IEA said it expected global oil supply to fall by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the year citing an expected production increase of 1 million bpd from outside of OPEC+ beginning in March versus a 1.4 million bpd decline from the producers bloc.

Rising global oil stocks may have influenced the OPEC+ decision, the IEA added, noting the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) industry stocks in January hit their highest level since July 2021 at 2.83 billion barrels.

The demand picture will be skewed between lacklustre growth in OECD countries and rebounding demand led by China after the relaxation of its COVID-19 restrictions, the IEA said.

World Total Oil Demand

Meanwhile Russian oil exports in March hit their highest levels since April 2020 on robust oil product flows, the IEA said, despite a seaborne import ban from the European Union and a price cap sanctions policy spearheaded by the United States.

Russia's March revenue rose by $1 billion month on month to $12.7 billion, but was still 43% lower than a year earlier partly due to capped prices on its seaborne oil exports.

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News round-up, April, 13, 2023

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Words from the editor…

Unfortunately, not all the news that has kept people awake over the past three years has been positive; the recent leak of the Pentagon Papers portends another year of pain and suffering for humanity.

The documents reveal profound concerns about the war’s trajectory and Kyiv’s capacity to wage a successful offensive against Russian forces. According to a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of the leaked documents, “Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023.”

The Washintong post

And as if the future wasn't already unclear enough, I'll leave you with the words of energy historian and vice chair of S&P Global, Daniel Yergin:

“If China does start shipping weapons to Russia, we’ll see a strong reaction that can have quite a big impact on the world economy,” .

POLITICO.COM

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Most read…

No Russia-Ukraine peace talks expected this year, U.S. leak shows

The war is expected to spill into 2024 with neither side notching victory and both refusing to negotiate, U.S. intelligence officials surmise

TWP by John Hudson, April 12, 2023 

Poland’s Morawiecki plays Europe’s anti-Macron in Washington

The Polish PM is stressing that Warsaw is Washington’s crucial European ally.

POLITICO.EU BY JAN CIENSKI, APRIL 13, 2023 

Column: Peak emissions hopes to be tested as China & Europe crank output

Power emissions may worsen before they improve due to the synchronized recovery of economic activity in China and Europe this year, even though renewables are undoubtedly gaining market share at a record pace in every relevant power sector.

REUTERS By Gavin Maguire, editing by Germán & Co

Oil stable as market weighs tight supply against U.S. recession risk

However, the bank sector's stress, according to the minutes of the Fed's most recent policy meeting, might push the country into a recession, which would reduce demand for oil.

REUTERS By Rowena Edwards, editing by Germán & Co

Natural gas exporters skirt Washington’s scrutiny of China

Lawmakers are eying links between the U.S. and China, but there’s little desire to curb U.S. gas shipments that are expected to help drive the industry’s domestic growth.

POLITICO.COM By BEN LEFEBVRE and ZACK COLMAN, 04/13/2023 

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“We’re living in a volatile world…

it’s easy to get distracted by things like changeable commodity prices or a shortage of solar panels. But this wouldn’t be true to our purpose – we can’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our end goal; said Andres Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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Image: Germán & Co, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Shutterstock

No Russia-Ukraine peace talks expected this year, U.S. leak shows

The war is expected to spill into 2024 with neither side notching victory and both refusing to negotiate, U.S. intelligence officials surmise

TWP by John Hudson, April 12, 2023 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks with the media during a joint news conference at the White House in December during a high-stakes visit to Washington. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

The grinding war between Ukraine and Russia is expected to bleed into 2024 with neither side securing victory yet both refusing to negotiate an end to the conflict, according to a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that is among the highly sensitive U.S. government materials leaked online and obtained by The Washington Post.

The analysis concludes that, even if Ukraine recaptures “significant” amounts of territory and inflicts “unsustainable losses on Russian forces,” an outcome U.S. intelligence finds unlikely, the nation’s gains would not lead to peace talks.

“Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023 in all considered scenarios,” says the document, which has not been disclosed previously.

A leak of dozens of classified U.S. military documents has stunned U.S. officials and allies, and has led to a Justice Department investigation.

The assessment, based on close U.S. scrutiny of each side’s troop counts, weaponry and equipment, could galvanize the war’s critics who have called on major powers such as the United States and China to push for Kyiv and Moscow to reach a settlement and end a conflict that has displaced millions and left hundreds of thousands dead or wounded.

Asked about the DIA’s assessment, a U.S. official said the decision on when to negotiate is up to President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, underscoring what has been a hands-off approach to mediation espoused by the administration since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The United States will continue to stand with Kyiv and provide it with the equipment and weapons that will bolster its position at the negotiating table, whenever that day comes, the official said.

What to know about the Discord leaks

Dozens of highly classified documents have been leaked online, revealing sensitive information intended for senior military and intelligence leaders. In an exclusive investigation, The Post also reviewed scores of additional secret documents, most of which have not been made public.

Where did they come from?

The top-secret documents appear to be — at least partly — from the Pentagon and many seem to have been prepared for senior military officials. Post reporting revealed that a man in his early to mid-20s allegedly shared them with members of an invitation-only Discord group.

What do the leaked documents reveal about Ukraine?

The documents reveal profound concerns about the war’s trajectory and Kyiv’s capacity to wage a successful offensive against Russian forces. According to a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment among the leaked documents, “Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023.”

What else do they show?

The files include summaries of human intelligence on high-level conversations between world leaders, as well as information about advanced satellite technology the United States uses to spy. They also include intelligence on both allies and adversaries, including Iran and North Korea, as well as Britain, Canada, South Korea and Israel.

What happens now?

The leak has far-reaching implications for the United States and its allies. In addition to the Justice Department investigation, officials in several countries said they were assessing the damage from the leaks.

The document leak, which first came to authorities’ attention last week, has provided extensive insight into U.S. intelligence activities worldwide and exposed the national security establishment’s deep misgivings about the war’s trajectory. Many of the classified assessments that have surfaced thus far date to February and March, first appearing on the Discord messaging platform before spreading elsewhere online. Both the Pentagon, where many of the leaked materials appear to have originated earlier this year, and the Justice Department have said they are investigating the matter.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. Spokespersons for the Russian and Ukrainian governments did not respond to requests for comment.

Beyond forecasting a costly open-ended conflict, the newly disclosed document also predicts how Ukrainian and Russian military leaders will respond to battlefield challenges, and it anticipates that the year will end with the two sides achieving only “marginal” territorial gains as a result of “insufficient troops and supplies for effective operations.”

Such a stalemate, where neither side achieves a decisive advantage, is described in the document as “the most likely scenario.”

For the Ukrainian side, an ongoing war of attrition will lead to frustration within the country and “criticism” about how the war is conducted, “making leadership changes more likely,” the document says.

It is unclear if the document is referring to leadership changes in a political or military context. Zelensky remains broadly popular in Ukraine, but tensions exist between his office and Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, head of Ukraine’s armed forces, whom some in Kyiv view as a political threat.

A stalemate also will result in Ukraine enacting the “full mobilization” of its remaining eligible population, the document predicts, sending more young men to the front lines. At the same time, Ukraine probably will intensify its reliance on strikes in Russian territory, the document says, a dynamic that has disquieted some U.S. officials fearful that such attacks could compel President Vladimir Putin to escalate the conflict or give China cause to begin providing lethal support to Russia.

Olena Maltsev weeps over the grave of her 20-year-old son, Vladyslav Maltsev, a Ukrainian soldier buried at the cemetery in Dnipro, Ukraine. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)

For the Russian side, the stalemate will force Moscow to employ “degraded reserves due to dwindling combat power,” the document says. The Kremlin also is likely to “accelerate” efforts to integrate captured territories into Russia.

“It’s always been a race to see who runs out of resources first,” said Heather Conley, a Europe scholar and president of the German Marshall Fund.

She said she agreed with the U.S. intelligence contention that negotiations would begin only after one side is “exhausted,” a prospect that appears far off.

Jeff Rathke, a scholar at Johns Hopkins University and former U.S. diplomat, said the assessment “reflects a sobriety about the likelihood of either side being able to mount or to mass decisive military power in places where it can achieve strategic effect.”

The newly disclosed document also analyzes what might result from Russia or Ukraine achieving a “decisive advantage” on the battlefield. In the event that Russia deals a significant blow against Ukraine and captures more territory, Moscow is likely to “posture forces to achieve further objectives, such as regime change” in Ukraine, it says.

Regime change appeared to be the goal of Russia’s invasion, but its forces were thwarted in their blundering attempt to sack the capital.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on Feb. 22. (For The Washington Post)

In the scenario in which Ukraine gains a decisive advantage, however, U.S. intelligence believes that Kyiv is likely to “conduct riskier offensive operations for additional gains.” In response, Russia could be expected to “increase nonconventional attacks on Ukraine,” though, importantly, “nuclear use remains unlikely,” the document says. Officials predict that, rather than giving up, the Kremlin would opt to announce a “new national mobilization” to sustain further combat operations.

U.S. officials have cautioned that such analysis related to the war in Ukraine is fluid, and the materials that leaked may lack nuance the United States has gleaned in the days since they were drafted. The newly disclosed document acknowledges that the stalemate it describes as the most likely scenario by year’s send may not hold if there are “substantive improvements to Ukrainian or Russian military capabilities.”

Both sides are preparing for fighting to escalate as warmer weather arrives, though officials in Kyiv and personnel on the war’s front lines have complained about logistical backlogs responsible for slowing promised deliveries of Western arms. Several nations, including the United States, committed battle tanks and other armored vehicles to Ukraine over the winter while initiating new training pipelines aimed at teaching advanced combat tactics to thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.

All the while, what remains very consistent in the Biden administration’s position on Ukraine is its deep skepticism about peace negotiations. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has openly questioned the value of permanent or temporary armistice agreements, telling members of the U.N. Security Council in February that they “should not be fooled by calls for a temporary or unconditional cease-fire.” Russia, he said then, will use “any pause in fighting to consolidate control.”

Blinken has also criticized countries for urging both sides to negotiate, pointing out that Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine has every right to fight to regain its territory.

Publicly, neither Russia nor Ukraine has ruled out negotiations, but their demands are leagues apart.

The 10-point peace plan Zelensky released last year demands the full withdrawal of Russian troops “from the territory of Ukraine,” including Crimea, the peninsula Putin annexed illegally in 2014 that now serves to facilitate the resupply of his forces inside Ukraine.

Moscow, meanwhile, has insisted that Ukraine must acknowledge the new “territorial realities,” which has been interpreted to mean that Zelensky and his Western backers must recognize the regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Russia does not even fully control, as Russian territory, a non-starter for Ukraine as well as the United States.

China proposed a 12-point peace plan for the conflict with criteria that few found objectionable, but it has gained little traction since it was introduced in February.

Samuel Oakford contributed to this report.

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According to Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Emmanuel Macron’s talks of distancing the EU from America “threatens to break up” the block | Ludovic Marin/AFP, editing by Germán & Co

Poland’s Morawiecki plays Europe’s anti-Macron in Washington

The Polish PM is stressing that Warsaw is Washington’s crucial European ally.

POLITICO.EU BY JAN CIENSKI, APRIL 13, 2023 

There’s an Emmanuel Macron-shaped shadow hovering over this week’s U.S. visit by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

In contrast to the French president — who in an interview with POLITICO tried to put some distance between the U.S. and Europe in any future confrontation with China over Taiwan and called for strengthening the Continent’s “strategic autonomy” — the Polish leader is underlining the critical importance of the alliance between America and Europe, not least because his country is one of Kyiv’s strongest allies in the war with Russia.

“Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” he said before flying to Washington.

In the U.S. capital, Morawiecki continued with his under-the-table kicks at the French president.

“I see no alternative, and we are absolutely on the same wavelength here, to building an even closer alliance with the Americans. If countries to the west of Poland understand this less, it is probably because of historical circumstances,” he said on Tuesday in Washington.

Unlike France, which has spent decades bristling at Europe’s reliance on the U.S. for its security, Poland is one of the Continent’s keenest American allies. Warsaw has pushed hard for years for U.S. troops to be stationed on its territory, and many of its recent arms contracts have gone to American companies. It signed a $1.4 billion deal earlier this year to buy a second batch of Abrams tanks, and has also agreed to spend $4.6 billion on advanced F-35 fighter jets.

“I am glad that this proposal for an even deeper strategic partnership is something that finds such fertile ground here in the United States, because we know that there are various concepts formulated by others in Europe, concepts that create more threats, more question marks, more unknowns,” Morawiecki said. “Poland is trying to maintain the most commonsense policy based on a close alliance with the United States within the framework of the European Union, and this is the best path for Poland.”

Fast friends

Poland has become one of Ukraine’s most important allies, and access to its roads, railways and airports is crucial in funneling weapons, ammunition and other aid to Ukraine.

That’s helped shift perceptions of Poland — seen before the war as an increasingly marginal member of the Western club thanks to its issues with violating the rule of law, into a key country of the NATO alliance.

Warsaw also sees the Russian attack on Ukraine as justifying its long-held suspicion of its historical foe, and it hasn’t been shy in pointing the finger at Paris and Berlin for being wrong about the threat posed by the Kremlin.

“Old Europe believed in an agreement with Russia, and old Europe failed,” Morawiecki said in a joint news conference with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. “But there is a new Europe — Europe that remembers what Russian communism was. And Poland is the leader of this new Europe.”

That’s why Macron’s comments have been seized on by Warsaw.

According to Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Emmanuel Macron’s talks of distancing the EU from America “threatens to break up” the block | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

“I absolutely don’t agree with President Macron. We believe that more America is needed in Europe … We want more cooperation with the U.S. on a partnership basis,” Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, told Poland’s Radio Zet, adding that the strategic autonomy idea pushed by Macron “has the goal of cutting links between Europe and the United States.”

While Poland is keen on European countries hitting NATO’s goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense — a target that only seven alliance members, including Poland, but not France and Germany, are meeting — and has no problem with them building up military industries, it doesn’t want to weaken ties with the U.S., said Sławomir Dębski, head of the government-financed Polish Institute of International Affairs.

He warned that Macron’s talks of distancing Europe from America in the event of a conflict with China “threatens to break up the EU, which is against the interests not only of Poland, but also of most European countries.”

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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The sun rises behind windmills at a wind farm in Palm Springs, California, February 9, 2011. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson, editing by Germán & Co

Column: Peak emissions hopes to be tested as China & Europe crank output

Power emissions may worsen before they improve due to the synchronized recovery of economic activity in China and Europe this year, even though renewables are undoubtedly gaining market share at a record pace in every relevant power sector.

REUTERS By Gavin Maguire, editing by Germán & Co

LITTLETON, Colorado, April 12 (Reuters) - An upbeat report this week by think tank Ember revealed that a record 12% of global electricity was generated by renewable sources in 2022, and declared that fossil fuel emissions may soon steadily decline as more renewable supply capacity emerges.

Climate trackers have cheered the report, which was based on deep dives into power generation trends across several major economies, and incorporated detailed solar and wind capacity development pipelines in all key regions.

Yet while there is no question that renewables are gaining market share at a record pace in every power sector that matters, power emissions may still get worse before they get better thanks to the synchronised revival of economic activity in China and Europe this year.

Industries in both regions were impaired in 2022 by repeated COVID-19 lockdowns in China and a power crisis in Europe, which resulted in sharp cuts to their combined industrial output.

Even so, China and Europe still lifted fossil fuel power emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) to a record 5.99 billion tonnes in 2022, Ember data shows, which is a testament to their combined polluting heft even during times of economic distress.

Power sector emissions from fossil fuels

In 2023, the economies of China and Europe are expected to return to growth paths as factories and production lines dial up output from the subdued levels of last year, resulting in higher overall energy use.

With global natural gas markets still disrupted following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, power producers in China and Europe are likely to struggle raising electricity generation totals without resorting to the increased use of coal.

That may lift emissions even higher, and confound expectations for drops in fossil fuel pollution levels going forward.

CLIPPED BY COVID

China's protracted lockdowns to stem the spread of COVID-19 resulted in the Chinese economy expanding by only 3% in 2022, which was well short of the government target of around 5.5% and the second-weakest growth rate since 1976.

Strict movement curbs and distancing requirements forced capacity reductions in factories, offices and industrial plants throughout the country, which in turn resulted in a decline in industrial energy demand in the world's top polluter.

However, that trend is expected to reverse in 2023 after Beijing eased movement restrictions and unveiled a slew of stimulus measures aimed at reviving economic activity.

Signs are emerging that the revival is already underway, with the latest domestic air travel volumes jumping to their highest since mid-2021, and international travel numbers to their highest since early 2020.

China air travel volumes

Output of a slew of key industrial inputs, including resins, acids and ethylene, have also risen sharply in China in anticipation of greater demand from manufacturers and other downstream users.

China output of industrial inputs

To help feed this widespread revival in activity, China's imports of thermal coal climbed to new highs in the first quarter, which suggests increased coal emissions are likely over the coming months as the economy gathers further momentum.

GERMANY DRIVES EUROPE'S RECOVERY

Data on German industrial activity is also showing growth in early 2023, and is likely indicative of a broader revival in Europe's industrial momentum.

German production of steel, chemicals and fertilizers have all climbed in early 2023 after having fallen precipitously during 2022 when power prices surged.

Output of key German industries

German production of new cars - a bellwether metric of the industrial health of Europe's largest economy - has also risen from last year's lows, although total car output remains well shy of previous peaks.

Germany new car production

European governments are trying to aid the recovery through supportive fiscal and monetary policies, which should spur growth through other parts of the economy in due course.

However, the region's power producers are likely to struggle to lift power generation totals from non-emitting sources due to stunted hydro and nuclear output totals so far in 2023.

That suggests that as industrial momentum gathers further steam, power producers may need to increase fossil fuel use alongside the record deployment of renewable energy supplies to keep up with the rising energy demand.

Alongside the increased coal burning fuelling the industrial recovery in China, more fossil-based power generation in Europe is likely to steer overall power emissions to new highs in 2023, providing a wake up call to those who hope that power sector pollution is primed to head lower from now on.

The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.

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The sun is seen behind a crude oil pump jack in the Permian Basin in Loving County, Texas, U.S., November 22, 2019. REUTERS/Angus Mordant/File Photo/Editing by Germán & Co

Oil stable as market weighs tight supply against U.S. recession risk

However, the bank sector's stress, according to the minutes of the Fed's most recent policy meeting, might push the country into a recession, which would reduce demand for oil.

REUTERS By Rowena Edwards, editing by Germán & Co

LONDON, April 13 (Reuters) - Oil prices were stable on Thursday as the market weighed the prospect of tight supply against possible recession in the United States, the world's largest oil consumer.

Brent crude fell 7 cents, or 0.08%, to $87.26 a barrel by 0935 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was unchanged at $83.26.

Both benchmarks had risen 2% on Wednesday to their highest in more than a month as cooling U.S. inflation spurred hopes that the U.S. Federal Reserve will stop raising interest rates.

However, minutes from the Fed's last policy meeting indicated that banking sector stress could tip the economy into recession, which would weaken U.S. oil demand.

"Global economic growth is fragile and inflationary pressure could easily become elevated again," said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM.

The market is still reeling from the shock decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, together known as OPEC+, to increase its production cut targets.

While the executive director of the International Energy Agency expects the move to tighten supply in the second half of the year and push oil prices higher, the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday highlighted the risk this poses to global economic expansion.

For every 10% rise in the price of oil, IMF models show a 0.1 percentage point reduction in growth and a 0.3 percentage point increase in inflation, said IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said.

Investors will be looking for direction from the OPEC monthly oil market report due at 1130 GMT on Thursday.

Markets on Wednesday shrugged off a small build in U.S. crude oil stocks, attributing it in part to a release of oil from the U.S. emergency reserve and lower exports at the start of the month.

The Biden administration plans to refill the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve soon and hopes to do it at lower oil prices, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Wednesday.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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More than 12 percent of seaborne liquefied natural gas cargoes out of the U.S. went to China in 2021, second only to South Korea, according to Energy Information Administration data. | Cliff Owen/AP Photo

Natural gas exporters skirt Washington’s scrutiny of China

Lawmakers are eying links between the U.S. and China, but there’s little desire to curb U.S. gas shipments that are expected to help drive the industry’s domestic growth.

POLITICO.COM By BEN LEFEBVRE and ZACK COLMAN, 04/13/2023 

The United States’ booming natural gas export industry is trying to stay out of the fray of rising tensions between the U.S. and China. And it’s getting cover from an unusual quarter: some of Beijing’s critics in the GOP.

U.S. lawmakers of both parties are pursuing tough-on-China bills after a spate of conflicts involving spy balloons, TikTok and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Russia. But executives at companies that sell liquefied natural gas are going to Congress with a contrary message: If the United States wants more of its gas to flow overseas, Chinese yuan will have to be part of the equation.

One reason is that contracts with Chinese buyers are critical to the gas industry’s hopes of securing billions of dollars in bank financing for planned export facilities, industry analysts said. Lack of financing led to delays in construction of new gas projects that could export as much as 21 billion cubic feet a day, a volume that if completely built would triple current U.S. capacity, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration.

“Is China still critically important in signing long-term agreements to help secure funding for those projects?” said Charlie Riedl, executive director for the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas trade association. “The answer is absolutely yes.”

Representatives from the group have met with senators to make the case that China is a crucial market for U.S. energy shipments, Riedl said.

Some of the GOP’s biggest China hawks, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), are holding their fire when it comes to the LNG trade.

Cruz told POLITICO that “China poses the greatest geopolitical threat” to the U.S. and touted the dozens of bills he’s filed to address the risks. On LNG trade, though, the Texas Republican sees less of an issue.

“Individuals and companies can do business with China. We are not boycotting the nation as a whole,” Cruz said.

For some Republicans, U.S. LNG exports represent an opportunity to exert influence.

“If you want to think of it geopolitically, why wouldn’t we want China dependent on our natural gas for their own economy?” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in a recent CNBC interview. “Would the world not be safer and would we not be stronger? Why wouldn’t we create more American jobs at the same time?”

But Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who is a senior member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has questioned whether the United States should be exporting so much of its gas to a geopolitical rival when tensions between the two countries are rising fast, according to industry executives who were not authorized to discuss the conversations with the media.

Rubio told POLITICO that his concerns about trade with China go beyond LNG, and the U.S. needed to think strategically about the fuel.

“We have to be able to provide for our own energy, and I think in our policies, if we’re going to engage geopolitics in it, it should ensure that we prioritize allies over adversaries,” he said.

Chinese companies have signed major U.S. supply contracts in recent years, including in February when China Gas Holdings agreed to two contracts for one million metric tons of gas a year each from LNG supplier Venture Global. One contract would take gas from the company’s existing export facility in Calcasieu Pass, La., and the second from another facility still under development.

China has become one of the largest buyers of U.S. natural gas. More than 12 percent of seaborne LNG cargoes out of the U.S. went to China in 2021, second only to South Korea, according to EIA data. China’s appetite for U.S. gas dropped sharply in 2022 as shipments were diverted to Europe and amid China’s domestic pandemic-driven lockdowns, but is expected to ramp back up as its economy restarts.

Rubio’s arguments have alarmed some industry officials. But so far he’s on his own — his Republican colleagues in the Senate don’t see a place for Congress or the federal government to step in and steer cargoes away from China when it has become a major financier facilitating U.S. natural gas production and exports.

Sen. Marco Rubio told POLITICO that his concerns about trade with China go beyond LNG, and the U.S. needed to think strategically about the fuel. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

That’s even as GOP lawmakers decry Chinese involvement in clean energy projects in the United States, including Rubio’s targeting of a battery factory Ford Motor Co. plans to build in Michigan that would have used some Chinese technology.

“It’s a free country. People can sell [gas] wherever they want to sell it,” Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told POLITICO. “They’ll sell it to probably the person who pays the most for it. Free markets work wonderfully — as long as the government stays out.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in an interview that Chinese buyers are inking LNG contracts the same way others do — China gets guaranteed shipments at a certain price by providing upfront capital. That, in turn, helps U.S. companies build export terminals, which drives demand for more U.S. drilling in places like Louisiana and Texas.

“Right now China is a frenemy,” he said. “If they — just like India, South Korea, Japan, the EU — are purchasing or buying, helping to pay for the capitalization of LNG export terminals, well, that’s a good thing. That’s an international norm. I’m OK with that.”

So far, Rubio hasn’t offered specific legislative language that would limit energy exports to China, said one industry official who was granted anonymity to describe private discussions with lawmakers.

But the fact that Republicans and Democrats seem to be in a competition to prove their tough-on-China bonafides is worrying businesses, the industry official said.

“Every industry is sweating the growing bipartisan anti-China consensus,” the industry official said.

Cruz also said LNG would likely bring climate and environmental benefits to China by displacing coal.

China approved construction of 106 gigawatts of coal-fired power in 2022 — equivalent to more than half the entire U.S. coal-fired fleet — according to a recent report by research groups Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Still, the industry remains concerned that the U.S.-China relationship could deteriorate further, particularly as the two remain far apart on issues such as Taiwan and Ukraine. If things get much worse, the global economic reaction could make demand for gas from anywhere start to crumble, said Daniel Yergin, an energy historian and vice chair of market analysis firm S&P Global.

“If China does start shipping weapons to Russia, we’ll see a strong reaction that can have quite a big impact on the world economy,” Yergin said.

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News round-up, April, 11, 2023

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Quote of the day…

…”An unexpected and ill-timed —Black Swan— puts the Pentagon in a major bind.

Germán & Co

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Most read…

U.S. in crisis mode with allies after Ukraine intel leak

Officials in London, Brussels, Berlin, Dubai and Kyiv questioned Washington about how the information ended up online.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a statement that the administration has assembled an interagency team “focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our allies and partners.”

REUTERS By ERIN BANCO and ALEXANDER WARD, 04/10/2023 

Egypt secretly planned to supply rockets to Russia, leaked U.S. document says

President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi in February planned to produce 40,000 rockets for Russia and instructed officials to keep production and shipment secret ‘to avoid problems with the West’

The Washington Post by Evan Hill, Missy Ryan, Siobhán O'Grady and Samuel Oakford, April 10, 2023

Exxon Deal Hunt Signals Possible Shale M&A Wave

Drillers are flush with cash, and their concerns about inventories and high costs are seen leading to deals

WSJ by Benoît MorenneFollow and Collin EatonFollow, April 11, 2023

Exclusive: Russia starts fuel supplies to Iran by rail -sources

Russia and Iran are subject to Western sanctions; as a result, they are developing closer connections to support their economies and thwart the sanctions, which both Moscow and Tehran view as unjustifiable.

Reuters, editing by Germán & Co

Mexican Government to Buy Power Plants From Spain’s Iberdrola

Acquisition will increase the state-owned utility’s share of the country’s electricity generation to 55%

Iberdrola said it would continue to develop renewable energy in Mexico with the backing of the Mexican government.

TWP by Anthony Harrup, April 4, 2023 

Ukraine cities pounded, US scrambles to find source of leaked documents

“This could be the result of the leak of classified material from the US…

REUTERS By Pavel Polityuk, NOW

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“We’re living in a volatile world…

it’s easy to get distracted by things like changeable commodity prices or a shortage of solar panels. But this wouldn’t be true to our purpose – we can’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our end goal; said Andres Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp

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Today's events

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Today's events 〰️

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U.S. in crisis mode with allies after Ukraine intel leak

Officials in London, Brussels, Berlin, Dubai and Kyiv questioned Washington about how the information ended up online.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a statement that the administration has assembled an interagency team “focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our allies and partners.”

REUTERS By ERIN BANCO and ALEXANDER WARD, 04/10/2023 

Editing by Germán & Co

Senior U.S. officials are racing to placate frustrated and confused allies from Europe to the Middle East to Kyiv following the leak of highly classified information about the war in Ukraine and other global issues.

After the news of the leak broke last week, senior intelligence, State Department and Pentagon officials reached out to their counterparts to quell worries about the publishing of the intel, according to four officials — an American, two European and one Five Eyes member — familiar with those conversations.

One said that members of the Five Eyes — the intelligence consortium of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand — have asked for briefings from Washington but have yet to receive a substantive response. Inquiries have been sent separately to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Meanwhile, officials in London, Brussels, Berlin, Dubai and Kyiv questioned Washington about how the information ended up online, who was responsible for the leak and what the U.S. was doing to ensure the information was removed from social media. They also questioned whether the Biden administration was taking steps to limit the distribution of future intelligence. As of Monday morning, U.S. officials had told allies the administration was investigating and that they were still trying to understand the full scope of the leak, the European officials said.

Kirby: ‘We don’t know’ if Ukraine document leak is contained

Ukraine has long worried about information it shares with the U.S. spilling out into the open. “This case showed that the Ukrainians have been absolutely right about that,” said one of the European officials, who like others was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive leak. “Americans now owe the Ukrainians. They have to apologize and compensate.”

The saga has left the U.S. relationship with its allies in a state of crisis, raising questions about how Washington will correct what officials worldwide view as one of the largest public breaches of U.S. intelligence since WikiLeaks dumped millions of sensitive documents online from 2006 to 2021.

The distress over the leak is particularly problematic because the majority of the documents focus on the war in Ukraine — an effort the U.S. has repeatedly said hinges on collaboration among allies in NATO, Europe and elsewhere.

“The manner of the leak and the contents are very unusual,” said a former U.S. intelligence analyst who focused on Russia. “I can’t remember a time when there was this volume of a leak and this broad of a subject matter of authentic information that was just put on social media rather than say, the Snowden files, that went through a group of journalists first.”

The Pentagon, CIA, ODNI, and FBI declined to comment.

More than 100 U.S. intelligence documents were posted on Discord, a secure messaging app, as early as March 2 and contained sensitive, classified information about the war in Ukraine, Russian military activity, China and the Middle East. The photographed papers, which appeared to have been folded over and then smoothed out, contained top secret information, including from the Central Intelligence Agency.

POLITICO’s review of the documents shows some that appear to have been assembled into a briefing packet by the Joint Staff’s intelligence arm, known as J2, with summaries of global matters pulled from various U.S. intelligence systems. Some of the documents contain markings in the corners that correspond with specific wires with information that appear to be compiled in summary form — a practice often used by individuals inside the government to prepare briefing packets, the former U.S. intelligence analyst said.

It’s still unclear the extent to which the documents have been altered — and by whom. The documents posted in March do not appear to show any glaring alterations, but when some of those were reposted on Discord in April, at least one paper appears to have been altered to show significantly inflated Ukrainian death tolls.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a statement Sunday that the administration has assembled an interagency team “focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our allies and partners.” She confirmed that U.S. officials had engaged with “allies and partners” across the globe, adding that the department was still assessing the “validity” of the documents posted to social media.

It’s unclear who from the Biden administration is involved in that interagency effort. The senior U.S. official said only the highest levels of government were in discussions about how to manage the leak. Even those senior officials who work on Ukraine and Russia policy and on portfolios that pertain to countries mentioned in the documents did not know as of Sunday how the administration would respond.

“I have no idea what the plan is,” another senior U.S. official said. “I’d like to know myself how we’re going to handle.”

Meanwhile, in Kyiv where military leaders are busy preparing for a spring counteroffensive, senior officials blamed Russia for the leak and characterized it as a disinformation campaign.

“It is very important to remember that in recent decades, the most successful operations of the Russian special services have been carried out in Photoshop,” Andriy Yusov, the representative of the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Main Directorate, said on Friday — adding that a preliminary analysis of the documents showed “distorted figures” on losses suffered by both Russia and Ukraine.

A senior Ukrainian lawmaker said the leak was “not seen as a big issue here.”

But elsewhere in Ukraine in the senior national security ranks, officials were angered by the leak, according to one of the European officials. While the documents are dated and likely have no immediate impact on the country’s battlefield operations, the publishing of the information was viewed internally as an embarrassment and potential long-term security problem for Ukraine’s military commanders.

It’s unclear the extent to which the U.S. will alter its intelligence sharing on the Ukraine war in the days and weeks ahead.

The U.S. has made it a habit of sharing intelligence with Ukraine and European allies since 2022. In the months leading up to the war, the U.S. intelligence community shared information with allies to build a coalition of support for Kyiv and to prepare targeted sanctions on Russian government entities and businesses. Senior U.S. officials have heralded that strategy as a major success — one that allowed the U.S., its allies in Europe and in Kyiv to better prepare for the eventual Russian assault.

Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi enter a hall during their meeting in Sochi, Russia, on Oct. 17, 2018. (Pavel Golovkin/AP)

Egypt secretly planned to supply rockets to Russia, leaked U.S. document says

President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi in February planned to produce 40,000 rockets for Russia and instructed officials to keep production and shipment secret ‘to avoid problems with the West’

The Washington Post by Evan Hill, Missy Ryan, Siobhán O'Grady and Samuel Oakford, April 10, 2023

President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi of Egypt, one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East and a major recipient of U.S. aid, recently ordered subordinates to produce up to 40,000 rockets to be covertly shipped to Russia, according to a leaked U.S. intelligence document.

A portion of a top secret document, dated Feb. 17, summarizes purported conversations between Sisi and senior Egyptian military officials and also references plans to supply Russia with artillery rounds and gunpowder. In the document, Sisi instructs the officials to keep the production and shipment of the rockets secret “to avoid problems with the West.”

The Washington Post obtained the document from a trove of images of classified files posted in February and March on Discord, a chat app popular with gamers. The document has not been previously reported.

What to know about the Pentagon leak

Dozens of highly classified U.S. military and intelligence documents have been leaked online, revealing a detailed picture of the war in Ukraine, as well as analysis and sensitive information on Russia and other countries — from classified sources. The leak has far-reaching implications for the United States and its allies. Here’s what we know.

Where did they come from?

The top-secret documents appear to be — at least partly — from the Pentagon. Many seem to have been prepared for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, though hundreds of others may have had access. The files include reports from across the U.S. intelligence community, including from the CIA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, FISA court warrants and more.

What do the leaked documents reveal about Ukraine?

The documents contain assessments of the progress of war in Ukraine, including precise battlefield tactical information. They reveal profound concerns about Ukraine’s readiness to withstand a Russian offensive, but also show the extent to which the United States has infiltrated the Russian military, allowing the administration to warn Ukraine about upcoming attacks.

What else do they show?

The files include summaries of human intelligence on high-level conversations between world leaders, as well as information about advanced satellite technology the United States uses to spy. They also include intelligence on both allies and adversaries, including Iran and North Korea, as well as Britain, Canada, South Korea and Israel.

Who leaked the documents?

We don’t know who leaked the documents or why, but the Justice Department has said it is investigating the leak. The documents initially appeared in early March on a now-shuttered Discord server; then several of the images were posted on Twitter. Some versions appear later to have been digitally manipulated to inflate Russian military strength.

What happens now?

In addition to the Justice Department investigation, officials in several countries said they were assessing the damage from the leaks.

The disclosure comes as Russia is fighting a war with Ukraine, in which both sides are seeking resupply of depleted arsenals.

In response to questions regarding the document and the veracity of the conversations it describes, Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, said that “Egypt’s position from the beginning is based on noninvolvement in this crisis and committing to maintain equal distance with both sides, while affirming Egypt’s support to the U.N. charter and international law in the U.N. General Assembly resolutions.”

“We continue to urge both parties to cease hostilities and reach a political solution through negotiations,” he said.

A U.S. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address sensitive information, said: “We are not aware of any execution of that plan,” referring to the rocket export initiative. “We have not seen that happen,” the official added.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh noted that the Justice Department has opened a probe into the leak of classified documents.

U.S. agencies investigate Pentagon leak

U.S. national security agencies are investigating after dozens of highly classified U.S. military and intelligence documents were leaked online a month ago. (Video: Reuters)

Providing arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine would represent a potentially explosive gambit for Egypt, a nation that, despite deepening ties with Moscow, remains deeply invested in its partnership with the United States, which for decades has provided the country more than $1 billion a year in security aid. The document does not explicitly say why Russia is interested in acquiring the rockets, but its military has been expending huge amounts of ammunition in the war, and the U.S. government has claimed that North Korea is clandestinely supplying Russia with artillery rounds and that China is considering doing the same.

Egypt and other American partners in the Middle East have attempted to stay on the sidelines of Western nations’ standoff with Russia over Ukraine, seeking a potential hedge against America’s declining role in the region and new means to ensure their economic and military security. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised commodity prices globally and put serious pressure on Egypt, the world’s top importer of wheat, which has received more than 80 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in recent years.

“Egypt is one of our oldest allies in the Middle East,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations and Appropriations committees. “If it’s true that Sisi is covertly building rockets for Russia that could be used in Ukraine, we need to have a serious reckoning about the state of our relationship.”

Sarah Margon, director of U.S. foreign policy at the Open Society Foundations and the Biden administration’s onetime nominee for the State Department’s top human rights post, said that “an intentional sale and delivery of rockets to the Russian government, which has committed such explicit war and other atrocity crimes, is just beyond the pale, especially for an ostensibly close U.S. ally.”

The revelations in the document, if true, raise the question of whether the United States “should continue to defend and support” Egypt if Sisi’s government is seeking a sale that would “serve Cairo’s immediate needs but is likely to have serious negative global impact,” she said.

Michael Hanna, director of U.S. programs at the International Crisis Group, noted that the Biden administration has been leading Western efforts to deny Russia and its mercenaries technology and arms needed for its war in Ukraine and punishing American adversaries such as Iran and North Korea who have done so.

“The idea that it would be Egypt in this role — that’s an embarrassment to the U.S.,” he said.

The document describes Sisi issuing instructions on Feb. 1 for keeping the supply of rockets secret in order “to avoid problems with ‘the West,’” telling a person referenced only as Salah al-Din that factory workers should be told the projectiles are intended for the Egyptian army. Salah al-Din is probably Mohamed Salah al-Din, the minister of state for military production. The gunpowder offered to Russia would come from Factory 18, the document said, which is the name of a decades-old chemical manufacturing plant.

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Exxon Mobil’s search for deals in the Permian Basin points to a coming boom in acquisitions. PHOTO: KATHLEEN FLYNN/REUTERS

Exxon Deal Hunt Signals Possible Shale M&A Wave

Drillers are flush with cash, and their concerns about inventories and high costs are seen leading to deals

WSJ by Benoît MorenneFollow and Collin EatonFollow, April 11, 2023

Exxon Mobil Corp.’s XOM -0.44% hunt for a blockbuster deal in U.S. shale could kick off a bonanza of deal-making in the oil patch as drillers look to put large war chests of cash to work.

The oil giant has held preliminary talks with Pioneer Natural Resources Co. PXD 5.79% , a Texas fracker with a roughly $52 billion market capitalization, about a potential acquisition, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Exxon, which has been on the prowl in the Permian Basin for months, has also discussed a potential deal with at least one other company, the Journal reported.

Such a transaction would send the strongest signal yet that drillers in the Permian, the hottest U.S. oil field, are set to bulk up through acquisitions. Oil companies boast healthy balance sheets that give them the stomach and means to shop for targets. 

The Journal reported there is no formal process between Exxon and Pioneer, and any deal, if it happens, likely wouldn’t come together until later this year or next year. On Monday, the first day of trading since the Journal’s story, Exxon’s stock dropped less than 1% while Pioneer’s stock jumped about 6%.

The shale industry has shifted from the rapid growth it pursued for more than a decade to a mature business underpinned by fiscal restraint and hefty investor payouts. But shale companies are contending with dwindling drilling locations. Drilling for new oil discoveries has fallen out of favor with investors, leaving many companies with few options other than to acquire rivals to extend their runway. 

“We think generally, there’s more consolidation that’s needed in our business,” ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Ryan Lance told analysts in February.

Wall Street plowed money into several American frackers on Monday, including APA Corp. , Coterra Energy Inc. and Diamondback Energy Inc., adding $7 billion to the collective market value of the 20 largest independent U.S. oil-and-gas companies. Shale stocks climbed even though oil prices declined about 1% Monday because investors were largely betting on an increase in oil mergers and acquisitions, said Neal Dingmann, an analyst at Truist Securities. 

Thirst for growth led to a mergers-and-acquisitions boom in U.S. shale in the past decade. Between 2014 and 2019, the sector saw an average of 407 deals—not restricted to M&A—each year, with a total annual value averaging about $90 billion, according to investment bank Mizuho Securities.

But the pace of M&A slowed down after the pandemic gutted oil demand and stung companies’ balance sheets. Drillers also tightened their belts to meet investors’ demands for cash returns. There were, on average, 180 deals a year between 2020 and 2022 for $59 billion a year, according to Mizuho. 

Now, producers have deep coffers at their disposal to pursue deals. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year sent global prices soaring to more than $127 a barrel, translating into windfall profits for oil and gas. 

The 10 largest U.S. publicly traded shale companies as of the end of last year earned more than $70 billion in profits in 2022, according to FactSet. Exxon netted $55.7 billion in profits, while Chevron Corp. raked in $35.5 billion. 

The next wave of oil deal-making is likely to be set in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, say energy analysts and executives. Oil giants such as Exxon and Chevron favor the region for shale wells that produce rapidly and don’t bind the companies to decadeslong megaprojects that have fallen out of favor with some investors who fear a future decline in oil demand.

If an oil major such as Exxon or Chevron snapped up a big Permian company, “that could obviously ignite a speculative boom,” said Adam Rozencwajg, a managing partner at investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg.

Exxon has invested heavily in the Permian over the past decade, and continues to call it a key source of growth, alongside its massive oil discoveries in Guyana. The company produced about 550,000 barrels a day on average last year in the Permian, and said it plans to increase its output there to 1 million barrels a day by 2027.

But as the region matures, firms have been wrestling with disappointing wells. The average Permian well produced 5% less oil per lateral foot in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to research firm Enverus. In one part of the Permian, Exxon’s 2022-vintage wells were 8.4% less productive than the prior year, according to Enverus data analyzed by JPMorgan Chase.

In addition to less-productive wells, operators are contending with shrinking inventories of drilling locations. Public companies and private operators in the Permian have less than eight years of their best locations remaining, investment bank Raymond James Financial estimated last year. 

The double whammy creates incentives for companies to merge to gain new drilling opportunities and create economies of scale, executives and investors said. 

Also whetting producers’ appetite for deals is inflation, which has blunted companies’ deployment of capital. The price of labor, steel and equipment has shot up, prompting companies to increase their spending by about 20% this year from 2022 without reaping additional barrels. 

Nabbing a competitor allows drillers to augment production while keeping costs in check, said Muhammad Laghari, a senior managing director at investment bank Guggenheim Securities. 

“M&A is probably right now, in this inflationary environment, the most cost-efficient way to increase your cash flow per share,” he said. 

While oil-price volatility in recent months complicated deals, the U.S. oil benchmark has dropped roughly $43 from its peak last June and is now in the $70 to $80 range, which supports negotiations between sellers and buyers, analysts said. Exxon CEO Darren Woods said on an earnings call in January that the company is looking for opportunities in the Permian but it is difficult to buy at the peak of a commodity cycle.

Some analysts say consolidation in the Permian could contribute to a slowdown in activity there because public companies—the most likely acquirers—have been more conservative with their drilling programs than private operators.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country

…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.

More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.

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A view shows a local oil refinery in Omsk, Russia June 6, 2022. Picture taken June 6, 2022. REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko

Exclusive: Russia starts fuel supplies to Iran by rail -sources

Russia and Iran are subject to Western sanctions; as a result, they are developing closer connections to support their economies and thwart the sanctions, which both Moscow and Tehran view as unjustifiable.

Reuters, editing by Germán & Co

MOSCOW, April 11 (Reuters) - Russia started fuel exports to Iran by rail this year for the first time after traditional buyers shunned trade with Moscow, according to three industry sources and exports data.

Russia and Iran, both under Western sanctions, are forging closer ties in order to support their economies and to undermine Western sanctions which both Moscow and Tehran cast as unjustified.

Western sanctions on Russian oil products over what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine have reshaped global fuel markets with tankers taking longer routes and suppliers choosing exotic destinations and ways of transportation.

Iran has been under Western sanctions for years with limited access to global markets.

The oil ministries of Russia and Iran did not reply to requests for comment.

Last autumn Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak announced the start of swap supplies of oil products with Iran, but actual shipments only started this year, Reuters sources said.

In February and March Russia supplied up to 30,000 tonnes of gasoline and diesel to Iran, two sources familiar with the export data told Reuters.

A third source confirmed the trade but was not able to confirm the volumes.

All the volumes were supplied by rail from Russia via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. One of the sources said that some gasoline cargoes were sent on from Iran to neighbouring states, including Iraq, by truck.

Iran is an oil producer and has its own refineries, but recently its consumption had exceeded domestic fuel production, especially in its northern provinces, a trader in Central Asian oil products market said.

Russia had supplied small volumes of fuel to Iran by tanker via the Caspian Sea, as was the case in 2018, two traders familiar with the matter said.

Russian oil companies are currently interested in exporting diesel and gasoline to Iran by rail as exports by sea face high freight rates and a price cap imposed by the G7 countries.

However the rail exports face bottlenecks along the route, the sources said.

"We expect fuel supplies to Iran to rise this year, but we already see several issues with logistics due to rail congestion. That may keep exports from booming," one of the sources familiar with supplies to Iran said

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Iberdrola said it would continue to develop renewable energy in Mexico with the backing of the Mexican government. PHOTO: VINCENT WEST/REUTERS

Mexican Government to Buy Power Plants From Spain’s Iberdrola

Acquisition will increase the state-owned utility’s share of the country’s electricity generation to 55%

Iberdrola said it would continue to develop renewable energy in Mexico with the backing of the Mexican government.

TWP by Anthony Harrup, April 4, 2023 

MEXICO CITY—The Mexican government reached an agreement to buy 13 power-generation plants from Spanish electricity company Iberdrola SA for around $6 billion, the latest bid by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to recover state share of the industry, the government and the company said.

Mr. López Obrador, whose government has been in disputes with Iberdrola in recent years, met in Mexico City on Tuesday with Iberdrola executives.

“We’ve had our differences, but everything can be resolved through dialogue,” Mr. López Obrador said.

Iberdrola Chairman Ignacio Galán said that given the Mexican government’s energy policies, the company looked for a solution that was good for Mexico and for the interests of Iberdrola shareholders.

“Our wish is to continue collaborating with Mexico—we’ve been doing this for 22 years—in the way that the Mexican government wishes,” he said.

Iberdrola, the largest private electricity generation company in Mexico, said the agreement is for 8,539 megawatts of capacity, including 8,436 megawatts of gas-fueled generation and 103 megawatts of wind power. Iberdrola said it would continue to develop renewable energy in Mexico with the backing of the Mexican government.

“The company continues to be the main private generator of renewable energy in Mexico, aligning with its decarbonization commitments,” Iberdrola said.

The Finance Ministry said the acquisition will be made through an investment vehicle that is majority owned by the country’s national infrastructure fund and managed by Mexico Infrastructure Partners, an investment fund manager. The plants will be operated by state electricity utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad, which will increase its share of overall electricity generation in Mexico from 39% to 55%.

“It strengthens the state’s participation in electricity generation to meet its responsibility of guaranteeing energy supply and price stability for Mexicans,” the ministry said.

Since taking office in 2018, Mr. López Obrador has sought to undo many of the changes made under his predecessor that opened Mexico’s oil and electricity sectors to greater private and foreign investment. Mr. López Obrador suspended new oil block auctions on taking office. In 2021, state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos bought Royal Dutch Shell’s 50% stake in the joint-venture Deer Park refinery in Texas.

Changes made in electricity laws and other government actions in favor of the CFE and Pemex led the U.S. Trade Representative’s office last year to seek consultations under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, questioning their consistency with Mexico’s commitments under the pact. Canada has also challenged Mexico’s energy policies.

Failure to reach an agreement could lead the U.S. to request a dispute resolution panel under the USMCA, which could eventually lead to the U.S. imposing import tariffs on a range of Mexican products.

—Sabela Ojea contributed to this article.

Write to Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Iberdrola will sell gas-fueled power plants with capacity of 8,436 megawatts. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the capacity was 8,463 megawatts. (Corrected on April 5.)

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Image: NUCLEAR RUSO, editing by Germán & Co

Ukraine cities pounded, US scrambles to find source of leaked documents

“This could be the result of the leak of classified material from the US…

REUTERS By Pavel Polityuk, NOW

KYIV, April 11 (Reuters) - Russian forces pounded frontline cities in eastern Ukraine with air strikes and artillery attacks, while U.S. officials stepped up efforts to locate the source of a leak of classified U.S. documents, including those on Ukrainian counter-offensive plans.

The Russians pressed on with their offensive in the eastern Donetsk region where several cities and towns came under heavy bombardment, Ukraine's general staff said on Tuesday.

Ukrainian forces repelled several attacks, it said, as the Russian military kept up its effort to take control of Bakhmut.

A top Ukrainian commander accused Moscow of using "scorched earth" tactics.

"The enemy switched to so-called scorched earth tactics from Syria. It is destroying buildings and positions with air strikes and artillery fire," Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's ground forces, said of Bakhmut.

The battle for the small and now largely ruined city on the edge of a chunk of Russian-controlled territory in Donetsk has been the bloodiest of the 13-month war as Moscow tries to inject momentum into its campaign after recent setbacks.

Both sides have suffered heavy casualties in the Bakhmut fighting, but Syrskyi said: "The situation is difficult but controllable."

The head of the Moscow-controlled part of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said Russian forces now held 75% of the city, though he cautioned it was too early to talk about Bakhmut's fall.

Moscow's military was also targeting the city of Avdiivka.

"The Russians have turned Avdiivka into a total ruin," said Pavlo Kyrylenko, Donetsk's regional governor, describing an air strike on Monday that destroyed a multi-storey building.

"In total, around 1,800 people remain in Avdiivka, all of whom risk their lives every day."

In Chasiv Yar, the first major town to Bakhmut's west, few buildings remain intact and those queuing for food and other aid do not even flinch at the sound of artillery.

"It used to be scarier, but now we have got used to it," said 50-year-old humanitarian volunteer Maksym. "You don't even pay attention," he added, his words nearly drowned out by the sound of explosions.

As the battles ground on, U.S. broadcaster CNN said Ukraine was forced to amend some military plans ahead of its long-anticipated counter-offensive because of the leak of dozens of secret documents.

U.S. officials are trying to trace the source of the leak, reviewing how they share secrets internally and dealing with the diplomatic fallout.

The documents detail topics such as information on the Ukraine conflict, in which Washington has supplied Kyiv with huge amounts of weapons and led international condemnation of Moscow's invasion.

Asked about the report, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said Kyiv's strategic plans remained unchanged but that specific tactics were always subject to change.

Some national security experts and U.S. officials have said they suspect the leaker could be American, but have not ruled out pro-Russian actors.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the leak, but said: "There is in fact a tendency to always blame everything on Russia. It is, in general, a disease."

HOT ON THE EASTERN FRONT

A Ukrainian counter-offensive has long been expected after months of attritional warfare in the east.

A Russian winter offensive failed to make much progress, and its troops have made only small advances at huge cost.

The Ukrainian defenders have also taken heavy casualties.

Syrskyi said Moscow was sending in special forces and airborne units to help their attack on Bakhmut as members of Russia's private mercenary Wagner group, who have spearheaded the Bakhmut assault, were exhausted.

Reuters could not verify the battlefield accounts.

Ukraine's general staff said Russian forces had made unsuccessful advances on areas west of Bakhmut while shelling many towns and villages, including Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar.

Ukrainian forces repelled 52 enemy attacks, it said.

Donetsk is one of four provinces in eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia declared annexed last year and is seeking to fully occupy in what appears to be a shift in its war aims after failing to overrun the country after its February 2022 invasion.

Control of Bakhmut could allow Russia to directly target Ukrainian defensive lines in Chasiv Yar and open the way for its forces to advance on two bigger cities in the Donetsk region - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Last week, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said troops could be withdrawn if they ran the risk of being encircled. Kyiv and the West say the now smashed city of Bakhmut has only symbolic importance.

Additional reporting by Ron Popeski, Nick Starko and Tom Balmforth; Writing by Angus MacSwan, Andrew Cawthorne, Arshad Mohammed and Shri Navaratnam; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Clarence Fernandez

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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