News round-up, August 3, 2023

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Understanding Poland's Concern

Source: Holocaust Encyclopedia

The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is intricate and rooted in historical, economic, and political factors. The refusal of the Kremlin to acknowledge Ukraine as an independent nation adds an extra layer of complexity to the situation. This non-recognition is seen as a direct challenge to Western powers and as an attempt by Russia to regain control over Eastern Europe.

One consequence of the occupation of Ukraine is the potential for territorial expansion into neighboring countries, such as Poland, Moldova, and Lithuania. This scenario is not hypothetical; it is crucial to understand its historical context. It is impossible to overlook the influence of Gorbachev on the Soviet Union and the consequent fall of the Berlin Wall. Gorbachev's efforts to modernize the Soviet Union ultimately led to its downfall. The collapse of the Soviet Union had far-reaching effects beyond Russia's borders. As a result, the United States emerged as the dominant global power. This power shift forced the US to reevaluate its military strategies and prioritize modernization to maintain its advantage and safeguard its interests.

The negative outcome of the Cold War had a profound impact on the Soviets, fueling their determination to never be militarily inferior again. If the expansion of the Russian Empire were to occur, it would undoubtedly result in the establishment of a new Iron Curtain, reminiscent of the Cold War era ("As Long as It Takes: Biden Adds to Talk of a New Cold War," published on July 13, 2023, subscribed by David E. Sanger, world's media). This possibility raises significant concerns, particularly for Poland, given its history of invasions. The specter of territorial expansion instills reasonable alarm about potential consequences and destabilization in the region.

Finally, China emerges as the big winner in this crisis. Although it has not explicitly voiced full support for the Kremlin's military operations, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on the Chinese economy and on economies worldwide. Consequently, a Russian incursion holds the potential for China to exploit the abundant natural resources of Eurasia, including valuable energy sources, oil, and gas reserves.

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Quote of the day…

“Censorship is not what it used to be

“The United States has taken freedom of speech further than any other modern democracy, but today it is a contradictory society, embroiled in implausible culture wars where various kinds of prohibition flourish.

"El País, from Spain, is perhaps the most important newspaper in the Spanish language.

Translation from Spanish to English by Germán & Co

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Most read…

What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?

NYT, Aug. 2, 2023 by David Brooks

America’s Fiscal Time Bomb Ticks Even Louder

Fitch’s downgrade of the U.S. debt rating only caused a flutter in markets, but fiscal strains will soon get harder to ignore

WSJ by Spencer Jakab, Aug. 2, 2023

China's oil and uranium business in Niger

In 2009, the Nigerien government secured a significant loan worth 650 million yuan ($90.93 million) from the Chinese state-owned Eximbank.

REUTERS By Andrew Hayley,/Editing by Germán & Co, July 31, 2023

Why China is not as powerful as the West might think

Xi Jinping’s brand of economic policy is less and less convincing to Western companies. Politicians are waking up, too.

POLITICO EU BY STUART LAU AND PHELIM KINE, AUGUST 3, 2023

America is heavily reliant on Russia for nuclear fuel. Congress might change that.

WSJ Analysis by Maxine Joselow with research by Vanessa Montalbano, August 3, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Source: TWP/Editing by Germán & Co

What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?

NYT, Aug. 2, 2023 by David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

Donald Trump seems to get indicted on a weekly basis. Yet he is utterly dominating his Republican rivals in the polls, and he is tied with Joe Biden in the general election surveys. Trump’s poll numbers are stronger against Biden now than at any time in 2020.

What’s going on here? Why is this guy still politically viable, after all he’s done?

We anti-Trumpers often tell a story to explain that. It was encapsulated in a quote the University of North Carolina political scientist Marc Hetherington gave to my colleague Thomas B. Edsall recently: “Republicans see a world changing around them uncomfortably fast, and they want it to slow down, maybe even take a step backward. But if you are a person of color, a woman who values gender equality or an L.G.B.T. person, would you want to go back to 1963? I doubt it.”

In this story we anti-Trumpers are the good guys, the forces of progress and enlightenment. The Trumpers are reactionary bigots and authoritarians. Many Republicans support Trump no matter what, according to this story, because at the end of the day he’s still the bigot in chief, the embodiment of their resentments, and that’s what matters to them most.

I partly agree with this story; but it’s also a monument to elite self-satisfaction.

So let me try another story on you. I ask you to try on a vantage point in which we anti-Trumpers are not the eternal good guys. In fact, we’re the bad guys.

This story begins in the 1960s, when high school grads had to go off to fight in Vietnam, but the children of the educated class got college deferments. It continues in the 1970s, when the authorities imposed busing on working-class areas in Boston, but not on the upscale communities like Wellesley where they themselves lived.

The ideal that “we’re all in this together” was replaced with the reality that the educated class lives in a world up here, and everybody else is forced into a world down there. Members of our class are always publicly speaking out for the marginalized, but somehow we always end up building systems that serve ourselves.

The most important of those systems is the modern meritocracy. We built an entire social order that sorts and excludes people on the basis of the quality that we possess most: academic achievement. Highly educated parents go to elite schools, marry each other, work at high-paying professional jobs and pour enormous resources into our children, who get into the same elite schools, marry each other and pass their exclusive class privileges down from generation to generation.

Daniel Markovits summarized years of research in his book “The Meritocracy Trap”: “Today, middle-class children lose out to the rich children at school, and middle-class adults lose out to elite graduates at work. Meritocracy blocks the middle class from opportunity. Then it blames those who lose a competition for income and status that, even when everyone plays by the rules, only the rich can win.”

The meritocracy isn’t only a system of exclusion; it’s an ethos. During his presidency Barack Obama used the word “smart” in the context of his policies over 900 times. The implication was that anybody who disagreed with his policies (and perhaps didn’t go to Harvard Law) must be stupid.

Over the last decades we’ve taken over whole professions and locked everybody else out. When I began my journalism career in Chicago in the 1980s, there were still some old crusty working-class guys around the newsroom. Now we’re not only a college-dominated profession, we’re an elite-college-dominated profession. Only 0.8 percent of all college students graduate from the super elite 12 schools (the Ivy League colleges, plus Stanford, M.I.T., Duke and the University of Chicago). A 2018 study found that more than 50 percent of the staff writers at the beloved New York Times and The Wall Street Journal attended one of the 29 most elite universities in the nation.

Writing in Compact magazine, Michael Lind observes that the upper-middle-class job market looks like a candelabrum: “Those who manage to squeeze through the stem of a few prestigious colleges and universities in their youth can then branch out to fill leadership positions in almost every vocation.”

Or, as Markovits puts it, “Elite graduates monopolize the best jobs and at the same time invent new technologies that privilege superskilled workers, making the best jobs better and all other jobs worse.”

Members of our class also segregate ourselves into a few booming metro areas: San Francisco, D.C., Austin and so on. In 2020, Biden won only 500 or so counties, but together they are responsible for 71 percent of the American economy. Trump won over 2,500 counties, responsible for only 29 percent. Once we find our cliques, we don’t get out much. In the book “Social Class in the 21st Century,” sociologist Mike Savage and his co-researchers found that the members of the highly educated class tend to be the most insular, measured by how often we have contact with those who have jobs unlike our

Armed with all kinds of economic, cultural and political power, we support policies that help ourselves. Free trade makes the products we buy cheaper, and our jobs are unlikely to be moved to China. Open immigration makes our service staff cheaper, but new, less-educated immigrants aren’t likely to put downward pressure on our wages.

Like all elites, we use language and mores as tools to recognize one another and exclude others. Using words like problematic, cisgender, Latinx and intersectional is a sure sign that you’ve got cultural capital coming out of your ears. Meanwhile, members of the less-educated classes have to walk on eggshells, because they never know when we’ve changed the usage rules, so that something that was sayable five years ago now gets you fired.

We also change the moral norms in ways that suit ourselves, never mind the cost to others. For example, there used to be a norm that discouraged people from having children outside of marriage, but that got washed away during our period of cultural dominance, as we eroded norms that seemed judgmental or that might inhibit individual freedom.

After this social norm was eroded, a funny thing happened. Members of our class still overwhelmingly married and then had children within wedlock. People without our resources, unsupported by social norms, were less able to do that. As Adrian Wooldridge points out in his magisterial 2021 book, “The Aristocracy of Talent,” “Sixty percent of births to women with only a high school certificate occur out of wedlock, compared with only 10 percent to women with a university degree.” That matters, Wooldridge continues, because “The rate of single parenting is the most significant predictor of social immobility in the country.”

Does this mean that I think the people in my class are vicious and evil? No, most of us are earnest, kind and public spirited. But we take for granted and benefit from systems that have become oppressive. Elite institutions have become so politically progressive in part because the people in them want to feel good about themselves as they take part in systems that exclude and reject.

It’s easy to understand why people in less-educated classes would conclude that they are under economic, political, cultural and moral assault — and why they’ve rallied around Trump as their best warrior against the educated class. Trump understood that it’s not the entrepreneurs who seem most threatening to workers; it’s the professional class. Trump understood that there was great demand for a leader who would stick his thumb in our eyes on a daily basis and reject the whole epistemic regime that we rode in on.

If distrustful populism is your basic worldview, the Trump indictments seem as just another skirmish on the class war between the professionals and the workers, another assault by a bunch of coastal lawyers who want to take down the man who most aggressively stands up to them. Of course, the indictments don’t cause Trump supporters to abandon him. They cause them to become more fiercely loyal. That’s the polling story of the last six months.

Are Trump supporters right that the indictments are just a political witch hunt? Of course not. As a card-carrying member of my class, I still basically trust the legal system and the neutral arbiters of justice. Trump is a monster in the way we’ve all been saying for years and deserves to go to prison.

But there’s a larger context here. As the sociologist E. Digby Baltzell wrote decades ago, “History is a graveyard of classes which have preferred caste privileges to leadership.” That is the destiny our class is now flirting with. We can condemn the Trumpian populists all day until the cows come home, but the real question is when will we stop behaving in ways that make Trumpism inevitable.

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Media/Editing by Germán & Co

America’s Fiscal Time Bomb Ticks Even Louder

Fitch’s downgrade of the U.S. debt rating only caused a flutter in markets, but fiscal strains will soon get harder to ignore

WSJ by Spencer Jakab, Aug. 2, 2023

“Everybody who reads the newspaper knows that the United States has a very serious long-term fiscal problem.”

That wasn’t a quote by some financial talking head in the aftermath of Fitch’s downgrade of America’s credit rating on Tuesday. It was a reaction by then chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke the last time a major rating agency took that action back in August 2011. Investors could google hundreds of such warnings over the decades and conclude that the hand-wringing is best ignored or even viewed as a buying opportunity. 

For example, a funny thing happened when Standard & Poor’s shocked the financial world 12 years ago: Stocks plunged, getting close to an official bear market, yet investors rushed to buy bonds, the very thing that had supposedly become more risky. Stocks remained unsettled for another couple of months, but an 11-year bull market marched onward.

Investors are drawing false comfort from the past and from the perception that fiscal scolds have cried wolf so often.

True, Treasurys remain the most liquid, coveted asset on earth and the risk-free bedrock off which everything else is priced. And, aside from the temporary plunge in stocks back in 2011, America’s fiscal excess has rarely been an immediate pocketbook issue for its citizens. Fitch’s warning comes at a time when it is getting harder to ignore, though.

Ironically, it was the 2008-09 financial crisis and the emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic that both accelerated that reckoning and also helped to delay the pain. In 2007, the Congressional Budget Office projected that federal debt held by the public would fall to about 22% of gross domestic product in a decade. In 2011 it was seen reaching about 76% by this fiscal year. It will soon exceed 100%.

But, because the Federal Reserve helped keep interest rates so unexpectedly low in the interim, even slashing its overnight borrowing rate to zero in 2020, taxpayers’ bill for financing debt accumulated in the past was modest. Net interest as a share of fiscal outlays was higher in the early 1990s. That is because the interest rate on the pile of outstanding debt is still a long way from what it was then. 

But it is rising quickly as the Fed has raised rates to counter inflation that reached a four-decade high last year. The CBO predicts net interest will reach $745 billion in the 2024 fiscal year—about three quarters of all discretionary spending excluding defense.

That isn’t an immediate problem, but for what it is worth, the reaction in the bond market Wednesday morning to Fitch’s move was the opposite of what it was back in 2011—yields rose close to their highest of the year. A flood of short-term debt issuance to refill the Treasury’s coffers after the debt-ceiling standoff is another short-term strain.nting press. As rising rates push that financing need higher, though, the ability of the U.S. government to change the fiscal path without politically disastrous measures like cutting entitlements or by overtly printing money is becoming more limited.

If no such radical steps are taken then it almost certainly means paying more to borrow. That rising risk-free-rate will crowd out private investment and dent the value of stocks, all else being equal.

Even worse, losing that room for maneuver could also make responding to the next crisis, whether it is financial, health or military in nature, more than a matter of Uncle Sam whipping out his checkbook. For example, defending our allies against an attack by China, also a major owner of our debt, might require not just putting Americans’ lives in danger but a serious trade-off on the home front in the form of higher taxes, inflation, benefit cuts or some combination of those.

This sort of problem was described by policy analyst Michele Wucker in her 2016 book “The Gray Rhino,” which was an English-language bestseller in China. Unlike an out-of-the-blue crisis dubbed a “black swan,” a gray rhino is a very probable event with plenty of warnings and evidence that is ignored until it is too late. 

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“AES El Salvador Team Awarded the “Golden Hard Hat” Award 2022.

Bernerd Da Santos, First AES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean EnergyAES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean Energy

“The AES El Salvador team has been awarded the 2022 "Golden Hard Hat" Award, a highly prestigious accolade that recognizes their unwavering commitment to safety. This award, presented by AES Corporation, highlights the team's exceptional dedication to making safety a priority. The team demonstrated professionalism and dedication by working 8 million hours, conducting 30,000 inspections, and dedicating 45,000 hours to technical and environmental training to ensure safety standards. However, the most important thing to note here is that the AES El Salvador team achieved a remarkable feat without any fatalities, demonstrating their exceptional commitment.
I would like to congratulate the union's leader and management team of AES El Salvador: Abraham Bichara, Daniel Bernardez, Roberto Sandoval, John Davenport, and Wilfredo Flores. Their combined efforts have been instrumental in making this outstanding achievement possible.
Once again, my heartfelt congratulations to the AES El Salvador team for this well-deserved recognition. Their tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to safety are an inspiration to us all.

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A PetroChina petrol station is pictured in Beijing, China, March 21, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo/Editing by Germán & Co

China's oil and uranium business in Niger

In 2009, the Nigerien government secured a significant loan worth 650 million yuan ($90.93 million) from the Chinese state-owned Eximbank.

REUTERS By Andrew Hayley,/Editing by Germán & Co, July 31, 2023

BEIJING, July 31 (Reuters) - China, Niger's second-largest foreign investor after former colonial power France, has in the past two decades ploughed billions of dollars into the landlocked West African nation, mainly for the exploration of oil and uranium.

Since last week's coup, in which military leaders detained Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum and established a military government, China says it is closely monitoring the situation, and urges parties in Niger to safeguard stability.

China's total foreign direct investment (FDI) into Niger stood at $2.68 billion as at the end of 2020, according to the U.S. Embassy in Niger.

OIL ASSETS

Niger became an oil producer in 2011 when the Agadem oilfield, a joint venture between the government and PetroChina (601857.SS), started production.

PetroChina entered a production sharing agreement in 2008 with the Nigerien government to develop the field, located some 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of the capital Niamey, with estimated reserves of 650 million barrels.

As part of the deal, PetroChina invested in the construction of the SORAZ refinery, located 460km away in the southern city of Zinder, near the border with Nigeria. PetroChina holds a 60% stake in the refinery, which has a capacity of 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) and mostly supplies the Nigerien domestic fuel market. The remaining share is held by the Nigerien government.

In September 2019, PetroChina entered into another agreement with the Nigerien government to lay a 2,000-km (1,200 miles) pipeline between the Agadem field and the Beninese port city of Cotonou.

The pipeline investment is twinned with a second phase of development of the Agadem field. Taken together, total investment into the pipeline and second phase development is expected to reach $4 billion, according to China's Ministry of Commerce.

The pipeline, the longest of its kind in Africa, is planned to mitigate the security and logistical challenges of exporting crude from the troubled area, and designed to carry 90,000 barrels per day, according to China's Ministry of Commerce.

The project was 63% complete as of February this year, according to a PetroChina statement.

PetroChina did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

In May this year, state oil and gas major Sinopec (600028.SS) entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Nigerien government paving the way for further potential cooperation between Beijing and Niamey in oil and gas.

URANIUM MINE

In 2007, state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) (601985.SS) entered a joint venture with the Nigerien government to develop the Azelik uranium mine in the centre of the country.

CNNC owns 37.2% of the project, with a further 24.8% owned by Chinese investment entity ZXJOY Invest, according to a 2010 filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The Nigerien government received a 650 million yuan ($90.93 million) loan from Chinese state-owned Eximbank to support development of the project in 2009.

The mine has estimated total reserves of 11,227 metric tons, and annual production capacity of 700 tons, according to the filing. The project was halted in 2015 due to unfavourable market conditions.

Niger, which has Africa's highest-grade uranium ores, produced 2,020 metric tons of uranium in 2022, about 5% of world mining output, according to the World Nuclear Association.

CNNC did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image by Germán & Co

Why China is not as powerful as the West might think

Xi Jinping’s brand of economic policy is less and less convincing to Western companies. Politicians are waking up, too.

POLITICO EU BY STUART LAU AND PHELIM KINE, AUGUST 3, 2023

President Xi Jinping wants to project China as a powerful trade partner — or dangerous adversary — to virtually any country hoping to be successful in the 21st century. 

“The rise of the East, and the decline of the West” is his motto. As Chinese growth rocketed and Western politicians fretted over how to respond, it became a national catchphrase, too.

But among the Chinese people — and increasingly in the chancelleries and boardrooms of Europe — a different story is beginning to be told: Beijing’s march toward global economic domination may not be invincible after all. 

China managed only weak GDP growth after belatedly liberating itself from pandemic restrictions. The property market is in crisis and youth unemployment has risen to hazardous levels, with one estimate putting it at 50 percent. Private entrepreneurs increasingly live in fear of what the state will do to their businesses and consumers have stopped spending the way they did in the pre-COVID good times. 

In Shanghai, London and New York, Chinese and foreign businesses alike are now grappling with a new scenario: What if the slowdown is here to stay? 

“The risks of a major economic crisis in China, or perhaps more probable an imminent stagnation in sustainable economic growth, are […] rising,” Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute For International Economics, told POLITICO. 

What happens to China’s economy matters hugely for the world. 

According to the latest statistics, the Chinese economy grew at a weak pace in the second quarter of this year, with GDP just 0.8 percent up in April-June from the previous quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis. Year-on-year, GDP expanded 6.3 percent in the second quarter — below the 7.3 percent forecast. 

These numbers are still far healthier than most Western economies can boast.

But the uncertain outlook adds to doubts over how Beijing will approach the West. For now, the jury is still out on whether Xi will put on a friendlier face or if instead tougher economic times will embolden Communist Party hardliners to seek out flashpoints with the U.S. or Europe to distract public opinion and shore up nationalistic sentiment. 

President Xi Jinping wants to project China as a powerful trade partner — or dangerous adversary — to virtually any country hoping to be successful in the 21st century | Pool photo by Leah Millis via AFP/Getty Images

Even the Communist Party leaders aren’t hiding their problem. At their annual pre-summer Politburo meeting, which sets the tone for the economic work for the remainder of the year, party officials judged that the economy “is facing new difficulties and challenges, mainly due to insufficient domestic demand, difficulties in the operation of some enterprises, many risks and hidden dangers in key areas, and a grim and complex external environment,” state news agency Xinhua quoted the Politburo as saying. 

Getting out 

In Europe, as well as the U.S., governments are reassessing their own economic vulnerabilities radically. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked EU governments into revising their dependence on supply chains controlled by potentially unfriendly regimes. 

Europe mostly has decoupled itself from imports of Russian fossil fuels but remains reliant on China for critical raw materials that make up battery components that will be vital for the green energy transition, among other areas. 

Western leaders from the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen to U.S. President Joe Biden now routinely talk about economic “de-risking” from China. The peril of linking too closely to the Chinese economy has even hit home with Olaf Scholz, traditionally seen as Europe’s leading dove on China policy.

Behind closed doors in the October summit of the European Council last year, Scholz shared his fears about China’s outlook. Speaking shortly before his first trip as German leader to Beijing, he told his EU counterparts that “a massive financial crisis” could be triggered if Beijing failed to manage its property crisis, according to two diplomats briefed on the conversation, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly. 

Italy’s new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is preparing to pull out of a deal under which Rome signed up to be part of Xi’s global infrastructure plan, the Belt and Road Initiative. And the government of Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has in recent weeks taken a more critical line toward Beijing, especially over its stance on Ukraine.  

Against that backdrop, the Beijing government is now focused on engaging with the West in a less frosty manner, even when it comes to its arch-rival in Washington. Several U.S. officials — from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen — have visited China in recent months, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is expected to go later this summer. An EU-China summit is also in the pipeline, according to one diplomat speaking anonymously because the plans are yet to be finalized.

Beijing is also keen to reassure private businesses in China, but it doesn’t seem to be working. 

“What we saw was actually a decrease in the overall confidence level” among 570 EU companies operating in China who took part in a recent survey, according to Jens Eskelund, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China. “And a lot of that has to do with an increased level of uncertainty where China is, in particular about the Chinese economy,” said Eskelund, whose chamber represents 1,700 mostly European companies and entities in China.

Xi consistently demonstrated a preference for the state-owned sector. His most radical moves against the private sector have been targeted at tech giants, even though they’re widely considered the best hope for China to compete with the West. On Xi’s watch, the Chinese bureaucracy has cracked down on multinational e-commerce platform Alibaba’s billionaire-founder Jack Ma, restricted the development of online gaming and private tutorial classes, and heavily regulated data even for foreign companies. 

Some Western companies are already looking elsewhere. According to Eskelund, the EU chamber chief, 11 percent of businesses surveyed last year said they were weighing up whether to leave China. This year, the exact same share of companies reported they had already taken the decision to go.

“When you’re sitting in an economy that is growing 10 percent per year, it’s good for everyone,” Eskelund said. “If you’re slowing down to 5 percent, 5.5 percent, then there will be sectors of the economy that will not be growing the same way as before.”

Xi has accrued vast personal power at the apex of China’s political system. Whether Xi-conomics works in the end will depend to a large extent on him.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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 Plant Vogtle nuclear site in Georgia. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP)

America is heavily reliant on Russia for nuclear fuel. Congress might change that.

WSJ Analysis by Maxine Joselow with research by Vanessa Montalbano, August 3, 2023

Nearly a year-and-a-half after Russia launched a brutal invasion of Ukraine, Congress appears poised to reduce America’s reliance on Moscow for uranium, the main fuel used by nuclear power plants.

Lawmakers took swift action to ban Russian oil and gas imports a month after the February 2022 invasion. But stemming the flow of Russian uranium imports has taken much longer, in part because Moscow provides more than 20 percent of U.S. nuclear fuel.

Yet before leaving town last month, the Senate took a key step toward bolstering domestic uranium supply chains and displacing the Kremlin as a key supplier.

The Senate last week passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes an amendment aimed at boosting U.S. uranium production and enrichment. The amendment passed by a nearly unanimous vote of 96-3, suggesting it could be included in the final version of the Pentagon policy bill that could head to President Biden’s desk this year.

Leaders in the nuclear industry, which provides nearly one-fifth of U.S. electricity without any carbon emissions, cheered the proposal’s passage as a win-win for America’s national security and climate goals.

It was “a kumbaya moment,” said Daniel Poneman, president and CEO of the nuclear fuel supplier Centrus Energy and the former deputy secretary of energy under President Barack Obama. 

Jeff Navin, director of external affairs at TerraPower, a Bill Gates-backed nuclear energy firm that has worked with Centrus, said the vote sent a strong statement. “You can’t get 96 senators to agree that the sun is going to come up tomorrow or the color blue exists,” he said.

TerraPower announced in December that an advanced nuclear reactor proposed for southwestern Wyoming would probably be delayed at least two years, given the difficulty of securing fuel from non-Russian sources. The amendment could address this delay and others like it.

Russia ranks as the biggest supplier of enriched uranium in the world. Its state-owned nuclear power conglomerate, Rosatom, has earned billions from U.S. and European customers, even as it works to supply the Russian arms industry with components, technology and raw materials for missile fuel.

The details

The amendment mirrors the Nuclear Fuel Security Act, which was introduced by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and James E. Risch (R-Idaho).

• The bipartisan bill directs the Energy Department to establish a program aimed at ensuring a disruption in Russian uranium supplies would not harm the development of advanced nuclear reactors or the operation of the existing nuclear fleet.

• The agency would need to acquire at least 20 metric tons per year of high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, from at least two U.S. nuclear energy firms by 2028. HALEU is needed to fuel advanced reactors such as small modular reactors.

“We spend nearly $1 billion each year on Russian uranium. Russia uses these revenues to fund its invasion of Ukraine,” Barrasso said on the Senate floor last week. “Here in America we have the resources to fuel our own reactors.”

The three lawmakers who voted against the amendment were Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Sanders has long opposed building new nuclear plants, given the lack of a federal plan for storing nuclear waste, while Markey has raised concerns about contamination from uranium mining on tribal lands.

The Senate approved another nuclear bill, the Advance Act, as an amendment to the NDAA by a vote of 86-11. The bipartisan measure would prohibit U.S. nuclear plants from receiving a license for enriched uranium from Russia or China if the Departments of Energy and State determine that the fuel poses a national security risk.

In the House

The House has not yet passed its version of the NDAA or approved the Nuclear Fuel Security Act as an amendment. But there appears to be some bipartisan support for doing so.

ower announced in December that an advanced nuclear reactor proposed for southwestern Wyoming would probably be delayed at least two years, given the difficulty of securing fuel from non-Russian sources. The amendment could address this delay and others like it.

Russia ranks as the biggest supplier of enriched uranium in the world. Its state-owned nuclear power conglomerate, Rosatom, has earned billions from U.S. and European customers, even as it works to supply the Russian arms industry with components, technology and raw materials for missile fuel.

In the states

New York, long a leader on climate policy, is set to miss a key clean-energy goal unless the state significantly accelerates its efforts, according to a report released this week by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, Zack Budryk reports for the Hill. 

In 2019, New York passed a landmark climate law that calls for reaching 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and 100 percent by 2040. The report found that to meet the 2030 target, the state would need to add an additional 20 gigawatts of renewables over an eight-year period. For context, the state added 12.9 gigawatts of total generation, including both fossil fuel and renewable sources, over the past 20 years.

DiNapoli cited the length of the permitting process for new projects as a major obstacle, echoing the concerns of many lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Only about 3 percent of renewable generation contracted since 2015 has actually come online, which DiNapoli attributed to the length of the state Public Service Commission’s siting process, local opposition and delays in connecting to the grid.

The state will be able to achieve its 2030 goal if the projects currently under contract speedily pass through the permitting pipeline, but “this is a big ‘if,'” the report says.

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News round-up, August 2, 2023

Quote of the day…

British director of ‘Napoleon’ compares French emperor to Hitler, Stalin

‘He’s got a lot of bad shit under his belt,’ filmmaker Ridley Scott says of the military leader.

In a recent interview, renowned British director Ridley Scott made controversial comparisons between Napoleon Bonaparte, the French military leader, and dictators Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Scott, widely acclaimed for his directorial work on films such as "Gladiator" and "Blade Runner," did not mince words when discussing Napoleon, stating that the former emperor had "a lot of bad shit under his belt."

POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, AUGUST 1, 2023 

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Most read…

Trump charged in probe of Jan. 6, efforts to overturn 2020 election

The indictment alleges four different crimes and describes six unnamed, uncharged co-conspirators

TWP by Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, and Jacqueline Alemany,  August 1, 2023 

The U.S. Clean-Energy Company That Hit the Subsidies Jackpot

First Solar stands out among beneficiaries of Biden’s climate legislation, but lots of green energy companies are ‘trying to get on the gravy train’

TWJ By Phred Dvorak, July 31, 2023 

Focus: For investors, green companies still hard to find with new emissions reporting rules

REUTERS By Simon Jessop and Huw Jones, August 2, 2023

The Race for Resources

British director of ‘Napoleon’ compares French emperor to Hitler, Stalin

‘He’s got a lot of bad shit under his belt,’ filmmaker Ridley Scott says of the military leader.

POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, AUGUST 1, 2023 

China and Russia Are Beating the West in Africa

This week, leaders from 17 African countries will be guests of Vladimir Putin. Alongside Russia, all the major powers are vying for influence and raw materials on the continent. The conditions are increasingly dictated by the Africans themselves, with the West often coming away empty-handed.

Spiegel by Heiner Hoffmann, Maximilian Popp and Fritz Schaap, August 2, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Source: TWP/Editing by Germán & Co

Trump charged in probe of Jan. 6, efforts to overturn 2020 election

The indictment alleges four different crimes and describes six unnamed, uncharged co-conspirators

TWP by Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Perry Stein, Josh Dawsey, and Jacqueline Alemany,  August 1, 2023 

A grand jury indicted former president Donald Trump on Tuesday for a raft of alleged crimes in his brazen efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory — the latest legal and political aftershock stemming from the riot at the U.S. Capitol two and a half years ago.

The four-count, 45-page indictment accuses Trump, who is again running for president, of conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, attempting to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiring against people’s civil right to have their vote counted. The maximum potential sentence on the most serious charge is 20 years in prison.

“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” special counsel Jack Smith told reporters after the indictment was filed. “It was fueled by lies, lies by the defendant.”

Smith also praised the law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol, saying that they “did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people.”

The charges represent the third indictment of the former president filed since March — setting the stage for one of the stranger presidential contests in history, in which a major-party front-runner may have to alternate between campaign stops and courtroom hearings over the next year and a half.

A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Trump last month on charges of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing government efforts to get them back. A state grand jury in New York has charged him with falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments during the 2016 campaign. And a state grand jury in Georgia is weighing whether to charge Trump for his efforts to undo the 2020 election results there.

Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in the documents case, denies all wrongdoing related to the 2020 election as well. His spokesman, Steven Cheung, accused the Justice Department of trying to interfere with the 2024 election by targeting the GOP front-runner, and he compared the Biden administration to some of the worst authoritarian regimes in history.

“President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys,” Cheung said in a statement that compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany. “Three years ago we had strong borders, energy independence, no inflation, and a great economy. Today, we are a nation in decline. President Trump will not be deterred by disgraceful and unprecedented political targeting!”

Tuesday’s indictment paints Trump in late 2020 as a sore loser and an inveterate liar, willing to say almost anything to try to reverse his defeat at the hands of his Democratic rival.

“Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment charges, accusing Trump of unleashing a blizzard of false claims about purported mass voter fraud and then trying to get state, local and federal officials to act to change the vote results.

“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false,” the indictment states. “In fact, the Defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue — often by the people on whom he relied for candid advice on important matters, and who were best positioned to know the facts — and he deliberately disregarded the truth.”

The former president was ordered to appear in federal court in Washington on Thursday. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, a 2014 Obama appointee and a former D.C. public defender.

While Trump’s legal woes have grown exponentially in recent months, he has only solidified his early lead over the field of 2024 GOP presidential contenders. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), an ardent Trump supporter, issued a statement criticizing the Justice Department, claiming that the indictment was an effort to “attack the frontrunner for the Republican nomination” and distract the public from stories about President Biden while his son Hunter is trying to plead guilty to tax charges.

In broad strokes and specific scenes, the indictment recounts much of what was already known about Trump’s efforts to stay in the White House despite losing the election, actions that were the focus of extensive hearings last year by a House select committee investigating Jan. 6.

The indictment frames that conduct as a criminal conspiracy to demolish a bedrock function of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of political power.

No one else is charged alongside Trump, but the indictment describes six unnamed co-conspirators, who appear to be in significant legal jeopardy. Smith said the investigation was ongoing.

At the top of that list is Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and former lawyer for Trump. He appears in the indictment only as Co-Conspirator 1, but his identity is clear from the document’s descriptions of that person’s actions.

Most of the other uncharged co-conspirators are identifiable based on details in the indictment and previous reporting by The Washington Post and other outlets. That reporting shows that Co-Conspirator 2, described in the indictment as “an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding,” is John Eastman.

The indictment describes Co-Conspirator 3 as “an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud” Trump himself said sounded “crazy” — a description that matches Trump ally Sidney Powell. Co-Conspirator 4 is described as a then-Justice Department official who “attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations.” Other details of that person’s actions match Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump considered appointing as attorney general in the final days of his administration.

Co-Conspirator 5 is described in the indictment as a lawyer who tried to implement a plan “to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding” — a reference that appears to match Kenneth Chesebro, a Trump attorney who worked on the scheme involving false presidential electors.

Eastman attorney Charles Burnham said in a statement that Eastman is not involved in any plea bargaining and would decline any such invitation, casting Trump’s indictment as an effort by the Biden administration to attack a political opponent and “cast ominous aspersions on his close advisors.” Attorneys for other uncharged co-conspirators did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday night. An attorney for Powell declined to comment, and a Giuliani spokesman questioned the basis for the allegations.

Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, said an unindicted co-conspirator is, by definition, someone prosecutors already believe has committed a crime.

“There are many reasons why prosecutors refer to unindicted co-conspirators, some of them evidentiary and some of them strategic, but it most often is used to send a strong message to a potential defendant who the prosecution wants to turn into a cooperating witness, but who is holding out,” said Mintz. “It is essentially like being in the on-deck circle for the superseding indictment in that prosecutors are no longer deciding if they can bring charges, but only if they want to.”

Tuesday’s indictment says Trump used private phone calls, memos and other meetings to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to help him overturn the election.

There were at least four calls before Jan. 6, the indictment says, including a call on Dec. 25, 2020, and one on New Year’s Day. On Christmas, Pence told Trump he did not have the “authority” to overturn the election. On Jan. 1, he repeated that to Trump, according to the indictment.

“You’re too honest,” Trump allegedly responded.

Pence rejected Trump again on Jan. 3, according to the indictment. The indictment says Pence and his team were also pressured by Eastman in the days leading up to Jan. 6. After that conversation, the indictment says, a Pence adviser told Trump that even Co-Conspirator 2 “had conceded that his plan was ‘not going to work.’”

The indictment also alleges that on the night of Jan. 6, after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to prevent the formal certification of Biden’s victory, “the White House counsel called the Defendant to ask him to withdraw any objections and allow the certification. The Defendant refused.”

Trump for more than two weeks had publicly predicted that he would be indicted, announcing on social media on July 18 that his attorneys had been told he might be charged in the case. On Tuesday, the grand jury panel hearing evidence in the case gathered early at the D.C. courthouse, within sight of the U.S. Capitol. The jurors were seen leaving in the afternoon.

About 5 p.m., reporters in the courthouse saw a prosecutor with Smith’s office and the grand jury foreperson deliver the indictment to a magistrate judge.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila A. Upadhyaya accepted the grand jury return, saying, “I do have one indictment return before me, and I have reviewed the paperwork in connection with this indictment.”

A short time later, the document was available on the federal court computer system for all to see.

Smith was tapped in November to take charge of the Justice Department’s classified-documents probe and 2020 election investigation, after Trump launched his 2024 campaign and Attorney General Merrick Garland — a Biden appointee — concluded that an independent prosecutor should oversee the probes.

A state grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., is also considering whether to file broad charges against Trump and his lawyers, advocates and aides over their efforts to undo the 2020 election results. A decision is expected this month, although previous plans to announce a charging decision have been delayed. Michigan and Arizona are also investigating aspects of the efforts to block Biden’s victory in their states.

Trump is scheduled for trial in March on the New York state charges of falsifying business records, and a federal judge in Florida has scheduled the classified-documents trial to start in late May.

Smith vowed Tuesday to seek a speedy trial in Washington on the election conspiracy charges.

That investigation proceeded along multiple tracks in recent months, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post, with prosecutors focused on ads and fundraising pitches claiming election fraud as well as plans for “fake electors” who could have swung the election to Trump.

Smith sought to navigate thorny issues of where the line should be drawn between political activity, legal advocacy and criminal conspiracy.

A key element of the investigation was determining to what degree Republican operatives, activists and elected officials — including Trump — understood that their claims of massive voter fraud were false at the time they were making them. The indictment is peppered with instances in which prosecutors try to show that Trump knew he was spewing lies, including times when the nation’s top intelligence officials and White House lawyers allegedly told Trump that there was no evidence of voting fraud or irregularities.

A spokesman for Giuliani suggested that prosecutors cannot prove that Trump knew he was lying when he claimed voter fraud.

“Every fact Mayor Rudy Giuliani possesses about this case establishes the good-faith basis President Donald Trump had for the actions he took during the two-month period charged in the indictment,” said the spokesman, Ted Goodman. He said the indictment “eviscerates the First Amendment and criminalizes the ruling regime’s number one political opponent for daring to ask questions about the 2020 election results.”

At a community event in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening, Garland briefly addressed reporters outside a police district headquarters. He did not discuss the specifics of the indictment but expressed confidence in how the investigation has been handled.

“Mr. Smith and his team are experienced, principled career agents and prosecutors” who “follow the facts and the law wherever they lead,” said Garland.

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A First Solar plant in Walbridge, Ohio. The solar-panel maker expects to receive as much as $710 million this year from U.S. government subsidies./Editing by Germán & Co

The U.S. Clean-Energy Company That Hit the Subsidies Jackpot

First Solar stands out among beneficiaries of Biden’s climate legislation, but lots of green energy companies are ‘trying to get on the gravy train’

TWJ By Phred Dvorak, July 31, 2023 

Of all the beneficiaries of the U.S.’s green-energy push, few have hit the jackpot like First Solar FSLR -2.28%decrease

The Arizona-based solar-panel manufacturer expects to receive as much as $710 million this year—nearly 90% of forecast operating profit—from subsidies the U.S. government rolled out a year ago to encourage domestic renewables production. One analyst estimates the incentives could be worth more than $10 billion for the company over the next decade.

First Solar expects to have as much as a 60% share of the U.S. market for large-scale solar installations this year, largely a result of government policies that are pushing clean-energy developers to buy more made-in-America components. 

The company’s shares have more than doubled to $208.40 in Friday trade since the beginning of 2022, despite a string of earnings disappointments during that period. Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last August, First Solar has promised so far to plow more than $2.8 billion into new manufacturing and research facilities in the U.S., including a new factory announced on Thursday. 

Some industry executives attribute the company’s good fortune to luck and sharp elbows as it pushed for policies that would give it an advantage against low-cost competitors from countries such as China, which controls more than 80% of the global supply chain for solar panels.

First Solar Chief Executive Mark Widmar credits persistence and smart strategy, saying the company has worked for years to build factories and a supply chain in the U.S. He says the current U.S. energy policy is helpful. 

The Biden administration’s signature climate legislation could ultimately provide $1 trillion in support for clean-energy projects, largely through tax credits tied to benchmarks such as the amount of wind power generated or solar panels produced. So far, it has helped spur around $110 billion in announcements for factories and other facilities to make everything from wind turbines to battery components, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. 

Most of those projects involve overseas clean-energy giants; many won’t be finished for years. First Solar is one of a handful of big U.S.-based manufacturers with sizable U.S. factories that are already eligible for the incentives.

First Solar photovoltaic panels lined up at the Desert Stateline Solar Facility in California. PHOTO: BING GUAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS

“Lots and lots of companies are trying to get on the gravy train—in the solar industry, in the battery industry, in lithium mining,” says Pavel Molchanov, a renewables analyst at Raymond James. But in terms of the amount of incentives it can reap now, “First Solar really stands out.”

Making solar panels, like a lot of other clean-energy components, is a commoditized, low-margin business where companies vie to drive down prices. For years, that meant factories fled to low-cost places such as China or Southeast Asia.

First Solar, which was founded in 1999, makes solar panels using a technology called thin-film, where layers of photovoltaic chemicals are spread onto glass in a process that is faster, cheaper and simpler than the procedure for common silicon-based panels. That technology helped the company compete with the big Chinese solar-panel makers and their suppliers.

First Solar also changed business models when needed, says Widmar, who joined the company in 2011 and has steered it through several slumps. The company built factories in cheaper locations such as Malaysia and Vietnam, where it hosted more than 80% of its manufacturing capacity as late as 2018. 

At the same time, the company lobbied in the U.S. against cheap Asian imports, pushing to slap duties on solar components made by Chinese companies. Some in the industry say such policies have boosted solar costs in the U.S. and could slow the rollout of renewables. 

Those protectionist measures combined with pandemic shipping bottlenecks to boost First Solar’s U.S. sales. The company is likely to provide more than half of the panels sold for large-scale solar installations in the U.S. this year, compared with around a third before the pandemic, Widmar estimates.

During the first three months of this year, as the U.S. government considered green tax-credit details, the company spent $270,000 on lobbying—nearly 80% of its entire 2022 spend, according to data collated on OpenSecrets.org.

First Solar’s lobbying efforts have primarily been aimed at securing a level playing field versus cheap Chinese manufacturers that get subsidized by their government, Widmar says. The U.S. needs to focus on goals beyond lowering panel costs, such as energy security, he says. “We believe that this should not be an environment of solar at any cost.”

Rules governing the tax credits are still being completed. First Solar says it should be able to qualify for a series of lucrative credits linked to its U.S. panel production. The credits could be worth $11 billion over the next decade, according to a report by Philip Shen, managing partner at boutique investment bank Roth Capital Partners. That is roughly equivalent to the last four years of sales.  

First Solar hasn’t received any credits yet, but it is already counting future credits’ value on its books.

A key question is the definition of a U.S.-made solar panel for tax-credit purposes, which could unlock a lucrative incentive meant to spur renewables developers to buy more homemade equipment. Rules favoring First Solar could help boost the company’s sales further, because the company estimates 90% of the pieces that go into its newest panel are already made in America.

First Solar is trying to take advantage of its moment. The company is tapping into buyers’ demand for U.S.-made equipment by amending contracts to stipulate that its panels will be produced domestically, charging a premium for that feature. It is pushing customers hungry for panels to sign multiyear contracts, accumulating an order backlog the company estimates at more than $20 billion.

The company also is investing heavily in research into new solar technologies, and it is building new factories fast. First Solar expects to have more than 20 gigawatts of global manufacturing capacity by the end of 2025, four times what it had at the end of 2018 and one-and-a-half times the amount of large-scale solar the U.S. installed last year. Nearly half of that will be in the U.S. 

“It’s a moment of opportunity,” Widmar says.

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“AES El Salvador Team Awarded the “Golden Hard Hat” Award 2022.

Bernerd Da Santos, First AES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean EnergyAES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean Energy

“The AES El Salvador team has been awarded the 2022 "Golden Hard Hat" Award, a highly prestigious accolade that recognizes their unwavering commitment to safety. This award, presented by AES Corporation, highlights the team's exceptional dedication to making safety a priority. The team demonstrated professionalism and dedication by working 8 million hours, conducting 30,000 inspections, and dedicating 45,000 hours to technical and environmental training to ensure safety standards. However, the most important thing to note here is that the AES El Salvador team achieved a remarkable feat without any fatalities, demonstrating their exceptional commitment.
I would like to congratulate the union's leader and management team of AES El Salvador: Abraham Bichara, Daniel Bernardez, Roberto Sandoval, John Davenport, and Wilfredo Flores. Their combined efforts have been instrumental in making this outstanding achievement possible.
Once again, my heartfelt congratulations to the AES El Salvador team for this well-deserved recognition. Their tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to safety are an inspiration to us all.

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An exhaust pipe of a car is pictured on a street in a Berlin, Germany, February 22, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo/Editing by Germán & Co

Focus: For investors, green companies still hard to find with new emissions reporting rules

REUTERS By Simon Jessop and Huw Jones, August 2, 2023

LONDON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Is Ford (F.N) doing a better job of cutting emissions than rival Toyota (7203.T)? Is BP (BP.L) greener than Shell (SHEL.L)?

For investors looking to weed out climate laggards from portfolios, these are vital questions but existing guidelines on emissions reporting and new rules due to come in for the United States and Europe are unlikely to provide hard answers.

Most major Western companies use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) Corporate Standard for reporting emissions and the guidelines will form part of the framework for compulsory EU standards set to take effect next year.

The United States is on track to announce similar rules this year and the corporate standard, first launched in 2001 and revised in 2004, is also embedded in other international emissions reporting standards.

But the guidelines, which are overseen by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Resources Institute, define the three main categories of emissions companies should report broadly, leaving plenty of room for interpretation.

Half a dozen investors interviewed by Reuters said while the GHGP has been crucial in shining a light on corporate emissions, it can be hard to compare companies given the potential for differences in disclosures, and this will remain the case to some extent even with new mandatory norms.

"More companies are disclosing, but at what quality are they actually going to disclose?" said Vanessa Bingle, director at Alpha Financial Markets Consulting, which advises asset managers on sustainable investing.

LIFETIME EMISSIONS

Take the autos sector.

Although 20 of the top 30 automakers report emissions linked to their supply chains – known as Scope 3 under the protocol - analysis by research firm Signal Climate Analytics (SCA) seen by Reuters showed a range of approaches in how they disclose the data and for the assumptions underpinning their calculations.

For example, as of March 2023, only five carmakers have disclosed their assumptions for the average life of their vehicles and grams of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted per kilometre driven.

That makes comparisons problematic. An unrealistically low lifetime figure could make cars appear less polluting than they really are, SCA Executive Chairman David Lubin said.

In its 2021 public submission to CDP – a non-profit that runs the global disclosure system on environmental impacts for investors, companies and governments - Japanese carmaker Subaru (7270.T) said its cars run for 130,000 km (80,000 miles) over their lifetime. In 2022, it did not disclose a figure.

A search of the British version of second-hand car site AutoTrader on July 31 showed 988 Subarus for sale, of which 263, or a quarter, had done at least 80,000 miles.

Subaru told Reuters the 130,000 km figure referred to vehicles sold in Japan. For the EU, it used 162,500 km and for North America, where it books most of its sales, 228,800 km, information it has not previously made public.

A spokesperson said Subaru did not include a lifetime number in its 2022 disclosure because it wanted to avoid confusion with an incomplete description.

"We now believe it's better to disclose the lifetime distance assumptions by region in our next disclosure (2023)."

APPLES AND ORANGES

Experts said Scope 3 emissions were the hardest of the three areas to assess as companies have to rely on data from customers and suppliers for their calculations.

SCA's Lubin said Scope 3 data was quite limited in its usefulness without researching how firms come up with their numbers and how reasonable the assumptions underpinning their data are.

Nonetheless, many investors scrutinise carbon emissions data to gauge how polluting a company is, how it compares with rivals and how this might affect its bottom line and share price.

For Laura Kane, head of ESG research at Voya Investment Management, which is part of Voya Financial (VOYA.N) and oversees about $323 billion in assets, in many cases, it's like comparing apples to oranges.

Kane said her firm buys third-party data from ratings providers, which aim to normalise and score the data, making it more comparable across sectors, yet this brings its own challenges. She declined to name the providers.

"There is quite a bit of variation among providers ... due to inconsistent reporting from companies, as well as different estimation and aggregation methodologies."

Only big investors have deep enough pockets to pay for such data and employ teams to assess it, leaving smaller investors at a disadvantage, experts say.

PATCHWORK OF RULES

The EU has made carbon disclosures mandatory for about 50,000 companies operating in the bloc from next year while new U.S. rules should come this year as governments look to replace a patchwork of private sector norms with binding rules, making it easier to crack down on greenwashing or exaggerated climate-friendly claims by companies.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), a standards-setter established by the IFRS Foundation that produces international accounting norms, has also approved rules any country can adopt. Some countries, including Britain, have said those guidelines will become mandatory.

Jimmy Jia, researcher at the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, said as well as differences in defining what should be counted under existing GHGP guidelines, companies may use different calculation processes or present data in different ways.

"Investors need to understand if a difference is due to an operational difference, or because the entities applied different accounting methodologies," said Jia said, co-author of a study on emissions data comparability.

Another area of investor concern is how companies account for their own energy use, or Scope 2 emissions.

The GHGP allows companies to buy green energy to offset their emissions, using contractual instruments such as renewable energy certificates, and reflect this in their reporting.

But the protocol also allows different accounting methods - market-based or location-based - to be used when companies calculate Scope 2 numbers. The market-based approach, however, may not accurately reflect how used energy was generated, potentially resulting in investors concluding a company is less polluting than it is, some investors said.

"Market-based methods open up the door to creative accounting," British asset manager abrdn said in its response to a GHGP consultation that closed on March 14.

Of 8,400 companies to report data globally to CDP, 70% reported Scope 2 data, with 31% giving both market and location-based figures, 33% only a location-based number and 6% just market-based, CDP data shared with Reuters showed.

Reuters Graphics

CONSULTATION ON CHANGES

European and U.S. regulators and officials at the ISSB interviewed by Reuters acknowledge the criticisms of GHGP but argue that the new EU, U.S. and global standards are just the start of a journey to more accurate reporting.

Best-practice, pressure from markets, and peers, along with bespoke sector disclosures, will emerge over the next five years or so to improve accuracy, as will countries requiring disclosures to be independently audited, as they do for financial reports, regulators say.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment.

Pedro Faria, environmental leader at EFRAG, the EU body that drafted the bloc's disclosure standards, said the priority was to make disclosures mandatory before improving the quality, and that they are just one piece of the puzzle.

"Ultimately, the thing that you need from (companies) is the big chunk of emissions and yes, there are methodological issues there, but also their investments, their transition plans, changes in strategy, and some of those aspects are even more important than precise carbon numbers," Faria said.

The GHGP's consultation on possible changes to its framework drew over 230 proposals, of which 150 were made public while the others requested privacy. Any changes would likely take effect from 2025, at the earliest, according to GHGP.

"All feedback shared during that process will be reviewed by GHG Protocol including its Technical Working Groups and will inform the scope and potential approaches to make updates to existing standards or development of additional guidance," said Pankaj Bhatia, director of GHG Protocol.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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British director Ridley Scott has said France’s first Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is like Adolf Hitler | Hulton Archive

British director of ‘Napoleon’ compares French emperor to Hitler, Stalin

‘He’s got a lot of bad shit under his belt,’ filmmaker Ridley Scott says of the military leader.

POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, AUGUST 1, 2023

France’s first Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is like Adolf Hitler, British director Ridley Scott said ahead of the release of his biopic movie on the French military leader in the fall.

“I compare him with Alexander the Great. Adolf Hitler. Stalin,” Scott said in the upcoming September edition of the British monthly magazine Empire.

Napoleon — who reinstated slavery and whose military campaigns ranged from Spain to Russia and were responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths on the battlefield — has got “a lot of bad shit under his belt,” Scott said.

“At the same time, he was remarkable with his courage, and in his can-do and in his dominance. He was extraordinary,” Scott added.

After first rising to power following a coup in 1799, Corsica-born Napoleon Bonaparte led France through a series of bloody wars to briefly become a hegemonic power in continental Europe, until he was finally defeated by an alliance of European nations led by Britain in the 1815 Battle of Waterloo in Belgium.

The first French emperor then died in exile in Saint Helena, a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in 1821.

Focusing on the rise to power of the French military leader, Scott’s movie — the poster of which shows the emperor wearing a two-pointed hat — will come out in November and features Hollywood legend Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon.

In his Empire interview, Scott said he first thought of Phoenix for the role while watching the actor’s Oscar-winning performance in “The Joker.”

“I’m staring at Joaquin and saying, ‘This little demon is Napoleon Bonaparte.’ He looks like him.”

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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Spiegel

The Race for Resources

China and Russia Are Beating the West in Africa

This week, leaders from 17 African countries will be guests of Vladimir Putin. Alongside Russia, all the major powers are vying for influence and raw materials on the continent. The conditions are increasingly dictated by the Africans themselves, with the West often coming away empty-handed.

Spiegel by Heiner Hoffmann, Maximilian Popp and Fritz Schaap, August 2, 2023

African leaders don't often travel by train. But in mid-June, four heads of government from Africa boarded a train in Poland headed for Ukraine. In a group photo, the travelers look a bit lost in the imposing compartment, with only the leader of the mission, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, offering a contented smile.

The delegation traveling with Ramaphosa wanted to achieve what many large and middle powers had thus far failed to accomplish: to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. The Africans met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv and later with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The African initiative didn't produce a breakthrough, but from the perspective of Ramaphosa and his colleagues from Senegal, Uganda and Congo, among others, it was a success, if only because of the images it produced. Their message: We Africans no longer just look on helplessly, we get involved. Heads of state from the global north used to come to Africa to mediate crises and conflicts, but now it's the other way around.

The trip is an example the continent's growing self-confidence and desire to decisively get rid of its reputation as a passive recipient of development aid.

Despite their claim to be pursuing "policy at eye level," Western nations are still searching for the right way of dealing with this emerging partner, and Africa often still isn't taken seriously.

But nearly all major powers are showing a huge interest in Africa, not just because of the war in Ukraine. The continent, once largely perceived as a trouble spot, is now increasingly seen as a strategic partner.

Moscow is sending Wagner mercenaries to, among other countries, Mali, where they are propping up the junta, to the dismay of former colonial power France. The European Union and the United States have launched a charm offensive on the continent to avoid losing more countries to Russia and China.

Raw materials from Africa – oil and gas, but also lithium and cobalt – are becoming increasingly important. Heads of state and companies from around the world are lining up in countries like Senegal, Congo and Namibia. China, Turkey and now Europe are trying to build up influence in Africa through infrastructure projects. Some are speaking of a new "scramble for Africa" – a reference to the colonial conquests in the 19th and 20th centuries and the bloc politics of the Cold War.

But one thing is different now, as the leaders' peace mission in Russia and Ukraine show – the African countries are now self-confident. They can choose their partners and are doing so. It matters who makes the best offer: Russia, China, the U.S., the EU – in many cases, it's less a question of ideology than of cost-benefit calculations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is aggressively courting the Africans. He is not expected to attend a meeting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – the so-called BRICS countries – in Johannesburg in late August. He is apparently concerned that the host could execute an arrest warrant against him from the International Criminal Court. But this Thursday, he will host representatives from around 50 African states, including 17 heads of the state and government, at a summit in St. Petersburg.

The Europeans don't seem to have found an answer yet to this shift, having for decades primarily seen Africa as a boogieman full of potential migrants. The new race for Africa is a global power shift – with an open outcome.

The ceiling tiles in Manono's community hall are rotten. There is a crack in the concrete floor. There is no electricity, so the organizers have set up a generator outside, which powers the speaker and microphone inside. But most participants at this event don't need microphones, they are voicing their concerns loudly. In Manono's "Grande Salle," in southeastern Congo, the issue at hand is global geopolitics. It is about who will have access to the metal of the future: "The Chinese" or "the ones from the West." The residents of Manono and the employees of the Australian mining company AVZ Minerals have gathered here. The company, which wants to mine lithium, set up the meeting.

Lithium is one of the most sought-after raw materials in the world, and experts believe that demand will far exceed supply. Lithium is used in battery production and is necessary for the transition to green energies. Geologists believe that the world's largest lithium deposit could lie under Manono, untapped. "Manono can play a significant role in meeting the world's demand for lithium," says Nigel Ferguson, the CEO of AVZ Minerals. Some believe that whoever controls Manono might have a say in the prices on the global markets.

"Chinese President Xi Jinping has issued the directive: Go out and get what you can."

AVZ CEO Nigel Ferguson

Africa is full of raw materials that the rest of the world depends on – lithium, cobalt but also gold and diamonds. The world' largest deposit of platinum is also on the continent. Ever since the revival of nuclear energy in many places, uranium is once again in demand, and eyes are turning especially to Namibia and Niger, which are home to large deposits. In short, the global north's industrial growth wouldn't be possible without Africa.

Colonial powers ruthlessly exploited the continent's resources and shipped them to Europe. After the countries' independence, this carried on: Countries from the north profited, leaving behind poverty and environmental damage, as well as a frequently corrupt elite. By contrast, China, which is increasingly investing in mines in Africa, and Russia, which exploits the raw materials in countries like the Central African Republic, are comparatively new to the game.

It remains the continent's paradox that resource-rich countries are often the poorest, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Decades of civil war, driven by greed for raw materials, have destabilized the country. These days, the fight for the raw materials is rarely fought with weapons but with more subtle methods, as Manono shows.

The residents of the small town could be living in wealth, but they aren't, and that's why they assembled in the community hall early this year to vent their anger. "Why hasn't anything happened?" one resident yells. "We want to work," another says.

Balthazar Tshiseke sits in front of the angry crowd in a white T-shirt and a white baseball cap. Thiseke heads Dathcom, a joint venture that was meant to have been extracting lithium from the ground for the past year. He gets his salary from AVZ minerals, the Australians who hold a majority stake in Dathcom. The attendees call him "directeur." He patiently listens to the tirades, occasionally nodding. His voice is firm as he says, "the government simply isn't giving us the mining license. We aren't allowed to mine anything yet."

The Australians found large amounts of lithium-rich rock in Manono in 2018. Because it's expensive to mine the metal, they teamed up with another company, in which the Chinese battery giant CATL has a stake. For $240 million, the Chinese were promised a 24-percent stake in the Dathcom joint lithium venture. "We would have loved to have worked with European or American companies, but unfortunately, they're afraid of investing in countries like Congo," says AVZ head Ferguson.

Europe and the U.S. are afraid of losing influence in Africa. But nobody wants to invest large amounts of money in an instable country. According to experts, most of Congo's raw materials exports go to China. "Chinese President Xi Jinping has issued the directive: Go out and get what you can. And now we're experiencing exactly that," says Ferguson.

In the meantime, another Chinese company has tried to obtain shares in Dathcom against AVZ's will. The Chinese might be benefiting from their close political connections in the capital city, Kinshasa. There are suspicions that the Congolese government is in part withholding the mining license to wear down the Australians.

The subject in the Grande Salle has now turned to major political issues. "It's about who is in charge here, the people from the West or the Chinese!" one participant says. "We don't want the Chinese!" others yell. Balthazar Thiseke nods approvingly. The event has been a success for him, with the residents of Manono coming together to support the Australian company. But it is only a small triumph, given that the government in Kinshasa has the upper hand. And there, Beijing is still a welcome partner.

It is now questionable whether AVZ will ever get a license for Manono. The Congolese mining minister did not answer a request for comment from DER SPIEGEL. For the people of Manono, the battle for the raw material of the future is leaving behind one thing above all else: frustration.

A wave washes water on board the wooden pirogue, flooding the floor. Moustapha Dieng calmly leans against a wooden plank. He's wearing a wool hat, his shaggy beard turning grey. In the village of Guet Ndar, they merely call him "father." He's the chairman of the Association of Traditional Fishermen in Senegal.

Dieng has fought many battles in his life – against storms and tides, against the trawlers from China. But his adversaries have never been as powerful as they are now. He has declared war against the world's biggest oil and gas companies. He pilots his pirogue toward a monster of steel and concrete weighing tons. At the end of the year, gas is to be extracted here, and a large part of the facilities are already in place.

A large deposit of the fossil fuel was discovered under the seabed in 2015 on the border between Senegal and Mauritania. Since then, the two countries have been working together to produce it and are hoping to derive billions in revenue. The natural gas is to be extracted for at least 30 years, with the profits shared by energy giants BP and Kosmos together with Senegalese and Mauritanian state-owned companies.

"Look how they're just waiting here!" the captain shouts, pointing first to the left at a ship of the Senegalese Coast Guard, and then to the right, toward the horizon, where a further ship of the Mauritanian Coast Guard is anchored. "If we keep going, they'll probably arrest us." Even though there is no buoy or markings, this is where the exclusion zone around the GTA gas platform begins, 500 meters in every direction. "It's exactly where we caught the most fish," Dieng says.

Thierno Seydou Ly is familiar with these complaints, he hears them on a regular basis. The general director of Petrosen, the state oil and gas company, speaks in an interview in a hotel in the capital of Dakar. It's important to him that his message is understood, so he expresses himself in a calm manner. "Gas is an enormous opportunity for our country," he says, "also because there is a huge need for new producers as a result of the war in Ukraine." Senegal is thus trying to fast track its way to becoming a gas nation. Processes that normally take years need to be completed in months. "At the moment, everyone is knocking on our door," says Ly.

A fossil-fuel boom has broken out in many African countries. In Uganda, the French company Total wants to extract oil in a nature preserve together with a Chinese state company. There are plans for a pipeline that can transport the oil through the Tanzanian Serengeti to the Indian Ocean. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, oil fields are being auctioned off to the highest bidders. Drilling is also taking place off the southern coast of Namibia, where several platforms are already installed in the water, even though the country is presenting itself as a trailblazer in the green energy revolution. Countries are taking what they can.

Many projects are still in the early stages, but hopes on the continent are high, as is the interest of oil and gas corporations from industrialized nations. In 2021, the African countries altogether produced 260 billion cubic meters of gas. According to the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries, that volume is expected to rise to as much as 585 billion cubic meters by 2050.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Senegal last May. The visit was remarkable. The chancellor said that it makes sense to "intensively pursue" a partnership for gas extraction. Berlin is under pressure to find alternatives to Russian natural gas, and the West African nation is potentially prepared to help fill the void.

Senegal President Macky Sall and his cabinet currently have their pick of European partners: France, Portugal, Poland, Italy – all are currently vying for his country's natural gas, even though it's not even ready for production.

This despite the fact that, as recently as last year, European governments called for a shift to renewable energies on the African continent. Sall was always against it, anyway. At the UN General Assembly, Senegal's president said: "The continent that is contributing the least to pollution and is the furthest behind in industrialization should extract its natural resources." After all, he said, Europe had done this decades ago, and now, despite their past warnings, the Europeans want to immediately extract Senegalese gas. Necessity, it turns out, is preventing the transition to green energy.

Petrosen head Ly looks out over the Atlantic from the chic Terrou-Bi Hotel in Dakar. He doesn't accept the criticism from the Saint Louis fishermen. "The anger of the people affected is above all a communication problem," he claims. "The site where the gas platform is located wasn't even a fishing ground."

But the discontent in Senegal is widespread, and it's not just coming from Moustapha Dieng and his fellow fishermen. The GTA project had been overshadowed by claims of corruption from the start. There is great concern in the country that only the elite will profit from the windfall of resources. Greenpeace has warned of an incalculable risk for the ecosystem given that important protected marine areas are located near the gas facilities.

Senegal's government isn't letting itself be fazed. Elections are scheduled for 2024, the country is grappling with debt and the rising cost of living is becoming a problem. Against that backdrop, the new government revenues are coming at a convenient time. "We're certainly not going to become Qatar or the Emirates, but gas and oil could be huge drivers of Senegal's development," says Ty.

Germany and France have just signed an agreement to develop renewable energies together with Senegal. More than 2 billion euros are at stake, with fossil fuels to be gradually replaced by solar energy, among other sources. Gas is described as a transitional technology in the agreement, but the Green Party has ensured that no German tax money is to flow into its extraction. This restraint has its price: The West could now have to wait at the back of the line. Africa isn't waiting for Europe – the Africans moved on years ago.

A few months before his biggest victory thus far, the lawyer and activist Drissa Meminta steps up to a lectern in a courtyard in Bamako, the capital of Mali. He's wearing a dark-blue suit with a breast pocket handkerchief. Around him, in a semi-circle, his fellow members of the anti-colonial, pro-Russian Yerewolo movement have gathered for an internal meeting. A banner displays their goal in the national colors: "The liberation of Mali."

Meminta recalls what his movement has achieved so far. It helped bring the military junta to power in 2021, which helped spur the withdrawal of the French military one year later. Now, he wants the United Nations peacekeepers to leave the country as well. "It has to be the aspiration of every country to take its fate into its own hands," says Meminta.

As it turns out, the UN declared a short time later that their MINUSMA peace mission would come to an end this year.

The decision represents a turning point for the relationship between Mali and the international community. In 2013, France began sending soldiers to help the government in Bamako fight against Islamist terror. In the context of the BARKHANE antiterrorism operation, they stationed up to 5,100 soldiers in the Sahel region. The international community established MINUSMA in 2013, with a mandate for 12,600 blue-helmet soldiers, including some from Germany.

Nevertheless, the stabilization of Mali proved impossible. Ever larger parts of the country fell under the de facto control of the jihadists. Elements of the military carried out a coup against the government in 2020 and 2021.

What is happening in Mali is tantamount to a changing of the guard: The Europeans are leaving; with the Russians arriving in their place. Up to 1,600 mercenaries belonging to the Wagner Group are already stationed in Mali, and their influence is growing.

Yerewolo leader Meminta has welcomed the development. European diplomats, meanwhile, are convinced that his movement is being financed with money from Russia. "Anyone can come here and do business, so long as they respect the sovereignty, independence and interests of our country," he says.

"We want to completely wipe out our opponents. We don't want prisoners. We want it as brutal as possible."

An adviser to the Central African president

Long before the Wagner militia, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, waged war in Ukraine, it served as an instrument with which the Kremlin could expand its influence in Africa. Wagner mercenaries are supporting the warlord Khalifa Haftar in Libya. In Sudan, they run gold mines together with the warlord Hemeti. The Wagner network is active in at least a dozen African countries. No other state has as many bilateral agreements with governments on the continent as Russia. And no other country sells more weapons to sub-Saharan Africa.

The Russian government recently announced plans to compensate African countries for the loss of Ukrainian wheat – a loss caused, admittedly, by Russia's decision to opt out of the existing agreement. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin repeated the promise shortly before the Africa Summit in St. Petersburg this week.

Moscow is spreading the propaganda that it is the former colonial powers, like France, who are exploiting the continent, while the Russians themselves are aiming for a more equal partnership.

In fact, European diplomats in Bamako say that EU contracts in the country were steered toward French companies. They also claim that France, in turn, supplied the Malian armed forces with inadequate materiel and that civilians have repeatedly died as a result of attacks by the French military in the country. Little, if anything, has been done to address those mistakes.

There is no debate that Russia is itself carrying out an imperial war of aggression in Ukraine and, for the most part, nefariously pursuing its interests in Africa.

In the Central African Republic, for instance, the Wagner mercenaries have succeeded in infiltrating part of the state following the French retreat. Experts speak of a "state capture." They reportedly looted raw materials like gold and timber. The Sentry, an investigative website, has accused the Wagner Group of committing war crimes. Wagner mercenaries allegedly wiped out villages, raped, tortured and killed their inhabitants. An adviser to the Central African president openly explains why the government is working with Wagner. "We want to completely wipe out our opponents," he says. "We don't want prisoners. We want it as brutal as possible."

For many African despots, the Wagner mercenaries, whose "engagement" in Africa continues regardless of their boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, are a convenient partner. They help them face down political opponents and insurgents and they receive access to raw materials in return. Unlike the Europeans, they don’t ask questions about democracy or human rights.

For Wagner, on the other hand, the commitment in Africa is above all a PR victory, says Samuel Ramani of RUSI, a British think tank. "They're very good at promoting autocracies and promoting Russia as a brand on the continent," he says. "They aren’t all that successful in the war on terror."

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s seat of government, the past and the future are never far apart. There’s the old train station, built by the Germans when the region was their colony, with its battered red roof shingles. Next to it, a modern glass building rises into the sky, the new train station built by a Turkish company.

Masanja Kadogosa is standing on the platform, which is still empty, and looking contentedly into the distance. "Moving traffic from road to rail will improve people’s lives in Tanzania," he says.

As the director of Tanzania Railways, Kadogosa is overseeing what is currently one of Africa's largest infrastructure projects. The Tanzania Standard Gauge Railway, or SGR, will connect Tanzania with Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Congo. Ten billion dollars have been earmarked for investment in the project. The route will be built by Turkish and Chinese companies. The Tanzanian clients have changed partners several times to get a better deal. "It’s our choice who we work with," says Kadagosa. "We know exactly what we want. And that has also made us more picky."

The SGR is a symbol of the new balance of power on the continent. Just over three decades ago, more than eight out of 10 construction contracts in Africa went to American or European firms. Ten years ago, it was still around one out of three, but by 2020, it will only be around one in 10. Chinese companies now implement one-third of all infrastructure projects.

The Turks are also gaining a foothold in Africa. Since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took office as prime minister in 2003, the volume of trade between Turkey and African countries has increased more than a sixfold to $34.5 billion in 2021. The number of embassies has almost quadrupled to 44 in the same period.

Whether it's the Turks in Tanzania, the Russians in Mali or the Chinese in the Democratic Republic of Congo, African countries are reorienting themselves. One reason is that, for years, the West wasn’t very interested in Africa politically. The U.S. has cut development programs and withdrawn troops. Former President Donald Trump left the State Department's Africa envoy position vacant for nearly a year and a half. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Africa envoy, meanwhile, faced accusations of racism.

During those years, the Chinese pulled past Western countries to take the lead in Africa. From 2000 to 2020, Chinese financiers lent $160 billion to African governments, two-thirds of which flowed into infrastructure projects. In recent years, Beijing has relied more on direct investment and trade than lending.

But Russia's war against Ukraine, the systemic competition between China and the U.S. and the increased demand for raw materials as countries transition to clean energies is all leading to a rethink in the West. Africa is suddenly perceived as a "geopolitical marketplace," as EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell recently put it.

With its $150 billion Africa-Europe Global Gateway Investment Package, much of which will go into infrastructure, the EU wants to create an alternative to the Chinese Silk Road. Roads, ports and power lines, internet cables and solar parks are planned to drive the economies of developing and emerging countries – and at the same time help Europe gain new influence. The U.S. has also announced plans to provide $200 billion in grants, financial assistance and investment to developing countries over the next five years.

Fonteh Akum of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa doubts that this alone will be enough to make up for the ground the Europeans have lost to other players. He says they will have to convince Africans that they are interested in an equal partnership and not just in outdoing their competitors.

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News Round-up, August 1, 2023

We need a recession to bring down inflation', says former Bank of England chief

The recession is around the corner?

On Thursday, 27th July, the Wall Street Journal reported that low-interest rates in the US are crucial in supporting consumer spending. Consumers have maintained their spending habits, with many Americans securing low rates on mortgages, car loans, and other debts before the Federal Reserve began raising rates. This is because most household debt consists of fixed-rate loans, meaning that interest payments do not increase as the Federal Reserve raises its federal funds rate. Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, has emphasized that this is a significant factor enabling consumers to continue spending despite the rate hikes. Simultaneously, in Frankfurt, Germany, Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), made an important announcement regarding the economic situation in the Eurozone. Lagarde acknowledged the complexity of the current landscape and revealed that the ECB's Governing Council has decided to raise the three primary interest rates by 25 basis points later this year. While Lagarde expressed confidence in the decision, she also raised concerns about ongoing challenges, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its potential impact on the energy industry. These factors will undoubtedly impact the Eurozone's economic stability and require careful monitoring in the coming months. In addition to these developments, today, the former chief of the Bank of England, Alex Brazier, has put forth an intriguing perspective. Brazier believes that a recession is necessary to decrease inflation in the UK. Despite the economy performing better than expected and experiencing accelerated growth rates, this performance is only considered sustainable in the short term.

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Twitter "News Round-up" Blog Achieves Phenomenal Results…

Yesterday, the "News Round-up" achieved a remarkable milestone by breaking previous records for impressions. The blog's tweets received a total of 1,394 impressions, marking a significant increase compared to the respectable 1,147 impressions received on June 6th. The significant increase in impressions of the "News Round-up" is a clear testament to its expanding audience and strong engagement. What makes this achievement even more remarkable is that it was accomplished organically, without any external promotion or boosting.

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Most read…

We need a recession to bring down inflation', says former Bank of England chief - latest updates

The Bank of England will need to force Britain into recession to bring inflation back down to its 2pc target, a former member of its financial policy committee has warned.

The telegrpah, Updated 8 minutes ago

BP’s £2bn profits cause anger amid climate crisis

Oil and gas company to return another $1.5bn to investors through a share buyback

The Guardian by Jillian Ambrose and Rob Davies, August 1, 2023

Germany's bailed-out Uniper plans billions in green investments

In recent years, Uniper faced a significant challenge when it had to replace the missing Russian gas volumes, especially during times of high demand. This situation often led to a surge in spot market prices, exposing the company to substantial financial risk.

Reuters by Vera Eckert and Rachel More, editing by Germán & Co, August 1, 2023

Why More House Republicans Are Flirting With Impeaching Biden

*There has been a surge in support for Trump among the MAGA base due to the Republicans investigating Biden's family and presidency. With each new indictment, Trump's popularity has increased, making him one of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

*By Germán & Co

TIME by ERIC CORTELLESSA, JULY 31, 2023

Why Did Economic Forecasters Get Their Recession Call Wrong?

Not only has the economy outperformed predictions but it’s growing at a faster rate than experts think is sustainable in the long run.

The New Yorkers by John Cassidy, July 28, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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The Bank of England will need to push the economy into recession to bring down inflation, according to Alex Brazier CREDIT: REUTERS/Hollie Adams

We need a recession to bring down inflation', says former Bank of England chief - latest updates

The Bank of England will need to force Britain into recession to bring inflation back down to its 2pc target, a former member of its financial policy committee has warned.

The telegrpah, Updated 8 minutes ago

*Alex Brazier, now deputy head of the BlackRock Investment Institute, acknowledged that the Bank has already hit the brakes on the economy “pretty hard” having raised interest rates for 13 consecutive meetings.

However, if inflation is to fall, interest rates will need to rise further from their present level of 5pc, he said, which will bring in “weak growth and higher unemployment.”

Official figures showed inflation in the UK fell to 7.9pc in June, which was down from 8.7pc in May but still nearly four times the Bank of England’s target, which it is not forecast to meet until early 2025.

Mr Brazier told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Inflation has now become entrenched and so, to be honest, getting inflation to 2pc - the Banks target - probably does entail a further growth slowdown or recession and higher unemployment.

“The trick for the bank is to do that in as moderate a way as possible.”

Mr Brazier, who left the Bank of England in 2021, predicted the peak for interest rates will be “probably below 6pc”.

*Alex Brazier is an expert in policy, strategic planning, management, and governance. He has played a crucial role in implementing post-crisis reform and providing guidance in micro-prudential supervision. He's proficient in economic analysis and has supported the Governor on monetary policy matters.

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“AES El Salvador Team Awarded the “Golden Hard Hat” Award 2022.

Bernerd Da Santos, First AES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean EnergyAES Executive Vice President - President Global Renewable and AES Clean Energy

“The AES El Salvador team has been awarded the 2022 "Golden Hard Hat" Award, a highly prestigious accolade that recognizes their unwavering commitment to safety. This award, presented by AES Corporation, highlights the team's exceptional dedication to making safety a priority. The team demonstrated professionalism and dedication by working 8 million hours, conducting 30,000 inspections, and dedicating 45,000 hours to technical and environmental training to ensure safety standards. However, the most important thing to note here is that the AES El Salvador team achieved a remarkable feat without any fatalities, demonstrating their exceptional commitment.
I would like to congratulate the union's leader and management team of AES El Salvador: Abraham Bichara, Daniel Bernardez, Roberto Sandoval, John Davenport, and Wilfredo Flores. Their combined efforts have been instrumental in making this outstanding achievement possible.
Once again, my heartfelt congratulations to the AES El Salvador team for this well-deserved recognition. Their tireless efforts and unwavering commitment to safety are an inspiration to us all.

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Image by German & Co

BP’s £2bn profits cause anger amid climate crisis

Oil and gas company to return another $1.5bn to investors through a share buyback

The Guardian by Jillian Ambrose and Rob Davies, August 1, 2023

BP has angered climate campaigners by reporting profits of $2.6bn (£2bn) for the second quarter of the year as the climate crisis triggers extreme heatwaves.

The company blamed falling oil and gas markets for the drop in profits from $8.5bn in the same period last year when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ignited a rise in global energy markets.

BP willincrease its shareholder dividends by 10% to $2.3bn, despite the fall in profits. It will also return a further $1.5bn to investors through a share buyback over the next three months.

The BP chief executive, Bernard Looney, said the payouts reflected the company’s confidence in its strategy and the outlook for its future cashflows.

BP’s profits have fuelled growing anger at fossil fuel companies among green groups, which have accused the oil companies of “obscene” profits at the expense of hard-pressed families and the environment.

Tommy Vickerstaff, a lead UK campaigner for 350.org, said: “We’re almost desensitised to BP’s profits at this point because the government has continuously failed to take action to redistribute them. But there is nothing normal or routine about BP’s profit margins or about the destructive heatwaves we’re seeing across Europe that BP is directly responsible for causing.”

Global Witness said BP’s multibillion-dollar shareholder payouts stand in contrast to the millions of households pushed into fuel poverty by the rise in global energy prices.

Jonathan Noronha-Gant, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, said: “This is what a broken energy system looks like – oil giants get richer because the rest of us get poorer. For BP the energy crisis has been a giant cash grab; for parents across the country it has been an impossible choice between feeding their children and paying their bills.”

In a recent report, the IPPR, a left-leaning thinktank, argued that share buybacks are a direct cash transfer away from hard-pressed households to already wealthy shareholders at the expense of the environment.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Plants hang from lights at a display of German energy firm Uniper during the LNG 2023 energy trade show in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, July 12, 2023. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/file/Editing by Germán & Co

Germany's bailed-out Uniper plans billions in green investments

In recent years, Uniper faced a significant challenge when it had to replace the missing Russian gas volumes, especially during times of high demand. This situation often led to a surge in spot market prices, exposing the company to substantial financial risk.

Reuters by Vera Eckert and Rachel More, editing by Germán & Co, August 1, 2023

DUESSELDORF, Aug 1 (Reuters) - German utility Uniper (UN01.DE) mapped out plans to diversify its portfolio on Tuesday with billions of euros in green investments, hailing record earnings in the first half of 2023 as a turnaround following its bailout just a year earlier.

"Uniper is back on track," said new CEO Michael Lewis, who was installed to steer the company, once Germany's biggest importer of Russian gas, out of the crisis triggered by an end in deliveries from Russia's Gazprom GAZP.MM.

He presented plans to invest 8 billion euros ($8.79 billion) through 2030 on a green transformation, triple the company's average annual investments of the past three years.

Uniper's turnaround was largely driven by the company hedging its gas supply commitments for the years 2023 and 2024 at lower prices, after being forced to replace missing Russian volumes at surging prices on spot markets last year.

In May, the company, in which the German government owns a 99% stake, flagged a profit of more than 2 billion euros expected from hedging its gas supply commitments.

Expecting no further financial losses from procuring replacement gas volumes, Uniper said on Tuesday no further capital increases from the German state would be necessary.

Its credit line from the KfW state lender has been reduced ahead of schedule to 11.5 billion euros from 16.5 billion euros, the company said.

Uniper on Tuesday reiterated its 2023 outlook, which foresees operating earnings and net profit in a mid single-digit billion euro range, but warned that this result was largely based on exceptional circumstances.

PATH TO INDEPENDENCE

Asked by investors for a timeline on the German government's exit, CFO Jutta Doenges called for patience and pointed to the terms of the bailout, which requires Berlin to reduce its stake to no more than 25% plus one share by the end of 2028.

The German government has welcomed Uniper's strong half-year performance, which saw adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) of 3.7 billion euros, after a 757-million-euro loss a year earlier.

The government plans to present an exit plan by the end of this year.

"We're confident that we're doing our part of the necessary steps to bring Uniper back to the market," Lewis said, painting the green investment plan as a chance to diversify the utility's portfolio to shield it against future volatility.

The new strategy includes targeted growth in solar and wind farms, with 80% of Uniper's installed generating capacity to be zero-carbon by 2030, the company said, adding it would end coal-fired power generation by 2029 at the latest.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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 by Germán & Co

Why More House Republicans Are Flirting With Impeaching Biden

*There has been a surge in support for Trump among the MAGA base due to the Republicans investigating Biden's family and presidency. With each new indictment, Trump's popularity has increased, making him one of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

*By Germán & Co

TIME by ERIC CORTELLESSA, JULY 31, 2023

Speaker Kevin McCarthy has long resisted calls from the hard right to impeach President Joe Biden, citing the lack of evidence of any crimes committed by Biden during Congressional investigations. McCarthy initially expressed concerns that using impeachment for political purposes would not be beneficial. However, McCarthy recently changed his stance under pressure from the MAGA flank, new revelations about Hunter Biden, and the influence of Donald Trump.

The California Republican didn’t quite call to impeach Biden, but he escalated that prospect by floating an impeachment inquiry into the President over unproven claims of financial misconduct. “What an impeachment inquiry does, when you vote on the floor, is it gives you the apex of power of Congress,” McCarthy told reporters on Thursday.

The proceedings, which would be the first step before bringing articles of impeachment, could be as fast or as slow as the House GOP would like—meaning it could stretch well into the 2024 campaign season. While the effort is destined to go nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate, it’s a sign that the coming election will be fought beyond the conventional venues of the campaign trail. It will play out in courthouses throughout the country, where former President Donald Trump will defend himself against multiple criminal prosecutions, and the halls of Congress, where Republicans hope to put Biden on trial simultaneously. 

That, say Democrats, and some Republicans in private, is the point. Trump and his supporters, they insist, want an answer to the courtroom dramas he will face with the election in full swing, and an impeachment proceeding on the House floor fits the bill.  “It's all about protecting Trump and stirring up the waters and blurring the differences between Trump and Biden,” says Jim Manley, a former aide to the late Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy. 

Republicans argue that McCarthy’s evolution on impeachment was triggered by a set of recent discoveries: two IRS whistleblowers who allege the Department of Justice gave Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal, which subsequently collapsed when it came before a federal judge; news that a Democratic donor who bought an expensive painting from the younger Biden also received a cushy posting from the President; and closed-door testimony expected on Monday from Hunter Biden’s long-time friend Devon Archer, who GOP lawmakers say will corroborate claims that Biden, as vice president, participated in his son’s business dealings. “The evidence and stuff that's come out is what is causing him to change his tune,” a senior Republican House staffer familiar with the matter tells TIME.

Since Republicans took over the House last January, they have conducted myriad probes into Biden’s family and presidency. The confluence of investigations and allegations have created a groundswell among the MAGA base that Biden should face retribution. That hunger has only grown as Trump—who wants to see Biden impeached—has soared in the polls following each indictment, making him the clear frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Now, some of his fiercest allies in Congress are pushing for Biden’s comeuppance. “It must happen,” Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida tells TIME. “He’s the most corrupt President in our nation’s history. It’s absolutely warranted.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House GOP Conference Chair, told Fox Business on Thursday that she would “absolutely” support an impeachment, saying she’s “in conversations with Speaker McCarthy and all of our members” about it. 

The push comes against a backdrop of Trump’s mounting legal woes. He’s facing criminal charges in New York for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to a porn star. At the same time, he’s under federal indictment for allegedly hoarding national-security secrets and blocking the government’s efforts to reclaim them. Special Counsel Jack Smith added new counts against Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case on Thursday, alleging he deleted video evidence to obstruct the investigation. More prosecutions also appear to be in the offing. One is from a separate special counsel investigation by Smith into Trump’s role leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The other is from Fulton County DA Fani Willis, who’s probing Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

But one problem McCarthy faces on the Hill is that he doesn’t have buy-in from his entire conference. “I don't think it’s responsible to talk about impeachment, because we have these ongoing investigations that are gathering material,” Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado tells TIME. “When they gather the material that indicates that there’s an impeachable offense then we should open an inquiry. But at this point in time, it’s premature.”

With Republicans having a slim 222-212 House majority, only a small number of defections could sink the effort. And Buck is not alone. Behind closed doors, some GOP Hill staffers and members worry that impeachment proceedings against Biden could boomerang against them in the next election.  

Buck thinks McCarthy’s flirtation with impeachment is due to more than Trump’s grip over the party and Hunter Biden’s misadventures. Last week, Congress left for its August recess without passing crucial appropriations measures to fund the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. When lawmakers return in September, they will need to pass 12 such bills to keep the government funded, or risk a government shutdown on October 1. “This has been done to distract from those appropriations bills and the lack of consensus on those appropriations bills,” he says.

But even if some Republican lawmakers are resistant to impeaching Biden, some Capitol Hill veterans suspect the wrath of Trump and his supporters could change their minds in the coming months. Says Manley: “The blowback from Trump and Trump supporters and the rest of the caucus will be brutal.”

A similar dynamic played out last month, when Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida forced a vote to censure Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who led Trump’s first impeachment and served on the Jan. 6 committee. The first attempt failed after 20 Republicans voted against it. But then, Luna and Trump mobilized a social media backlash. A week later, Luna forced another vote. This time, it was successful. Not a single Republican voted against the measure.

While Schiff became the 25th House member to face such a reprimand and will now be subject to a House Ethics investigation, the ordeal came with some upside for him. His Senate campaign raised $8.1 million afterwards.

It’s a reason why Democrats believe the GOP impeaching Biden could help the President’s reelection campaign. “Impeachment hearings would make for good television. They would make for spectacle,” a senior Democratic Hill staffer tells TIME. “But what we already know is that voters are tired of hyper partisanship.” Moreover, the official adds, Democrats would use the proceedings to try to emphasize a contrast between the parties: “Democrats are here to lower costs and build bridges. Republicans are here to perform political theater.”

Of course, Republicans have only a razor-thin House majority and remain blocked by Biden’s veto power. That leaves them with not much they can do beyond messaging. The question looming over the caucus is whether a Biden impeachment inquiry would amount to a political winner or an election-season misfire.

Democrats are betting it would be the latter. “This is playing into the political circus that helped them lose four years ago and underperform two years ago,” the Hill staffer says. “If you give them enough rope, they’ll hang themselves.”

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Image by Germán & Co

Why Did Economic Forecasters Get Their Recession Call Wrong?

Not only has the economy outperformed predictions but it’s growing at a faster rate than experts think is sustainable in the long run.

The New Yorkers by John Cassidy, July 28, 2023

Earlier this week, the Conference Board said that its index of consumer confidence had reached the highest level in two years.Photograph by Angela Weiss / Getty

Last October, the Wall Street Journal published a survey of more than sixty economic forecasters from universities, businesses, and Wall Street. Citing the results of the survey, the Journal reported that the United States was “forecast to enter a recession in the coming 12 months as the Federal Reserve battles to bring down persistently high inflation, the economy contracts and employers cut jobs in response.” The story went on to say that the economists surveyed expected inflation-adjusted G.D.P. “to contract at a 0.2% annual rate in the first quarter of 2023 and shrink 0.1% in the second quarter.” The economists were also predicting that the unemployment rate, which was then 3.5 per cent, would rise to 4.3 per cent by June.

These forecasts turned out to be off—way off. On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced that G.D.P. rose at an annual rate of 2.4 per cent in the second quarter of this year, after growing at 2.0 per cent in the first quarter. Far from plunging into recession, the U.S. economy has grown at a faster rate than many experts think is sustainable in the long run. Employers have continued to create jobs at a healthy clip, and the unemployment rate has remained steady, climbing just one-tenth of a percentage point in the past nine months, to 3.6 per cent in June.

The latest from Washington and beyond, covering current events, the economy, and more, from our columnists and correspondents.

In the forecasters’ defense, they never said that a recession was certain. But they did say it was the most likely outcome, assigning it a probability of sixty-three per cent. And private-sector forecasters weren’t the only ones who got fooled by the economy’s resilience in the face of sharply higher interest rates: until recently, the staff economists at the Federal Reserve were also predicting a recession for this year. At a press conference on Wednesday, after the central bank raised the federal funds rate again, to a range of 5.25 to 5.5 per cent, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, said that his staff has now changed its forecast to moderate growth for the rest of 2023.

It almost goes without saying that making economic forecasts is a difficult, and often thankless, task. Modern economies are extremely complex organisms. The aggregate outcomes they generate reflect many factors, including some external ones that are innately unpredictable, such as the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Since last October, though, there haven’t been any colossal surprises. Global supply chains have continued to recover from the pandemic, the war in Ukraine has continued, and the Fed has followed through on its pledge to keep raising rates until inflation is brought under control. Why, then, has the economy outperformed the forecasters’ predictions?

The proximate answer is that consumer spending and capital investments by businesses have held up stronger than expected. In the three months from April to June, personal consumption expenditures, which make up more than two-thirds of G.D.P., rose at an annual rate of 1.6 per cent, and gross private domestic investment rose at a rate of 5.7 per cent. Together, these increases accounted for nearly all of the quarterly rise in G.D.P. (The rest was largely due to higher spending by state and local governments.) But merely reciting these figures raises a deeper question: How have households and businesses been able to shrug off higher prices and higher interest rates, at least so far?

One reason is that prices are now rising less rapidly than wages (another development many economists failed to predict), which means workers’ purchasing power is rising, albeit slowly. Combined with healthy job growth, the sharp fall in the inflation rate—from 9.1 per cent in June, 2022, to three per cent this past month—has made many consumers feel better about things. Earlier this week, the Conference Board said that its index of consumer confidence had reached the highest level in two years.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal highlighted another element that is supporting consumer spending: many Americans were able to lock in low interest rates on mortgages, car loans, and other debts before the Fed started raising rates. According to Moody’s Analytics, nearly ninety per cent of household debt is fixed-rate debt, which means the interest payments attached to it don’t increase as the Fed hikes the federal funds rate. “It’s one reason why consumers are hanging tough and the Fed’s rate hikes have taken less of a bite out of the economy,” Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told the Journal.

The final thing that many economists underestimated was the impact of the fiscal policies that the Biden Administration introduced during its first two years. The lingering effects of the 1.9-trillion-dollar American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 can still be seen in improved finances of households and local governments, which is supporting their spending. But the most striking example is the surge in business investment, particularly in manufacturing facilities, since the passage last year of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided generous financial incentives for manufacturers of electric vehicles and other green technology, and the chips and Science Act, which provided similar incentives for manufacturers of semiconductors.

I’ve written about this surge before, and the new G.D.P. report confirms it. During the second quarter of this year, business investment in structures grew at an annual rate of 9.7 per cent, following an increase of 15.8 per cent in the first quarter. The entirety of this spending wasn’t carried out by manufacturers, but a good deal of it was. The White House Council of Economic Advisers pointed out that “about 0.4 percentage point of real Q2 GDP growth came from investment in private manufactured structures, the largest such contribution since 1981.” This is good news for the economy’s immediate prospects and for the longer-term energy transition, which is essential.

And the bad news? As a worrywart, I can always find things. The Fed could still tank the economy by keeping rates too high for too long. The renewed bubble in technology stocks, driven by optimism about A.I., could end in a stock-market crash. There could be another banking crisis, or something out of the blue, such as a conflict in the Middle East that creates another run-up in energy prices. I could also point to the sight of economic forecasters getting more optimistic, but that would be mean. For now, let’s just celebrate the fact that their predictions turned out to be wrong. ♦

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News round-up, July 31, 2023

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Thoughts of a day on Monday the 31st

Lagarde’s Eurozone “Crisis” Press Conference on July 27, Resembles “Lord of the Flies”

On Thursday, July 27th, Mrs Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank, delivered a significant announcement from Frankfurt, Germany. Stepping onto the stage with her Vice-President, Luis de Guindos, Lagarde’s solemn countenance suggested the severity of the impending situation to be disclosed. Without delay, Lagarde tackled the complicated economic environment in the Eurozone. She disclosed that the Governing Council had resolved to raise the three primary ECB interest rates by 25 basis points once again this year.

Lagarde seemed concerned as she spoke confidently, without her usual French accent. She emphasized that challenges still needed to be addressed despite the ongoing difficulties. She brought up the Russian invasion of Ukraine ("Natural Gas War"), which has made the already unstable economic situation even more complex. This could have implications for the global energy industry, which we must closely monitor.

Lagarde’s discourse evoked vivid imagery reminiscent of the classic novel, “The Lord of the Flies,” writted by Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding in 1954. The parallels between Golding’s literary masterpiece and the current geopolitical climate are striking. We find ourselves confronted with deep-rooted social divisions not limited solely to Europe. These divisions arise from conflicting religious ideologies, diverse political systems, and an innate human tendency towards avarice and ambition.

Just as the characters in “The Lord of the Flies” grapple with their instincts and desires, the world faces similar struggles in navigating these societal divides. However, the consequences of these divisions extend beyond the realm of survival on a deserted island. Our interconnected global community demands unity and cooperation to overcome such challenges. Lagarde’s allusion to this profound connection between literature and the present situation reminds us of the underlying complexities plaguing our civilization.

Golding’s novel, set on a deserted island, is an allegory that highlights the flaws of human nature. It showcases how the moral order disintegrates, and chaos ensues when individuals are devoid of societal norms and structures. In the global environment, we observe the breakdown of international alliances, the emergence of populist movements and a decline in institutional trust. These divisions and conflicts have consequences not only in politics but also in the economy.

Lagarde discussed the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, emphasizing the impact on the energy sector and the vulnerability caused by the interdependence of economies. Similarly, William Golding’s novel, “The Lord of the Flies,” showcased his understanding of the future implications of geopolitical dynamics, evident even back in 1954. Reflecting on his experiences as a soldier during World War II, Golding concluded that all humans possess an innate capacity for evil. The aftermath of the war prompted the author to contemplate whether humanity could establish order in the wake of a nuclear conflict.

In “The Lord of the Flies,” written during the height of the “atomic age” marked by the post-WWII fear of nuclear attacks, the novel grapples with humanity’s anxieties. The onset of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia intensified these concerns, as people worldwide lived in constant dread of another catastrophic bombing resembling Oppenheimer’s project in Japan. Against this backdrop, the novel raises vital questions about human nature and its inclination toward self-destruction. It explores universal themes, considering the possibility of a moral movement emerging for the greater good. Can humans overcome their inherent self-destructive tendencies? This thought-provoking novel seeks answers to these pressing questions.

Now, what does Mrs. Lagarde tell us?

Inflation remains a concern despite decline
This is why we are committed to ensuring that inflation returns to our target of two percent in the medium term. As a result, the Governing Council has decided to raise the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points.

Eurozone's economic outlook worsens
”The economic outlook for the eurozone is deteriorating due to various factors such as weaker domestic demand, inflation, and tighter credit conditions. These issues are impacting consumer spending and manufacturing output. Additionally, inflation and tighter credit conditions are dampening consumer spending, which in turn is affecting manufacturing output and weak external demand. Housing and business investment are also deteriorating, while the services sector remains resilient. Consequently, the economy is expected to remain weak in the short term.

Withdrawal of support measures crucial
”As the energy crisis starts to fade, it is important for governments to withdraw related support measures in a timely and coordinated manner. This is critical in order to prevent medium-term inflationary pressures from escalating. Failure to do so would require a more aggressive monetary policy response.

Inflation figures for June
”The inflation rate for the month of June continued to decrease, reaching 5.5 percent compared to 6.1 percent in May. Energy prices experienced a significant drop of 5.6 percent year on year. However, although food price inflation slowed down, it still remained high at 11.6 percent. Excluding energy and food, inflation rose to 5.5 percent, with goods and services showing opposing trends.

Economic Growth and Inflation Outlook Remains Uncertain
”The global economic growth and inflation outlook are uncertain, with several downside risks. One major concern is Russia's unjustified war against Ukraine, which contributes to geopolitical tensions that could fragment global trade and impact the euro area economy, leading to slower growth. On the other hand, there are upside risks to inflation. Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative could lead to upward pressure on energy and food costs. Additionally, the climate crisis and adverse weather conditions may raise food prices beyond projections, contributing to higher inflation. Other factors like a rise in inflation expectations, higher wages or profit margins, and stronger transmission of monetary policy could also drive inflation higher over the medium term. Furthermore, there has been significant tightening in financial and monetary conditions recently, adding to the complexity of the economic landscape. In conclusion, both economic growth and inflation face uncertainty, with downside risks to growth and upside risks to inflation.

Why have we found ourselves in this predicament?

The predictions made by William Golding in his book “The Lord of the Flies” in 1954 are of such magnitude that they must be examined. Lagarde's X-ray of the European economy is clear but a cause for concern. In this way, the deep political divisions within countries are a significant source of concern. However, the global geopolitical framework has undergone significant transformations in recent times, shifting from a bipolar structure to a much more interconnected and complex world. The current stage is distinguished by a state of multipolarity characterized by political and religious extremism, raising concerns about the potential disintegration of the global nation-state system. Aggression in imperialist crusades exacerbates the situation.
Plato, in his seminal work on political principles written over two millennia ago, outlined the art of statecraft. His principles, however, must still be considered in modern political decision-making. Plato believed that conflicting interests within society could be reconciled. It is critical to inquire as to why certain politicians do not comprehend the fundamental logic of this philosophy.

Source: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/tvservices/podcast/html/ecb.pod230727_episode65.en.html

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Most read…

Trump Crushing DeSantis and G.O.P. Rivals, Times/Siena Poll Finds

The twice-indicted former president leads across nearly every category and region, as primary voters wave off concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.

NYT By Ashley Wu, By Shane Goldmacher, July 31, 2023

Elon Musk’s Latest Mission: Rev Up the Electricity Industry

‘My biggest concern is that there’s insufficient urgency,’ the billionaire tells energy executives

TWSJ by Tim Higgins, July 29, 2023 

Sunrun CEO Mary Powell Loves Big Problems

The solar-power executive says the energy industry is facing a ‘consumer-led revolution’

WSJ by Emily Bobrow, July 28, 2023

UK will issue hundreds of new oil and gas licenses in North Sea

The British government said the plan is to secure energy reserves while still aiming for net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Le Monde with AFP, today at 9:15 am

The climate law the EU (conveniently) forgot 

Talks on the Energy Taxation Directive have stalled over fears of political backlash.

POLITICO EU by VICTOR JACK AND ZIA WEISE, JULY 26, 2023 

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Source: NYT 

Trump Crushing DeSantis and G.O.P. Rivals, Times/Siena Poll Finds

The twice-indicted former president leads across nearly every category and region, as primary voters wave off concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.

NYT By Ashley Wu, By Shane Goldmacher, July 31, 2023

Former President Donald J. Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign.

Mr. Trump held decisive advantages across almost every demographic group and region and in every ideological wing of the party, the survey found, as Republican voters waved away concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy. He led by wide margins among men and women, younger and older voters, moderates and conservatives, those who went to college and those who didn’t, and in cities, suburbs and rural areas.

The poll shows that some of Mr. DeSantis’s central campaign arguments — that he is more electable than Mr. Trump, and that he would govern more effectively — have so far failed to break through. Even Republicans motivated by the type of issues that have fueled Mr. DeSantis’s rise, such as fighting “radical woke ideology,” favored the former president.

Overall, Mr. Trump led Mr. DeSantis 54 percent to 17 percent. No other candidate topped 3 percent support in the poll.

Below those lopsided top-line figures were other ominous signs for Mr. DeSantis. He performed his weakest among some of the Republican Party’s biggest and most influential constituencies. He earned only 9 percent support among voters at least 65 years old and 13 percent of those without a college degree. Republicans who described themselves as “very conservative” favored Mr. Trump by a 50-point margin, 65 percent to 15 percent.

Still, no other serious Trump challenger has emerged besides Mr. DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence, the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina each scored 3 percent support. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, each received support from just 2 percent of those polled.

Yet even if all those candidates disappeared and Mr. DeSantis got a hypothetical one-on-one race against Mr. Trump, he would still lose by a two-to-one margin, 62 percent to 31 percent, the poll found. That is a stark reminder that, for all the fretting among anti-Trump forces that the party would divide itself in a repeat of 2016, Mr. Trump is poised to trounce even a unified opposition.

The survey comes less than six months before the first 2024 primary contest and before a single debate. In an era of American politics defined by its volatility, Mr. Trump’s legal troubles — his trials threaten to overlap with primary season — pose an especially unpredictable wild card.

For now, though, Mr. Trump appears to match both the surly mood of the Republican electorate, 89 percent of whom see the nation as headed in the wrong direction, and Republicans’ desire to take the fight to the Democrats.

The 2024 G.O.P. Presidential Candidates

Donald Trump. The former president is running to retake the office he lost in 2020. Though somewhat diminished in influence within the Republican Party — and facing several legal investigations — he retains a large and committed base of supporters, and he could be aided in the primary by multiple challengers splitting a limited anti-Trump vote.

Ron DeSantis. The combative governor of Florida, whose official entry into the 2024 race was spoiled by a glitch-filled livestream over Twitter, has championed conservative causes and thrown a flurry of punches at America’s left. He provides Trump the most formidable Republican rival he has faced since the former president’s ascent in 2016.

Chris Christie. The former governor of New Jersey, who was eclipsed by Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, is making a second run for the White House, setting up a rematch with the former president. Christie has positioned himself as the G.O.P. hopeful who is most willing to attack Trump.

Mike Pence. The former vice president, who was once a stalwart supporter of Trump but split with him after the Jan. 6 attack, launched his campaign with a strong rebuke of his former boss. An evangelical Christian whose faith drives much of his politics, Pence has been notably outspoken about his support for a national abortion ban.

Tim Scott. The South Carolina senator, who is the first Black Republican from the South elected to the Senate since Reconstruction, has been one of his party’s most prominent voices on matters of race. He is campaigning on a message of positivity steeped in religiosity.

Nikki Haley. The former governor of South Carolina, who was a U.N. ambassador under Trump, has presented herself as a member of “a new generation of leadership” and emphasized her life experience as a daughter of Indian immigrants. She was long seen as a rising G.O.P. star, but her allure in the party has declined amid her on-again, off-again embrace of Trump.

Vivek Ramaswamy. The multimillionaire entrepreneur describes himself as “anti-woke” and has made a name for himself in right-wing circles by opposing corporate efforts to advance political, social and environmental causes. He has promised to go farther down the road of ruling by fiat than Trump would or could.

More G.O.P. candidates. The former Texas congressman Will Hurd, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the conservative talk radio host Larry Elder have also launched long-shot bids for the Republican presidential nomination. Read more about the 2024 candidates.

“He might say mean things and make all the men cry because all the men are wearing your wife’s underpants and you can’t be a man anymore,” said David Green, 69, a retail manager in Somersworth, N.H., said of Mr. Trump. “You got to be a little sissy and cry about everything. But at the end of the day, you want results. Donald Trump’s my guy. He’s proved it on a national level.”

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis maintain strong overall favorable ratings from Republicans, 76 percent and 66 percent. That Mr. DeSantis is still so well liked after a drumbeat of news coverage questioning his ability to connect with voters, and more than $20 million in attack ads from a Trump super PAC, demonstrates a certain resiliency. His political team has argued that his overall positive image with G.O.P. voters provides a solid foundation on which to build.

But the intensity of the former president’s support is a key difference as 43 percent of Republicans have a “very favorable” opinion of Mr. Trump — a cohort that he carries by an overwhelming 92 percent to 7 percent margin in a one-on-one race with Mr. DeSantis.

By contrast, Mr. DeSantis is stuck in an effective tie with Mr. Trump, edging him 49 percent to 48 percent, among the smaller share of primary voters (25 percent) who view the Florida governor very favorably.

In interviews with poll respondents, a recurring theme emerged. They like Mr. DeSantis; they love Mr. Trump.

“DeSantis, I have high hopes. But as long as Trump’s there, Trump’s the man,” said Daniel Brown, 58, a retired technician at a nuclear plant from Bumpass, Va.

Stanton Strohmenger, 48, a maintenance technician, said he was supporting Mr. Trump.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

“If he wasn’t running against Trump, DeSantis would be my very next choice,” said Stanton Strohmenger, 48, a maintenance technician in Washington Township, Ohio.

A number of respondents interviewed drew a distinction between Mr. DeSantis’s accomplishments in Tallahassee and Mr. Trump’s in the White House.

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Image by WSJ

Elon Musk’s Latest Mission: Rev Up the Electricity Industry

‘My biggest concern is that there’s insufficient urgency,’ the billionaire tells energy executives

TWSJ by Tim Higgins, July 29, 2023 

Elon Musk wants more power—literally. 

The man behind the race to replace gasoline-fueled cars with electric ones is worried about having enough juice. 

In recent days he has reiterated those concerns, predicting U.S. consumption of electricity, driven in part by battery-powered vehicles, will triple by around 2045. That followed his saying earlier this month that he anticipates an electricity shortage in two years that could stunt the energy-hungry development of artificial intelligence.

“You really need to bring the time scale of projects in sooner and have a high sense of urgency,” Musk told energy executives Tuesday at a conference held by PG&E, one of the nation’s largest utilities. “My biggest concern is that there’s insufficient urgency.”

Musk’s participation with PG&E Chief Executive Patti Poppe at the power company’s conference marked the third major energy event the billionaire has appeared at in the past 12 months. He has played the part of Cassandra, trying to spark more industry attention on the infrastructure required for his EV and AI futures as he advocates for a fully electric economy.  

“I can’t emphasize enough: we need more electricity,” Musk said last month at an energy conference in Austin. “However much electricity you think you need, more than that is needed.” 

The U.S. energy industry in recent years already has struggled at times to keep up with demand, resorting to threats of rolling blackouts amid heat waves and other demand spikes. Those stresses have rattled an industry undergoing an upheaval as old, polluting plants are being replaced by renewable energy. Utilities are spending big to retool their systems to be greener and make them more resilient. Deloitte estimates the largest U.S. electric companies together will spend as much as $1.8 trillion by 2030 on those efforts. 

Adding to the challenge is an industry historically accustomed to moving slowly, partly because of regulators aiming to protect consumers from price increases. 

And that has been mostly OK. For the past 20 years, U.S. electricity demand has grown at an average rate of 1% each year, according to a Deloitte study. 

“If you have a fairly static electricity demand, which has been the case in the U.S. for a while, it hasn’t changed a lot, then having projects take a long time is OK,” Musk said Tuesday. “But in a rapidly changing scenario, where electricity demand is increasing, we have to move much faster.”

Executives and consultants do see stark change coming—but not as dramatic as what Musk predicts. 

Deloitte estimates the top U.S. electric companies together will spend as much as $1.8 trillion by 2030 to revamp their systems to be greener and more resilient. PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

PG&E expects electricity demand will rise 70% in the next 20 years, which, the California company notes, would be unprecedented. Similarly, McKinsey expects U.S. demand will double by 2050. 

“This is an opportunity of the century for the power sector, and they could blow it if they don’t get it right,” Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas, Austin, said of the industry. “This demand growth is partly from EVs, but also heat pumps, data centers, AI, home devices…you name it.”

PG&E’s Poppe seemed receptive to Musk’s warning, if not exactly leaping to update her plans. “We are definitely taking notes here,” she told Musk. “I’m going to be the last person to doubt your predictions for the future.”

Part of the differing views of growth may boil down to how Musk wants the world to change. He wants cars and heating systems running on electricity. 

His push for tripling output is part of his advocacy for a transition to a fully electric economy, a more ambitious step than many in the industry are pursuing.

Beyond seeking a greener future, Musk is also warning that a lack of electricity could be crippling, much like the recent chips shortage that damaged the tech and auto industries. This time, it might stunt the burgeoning development of AI. 

“My prediction is that we will go from…an extreme silicon shortage today to…an electricity shortage in two years,” Musk said during an event earlier this month to discuss his new startup, xAI, which aims to develop advanced intelligence. “That’s roughly where things are trending.”

Rabble-rousing isn’t new for Musk. His entrepreneurial career has long involved jawboning entrenched industries, attempting to bend their plans and spending to his will and ambitions.  

A decade ago, his predictions for electric-car growth were seen by some as wildly optimistic, but his determination helped make him the world’s richest man and Tesla the world’s most valuable automaker. 

As the chief executive of Tesla, Musk does have a vested interest in more electricity, especially as he chases the goal of being able to build 20 million EVs annually by 2030. Tesla is centered around the mission of ushering in renewable energy and has smaller parts of its business selling solar panels and battery storage, including to utilities. 

One of Musk’s solutions is to better optimize the grid by running power plants around-the- clock and storing the energy not used during peak hours in battery packs for use later. “I’m not sure it might be as much as a 2x gain…but it’s at least 50% to 100% increase in total energy output,” Musk said recently.

He is advocating for more electricity at the same time he is stoking demand. And no place in the U.S. better illustrates that than in California, where car buyers continue to embrace EVs sold by him and others. 

The success of Tesla helped EVs make up 21% of new vehicle registrations in the state through the first half of this year, an increase from just 5.2% in all of 2019. Nationally, EVs haven’t yet grabbed market share like they have in California, but sales are growing. Musk predicts half of all new vehicles sold globally by 2030 will be electric. 

The rate of EV load on the energy grid has surprised Edison International, company CEO Pedro Pizarro said. 

At the June conference, Pizarro was on stage with Musk, who told the energy executive that his prediction of 60% demand growth in California by 2045 wasn’t enough, saying, “I think it’s much more load than that.”

“It may be,” Pizarro responded as awkward laughter erupted in the auditorium full of energy executives.

“Uh, by like a lot,” Musk continued. “It’s just, everything is going to be electric.”

Elon Musk Rolls Out New X Logo as Twitter Rebrands

A few weeks later, in an interview, Pizarro said he was still thinking about the exchange. 

While he still doesn’t see demand tripling, Pizarro said, the company’s predictions for electricity demand will likely be higher than 60% once it finishes reviewing what changes state mandates and consumer preferences are having on their assumptions, which were originally made in 2019. 

“Right now,” Pizarro said of Musk, “we may have, maybe, a little different view in terms of a matter of degree in what is a practical approach but I appreciate that he is putting a marker out there.”

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At the Energy Summit 2923 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Edwin De los Santos, President of AES DOMINICANA, emphasized the company's strong commitment to global environmental preservation.

“The relationship between energy and development is symbiotic and interdependent. “

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Source: Mary Powell photographed at her home in Vermont, July 2023. OLIVER PARINI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Sunrun CEO Mary Powell Loves Big Problems

The solar-power executive says the energy industry is facing a ‘consumer-led revolution’

WSJ by Emily Bobrow, July 28, 2023 

As Texans suffer record-breaking heat, many are staying cool thanks to an unexpected savior: solar energy. New solar farms and panels on homes have increased solar capacity in Texas sixfold since 2019, supplying around 15% of the state’s electricity during peak hours, according to the state’s grid operator. When some coal and gas plants suffered outages in June, Texas’s solar panels, wind turbines and giant batteries helped keep air conditioners humming.

This, says Mary Powell, is a taste of the future. As the CEO of California-based Sunrun, the largest residential solar and energy storage company in the U.S., she hopes to help lead what she calls “a consumer-led revolution to a different kind of energy system.” Powell, 62, notes that volatile fuel prices and catastrophic weather events have raised demand for technology that liberates people from the uncertainty of aging power grids: “We have to remember we have an energy system that is essentially over 100 years old, and it wasn’t built for economic efficiency.” Sunrun operates in Texas and 21 other states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Only around 4% of U.S. homes generate solar electricity today, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Many electric and gas utilities are lobbying for regulations and fees that would hinder further investments in renewables, out of concern that customers who use solar power may end up abandoning the grid entirely. Powell, who ran Green Mountain Power (GMP), Vermont’s largest utility, for over a decade, argues that this is “such a short-sighted view.” She compares the opposition of utilities to the heel-dragging of traditional phone companies in the face of cellular technology decades ago: “You don’t resist innovation that consumers want and that can improve society. You figure out how to lean into it.”

Growing up in an artsy household on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Powell didn’t aspire to a corner office. “I call myself the accidental executive,” she says. The youngest child of Addison Powell, an award-winning actor, she used to pity anyone who wore a suit to work. Yet she learned to be practical at a young age, in part because her father was often between jobs. She did a lot of babysitting and dog-walking for neighbors: “I knew I needed to be self-supporting.”

Powell used her savings to earn an associate degree at Keene State College in New Hampshire, where she studied art but did not see a future in it. She pondered a bartending course, but the $850 fee put her off. Instead, in 1980 she got a job as a technical writer and administrative assistant at the Manhattan-based Reserve Primary Fund, a pioneering money-market fund, whose assets grew from $200 million to $3.5 billion in her eight years there. She rose to associate director of operations, and while she admits the business itself didn’t fascinate her, she took pride in “disrupting the banking model” by giving customers better returns than they could get through their banks.

By 1989 Powell wanted off the treadmill, so she and her husband Mark Brooks, a chef, moved to Vermont. She directed human resources for the state government, serving three governors in less than four years. “Seeing how individuals could shape policy has informed so much of the work I have done,” she says.

Powell didn’t much like telling people what they should be doing: ‘I actually want to be the one doing it.’

Powell started her own human resources consulting firm in 1997, hoping for a new start after a difficult year in which she lost her mother, gave birth to her daughter and saw her home destroyed in a fire. Yet she soon learned that she didn’t much like telling people what they should be doing: “I actually want to be the one doing it.”

She sought GMP as a client, but they wanted to hire her instead. Powell declined job offers from its CEO three times but then relented, joining as vice president of HR in 1998. Without an engineering background, she worried that she would find the work of a utility hard to master. Instead, she says, “What struck me was how ripe it was for disruption.” Powell used the threat of bankruptcy to restructure the company, flattening the hierarchy and reducing the staff through buyouts and retirements.

After she became CEO in 2008, GMP built solar and wind farms and offered financing for some customers to install residential solar panels and batteries, which allowed them to sell excess energy back to the grid at times of peak demand. “You’re leveraging assets that consumers have invested in to help make the entire grid more affordable and resilient,” she explains. By using energy from residential batteries, GMP sometimes “saved half a million bucks in a few hours.”

During Powell’s tenure, GMP was named to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list four years running. But she says “the awards let a complacency set in when we need to be scaling faster.” She stepped down as CEO in 2019: “I found out how fast the fastest-moving utility could move in America and it wasn’t fast enough for me,” she says. In 2021 she took the top job at Sunrun, having served on the company’s board since 2018.

Today Sunrun controls 18% of the residential solar market, ahead of competitors such as SunPower and Tesla. Tax credits from last year’s climate bill are making solar panels more attractive to homeowners, and in May the company reported a 20% rise in sales year over year. But high interest rates and rising equipment costs have been challenging for a business that relies on installing rooftop solar systems for little money up front and then charging a monthly fee. Another obstacle is the permitting process for installing solar panels, which varies from place to place. “For someone who loves big problems,” Powell says, “it’s been right up my alley.”

With heat waves challenging energy grids across the country, Powell sees a growing demand for new options. She points to Sunrun’s partnership with Ford as a sign of what’s to come. The company’s bidirectional charger makes it possible to juice up Ford’s new electric F-150 pickup truck with solar power, and also to use the truck’s battery to power a home through a blackout for around 10 days. “More people,” she says, “want more control over how they power their homes.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Source: Media

UK will issue hundreds of new oil and gas licenses in North Sea

The British government said the plan is to secure energy reserves while still aiming for net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Le Monde with AFP, today at 9:15 am

The UK government said on Monday, July 31, it would issue "hundreds" of new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea to secure energy reserves while still aiming for net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

"Investment in the North Sea will continue to unlock new projects, protect jobs, reduce emissions and boost UK energy independence," Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's office said in a statement. It added that "a more flexible application process" would be applied for the license requests, which would still be subject to a "climate compatibility" test for carbon reduction goals.

"The government is taking steps to slow the rapid decline in domestic production of oil and gas, which will secure our domestic energy supply and reduce reliance on hostile states," it said.

Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022, saw a global surge in energy prices as Western nations imposed sanctions against Moscow, targeting in particular its massive oil and gas exports.

"We have all witnessed how Putin has manipulated and weaponized energy – disrupting supply and stalling growth in countries around the world," Sunak said in the statement, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Now more than ever, it's vital that we bolster our energy security and capitalize on that independence to deliver more affordable, clean energy."

A study released Monday by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) said the carbon footprint from domestic UK gas production was one-fourth the footprint from imported liquified natural gas. It also confirmed plans to build two more carbon-capture facilities along the North Sea coast, at Acorn in northeast Scotland and Viking near Humber, England, alongside two already under construction. It said the four clusters could support up to 50,000 jobs by 2030.

Sunak is due to visit an energy infrastructure site later Monday in Aberdeenshire to "highlight the central role the region will play in strengthening the UK's energy independence and meet the next generation of skilled apprentices key to driving this work forward."

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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“In Brussels, they’re already pretty much in election mode and so pushing this one forward in the time of high consumer prices and high energy prices is considered not very opportune” | Simon Maina/AFP

The climate law the EU (conveniently) forgot 

Talks on the Energy Taxation Directive have stalled over fears of political backlash.

POLITICO EU by VICTOR JACK AND ZIA WEISE, JULY 26, 2023 

With next year's European election fast approaching and policy work slowly drawing to a close, Brussels lawmakers have largely managed the Herculean task of pushing through the bloc’s Green Deal climate laws.

But gathering dust deep inside the EU's labyrinthine legislative machine lies one green law largely forgotten by the bloc’s politicians.

Talks on revising the 20-year-old Energy Taxation Directive, proposed as part of the European Commission’s Fit for 55 climate package that aims to slash emissions by 55 percent by 2030, have stalled.

Critics argue that negotiations ground to a halt because policies seen to add to already high energy prices have become politically toxic, especially as Brussels moves into campaign season. Others say striking a deal was never going to be easy, given changing EU tax rules requires unanimous backing from all 27 of the bloc’s members. 

“It’s stalling … because [the EU’s] member states are not calling for an agreement and because the Commission is not putting enough pressure,” said a diplomat from one EU country involved in negotiations, who was granted anonymity to speak freely on the dynamics between countries.

“In Brussels, they’re already pretty much in election mode and so pushing this one forward in the time of high consumer prices and high energy prices is considered not very opportune,” the diplomat added, putting the chances of a deal in the next two years at “under 50 percent.”

Others go further, arguing the legislation should be condemned to the scrapheap. “We see a need for a new Energy Tax Directive because the current one is outdated,” said a second national diplomat, adding that more than one EU capital was pushing for the same outcome.

In limbo

The original directive, implemented back in 2003, sets out minimum rates of tax for different types of energy products including diesel, gasoline and electricity. 

Currently, the EU sets a fixed rate of tax based on the volume — or euros per liter — of fuel, which the Commission now argues is incompatible with the bloc’s green ambitions since it doesn’t account for the environmental impact of fuels and exempts polluting sectors like aviation. 

In 2021, the EU executive proposed changes that would see new rates based on the energy content and environmental performance of fuels, and scrap several long-held exemptions.

But the file has remained at the technical working party level since, the first diplomat said, arguing the problem was political since the actual legislative discussions are “quite advanced.”

It’s not the first time the law has faced challenges. In 2015, the Commission was forced to withdraw its previous proposed revision after four years of disagreement among EU countries.

MEPs have limited powers to amend the law and can only give an opinion | Julien Warnand/EFE via EPA

In the European Parliament, too, the file is facing prolonged delays.

Although MEPs have limited powers to amend the law and can only give an opinion, the Parliament’s chief negotiator on the file, Belgian MEP Johan Van Overtveldt, sent a letter earlier this month asking the Commission to carry out a new impact assessment before talks proceed, claiming that the current one, issued in 2021, was outdated.

“The decision was taken to suspend the discussions on the ETD until we get a clear impact assessment from the Commission,” said Van Overtveldt, a lawmaker from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group. His letter was co-signed by Socialists & Democrats MEP Irene Tinagli, who chairs the economic affairs committee.

A Commission spokesperson said the EU executive would “reply soon” to Van Overtveldt’s letter, and insisted that the current impact assessment ensured “coherence with other Fit for 55 proposals.”

The Commission is pressing countries "to continue now working constructively towards an adoption of the proposal as soon as possible," the spokesperson added.

Taxing debate

Despite the delays, a reform of tax rules has gained widespread support from industry and NGOs.

“The current version … reflects the power system of the past,” said Savannah Altvater, a policy officer at electricity lobby Eurelectric, since it sets higher minimum rates for electricity than for gas and thereby “disincentivizes electrification” — and by extension decarbonization.

The taxes set under the ETD account for about 2 percent of EU electricity tariffs on average; any reduction under a reformed directive would help consumers as all the taxes currently charged by governments add up to 41 percent of total power bills

That’s “really hurting the industry,” she said. “If the gas bill is a lot lower than the electricity bill, then at the end of the day, you're going to keep the gas boiler over the heat pump.”

The reform would give a clear, immediate incentive for consumers to switch to products running on greener fuels since these would be cheaper, said Luke Haywood, climate policy manager at the European Environmental Bureau NGO. Failure to clinch a deal on the file "would make it more difficult" for the EU to hit its climate targets, he added.

Even the fuel industry, which would likely see its tax rates — including for gasoline and diesel — increase under the plans, is supportive. 

“We've been pushing very hard for a revision because … it would have been a good incentive for the production and the use of renewable fuels” such as biodiesel, said Alain Mathuren, communications director at the FuelsEurope lobby.

But that’ll mean overcoming stiff opposition from some countries. 

“What has probably ... played a role in all this is that there certainly was no appetite for this at the Council level,” said Van Overtveldt.

Particularly amid the rising cost of living, he added, “I got the impression that the general feeling was 'OK, this is not a moment to do it' ... If the purchasing power of citizens has already been that much attacked, if I may use that word, you should be very hesitant about going any further down that road at this particular point in time.”

Even before inflation spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, EU capitals were sharply divided, according to the first diplomat, with Western European countries including France pushing for the changes and Central European countries largely resistant.

Mediterranean countries with maritime and tourism industries, including Greece, Cyprus and Malta, are also concerned about the reform meaning new taxes for shipping and aviation, they added.

Now, as the EU’s Green Deal faces a growing political backlash, “more progressive” countries “are scared to bring it up at the political level,” according to the diplomat.

“That could be the death bed of it.”

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News round-up, July 29, 2023

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In 2022, coal contributed approximately 36% of the world's electricity generation, with a total of 10,440 terawatt hours produced from coal.

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In 2022, coal contributed approximately 36% of the world's electricity generation, with a total of 10,440 terawatt hours produced from coal. 〰️

The UFO Enigma…

Historic Testimony Uncovers Secret Defence Program and —Nonhuman Biologics— print at UFO Crash Sites

Former intelligence official David Grusch captivated the nation on July 26, these years, when he testified before Congress, revealing a clandestine defense program solely dedicated to the study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Grusch's astounding revelations have pushed the enigmatic field of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) to the forefront of national security concerns, promoting transparency and shedding light on the enigmatic field. UFO sightings have increased in recent years, particularly among military personnel and pilots. These accounts have prompted lawmakers from all political parties to recognize the significance of UFOs as a pressing national security issue. During his testimony, Grusch shocked the nation once again by divulging the existence of —Nonhuman Biologics— discovered at alleged crash sites of UFOs. This revelation has ignited a renewed fascination with the possibility of extraterrestrial life and created an urgent need for further investigation. The emergence of this truth has placed intelligence agencies under unprecedented pressure to disclose information that has long been shrouded in stigma, confusion, and secrecy. In conclusion, as attention is drawn to this once-obscure topic, people demand transparency and more comprehensive information about the ongoing research.

Source: Time

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Most read…

Witness Tells Congress 'Nonhuman Biologics' Were Found at Alleged UFO Crash Sites

Whistleblower Tells Congress U.S. Is Concealing Program That Captures UFOs

TIME BY NIK POPLI,  JULY 26, 2023 

Social poison

The Editorial of Le Monde Diplomatique for August by *Benoît Bréville

*Benoît Bréville is president and editorial director of Le Monde diplomatique

Strong gas business helps to cushion Eni profit fall

Italian energy company Eni reported adjusted net profit of 1.94 billion euros ($2.13 billion) for the period, a decrease from the exceptional result of 3.81 billion euros recorded the previous year.

Reuters By Francesca Landini, july 28, 2023

IEA says coal use hit an all-time high last year — and global demand will persist near record levels

In 2022, coal contributed approximately 36% of the world's electricity generation, with a total of 10,440 terawatt hours produced from coal.

CNBS  by Anmar Frangoul, Editing by Germán & Co, JUL 27 2023

Rhodes to ruin — fleeing the Greek inferno

“In Lindos, we marvelled at the panoramic acropolis and relaxed on stunning beaches, but little did we know that devastating fires would shatter our tranquil experience.

EUObserver by ARTHUR NESLEN, RHODES/BRUSSELS, July 24, 2023

Trump charged with seeking to delete security footage in documents case

Unsealed indictment charges second aide at Mar-a-Lago and brings new counts against the former president and longtime valet Walt Nauta

TWP by Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein, Spencer S. Hsu and Josh Dawsey, July 27, 2023 

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Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES 

He's responsible for creating social responsibility and sustainability at AES

Andrés Gluski is the leader who introduced corporate social responsibility as a priority for AES. The result of these efforts has been extraordinary: AES was named one of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" by the Ethisphere Institute and has received this distinction for four consecutive years. There is nothing more to say about his leadership; it is commendable. In addition, he set goals for the company that culminated in the inclusion of the company in the North American Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

Source: Moneyinc.com

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Image by Germán & Co

Witness Tells Congress 'Nonhuman Biologics' Were Found at Alleged UFO Crash Sites

Whistleblower Tells Congress U.S. Is Concealing Program That Captures UFOs

TIME BY NIK POPLI, JULY 26, 2023

A former intelligence official claimed the U.S. government has been covering up a longstanding defense program that collects and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and has found "nonhuman biologics" at alleged UFO crash sites.

The highly anticipated testimony from David Grusch, a former member of a U.S. Air Force panel on unidentified anomalous phenomena—also known as unidentified aerial phenomena—(UAP), was part of an effort by Congress to pressure intelligence agencies for more transparency into the existence of UFOs, a subject of heightened scrutiny following an increase in reported sightings by military personnel and pilots in recent years. Although extraterrestrial life has long been shrouded in stigma, confusion, and secrecy, lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum have been rallying around the push for more research on the topic as a national security matter.

“UAPs, whatever they may be, may pose a serious threat to our military and our civilian aircraft, and that must be understood,” Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California said. “We should encourage more reporting, not less on UAPs. The more we understand, the safer we will be.”

Testifying under oath at a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Grusch told lawmakers he believes the U.S. government is in possession of UAPs based on his interviews with 40 witnesses over four years, claiming that he was informed of "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program" during the course of his work examining classified programs. He said he was denied access to those programs when he requested it, and accused the military of misappropriating funds to shield these operations from congressional oversight.

The Pentagon denies Grusch’s claims about a UAP crash-retrieval and reverse-engineering program. "To date, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently," Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson, tells TIME in a statement. "The Department is fully committed to openness and accountability to the American people, which it must balance with its obligation to protect sensitive information, sources, and methods," the statement continued in part. "DoD is also committed to timely and thorough reporting to Congress."

During his testimony, Grusch added that he knows of “multiple colleagues” who were physically injured by UAP activity and by people within the U.S. government, but declined to share more details. He also said that “nonhuman biologics” were found at alleged UAP crash sites when asked about the pilots of the craft.

No government officials testified at Wednesday’s hearing, though Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of the Pentagon’s office focusing on UAPs, told a Senate subcommittee in April that the U.S. government was tracking 650 potential cases of unidentified aerial phenomena, playing video from two of the episodes. During that public testimony, Kirkpatrick emphasized there was no evidence of extraterrestrial life and that his office found “no credible evidence” of objects that defy the known laws of physics.

The House Oversight subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs heard additional witness testimony Wednesday from former U.S. Navy fighter pilots Ryan Graves and retired Commander David Fravor, who both claimed they had encountered aircraft of a nonhuman origin. “These sightings are not rare or isolated,” said Graves, who served in the Navy for over a decade. “Military aircrews and commercial pilots, trained observers whose lives depend on accurate identification, are frequently witnessing these phenomena.”

Graves told lawmakers that his aircrew encountered UAP during a training exercise off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va, when their lead jet came within 50 feet of what he described as a “dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere.” He estimated it to be five to 15 feet in diameter, motionless against the wind, fixed directly at the entry point. The mission was immediately terminated, and his squadron submitted a safety report that he claims received no official acknowledgement of the incident.

While the hearing marked a significant moment in shining light on unexplained objects in the sky, it was short on providing answers. National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby admitted last week that UFOs have been causing problems for the U.S. Air Force, particularly for pilot training exercises. “When pilots are out trying to do training in the air and they see these things, they’re not sure what they are and it can have an impact on their ability to perfect their skills. So it already had an impact here,” Kirby said at a White House press briefing. “We want to get to the bottom of it. We want to understand it better.”

There’s growing, bipartisan interest on Capitol Hill for reform. Provisions in the Senate’s version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act would require federal agencies to hand over records related to UAP to a panel with the power to declassify them.

“If UAP are foreign drones, it is an urgent national security problem,” Graves said. “If it is something else, it is an issue for science. In either case, unidentified objects are a concern for flight safety.”

The federal government has recorded 510 UFO sightings since 2004, according to an unclassified report Office of the Director of National Intelligence released in January.

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The Power Of Protest Art/Félix Vallotton, “La Charge” (1893), Musée national d’Art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, gift of Adèle and Georges Besson in 1963, on long-term loan to the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie de Besançon (© Centre Pompidou / MNAM; photo by Pierre Guenat, Besançon, Musée des beaux-arts et d’archéologie)

Social poison

The Editorial of Le Monde Diplomatique for August by *Benoît Bréville

*Benoît Bréville is president and editorial director of Le Monde diplomatique.

Vaulx-en-Velin, Lyon, 6 October 1990. Thomas Claudio, 21, was riding his motorcycle when he was hit by a police car. He died instantly. Riots erupted in the city and lasted four days. Shops were looted, cars set alight, schools ransacked, firefighters injured and journalists attacked. ‘Unemployment and lack of education for young people are responsible for these events,’ according to Nicolas Sarkozy, then a rightwing deputy mayor (1).

Clichy-sous-Bois, Paris, 27 October 2005. Two teenagers being chased by the police, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, took refuge in an electricity substation and died from electrocution. Clashes broke out in Seine-Saint-Denis and soon spread nationwide. After three turbulent weeks, President Jacques Chirac expressed regret that ‘some places accumulate too many disadvantages, too many problems’ and called for a fight against ‘the social poison of discrimination’. He also condemned ‘illegal immigration and the trafficking it generates’ and ‘families that refuse to take responsibility’.

Nanterre, Paris, 23 June 2023. Nahel Merzouk, 17, was shot in the chest during a traffic stop. Riots spread at lightning speed across the country. The episode was short (five days) but intense: 23,878 fires on public roads, 5,892 torched vehicles, 3,486 arrests, 1,105 buildings attacked, 269 police stations targeted, 243 schools damaged. ‘These events have nothing to do with a social crisis’ but everything to do with ‘the disintegration of the state and the nation’, according to the likely rightwing candidate for the next presidential election, Laurent Wauquiez (Les Républicains, LR) (2). And woe betide anyone claiming otherwise: they are instantly accused of justifying violence, fuelling a ‘culture of excuses’, or even being guilty of sedition and a ‘threat to the Republic’ (3).

In the reactions they provoke, these successive urban riots reflect how the French political landscape has been flattened by the steamroller of security and identity politics. The social explanation, which was once put forward as self-evident, however disingenuously, has been relegated to the background; mentioning it is now off-limits. In the past, any government that faced such events would announce a plan for the banlieues, to address the multiple disadvantages these areas suffer. Once public attention had subsided, this would be scaled back — a few subsidised jobs, grants to local organisations, credits for building refurbishments...

There have been around a dozen such plans since the 1980s, and they’ve solved nothing: not unemployment, not segregation and certainly not the tensions between young people and the police. Yet as each one follows the last, they have created the sense that the state has already done too much for the banlieues and that it’s now time to refocus on the ‘real’ problems: immigration, Islam, parental neglect, the leniency of the justice system, video games, social media... A discourse tailor-made to artificially set banlieues against the countryside — when both are abandoned territories where the working class live.

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The AES Corporation's Andes Solar IIb

The facility's start-up in the region of Antofagasta, Chile, represents a —-unique—- milestone in the renewable energy sector. With an installed capacity of 180 MW and 112 MW of five-hour duration energy storage, this facility is now the largest system of its kind in Latin America. The Andes Solar IIb facility's capacity comprises 170 MW of bifacial solar panels and 10 MW of 5B's Maverick technology. 
The construction of this facility utilized Maverick technology and pre-made modular components, resulting in a 33% reduction in installation time compared to other traditional solar systems. Adding Andes Solar IIb to AES Andes brings the total number of solar facilities managed in the Antofagasta region to 429 MW. 
Reaffirming its commitment to sustainable and efficient power generation, AES Corporation continues to make significant strides in the renewable energy sector.

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Image by Germán & Co

Strong gas business helps to cushion Eni profit fall

Italian ener

gy company Eni reported adjusted net profit of 1.94 billion euros ($2.13 billion) for the period, a decrease from the exceptional result of 3.81 billion euros recorded the previous year.

Reuters By Francesca Landini, july 28, 2023

Eni's logo is seen in front of its headquarters in San Donato Milanese, near Milan, Italy, April 27, 2016. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini/File Photo

MILAN, July 28 (Reuters) - Italian energy group Eni (ENI.MI) reported a 49% fall in its adjusted net profit in the second quarter because of weaker commodity prices but a strong performance from its gas business helped it to beat forecasts.

Adjusted net profit in the period came in at 1.94 billion euros ($2.13 billion) down from a bumper result of 3.81 billion euros a year ago, but above an analyst consensus of 1.64 billion euros.

The state-controlled group raised its 2023 guidance for its gas business (GGP) after it underpinned the group's results in the second quarter with an adjusted operating profit of 1.1 billion euros, more than double the 0.5 billion analysts had pencilled in.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, Eni moved quickly to replace Moscow's gas supplies with fuel it extracts in African countries, strengthening its position on the gas markets.

Trading activity related to its large gas portfolio and re-negotiations and settlements related to contracts were the factors behind the good performance of the division in the last three months, it said.

Eni now expects the gas business to reach an adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) figure of between 2.7 billion and 3.0 billion euros for the year versus previous guidance of 2.0-2.2 billion euros.

It also improved its full-year outlook for its low-carbon unit Plenitude and trimmed plans for capital expenditure this year to below 9 billion euros from a previous estimate of 9.2 billion euros.

Group's expectation for adjusted EBIT for this year is confirmed at 12 billion euros even after taking into account a weaker oil and gas prices.

REWARDING INVESTORS

On Thursday Shell (SHEL.L) and TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) reported sharp falls in second-quarter profit from bumper 2022 earnings as oil and gas prices, refining margins and trading results all weakened.

"Eni has reported a strong set of second-quarter results, with adjusted EBIT and net income coming in well ahead of market expectations," said Royal Bank of Scotland in a note, adding the new guidance for the gas division was a significant move up relative to market expectations.

Shares in the group were up 1%, outperforming a flat Milan's blue-chip index (.FTSEMIB) at 0740 GMT.

In the second quarter Eni and other energy groups had to cope with a 30% fall in crude oil prices and a drop of more than 60% in the gas price and refining margins compared with the same period last year.

Despite a weaker outlook for commodity prices, Eni said it would continue a share buy-back programme started in May.

"Considering our first-half results and continuing business

performance that drives raised guidance, we have a solid position from which to pay our first quarterly instalment of the raised 0.94 euros per share 2023 dividend in September and continue our 2.2 billion euro buy-back," Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Image by Germán & Co 

IEA says coal use hit an all-time high last year — and global demand will persist near record levels

In 2022, coal contributed approximately 36% of the world's electricity generation, with a total of 10,440 terawatt hours produced from coal.

CNBS  by Anmar Frangoul, Editing by Germán & Co, JUL 27 2023

Coal consumption increased by 3.3% to hit a fresh record high of 8.3 billion metric tons in 2022, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.

According to the Paris-based organization’s Coal Market Update, demand increased “despite a weaker global economy, mainly driven by being more readily available and relatively cheaper than gas in many parts of the world.”

Overall, the IEA said 10,440 terawatt hours were generated from coal in 2022, a figure that accounted for 36% of the planet’s electricity generation.

Looking ahead, the IEA said coal consumption in 2023 would remain near last year’s record levels.

Geographically, the picture in 2023 is mixed. “By region, coal demand fell faster than previously expected in the first half of this year in the United States and the European Union — by 24% and 16%, respectively,” the IEA said in a statement accompanying its report.

“However, demand from the two largest consumers, China and India, grew by over 5% during the first half, more than offsetting declines elsewhere,” it added.

“Coal is the largest single source of carbon emissions from the energy sector, and in Europe and the United States, the growth of clean energy has put coal use into structural decline,” Keisuke Sadamori, the IEA’s director of energy markets and security, said Thursday.  

“But demand remains stubbornly high in Asia, even as many of those economies have significantly ramped up renewable energy sources,” he added.

Going forward, Sadamori said “greater policy efforts and investments” were needed in order to “drive a massive surge in clean energy and energy efficiency to reduce coal demand in economies where energy needs are growing fast.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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 by Germán & Co

Rhodes to ruin — fleeing the Greek inferno

“In Lindos, we marvelled at the panoramic acropolis and relaxed on stunning beaches, but little did we know that devastating fires would shatter our tranquil experience.

EUObserver by ARTHUR NESLEN, RHODES/BRUSSELS, July 24, 2023

My family and I left Rhodes on Saturday morning (22 July) — just as the island's forest fire escaped all control. But ominous warnings had been in the (35 degree celsius) air all week.

The apologetic manager at the astronomy café on a hilltop who couldn't serve water as it was being siphoned to fight the fires further south; the taxi driver from Apollona in a state of shock and fear after his home village was evacuated, and of course the water-carrying helicopters at Rhodes airport as we departed, taking off from runways as if in some Vietnam movie pastiche.

Beyond counting our blessings — and our fears for those still trapped in the fire zone — we were left dazed and disoriented by the blazing spike which had punctured our tourist bubble. Last Monday we were in Lindos, marvelling at its panoramic acropolis and enjoying its beaches. Now it is the site of tourist evacuations. No relocation is possible though for the island's natural treasure trove.

With its dense, mixed, verdant interior, Rhodes is as rich in biodiversity as it is in fuel for fires. Endemic European fallow deer — popularised on the plinths of Rhodes' former colossus statue — roam its pine and cypress forests.

How many will be left when the embers have cooled?

Ten kilometres due north of the current inferno lies the valley of the butterflies, a 2km ravine lined by rare and medicinal oriental sweetgum trees that host millions of orange, white and brown Panaxia butterflies which swarm like clouds of Spanish flags at a fiesta. The destruction of this Natura 2000 sanctuary would spark another headline for a news cycle, and a loss that can never be made good.

As an environmental journalist in Brussels, this shouldn't surprise me. I am used to traveling to the frontlines of climate breakdown but now they are travelling to me, to all of us and, crazily, still catching us off guard. My daily twitter feed is full of climate cartographs showing the Mediteranean in flame red and ash brown hues. But the graphs' stitch-like plot lines are usually projected into an abstract future with years on axes too small to read.

What's playing out on Rhodes is a real-time process of climatic transition — and perhaps desertification — that we should see coming, again and again.

France, Spain and Ireland were all scorched by wildfires in the Spring, and the warning signs flashed crimson in June, when plumes from Canada's largest ever forest fire reached Europe. The smoke from 160 megatonnes of carbon emissions was literally on the water, and on the horizon.

Last month, the European Environment Agency reported that up to 145,000 people had been killed by extreme weather in Europe over the last 40 years, 85 percent of them by heatwaves.

A more detailed EU risk assessment is due out this autumn, possibly as early as October, and officials expect it to pull no punches. The need for strategic, funded, preventative measures in places like Rhodes is self-evident.

But the appetite for climate action is clearly waning at the European Parliament and within the Commission, where one official told me two weeks ago that an overwhelming backlash against the Green Deal was underway.

But Spain, the current council president, faces intransigent domestic opposition from an agribusiness lobby that spurred the Popular Party to turn shrug at the draining of the Donana wetland into an electoral motif.

Fire-fighting cuts due to austerity

More importantly, whatever Brussels says, its actions will speak louder. Greece's former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, told me two years ago that in negotiations with 'the troika' in 2015, two commission officials threatened to effectively shut down the country's banking system if it re-hired 2,000 firefighters and doctors. An austerity-based decision in 2011 had axed 20 percent of the firefighters budget.

Varoufakis said the officials told him: "If you hire one more fire brigade man or woman, we will consider this casus belli." The commission denies this claim, which Varoufakis has since repeated.

Around 100 people died in blazes around Athens in 2018. The chief of Greece's firefighting federation said that 5,000 more firefighters were needed, after yet another deadly fire season in 2021,

The increased fires are in line with IPCC predictions and the lackadaisical response — to the extent that the UK government seems more keen to reduce its climate commitments than its citizens' exposure to fire risk in Rhodes — underlines how package tourists themselves may become sacrificial lambs on the altar of our fossil fuel economy. Ironically, the increased visibility of their suffering could deal a savage blow to future July/August bookings in the Med that the UK government presumably wishes to prevent.

If governments will not curb emissions and protect their citizens, sadly, that may be one of the few positives to come out of this latest climate tragedy.

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Image by Germán & Co/Shutterstock

Trump charged with seeking to delete security footage in documents case

Unsealed indictment charges second aide at Mar-a-Lago and brings new counts against the former president and longtime valet Walt Nauta

TWP by Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein, Spencer S. Hsu and Josh Dawsey, July 27, 2023 

Prosecutors announced additional charges against Donald Trump on Thursday in his alleged hoarding and hiding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, accusing the former president and a newly indicted aide of trying to keep security camera footage from being reviewed by investigators and bringing the number of total federal charges against Trump to 40.

Trump already faced 31 counts of illegally retaining national defense information, but federal prosecutors led by special counsel Jack Smith have added a 32nd to the list. That count centers on a now-infamous conversation Trump allegedly had at his golf club and summer residence in Bedminster, N.J., in July 2021, focused on what has been described by others as a secret military document concerning Iran.

In that conversation, which was recorded, Trump said: “As president I could have declassified it. … Now I can’t, you know, but this is still secret.”

The new indictment also levels accusations of a broader effort by Trump and some of those around him to cover their tracks as the FBI sought to retrieve highly classified documents kept at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and private club, long after his presidency ended. The indictment charges that Trump and two aides, Waltine “Walt” Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, requested that another Trump employee “delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”

While Trump has publicly claimed he was happy to hand over the footage in response to a grand jury subpoena, others close to him have said he was upset about it, and the indictment suggests a scramble among his aides soon after they received the demand for the footage. Prosecutors say that Nauta, Trump’s longtime valet, changed plans to travel with Trump to Illinois around the time the subpoena was sent, instead traveling to Florida to talk to other Trump employees about the camera footage. He appeared to try to keep the reason for the trip to Mar-a-Lago under wraps, the indictment says, telling others he was going there for different reasons.

Nauta was initially indicted alongside the former president in the documents case in June, accused of helping him mislead investigators as they sought to retrieve all of the classified material in Trump’s possession.

Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the charges in that initial indictment. The federal judge overseeing the case in Fort Pierce, Fla., has set the trial to begin in May, though it is not uncommon for such schedules to be delayed to deal with pretrial disputes and issues.

In audio recording, Trump says he did not declassify secret Iran documents

People familiar with the investigation have told The Washington Post that Smith’s team repeatedly pressed De Oliveira to explain his actions from June and July 2022, when he was recorded helping Nauta move boxes around Mar-a-Lago and allegedly had conversations with others about security camera footage. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss secret grand jury proceedings, have said investigators grew increasingly skeptical of De Oliveira’s answers as the investigation proceeded.

De Oliveira’s attorney, John Irving, declined to comment Thursday evening. De Oliveira has worked for Trump for nearly 20 years, beginning as a car valet and becoming a property manager in January 2022. As the investigation progressed, he has told colleagues, his phone was seized. He has continued to work at Mar-a-Lago since the initial charges against Trump and Nauta were filed.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called the charges unveiled Thursday “a continued desperate and flailing attempt” to harass the former president — who is again seeking the GOP nomination for the White House — and those around him. A lawyer for Nauta declined to comment on the new charges against his client.

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News round-up, July 28, 2023

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We reached a new record of 1800 visitors in the United States yesterday, surpassing 1600 visitors daily. We were able to reach this milestone without any external assistance (booster), relying completely on our dedication, objectivity, and hard work..

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We reached a new record of 1800 visitors in the United States yesterday, surpassing 1600 visitors daily. We were able to reach this milestone without any external assistance (booster), relying completely on our dedication, objectivity, and hard work.. 〰️

The Personality of the Day

“Abramovich” journeyed 858 km from the Saratov catacombs to Kremlin's champagne glasses.

The enigmatic figure, Roman Abramovich, is well-known for his business and survival skills. His journey to success began long before that. In the late 1990s, Abramovich embraced his elusive persona, likened to that of a —-silver Siberian wolf—-. He skillfully evaded the spotlight, refusing to be photographed and instead represented through rough illustrations. So legendary was his secrecy that a reward of 1 million roubles was offered for a genuine photograph of him. Eventually, a blurry image surfaced, catapulting Abramovich into fame.
Beneath his mysterious facade, Abramovich artfully cultivated influential alliances. Notably, he formed a close bond with Tatyana Dyachenko, the daughter of President Boris Yeltsin. This relationship not only facilitated his ascension in Russian politics but also in society at large. With such powerful connections and his own shrewdness, Abramovich became a significant figure in the Russian elite.

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Most read…

Insight: Obscure traders ship half Russia's oil exports to India, China after sanctions

To export crude oil to Asia, Moscow relies on little-known trading companies. According to data gathered from conversations with ten trading sources, analysis from Kpler, and non-public information from Refinitiv and shipping companies, 40 intermediaries were involved in Russian oil trading between March and June.

By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Nidhi Verma/Editions by Germán & Co, July 27, 2023

Biden’s ‘Made in America’ Pledge Collides With His Climate Goals

Companies, lawmakers are trying to influence how the government gives out billions in subsidies

WSJ by Andrew Duehren, July 26, 2023 

Trump needed $225 million. A little-known bank came to the rescue.

Gregory Garrabrants, a GOP donor and CEO of online Axos Bank, approved the loans after the former president’s main lender had cut ties.

The Washington Post by Michael Kranish, July 27, 2023 

Roman Abramovich the 'invisible man,' a business and survival specialist

One million roubles for a photograph of him... A blurry photo eventually emerged, making Abramovich famous...

By Lucas Minisini  (London, New York, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Benoît Vitkine  (Moscow, correspondent) and Aureliano Tonet  (London, Rome, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Published yesterday of 26 of July, 2023.

US power regulator to weigh plans to speed up green energy connection

Reuters by Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom, July 27, 2023

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Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES 

He's responsible for creating social responsibility and sustainability at AES

Andrés Gluski is the leader who introduced corporate social responsibility as a priority for AES. The result of these efforts has been extraordinary: AES was named one of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" by the Ethisphere Institute and has received this distinction for four consecutive years. There is nothing more to say about his leadership; it is commendable. In addition, he set goals for the company that culminated in the inclusion of the company in the North American Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

Source: Moneyinc.com

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Image: Word "Oil" and stock graph are seen through magnifier displayed in this illustration taken September 4, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Insight: Obscure traders ship half Russia's oil exports to India, China after sanctions

To export crude oil to Asia, Moscow relies on little-known trading companies. According to data gathered from conversations with ten trading sources, analysis from Kpler, and non-public information from Refinitiv and shipping companies, 40 intermediaries were involved in Russian oil trading between March and June.

REUTERS By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Nidhi Verma/Editions by Germán & Co, July 27, 2023

MOSCOW/LONDON/NEW DELHI, July 27 (Reuters) - A Liberian-flagged oil tanker set sail in May from Russia's Ust-Luga port carrying crude on behalf of a little-known trading company based in Hong Kong. Before the ship had even reached its destination in India, the cargo changed hands.

The new owner of the 100,000 tonnes of Urals crude carried on the Leopard I was a similarly low-profile outfit, Guron Trading, also based in Hong Kong, according two trading sources.

The number of little-known trading firms relied on by Moscow to export large volumes of crude exports to Asia has mushroomed in recent months, since sanctions over the Ukraine war led major oil firms and commodity houses to withdraw from business with producers in Russia, reporting by Reuters has found.At least 40 middlemen, including companies with no prior record of involvement in the business, handled Russian oil trading between March and June, according to a Reuters tally after speaking to 10 trading sources along with analysts from think-tank Kpler and analysing data from Refinitiv and the non-public books of shipping companies.

The new players have shipped at least half of Russia’s overall crude and refined products exports of 6-8 million barrels per day (bpd) on average this year, turning the little-known companies collectively into some of the world's largest oil traders, according to Reuters calculations based on private information from the 10 trading sources and Eikon data.

The companies began appearing after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special military operation, with as many as 30 middlemen involved in trades over the course of last year, according to the tally.

The network marks a major departure from the handful of well-established oil majors such as BP and Shell and top trading houses including Vitol, Glencore, Trafigura and Gunvor that handled Russian crude and oil products for decades.

There is no suggestion the trades break sanctions, although they may make it difficult for sanctions enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States to track Russian oil transactions and prices.

Earlier this month, Urals prices jumped above a price cap of $60 a barrel on Russian exports imposed by the Group of Seven nations, Australia and the European Union from Dec. 5 that was intended to punish firms involved in any trade above that level.

When prices are above the cap, the rapidly changing trading network could make it hard to identify those involved in moving the oil, five traders involved in handling Russian oil said.

The reporting shows that in May, Russia, one of the world's top three oil producers, supplied record volumes to China and India, which have not imposed sanctions on Moscow and became its leading buyers after sanctions by Europe, the United States and other powers limited their own purchases.

Neither Guron Trading or Bellatrix Energy, the company that originally chartered the Leopard I and bought the cargo from Russian oil company Rosneft, responded to requests for comment. Rosneft did not respond to questions.

The websites for Guron Trading and Bellatrix Energy appeared to have been taken down recently. Both were online prior to the companies being contacted by Reuters.

TRADING AT SEA

Along with the emergence of the new companies, once rare multiple trades while ships are at sea have become widespread, the five sources involved in Russian oil trading said. The sources described at least 10 such trades, which happen with little public documentation and aim to make Russia's oil exports more difficult to track, they said.

One buyer of Russian oil likened the rise and fall of the new traders to the brief careers of TikTok stars, while another trader described a "kaleidoscope" of new players. In some cases, a single cargo will pass through at least three traders, the oil buyer said.

Under the previous system, oil cargoes were generally handled by one well-known trader from source to destination.

Reuters could not establish the ultimate owners of the new trading companies.

The growing network of pop-up traders overlaps with a booming market for old oil tankers supplied by new companies to carry Russian oil that Western shippers are avoiding.

The new trading network and practices raise financial risks for Russian oil companies dealing with unknown entities with limited credit history.

Some of the companies that emerged as major traders of Russian oil last year, such as Coral Energy and Everest Energy, have since exited the business.

Responding to questions from Reuters, both denied they left the trade because of sanctions risks. Everest said "it was a strategic business decision based on various factors specific to our company". Coral said "we made a decision to source outside of Russia thanks to the diversified footprint in MENA region'.

The U.S. Treasury department's sanctions enforcement agency, OFAC, and its EU and UK counterparts did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

In July, a U.S. Treasury official said sanctions were designed to keep Russian oil in the market, dampening prices for consumers while limiting oil revenues Moscow uses to finance the war in Ukraine.

"We recognise that (sanctions on Russia are) going to change the shape and structure of the Russian oil markets," the official told reporters.

The official also said Washington was unconcerned that sanctions were resulting in more trades in currencies other than the dollar - after a rise in the use of yuan and UAE dirham to settle Russian oil transactions as Moscow finds itself shut out from international banks.

MULTI-YEAR EXPORT HIGH

Owned and operated by the Dubai-based Leopard I Shipping, the Leopard I arrived at Visakhapatnam port on June 15, where Indian refiner Hindustan Petroleum took delivery of the cargo from Guron Trading, data from the two trading sources showed.

Hindustan Petroleum didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The emerging companies have played a key role in keeping Russia's oil exports moving, and even growing, as its leading crude producers Rosneft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft diverted shipments to India and China.

Helped by this network, Russian oil exports from all sea ports reached a multi-year high in April and May at nearly 4 million bpd, according to Reuters calculations based on polling of 10 traders as well as Russian port loading programmes and Refinitiv data.

In May, Russian seaborne oil supplies to India, which was a rare buyer of Russian oil before the war, reached a record of 1.95 million bpd while China imported 2.29 million bpd.

Only Lukoil continues to market oil through its trading division - Litasco - which it relocated to Dubai from Geneva. The other companies sell to the new trading firms, which are mostly registered in China, Singapore, Hong Kong or Dubai, according to the five sources and local public company registers.

From March to June, the top traders who bought oil from Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft included Dubai-based Petroruss, Hong Kong registered Guron Trading, Bellatrix Energy and Covart Energy, Dubai-registered Voliton, Demex Trading, Nestor Trading, Orion Energy and Singapore-headquartered Patera, according to the five traders, shipping data and company registers.

Some companies, such as Voliton, had no websites or contact numbers that Reuters could find. None of the others responded to requests for comments.

Media representatives for Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft didn't answer Reuters requests for comment.

PAYMENT DELAYS

The strategy brings risk for Russian producers. Venezuela, which uses a similar system to move oil, has suffered payment problems, fraud and losses.

While there have been no reports to date of non-payment, delays have caused some problems, the five traders involved in the Russian oil business said.Russian exporters waited between three to five months to get paid after their cargoes sailed, the sources said. Normally, buyers pay for the cargoes about a month after the ship sails, they said.

One source said such delays created a fiscal gap for exporters who were having to pay taxes to the Russian state before even being paid for their oil.

A source with one major Russian oil company said his company was prepared to deal with higher credit risks from buyers for the sake of having stable and rising oil exports.

"Last year, we were facing output cuts as marketing was bad. Now it's alright – we have buyers, we have sales," the source said.

Reporting by Reuters in MOSCOW, Dmitry Zhdannikov in LONDON and Nidhi Verma in NEW DELHI. Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington and Laura Sanicola in New York; Editing by Simon Webb and Frank Jack Daniel

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Image by Germán & Co via Shutterstock

Biden’s ‘Made in America’ Pledge Collides With His Climate Goals

Companies, lawmakers are trying to influence how the government gives out billions in subsidies

WSJ by Andrew Duehren, July 26, 2023 

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration’s plans to quickly reduce carbon emissions are colliding with its pledge to revitalize manufacturing in the U.S.

The Inflation Reduction Act unleashed a gusher of tax breaks and credits for producing clean energy, purchasing electric vehicles and developing new low-carbon technology. Many of the incentives require companies to source materials for the projects from the U.S., setting off a lobbying campaign to shape how the Biden administration defines “made in America.”

The debate pits some U.S. manufacturers and lawmakers, who want to strictly enforce the law’s requirements that many parts and materials come from the U.S., against automakers and foreign allies who warn that could make it more expensive to deploy technology lowering carbon emissions. 

In the latest salvo, a group of the largest steelmakers in the U.S., as well as the United Steelworkers union, criticized the Treasury Department’s proposed approach to a bonus tax credit for clean-energy projects that rely largely on U.S.-made metal and components. 

They argue that the department’s treatment of a key component of solar panels would let firms use steel from abroad and still qualify for the 10% credit, which would be available on top of other subsidies for building solar and wind farms. 

President Biden has courted unions such as the United Steelworkers. PHOTO: JEFF SWENSEN/GETTY IMAGES

“If the current Guidance were to be made final, it would significantly damage U.S. domestic steel producers, putting at risk 1.5 million tons of production and jeopardizing the livelihoods of millions of Americans who depend on our industry,” wrote the union and the companies, including U.S. Steel and Nucor. 

The group sent the letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Daniel Werfel on Tuesday. 

“We’re going to refine and look at the comments that we get, but directionally, we’re seeing firms make decisions to make investments in the United States to get access to the domestic-content boost,” Wally Adeyemo, deputy Treasury secretary, said.

China is the dominant supplier of many clean-energy products, as well as the largest global producer of steel by far. The Biden administration is seeking to reduce U.S. dependence on China in key areas, but it has at times found its goals at odds as it irons out the details of tax incentives offered under the IRA.

President Biden has made rebuilding American manufacturing a central talking point in his re-election bid. He has courted unions such as the United Steelworkers, who endorsed him in 2020, and he has tried to win back rank-and-file union members who moved toward the Republican Party in recent years. 

At the same time, lowering carbon emissions is another priority for the Biden administration. Imports from China are often cheaper for companies trying to stand up new clean-energy facilities in the U.S. The domestic-sourcing rules have also unnerved allies in Europe and Asia, who say the subsidies for U.S.-made components will hurt their products.

“There’s a general theme where they are clearly trying to balance the two goals but the leaning has historically been towards decarbonization,” said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners. 

At issue for the steel industry is the Treasury Department’s classification of photovoltaic trackers, which rotate solar panels so they follow the sun’s movement over the course of the day. In guidance released in May, the department said those trackers were a “manufactured product,” meaning they could include foreign metals and still potentially qualify for the bonus credit. 

The steelmakers want the metal used to build the trackers to instead be deemed as “iron and steel products,” which must come from the U.S. in order for the project to be eligible for the incentive. 

“Categorization of tracking systems as manufactured products would permit many of the structural steel components of new solar projects in the U.S. to be imported from China,” the companies said. 

The Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents companies that develop solar farms, praised Treasury’s guidance when it was released in May. The group’s CEO said Treasury’s approach would “spark a flood of investment in American-made clean energy equipment and components.”

Other battles over IRA subsidies have involved electric vehicles. For example, for consumers to get the full $7,500 tax credit to buy an EV, much of the minerals in its battery must come from the U.S. or a country with a free-trade agreement with the U.S. 

Many close allies, however, don’t have traditional free-trade agreements with the U.S. To get around that, administration officials crafted a special deal with Japan for minerals used in clean-energy technologies, and they are in talks with others about similar arrangements.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), a centrist whose support was critical to the passage of the climate law, has repeatedly lambasted the Treasury Department’s implementation of the electric-vehicle tax credit, including criticizing its decision to consider Japan a free-trade partner.

Automakers, including Ford Motor, have pushed for looser interpretations, including a requirement that none of an EV battery’s minerals or components be linked to a “foreign entity of concern,” which could potentially include any Chinese company. Ford has joined with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology to build a battery factory in Michigan. 

Yellen said in a recent interview that the climate law’s goals of reducing emissions and boosting domestic production can be difficult to navigate.

“We want to see a lot of electric vehicles be on the road,” she said. “But having more resilient supply chains is also clearly a goal of the legislation, and sometimes the two things do come into tension.”

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The AES Corporation's Andes Solar IIb

The facility's start-up in the region of Antofagasta, Chile, represents a —-unique—- milestone in the renewable energy sector. With an installed capacity of 180 MW and 112 MW of five-hour duration energy storage, this facility is now the largest system of its kind in Latin America. The Andes Solar IIb facility's capacity comprises 170 MW of bifacial solar panels and 10 MW of 5B's Maverick technology. 
The construction of this facility utilized Maverick technology and pre-made modular components, resulting in a 33% reduction in installation time compared to other traditional solar systems. Adding Andes Solar IIb to AES Andes brings the total number of solar facilities managed in the Antofagasta region to 429 MW. 
Reaffirming its commitment to sustainable and efficient power generation, AES Corporation continues to make significant strides in the renewable energy sector.

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Source media editing by Germán & Co

Trump needed $225 million. A little-known bank came to the rescue.

Gregory Garrabrants, a GOP donor and CEO of online Axos Bank, approved the loans after the former president’s main lender had cut ties.

The Washington Post by Michael Kranish, July 27, 2023 

Gregory Garrabrants is president and CEO of Axos Bank, which made two loans worth $225 million to Donald Trump in 2022 after the former president's main lender and several of his banks had cut ties with him. (Sandy Huffaker)

SAN DIEGO — As Donald Trump considered another White House run last year, his company’s finances were at risk of spiraling into crisis.

The former president’s longtime lender and several banks with his deposits had cut ties in the days around the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, at a time when Trump had hundreds of millions in loans coming due. In February 2022, the accounting firm that had worked for him for two decades dropped Trump and advised against relying on his “statement of financial condition,” a metric banks use to evaluate the risks of a loan.

Unless he found a new lender, Trump’s business empire could have been in jeopardy.

Then a new partner came to the rescue: A little known, online-only financial firm headquartered in a suburban San Diego office park.

Axos Bank, formerly known as Bank of Internet USA, had grown from one of the first digital banks into a profitable, publicly traded company in part by specializing in loans to borrowers other banks had shied away from — all while navigating federal regulator scrutiny over its internal operations and a congressional hearing that cited its involvement in high interest rates on some loans.

One day after the warning by Trump’s accounting firm became public, Axos’s blunt-spoken president and CEO — a Republican donor named Gregory Garrabrants — signed off on a $100 million loan for Trump Tower, the 58-story Manhattan skyscraper that had long been Trump’s home and base of operations, according to the bank.

Three months later, Garrabrants approved a second deal that provided $125 million for Trump’s Doral resort, a sprawling golf course complex in Miami-Dade County he had owned since 2012. Axos also financed part of a loan that helped facilitate the $375 million purchase of Trump’s D.C. hotel by a group of investors.

The Axos loans to Trump were vital to stabilizing his post-presidential finances and enabling him to mount the campaign that now has him leading the GOP pack for the 2024 presidential nomination, according to disclosure records, loan documents and financial experts.

“It was crucial … that someone gave him credit or he could have had loans going into foreclosure,” said Bert Ely, a longtime independent banking analyst. “And that was also an important factor for him politically.”

Former president Donald Trump speaks to staff and reporters aboard his airplane on June 10. “I don’t need banks,” Trump said in April, while not mentioning the Axos loans. “I have a lot of cash. I built a great business with my family.” (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The loans have drawn scrutiny from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) as part of her broader suit that accuses Trump of “falsifying” records to inflate the value of his properties on financial statements to obtain earlier loans at lower interest rates. Trump “sought to avoid submitting a statement of financial condition” to Axos and instead pushed the bank to calculate his worth, James asserted in the suit, which does not accuse Axos of wrongdoing.

For more than a year, Garrabrants, 51, has refrained from speaking publicly about his decision to approve the loans. But in his first interview about the matter, he told The Washington Post in June at the bank’s headquarters and a telephone follow-up in July that the deals had nothing to do with his Republican politics. He said he made the loans because they will be profitable for his bank, adding that he did not agree with other bankers who stayed away from Trump due to allegations that he had incited the insurrection or concerns about his honesty.

It was “not my job or my role” to judge Trump’s actions, said Garrabrants, who donated $9,600 to support Trump’s 2020 campaign but said he’s never met the former president, dealing instead with Trump’s son Eric, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization.

The $100 million Trump Tower loan was made at a 4.25 percent interest rate and the $125 million loan for the Doral property at a 4.9 percent interest rate, with both maturing in 2032, according to property records. The rates are within the range of commercial loans during that period, according to Federal Reserve data, and came before much of the interest rate spike occurred last year; public records do not say whether the rates will change over the life of the loan, which analysts said makes it difficult to directly compare them to other commercial loans.

Garrabrants declined to discuss some details of the loans, including the long-term interest rate or how they are secured, while saying they were done on “market terms.” The Trump loans, which represent about 1 percent of the bank’s $20 billion in assets, are structured to guarantee profits for Axos, Garrabrants said.

“It wouldn’t matter if I was friends with someone, I’m not going to make a loan that’s no good,” he said. “I don’t like anyone that much.”

When he left the White House, Trump’s businesses faced head winds. Trump Tower was put on a “watch list,” an indication of concern about the ability to repay a loan as its occupancy rate fell, according to a Wells Fargo analysis reported by Bloomberg. (Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post)

As president, Trump tried to head off claims of potential conflicts of interest with his business by handing control of the family firm to his son and pledging to avoid deals with foreign entities. But those rules no longer apply post-presidency, and Trump and his family have struck up significant business with Saudi Arabia and other partners abroad in the last two years.

If Trump returns to the White House, Axos could face intensifying scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers about the loan terms, his relationship with the bank and its treatment by regulators, observers said.

In his interview with The Post, Garrabrants rejected James’s claims that Trump had sought to avoid providing certain financial information when applying for Axos loans, saying he received all relevant details he needed to review the deals.

“He never refused any information we asked for,” Garrabrants said. “We asked for a series of items in a specific format … and he delivered the items in the specific format we asked for.”

Garrabrants declined to comment when asked if he or the bank had been contacted by anyone from James’s office regarding her case against Trump.

Trump and his spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. He has denied James’s allegations and described her lawsuit as a political attack. The former president has recently downplayed the importance of loans to his finances.

“I don’t need banks,” Trump said in April, while not mentioning the Axos loans. “I have a lot of cash. I built a great business with my family.”

Edward Hemmelgarn, who closely follows Axos as president of Shaker Investments, which invests in the bank, said it likely was able to secure the loans with much stiffer terms than Trump usually accepts because of his urgent need for a lender.

“I assume the only reason Donald Trump was willing to put up with it is because no one else was willing to make a loan,” Hemmelgarn said, adding, “I am assuming the bank has been very careful about this because of the high profile of Donald Trump.”

‘It was the banks’ problem’

Trump had a long history of relying on banks for hefty loans to shore up his business, shifting the risk to others as much as possible.

While portraying himself as a business genius, Trump filed six corporate bankruptcies. He created a publicly traded company that eventually saw its share price tumble from $36 to 17 cents. By the early 1990s, long before he got into politics or starred on reality TV, Trump faced numerous financial crises as he tried to keep afloat a New York-based real estate empire.

So when he first came to Deutsche Bank in the 1990s seeking massive loans, a managing director at the bank, Mike Offit, knew it was a risk.

“He’d had problems with a bunch of properties,” Offit recalled in an interview. “Your immediate response is, 'God, why would I want to get involved in that?’”

But after examining a proposed $125 million loan on a New York City office building and a separate deal on a condominium project, Offit calculated that the reward vastly outweighed the risk and signed off.

“You look at the property and if the property is great and meets the criteria for making a loan, absent some horrific reason not to, you make it because that’s how you make money,” he said. The deal was so favorable that Offit concluded “I can make 10 times the normal profit” at a low risk.

Donald Trump, center, and George Ditomassi, right, president of Milton Bradley, stand behind the board game, “Trump, The Game,” at a news conference in New York on Feb. 7, 1989. (Mario Suriani/AP)

Both deals proved hugely profitable for the bank, said Offit, who left Deutsche in 1999. With Deutsche on his side, Trump rebuilt his brand and played the starring role in “The Apprentice,” the NBC series that presented precisely the titan image he wanted the world to see.

But the relationship soured after Offit left Deutsche and the 2008 financial crisis crashed real estate values. Facing difficulties repaying a massive loan on a 92-story Chicago tower, Trump sued Deutsche Bank by claiming it helped to cause the recession, and the bank countersued, noting that Trump had written in a book of his about his loans, “I figured it was the banks’ problem, not mine. What the hell did I care?”

After resolving the suit, Trump later borrowed another $170 million from Deutsche for his D.C. hotel. But the bank, which declined to comment for this story, finally refused his request for another $50 million in 2016, citing his presidential run as posing “an unacceptable level of reputation risk.”

And after Trump sought reelection in 2020, Deutsche cut ties with him, citing his company’s failure to answer the bank’s questions about James’s investigation — a decision made public after the Jan. 6 attack.

Signature Bank, where Trump had deposits, announced shortly after Jan. 6 that it was closing his account and urged Trump to resign, according to an archived version of its website. Two other banks where Trump held deposits also closed his accounts after the attack on the Capitol, The Post reported.

As he left the White House, Trump’s businesses also faced head winds. Trump Tower was put on a “watch list,” an indication of concern about the ability to repay a loan as its occupancy rate fell, according to a Wells Fargo analysis reported by Bloomberg. His Doral resort, meanwhile, had seen its revenue plummet by more than 40 percent in 2020, according to Forbes.

By February 2022, when his accounting firm, Mazars, issued its warning about Trump’s financial statements and ended its relationship with him, the former president’s family company faced having to repay more than $300 million to Deutsche and $55 million to another bank, according to Trump’s financial disclosure and other public records.

Failing to pay, in the worst case scenario, could have led to lawsuits and foreclosures.

Growing scrutiny into practices

As Trump searched for a new lender in the months after Jan. 6. A broker came to an Axos official with a proposal: giving Trump a new $100 million loan on Trump Tower.

Unlike many other bankers, Garrabrants was not put off by the risk. That’s how he’d made his career.

A former attorney who had clerked for a Republican-appointed federal judge, Garrabrants was a senior vice president of IndyMac bank before it failed during the 2008 housing collapse. He told the Los Angeles Business Journal that “they got caught on the wrong side of the tsunami,” leading the bank to be undercapitalized, a lesson that would guide his career. He said his role at IndyMac was in a division unrelated to the problems that led to the failure.

Garrabrants was appointed CEO and president of Bank of Internet in October 2007, helping boost the decade-old bank into a formidable institution by continuing to forego storefront locations and leaning into a lower cost, online-only operation. But Garrabrants’s approach drew intensifying scrutiny.

A former attorney who had clerked for a Republican-appointed federal judge, Garrabrants was a senior vice president of IndyMac bank before it failed during the 2008 housing collapse. He said his role at IndyMac was in a division unrelated to the problems that led to the failure. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)

In 2016, the Houston Municipal Pension System filed a shareholder suit alleging in part that years earlier the bank and Garrabrants were “routinely overriding … internal controls.” The suit, which echoed some allegations in a lawsuit filed by a former Axos auditor, said the bank “issued loans to foreign nationals who had criminal or suspicious background” and claimed Garrabrants had threatened to “destroy” an ex-employee if they shared damaging information. A lawyer for the pension system declined to comment.

The bank denied the allegations, saying it had never revised a financial statement, had received “clean audits” and won approvals from regulators. Last year it settled the case for $14 million without admitting wrongdoing, according to court filings and the bank. Garrabrants said in the interview that the bank’s insurance company paid the settlement, which he said was less than the potential cost of litigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Treasury Department also opened probes into matters related to the bank’s practices, according to public documents; both were closed without charges.

After the SEC closed its probe in 2017, Garrabrants’s bank purchased an interest in a $57 million loan to Fortress Investment Group, which had backed a project linked to the family firm of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser, according to the bank and contemporaneous media reports. Asked by reporters at the time about whether there was any connection between the loan and the SEC’s decision, Garrabrants described the claim as a “tin-hat conspiracy.” The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.

Garrabrants told The Post that it was not a loan to Jared Kushner or the family company directly, and that he didn’t talk at the time to Kushner. A Kushner spokeswoman, asked via email for comment, said in a statement that “Jared never spoke to Axos Bank, Bank of the Internet, or the SEC about any of this. He had no knowledge of this matter until this email.” Fortress did not respond to a request for comment.

One of Axos Bank's branches is in San Diego. The bank, formerly known as Bank of Internet USA, was one of the first digital banks. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)

Axos practices also drew scrutiny in a 2021 hearing where Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the bank had evaded a state rate cap by partnering with a firm that charged a family business 92 percent interest. Garrabrants said in The Post interview that the bank is no longer involved in such loans.

As the bank grew, Garrabrants became one of the best-compensated executives in the industry. Garrabrants’s 2018 compensation package had the potential to reach as much as $34.4 million, due in part to performance awards, the Los Angeles Times reported. When the pandemic hit in 2020, digital-only Axos was well-positioned to pick up customers, and its customer base grew exponentially.

Garrabrants, meanwhile, consistently contributed to Republican candidates, though he was not initially a Trump donor. After backing Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz, respectively, in the 2012 and 2016 presidential cycles, he backed Trump in 2020 as well as making contributions to the Republican Party and other GOP candidates, totaling about $66,000 between 2012 and 2022, according to filings.

“I’m a Republican,” Garrabrants said. “I’m not particularly politically active. But you can look at my political leanings from my donations.”

While the bank continued to be little known to the general public, it was gaining notice as a place where big borrowers who faced pushback from mainstream banks could find a willing lender — albeit sometimes at a higher interest rate and stiffer terms. Garrabrants said the image was unfair, stressing that the bank had specialized in large single-family loans to individuals with complex finances.

If any borrower had complex finances, it was Trump.

A willing lender

As Garrabrants pondered whether to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the former president, he decided to personally investigate the risks.

In early 2022, Garrabrants met Eric Trump for the first time, and the pair went for a tour of Trump Tower. The bank CEO said his due diligence led him from upper-floor offices to the bowels of the building, where he even poked around the mechanical room.

He was impressed. “I walked the building and went through each individual plan, went through some of the underlying data. I walked the neighborhood, looked at other projects in that area, went through the lease,” Garrabrants said, noting the mechanical room was “clean as a whistle.”

Police officers stand outside Trump Tower in New York in March. (Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post)

Garrabrants personally signed off on the $100 million loan, he said. James, in her suit against Trump said the Trump Organization in February 2022 pushed the bank to “leave it to the lender” to determine his worth, rather than submitting the same kind of “statement of financial condition” he had provided for prior loans.

Three months later, Garrabrants authorized the $125 million loan to Trump for his Doral property. Unlike Trump Tower, Garrabrants was familiar with Doral after attending financial conferences there, he said.

While banks are required to obtain a company’s financial statement before making a loan, there is no industry-wide standard document and it is up to each institution to determine how to collect the information, according to Kyle Welch, an associate professor of accounting at George Washington University.

Garrabrants told The Post his bank had verified Trump’s information by its own methodology and was at the head of the line for repayment. He also discounted the value of statements of financial condition in general, saying, “I’ve never run into a borrower who thinks their property is worth what I think it’s worth.”

Eric Trump did not respond to an interview request, instead sending a statement to The Post: “Axos is an amazing bank and it is a pleasure to work with them.”

Garrabrants said he was barred for privacy reasons from disclosing certain conditions of the two loans. But he said that in loaning to the former president, he knew it would “be subject to additional scrutiny.”

“So what we wanted to make sure we did was structure the loan in a manner that was even at a higher bar than it normally would be, because I expected that there would be folks who would be interested in it,” he said. He declined to say what higher conditions were imposed.

Axos also played a role in another key deal: the sale of the Trump International Hotel in Washington. The May 11, 2022 purchase of that money-losing property fetched $375 million, much more than analysts had expected, enabling Trump to pay off his $170 million Deutsche Bank loan and make a profit of more than $100 million.

Axos had gotten involved in the deal two months before the closing.

CGI Merchant Group, the buyer of the hotel’s lease, got some of its financing from an investment group called MSD Partners. That group’s investors include computer mogul Michael S. Dell. MSD, which has often done business with Axos, asked the bank to help provide financing for the deal. They signed an agreement on March 1, 2022, MSD said in a statement to The Post. Dell was a passive investor and was not involved in the decision to provide the financing, his spokesman said.

MSD and Axos declined to specify the amount provided by the bank, but the bank is described in property records as having a “senior participation interest” in the loan, meaning it would be repaid ahead of others.

CGI Merchant Group, which partnered with Hilton to relaunch the hotel, did not respond to a request for comment. MSD Partners declined to comment beyond confirming the timing of its participation.

Garrabrants, asked whether the hotel deal could have happened without Axos’s support, responded that he believed it would have occurred regardless because he had to compete with other institutions before closing the deal.

Timely loans bolster net worth

Trump says that his finances have improved from the perilous days after Jan. 6, 2021, according to his latest personal financial disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics.

Trump claimed in his July report that he has earned more than $1 billion in the past two years, with millions from speaking fees and significant revenue from new business partners — including new ventures tied to Saudi investors. Trump claimed he has paid off three of his four loans from Deutsche Bank, the disclosure said. He also reported earning $159 million from the Doral golf resort, indicating it has recovered from the pandemic lull.

While Trump provided more information than required in the disclosure, his family company is privately held, making it difficult to fully assess his claims of vast wealth.

Axos, meanwhile, has performed better than many other financial institutions. As of June 30, the stock of parent company Axos Financial has grown 2,128 percent since Garrabrant’s appointment in October 2007, compared to the Nasdaq Composite, which has increased 380 percent during that time, the bank said. Nonetheless, its long-term rating was downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service in March, in part due to the bank’s real estate exposure. The stock has dropped from around $61 a share in January 2022 to $47 as of Wednesday, following a broader decline in banks. The Moody’s report did not mention the Trump loans and the company declined to comment on its rating. Garrabrants said that action was part of a broad downgrade of the banking sector and stressed Axos is still “investment-grade rated,” which he said shows the bank is financially solid.

It has been growing steadily in recent years and now is the nation’s 101st-largest bank as other banks have suffered failures — including Signature Bank, which was closed by regulators in March.

Trump’s Axos loans are being repaid on schedule, Garrabrants said.

The civil fraud case instituted by James is scheduled for trial in October, with the state seeking to fine him $250 million and stop him from doing business in New York. Among the state’s allegations is that Trump’s falsifying of statements of financial condition saved him $150 million over a 10-year period in lowered interest costs.

The case could force Trump to reveal more about his finances and how he has obtained his loans. James has included the sale of his D.C. hotel in her complaint, alleging that it was the result of a Deutsche loan “he was able to obtain by using his false and misleading statements.” Trump was deposed by James’s office in April, but the contents so far have not been made public.

Separately, Alvin Bragg (D), the district attorney in New York City, is continuing to investigate a similar financial fraud case but has not decided on whether to file charges.

The James case could also draw more scrutiny, even indirectly, to Trump’s business with Axos. Ely, the banking analyst, said it is inevitable that the Axos loans will be viewed in a political lens, with questions asked about whether a borrower or lender has leverage over the other. In past instances, Trump’s lenders have been drawn into an array of investigations, most recently with Deutsche probed by congressional Democrats.

“Trump is like flypaper,” Ely said. “He draws regulatory attention, and there is reputational risk in that for a bank.”

Offit, the former Deutsche banker who once approved loans for Trump, said the negative publicity would have dissuaded him from getting into business with the former president.

“It’s just not worth it,” said Offit. “At some point, you can’t make enough money.”

But Garrabrants said his job is “not to be politicizing banking … would it really be the case you’d want a society where somebody who was prominent would be denied financial services from any institution? … I think the answer is, ‘No.’”

Asked his views about Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021 — which the former president indicated earlier this month had made him the target of a federal grand jury probe — Garrabrants declined to respond directly, saying, “if I ever decide to run for political office, which I have no intention to do so, but if I do that, I’ll make sure that I am prepared to answer a wide variety of questions about different political events that occur.”

Nor did Garrabrants express concern about Trump’s history of corporate bankruptcies, his lawsuit against Deutsche, or his statement that “what the hell did I care” if banks were repaid.

“All I can say is that, if people don’t pay, I take their stuff,” Garrabrants said. “And I make sure their stuff is worth way, way more than enough to pay me.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Source. Le Monde/Editing by Germán & Co 

Roman Abramovich the 'invisible man,' a business and survival specialist

One million roubles for a photograph of him... A blurry photo eventually emerged, making Abramovich famous...

Le Monde By Lucas Minisini  (London, New York, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Benoît Vitkine  (Moscow, correspondent) and Aureliano Tonet  (London, Rome, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Published yesterday of 26 of July, 2023.

Investigation'Roman Abramovich, the most secretive of oligarchs' (3/6). The oligarch managed to survive in the turmoil of the Russian business world and capitalize on all his experiences, including political ones, to bolster his invulnerability.

Roman Abramovich had never revealed his face. He had never let anyone photograph him. In the late 1990s, when his name flooded the Russian media, the young oligarch remained invisible. The press had to commission rough illustrations of the businessman, who ran the oil giant Sibneft, employing tens of thousands of people across the country. "During a lecture the politician Boris Nemtsov delivered at Oxford University in 1998, he was even asked if Abramovich really existed," said Nigel Gould-Davis, a former British diplomat in Russia (2003-2007) and ambassador to Belarus (2007-2009).

Also in 1998, the NTV channel launched a competition for its viewers to debunk conspiracy theories, offering a prize of 1 million roubles (around $2,000) for the very first photo of the enigmatic 30-something. Less than two months later, NTV received a photo, but the man in the picture had a mustache: It wasn't Abramovich. The prize would ultimately be won thanks to a blurry photo, where the tycoon's face, calm eyes, his composed demeanor were barely even discernible. It was enough to make headlines in every paper. He had become a public figure.

Behind the scenes, the businessman had the best allies, and secured a prominent place among the national elite. In 1996, President Boris Yeltsin was re-elected for a second four-year term. Together with Boris Berezovsky, Abramovich had financed part of his campaign, with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in charge of gathering the funds. Abramovich began spending entire days in the Kremlin's corridors with Tatyana Dyachenko, the president's daughter. The 36-year-old former Soviet aerospace worker acted as an informal adviser to her father, a role inspired by Claude Chirac's position alongside her father Jacques Chirac, the French president who came to Moscow on an official visit at that time.

'Roman, think of the family'

As Yeltsin's health declined after multiple heart attacks, his youngest daughter asserted herself in the various power struggles. The "tsarina" and"little princess of the Kremlin," as she was nicknamed by the press, consolidated the support of loyal followers, including Alexander Voloshin, the deputy head of the presidential administration, and Valentin Yumashev, Yeltsin's new spokesman, who Dyachenko married in 2001. Yumashev, a journalist and author of the president's memoirs, became friends with Abramovich as soon as they met in 1994, at the home of Boris Gryzlov, Vladimir Putin's future interior minister. "Together with the restaurateur Arkady Novikov, they sometimes cooked shashlik, meat brochettes," said Yuri Feklistov, a photographer who was close to Yumachev. "Valentin introduced him to me as his 'friend Roman, one of the richest in Russia,' in 1997."

In the newspapers owned by banker Vladimir Gusinsky, which were highly critical of the Kremlin, this circle was referred to as "the family." The nickname was a criticism of the petty arrangements of the president and his entourage, suspected of financial embezzlement, while the young democracy was going through a serious economic crisis. Leading figures, including Dyachenko, were accused of taking bribes in return for public contracts.

According to several witnesses from the time, their funds were managed by Abramovich, who excelled as Yeltsin's cash handler. "When he was upset with the president, Alexander Korzhakov, his head of security, would repeat that the family's money had to be taken 'from Abramovich,'" said the photographer Feklistov. In July 1998, a billboard appeared for a few hours on Kutuzov Avenue, in the heart of the Russian capital, before it was taken down. It displayed a photomontage of the oligarch wearing a black suit with his hands crossed and surrounded by coins. In the center of the image, three lines of text stated, seemingly as a provocation: "Roman thinks of the family. The family thinks of Roman."

Just how far did the Yeltsin clan protect the oil tycoon? The highly advantageous terms on which Abramovich's oil company Sibneft was acquired aroused suspicion. How was the oligarch able to win the bidding for this lucrative business with an offer ($100.3 million) almost identical to the starting price ($100 million)? A parliamentary inquiry was opened in 1997. Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov suspected there was a vast corruption operation. A confidential legal document, dating from the 1990s and published by the BBC in March 2022, suggested that the Russian state lost $2.7 billion in the deal, to Abramovich and his two associates, Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili. According to the BBC, the document says ''The Dept. of Economic Crimes investigators came to the conclusion that if Abramovich could be brought to trial he would have faced accusations of fraud... by an organized criminal group." But the legal proceedings were never launched. They were said to be stopped by none other than Yeltsin. To this day, Abramovich and his lawyers deny the accusations of financial crimes.

Also in Prosecutor Skuratov's sights were banker Alexander Mamut, a close associate of Abramovich; the head of the president's Property Management Department, Pavel Borodin; and his deputy at the time, Vladimir Putin. Did they also take or pay bribes? After a few months, in the spring of 1999, a video recording of Prosecutor Skuratov with two prostitutes was broadcast on the main public TV channel. This kompromat, a Russian word meaning "compromising materials," was authenticated by the highest echelon of the state during a spirited press conference, attended by Putin, who had become head of the Russian Federation's intelligence service, the FSB. The prosecutor was suspended and then lost his job the following year. "This whole thing was obviously political," he explained to the BBC in early 2022. "In my investigations I came very close to the family of Boris Yeltsin."

Parliamentary immunity

Abramovich's activities were also being scrutinized by the courts abroad, as the 1990s drew to a close. In Switzerland, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development began legal proceedings for forgery and fraudulent practices due to the non-repayment of a loan exceeding $17 million to Runicom, one of the entrepreneur's early oil ventures. At the same time, a Bank of New York employee was accused of laundering $7.5 billion from Russia. The oligarch was one of many people mentioned in the case. "Roman was very afraid of the law," said Feklistov, who at the time was the only photographer permitted to follow the "invisible man" on his travels.

To avoid prosecution, what could be better than parliamentary immunity? In 1999, Abramovich obtained this safeguard by getting elected as a representative of Chukotka, in the far east of the country. At the same time, his associate Berezovsky became the representative for a constituency in Karachay-Cherkessia, in the North Caucasus. According to several people Le Monde interviewed, this political ambition provided a cover, to be protected from the law. This view was always dismissed by Abramovich: "It was actually Chukotka that chose me," he told Ekaterina Kuznetsova, a researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 2002, in the journal Politique Internationale. "I ran in this region's parliamentary elections at the request of the former governor, Alexander Nazarov."

The following year, the oil tycoon coveted the governorship of this "godforsaken country." With just 50,000 inhabitants and a surface area larger than France, the territory, frozen for more than eight months of the year and separated from Alaska by the Bering Strait, embodied all the problems of the former Soviet bloc: poverty, lack of modern infrastructure, alcoholism and corruption. Accompanied by a young, international team from his business empire, including his close friend Evgeny Shvidler, Abramovich led a daring campaign, chartering planes full of food from Moscow to supply local supermarkets. Led by Sergei Kapkov, Russia's future culture minister, the campaign communications were tightly controlled: The candidate prohibited journalists who accompanied him from recording interviews or even jotting down notes.

Benedict Allen, an English explorer who met Abramovich during an expedition among the Indigenous populations of Russia's Far East in late 2000, believed that, despite his rigid methods, he embodied a "new hope" on the ground, symbolic of a "new Russia." "He wanted me to tell him what people really thought of him," said Allen. "People thought he was incorruptible, because he already had so much money." Abramovich won the election with 92% of the vote. He brought in a famous Moscow rock band, Mashina Vremeni, for the handover ceremony and set up a sophisticated but alcohol-free buffet – he doesn't drink.

Across the strait

As soon as he took office, the young decision-maker restored the telephone network and renovated the Soviet-era buildings, repainting their facades in bright colors. He made sure that salaries were paid on time, by bank transfer, to limit the purchase of alcohol in cash. "With his own money, he paid for thousands of children under 14 to go on holidays by the Black Sea," said Allen, who returned to Moscow in a jet loaned by the businessman. "He seemed to have great ambitions for the region." Interviewed by Le Monde, Yumashev, Yeltsin's former spokesman, said that Abramovich made sacrifices himself for this mandate, drawing on his personal funds. "He transformed the territory," said the former journalist. "But it didn't help his business at all, and he dreamed of becoming free again."

Anadyr, the capital of Chukotka, is nicknamed the "city of flying dogs," in reference to its strong winds. Abramovich, who had a house built in the region, returned every six months, no more. Indeed, when asked what his favorite place in the Russian Far East was, he usually answered "the chic suburbs of Moscow," with a smile. The rest of the time, around 80 Sibneft employees managed the day-to-day business. In 2002, in Time, Abramovich confessed that his employees "followed the leader" without question, even though he never revealed his full political strategy to them.

Each trip – almost 10 hours by plane from Moscow – was also an opportunity for him to cross the Bering Strait to Anchorage, Alaska, in the United States. He would fly there by private plane and often stayed in the Captain Cook Hotel presidential suite, on the waterfront. According to Jeff Berliner, a former economic advisor to Tony Knowles, Alaska's Democratic governor (1994-2002), he regained a "sense of normalcy" on American soil, which was unattainable in Russia because of his new-found notoriety.

Abramovich, with his jeans and three-day beard which made him look like a "university lecturer's assistant," was discreet and strolled around without a bodyguard and "had dinner at McDonald's." His goal was symbolic, but also geopolitical: He wanted to bring closer together the Russian and American regions, separated by the Ice Curtain (in reference to the Iron Curtain) during the Cold War.

In both Chukotka and Alaska, Abramovich supplied weapons and ammunition to Indigenous peoples to organize whale hunts. While he had one meeting after another with Alaska's political and business elite, he preferred the oil fields to the top dogs of finance. "We took him to an investment fund that works 21 hours a day, to make use of every time zone," said Berliner. "He turned to me, and said in slightly broken English, 'This is boring! Can we leave?'" Even so, his stays seemed a little too regular for the taste of both American intelligence and the federal law enforcement. Berliner was warned: "'Watch out with Abramovich!' the CIA and FBI people used to tell me, 'He's an influent oligarch.'"

Gifts to Putin

His role as governor strengthened his ties with a key partner, whom he had met thanks to Berezovsky: Putin. Following his role in shaping Sergei Stepashin's government (May 1999-August 1999), Abramovich actively supported the former FSB director's appointment as prime minister on August 9, 1999. "Roman was one of the people I consulted," said Yumashev, who would be an adviser to Putin until 2022. Yumashev also recalled a meeting in the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's office, with "around 20 businessmen," including Abramovich. In tune with "the family" made up of Yumashev, Voloshin and Dyachenko, he supported Putin's candidacy in the 2000 presidential election. Putin pledged that the Yeltsin clan would never be prosecuted.

The relationship between the two men first took the form of a yacht, the Olympia, which Abramovich gave to the Russian president at the start of his first term. Measuring 57 meters, with 12 cabins and several decks, it was constructed in the Netherlands for $35 million. Long the subject of wild rumors, this gift was described in detail in an English court in 2010 by whistleblower Dmitry Skarga, a former shipping company executive.

There may have been other gifts along these lines. Also in the early 2000s, Abramovich was said to have suggested to Berezovsky to offer Putin a new boat, for the sum of $10 million per person or thereabouts. Berezovsky reportedly refused outright. As a result of this largesse, by his own admission, the generous Abramovich was regularly invited by the president to the Kremlin, where they discussed Chukotka among other things.

Abramovich openly supported the president's forceful methods, including the constitutional reform passed during the initial months of his term (2000-2004), enabling him to remove regional representatives who did not please him. "Do you really believe that it is possible to reform a state in a totally democratic way? I don't think so!" the oligarch said, clearly unconvinced by the rule of law, in the 2002 interview with the researcher Kuznetsova. At the end of 2004, Putin also approved the law abolishing direct elections to the post of governor. This autocratic shift was not met with the slightest resistance from Abramovich the governor.

Meetings at the Kremlin

Above all, this conciliatory attitude helped the oil tycoon to expand his business empire. In 2002, he wanted to consolidate Sibneft by absorbing Slavneft, another oil company put up for auction by the state. A more substantial Chinese offer displeased the Russian authorities, who began aggressive negotiations. On arrival at Moscow airport, a member of the Chinese delegation was kidnapped. He mysteriously reappeared unscathed as soon as China withdrew its offer, enabling Slavneft to join Abramovich's fold.

Just after that, the oligarch bought 70% of Russian aluminum through a substantial investment in Rusal, alongside businessman Oleg Deripaska, the big winner of the "aluminum wars" – an expression referring to the period lasting several months at the end of the 1990s, when mafias linked to prominent businessmen killed over a hundred people in order to control the production of this metal. Abramovich wasn't overly worried. In the same interview with researcher Kuznetsova, he talked about how Putin's government was "really economically competent, and knows exactly what it has to do." According to him, "The previous team was much weaker and lacked professionalism. What's good for business is good for the state." Then ranked as the second richest individual in Russia and the 49th wealthiest globally, at just 36 years of age, Abramovich often had the chance to talk it over with the main man: He met with Putin every week, in the Kremlin.

Their good relations became all the more visible when the president decided to create a vacuum around him, by targeting several oligarchs from the Yeltsin era. Summoned by the courts on charges of tax fraud, Berezovsky was forced into exile in the UK, where he was granted political asylum in 2003. Through the ORT television channel, which he owned for many years, he had openly criticized Putin's leadership since the Kursk nuclear submarine accident (118 deaths). Berezovsky would never be forgiven for this affront. In London, Abramovich's former ally, who was once dubbed the "Godfather of the Kremlin," would never again travel without his bodyguards.

Khodorkovsky, the other oil oligarch and Russia's richest mogul, admired by the international elite, was not allowed to question the Kremlin's policies either. In August 2003, he signed a deal to merge Yukos – his oil company – with Sibneft, owned by Abramovich, who pocketed around $3 billion in the process. Two months later, the plan was abandoned. Khodorkovsky was arrested at a Siberian airport. Following several controversial trials, he was sentenced to a total of 13 years in prison for tax fraud and money laundering.

Invisibility cloak

In Russia and abroad, these lawsuits against the renowned entrepreneur were regarded as a politically motivated decision bearing Putin's signature. In the hope of securing his release, some Yukos shareholders sought the support of Abramovich, their short-lived partner. They asked Natalia Gevorkyan, author of the book Putin's Prisoner (co-written with Khodorkovsky), to offer him "any deal" if he would help the Yukos boss get out of prison, said the former journalist from the newspaper Kommersant.

During a meeting in London, she said, Abramovich told her that he couldn't help: "If you think Putin is the same person he was when he was elected in 2000, you're wrong. I can't walk into his office, rip off my T-shirt and ask him to release Khodorkovsky..."

Behind this act of allegiance, it was hard not to see the most ancient of ploys: the art of saving one's skin. Abramovich mastered this metis, as the ancient Greeks called the intelligence of survival.

The explorer Allen, who witnessed his adventures in Chukotka, strongly agreed: "To survive in a hostile environment, whether it's the Arctic, the primeval forest or Russian politics, you need a certain kind of mentality. Roman, from what I've observed, is an authentic survivor." Orphaned at the age of three, the oligarch very quickly understood that to survive, there's nothing like disappearing, as if draped in an invisibility cloak. He has applied that lesson from the circles of power to the Arctic Circle.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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 by Germán & Co

US power regulator to weigh plans to speed up green energy connection

Reuters by Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom, July 27, 2023

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES, July 27 (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Thursday will vote on proposals to speed up the connection of new energy projects to the electric grid, which could ease a growing backlog of requests from renewable energy developers and deliver more green energy to consumers.

Long waits for transmission interconnection have slowed efforts to ease wild pricing and tight power supply in some markets, and hobbled the deployment of big solar and wind projects that the Biden administration wants built to combat climate change.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will bring up its proposed improvements for the grid interconnection process at its monthly meeting later on Thursday, according to its agenda. The planned vote comes nearly one year after landmark legislation aimed at boosting renewable energy projects called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) became law.

FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said in May that the commission could address the problem in part by shifting the approval process from a “first come, first serve” approach to a “first ready” approach – meaning projects that are ready with land rights and permits could move ahead instead of waiting behind developers that are less prepared.

New renewable generators and battery storage resources currently must go through a complex process before they can be connected. That process, which includes multiple studies of how their projects will affect the grid, can be costly and time consuming.

An April analysis by the government-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the average interconnection process takes five years, more than double the time than in 2008. Meanwhile, last year's passage of the IRA, which offers tax credits for renewable energy, has spurred major investment in new projects.

The interconnection proposal is part of a broader package of reforms FERC is working on in coming months to help hasten the deployment of renewable energy and storage. It is also seeking to finalize proposals this year to improve planning and cost allocation for transmission lines.

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News round-up, July 27, 2023

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Editorial…

Extraordinary but Dangerous "Phenomenon": "It's So Hot, They're Growing Mangoes in Italy"

The challenges faced by farmers in the Mediterranean offer a glimpse into the difficulties of feeding a planet that is getting warmer. Rising sea levels, dry spells, and heatwaves are causing disruptions to food production in this region, which is known for its unique diet. The recent heatwave has affected food production in many ways, such as causing cows to produce less milk and reducing honey production in Italy. The Ebro Delta, which has around 20,000 hectares of paddy fields, is particularly vulnerable to the warming climate due to rising sea levels and drought. Some farmers are already considering switching to hardier crops, while others are considering seaweed and clams due to the excess salt in the soil. Short-term solutions include processing more wastewater and limiting water evaporation. However, scientists warn that adaptation has limits; at some point, farmers will have to change their crops altogether.

Source: WSJ, today

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Most read…

TOP NEWS/Focus: In Mexico, private cash races to plug nearshoring energy crunch

The Energy Dilemma: Mexico's Nearshoring Industry Struggles Amidst Infrastructure Roadblocks

While companies in Mexico appreciate the advantages of operating in the country, they face significant challenges due to the inadequate energy infrastructure. The absence of sufficient investment in constructing new transmission lines and substations has impeded their progress, forcing them to rely on outdated and underdeveloped systems. The primary concern stems from the limited scope of investment by the Mexican government in this critical sector.

REUTERS by Isabel Woodford/Editing by Germán & Co July 26, 2023

Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests

A collapse would bring catastrophic climate impacts but scientists disagree over the new analysis

Damian Carrington Environment editor,  Jul 26, 2023

China adds flexibility to power grids, builds storage capacity to avoid outages

REUTERS by Andrew Hayley, July 26, 20232

Fed poised to hike rates as markets anticipate inflation endgame

REUTERS by Howard Schneider, July 26, 2023

One dead in cargo ship fire, electric car suspected source, Dutch coastguard says

Reuters, July 26, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Image by Germán & Co via Shutterstock

Focus: In Mexico, private cash races to plug nearshoring energy crunch

The Energy Dilemma: Mexico's Nearshoring Industry Struggles Amidst Infrastructure Roadblocks

While companies in Mexico appreciate the advantages of operating in the country, they face significant challenges due to the inadequate energy infrastructure. The absence of sufficient investment in constructing new transmission lines and substations has impeded their progress, forcing them to rely on outdated and underdeveloped systems. The primary concern stems from the limited scope of investment by the Mexican government in this critical sector.

REUTERS by Isabel Woodford/Editing by Germán & Co July 26, 2023

/3]A general view shows high voltage power lines owned by Mexico's state-run electric utility known as the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), in Santa Catarina, on the outskirts of Monterrey, Mexico February 9, 2021. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril/File Photo

MEXICO CITY, July 26 (Reuters) - For Mexican industrial park owners like Sergio Bermudez, business is booming amid a wave of U.S businesses setting up over the border.

So-called nearshoring has pulled over $9 billion into Mexico since last October by manufacturers like Unilever (ULVR.L) , Barbie maker Mattel (MAT.O) , and Tesla (TSLA.O) , lured by its proximity to the giant U.S market, cheap labor, and geopolitical stability.

Yet Bermudez and many of his 400-strong cohort have a serious cost issue on their hands: energy.

Industrial parks are under pressure to spend millions of dollars to build federal power transmission lines and substations amid government underinvestment, growing energy demand, and aging infrastructure which is at capacity.

While these parks have long contributed to state infrastructure, the lines and specifications now required are getting much longer and costlier in Mexico's manufacturing north, according to nearly a dozen sources.

"Federal funds can't keep up with the growth we're seeing… so the developers or companies have to absorb the cost," said Eduardo Martinez, an official for the state of Nuevo Leon, pointing to austerity and the unpredicted nearshoring boom.

Sergio Arguelles, president of the Mexican Association of Private Industrial Parks (AMPIP), said parks' investment in state energy assets today is unprecedented. The group is yet to calculate exact amounts, but said it is "very significant."

The lure of new clients for parks is strong, but it is still a bitter pill: with regulation restricting private ownership, park owners essentially donate the infrastructure to the state.

"It's the biggest challenge...We are thinking about how are we going to reach an agreement with the government to manage this for the good of the country," said Aaron Gallo, the real estate director at American Industries, whose multiple Mexican industrial parks cater to foreign clients like Danish toymaker Lego.

American Industries is currently building a $12 million 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) line. Gallo said such investments mean they have as much as tripled energy costs for clients in recent years, complicated by lengthy permit processes.

"It's very bureaucratic, it does slow us down," said Gallo. "But there’s no other option."

The issue underscores the holes in President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's attempt to concentrate power in the state energy utility company, CFE, which critics say is unfit to support Mexico's major growth opportunity.

Though private sector assistance may help bolster Mexico's energy security in the short term, much more is needed accommodate the wave of new demand, said David Gantz, a fellow on U.S -Mexico trade at the Baker Institute.

"Mexico would be very well positioned to take advantage of nearshoring if it didn't have such an energy problem," he said.

CFE did not respond to a request for comment.

THE SHRINKING STATE

Mexico's approach to its groaning electricity grid is in contrast to its fast-growing peers, which tend to either incentivize private energy contractors or have state utility companies with deep pockets.

Last year, CFE investment slid to 35.3 billion pesos ($2 billion), or 0.15% of GDP, a fraction of manufacturing rival China's planned investment in the grid of 0.9% of GDP, per Reuters analysis.

Meanwhile, CFE built just under 150 km of transmission lines last year, more than 10 times less per 100,000 square km than in Brazil, where Electrobras said it added 8,679 km to the network.

"We needed a lot more," said AMPIP's Arguelles, noting the bulk of CFE's budget has gone to power generation rather than distribution and transmission infrastructure.

Lopez Obrador has pressed hard to tighten state control of the energy sector, arguing that past governments rigged the market in the favor of private companies.

Yet with billions dedicated to the heavily indebted state-oil company Pemex, industry observers say Mexico lacks the funds to support upgrades to the electricity network.

"The CFE had a very different vision and budget before," said Bermudez, whose family has been in the "maquiladora" or remote manufacturing business for decades. "It used to be much easier."

Indeed, 91% of parks report issues related to energy supply, according to a recent AMPIP survey, including line congestion and being forced to turn away new clients.

Meanwhile, Ramses Pech, CEO of energy consultancy firm Group Caraiva estimated 80% of infrastructure built in industrial areas is now privately funded.

Still, there is some hope for the new wave of 47 planned industrial parks. The energy ministry said it plans to build around 3,000 km of transmission lines next year, as well as new substations, particularly in the north.

FOOTING THE BILL

Some argue that it is only right that the private sector pay its own way, especially given Mexico's relatively low corporation tax, and parks' healthy return on investment.

Hans Joachim Kohlsdorf, an electricity wholesale executive in Mexico, argues that park owners often do not think strategically when setting up remote manufacturing hubs, and understands why the government is reticent to pay.

"There needs to be better planning," he said. "We're in a Catch 22: (the parks) want everything free, and the other party doesn't want to pay."

Zonia Torres, a commercial director of an industrial park in the state of Guanajuato, which has paid for federal infrastructure, agrees.

"The CFE doesn't want to bet on future (energy) demand," she said, adding that Mexico is still "an emerging market" with limited resources.

Yet critics say Mexico's push for state control over energy distribution while also neglecting it is self-sabotage.

"The network provider should be capable of building the infrastructure...The public policy does not take into account the reality, and the level of (foreign) demand." said Alfredo Nolasco, founding partner of nearshoring consultancy Spyral.

"The lack of foresight is likely to be disastrous.

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Image by Germán & Co via Shutterstock

Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests

A collapse would bring catastrophic climate impacts but scientists disagree over the new analysis

Damian Carrington Environment editor,  Jul 26, 2023

The Gulf Stream system could collapse as soon as 2025, a new study suggests. The shutting down of the vital ocean currents, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc) by scientists, would bring catastrophic climate impacts.

Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years owing to global heating and researchers spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021.

The new analysis estimates a timescale for the collapse of between 2025 and 2095, with a central estimate of 2050, if global carbon emissions are not reduced. Evidence from past collapses indicates changes of temperature of 10C in a few decades, although these occurred during ice ages.

Other scientists said the assumptions about how a tipping point would play out and uncertainties in the underlying data are too large for a reliable estimate of the timing of the tipping point. But all said the prospect of an Amoc collapse was extremely concerning and should spur rapid cuts in carbon emissions.

Amoc carries warm ocean water northwards towards the pole where it cools and sinks, driving the Atlantic’s currents. But an influx of fresh water from the accelerating melting of Greenland’s ice cap and other sources is increasingly smothering the currents.

A collapse of Amoc would have disastrous consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and west Africa. It would increase storms and drop temperatures in Europe, and lead to a rising sea level on the eastern coast of North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.

“I think we should be very worried,” said Prof Peter Ditlevsen, at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and who led the new study. “This would be a very, very large change. The Amoc has not been shut off for 12,000 years.”

The Amoc collapsed and restarted repeatedly in the cycle of ice ages that occurred from 115,000 to 12,000 years ago. It is one of the climate tipping points scientists are most concerned about as global temperatures continue to rise.

Research in 2022 showed five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed due to the 1.1C of global heating to date, including the shutdown of Amoc, the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap and an abrupt melting of carbon-rich permafrost.

The new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, used sea surface temperature data stretching back to 1870 as a proxy for the change in strength of Amoc currents over time.

The researchers then mapped this data on to the path seen in systems that are approaching a particular type of tipping point called a “saddle-node bifurcation”. The data fitted “surprisingly well”, Ditlevsen said. The researchers were then able to extrapolate the data to estimate when the tipping point was likely to occur. Further statistical analysis provided a measure of the uncertainty in the estimate.

The analysis is based on greenhouse gas emissions rising as they have done to date. If emissions do start to fall, as intended by current climate policies, then the world would have more time to try to keep global temperature below the Amoc tipping point.

The most recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that Amoc would not collapse this century. But Ditlevsen said the models used have coarse resolution and are not adept at analysing the non-linear processes involved, which may make them overly conservative.

The potential collapse of Amoc is intensely debated by scientists, who have previously said it must be avoided “at all costs”.

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Prof Niklas Boers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, revealed the early warning signs of Amoc collapse in 2021.

“The results of the new study sound alarming but if the uncertainties in the heavily oversimplified model [of the tipping point] and in the underlying [sea temperature] data are included, then it becomes clear that these uncertainties are too large to make any reliable estimate of the time of tipping.”

Prof David Thornalley, at University College London, UK, agreed the study had large caveats and unknowns and said further research was essential: “But if the statistics are robust and a relevant way to describe how the actual Amoc behaves, then this is a very concerning result.”

Dr Levke Caesar, at the University of Bremen, Germany, said using sea surface temperatures as proxy data for the strength of the Amoc currents was a key source of uncertainty: “We only have direct observational data of the Amoc since 2004.”

The extrapolation in the new analysis was reasonable, according to Prof Tim Lenton, at the University of Exeter, UK. He said the tipping point could lead to a partial Amoc collapse, for example only in the Labrador Sea, but that this would still cause major impacts. Ditlevsen said he hoped the debate would drive new research: “It’s always fruitful when you do not exactly agree.”

Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the University of Potsdam, Germany, said: “There is still large uncertainty where the Amoc tipping point is, but the new study adds to the evidence that it is much closer than we thought. A single study provides limited evidence, but when multiple approaches have led to similar conclusions this must be taken very seriously, especially when we’re talking about a risk that we really want to rule out with 99.9% certainty. Now we can’t even rule out crossing the tipping point in the next decade or two.”

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At the Energy Summit 2923 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Edwin De los Santos, President of AES DOMINICANA, emphasized the company's strong commitment to global environmental preservation.

“The relationship between energy and development is symbiotic and interdependent. “

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Electrical pylons and power lines are seen in Yanqing district of Beijing, China December 17, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

China adds flexibility to power grids, builds storage capacity to avoid outages

REUTERS by Andrew Hayley, July 26, 20232

BEIJING, July 26 (Reuters) - China is introducing more flexible power transmission arrangements into its national grid system, helping to avoid a repeat of the outages that plagued parts of the country last year, according to central government officials.

In response to decreased output from hydropower plants, authorities have "rationally optimised" power transmission between provinces to send more power to the country's drought-stricken southwest, Guan Peng of the National Development and Reform Commission told a press conference on Wednesday.

This has included sending more power from China's sparsely populated northwest, Guan added.

China's grid system predominantly distributes power between provinces through fixed medium-to-long term contracts, which do not accommodate changes in regional demand and supply conditions.

More than 90% of market-based power trading in China is conducted through these mid-to-long term contracts, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

After a drought last August, fixed, unidirectional power trading agreements led hydro-dependent southwestern Sichuan province to export power out of the province to fulfil these contracts, even as consumers in the province endured power cuts.

In addition to adding flexibility to grid transmission, authorities have increased water storage at hydro facilities in advance in order to guarantee their operation during periods when temperatures were high, Guan said.

The region has not seen widespread power outages this year, despite similarly hot and dry weather conditions.

Weather-dependent hydropower is expected to remain the primary power source in Sichuan and neighbouring Yunnan, with the Sichuan provincial government forecasting it to account for more than 77% of province's installed generation capacity in 2025.

China has also extensively developed its 'new type' energy storage capabilities this year, officials said. 'New type' energy storage in China is overwhelmingly comprised of lithium-ion battery storage, and contrasts with older pumped-hydro storage technologies.

The installed capacity of this 'new type' energy storage reached 12 gigawatts (GW) as of the end of May, said National Energy Administration official Liu Mingyang. This represents a roughly 37% increase on the 8.7GW in installed capacity reported at the end of last year.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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The U.S. Federal Reserve building is pictured in Washington, March 18, 2008. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo

Fed poised to hike rates as markets anticipate inflation endgame

REUTERS by Howard Schneider, July 26, 2023

WASHINGTON, July 26 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, marking the 11th hike in the U.S. central bank's past 12 policy meetings and possibly a last move in its aggressive battle to tame inflation.

The increase, anticipated by investors with nearly a 100% probability, would raise the benchmark overnight interest rate to the 5.25%-5.50% range. That would bring it to roughly the highest level since the approach to the 2007-2009 financial crisis and recession.

Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics

There's little sense a similar collapse is on the horizon. Far from it, the economy is proving more resilient to rising interest rates than expected, with ongoing growth and an unemployment rate that is currently pinned at a low 3.6%.

In assessing where policy may move next, in fact, the Fed will be balancing whether the economy remains too strong to return a still-elevated rate of inflation to the central bank's 2% target against evidence that a process of "disinflation" may be underway that is likely to continue even without any further rate increases.

After a rapid series of rate hikes over the last year, with the central bank moving in unusually large three-quarters-of-a-percentage-point steps at one point, policymakers say they are now making meeting-by-meeting judgments based on incoming data, an approach meant to keep their options open and one likely to be emphasized by Fed Chair Jerome Powell in a press conference shortly after the 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) release of the policy statement.

A key question, said Steve Englander, head of G10 FX research and North America macro strategy at Standard Chartered, is whether the Fed "puts more emphasis on weaker-than-expected inflation or stronger-than-expected activity in determining policy" moving forward.

NEARING THE END

The Fed will not update quarterly economic and interest rate projections at this week's meeting, though policymakers will have a chance to discuss quarterly bank survey data that has taken on heightened importance since a string of regional bank collapses earlier this year.

Policymakers' projections in June showed the Fed likely nearing the end of its hiking cycle, with a majority of them seeing the need for only one further quarter-percentage-point increase beyond the expected hike on Wednesday.

Data since June, if anything, has lowered expectations that further rises in borrowing costs will be needed, with headline inflation data coming in weaker than expected, and information about producer prices and other aspects of the economy suggesting further moderation is developing. Indeed, as policymakers began their two-day meeting on Tuesday, the Conference Board reported U.S. consumers' 12-month inflation expectations sank to the lowest level since November 2020.

New data on the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index, will be released on Friday. A Reuters poll showed economists expect the measure, stripped of volatile food and energy prices, to have increased at a 4.2% annual rate in June, which would be the lowest since September 2021.

That is a significant decline in a data point that has been stuck at around 4.6% since December. But it is still more than double the Fed's target, and officials including Powell have said they will not shift gears on policy until progress on inflation is sustained over several months and they are convinced the pace of price increases will return to 2%.

The Fed will have a larger-than-usual amount of data to assess before its next meeting on Sept. 19-20, some eight weeks away. The typical gap between meetings is six weeks. The longer span allows a full two months of information on jobs and inflation to accumulate, and in this case will also provide the first two of three reports on economic growth in the second quarter.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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.

---

After a rally this year, the S&P 500 has climbed about 27% from its recent bottom. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

One dead in cargo ship fire, electric car suspected source, Dutch coastguard says

Reuters, July 26, 2023

AMSTERDAM, July 26 (Reuters) - One person died and several others were hurt when a fire broke out on a cargo ship carrying cars off the northern tip of Netherlands, forcing several crew members to jump overboard, the Dutch coastguard said on Wednesday.

The Panama-registered Fremantle Highway was transporting 2,857 cars from Germany to Egypt, 25 of them electric.

An electric car was the suspected source of the blaze, a coastguard spokesperson said, adding that the ship was still burning.

The 199-metre ship, which had departed from the German port of Bermenhaven, was successfully towed out of shipping lanes early on Wednesday, Dutch broadcaster NOS reported.

The ship was sailing 27 km (17 miles) north of the Dutch island of Ameland, with 23 crew onboard, when the fire started on Tuesday night, a statement said.

The crew had tried, but failed, to extinguish the fire, the coastguard statement said.

The injured crew were taken by helicopter to medical facilities on the mainland. They suffered smoke inhalation, or were hurt during the evacuation, a spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Shoei Kisen Kaisha, a Japanese ship leasing company that manages the Fremantle Highway, was not immediately available for comment.

It is the latest fire to hit a car carrier.

Earlier this month, two New Jersey firefighters were killed and five injured while battling an intense blaze on a cargo ship carrying hundreds of vehicles. A fire destroyed thousands of luxury cars on a ship off the coast of Portugal's Azores islands in February last year.

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Image by Germán & Co

Putin appeared paralyzed and unable to act in first hours of rebellion

TWP By Catherine Belton, Shane Harris and Greg Miller, July 25, 2023 

LONDON — When Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, launched his attempted mutiny on the morning of June 24, Vladimir Putin was paralyzed and unable to act decisively, according to Ukrainian and other security officials in Europe. No orders were issued for most of the day, the officials said.

The Russian president had been warned by the Russian security services at least two or three days ahead of time that Prigozhin was preparing a possible rebellion, according to intelligence assessments shared with The Washington Post. Steps were taken to boost security at several strategic facilities, including the Kremlin, where staffing in the presidential guard was increased and more weapons were handed out, but otherwise no actions were taken, these officials said.

“Putin had time to take the decision to liquidate [the rebellion] and arrest the organizers” said one of the European security officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. “Then when it began to happen, there was paralysis on all levels … There was absolute dismay and confusion. For a long time, they did not know how to react.”

This account of the standoff, corroborated by officials in Western governments, provides the most detailed look at the paralysis and disarray inside the Kremlin during the first hours of the severest challenge to Putin’s 23-year presidency. It is consistent with public comments by CIA Director William J. Burns last week that for much of the 36 hours of the mutiny Russian security services, the military and decision-makers “appeared to be adrift.”

It also appears to expose Putin’s fear of directly countering a renegade warlord who’d developed support within Russia’s security establishment over a decade. Prigozhin had become an integral part of the Kremlin global operations by running troll farms disseminating disinformation in the United States and paramilitary operations in the Middle East and Africa, before officially taking a vanguard position in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Post that the intelligence assessments were “nonsense” and shared “by people who have zero information.”

The longtime symbiosis of the two men, who first met in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, has exposed the weaknesses of Putin’s crony system of management, where rival clans are pitted against each other, and which has been stretched to breaking point by the war.

Who is Yevgeniy Prigozhin, Wagner chief who stirred a crisis in Russia?

The lack of orders from the Kremlin’s top command left local officials to decide for themselves how to act, according to the European security officials, when Prigozhin’s Wagner troops stunned the world by entering the southern Russian city of Rostov in the early hours of June 24, seizing control of the Russian military’s main command center there, and then moved into the city of Voronezh, before heading further north toward Moscow.

Without any clear orders, local military and security chiefs took the decision not to try to stop the heavily armed Wagner troops, the security officials said.

Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District amid the group's pullout from the city of Rostov, Russia, on June 24. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Many on the local level could not believe the Wagner rebellion could be happening without some degree of agreement with the Kremlin, the security officials said — despite Putin’s emergency televised address to the nation on the morning of the mutiny in which he vowed tough action to stop the rebels, and despite a warrant issued for Prigozhin’s arrest for “incitement to insurrection” on the eve of his march to Moscow.

“The local authorities did not receive any commands from the leadership,” said a senior Ukrainian security official. “From our point of view this is the biggest sign of the unhealthy situation inside Russia. The authoritarian system is formed in such a way that without a very clear command from the leadership, people don’t do anything. When the leadership is in turmoil and disarray, it the same situation at the local level and even worse.”

The intelligence information helps explain what’s been seen as the biggest debacle of Putin’s rule — how Prigozhin’s armed band of fighters, demanding the ouster of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and armed forces chief of staff Valery Gerasimov, were able to proceed to within 120 miles of Moscow without facing resistance, before eventually agreeing to turn around after a deal was brokered with the help of Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president.

The disarray in the Kremlin also reflects a deepening divide inside Russia’s security and military establishment over the conduct of the war in Ukraine, with many including in the upper reaches of the security services and military supporting Prigozhin’s drive to oust Russia’s top military leadership, the European security officials said.

“Some supported Prigozhin and the idea that the leadership needs to be cleaned up, that the fish is rotting from the head,” one of these officials said.

One senior NATO official said some senior figures in Moscow appeared ready to rally behind Prigozhin had he succeeded in achieving his demands. “There seem to have been important people in the power structures … who seem to have even been sort of waiting for this, as if his attempt had been more successful, they would also” have joined the plot, this official said.

Prigozhin’s increasingly vitriolic tirades blaming corruption and mismanagement by the Russian military command for battlefield setbacks and high casualties in the war against Ukraine had resonated with many sectors of Russian society. Many in the rank and file of the Russian army also wanted Prigozhin to succeed in forcing change at the top of the Russian military, believing that then “it would become easier for them to fight,” this official said.

But others in the security establishment were horrified at the mutiny attempt, and at the Kremlin’s toothless reaction, convinced it was leading Russia toward a period of deep turmoil, officials said.

“There was disarray. You could argue about the depth of it, but there really was lack of agreement,” said a senior member of Russian diplomatic circles. “We heard all these statements. They were not always consistent … For some time, they did not know how to react,” he said. Putin had vowed to crush the rebellion on the morning the rebellion began but by the time he finally emerged in public more than 48 hours later, he said all steps had been taken on his “direct order” to avoid major bloodshed.

Members of the Russian elite said the division over the conduct of the war and its handling by the Russian military leadership, will continue, despite a public relations drive by the Kremlin to demonstrate Putin is in control and the start of a campaign to purge the ranks of the Russian military of critics and Prigozhin’s supporters among Russian ultranationalists.

On Friday Igor Girkin, a controversial former Russian commander in Ukraine who has been vocal in denouncing the Russian military leadership, was arrested. Several high-ranking generals perceived to be close to Prigozhin, including Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was often praised by the Wagner leader, have disappeared from public view.

The lack of direction from the Kremlin during the crisis has left Putin significantly weakened, according to his critics. “Putin showed himself to be a person who is not able to make serious, important and quick decisions in critical situations. He just hid,” said Gennady Gudkov, a former colonel in the Russian security services who is now an opposition politician in exile. “This was not understood by most of the Russian population. But it was very well understood by Putin’s elite. He is no longer the guarantor of their security and the preservation of the system.”

“Russia is a country of mafia rules. And Putin made an unforgivable mistake,” said a senior Moscow financier with ties to the Russian intelligence services. “He lost his reputation as the toughest man in town.”

Ukraine is now the most mined country. It will take decades to make safe.

The conflict between Prigozhin and the Russian military leadership had been building up for months, and the possibility of conflict increased sharply when the Russian Defense Ministry decreed June 10 that Wagner fighters had to sign contracts with the ministry from July 1, essentially ending Prigozhin’s control of the mercenary group — and the billions of dollars in government contracts attached to it.

When the security service warnings appeared that Prigozhin could be mounting some kind of rebellion, some in the security establishment believed the preparations could be no more than a bluff to increase pressure and gain more leverage to secure his control of Wagner, one of the European security officials said.

To some degree, if Prigozhin’s mutiny was an attempt to gain leverage, it worked. Putin was apparently forced into compromise with the renegade leader, allowing him to travel around Russia for days after the mutiny, because Prigozhin’s work for the Kremlin was too deeply intertwined with the interests of Putin’s state, according to several of the security officials, and Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled human rights activist who has interviewed several former Wagner fighters. Instead of prosecuting Prigozhin for leading the armed insurrection, Putin agreed to drop the charges. In exchange, Prigozhin halted the march on Moscow, withdrew his men from key military installations and agreed to decamp to Belarus, keeping at least part of Wagner intact.

Russia has deployed private mercenary groups as a shadow arm of the state to protect Kremlin interests, “where the state is without strength or cannot officially act,” according to a report drawn up for a Russian parliamentary roundtable on legalizing the private paramilitary organizations in 2015. The report was obtained by the Dossier Center, an investigative group founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled Putin opponent, and shared with The Post.

“Private paramilitary groups can become effective instruments of state foreign policy,” the report states. “The presence of private military groups in the planet’s ‘hot spots’ will increase Russia’s sphere of influence, win new allies for the country and allow the obtaining of additional interesting intelligence and diplomatic information which ultimately will increase Russia’s weight globally.”

The intertwining of Wagner with the interests of Russian intelligence, with its upper ranks staffed with former members of Russian military intelligence, and its leading role in operations in Syria, Libya and across Africa, where it gained access to extensive mining rights, has meant it was impossible for Putin to swiftly bring the curtain down on Prigozhin’s operations, Osechkin said. Prigozhin “worked for more than 20 years for Putin’s team. He did a lot for their interests in a whole series of countries. He has a huge amount of information” about them, Osechkin said.

“They created a monster for themselves,” one of the European security officials said.

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News round-up, July 25, 2023

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Editorial…

The Importance of Developing New Nuclear Bomb Cores in the United States: Why?

In today's fast-changing world, the United States must prioritize the development of new nuclear bomb cores; this decision may be attributed to the ongoing arms race between the two countries. Russia's development of new strategic nuclear weapons, such as a hypersonic nuclear-armed glider and an air-launched ballistic missile, has raised concerns about potential threats to U.S. national security.

The Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia, citing Russian violations, has exacerbated these concerns. With the withdrawal, concerns have been raised about the potential reintroduction of nuclear-armed mid-range ballistic and cruise missiles as competition intensifies. Due to this, the United States is intensifying its production of nuclear bomb cores to ensure its capability to deter potential threats.

Each year, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to produce 80 plutonium pits. Nuclear pits are composed of fissile material and neutron reflectors or tamper-proof bonds. Previously, some weapons used pits made from uranium-235 alone or in combination with plutonium.

These pits will be produced at the Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in North Carolina, which will be modified to produce at least 50 pits a year. A minimum of 30 pits will also be produced by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico by 2030.

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Most read…

In the Lab Oppenheimer Built, the U.S. Is Building Nuclear Bomb Cores Again

At the New Employee Training (NET) facility of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), empty waste drums are set up for a “Container Handling for Waste Operators” training session.

TIME BY W.J. HENNIGAN/LOS ALAMOS, N.M., JULY 24, 2023

China’s Foreign Minister Replaced After Unexplained Absence

Qin Gang is removed months after Xi Jinping promoted him to head the Foreign Ministry

TWP By Chun Han Wong,  July 25, 2023 

Indonesia's big gas projects to proceed after global majors sell stakes

Reuters By Fransiska Nangoy and Bernadette Christina

Stock Market Shrugs Off Recession Signals as Rally Builds

S&P 500 is trading near its highest level since April 2022 as hopes grow for a soft landing

WSJ By Karen Langley, July 25, 2023 

Putin appeared paralyzed and unable to act in first hours of rebellion

^TWP By Catherine Belton, Shane Harris and Greg Miller, July 25, 2023 

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Einstein vs Oppenheimer!/Editing by Germán & Co

In the Lab Oppenheimer Built, the U.S. Is Building Nuclear Bomb Cores Again

At the New Employee Training (NET) facility of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), empty waste drums are set up for a “Container Handling for Waste Operators” training session.

TIME BY W.J. HENNIGAN/LOS ALAMOS, N.M., JULY 24, 2023

Something unusual is happening inside the plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. PF-4, as it is known to top government officials, is the heart of America’s nuclear complex, a lab where scientists and engineers study and experiment on highly radioactive materials in tight secrecy. Recently, employees have discovered yellow plastic tents encasing equipment and rendering it inaccessible. At Los Alamos, where even the cleaning crews and firefighters require high-level security clearances, you might think the tents are designed to restrict access to the latest wonder weapon or scientific breakthrough. The truth is more mundane—and more telling. “It’s part of our expansion plans,” Matthew Johnson, a senior lab manager, tells me during a rare tour of the fortified building. “All the old stuff is coming out.”

PF-4 is being transformed from an experimental laboratory that focuses mostly on research into a facility that mass-produces plutonium “pits,” the grapefruit-sized cores inside every nuclear bomb in America’s arsenal. Los Alamos— the lab synonymous with the dark art of nuclear-weapon development—hasn’t produced a certified pit in over a decade and has never had to produce more than 10 in a single year. But in 2018, Congress passed a law mandating that PF-4 produce 30 pits a year by 2026. Around $5 billion has already been spent to overhaul the cramped, aging facilities. The Biden Administration has pumped $4.6 billion into Los Alamos this fiscal year alone—a 130% budget increase over what the lab received just five years ago. Truckloads of new work stations, lathes, and furnaces are set for installation. Coast-to-coast recruiting efforts are underway to increase the lab’s workforce, which is already at a record 17,273.

Not long ago, such ambitions would have been unthinkable. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the U.S. stopped designing, building, and testing new nuclear warheads. Stockpiles were slashed, labs’ budgets cut, and a highly skilled workforce allowed to dwindle. But after a three-decade break from manufacturing nuclear weapons, the U.S. is getting back into the game. Another arms race may be upon us, triggered by China’s growing ambitions and escalating hostilities with Russia, the world’s other nuclear superpower. Since President Biden took office, both nations have wielded their arsenals to threaten adversaries and coerce neighbors. The last remaining nuclear-arms treaty, known as New START, is set to expire in 2026, raising fears about a new era of unchecked expansion. All nine nuclear powers are scrambling to modernize their arsenals and build new weapons.

The effort to restart America’s nuclear-weapons manufacturing program in response represents the biggest test since the Manhattan Project. A wide range of arms-control experts and nuclear watchdogs, as well as a handful of lawmakers, are frantically sounding the alarms, warning of the existential risks of the course that leaders in both parties have taken. Critics say the U.S. is repeating the mistakes of the Cold War by funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into weapons that will hopefully never be used and haven’t been tested in more than a generation. They worry about the potential environmental disasters. Washington is reacting to geopolitical concerns without considering the consequences of restarting our own bomb-making factories, says Greg Mello, executive director at the Los Alamos Study Group, an Albuquerque-based watchdog organization.

“We’re rushing into a new arms race with our eyes wide shut,” Mello says, “forgetting everything that went wrong before.”

At PF-4, they are well past such debates. Lab managers are busy unsealing and combing through decades-old archives to extract the technical and engineering expertise for plutonium pits that has been all but lost in the U.S. To get a sense of how the headlong rush is unfolding, and the risks that come with it, I accompanied Johnson, a tall, balding metallurgist who’s spent 21 years at the lab, as he led a small group of reporters on a rare trip inside the center of PF-4. It took more than a year to receive government approval for the visit to the facility. All plutonium operations are required to pause if outsiders are on the floor. But with a brief work-stoppage in place, we were given a day pass in late June to slip behind the tiers of barbed-wire fences, code-accessed security doors, and legions of armed guards to catch a glimpse of America’s new nuclear age.

Before stepping onto the PF-4 operations floor, we pulled on thick lab coats, cotton shoe-coverings, protective goggles, and personal radiation-detection badges. It’s a windowless, low-slung facility, with a long gray hallway dividing a series of rooms purpose-built for plutonium production. Identity confirmation is required at each door, even though every employee at PF-4 has a Q-level security clearance from the Energy Department, the highest a civilian can hold.

Weapons-grade plutonium has a radioactive half-life of 24,000 years. The level of radioactivity in these rooms, called “hot areas,” is constantly monitored. When you walk into a new chamber, you’re met with the unnerving clicks of a Geiger counter reverberating inside. The personal-safety protocols underline the stakes. One member of our tour had a notebook quarantined after it mistakenly dropped to the floor. Before leaving a room, we had our hands and feet individually checked for contamination. We also were required to take two full body-scans, stepping into different floor-to-ceiling radiation-detection machines, before we left the facility.

Inside each production room, workers stand under bright fluorescent lights by a series of linked stainless-steel work stations called gloveboxes. They place their hands into specialized rubber gloves and peer through leaded-glass windows as they shape the plutonium. An accidental slip of the hand could result in catastrophe. There’s virtually no safe level of human exposure to plutonium if it’s inhaled. Even the smallest speck—a one-thousandth of a gram, hidden to the human eye—could kill. “We have to account for every flake,” Johnson says. The lab has an elaborate air circulation system; the rooms are at a lower pressure than the outside hallways. Each glovebox has a slight vacuum, designed to ensure that if there is a breach, the particles are contained inside the sealed box.

The U.S. no longer manufactures new plutonium, so workers at PF-4 take old pits from retired warheads sent from the Pantex plant in the Texas panhandle, which assembles, disassembles, and stores parts for America’s nuclear arsenal. The pits are recycled through a process that purifies them of radioactive elements, which accumulate over time. To do this, plutonium winds its way from glovebox to glovebox through an overhead trolley system snaking through the complex. Dumbwaiters move it up and down from the trolley. The plutonium is melted, machined, welded, and inspected. Mastering these skills can take up to four years of training and mentorship, Johnson says. Each worker must undergo routine mental and physical health checks throughout the year to ensure they can handle weapon components.

Up to 1,000 employees work inside PF-4 on a given day, but less than 10 can perform the final step of the assembly, which involves welding pieces of cast plutonium together to form a pit. The task must be done by hand, inside a large walk-in glovebox. Workers wear respirators and several layers of personal protective equipment. The pit then undergoes an inspection process: it’s leak-checked and radiographed, like a medical CT scan, to ensure it meets specifications. If it passes, it’s stamped with a small diamond and sent back to Texas, where it will stay until it’s plugged into a new W87-1 warhead, which is still under development, expected to be completed sometime within the next decade.

The W87-1 will be the first 100% newly manufactured nuclear warhead in the U.S. stockpile since the end of the Cold War. Its pit will be encased in plastic explosives designed to detonate with impeccable timing, compressing it, in just a fraction of a second, from the size of a grapefruit into the size of a golf ball. Fission from this first stage of the process spits out neutrons, triggering an atomic chain reaction that generates a massive release of energy—an explosion. The subsequent radiation, pressure, and energy then fuses two types of heavy hydrogen, tritium and deuterium, to form helium. Additional neutrons fire from this process, creating a fission-fusion feedback loop that happens so quickly it appears instantaneous. It culminates with a fireball that reaches into the millions of degrees, followed by a blast that can level buildings for miles around.

Los Alamos has developed 11 nuclear pits this year…

Los Alamos has made 11 development pits so far this year, but none of them are destined for warheads. The first proof-of-concept weaponized pit is slated for completion at the end of 2024, says Robert Webster, Los Alamos’ deputy director for weapons. Webster says he’s confident his team can reach 30 pits per year by 2030. “It could be sooner,” he says, adding that the most important thing is that it’s done right.

“We’re still cleaning up the legacy mess that we made by working the way we did.”

Others are skeptical. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in January that it’s highly unlikely PF-4 will be able to meet its congressional mandate of building 30 pits annually on the prescribed timetable. Another larger facility, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which has never produced a single pit, has been tasked with producing 50 per year by 2030. The challenges of building new facilities and re-configuring existing ones with cutting-edge equipment are compounded by the extreme dangers of radioactive plutonium and waste disposal. All this may result in the federal government spending up to $24 billion before Los Alamos and Savannah River can reach their combined target of 80 pits per year, the report says. And rushing has its risks.

The environmental hazards of producing plutonium pits are well-established. The last time the U.S. made pits on a mass scale was in 1989, at the Rocky Flats site in Colorado. Production at the plant, which churned out about 1,000 pits per year, was shut down following a raid by the FBI and Environmental Protection Agency that discovered serious environmental violations. There was enough radioactive waste on the premises to cover a football field to a depth of 20 ft. Some 62 pounds of plutonium were found caked inside the plant’s air ducts.

Plutonium poses grave danger to anyone who doesn’t have proper protective equipment, and the total human toll of the work performed at Rocky Flats is unknown. Judy Padilla, 76, worked 22 years at Rocky Flats, most of them handling plutonium in gloveboxes. Padilla says she’s horrified that another generation will be manufacturing pits. She developed a host of medical issues that began during her time at the plant, including a tumor that required a mastectomy of her right breast. Her husband Charles, who also worked at the plant, died in 2014 after battling kidney cancer.

Padilla, who attributes both cases to radiation and chemical exposure at Rocky Flats, received $125,000 from the government after Charles died. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, passed at the end of the Clinton Administration, provides funding to former nuclear employees on an individual basis, but Padilla says it’s littered with loopholes that are better designed to deny claimants than help them.

“My advice to younger people doing this work is: Be careful,” she says. “I thought my government would back me up if I got sick and take care of me. That never happened. It sounds really bitter. But yeah, I’m bitter. I consider myself a walking time-bomb.”

The safety record of Los Alamos has always been intensely scrutinized, particularly in the post-Cold War years. “Is There Really a Cowboy Culture of Arrogance at Los Alamos?” ran a Dec. 2004 headline in the trade publication Physics Today. The question followed a series of high-profile lapses at the lab, including a trove of missing classified documents and an incident in which an intern suffered an eye injury from a laser. The biggest blunder arguably came in 2011, when technicians took a photograph of eight ingots of plutonium lined up side-by-side on a work table to impress their bosses. It may have looked cool to them, but putting radioactive rods in close proximity risked triggering a chain reaction that could have produced a fatal burst of radiation, known as Cherenkov radiation, capable of killing anyone in the room. Plutonium pit production ended the following year, and hasn’t restarted until now.

In 2018, Triad National Security was named as the new contractor to run the lab for the U.S. Energy Department. The company has stated that safety is a core pillar of its operations, including pit production. But workers’ missteps continue to be cited by the the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which provides independent federal oversight. Jill Hruby, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department agency that oversees nuclear weapons, wrote a letter in May to Triad for a formal explanation on four “nuclear safety events” that took place between February and July 2021. The incidents included two separate floods, a glovebox breach, and an instance in which an unsafe amount of fissionable material was placed in a dropbox. An investigation attached to the letter noted a “significant lack of attention or carelessness” for worker and public safety.

Mistakes like these only heighten skepticism about how Los Alamos can possibly mass-produce plutonium pits on the appointed schedule without risking the health of its workers and surrounding community. Lab officials recognize that the project will generate unprecedented levels of hazardous waste. The most radioactive waste Los Alamos produces, called transuranic waste, primarily involves contaminated gloves, tools, equipment, and other debris that are typically stuffed into 55-gallon drums stored on site until they can be hauled to an underground facility in southeastern New Mexico. The lab projected the number of drums to spike to 2,000 this year, double the tally of just three years ago, according to a 2021 report delivered to Congress.

“It’s difficult to comprehend the level of contamination, the diversion of amounts of money into something that, in my view, will not improve national security,” says Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a Santa Fe-based watchdog.

The dangers, of course, stretch far beyond New Mexico. Dread of nuclear annihilation hung over the globe throughout the Cold War. That fear is practically inscribed by history in the creosote-dotted hills around Los Alamos, the birthplace of The Bomb. Located atop a secluded mesa between the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo mountains, its transformation from a high desert outpost into a boomtown began in 1943, when more than 8,000 scientists, soldiers, and other personnel arrived to work for the Manhattan Project’s secret “Site Y” laboratory, under the direction of the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The picturesque setting for Oppenheimer’s pursuit of an atomic bomb contributed to the sense of insularity. Outsiders were not welcome. The people who worked and lived at Los Alamos were bound by secrecy and, with few exceptions, unable to leave. To this day, the people on this isolated plateau say they’re “on the hill,” which by default means that everyone else in the world is “off” it. But the ingrained seclusion of Los Alamos isn’t just semantic and geographic. It’s hard to find anyone in the community of 13,000 who doesn’t either work at the lab or have a neighbor, friend, or family member who does. It is a company town where even the street names gesture to its controversial past: Oppenheimer Drive, Trinity Drive, Manhattan Loop.

The lab developed the first atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of Japanese in 1945. Those were crude, comparatively simple devices that produced explosive yields measured in kilotons, or thousands of tons of TNT. In the arms race that ensued over the following decades, weapons designers at Los Alamos came up with ever more lightweight and destructive weapons—some so small that they allowed for a dozen city-busting warheads to fit inside a single ballistic missile’s nose cone. Today’s staged-thermonuclear devices produce explosive yields measured in megatons, or millions of tons of TNT—weapons far more lethal than Oppenheimer’s original. When the U.S. began pursuing such bombs, Oppenheimer discouraged it, calling them a “weapon of genocide.”

Oppenheimer envisioned the A-bomb program as a one-off for a narrow mission. Instead, nuclear bomb-making became a full-fledged American industry. Los Alamos was just one facet of a nationwide nuclear-industrial complex, cranking out weapons components for an arsenal that the U.S. wielded to deter the Soviet Union’s aggression by threatening “massive retaliation” and “mutually assured destruction.” In 1967, around the height of the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear stockpile reached 31,255.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, nuclear weapons-production stalled. The number of U.S. sites involved in making warheads was cut in half. President George H.W. Bush declared a self-imposed nuclear-weapons testing moratorium in 1992. The number of warheads in the U.S. stockpile was continually reduced through a series of arms-control treaties with Moscow. Today the nuclear stockpile stands at an estimated 5,244 warheads—an 83% reduction from its Cold War peak.

The reduction brought challenges: if the U.S. could no longer build or design the next world-altering bomb, what could government officials do to retain the expertise of scientists? And how would the ensure the integrity of the arsenal without being able to test the products? Nuclear bombs contain more than 4,000 parts, and most of those parts are now more than 30 years old. Ask yourself: If you left a 1993 Ford Mustang in the barn—a temperature-controlled vault of a barn, but a barn nonetheless—would you feel 100% certain that everything would work properly when you turned the ignition? Oh, and don’t forget that your life may depend on it.

The answer the Energy Department came up with was to harness computer simulations and experiments to evaluate the reliability—and extend the life spans of—America’s nuclear weapons. The most vexing dilemma was assessing plutonium, an element only discovered 80 years ago. To find out how it ages, Los Alamos ran experiments in the early 2000s that found plutonium pits changed over the years in ways that could impact weapons’ performance. But the studies couldn’t provide specifics on when exactly plutonium aged out. At first, scientists concluded the pits should last for 100 years or more. But in 2019, after Congress began pushing for more pits, JASON, the long-time independent scientific advisory group to the U.S. government, urged the Energy Department to reestablish large-scale pit production “as expeditiously as possible to mitigate against potential risks posed by (plutonium) aging on the stockpile.”

The day before my tour of PF-4, I visited the modernistic three-story Municipal Building in Los Alamos to see how the small town was preparing for the coming influx of scientists, technicians, engineers, security guards and support staff. “We’re building as fast as we can,” says Paul Andrus, the community-development director. Roads are being widened. Expansion plans are underway for Atomic City mass transit. Wooden skeletons of condos and housing developments are in the process of getting built in any area they’ll fit.

But finding suitable spots for new construction is a challenge. In addition to the 40-acre lab, Los Alamos is hemmed in by canyons and abuts Bandelier National Monument. The lack of housing is concerning not only because of the incoming workers, but also the teachers, doctors, and other professionals who will be needed alongside them. “We’re just out of space,” says Denise Derkacs, a former lab employee who now serves on the county council. “We would love to help support the lab more, but we just have no more land to build on.” This lack of available space has forced Los Alamos to forge closer ties with communities off the hill. The lab leased two buildings in Santa Fe, located more than 30 miles to the southeast, where it moved hundreds of employees not involved in classified work. The transition, which began in 2021, marked the first time in a half century that the lab had a presence in the city.

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At the Energy Summit 2923 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Edwin De los Santos, President of AES DOMINICANA, emphasized the company's strong commitment to global environmental preservation.

“The relationship between energy and development is symbiotic and interdependent. “

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Wang Yi, center, returns to a job he exited at the end of last year. PHOTO: FLORENCE LO/POOL REUTERS/ASSOCIATED PRESS/ Editing by Germán & Co

China’s Foreign Minister Replaced After Unexplained Absence

Qin Gang is removed months after Xi Jinping promoted him to head the Foreign Ministry

TWP By Chun Han Wong,  July 25, 2023 

SINGAPORE—China replaced Foreign Minister Qin Gang, whose mysterious disappearance from the public stage weeks ago sent a wave of uncertainty through the country’s political system.

China hasn’t explained the disappearance of Qin, originally handpicked for the job by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, except to cite vague health issues. At a hastily convened session on Tuesday, the Chinese legislature’s standing committee decided that Wang Yi, the former foreign minister and currently China’s top diplomat, would retake his old post.

The lawmakers didn’t provide a reason for their decision to remove the 57-year-old Qin, who became foreign minister in December. His absence from major diplomatic engagements since late June had fueled speculation inside and outside China about what happened to him and cast a global spotlight on the country’s black-box political system.

China’s Foreign Ministry previously cited health reasons for Qin’s absence from a regional diplomatic meeting in Indonesia this month.

Wang, a 69-year-old member of the Communist Party’s elite 24-member Politburo, previously served as foreign minister from early 2013 until December last year. He became China’s top diplomat when he joined the Politburo in October as its leading foreign-affairs specialist.

State media reports didn’t mention any change to Wang’s existing party roles, suggesting he would occupy both his Politburo and Foreign Ministry positions concurrently—an arrangement that had typically taken place during a transition period between officeholders.

Tuesday’s session of the National People’s Congress standing committee was arranged just a day in advance, an unusually short notice, and outside the typical two-month cycle for regular standing committee sessions. The decision to convene the session came on the same day as a meeting of the Communist Party’s Politburo—spurring speculation that lawmakers would confirm personnel changes that Xi and other party leaders approved Monday.

State media readouts from Tuesday’s legislative session didn’t mention any change to Qin’s role as state councilor, a senior government rank in China’s cabinet. It wasn’t clear if Qin would retain his seat on the party’s Central Committee, of which he became a full member in October.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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The logo of Malaysian energy group National Petroleum Limited, commonly known as PETRONAS, is displayed at their booth during the LNG 2023 energy trade show in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, July 12, 2023. REUTERS/Chris Helgren/File Photo

Indonesia's big gas projects to proceed after global majors sell stakes

Reuters By Fransiska Nangoy and Bernadette Christina

TANGERANG, Indonesia, July 25 (Reuters) - Shell (SHEL.L) and Chevron's (CVX.N) agreements to sell stakes in major Indonesian gas projects to Pertamina, Petronas and Eni (ENI.MI) will unleash development at the fields, enabling the country to boost its flagging output, the buyers said.

Indonesia has seen declining oil and gas production in recent years due to depleting reserves, and as major new projects face delays due to oil majors' exits.

After signing a deal on Tuesday to buy a 20% stake in the Masela gas block from Shell, Nicke Widyawati, CEO of Indonesian state energy firm Pertamina, told reporters at the Indonesia Petroleum Association conference that a final investment decision on the project would be made in 2026.

Shell had been looking to sell its 35% interest in the project since 2019. Under the agreement signed on Tuesday, Malaysia's Petronas will buy Shell's other 15% stake.

"Our participation underscores the commitment in supporting Indonesia's production target to achieve one million barrels of oil per day and 12 billion standard cubic feet per day of gas by 2030," Petronas group CEO Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik said.

Abadi LNG, led by Japan's Inpex Corp (1605.T), will use gas from the Masela block to produce 9.5 million metric tons per year of LNG at its peak, which will be shipped from the proposed terminal for domestic industries and overseas customers.

Dwi Soetjipto, the CEO of Indonesian upstream regulator SKK Migas, told Reuters at the same conference that an FID on the project could be reached as early as end-2024.

FAST TRACK

Eni also signed a deal on Tuesday to take over Chevron's stake in the IDD gas project. It said the acquisition will allow it to fast-track development of the resource, in which it was already a partner along with Pertamina and China's Sinopec (600028.SS).

The IDD project involves the Bangka, Gendalo and Gehem gas fields, and its development will integrate the nearby Jangkrik and North Ganal blocks operated by Eni in the Kutai basin.

It will also leverage the Jangkrik infrastructure and the existing Bontang LNG facility, in which Eni holds a stake, Eni said. Chevron confirmed the sale and said it continues to invest in Indonesia.

SKK Migas also said on Tuesday that three to five potential investors from the Middle East and Asia have started assessing the Tuna natural gas project in a possible sale of Russian firm Zarubezhneft's stake.

British firm Harbour Energy (HBR.L) is currently partnering with Zarubezhneft on the gas field, but Zarubezhneft plans to pull out of the project due to a lack of progress following sanctions on Russian companies.

The Tuna field is expected to reach peak production of 115 million standard cubic feet per day in 2027. Gas from the field will be exported to Vietnam from 2026.

Indonesia still has "huge potential" from natural gas resources, its Energy Minister Arifin Tasrif told the conference earlier, and would exploit gas as a bridge fuel in its transition to greener forms of energy.

Big producers have in recent years promoted gas, which has lower emissions than coal when burned, as a transition fuel to smooth out intermittent supply from renewables. The move has been fiercely resisted by environmentalists.

Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy, Bernadette Christina Munthe; Writing by Florence Tan and Emily Chow; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Christian Schmollinger and Kim Coghill

Corp (1605.T), will use gas from the Masela block to produce 9.5 million metric tons per year of LNG at its peak, which will be shipped from the proposed terminal for domestic industries and overseas customers.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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After a rally this year, the S&P 500 has climbed about 27% from its recent bottom. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

Stock Market Shrugs Off Recession Signals as Rally Builds

S&P 500 is trading near its highest level since April 2022 as hopes grow for a soft landing

WSJ By Karen Langley, July 25, 2023 

After a rally this year, the S&P 500 has climbed about 27% from its recent bottom. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

Stocks have floated higher as Wall Street dials back its recession forecasts. Some investors aren’t ready to call the all-clear.

They point to worrying economic signals, lofty equity valuations and the possibility that the Federal Reserve continues raising interest rates or keeps them elevated longer than the market anticipates. The S&P 500, meanwhile, has advanced 19% this year even as analysts expect 2023 corporate earnings to barely inch up.

“There’s not a lot of leeway for bad news right now in equities,” said Mike Mullaney, director of global markets research at Boston Partners.

Investors are all but certain that the central bank will raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point Wednesday. Their focus is on the future: any sign of whether Fed officials expect to lift rates higher from there.

Not long ago, brutally hot inflation and the Fed’s plans to fight it made the prognosis for markets and the economy appear bleak. 

Since the early 1950s, every episode of significant U.S. disinflation, each of which was driven at least partly by Fed tightening, has been accompanied by recession, according to Deutsche Bank research. That has been bad news for stocks: In recessions since the late 1940s, the S&P 500 has fallen a median of 24%, according to the bank’s research. 

Last year the stock market seemed to be signaling such a contraction, with the S&P 500 sliding 25% from its high in January 2022 to its low in October. 

Index performance

Source: FactSet

Many investors expected more of the same at the start of 2023. Instead, stocks roared higher out of the gate. The S&P 500 emerged last month from its longest bear market since the 1940s and has now climbed 27% from its bottom. It is hovering near its highest levels since April 2022.

Inflation has cooled and the economy keeps motoring along. The jobs market remains robust, with the unemployment rate hitting a 53-year low earlier this year before ticking up just slightly. Americans have been spending more at retail businesses. Economists are raising estimates for gross domestic product in the second and third quarters.

The Federal Reserve is central to the U.S. economy today, but its power has been built over decades. Its decisions can lower inflation or spark a recession. WSJ explains how the Fed was formed and the role it plays in the country. Photo Illustration: Annie Zhao

“There’s an actual chance here the Fed could stick the landing,” said Dryden Pence, chief investment officer at Pence Capital Management.

Still, there are reasons for concern. The Conference Board said last week that its leading economic index fell for a 15th consecutive month, signaling slowing economic activity ahead. That is the index’s longest streak of declines since a span from the spring of 2007 through early 2009. The U.S. economy fell into a recession in December 2007 and didn’t exit until June 2009. 

The bond market is flashing another warning sign. Normally, longer-term U.S. Treasurys carry higher yields than shorter-term ones, paying investors for the risk that interest rates rise or inflation accelerates. When the longer-term yields are lower, it often suggests that investors think the Fed will need to cut rates to resuscitate the economy. 

The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note has been lower than that of the 2-year Treasury for more than a year, the longest streak since a span ending in 1980, according to Dow Jones Market Data.  

There have also been glimpses of weakening in the market for bank loans. Loan officers at U.S. banks told the Federal Reserve earlier this year that they had tightened lending standards for households and businesses and also seen lower demand from borrowers. Tighter lending conditions can weigh on economic growth as firms pull back on investment and hiring and consumers have less money at their disposal.

Hans Olsen, chief investment officer at Fiduciary Trust, said he finds the stock market’s rally perplexing given the warning signs from various economic indicators. His firm sold U.S. stocks in April and is holding more cash than usual to protect against a market downturn, he said.  

“When you looked at that data set, you went, hold on here, this kind of looks like a classic slowdown in an economy that eventually slides into some form of contraction,” Olsen said.

Such concerns come as the stock market is boasting rich valuations relative to history. The S&P 500 traded late last week at 19.6 times its projected earnings over the next 12 months, up from 16.8 at the end of last year and above a 10-year average of 17.7, according to FactSet. 

Although there is no rule that valuations can’t stay elevated, or climb even higher, some investors worry that the high price tag makes the market more vulnerable to a pullback. 

And while inflation has cooled notably, easing in June to its slowest pace in more than two years, it remains well above the Fed’s 2% target. Central bank officials may not be satisfied without lifting rates again later this year or keeping them high for an extended period. And that could have unpredictable consequences.

“Everyone’s sort of come to peace with a higher fed-funds rate,” said Katie Nixon, chief investment officer at Northern Trust Wealth Management. “I don’t think we’ve quite come to grips with what the implications of staying at that level for a prolonged period of time might mean for the economy and certainly for the markets.”

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Image by Germán & Co

Putin appeared paralyzed and unable to act in first hours of rebellion

TWP By Catherine Belton, Shane Harris and Greg Miller, July 25, 2023 

LONDON — When Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, launched his attempted mutiny on the morning of June 24, Vladimir Putin was paralyzed and unable to act decisively, according to Ukrainian and other security officials in Europe. No orders were issued for most of the day, the officials said.

The Russian president had been warned by the Russian security services at least two or three days ahead of time that Prigozhin was preparing a possible rebellion, according to intelligence assessments shared with The Washington Post. Steps were taken to boost security at several strategic facilities, including the Kremlin, where staffing in the presidential guard was increased and more weapons were handed out, but otherwise no actions were taken, these officials said.

“Putin had time to take the decision to liquidate [the rebellion] and arrest the organizers” said one of the European security officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence. “Then when it began to happen, there was paralysis on all levels … There was absolute dismay and confusion. For a long time, they did not know how to react.”

This account of the standoff, corroborated by officials in Western governments, provides the most detailed look at the paralysis and disarray inside the Kremlin during the first hours of the severest challenge to Putin’s 23-year presidency. It is consistent with public comments by CIA Director William J. Burns last week that for much of the 36 hours of the mutiny Russian security services, the military and decision-makers “appeared to be adrift.”

It also appears to expose Putin’s fear of directly countering a renegade warlord who’d developed support within Russia’s security establishment over a decade. Prigozhin had become an integral part of the Kremlin global operations by running troll farms disseminating disinformation in the United States and paramilitary operations in the Middle East and Africa, before officially taking a vanguard position in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told The Post that the intelligence assessments were “nonsense” and shared “by people who have zero information.”

The longtime symbiosis of the two men, who first met in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, has exposed the weaknesses of Putin’s crony system of management, where rival clans are pitted against each other, and which has been stretched to breaking point by the war.

Who is Yevgeniy Prigozhin, Wagner chief who stirred a crisis in Russia?

The lack of orders from the Kremlin’s top command left local officials to decide for themselves how to act, according to the European security officials, when Prigozhin’s Wagner troops stunned the world by entering the southern Russian city of Rostov in the early hours of June 24, seizing control of the Russian military’s main command center there, and then moved into the city of Voronezh, before heading further north toward Moscow.

Without any clear orders, local military and security chiefs took the decision not to try to stop the heavily armed Wagner troops, the security officials said.

Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District amid the group's pullout from the city of Rostov, Russia, on June 24. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

Many on the local level could not believe the Wagner rebellion could be happening without some degree of agreement with the Kremlin, the security officials said — despite Putin’s emergency televised address to the nation on the morning of the mutiny in which he vowed tough action to stop the rebels, and despite a warrant issued for Prigozhin’s arrest for “incitement to insurrection” on the eve of his march to Moscow.

“The local authorities did not receive any commands from the leadership,” said a senior Ukrainian security official. “From our point of view this is the biggest sign of the unhealthy situation inside Russia. The authoritarian system is formed in such a way that without a very clear command from the leadership, people don’t do anything. When the leadership is in turmoil and disarray, it the same situation at the local level and even worse.”

The intelligence information helps explain what’s been seen as the biggest debacle of Putin’s rule — how Prigozhin’s armed band of fighters, demanding the ouster of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and armed forces chief of staff Valery Gerasimov, were able to proceed to within 120 miles of Moscow without facing resistance, before eventually agreeing to turn around after a deal was brokered with the help of Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president.

The disarray in the Kremlin also reflects a deepening divide inside Russia’s security and military establishment over the conduct of the war in Ukraine, with many including in the upper reaches of the security services and military supporting Prigozhin’s drive to oust Russia’s top military leadership, the European security officials said.

“Some supported Prigozhin and the idea that the leadership needs to be cleaned up, that the fish is rotting from the head,” one of these officials said.

One senior NATO official said some senior figures in Moscow appeared ready to rally behind Prigozhin had he succeeded in achieving his demands. “There seem to have been important people in the power structures … who seem to have even been sort of waiting for this, as if his attempt had been more successful, they would also” have joined the plot, this official said.

Prigozhin’s increasingly vitriolic tirades blaming corruption and mismanagement by the Russian military command for battlefield setbacks and high casualties in the war against Ukraine had resonated with many sectors of Russian society. Many in the rank and file of the Russian army also wanted Prigozhin to succeed in forcing change at the top of the Russian military, believing that then “it would become easier for them to fight,” this official said.

But others in the security establishment were horrified at the mutiny attempt, and at the Kremlin’s toothless reaction, convinced it was leading Russia toward a period of deep turmoil, officials said.

“There was disarray. You could argue about the depth of it, but there really was lack of agreement,” said a senior member of Russian diplomatic circles. “We heard all these statements. They were not always consistent … For some time, they did not know how to react,” he said. Putin had vowed to crush the rebellion on the morning the rebellion began but by the time he finally emerged in public more than 48 hours later, he said all steps had been taken on his “direct order” to avoid major bloodshed.

Members of the Russian elite said the division over the conduct of the war and its handling by the Russian military leadership, will continue, despite a public relations drive by the Kremlin to demonstrate Putin is in control and the start of a campaign to purge the ranks of the Russian military of critics and Prigozhin’s supporters among Russian ultranationalists.

On Friday Igor Girkin, a controversial former Russian commander in Ukraine who has been vocal in denouncing the Russian military leadership, was arrested. Several high-ranking generals perceived to be close to Prigozhin, including Gen. Sergei Surovikin, who was often praised by the Wagner leader, have disappeared from public view.

The lack of direction from the Kremlin during the crisis has left Putin significantly weakened, according to his critics. “Putin showed himself to be a person who is not able to make serious, important and quick decisions in critical situations. He just hid,” said Gennady Gudkov, a former colonel in the Russian security services who is now an opposition politician in exile. “This was not understood by most of the Russian population. But it was very well understood by Putin’s elite. He is no longer the guarantor of their security and the preservation of the system.”

“Russia is a country of mafia rules. And Putin made an unforgivable mistake,” said a senior Moscow financier with ties to the Russian intelligence services. “He lost his reputation as the toughest man in town.”

Ukraine is now the most mined country. It will take decades to make safe.

The conflict between Prigozhin and the Russian military leadership had been building up for months, and the possibility of conflict increased sharply when the Russian Defense Ministry decreed June 10 that Wagner fighters had to sign contracts with the ministry from July 1, essentially ending Prigozhin’s control of the mercenary group — and the billions of dollars in government contracts attached to it.

When the security service warnings appeared that Prigozhin could be mounting some kind of rebellion, some in the security establishment believed the preparations could be no more than a bluff to increase pressure and gain more leverage to secure his control of Wagner, one of the European security officials said.

To some degree, if Prigozhin’s mutiny was an attempt to gain leverage, it worked. Putin was apparently forced into compromise with the renegade leader, allowing him to travel around Russia for days after the mutiny, because Prigozhin’s work for the Kremlin was too deeply intertwined with the interests of Putin’s state, according to several of the security officials, and Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled human rights activist who has interviewed several former Wagner fighters. Instead of prosecuting Prigozhin for leading the armed insurrection, Putin agreed to drop the charges. In exchange, Prigozhin halted the march on Moscow, withdrew his men from key military installations and agreed to decamp to Belarus, keeping at least part of Wagner intact.

Russia has deployed private mercenary groups as a shadow arm of the state to protect Kremlin interests, “where the state is without strength or cannot officially act,” according to a report drawn up for a Russian parliamentary roundtable on legalizing the private paramilitary organizations in 2015. The report was obtained by the Dossier Center, an investigative group founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the exiled Putin opponent, and shared with The Post.

“Private paramilitary groups can become effective instruments of state foreign policy,” the report states. “The presence of private military groups in the planet’s ‘hot spots’ will increase Russia’s sphere of influence, win new allies for the country and allow the obtaining of additional interesting intelligence and diplomatic information which ultimately will increase Russia’s weight globally.”

The intertwining of Wagner with the interests of Russian intelligence, with its upper ranks staffed with former members of Russian military intelligence, and its leading role in operations in Syria, Libya and across Africa, where it gained access to extensive mining rights, has meant it was impossible for Putin to swiftly bring the curtain down on Prigozhin’s operations, Osechkin said. Prigozhin “worked for more than 20 years for Putin’s team. He did a lot for their interests in a whole series of countries. He has a huge amount of information” about them, Osechkin said.

“They created a monster for themselves,” one of the European security officials said.

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News round-up, July 24, 2023

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Quote of the day…

'The Spanish Conservatives' capitulation to the far right would reverberate across the continent'

Le Mode by  Op-Ed , Gordon Brown,  former UK prime minister

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Most read…

Gordon Brown: 'The Spanish Conservatives' capitulation to the far right would reverberate across the continent'

Le Mode by  Op-Ed , Gordon Brown,  former UK prime minister

Climate crisis: 'Warming is right in line with early predictions. But many of the impacts are exceeding predictions'

InterviewFor climatologist Michael E. Mann, the extreme phenomena affecting the planet are not the result of a sudden acceleration in global warming. But, he warns, without strong action, a runaway effect cannot be ruled out.

Le Monde by Audrey Garric, published yesterday (Paris)

Venezuela’s Oil Industry Is Broken. Now It’s Breaking the Environment.

Gas flares and leaking pipelines from Venezuela’s once-booming oil industry, hobbled by U.S. sanctions and mismanagement, are polluting towns and a major lake.

NYT By Isayen Herrera, Sheyla Urdaneta,  Adriana Loureiro Fernandez and Sheyla Urdaneta, July 23, 2023

Ukraine-Russia war live: Ukrainian drones 'strike near Russian defence ministry

Russia said it thwarted a Ukrainian “terrorist act” on Moscow as two drones hit non-residential buildings, with one crashing near the defence ministry.

The Telegrpah Now

Two Kennedys on covid

TWP Analysis by Dan Diamond with research by McKenzie Beard,  July 21, 2023 

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Gordon Brown: Child poverty is growing to ‘horrendous’ levels under Tories and SNP/The Sunday Post/Editing by Germán & Co

Gordon Brown: 'The Spanish Conservatives' capitulation to the far right would reverberate across the continent'

Le Mode by  Op-Ed , Gordon Brown,  former UK prime minister

The former British Prime Minister deplores the Spanish People's Party's plan to ally itself with Vox and its hyper-nationalist, anti-LGBT and anti-immigration program in the event of victory.

Spain's general election Sunday matters not just for the country's future but also for the future of Europe. A defeat for socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez would likely propel the extreme right-wing Vox party from back street demagogues to parliamentary power, and if, as is widely expected, Vox and the Popular Party (PP) enter into a coalition government, it will mark the end of Spain's long aversion to far-right politicians, which has endured since the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1975.

Should Vox become part of Spain's government, its chilling, hyper-nationalist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist, and anti-immigrant agenda would push Europe one step further into a right-wing abyss. The capitulation to Vox by Spanish center-right conservatives, who have traditionally rejected alliances with the far-right but are now desperate to return to power, would reverberate across the continent, particularly given that Spain recently assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union.

This alignment between Spain's conservative and far-right parties has resulted in an election campaign dominated by culture-war issues. Lurid Vox propaganda has demonized immigrants, gays, and feminists, portraying Sánchez and his party as enemies of the state. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the PP president of Madrid, has labeled her political opponents "communists." Seeking to evoke memories of the anticlerical violence throughout Spain before and during the Spanish Civil War, she even accused the opposition of wanting to burn down Catholic churches.

In reply, Sánchez has characterized the upcoming election, which follows the Socialist Party's poor showing in local and regional elections in May, as an existential battle for the future of Spanish democracy. And now, in the last few days of the campaign, the socialist former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has raised the stakes, claiming that "the center-right no longer exists," only the ultra-right, and that having abandoned the center, PP "has gone off the map." Ayuso has already responded in kind to such attacks: "When they call you a fascist, you know you're doing something right."

Reagan-Thatcher doctrine

In addition to targeting civil rights, Spanish rightists have set their sights on rejecting regional autonomy. For years Vox has proposed banning the Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, and there is a genuine risk that after years of relative calm under Sánchez's leadership, a divided Spain could witness a resurgence of separatist, secessionist movements.

The right's embrace of the culture wars is a deliberate strategy to obscure the threat that their neoliberal economic policies pose to living standards and social equity. The PP's agenda, which is taken straight from the Reagan-Thatcher playbook, seeks to abolish Spain's current wealth tax, slash the personal income tax, privatize the country's utilities, and cut social security. When former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss attempted to implement a similar outdated agenda in 2022, she nearly tanked the British economy.

At the same time, the PP's focus on culture-war issues is aimed at diverting attention from the economic achievements of Sánchez and his coalition as well as his green agenda. Since taking office in 2018, Sánchez's government has made significant strides in reducing high levels of inequality and poverty in Spain. Moreover, Sánchez has successfully brokered an inflation-stabilizing agreement on wages, endorsed by both unions and employers, calling for a 4% wage increase in 2023 and 3% increase in 2024 and 2025, and, currently, the country has the highest growth rate and one of the lowest inflation rates in the eurozone.

If re-elected, Sánchez would focus on housing, which he views as Spain's "great national cause" for the next decade. He has also proposed new health-care guarantees, including maximum waiting periods of 60 days for specialized outpatient consultations and 15 days for psychological care for teenagers and children under the age of 15.

Symbiosis between far-right movements

Spain is far from the only European country where the rise of the extreme right poses a threat. Across the continent, the growing popularity of far-right parties has driven previously moderate parties to embrace extreme positions.

In Germany, the nativist Alternative für Deutschland, now rising in the polls, is pushing the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, further to the right. And in Finland, the ultraconservative Finns Party has formed a coalition government with the center-right, forcing it to pursue tough anti-immigration policies. A similar pattern can be observed in other Western European countries from Sweden to Austria, and it may appear in next year's European Parliament elections. And, of course, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, is further right than any leader the country has had since Benito Mussolini.

The emerging symbiosis between Europe's far-right movements has been supported by wealthy allies in the United States. In September 2022, representatives from 16 European nativist parties, including Poland's ruling Law and Justice, Slovak populists led by former prime minister Robert Fico, and former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša's far-right movement, gathered in Miami for the National Conservatism Conference, where the keynote speaker was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is also a Republican presidential candidate and Donald Trump impersonator.

The Florida conference bore a striking resemblance to another far-right summit organized by the same group and held at Rome's Grand Hotel Plaza in February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Hoping to establish a far-right alternative to the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, attendees championed nationalism, tradition, and the nuclear family as bulwarks against "globalist" attempts to destroy Europe's countries and their respective cultures. It was during this gathering that Meloni outlined her agenda, which ultimately resonated with Italian voters, for "defending national identity and the very existence of the nation-states as the sole means of safeguarding people's sovereignty and freedom."

Ironically, each member of this unlikely global coalition of anti-globalists claims to speak for their own country's unique cultural heritage and their desire to be free from international entanglements while simultaneously using identical us-versus-them xenophobic rhetoric to stoke nativist fears. It has been 175 years since Karl Marx heralded a specter haunting Europe. Today, however, it is not the specter of communism, as Marx had hoped, but that of populist nationalism. The outcome of Spain's election could highlight the gravity and urgency of the threat.

Gordon Brown, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010, is the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education.

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At the Energy Summit 2923 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Edwin De los Santos, President of AES DOMINICANA, emphasized the company's strong commitment to global environmental preservation.

“The relationship between energy and development is symbiotic and interdependent. “

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Image by Le Monde/ Editing by Germán & Co

Climate crisis: 'Warming is right in line with early predictions. But many of the impacts are exceeding predictions'

“For climatologist Michael E. Mann, the extreme phenomena affecting the planet are not the result of a sudden acceleration in global warming. But, he warns, without strong action, a runaway effect cannot be ruled out.

Le Monde by Audrey Garric, published yesterday (Paris)

Over 50°C in the USA and China, around 45°C in Italy, Spain and Greece, deadly floods in South Korea, raging fires in Canada and unprecedented temperatures in the North Atlantic: The planet is experiencing a series of climate catastrophes. July could be the hottest month on record, after June. Climatologist Michael E. Mann, Director of the Center for Science and the Environment at the University of Pennsylvania (USA), refutes the idea that global warming is accelerating, but warns that we could reach tipping points if we continue to use fossil fuels.

South Korean rescuers search for missing people in an underground tunnel where some 15 cars were trapped by heavy rain in Cheongju on July 16, 2023. STR / AFP

Does the current succession of extremes and records mark a new normal?

As I like to point out, it's worse than a new normal – it's a moving baseline of ever-worsening impacts as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels and generate carbon pollution. These episodes are a reminder that we can not only expect to see records broken, but shattered, if we continue burning fossil fuels and heating up the planet. This year, the El Niño phenomenon, a warming of the equatorial Pacific that can increase global temperatures, is adding to this trend.

Has the climate gone out of control?

This is not the case. It's getting steadily worse and that's bad enough. There's no evidence of runaway feedback process or tipping points that have been crossed. But Earth's long-term history provides examples of where things did spin out of control, often in surprising ways, a reminder that this cannot be ruled out for us if we continue to burn fossil fuels, generate carbon pollution, and warm the planet. We still have time to prevent the worst effects from occurring if we act now.

For scientists like Johan Rockström, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, we have already exceeded seven of the eight "safe and just" planetary limits, thresholds beyond which humanity would be in peril...

I think there's some misunderstanding in the language. Are we talking about climate tipping points or societal tipping points. These are not the same thing. Whether or not we've exceed 6 planetary limits (I don't think there's any consensus at all that's the case), that's not the same as a climate tipping point. Steady, linear warming could in principle lead to a societal tipping point, because there's a point beyond which the complex system of the economy can no longer function. But there is no evidence that things are spinning out of control. Instead they're getting steadily worse as the planet warms in response to our continued burning of fossil fuels. So yes, there is great urgency. And there's not the slightest consensus about planetary limits.

Are the current impacts of the climate crisis in line with model predictions?

The warming itself [ 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels] is right in line with early climate model predictions. But many of the impacts are exceeding the model predictions. The best example of that is extreme summer weather events – like we are seeing play out in North America, Europe and Asia this summer, from heat waves to wildfires and floods. We can also cite the melting of the ice caps, the shrinking of the Arctic ice pack and rising sea levels.

“Other scientists, such as James Hansen, former director of NASA's main climate science laboratory, are talking about accelerated warming...

I have the utmost respect for Jim. He's been one of the key contributors to our science for decades. But I think he's just incorrect when he claims there's evidence of acceleration of warming. The warming is steady and that's bad enough!

The World Meteorological Organization considers that we are entering "uncharted territory." Do you agree?

It depends on what you mean. There are examples of far greater extremes in Earth history. So in that sense, no. But, over the time span of the emergence of human civilization, are we entering uncharted territory? The answer is almost certainly yes. July will likely be the hottest month this planet has seen in more than 100,000 years.

If we stop emissions immediately, will global warming and its effects stop immediately?

Surface warming stops very soon after emissions reach zero. There is increasing scientific consensus on that point, and the impacts that are tied to surface warming – such as extreme summer weather events – will stabilize when that happens. Some impacts, however, like deep ocean warming, ice shelf collapse and ice sheet destabilization, sea level rise, ocean acidification, could continue on for some time. So no, not all impacts will stop getting worse, and we'll need to focus on adapting to those changes that are inevitable. But much of it will stop getting worse. The bottom line is we've got to stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible. I don't think there is any disagreement about that among experts – at least I hope not.

By focusing on achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, aren't we forgetting that it's the accumulation of emissions between now and then that counts?

It is absolutely the rate at which emissions fall that matter. Our carbon budget [maximum emissions] for 1.5°C warming is rapidly decreasing. That's the reason the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] talks about needing to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and reach net zero by mid century, to have a decent change of averting 1.5°C warming. Of course, climate impacts aren't a cliff at 1.5°C. I prefer the analogy of a mine field. The greater the warming, the greater the danger.

What's your view on political action in favor of the climate and on the forthcoming world conference (COP28) to be held in December in Dubai (United Arab Emirates)?

I'm worried about the process being hijacked. In the past, I've counseled others to be supportive of the UN climate negotiation process as it's our only multilateral framework for coordinated global action. And I continue to feel that this framework is essential. But I”m troubled, as are many climate activists, by the way it has been hijacked recently by oil-producing middle east nations that have an awful track record on climate. Just as I'm troubled by the way that Saudi Arabia is trying to reabilitate it's deserved reputation as a ruthless petrostate, so am I concerned of the potential for the COP process to be hijacked by bad actors using it as an opportunity to greenwash their terrible legacy on climate.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Source: NYT/Adriana Loureiro Fernandez

Venezuela’s Oil Industry Is Broken. Now It’s Breaking the Environment.

Gas flares and leaking pipelines from Venezuela’s once-booming oil industry, hobbled by U.S. sanctions and mismanagement, are polluting towns and a major lake.

NYT By Isayen Herrera, Sheyla Urdaneta,  Adriana Loureiro Fernandez and Sheyla Urdaneta, July 23, 2023

Each morning, José Aguilera inspects the leaves of his banana and coffee plants on his farm in eastern Venezuela and calculates how much he can harvest — almost nothing.

Explosive gas flares from nearby oil wells spew an oily, flammable residue on the plants. The leaves burn, dry up and wither.

“There is no poison that can fight the oil,” he said. “When it falls, everything dries up.”

Venezuela’s oil industry, which helped transform the country’s fortunes, has been decimated by mismanagement and several years of U.S. sanctions imposed on the country’s authoritarian government, leaving behind a ravaged economy and a devastated environment.

The state-owned oil company has struggled to maintain minimal production for export to other countries, as well as domestic consumption. But to do so it has sacrificed basic maintenance and relied on increasingly shoddy equipment that has led to a growing environmental toll, environmental activists say.

Mr. Aguilera lives in El Tejero, a town nearly 300 miles east of Caracas, the capital, in an oil-rich region known for towns that never see the darkness of night. Gas flares from oil wells light up at all hours with a roaring thunder, their vibrations causing the walls of rickety houses to crack.

Many residents complain of having respiratory diseases like asthma, which scientists say can be aggravated by emissions from gas flares. Rain brings down an oily film that corrodes car engines, turns white clothes dark and stains notebooks that children carry to school.

And yet, paradoxically, widespread fuel shortages in the country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves mean virtually no one in this region has cooking gas at home.

Soon after President Hugo Chávez rose to power in the 1990s with promises to use the country’s oil wealth to lift up the poor, he fired thousands of oil workers, including engineers and geologists, and replaced them with political supporters, took control of foreign-owned oil assets, and neglected safety and environmental standards.

Then, in 2019, the United States accused Mr. Chavez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, of election fraud and imposed economic sanctions, including a ban on Venezuelan oil imports, to try to force him from power.

The country’s economy collapsed, helping to fuel a mass exodus of Venezuelans who could not afford to feed their families even as Mr. Maduro has managed to maintain his repressive hold on power.

After grinding nearly to a halt, the oil sector has seen a modest rebound, in part because the Biden administration last year allowed Chevron, the last American company producing oil in Venezuela, to restart operations on a limited basis.

Neighbors playing board games under a sky lit by gas flares near Punta de Mata in eastern Venezuela.

The national oil industry’s travails have been worsened by a corruption investigation into missing oil money that has so far led to dozens of arrests and the resignation of the country’s oil minister.

In eastern Venezuela, rusting refineries burn off methane gases that are part of the fossil fuel industry’s operations and are important drivers of global warming.

Even though Venezuela produces far less oil than it once did, it ranks third in the world in methane emissions per barrel of oil produced, according to the International Energy Agency.

Cabimas, a city about 400 miles northwest of Caracas on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, is another center of regional oil production. There, the state oil company, PDVSA, built hospitals and schools, set up summer camps and provided residents with Christmas toys.

Now oil seeps from deteriorating underwater pipelines in the lake, coating the shores and turning the water a neon green that can be seen from space. Broken pipes float on the surface, and oil drills are rusting and sinking into the water. Birds coated in oil struggle to fly.

The collapse of the oil industry has left Cabimas, once one of the richest communities in Venezuela, in extreme poverty.

Every day at 5 a.m., the three Méndez brothers — Miguel, 16, Diego, 14 and Manuel, 13 — untangle their fishing nets, clean them and row into the polluted waters of Lake Maracaibo, hoping to catch enough shrimp and fish to feed themselves, their parents and their younger sister.

They use gasoline to wash the oil from their skin.

Diego, 14, Manuel, 13, and Miguel Méndez, 16, fishing in Lake Maracaibo, which has been polluted by oil leaking from damaged pipelines.

Children play and bathe in the water, which smells of rotting sea life.

The boys’ father, Nelson Méndez, 58, was once a commercial fisherman, back when the lake was cleaner. He worries about getting sick from eating what his children catch, but he worries more about hunger.

He said he was hired by the state oil company about 10 years ago to help clean a fuel spill in the lake, but the work damaged his vision.

“Everything I worked for in life, I lost because of the oil,” Mr. Méndez said.

The poor maintenance of the fuel production machinery in Lake Maracaibo has led to an increase in oil spills, which have contaminated Cabimas and other communities along its shoreline, according to local organizations focusing on the issue.

The gas flares that burn across parts of Venezuela also point to the enfeeblement of the country’s fossil fuel industry: So much gas spews into the atmosphere because there is not enough functioning equipment to convert it into fuel, experts say.

Venezuela ranks among the worst countries in the world in terms of the volume of gas flares produced by its decrepit fuel operations, according to the World Bank.

Oil staining the waters of Lake Maracaibo.

In a 2021 report, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights expressed deep concern about the state of Venezuela’s oil industry.

“It is imperative that the government effectively implement its environmental regulatory framework on the oil industry,” the report said.

At a U.N. climate change summit last year, Mr. Maduro did not address the environmental damage resulting from his country’s hobbled oil industry.

Instead, he claimed that Venezuela was responsible for less than 0.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and blamed wealthier countries for causing environmental harm. (Experts say that figure is accurate and note that the country’s emissions have decreased as its oil industry has cratered.)

“The Venezuelan people must pay the consequences of an imbalance caused by the world’s leading capitalist economies,” Mr. Maduro said in a speech at the summit.

A top government minister, Josué Alejandro Lorca, said in 2021 that oil spills were “not a big deal because, historically, all oil companies have had them.” He added that the government did not have the resources to address the problem.

The state oil company did not respond to requests for comment.

In Cabimas, David Colina, 46, a fisherman, wears oil-stained orange overalls with the distinctive emblem of the state oil company.

Thirty years ago, he said, he could catch more than 200 pounds of fish. Now he is lucky if he pulls up 25 pounds in his net before he exchanges them for flour or rice from his neighbors.

When the state oil company was functioning better, Mr. Colina said, he would be compensated if an oil spill affected his fishing business. But now, he added, “there is no government here anymore.”

After Chevron announced last year that it would resume some oil production in Venezuela, the state oil company hired divers to inspect the oil pipelines in Lake Maracaibo.

So far, according to interviews with three of those divers, leaking pipelines have yet to be repaired. The divers spoke anonymously because they said they could be punished for revealing internal company information. A Chevron representative declined to comment and referred questions to the Venezuelan state oil company.

Francisco Barrios, 62, who also lives in Cabimas, repaired boats used by the oil industry for more than 20 years, earning enough to feed his five children and pay for their education.

But he became disillusioned, he said, by the industry’s decline, the pollution it was causing, the increasingly shoddy infrastructure and a salary that could not keep up with a rising cost of living.

He said that one of his sons, who was a diver, was killed 12 years ago when an underwater pipe he was repairing exploded.

“I got tired of seeing the destruction,” he said while using gasoline to try to remove oil that had seeped into his yard.

The road leading to Punta de Mata, lit by multiple gas flares. Flares in this part of Venezuela burn day and night.

*Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia, and Ronny Rodríguez from El Tejero, Venezuela.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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 member of the security services investigates the damaged building following a reported drone attack in Moscow CREDIT: MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

Ukraine-Russia war live: Ukrainian drones 'strike near Russian defence ministry

Russia said it thwarted a Ukrainian “terrorist act” on Moscow as two drones hit non-residential buildings, with one crashing near the defence ministry.

The Telegrpah Now

The alleged attack in the early hours of Monday came a day after Kyiv vowed to “retaliate” for a Russian missile strike on the Black Sea port of Odesa.

“A Kyiv regime attempt to carry out a terrorist act using two drones on objects on the territory of the city of Moscow was stopped,” Russia’s defence ministry said.

“Two Ukrainian drones were suppressed and crashed. There are no casualties.”

Russia meanwhile launched fresh attacks on Odesa overnight with a four-hour strike that destroyed a grain hangar, Kyiv said.

Four port workers are believed to have been injured, while tanks for storing “other types of cargo” have also been damaged.

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Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the House select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government on Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)/Editing by Germán & Co

Two Kennedys on covid

TWP Analysis by Dan Diamond with research by McKenzie Beard,  July 21, 2023 

Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s long-shot campaign for president received its most attention — the wrong kind — after the New York Post published his wild suggestion that covid-19 could be an “ethnically targeted” bioweapon because it “attacks certain races disproportionately.”

“Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” RFK Jr. said at a dinner with journalists last week.

The claim has been roundly condemned by virologists, lawmakers and advocacy groups like the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. It even prompted a rare public rebuke from members of the Kennedy family, including his nephew, former congressman Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.).

And it’s just the latest moment when experts have said RFK Jr.’s assertions were wrong, offensive and possibly dangerous, following his years of high-profile skepticism about a variety of vaccines. 

RFK Jr. has since said he was misinterpreted about the “targeted” virus, but he’s also tried to distance himself from some of the fury.

“There’s no Jewish cabal out there making bioweapons,” RFK Jr. said in a conversation with Washington Post reporters on Thursday afternoon.

Yet he continues to reiterate his claim that the U.S. government is experimenting with bioweapons, despite being unable to point to a specific bioweapon after being pressed by The Post.

Fringe views

RFK Jr. is a Kennedy, but he doesn’t speak for the famous political family — a point hammered home during the pandemic, prompting a New York Times article last year about how RFK Jr.’s vaccine criticism had anguished his relatives.

Take Dec. 13, 2022, when Joe Kennedy and other family members gathered in Boston to honor Anthony Fauci at a dinner at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute — even as RFK Jr. was blasting the longtime infectious-disease doctor in an interview with British television.

Fauci “has transformed NIH from the most prestigious and important scientific research organization on Earth, and turned it into an incubator for pharmaceutical products, with all of these corrupting entanglements with the pharmaceutical industry,” RFK Jr. said on “Dan Wootton Tonight.” 

The longtime vaccine skeptic — who wrote the 2021 book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health” — also has said that if elected president, he could target Fauci.

“People ask me, would I prosecute him? … I’ll look at it, certainly,” RFK Jr. told The Health 202 on Thursday.

He has hinged much of his long-shot campaign around the coronavirus pandemic, trying to capitalize on frustrations about shutdowns, government policies and officials’ efforts to stifle dissent. In his conversation with Post reporters on Thursday, RFK Jr. repeatedly returned to a broader theme around covid: The U.S. vaccination policy failed to prevent many deaths, and no one is questioning why. For instance, he said, look what happened after vaccines became widely available at the end of 2020.

“We’re seeing in 2021 and '22, this huge increase in excess deaths that nobody is asking about. Nobody is explaining, how is that happening?” RFK Jr. said.

Your author countered that excess deaths were higher in the first year of the pandemic than in the year after vaccines were widely available. Andrew Stokes, a Boston University researcher who has studied excess deaths, also emailed the Health 202 on Thursday night to say that his team found that in places where vaccine uptake went up, excess mortality in the second year of the pandemic went down.

“It is impossible to reconcile the exceptionally strong inverse relationship between vaccination and excess mortality with the possibility that the Covid-19 vaccines [have] contributed to the large toll of excess mortality in the second year of the pandemic,” Stokes added.

Faced with repeated questions — and disagreement — the presidential candidate stressed to Post reporters he was “not anti-vaccine” and would be happy to look at clinical studies.

“I’m open to the fact that I’m wrong,” RFK Jr. said. His years of questioning vaccine safety despite persistently being told that he's wrong suggest otherwise.

The younger Kennedy

Joe Kennedy, who spoke on the phone later Thursday, acknowledged that the nation’s response to the pandemic wasn't perfect.

“Did we get everything right? Clearly not,” he said, recounting communication missteps around when to wear masks, whether household objects needed to be scrubbed with cleaning supplies and other miscues that had frustrated Americans.

But the former Democratic congressman — who spent the first year of the pandemic serving as vice chair of the House Energy and Commerce’s oversight panel, which was responsible for probing the federal health agencies — credited policymakers for pursuing those policies “with the best of intentions.” 

And unlike his uncle, he saw no reason to doubt the vaccine process and the officials who worked directly on it.

“The Trump administration legitimately deserves credit for developing and approving a vaccine that would be used to save millions of lives and vaccinate billions of people around the world in record time,” said Joe Kennedy, who currently serves as President Biden’s special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs. He singled Fauci out for special praise, calling him a “hero” for his work on covid but also on other infectious diseases over the years.

“I have no doubt that if our health system had more Dr. Faucis, we would be in a better place, even more than we are,” Joe Kennedy added.

Asked why he decided to publicly distance himself from his uncle this week, the younger Kennedy chose his words carefully. 

“Family is family, and it’s a critically important part of my life. That being said, we have disagreements … this is a big one,” Joe Kennedy said.

“I love my uncle. I think he's wrong on this. And … his views, unfortunately, can have, will have a negative impact on our country, our discourse and our health system. I think I'll leave it there.”

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Two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato, who was born around 428-427 BCE, offered valuable perspectives on the fundamentals of democratic governance. He emphasized the importance of employing unwavering rationality, or common sense, in conjunction with a deep dedication to solidarity and humanism. These principles play a vital role in establishing a cohesive and balanced society. According to Plato, an open-minded disposition is essential for establishing efficient governance. The key is the ability to make decisions consistent with the socio-economic realities of the environment, which requires leaders to understand the intricacies of society. Politicians should base their decisions on logical reasoning and not give in to short-term, less emotional impulses.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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NThe 250MW Netzbooster (Grid Booster) project is being deployed in the hopes of increasing network utilisation across the German transmission system by using battery-based energy storage.

Source: Fluence/Editing by Germán & Co

Venezuela’s Oil Industry Is Broken. Now It’s Breaking the Environment.

Gas flares and leaking pipelines from Venezuela’s once-booming oil industry, hobbled by U.S. sanctions and mismanagement, are polluting towns and a major lake.

NYT by Isayen Herrera and Sheyla Urdaneta,

Each morning, José Aguilera inspects the leaves of his banana and coffee plants on his farm in eastern Venezuela and calculates how much he can harvest — almost nothing.

Explosive gas flares from nearby oil wells spew an oily, flammable residue on the plants. The leaves burn, dry up and wither.

“There is no poison that can fight the oil,” he said. “When it falls, everything dries up.”

Venezuela’s oil industry, which helped transform the country’s fortunes, has been decimated by mismanagement and several years of U.S. sanctions imposed on the country’s authoritarian government, leaving behind a ravaged economy and a devastated environment.

The state-owned oil company has struggled to maintain minimal production for export to other countries, as well as domestic consumption. But to do so it has sacrificed basic maintenance and relied on increasingly shoddy equipment that has led to a growing environmental toll, environmental activists say.

Mr. Aguilera lives in El Tejero, a town nearly 300 miles east of Caracas, the capital, in an oil-rich region known for towns that never see the darkness of night. Gas flares from oil wells light up at all hours with a roaring thunder, their vibrations causing the walls of rickety houses to crack.

Many residents complain of having respiratory diseases like asthma, which scientists say can be aggravated by emissions from gas flares. Rain brings down an oily film that corrodes car engines, turns white clothes dark and stains notebooks that children carry to school.

José Aguilera Jr. on his father’s farm in eastern Venezuela. The farm is slowly dying because of gas flares from nearby oil wells that coat his banana and coffee plants with oil.

Image

Maicleluz Baez, 27, walking through an area near Lake Maracaibo that is polluted with plastic waste.

And yet, paradoxically, widespread fuel shortages in the country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves mean virtually no one in this region has cooking gas at home.

Soon after President Hugo Chávez rose to power in the 1990s with promises to use the country’s oil wealth to lift up the poor, he fired thousands of oil workers, including engineers and geologists, and replaced them with political supporters, took control of foreign-owned oil assets, and neglected safety and environmental standards.

Then, in 2019, the United States accused Mr. Chavez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, of election fraud and imposed economic sanctions, including a ban on Venezuelan oil imports, to try to force him from power.

Climate Forward  There’s an ongoing crisis — and tons of news. Our newsletter keeps you up to date. Get it in your inbox.

The country’s economy collapsed, helping to fuel a mass exodus of Venezuelans who could not afford to feed their families even as Mr. Maduro has managed to maintain his repressive hold on power.

After grinding nearly to a halt, the oil sector has seen a modest rebound, in part because the Biden administration last year allowed Chevron, the last American company producing oil in Venezuela, to restart operations on a limited basis.

Neighbors playing board games under a sky lit by gas flares near Punta de Mata in eastern Venezuela.

The national oil industry’s travails have been worsened by a corruption investigation into missing oil money that has so far led to dozens of arrests and the resignation of the country’s oil minister.

In eastern Venezuela, rusting refineries burn off methane gases that are part of the fossil fuel industry’s operations and are important drivers of global warming.

Even though Venezuela produces far less oil than it once did, it ranks third in the world in methane emissions per barrel of oil produced, according to the International Energy Agency.

Cabimas, a city about 400 miles northwest of Caracas on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, is another center of regional oil production. There, the state oil company, PDVSA, built hospitals and schools, set up summer camps and provided residents with Christmas toys.

Now oil seeps from deteriorating underwater pipelines in the lake, coating the shores and turning the water a neon green that can be seen from space. Broken pipes float on the surface, and oil drills are rusting and sinking into the water. Birds coated in oil struggle to fly.

The collapse of the oil industry has left Cabimas, once one of the richest communities in Venezuela, in extreme poverty.

Every day at 5 a.m., the three Méndez brothers — Miguel, 16, Diego, 14 and Manuel, 13 — untangle their fishing nets, clean them and row into the polluted waters of Lake Maracaibo, hoping to catch enough shrimp and fish to feed themselves, their parents and their younger sister.

They use gasoline to wash the oil from their skin.

Image

Diego, 14, Manuel, 13, and Miguel Méndez, 16, fishing in Lake Maracaibo, which has been polluted by oil leaking from damaged pipelines.

Image

Overflowing oil contaminating the soil in Cabimas, Venezuela, along the shoreline of Lake Maracaibo.

Children play and bathe in the water, which smells of rotting sea life.

The boys’ father, Nelson Méndez, 58, was once a commercial fisherman, back when the lake was cleaner. He worries about getting sick from eating what his children catch, but he worries more about hunger.

He said he was hired by the state oil company about 10 years ago to help clean a fuel spill in the lake, but the work damaged his vision.

“Everything I worked for in life, I lost because of the oil,” Mr. Méndez said.

The poor maintenance of the fuel production machinery in Lake Maracaibo has led to an increase in oil spills, which have contaminated Cabimas and other communities along its shoreline, according to local organizations focusing on the issue.

The gas flares that burn across parts of Venezuela also point to the enfeeblement of the country’s fossil fuel industry: So much gas spews into the atmosphere because there is not enough functioning equipment to convert it into fuel, experts say.

Venezuela ranks among the worst countries in the world in terms of the volume of gas flares produced by its decrepit fuel operations, according to the World Bank.

Image

Oil staining the waters of Lake Maracaibo.

Image

Wilmer Parra with a handful of fish that he caught in Lake Maracaibo. Some fishermen say they now catch far fewer fish than they once did.

In a 2021 report, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights expressed deep concern about the state of Venezuela’s oil industry.

“It is imperative that the government effectively implement its environmental regulatory framework on the oil industry,” the report said.

At a U.N. climate change summit last year, Mr. Maduro did not address the environmental damage resulting from his country’s hobbled oil industry.

Instead, he claimed that Venezuela was responsible for less than 0.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and blamed wealthier countries for causing environmental harm. (Experts say that figure is accurate and note that the country’s emissions have decreased as its oil industry has cratered.)

“The Venezuelan people must pay the consequences of an imbalance caused by the world’s leading capitalist economies,” Mr. Maduro said in a speech at the summit.

A top government minister, Josué Alejandro Lorca, said in 2021 that oil spills were “not a big deal because, historically, all oil companies have had them.” He added that the government did not have the resources to address the problem.

The state oil company did not respond to requests for comment.

In Cabimas, David Colina, 46, a fisherman, wears oil-stained orange overalls with the distinctive emblem of the state oil company.

Thirty years ago, he said, he could catch more than 200 pounds of fish. Now he is lucky if he pulls up 25 pounds in his net before he exchanges them for flour or rice from his neighbors.

Image

David Colina, right, fishing with a son and a nephew in Lake Maracaibo. He said the state oil company used to compensate him if oil leaks damaged his catch.

Image

Luis Javier, 9, and Luis David, 8, playing on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, which along with oil, has also become filled with algae.

When the state oil company was functioning better, Mr. Colina said, he would be compensated if an oil spill affected his fishing business. But now, he added, “there is no government here anymore.”

After Chevron announced last year that it would resume some oil production in Venezuela, the state oil company hired divers to inspect the oil pipelines in Lake Maracaibo.

So far, according to interviews with three of those divers, leaking pipelines have yet to be repaired. The divers spoke anonymously because they said they could be punished for revealing internal company information. A Chevron representative declined to comment and referred questions to the Venezuelan state oil company.

Francisco Barrios, 62, who also lives in Cabimas, repaired boats used by the oil industry for more than 20 years, earning enough to feed his five children and pay for their education.

But he became disillusioned, he said, by the industry’s decline, the pollution it was causing, the increasingly shoddy infrastructure and a salary that could not keep up with a rising cost of living.

He said that one of his sons, who was a diver, was killed 12 years ago when an underwater pipe he was repairing exploded.

“I got tired of seeing the destruction,” he said while using gasoline to try to remove oil that had seeped into his yard.

Image

The road leading to Punta de Mata, lit by multiple gas flares. Flares in this part of Venezuela burn day and night.

Genevieve Glatsky contributed reporting from Bogotá, Colombia, and Ronny Rodríguez from El Tejero, Venezuela.

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Germany's power grid is being revolutionized by battery-based energy storage systems known as "Grid Boosters."

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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NThe 250MW Netzbooster (Grid Booster) project is being deployed in the hopes of increasing network utilisation across the German transmission system by using battery-based energy storage.

Source: Fluence/Editing by Germán & Co

The power grid in Germany has always been a top priority and has followed the n-1 principle, which limits the use of power lines to prevent outages. Now, with technological advancements, a groundbreaking solution called Grid Boosters is set to revolutionize the energy industry.

By Germán & Co, Karlstad, Sweden, July 20, 2023

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“In order for the power sector to successfully transition to a net-zero emissions future, it is important to adopt flexible and innovative approaches. With increasing countries committing to ambitious decarbonization plans, the power sector will undergo significant changes. The International Energy Agency's "Net Zero by 2050" report highlights the critical role that variable renewables will play in the power generation mix. As electrification becomes a means of decarbonization, power demand will increase, making it essential to prioritize flexible demand and supply technologies. New technologies such as batteries, energy storage, biomass, and thermal plants with carbon capture and storage will be crucial in providing flexibility. Complementary technologies will ensure a constant balance between supply and demand as the share of variable renewable energy sources increases. The emergence of new demand sources provides a significant opportunity to prioritize flexible demand and supply technologies.

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TenneT and Fluence Energy GmbH Collaborate to Simplify Energy Transmission Grid in Germany

In BAYREUTH, Germany and ERLANGEN, Germany on July 11, 2023, the transmission grid operator TenneT and Fluence Energy GmbH (Fluence), a subsidiary of Fluence Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLNC) today sealed their cooperations on two Netzboosters (Grid Boosters) with a contract signing at Fluence’s technology centre in Erlangen on July 11, 2023,

This collaboration aims to simplify the energy transmission grid by introducing two Netzboosters, also known as Grid Boosters, powered by Fluence's cutting-edge energy storage technology. The Grid Boosters will utilize Fluence Ultrastack, an advanced energy storage product specifically designed to meet the demanding asset availability requirements of critical infrastructure. By incorporating battery-based energy storage systems, these Grid Boosters will significantly reduce system costs for consumers. How, you might ask? By minimizing the need for interventions in the grid and reducing the necessity for grid expansion measures.

TenneT will strategically integrate the two Grid Boosters into the transmission grid at Audorf Süd in Schleswig-Holstein and Ottenhofen in Bavaria, Germany. This strategic placement will enable TenneT to seamlessly integrate more electricity from renewable energy generation sources. The existing grid can now operate with a higher transmission load, allowing for increased capacity in handling renewable energy.

Mode of Operation of the Grid Booster

As the energy transition gains momentum, there is an increasing imbalance between energy production and consumption. This necessitates the expansion of energy grids to transport power generated in decentralized locations, often across long distances. However, traditional grid expansion alone is not sufficient to overcome the challenges faced by the transmission grid. Innovation is required, and one such concept is the Grid Booster.

Historically, the high-voltage grid in Germany has operated on the n-1 principle, which means that power lines are not fully utilized in order to ensure safe system operation in the event of a power failure. Moving forward, Grid Boosters, among other resources, will fulfill this role by allowing the existing lines to almost reach their full capacity. By doing so, the need for proactive grid interventions is greatly reduced.

TenneT's Grid Boosters are pilot projects outlined in the 2019 grid development plan for electricity. The initial stage involves testing the concept on a smaller scale with two 100 MW/100 MWh energy storage systems at the Audorf Süd and Ottenhofen substations. In the second phase of the grid development plan for 2037/2045, it is projected that the German grid will feature up to 54.5 GW of large energy storage systems by 2045 through scenario C2045. The successful implementation of TenneT's Grid Boosters will lay the foundation for future large-scale projects where storage is utilized as a transmission asset.

Ultimately, these Grid Boosters offer immense potential for secure and flexible grid operation, enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of the energy system. By leveraging innovations like Grid Boosters alongside traditional grid expansion, the challenges of transmitting energy over long distances can be effectively addressed, further facilitating the ongoing energy transition.

The project builds on more than 15 years of energy storage deployments by the Fluence team. Ultrastack was tailored to the specific requirements of TenneT’s Grid Boosters and was developed and tested in Fluence’s technology centre in Erlangen. Fluence expects the need for storage solutions to grow rapidly, as the massive expansion of renewable energy sources will increase grid congestion and consequently require more grid reinforcement and relief interventions.

“Fluence, through its advanced product capabilities and extensive energy market experience, is well positioned to be a long-term partner to TSOs in Germany and globally,” said Markus Meyer, Managing Director at Fluence. “TenneT’s Grid Boosters will be the seventh and eighth storage-as-transmission projects Fluence is deploying. Our team is developing the complex applications required for these types of projects in our Erlangen lab and research facility and we continue to invest strongly in our German presence.” 

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News round-up, July 20, 2023

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Innovation, project of the day…

Germany's power grid is experiencing a groundbreaking transformation thanks to the introduction of Fluence's battery-powered energy storage systems known as "Grid Boosters." Historically, the German power grid has been a significant focal point and has adhered to the n-1 principle, which limits the use of power lines to prevent blackouts. However, recent advancements in technology have given rise to a pioneering solution called Grid Boosters, which is set to revolutionize the energy sector.

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Most read…

The Biggest Winners in America’s Climate Law: Foreign Companies

U.S. seeks to build domestic supply chains but needs overseas expertise

WSJ By Amrith Ramkumar, and Phred Dvorak, July 20, 2023

Scoop!

Why From Ben & Jerry’s Blammes America For war In Ukraine

Your favorite ice cream mogul is campaigning against countering Vladimir Putin's aggression.

POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, IN BRUSSELS, JULY 20, 2023

Germany's power grid is being revolutionized by battery-based energy storage systems known as "Grid Boosters."

The power grid in Germany has always been a top priority and has followed the n-1 principle, which limits the use of power lines to prevent outages. Now, with technological advancements, a groundbreaking solution called Grid Boosters is set to revolutionize the energy industry.

By Germán & Co, Karlstad, Sweden, July 20, 2023

Companies Requiring Full-Time In-Office Are Struggling to Recruit New Employees

Flexibility Over Rigidity: The Growing Proof

TIME BY ALANA SEMUELS, JULY 18, 2023 

Companies Requiring Full-Time In-Office Are Struggling to Recruit New Employees

Flexibility Over Rigidity: The Growing Proof

TIME BY ALANA SEMUELS, JULY 18, 2023 

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Tesla’s Nevada factory. The U.S. electric-vehicle maker and Japanese battery supplier Panasonic are among the firms benefiting from last year’s climate law. BOB STRONG/REUTERS

WSJ By Amrith Ramkumar, and Phred Dvorak, July 20, 2023

The 2022 climate law unleashed a torrent of government subsidies to help the U.S. build clean-energy industries. The biggest beneficiaries so far are foreign companies.

The Inflation Reduction Act has spurred nearly $110 billion in U.S. clean-energy projects since it passed almost a year ago, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. Companies based overseas, largely from South Korea, Japan and China, are involved in projects accounting for more than 60% of that spending. Fifteen of the 20 largest such investments, nearly all in battery factories, involve foreign businesses, the Journal’s analysis shows. 

These overseas manufacturers will be able to claim billions of dollars in tax credits, making them among the biggest winners from the climate law. The credits are often tied to production volume, rewarding the largest investors. 

Japan’s Panasonic, one of the few companies to publicly estimate the impact of the law, could earn more than $2 billion in tax credits a year based on the capacity of battery plants it is operating or building in Nevada and Kansas. The company, which supplies batteries to electric-vehicle maker Tesla, is considering a third factory in the U.S. that would lift that total. 

The climate law is designed to build up domestic supply chains for green-energy industries, but the reality is that the technology for building batteries and renewable-energy equipment resides overseas. The incentives are leading these companies to invest in the U.S., often alongside domestic businesses. 

“It’s a testament to the fact that we still live in a globalized economy,” said Aniket Shah, head of environmental, social and corporate governance—or ESG—strategy at investment bank Jefferies. “You can’t just out of nowhere put up borders and say, ‘It has to be made in America by American companies.’ ”

What’s the best way for the U.S. to build clean-energy industries? Join the conversation below.

The Journal looked at roughly 210 clean-energy projects and company initiatives spurred by the law, including projects tracked by industry groups American Clean Power and E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs); announcements from companies and state and local governments; and media reports. Of those, about 140 disclosed investment amounts totaling roughly $110 billion. 

Projects were characterized as either wholly U.S. ventures or foreign if overseas companies are contributing significant investment or technology. Renewable-power facilities and projects already in the works before the law passed were excluded. 

Forecasters estimate the climate law could unleash some $3 trillion in total clean-energy investments over the next decade. U.S. companies are also investing heavily, including Tesla, solar-panel maker First Solar and hydrogen producer Air Products and Chemicals.

Full domestic supply chains for batteries or solar panels are still years away because foreign companies dominate nearly every step in the process, from raw materials to sophisticated parts. 

The large investments by overseas businesses have generally been welcomed by U.S. communities, many of which have benefited for decades from spending and jobs created by foreign automakers and other companies. But some investments from Chinese companies have fueled a backlash as tensions between the two countries escalate. 

At least 10 of the projects representing nearly $8 billion in investments included in the Journal’s analysis involve companies either based in China or with substantial ties to China through their core operations or large investors. 

Some projects are facing resistance, including two in Michigan: a $3.5 billion battery factory that Ford is building with technology and expertise from China’s CATL; and a $2.4 billion battery-component factory from China-based Gotion. Ford is keeping 100% ownership of the battery factory—in part to sidestep the issue of public funds flowing to CATL, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. Ford is licensing the battery-making know-how and services from CATL, the companies said.

But China hawks say the payments Ford makes to CATL mean the Chinese company reap indirect benefits from government support. 

“What we’re seeing is foreign policy conflict with climate policy and trade policy,” Shah said. “We’re going to have to decide as a country what matters more: our enmity with China or our desire to decarbonize quickly.”

Microvast, a startup that was planning to build a more than $500 million battery-component plant in Kentucky, was named as a potential recipient of a $200 million grant from the Energy Department last year. The department later rejected the application. The move followed criticism from Republicans about the company’s ties to China, which include a China subsidiary that accounts for more than 60% of its revenue. 

The large electric -car and battery plant- investment announced  after climate’s law passage

The Energy Department didn’t give a reason for withdrawing the grant. The department takes a number of factors into account when evaluating such projects, including technology risks and the potential for foreign influence, a spokeswoman said.

Microvast, based in Stafford, Texas, says it is a U.S. company and that Chief Executive Yang Wu is an American citizen. The company recently scrapped plans for the Kentucky plant. 

“We must be assured that these taxpayer dollars are not being funneled to the Chinese,” said Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R, Wash.), chair of the House of Representatives committee on energy and commerce, during a June hearing.

Microvast is committed to its goals of investing in the U.S. through other facilities, a spokeswoman said.

The issue is expected to come to a head when the Treasury Department completes rules for electric-car tax credits. The department has proposed that cars using battery materials that were produced by a “foreign entity of concern” such as a Chinese company wouldn’t qualify for tax credits beginning in 2025. 

Many expect Treasury to use a loose standard so that some cars qualify, potentially fueling criticism from some politicians who crafted the climate law such as West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), who has argued more lenient criteria go against the intent of the Inflation Reduction Act. Treasury is monitoring shifting markets and supply chains while making rules that advance the law’s goals, a spokeswoman said. 

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At the Energy Summit 2923 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Edwin De los Santos, President of AES DOMINICANA, emphasized the company's strong commitment to global environmental preservation.

“The relationship between energy and development is symbiotic and interdependent. “

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Illustrations by hitandrun for POLITICO

Scoop!

Why From Ben & Jerry’s Blammes America For war In Ukraine

Your favorite ice cream mogul is campaigning against countering Vladimir Putin's aggression.

POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, IN BRUSSELS, JULY 20, 2023

Ben Cohen wasn’t talking about ice cream. He was talking about American militarism.

At 72, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is bald and bespectacled. He looks fit, cherubic even, but when he got going on what it was like to grow up during the Cold War, his tone became less playful and more assertive — almost defiant. 

“I had this image of these two countries facing each other, and each one had this huge pile of shiny, state-of-the-art weapons in front of them,” he said, his arms waving above his head. “And behind them are the people in their countries that are suffering from lack of health care, not enough to eat, not enough housing.”

“It’s just crazy,” he added. “Approaching relationships with other countries based on threats of annihilating them, it’s just a pretty stupid way to go.”

It wasn’t a new subject for the famously socially conscious ice cream mogul; Cohen has been leading a crusade against what he sees as Washington’s bellicosity for decades. It’s just that with the war in Ukraine, his position has taken on a new — morally questionable — relevance.

Cohen, who no longer sits on the board of Ben & Jerry’s, isn’t just one of the most successful marketers of the last century. He’s a leading figure in a small but vocal part of the American left that has stood steadfast in opposition to the United States’ involvement in the war in Ukraine.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tanks rolling on Kyiv, Cohen didn’t focus his ire on the Kremlin; a group he funds published a full-page ad in the New York Times blaming the act of aggression on “deliberate provocations” by the U.S. and NATO.

Following months of Russian missile strikes on residential apartment blocks, and after evidence of street executions by Russian troops in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, he funded a 2022 journalism prize that praised its winner for reporting on “Washington’s true objectives in the Ukraine war, such as urging regime change in Russia.”

In May, Cohen tweeted approvingly of an op-ed by the academic Jeffrey Sachs that argued “the war in Ukraine was provoked” and called for “negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality and NATO non-enlargement.”

I set up a video call with Cohen not because I can’t sympathize with his mistrust of U.S. adventurism, nor because I couldn’t follow the argument that U.S. foreign policy spurred Russia to attack. I called to try to understand how he has maintained his stance even as the Kremlin abducts children, tortures and kills Ukrainians and sends thousands of Russian troops to their deaths in human wave attacks.

It’s one thing to warn of NATO expansion in peacetime, or to call for a negotiated settlement that leaves Ukrainian citizens safe from further aggression. It’s another to ignore one party’s atrocities and agitate for an outcome that would almost certainly leave millions of people at the mercy of a regime that has demonstrated callousness and cruelty.

Given the scale of Russia’s brutality in Ukraine, I wanted to understand: How does one justify focusing one’s energies on stopping the efforts to bring it to a halt?

Masters of war

Cohen’s political awakening took place against the background of the Cold War and the political upheaval caused by Washington’s involvement in Vietnam.

He was 11 during the Cuban missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Part of the reason he enrolled in college was to avoid being drafted and sent to the jungle to fight the Viet Cong.

When I asked how he first became interested in politics, he cited Bob Dylan’s 1963 protest song “Masters of War,” which takes aim at the political leaders and weapons makers who benefit from conflicts and culminates with the singer standing over their graves until he’s sure they’re dead.

“That was kind of a revelation to me,” Cohen said. Behind him, the sun filtered past a cardboard Ben & Jerry’s sign propped against a window. “I hadn’t understood that, you know, there were these masters of war — essentially I guess what we would now call the military-industrial-congressional complex — that profit from war.”

Cohen saw people from his high school get drafted and never come back from a war that “wasn’t justified.” As he graduated in the summer of 1969, around half a million U.S. troops were stationed in ‘Nam. Later that year, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched on Washington, D.C. to demand peace.

It was only much later, while doing “a lot of research” into the “tradeoffs between military spending and spending for human needs,” that Cohen came across a 1953 speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower, which foreshadowed the U.S. president’s 1961 farewell address in which he coined the phrase “military-industrial complex.”

A Republican president who had served as the supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II, Eisenhower warned against tumbling into an arms race. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he said.

“That is a foundational thing for me, very inspiring for me, and captures the essence of what I believe,” Cohen said. 

“If we weren’t wasting all of our money on preparing to kill people, we would actually be able to save and help a lot of people,” he added with a chuckle. “That goes for how we approach the world internationally as well,” he added — including the war in Ukraine. 

Pierre Ferrari, a former Ben & Jerry’s board member who was with the company from 1997 to 2020, said Cohen’s view of the world was shaped by the events of his youth.

“We were brought up at a time when the military, the government was just completely out of control,” he said. “We’re both children of the sixties, the Vietnam War and the new futility of war and the way war is used by the military-industrial complex and politics,” Ferrari added, pointing to the peace symbol he wore around his neck.

Jeff Furman, who has known Cohen for nearly 50 years and once served as Ben & Jerry’s in-house legal counsel, acknowledged that his generation’s views on Ukraine were informed by America’s misadventures in Vietnam.

“There’s a history of why this war is happening that’s a little bit more complex than who Putin is,” he said. “When you’ve been misled so many times in the past, you have to take this into consideration when you think about it, and really, really try to know what’s happening.”

Ice-cold activism

Politics has been a part of the Ben & Jerry’s brand since Cohen and his partner Jerry Greenfield started selling ice cream out of an abandoned gas station in 1978.

The company’s look and ethos were pure 1960s; they named one of their early flavors, Cherry Garcia, after the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, whose psychedelic riffs formed the soundtrack of the hippy counterculture.

Social justice was one of the duo’s secret ingredients. For the first-year anniversary of the gas station shop’s opening, they gave away free ice cream for a day. On the flyers printed to promote the event was a quote from Cohen: “Business has a responsibility to give back to the community from which it draws its support.”

In 1985, after the company went public, they used some of the shares to endow a foundation working for progressive social change and committed Ben & Jerry’s to spend 7.5 percent of its pretax profits on philanthropy.

In the early years, the company instituted a five-to-one cap on the ratio between the salary of the highest-earning executive and its lowest-paid worker, dropping it only when Cohen was about to step down as CEO in the mid-1990s and they were struggling to find a successor willing to work for what they were offering.

Most companies try to separate politics and business. Cohen and Greenfield cheerfully mixed them up and served them in a tub of creamy deliciousness (the company’s rich, fatty flavors were in part driven by Cohen’s sinus problems, which dulls his taste).

In 1988, Cohen founded 1% for Peace, a nonprofit organization seeking to “redirect one percent of the national defense budget to fund peace-promoting activities and projects.” The project was funded in part through sales of a vanilla and dark-chocolate popsicle they called the Peace Pop.

It was around this time that Cohen opened Ben & Jerry’s in Russia, as “an effort to build a bridge between Communism and capitalism with locally produced Cherry Garcia,” according to a write-up in the New York Times. After years of planning, the outlet opened in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk in 1992. (The company shut the shop down five years later to prioritize growth in the U.S., and also because of the involvement of local mobsters, said Furman, who was involved in the project.)

Even after Ben & Jerry’s was bought by Unilever in 2000, there were few progressive causes the company wasn’t eager to wade into with a campaign or a fancy new flavor.

The ice cream maker has marketed “Rainforest Crunch” in defense of the Amazon forest, sold “Empower Mint” to combat voter suppression, promoted “Pecan Resist” in opposition to then-U.S. President Donald Trump and launched “Change the Whirled” in partnership with Colin Kaepernick, the American football quarterback whose sports career ended after he started taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality.

More recently, however, the relationship between Cohen, Greenfield and Unilever has been rockier. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop doing business in the Palestinian territories. Cohen and Greenfield, who are Jewish, defended the company’s decision in an op-ed in the New York Times.

After the move sparked political backlash, Unilever transferred its license to a local producer, only to be sued by Ben & Jerry’s. In December 2022, Unilever announced in a one-sentence statement that its litigation with its subsidiary “has been resolved.” Ben & Jerry’s ice cream continues to be sold throughout Israel and the West Bank, according to a Unilever spokesperson.

Cohen himself is no stranger to activism: Earlier this month, he was arrested and detained for a few hours for taking part in a sit-in in front of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was protesting the prosecution of the activist and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

Unilever declined to comment on Cohen’s views. “Ben Cohen no longer has an operational role in Ben & Jerry’s, and his comments are made in a personal capacity,” a spokesperson said.

Ben & Jerry’s did not respond to a request for comment.

The world according to Ben

For Cohen, the war in Ukraine wasn’t just a tragedy. It was, in a sense, a vindication. In 1998, a group he created called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities published a full-page ad in the New York Times titled “Hey, let’s scare the Russians.”

The target of the ad was a proposal to expand NATO “toward Russia’s very borders,” with the inclusion of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Doing so, the ad asserted, would provide Russians with “the same feeling of peace and security Americans would have if Russia were in a military alliance with Canada and Mexico, armed to the teeth.”

Cohen is by no means alone in this view of recent history. The American scholar John Mearsheimer, a prominent expert in international relations, has argued that the “trouble over Ukraine” started after the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest when the alliance opened the door to membership for Ukraine and Georgia.

In the U.S., this point has been echoed by progressive outlets and thinkers, such as Jeffrey Sachs, the linguist Noam Chomsky, or most recently by the American philosopher, activist and longest-of-long-shots, third-party presidential candidate Cornel West.

“We told them after they disbanded the Warsaw Pact that we could not expand NATO, not one inch. And we did that, we lied,” said Dennis Fritz, a retired U.S. Air Force official and the head of the Eisenhower Media Network — which describes itself as a group of “National Security Veteran experts, who’ve been there, done that and have an independent, alternative story to tell.” 

It was Fritz’s organization that argued in a May 2023 ad in the New York Times that although the “immediate cause” of the “disastrous” war in Ukraine was Russia’s invasion, “the plans and actions to expand NATO to Russia’s borders served to provoke Russian fears.” 

The ad noted that American foreign policy heavyweights, including Robert Gates and Henry Kissinger, had warned of the dangers of NATO expansion. “Why did the U.S. persist in expanding NATO despite such warnings?” it asked. “Profit from weapons sales was a major factor.”

When I spoke to Cohen, the group’s primary donor, according to Fritz, he echoed the ad’s key points, saying U.S. arms manufacturers saw NATO’s expansion as a “financial bonanza.”

“In the end, money won,” he said with a resigned tone. “And today, not only are they providing weapons to all the new NATO countries, but they’re providing weapons to Ukraine.”

I told Cohen I could understand his opposition to the war and follow his critique of U.S. foreign policy, but I couldn’t grasp how he could take a position that put him in the same corner as a government that is bombing civilians. He refused to be drawn in.

“I’m not supporting Russia, I’m not supporting Ukraine,” he said. “I’m supporting negotiations to end the war instead of providing more weapons to continue the war.” 

The Grayzone

Itried to get a better answer when I spoke to Aaron Maté, the Canadian-born journalist who won the award for “defense reporting and analysis” that Cohen was instrumental in funding.

Named after the late Pierre Sprey, a defense analyst who campaigned against the development of F-35 fighter jets as overly complex and expensive, the award recognized Maté’s “continued work dissecting establishment propaganda on issues such as Russian interference in U.S. politics, or the war in Syria.”

Maté, who was photographed with Cohen’s arm around his shoulders at the awards ceremony in March, writes for the Grayzone, a far-left website that has acquired a reputation for publishing stories backing the narratives of authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia or Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. His reports deny the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, and he has briefed the U.N. Security Council at Moscow’s invitation.

When I spoke to Maté, he was friendly but guarded. (The Pierre Sprey award noted that “his empiricist reporting give the lie to the charge of ‘disinformation’ routinely leveled by those whose nostrums he challenges.”)

He was happy however to walk me through his claims that, based on statements by U.S. officials since the start of the war, Washington is using Kyiv to wage a “proxy war” against Moscow. Much of his information, he said, came from Western journalism. “I point out examples where, buried at the bottom of articles, sometimes the truth is admitted,” he explained.

He declined to be described as pro-Putin. “That kind of ‘guilt-by-association’ reasoning is not serious thinking,” he said. “It’s not how adults think about things.” When I asked if he believed that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine, he answered: “I’m sure they have. I’ve never heard of a war where war crimes are not committed.”

Still, he said, the U.S. was responsible for “prolonging” the war and “sabotaging the diplomacy that could have ended it.”

‘Come to Ukraine’

The best answer I got to my question came not from Cohen or others in his circle but from a fellow traveler who hasn’t chosen to follow critics of NATO on their latest journey.

A self-described “radical anti-imperialist,” Gilbert Achcar is a professor of development studies and international relations at SOAS University of London. He has described the expansion of NATO in the 1990s as a decision that “laid the ground for a new cold war” pitting the West against Russia and China.

But while he sees the war in Ukraine as the latest chapter in this showdown, he has warned against calls for a rush to the negotiating table. Instead, he has advocated for the complete withdrawal of Russia from Ukraine and “the delivery of defensive weapons to the victims of aggression with no strings attached.”

“To give those who are fighting a just war the means to fight against a much more powerful aggressor is an elementary internationalist duty,” he wrote three days after Russia launched its attack on Kyiv, comparing the invasion to the U.S.’s intervention in Vietnam. 

Achcar said he understood the conclusions being drawn by people like Cohen about Washington’s interventions in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But, he said, “it leads a lot of people on the left into … [a] knee-jerk opposition to anything the United States does.” 

What they fail to account for, however, is the Ukrainian people.

“In a way, part of the Western left is ethnocentric,” said Achcar, who was born in Senegal and grew up in Lebanon. “They look at the whole world just by their opposition to their own government and therefore forget about other people’s rights.”

His point was echoed in the last conversation I had when researching this article, with Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former economy minister.

“It doesn’t really matter who promised what to whom in the 1990s,” Mylovanov said. “What matters is that there was Mariupol and Bucha, where tens of thousands of people were killed.”

Mylovanov taught economics at the University of Pittsburgh until he returned to Ukraine four days before Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Things like war are difficult to understand unless you experience them,” he said. “This is very easy to get confused when you are sitting, you know, somewhere far from the facts and you have surrounded yourself by an echo chamber of people and sources that you agree with.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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NThe 250MW Netzbooster (Grid Booster) project is being deployed in the hopes of increasing network utilisation across the German transmission system by using battery-based energy storage.

Source: Fluence/Editing by Germán & Co

Germany's power grid is being revolutionized by battery-based energy storage systems known as "Grid Boosters."

The power grid in Germany has always been a top priority and has followed the n-1 principle, which limits the use of power lines to prevent outages. Now, with technological advancements, a groundbreaking solution called Grid Boosters is set to revolutionize the energy industry.

By Germán & Co, Karlstad, Sweden, July 20, 2023

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“In order for the power sector to successfully transition to a net-zero emissions future, it is important to adopt flexible and innovative approaches. With increasing countries committing to ambitious decarbonization plans, the power sector will undergo significant changes. The International Energy Agency's "Net Zero by 2050" report highlights the critical role that variable renewables will play in the power generation mix. As electrification becomes a means of decarbonization, power demand will increase, making it essential to prioritize flexible demand and supply technologies. New technologies such as batteries, energy storage, biomass, and thermal plants with carbon capture and storage will be crucial in providing flexibility. Complementary technologies will ensure a constant balance between supply and demand as the share of variable renewable energy sources increases. The emergence of new demand sources provides a significant opportunity to prioritize flexible demand and supply technologies.

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TenneT and Fluence Energy GmbH Collaborate to Simplify Energy Transmission Grid in Germany

In BAYREUTH, Germany and ERLANGEN, Germany on July 11, 2023, the transmission grid operator TenneT and Fluence Energy GmbH (Fluence), a subsidiary of Fluence Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLNC) today sealed their cooperations on two Netzboosters (Grid Boosters) with a contract signing at Fluence’s technology centre in Erlangen on July 11, 2023,

This collaboration aims to simplify the energy transmission grid by introducing two Netzboosters, also known as Grid Boosters, powered by Fluence's cutting-edge energy storage technology. The Grid Boosters will utilize Fluence Ultrastack, an advanced energy storage product specifically designed to meet the demanding asset availability requirements of critical infrastructure. By incorporating battery-based energy storage systems, these Grid Boosters will significantly reduce system costs for consumers. How, you might ask? By minimizing the need for interventions in the grid and reducing the necessity for grid expansion measures.

TenneT will strategically integrate the two Grid Boosters into the transmission grid at Audorf Süd in Schleswig-Holstein and Ottenhofen in Bavaria, Germany. This strategic placement will enable TenneT to seamlessly integrate more electricity from renewable energy generation sources. The existing grid can now operate with a higher transmission load, allowing for increased capacity in handling renewable energy.

Mode of Operation of the Grid Booster

As the energy transition gains momentum, there is an increasing imbalance between energy production and consumption. This necessitates the expansion of energy grids to transport power generated in decentralized locations, often across long distances. However, traditional grid expansion alone is not sufficient to overcome the challenges faced by the transmission grid. Innovation is required, and one such concept is the Grid Booster.

Historically, the high-voltage grid in Germany has operated on the n-1 principle, which means that power lines are not fully utilized in order to ensure safe system operation in the event of a power failure. Moving forward, Grid Boosters, among other resources, will fulfill this role by allowing the existing lines to almost reach their full capacity. By doing so, the need for proactive grid interventions is greatly reduced.

TenneT's Grid Boosters are pilot projects outlined in the 2019 grid development plan for electricity. The initial stage involves testing the concept on a smaller scale with two 100 MW/100 MWh energy storage systems at the Audorf Süd and Ottenhofen substations. In the second phase of the grid development plan for 2037/2045, it is projected that the German grid will feature up to 54.5 GW of large energy storage systems by 2045 through scenario C2045. The successful implementation of TenneT's Grid Boosters will lay the foundation for future large-scale projects where storage is utilized as a transmission asset.

Ultimately, these Grid Boosters offer immense potential for secure and flexible grid operation, enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of the energy system. By leveraging innovations like Grid Boosters alongside traditional grid expansion, the challenges of transmitting energy over long distances can be effectively addressed, further facilitating the ongoing energy transition.

The project builds on more than 15 years of energy storage deployments by the Fluence team. Ultrastack was tailored to the specific requirements of TenneT’s Grid Boosters and was developed and tested in Fluence’s technology centre in Erlangen. Fluence expects the need for storage solutions to grow rapidly, as the massive expansion of renewable energy sources will increase grid congestion and consequently require more grid reinforcement and relief interventions.

“Fluence, through its advanced product capabilities and extensive energy market experience, is well positioned to be a long-term partner to TSOs in Germany and globally,” said Markus Meyer, Managing Director at Fluence. “TenneT’s Grid Boosters will be the seventh and eighth storage-as-transmission projects Fluence is deploying. Our team is developing the complex applications required for these types of projects in our Erlangen lab and research facility and we continue to invest strongly in our German presence.” 

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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Source: Media/Editing by Germán & Co

Companies Requiring Full-Time In-Office Are Struggling to Recruit New Employees

Flexibility Over Rigidity: The Growing Proof

TIME BY ALANA SEMUELS, JULY 18, 2023 

The beginning of 2023 brought the end of some remote-work policies as Disney, Starbucks, and Activision Blizzard all said they would require employees to come into the office more frequently.

Employees complained, and there was some anecdotal evidence that in-office mandates were costing those and other companies good workers, who voted with their feet and went elsewhere.

Now, the proof is getting stronger that a lack of flexibility can hurt in the long term. Companies with flexible work policies are growing more quickly than those that require people to be in the office full-time, according to The Flex Index, released July 18, which collects office requirements on more than 4,500 companies with 30,000 locations and that employ more than 100 million people globally.

Specifically, in the last year, companies—regardless of their size—that are fully flexible added jobs at more than twice the rate of companies that were full-time in office.

“It seems pretty clear that the companies that are full time in-office are having a harder time attracting talent than the companies that offer some level of flexibility,” says Rob Sadow, CEO and co-founder of Scoop, the technology company that publishes the report.

Even companies that offer some level of flexibility, whether it be two or three days working from home, have grown more quickly than those that require full-time in-office. Among companies that have between 500 and 5,000 employees, for example, structured hybrid companies (i.e., that require employees to come in on some specific days, but not on others) grew headcount 4.6% over the year, while fully flexible companies of that size grew 4.5%. Full-time in-office companies of that size grew only 2.1%, by comparison.

But there’s a limit to what kind of hybrid arrangement employees seem willing to commit to. Companies that require 1-3 days in the office grew much faster than those that required four or five, the report found.

“Once you start getting closer to full-time in office, requiring four or five days, I think there’s a bright line starting to emerge for employees and for your ability to attract talent,” Sadow says.

Of course, headcount growth is not necessarily a proxy for a company’s financial health. But in this economy, with an extremely low unemployment rate and some industries still reporting wars over talent, the companies that are hiring are typically the ones growing revenue, Sadow says.

Atlassian is one company that has committed to being fully flexible. In August 2020, it announced its Team Anywhere policy, which allows employees to decide if they want to be in-office or not. Since then, the company has more than doubled in headcount, from 4,907 to 11,067. (Atlassian also laid off 500 employees in March because of the “difficult macroeconomic environment.”) “We’re doing [remote work] unequivocally and we’re winning faster than everybody else,” co-CEO Scott Farquhar told me recently. Atlassian still has offices, but it allows employees to decide when (and whether) they want to go in. About half of the company’s new hires live more than two hours from an office, which means they were in locations that Atlassian previously wouldn’t have been able to hire from. The company has also been able to increase diversity because it can hire people who live outside major cities; previously, its biggest U.S. office and headquarters was in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Operating beyond the physical footprints of our offices means we can hire people we previously couldn’t,” Farquhar says, including underrepresented groups that prefer or need to work from home or a location where Atlassian doesn’t have offices. “Now we can hire them and provide a career that was previously unattainable because we’ve removed the restraints of physical location.” For instance, Atlassian struggled to hire Black talent in the San Francisco Bay Area but has found some success hiring Black talent in Atlanta, he says. In 2022, 5.4% of the people Atlassian hired were Black people based in the U.S., up from 2.4% in 2020. Similarly, 37.9% of the people Atlassian hired were women in 2022, up from 30.7% in 2020.

The company has found that flexibility allows people to move closer to family or to more affordable cities; many Atlassians who had been based in San Francisco moved to Seattle after it launched the Team Anywhere policy. The policy has also increased the number of disabled and veteran workers the company hired, since veterans tend to be less likely to live in the country’s most populous cities and disabled workers sometimes struggle with a commute or being required to sit at a desk all day.

Of course, allowing workers to be fully remote has its downsides. A study published earlier in July found that fully remote workers are about 10% less productive than workers who are in the office full-time. Fully remote workers can have trouble motivating themselves, the research suggested, and are sometimes more distracted at meetings because they are multi-tasking. That said, the same research shows that hybrid work has no association with lower productivity.

Farquhar, of Atlassian, says that the company has experimented with ways to keep productivity high and keep people connected, even if they’re rarely in an office. The company leans on “intentional togetherness,” which essentially means planning times where groups of workers are together in-person to socialize. Atlassian has found that there’s a spike in connectedness to the company after these offsites, and that fades after three or four months, by which time the company holds another offsite.

Veeva Systems is another company that decided to embrace remote work during the pandemic; the life sciences company announced a “Work Anywhere” policy that allows people to decide whether to work at home or in an office. The policy boosted recruiting, says chief people officer Vivian Welsh. Between July 2020 and April 2023, Veeva increased its headcount by 71%, and now has employees in 48 states (with New Mexico and North Dakota as the exceptions). “As some other companies in the industry have changed their policies” to require return to office, Welsh says, “we’ve noticed an increase in interest.”

Veeva also has policies aimed at keeping remote workers engaged; it has offsites of whole departments once a year, and “coworking weeks” in which the company sometimes pays for small teams to work together in a single office. It also requires employees to have video on for Zoom calls, open calendars so others can see what they’re doing, and to work during “core hours” so they are reachable even if they’re not in the office.

Difficulty hiring does not appear to have motivated companies that ended their fully remote companies to change their policies, but Sadow, of Scoop, says that this may change if the job market remains tight. People may stick with their current employer for a lot of intangible reasons, but when they’re deciding where they want to work next, they may be less willing to put up with stringent in-office companies. And if companies continue having trouble hiring, they may be forced to change.

Correction, July 19

The original version of this article mischaracterized the period during which Veeva’s headcount increased by 70% and to how many states it expanded; it grew to 48 states between July 2020 and April 2023, not to 50 between Q1 2020 and Q1 2024. It also mischaracterized how Veeva defines “coworking weeks”; during those periods, the company sometimes but not always pays for small teams to work together in an office.

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Mexican businessman Manuel Gonzalez has invested €50 million in his new luxury restaurant Abya, open in a 20th-century palace in the Salamanca district of Madrid, on May 27, 2023. MANAURE QUINTERO/BLOOMBERG IMAGES/Editing by Germán & Co

For Latino investors and dissidents, Madrid is becoming the 'new Miami'

The Spanish government has made closer ties with Latin America one of the priorities of its presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Le Monde by Sandrine Morel , published today at 12:24 am (Paris)

Holders of large Mexican and Colombian fortunes; economic migrants from Honduras, Bolivia and Ecuador; Cuban and Venezuelan political dissidents and former members of Central American governments; not to mention Latino singers and writers: They are all converging at the Spanish capital. While Madrid has always nurtured a close relationship with Latin America, it is more trendy than ever, particularly among the wealthiest Latin Americans. In 2022, according to the National Statistics Institute, more than 3 million people born in Latin America were living in Spain, including over 820,000 in Madrid and its region – almost 50% more than in 2015. And that's not counting the young people of the second generation, whose parents arrived to take part in the construction boom of the early 2000s.

Determined to make the most of its historical, cultural and economic links with Latin America, the Spanish government has logically made closer ties with the continent one of the priorities of its rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, which it has held since July 1. In addition to Europe's strategic interest in a closer relationship, Spain would gain a new dimension in the geopolitical arena and assert itself as a global player, acting as a gateway and pivot to its former colonies.

"Spain is becoming what Miami used to be. The language is the same, integration is working, and wealthy Latin Americans and workers alike are finding something highly valued in Latin America: security," pointed out Erika Gonzalez, professor of international relations at the Complutense University of Madrid. She sees in this craze the consequences of "the departure of large Latin American fortunes from the United States during Donald Trump's presidency" and "the American integration model's running out of steam."

Political instability and the fact that numerous left-wing governments came to power in Latin America – the "marea rosa" ("pink tide") – may also have caused concern among the moneyed elite. In 2021, Latin America recorded capital outflows of $140 billion (€124 billion). The same is expected in 2022. And in Madrid, several Mexican law firms specializing in international arbitration have opened offices, anticipating a "growth in litigation and regulatory problems for foreign investors," due to "the uncertainty and the political situation in Latin America," the Spanish Arbitration Club (CEA) recently pointed out.

In the middle-class Salamanca district in the heart of Madrid, Latin American millionaires have been flocking in recent years to the luxury apartments built by Venezuelan and Mexican developers. The latest example is a 1930s building on Calle de Padilla purchased by Mexican investor Nicolas Carrancedo, of the Be Grand group. Currently being refurbished, half of its 25 "premium" apartments have already been sold to wealthy Mexicans. In the spring, on Calle de José Ortega y Gasset, the new luxury restaurant Abya opened in a 20th-century palace, after Mexican businessman Manuel Gonzalez invested €50 million in the project.

Real estate, the main investment sector

"Before, capital flows were almost exclusively from North to South. Not anymore," said Erika Gonzalez. Traditionally, Latin America has served as a springboard for the internationalization of many Spanish companies in the banking, construction and renewable energies sectors, before their leap into other international markets such as the US. Now, investment in Spain from Latin America is also starting to take off. It reached €1.4 billion in 2021, and another €1.1 billion in 2022, according to the Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX). This is still well below the €36.5 billion of foreign direct investment (IED) by Spanish companies in Latin America. But the 287 new Latin American projects launched in Spain last year testify to the dynamism of these relations.

Real estate is the main investment sector. Venezuelan developers such as Miguel Angel Capriles, a distant cousin of the Venezuelan opposition figure of the same name, led the way in 2013, when prices were at their lowest and the government had just introduced "golden visas," residency for foreigners who buy properties over €500,000. Lately, it's been Mexican investors who have been steadily buying up and renovating high-value buildings in order to bring luxury apartments onto the market, prized by their wealthy compatriots. Since 2020, they have invested €700 million.

Dissidents and former presidents

On top of these wealthy investors, numerous dissidents have also arrived – from Cuban artists of the San Isidro movement to Venezuelan opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez, along with Guatemalan human rights prosecutor Jordan Rodas, who was banned from running in the elections, the result of which is expected in August.

Three former Mexican presidents have also taken up residence in the capital. Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994) obtained Spanish citizenship thanks to a dispensation given to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the kingdom at the end of the 15th century. Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) was invited by former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar to join the Atlantic Institute of Government (IADG), a think tank he founded. As for Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), he obtained a golden visa after investing in luxury real estate in the center of Madrid and in a housing estate in a chic suburb. He found in Spain the tranquility he would probably not have experienced in his own country, where a judicial investigation has been opened against him for alleged corruption.

In 2021, after the name of two residents of 99 Calle de Lagasca appeared in the "Pandora Papers" – the leak of millions of documents from firms specializing in setting up companies in tax havens – the daily El Pais became interested in the 44 owners of this high-luxury building, where the penthouse, at the time the most expensive in the capital, had been sold for €14.6 million. Eleven of the owners were Mexican; five were Venezuelan, including a builder couple and Victor Vargas, the right-hand man of Hugo Chavez's former banker; two were Colombian; and one was Peruvian.

"Madrid has always been a welcoming city for Latin Americans, from both left and right," said Carlos Malamud, a researcher in international relations and Latin America specialist at the Elcano Royal Institute, who himself arrived in Spain in the 1970s to escape the dictatorship of Argentine general Videla. "During the last four Spanish presidencies of the EU Council, attempts had already been made to place relations with Latin America at the center of the agenda, without much success. The current context – the need for Spain to diversify its allies to cope with the consequences of the war in Ukraine – and the growing interest in strategic mineral, energy and cereal supplies has changed the game," added Malamud.

Spain intends to take advantage of this and strengthen the "Ibero-American" space. As part of the European stimulus package, the government has earmarked €1.1 billion for the development of the "economy of Spanish" in order to promote Castilian, a language spoken by over 550 million people worldwide, and encourage its use in science, artificial intelligence, culture, audiovisual media and publishing.

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News round-up, July 19, 2023

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Editorial…

“Phoenix has fallen into Hell, while the rest of the planet is immersed in an uncontrollable inferno…

In a bleak and desolate landscape, Phoenix tries to stand as a symbol of resistance—a once-thriving city now plunged into the depths of Hell. The fall season reflects the destructive destiny that awaits the rest of the planet, as an uncontrollable yet expected inferno rages. Phoenix is experiencing an unprecedented heatwave in its weather history, with temperatures exceeding 43 degrees Celsius for 19 consecutive days. This prolonged and unusual heatwave has made the city inhospitable and unbearable for its vulnerable residents. The extreme heat has also strained the city's electricity infrastructure, leading to power outages in certain areas. As a result, people seeking relief have found refuge in air-conditioned community centers and commercial establishments. At the same time, according to Dante's philosophy, the rest of the world is engulfed in flames, exacerbating the already polluted air.
It is fall, and the fate of Phoenix mirrors the devastating near future, or rather the present, that awaits the rest of the planet. This uncontrollable and relentless inferno, compared to the menacing dire wolf in the tale of “Little Red Riding Hood”, continues to unfold. Finally, our collective inability to act with genuine resolve has led to a situation where the questions we should have addressed long ago now seem too late to answer.

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Most read…

Germany's power grid is being revolutionized by battery-based energy storage systems known as "Grid Boosters."

The power grid in Germany has always been a top priority and has followed the n-1 principle, which limits the use of power lines to prevent outages. Now, with technological advancements, a groundbreaking solution called Grid Boosters is set to revolutionize the energy industry.

By Germán & Co, Karlstad, Sweden, July 20, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Image by Germán & Co by Shutterstock

Henry Kissinger meets China’s defence minister in surprise visit to Beijing

Ex-US secretary of state’s meeting with Li Shangfu comes amid hopes of improved ties between two countries

The Guardian by  Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent, July 18, 2023

“The veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger has met China’s defence minister in Beijing.

According to a readout on Tuesday from the Chinese defence ministry, Li Shangfu said “friendly communication” between China and the US had been “destroyed” because “some people in the United States did not meet China halfway”. Kissinger said he was a “friend of China”, according to the readout.

“Neither the United States nor China can afford to treat the other as an adversary. If the two countries go to war, it will not lead to any meaningful results for the two peoples,” the Chinese statement reported Kissinger as saying.

The surprise visit of the 100-year-old former US secretary of state comes as John Kerry, the US climate envoy, is in Beijing to meet Chinese officials to discuss how the two countries can cooperate on confronting the climate crisis. Kerry is the latest in a string of senior US officials who have travelled to China this summer, after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, completed a long-awaited trip in June.

Relations between the two superpowers have been spiralling downwards for months, but there is cautious optimism on both sides that the restarting of official dialogues can build a foundation for improved ties.

Kissinger’s visit, which had not been publicised, is outside the official roster of meetings. It is almost exactly 52 years since his secret visit to Beijing in July 1971, which paved the way for Richard Nixon, the US president at the time, to normalise relations between the US and China. More than half a century on, Kissinger is still seen by many in Beijing as a “friend of China”. In May, state tabloid the Global Times praised Kissinger’s “razor-sharp” mind.

Kissinger has repeatedly warned of “catastrophic” consequences of a conflict between the US and China.

Li has been the subject of US sanctions since 2018, relating to the purchase of combat aircraft from Russia’s main arms exporter, which Beijing cites as a reason for refusing to reopen military-to-military dialogues with Washington. Last month, Li refused to meet his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to request for comment.

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…”I had the privilege of attending the AmChamChile meeting with former President Lagos and gaining valuable insights into his experience in the negotiations of the Chile-US Trade and Development Agreement. It is truly remarkable to think that two decades have already passed since those negotiations concluded. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to AmChamChile for generously sharing their invaluable insights and knowledge with us. Thank once again.

Javier Dib

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AES Andes

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Image: The Jaguar Land Rover battery plant is expected to generate up to 9,000 jobs in the UK CREDIT: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Editing by Germán & Co

Jaguar Land Rover’s new £4bn gigafactory to supply half of Britain’s EV battery needs

Government-backed deal expected to create up to 9,000 jobs

The Telegraph by Howard Mustoe, July, 18 2023 

Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata group will build one of Europe’s largest gigafactories in the UK, securing half of Britain’s supply of electric vehicle (EV) batteries for the rest of the decade in a £4bn investment.

The Government on Wednesday officially confirmed plans for the gigafactory, Tata’s first outside of India.

The decision comes after months of negotiations between the UK and Tata, which also owns the giant steel plant at Port Talbot in Wales.

The new gigafactory will have an annual capacity of 40 gigawatt hours and will be capable of supplying other carmakers in the UK and Europe. 

The Government said the Tata factory will produce enough electric car batteries to meet half of Britain’s forecast demand by 2030.

The Jaguar Land Rover battery plant is expected to generate up to 9,000 jobs in the South West of England, including 4,000 directly employed by Tata.

The decision secures the future of JLR in the UK and provides a crucial boost to the wider car industry. 

Britain’s two biggest car makers, JLR and Nissan, will now have a local supply of cells for new electric cars. Tata’s gigafactory will be 2GWh larger than the planned capacity of Nissan’s expanded plant near Sunderland.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “We can be incredibly proud that Britain has been chosen as home to Tata Group’s first gigafactory outside India, securing our place as one of the most attractive places to build electric vehicles.”

The news comes months after the collapse of Britishvolt, which had been hoping to build an electric car battery factory near Blyth. 

The startup crumbled into administration before its assets were bought up by an Australian investment company, which pivoted operations away from car batteries.

Concept art of the planned electric car battery factory near Blyth, which was scrapped when Britishvolt went into administration

Attracting investment into battery supplies in the UK is seen as vital to keeping the industry competitive. The Brexit deal means cars built using batteries imported from outside Europe will attract a 10pc tariff if shipped to the Continent.

A looming ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 means establishing a domestic supply chain quickly is also crucial.

The UK beat Spain to host Tata’s plant, following months of negotiations.

The Treasury is reported to have offered up to £500m in subsidies to Tata to secure the plant, although Jaguar Land Rover previously denied it was offered funding to influence the decision. 

Tata is also seeking up to £300m for its steelworks in Port Talbot.

Spain had €2bn of EU funds earmarked to boost its domestic electric vehicle sector. However, it had set a limit of €350m for financing new battery plants.

Details of the government support to Tata will be published “in due course” the Department for Business and Trade said.

Darren Jones, chairman of the Business and Trade Committee, said MPs would want to “reflect” on whether the subsidy required to secure battery investment was “scalable to meet the need for future battery manufacturing sites”.

Former Nissan executive Andy Palmer said that the rest of the industry would need help in its transition to electric vehicles.

He said: “If the UK dishes out the bulk of its battery-related support to one brand, then we still face likely car industry armageddon. Support must come in all shapes and sizes for businesses of all shapes and sizes. One gigafactory doesn’t equal success, it equals part of the puzzle.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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NThe 250MW Netzbooster (Grid Booster) project is being deployed in the hopes of increasing network utilisation across the German transmission system by using battery-based energy storage.

Source: Fluence/Editing by Germán & Co

Germany's power grid is being revolutionized by battery-based energy storage systems known as "Grid Boosters."

The power grid in Germany has always been a top priority and has followed the n-1 principle, which limits the use of power lines to prevent outages. Now, with technological advancements, a groundbreaking solution called Grid Boosters is set to revolutionize the energy industry.

By Germán & Co, Karlstad, Sweden, July 20, 2023

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“In order for the power sector to successfully transition to a net-zero emissions future, it is important to adopt flexible and innovative approaches. With increasing countries committing to ambitious decarbonization plans, the power sector will undergo significant changes. The International Energy Agency's "Net Zero by 2050" report highlights the critical role that variable renewables will play in the power generation mix. As electrification becomes a means of decarbonization, power demand will increase, making it essential to prioritize flexible demand and supply technologies. New technologies such as batteries, energy storage, biomass, and thermal plants with carbon capture and storage will be crucial in providing flexibility. Complementary technologies will ensure a constant balance between supply and demand as the share of variable renewable energy sources increases. The emergence of new demand sources provides a significant opportunity to prioritize flexible demand and supply technologies.

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TenneT and Fluence Energy GmbH Collaborate to Simplify Energy Transmission Grid in Germany

In BAYREUTH, Germany and ERLANGEN, Germany on July 11, 2023, the transmission grid operator TenneT and Fluence Energy GmbH (Fluence), a subsidiary of Fluence Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: FLNC) today sealed their cooperations on two Netzboosters (Grid Boosters) with a contract signing at Fluence’s technology centre in Erlangen on July 11, 2023,

This collaboration aims to simplify the energy transmission grid by introducing two Netzboosters, also known as Grid Boosters, powered by Fluence's cutting-edge energy storage technology. The Grid Boosters will utilize Fluence Ultrastack, an advanced energy storage product specifically designed to meet the demanding asset availability requirements of critical infrastructure. By incorporating battery-based energy storage systems, these Grid Boosters will significantly reduce system costs for consumers. How, you might ask? By minimizing the need for interventions in the grid and reducing the necessity for grid expansion measures.

TenneT will strategically integrate the two Grid Boosters into the transmission grid at Audorf Süd in Schleswig-Holstein and Ottenhofen in Bavaria, Germany. This strategic placement will enable TenneT to seamlessly integrate more electricity from renewable energy generation sources. The existing grid can now operate with a higher transmission load, allowing for increased capacity in handling renewable energy.

Mode of Operation of the Grid Booster

As the energy transition gains momentum, there is an increasing imbalance between energy production and consumption. This necessitates the expansion of energy grids to transport power generated in decentralized locations, often across long distances. However, traditional grid expansion alone is not sufficient to overcome the challenges faced by the transmission grid. Innovation is required, and one such concept is the Grid Booster.

Historically, the high-voltage grid in Germany has operated on the n-1 principle, which means that power lines are not fully utilized in order to ensure safe system operation in the event of a power failure. Moving forward, Grid Boosters, among other resources, will fulfill this role by allowing the existing lines to almost reach their full capacity. By doing so, the need for proactive grid interventions is greatly reduced.

TenneT's Grid Boosters are pilot projects outlined in the 2019 grid development plan for electricity. The initial stage involves testing the concept on a smaller scale with two 100 MW/100 MWh energy storage systems at the Audorf Süd and Ottenhofen substations. In the second phase of the grid development plan for 2037/2045, it is projected that the German grid will feature up to 54.5 GW of large energy storage systems by 2045 through scenario C2045. The successful implementation of TenneT's Grid Boosters will lay the foundation for future large-scale projects where storage is utilized as a transmission asset.

Ultimately, these Grid Boosters offer immense potential for secure and flexible grid operation, enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of the energy system. By leveraging innovations like Grid Boosters alongside traditional grid expansion, the challenges of transmitting energy over long distances can be effectively addressed, further facilitating the ongoing energy transition.

The project builds on more than 15 years of energy storage deployments by the Fluence team. Ultrastack was tailored to the specific requirements of TenneT’s Grid Boosters and was developed and tested in Fluence’s technology centre in Erlangen. Fluence expects the need for storage solutions to grow rapidly, as the massive expansion of renewable energy sources will increase grid congestion and consequently require more grid reinforcement and relief interventions.

“Fluence, through its advanced product capabilities and extensive energy market experience, is well positioned to be a long-term partner to TSOs in Germany and globally,” said Markus Meyer, Managing Director at Fluence. “TenneT’s Grid Boosters will be the seventh and eighth storage-as-transmission projects Fluence is deploying. Our team is developing the complex applications required for these types of projects in our Erlangen lab and research facility and we continue to invest strongly in our German presence.” 

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, far left, stands alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Central Asian heads of state at the Russia-Central Asia Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Oct. 14, 2022. (Kazakhstan's President Press Office/AP)/Editing by Germán & Co

In Central Asia, a hidden pipeline supplies Russia with banned tech

Moscow looks south for partners willing to help it circumvent bans on Chinese drones and German electronics

WP by Joby Warrick, July 18, 2023 

On the shipping label, the Chinese drones were billed as heavy-duty cropdusters, the kind used by orchards and big farms. But the identity of the buyer — a Russian company that purchased a truckload of the aircraft in early May at nearly $14,000 each — hinted at other possible uses.

The drones’ potential military value, ironically, had been noted by Russia’s government, which last year seized four aircraft of the same model in eastern Ukraine and claimed that Kyiv was planning to use them for chemical warfare. The sturdy all-weather quadcopters are built to carry payloads of nearly 70 pounds and are designed to glide at treetop level trailing a fog of liquid chemicals.

Whatever their intended use, the drones were on the final leg of a trek across Central Asia when they were intercepted by customs officers near the border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. To U.S. officials recounting the events weeks later, the episode was unusual: More often than not, they said, such goods pass into Russia uninterrupted.

The seizure of the drones was hailed as a rare victory in a whack-a-mole effort to halt the flow of banned hardware and electronics pouring into Russia in support of its war effort in Ukraine. Blocked from procuring military goods from Western countries, Moscow has increasingly looked for help from the former Soviet states of Central Asia, some of which are historically and financially bound to Russia but also trade extensively with Europe and China.

Biden administration officials say they are particularly concerned about the role played by Kyrgyzstan, the country from which the drone shipment originated. The mountainous, landlocked country of 6.7 million people was once the southern frontier of the Soviet empire, and it is now home to numerous businesses that have become a conduit for Western and Asian goods that Russia can’t legally obtain elsewhere, officials said in interviews.

Many Russian drones contain Western parts and technology, U.S. officials say

Following the Kremlin’s Ukraine invasion — and with greater intensity in recent months — Kyrgyzstan witnessed a striking expansion of import-export companies that do business mainly with Russia. The firms are profiting from soaring sales of sanctioned Chinese and European goods — from drones and aircraft parts to rifle scopes and advanced bomb circuitry — most of which are flown or shipped overland to companies in Russia, said a senior U.S. official with detailed knowledge about the transactions.

After months of fruitless visits to the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek by a stream of U.S. and European diplomats, the Biden administration is preparing new economic measures to pressure the country to halt the trade, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the plans. The actions, which in the past have included sanctions or a “blacklisting” of companies accused of violations, could come as early as this week, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatically sensitive deliberations.

“Kyrgyzstan, while small relative to other countries, is a clear example of every factor at play at once to create an unacceptably [sanctions] evasion-friendly environment,” the senior official said.

Publicly accessible trade documents offer hints about the scale of the Kyrgyz shadow bazaar. Records show the overall volume of Kyrgyzstan’s exports to Russia skyrocketed in 2022, rising by 250 percent over the previous year, before the invasion of Ukraine. For some items, such as rifle scopes, there was no previous record of Kyrgyzstan ever exporting such goods to Russia.

Trade documents also suggest a high level of coordination with Moscow’s procurement efforts. Records from early this year show Kyrgyz companies making bulk purchases of sensitive electronics — including hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of specialized semiconductors and voltage amplifiers — from Chinese and South Korean companies in February and March. A nearly identical quantity of the same types of electronics was exported from Kyrgyzstan to Russia over the same period, the documents show.

The Russian firms that received the goods were in most cases known suppliers to Russia’s defense industry, the senior U.S. official said. The apparent choreography of the third-party transactions was seen as the work of Russia’s intelligence services, which U.S. officials say are now directly involved, along with a range of war profiteers, in schemes aimed at circumventing economic sanctions.

The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Kyrgyz Embassy in Washington, responding to a request for comment, said in a statement that the country’s leaders were committed to adhering to international regulations and cracking down on contraband and other illicit trade. The statement attributed the surge in trade with Moscow in part to improvements in electronic systems for tracking the flow of goods across the country’s borders.

While the embassy acknowledged previous reports about sanctions violations, it said critics failed to take into account the “real economic context.”

“Kyrgyzstan and Russia are the members of Eurasian Economic Union and, in general, Russia is one of our main trading partners,” it said. “More than a million of our citizens work in Russia.”

Current and former U.S. officials acknowledged Kyrgyzstan’s geopolitical and economic difficulties, while noting that some of the country’s neighbors appear to be making a more sincere effort to enforce the sanctions, even in the face of enormous pressure from Moscow.

“Geography, proximity and influence matter,” said Juan Zarate, who served under the George W. Bush administration as the Treasury Department’s inaugural assistant secretary for combating terrorist financing and financial crimes. In countries such as Kyrgyzstan, he said, there must be “political will to cut preexisting relationships, along with the courage and capacity to enforce sanctions” — even when such actions run the risk of “upsetting a dangerous neighbor.”

Kyrgyz officials declined to comment on the reported attempt to export Chinese drones to Russia, although the events were described in local news accounts in both Kyrgyzstan and neighboring Kazakhstan, where the aircraft were confiscated two months ago.

The batch of Chinese DJI Agras T-30 cropduster drones had been acquired by a Kyrgyz firm, with plans to resell them to a company in Russia. The 14 drones were being shipped overland through Kazakhstan when they were flagged by customs officials for lacking the proper export paperwork. The aircraft ultimately were impounded by the Kazakhs and never reached the Russian border, according to Kazakh media accounts. Officials at the Kazakh Embassy in Washington declined to comment about the incident.

The same Chinese manufacturer, DJI, produces similar drones for use by law-enforcement agencies, including in the United States, where the company’s models remain popular despite bans or curbs on federal use of the aircraft since 2017. DJI suspended sales of its drones to Ukraine and Russia after the February 2022 invasion, perhaps explaining why the Russian purchaser of the T-30s used an indirect route in trying to acquire them.

Both Ukraine and Russia have fully embraced the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, for a wide range of military missions, including assaults on military and civilian targets with self-detonating drones, as well as the use of lightweight “hobby” UAVs to drop small munitions on troop positions and vehicles. Both sides rely on drones for surveillance and artillery spotting. Moscow has expanded its arsenal with hundreds of powerful attack drones purchased from Iran, and it has recently begun work on a Russian assembly line to manufacture Iranian-designed UAVs.

Iran seeks billions in Russian technology as payment for drones

There is no record of Agras T-30 drones being deployed on a battlefield, although the aircraft possesses military utility because of its 66-pound payload capacity, which could be used for dropping bombs or moving weapons, said Charles Rollet, a researcher for IPVM, a publication that monitors the global surveillance industry. While relatively noisy compared to traditional military reconnaissance drones, the T-30 can fly at altitudes of up 14,000 feet and operate in all weather, day or night, according to the manufacturer’s website. It is equipped with an array of sophisticated sensors, including cameras, radar and a searchlight for illuminating objects on the ground.

After the Russian military seized the four T-30s from Ukraine last year during fighting near the eastern city of Kherson, Kremlin officials suggested in Russian media reports that Kyiv intended to use them in chemical attacks against Russian troops. There is no evidence that Ukraine has used or possesses chemical weapons.

U.S. intelligence officials have long worried, however, that Russia might resort to using its known stockpile of chemical agents to halt advancing Ukrainian troops.

Russian forces appear to have used noxious gases — believed to be variations of tear gas — against Ukrainians in at least two incidents since the invasion, according to intercepted Russian communications revealed in top-secret documents leaked on Discord and obtained by The Washington Post, as well as battlefield video broadcast by Russian news media.

Britain and the United States have officially registered their concerns about the incidents, which, if confirmed, would constitute a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, of which Russia is a signatory. Investigators have previously accused Moscow of using banned chemical weapons in assassination attempts and for providing cover to its ally Syria after that country’s use of deadly nerve agents against its own citizens.

Although the T-30 drones never reached their intended destination, U.S. officials say it is inevitable that Russia will try again to obtain unmanned aerial technology it lacks, perhaps using other partners and methods, or different kinds of aircraft.

U.S. officials acknowledge that, in most cases, countries that are determined to obtain banned goods eventually succeed, although rigorous enforcement of trade embargoes can eventually drive up costs of doing business.

“The Russians are motivated to obtain the supplies of weapons and technology they need to sustain their military and war in Ukraine, and they will do whatever is necessary,” said Zarate, the former Treasury official and now co-managing partner of K2 Integrity, a risk advisory company.

Zarate likened sanctions enforcement to weeding an unruly garden: a “long, complicated effort, with emphasis on continuous enforcement, crackdowns on evasion, and demonstration that the Russian economy will continue to be isolated and risky for anyone electing to do business with Russia.”

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Image: NYT/Editing by Germán & Co

Trump’s Conspirators Are Facing the Music, Finally

NYT by *Norman Eisen and Ryan Goodman, July 18, 2023

*Mr. Eisen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Mr. Goodman is a law professor at New York University.

We’ve reached a turning point in the effort to ensure there are consequences for those who deliberately attempt to undermine our democracy: Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, charged 16 Republican leaders in her state on Tuesday for their role as fake electors working to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The charges, coming on the heels of news that the special counsel Jack Smith has informed Donald Trump that he’s a target of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Capitol riot, mean we are witnessing a new and necessary phase in this quest for accountability, one in which the federal and state wheels of justice work to hold people accountable not only for the violence on Jan. 6, but also for what got us there: the alleged scheme to interfere with the transfer of power.

The charges in Michigan will surely meet criticism on all sides. Some will say the case is not broad or bold enough, that Mr. Trump and the other alleged national ringleaders should have been charged as well. Others will say Ms. Nessel cast too wide a net, pulling in low-level party functionaries who did not know better. We think those critiques are misconceived. Ms. Nessel got it just right, prosecuting crimes firmly within her jurisdiction, while opening the way for federal authorities to net even bigger fish.

Ms. Nessel brought the same eight counts against all 16 defendants. The offenses include conspiracy to commit forgery, since the defendants are accused of signing documents stating they were the qualified electors (they were not), and publishing forged documents by circulating these materials to federal and state authorities. On paper, the penalties for the offenses range from five to 14 years, but sentencing in this case would presumably be lower than that maximum.

Until now there have been no charges centered on the fake electors plot. For that reason alone, Michigan’s action brings a sense of needed accountability for those who fanned the rioters’ passions leading up to Jan. 6 by spinning a false narrative about a stolen election.

Michigan saw some of the most outrageous fake electoral certificates to emerge during the period leading up to the Capitol riot. Unlike the fake certificates in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, the Michigan documents did not include a disclaimer that they were to be used only in the case of litigation. What’s more, the documents contained more outright false statements than simply declaring that the signers were the lawful electors of the winning candidate.

For example, they state that the electors “convened and organized in the State Capitol,” when, according to the attorney general, they were hidden away in the basement of the state Republican headquarters. (It seems likely that the fake electors included this lie because Michigan law requires presidential electors to meet in the Capitol — a requirement and legal problem that a Trump campaign legal adviser, Kenneth Chesebro, had flagged in his confidential memorandum setting out the scheme.)

In proving these cases, establishing intent will be key. Here, there are several indicators that the defendants may have been aware of the illicit nature of their gathering. According to congressional testimony from the state Republican Party’s chairwoman at the time, Laura Cox, the group originally planned to meet inside the Capitol and hide overnight, so they could vote in the building the following day. Ms. Cox said she told a lawyer working with the Trump campaign and supposedly organizing the fake electors “in no uncertain terms that that was insane and inappropriate,” and “a very, very bad idea and potentially illegal.”

As she put it, Ms. Cox was “very uncomfortable” with facilitating a meeting of the fake elector group, and said so at the time in accord with her lawyers’ opinion. Ms. Cox even urged the group to draft a significantly more measured document simply “stating that if perhaps something were to happen in the courts, they were willing and able to serve as electors from Michigan for Donald Trump.” Her advice was not followed.

At the time the fake electors met to allegedly forge their documents, they should have been aware that state officials had certified the election results for Joe Biden — it was national and state news. By that point, there was no prospect of changing that outcome through either litigation or legislative action. On the day prosecutors say the fake electors met, two of the most powerful Republicans in the state acknowledged as much. Mike Shirkey, the majority leader in the State Senate, and Lee Chatfield, the House speaker, both issued statements declaring the presidential race over. Mr. Shirkey said that Michigan’s “Democratic slate of electors should be able to proceed with their duty” without the threat of harassment or violence.

The fake electors were told they were not allowed to bring their phones into the meeting at the Republican headquarters that day, according to testimony one of them gave congressional investigators. They were instructed to maintain secrecy and not to share any details about what was occurring. That secrecy suggests that they knew what they were doing was wrong.

Michigan’s former secretary of state, Terri Lynn Land, who had been designated a Trump elector, declined to participate in the proceedings, saying, according to Ms. Cox’s testimony, she was not comfortable doing so.

With these facts, it would have been unthinkable for the state attorney general to choose not to prosecute the Michigan 16. Ms. Nessel’s office has regularly brought prosecutions, some of them against her fellow Democrats, centered on false documents in connection with elections. The case of the fake electors is far more egregious than most of those other cases: The defendants here were politically engaged individuals who should have been aware of the election results, as well as the flat rejection by the courts and Michigan Legislature of the Trump campaign’s claims of voter fraud.

To be sure, some critics of the case may still think that the Michigan attorney general should have gone after Mr. Trump and his top lieutenants, who helped organize the false electors. But prosecutors have a responsibility first to pursue those individuals within their jurisdiction. By focusing solely on the figures who undertook their acts in Michigan, Ms. Nessel is wisely insulating her case against charges that she overreached, exceeding her jurisdiction.

Of course, broader prosecutions may still be justified. Reporting indicates that the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga., Fani Willis, may be considering a different kind of wide-ranging case, involving state RICO crimes. Unlike the Michigan prosecution, her case may focus on Mr. Trump’s direct efforts to pressure state election officials — efforts that were caught on tape — and Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to provide false statements of election fraud to state officials.

If broad-based indictments ultimately emerge out of Georgia, and are supported by the facts and appropriate law, then we would welcome it. That is part of the genius of American democracy: The states, which are responsible for running our elections, are laboratories of both democracy and of accountability.

Ms. Nessel’s case also leaves a clear lane for Mr. Smith, the special counsel. She has avoided charging high-level national individuals whom Mr. Smith is apparently investigating. If anything, her case provides greater foundation for Mr. Smith to act, and he now seems to be following through. If Ms. Nessel can move against these individuals in Michigan, Mr. Smith can and should do the same against the ringleaders. Together, they can hold both the foot soldiers and their organizers accountable for their actions leading up to the Capitol riot.

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Labourers work next to electricity pylons in Mumbai, India, October 13, 2021. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/

Global power demand growth to rebound in 2024 after slowdown, IEA says

The IEA data also suggests that renewable energy will play a crucial role in meeting the projected growth in energy consumption for both this year and next. In fact, renewable sources are predicted to surpass one third of the world's total power supply, marking a significant milestone. This demonstrates the increasing prominence of renewable energy in the global energy landscape.

Reuters by Forrest Crellin, EDITING BY GERMÁN & CO, July 19, 2023

PARIS, July 19 (Reuters) - An ongoing energy crisis and an economic downturn is expected to slow global power demand growth in 2023, but a probable rebound in 2024 means more renewable capacity needs to be developed, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday.

The global growth rate for energy consumption is set to slow to slightly less than 2% in 2023, down from 2.3% in 2022, which was also down from the five-year pre-COVID 19 average of 2.4%.

For 2024, the rate is expected to rise to 3.3%, as the economic outlook improves, the IEA data showed.

The Paris-based agency predicted renewable energy would cover the expected growth this year and next and power from renewable sources would exceed one third of the total global power supply for the first time next year.

However, hydropower has declined, falling about 2% in 2020-2022 compared to 1990-2016 figures, which represents about 240 terawatt-hours, or the annual consumption of Spain.

"Anticipating challenges on hydropower related to climate change, and planning accordingly, will be crucial for the efficient and sustainable use of hydro resources," the IEA said.

The renewable growth should help to cut global emissions, as emissions increases in China and India are expected to be offset by declines in other countries where renewable deployment is growing and natural gas continues to replace coal, the IEA said.

The European Union alone accounts for 40% of the total decline in emissions from power generation, the IEA data showed.

In the first half this year, the EU recorded a 6% decline in power demand as energy-intensive industries, including aluminum, steel, paper, and chemical industries, cut their use in response to high prices. A relatively mild winter also had a more limited impact on reducing demand, the IEA said.

Wholesale electricity prices, have fallen significantly from records hit last year as a result of the disruption caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but average prices in Europe are still more than double their 2019 levels, India's are up 80%, and Japan's more than 30%.

Prices in the United States, however, have retreated almost to 2019 levels. The country's demand is expected to decline by 1.7% in 2023 due to slowing economic growth, and to rebound in 2024 to 2%, down from the 2.6% recorded in 2022.

In China, demand is expected to grow 5.3% in 2023 and 5.1% in 2024, after a moderate 3.7% rise in 2022, the IEA data showed. Increased use of cooling to cope with summer heatwaves is expected to drive the demand growth there this year.

India's consumption is expected to rise by 6.8% in 2023 and 6.1% in 2024 - when it is expected to surpass that of Japan and Korea combined - but down from the 8.4% rise recorded in 2022.

The growth is expected to come from increased use of household appliances, a rise in electrical machinery usage, an increase in electric vehicles, and greater demand for cooling.

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News round-up, July 18, 2023

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Quote of the days…

Pioneers in Green Aviation: Norwegian Electric Planes

The aviation industry, widely acknowledged for its significant environmental impact, has become a focal point in the battle against climate change. In this regard, Norway has emerged as a potential pioneer, as it aims to transition all short-haul flights to electric planes by 2040.

Spiegel 

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Most read…

Modi and India’s Diaspora: A Complex Love Affair Making Global Waves

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to fuse his image to the economic and political power of Indians abroad. They voice both pride and worry in return.

NYT By Damien Cave, reporting from Washington, Silicon Valley and Sydney, Australia, July 18, 2023

Russia Stops Ukraine Grain Deal, Shaking World Food Markets

Moscow, which has repeatedly complained that the U.N.-brokered agreement is one-sided in Ukraine’s favor, said it could return to the deal if its demands were met.

NYT By Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Ivan Nechepurenko, Liz Alderman and Farnaz Fassihi, July 17, 2023

Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs… Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up

The world’s richest known lithium deposit lies deep in the woods of western Maine, in a yawning, sparkling mouth of white and brown rocks that looks like a landslide carved into the side of Plumbago Mountain.

TIME BY ALANA SEMUELS AND KATE COUGH / MAINE MONITOR, JULY 17, 2023 

Germany adds 60% more onshore wind power in H1 but pace seen too slow

The drop in Russian fossil fuel exports to Germany last year highlighted the hazards of relying on imports and emphasized the urgency of implementing a local energy plan.

Reuters by Vera Eckert, July 18, 2023

Britain opens small nuclear reactor competition, launches new nuclear body

Ambitious Plan: Boosting Nuclear Power to Meet Climate Targets

Reuters by Susanna Twidale, July 18, 2023

Pioneers in Green Aviation: Could Norwegian Electric Planes Be a Model for the Rest of the World?

The global aviation industry has a massive climate problem, and many are looking to Norway for a possible solution. The country wants all short-haul flights to be conducted with electric planes as early as 2040. But doubts persist about whether the technology will be ready.

Spiegel by Marcus Efler, 18.07.2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India at a rally in an arena in Sydney, in May.Credit...Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

Modi and India’s Diaspora: A Complex Love Affair Making Global Waves

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried to fuse his image to the economic and political power of Indians abroad. They voice both pride and worry in return.

NYT By Damien Cave, reporting from Washington, Silicon Valley and Sydney, Australia, July 18, 2023

On the final night of his visit to Washington in late June, after 15 standing ovations in Congress and an opulent White House dinner tailored to his vegetarian tastes, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India set time aside to court and be cheered by another important constituency: the Indian diaspora.

Backstage at the Kennedy Center, as business leaders in bespoke suits and fine silk saris filtered into a 1,200-seat theater, Mr. Modi met with a handful of entrepreneurs. Most were young, educated in India, made rich in America, and eager to connect with the man who presents himself as a guru to the world, preaching how this is “the century of India.”

“Thank you for lifting the image and spirits of Indian Americans,” Umesh Sachdev, 37, told the prime minister, explaining that he was the founder of Uniphore, an artificial intelligence business valued at $2.5 billion, with offices in India and California. Mr. Modi tapped Mr. Sachdev’s shoulder and exclaimed “waah,” or wow in Hindi.

With an emphasis on national pride, Mr. Modi and his conservative Hindu-first Bharatiya Janata Party have cultivated a surprisingly strong relationship with India’s successful diaspora. The bond has been strengthened by a global political machine, supercharged under Mr. Modi with party offices in dozens of countries and thousands of volunteers. And it has allowed Mr. Modi to fuse his own image — and his rubric of elevating India — with superstar executives and powerful, often more liberal constituencies in the United States, Britain, Australia and many other nations.

No other world leader seems to draw such a steady flow of diaspora welcome parties, most recently in Paris, New York and Cairo, or giant audiences, including 20,000 fans at a rally in Australia in May. Mr. Modi was in France on Friday as the guest of honor at the annual Bastille Day parade, and with elections next year in India, the pattern has been set.

“The B.J.P. leadership wants to show its strength abroad, to create strength at home,” said Sameer Lalwani, a senior expert on South Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

But in some corners of the diaspora, strains are emerging. Many Indian professionals who cheer when Mr. Modi boasts that India has become the world’s fifth-largest economy — who gush about new infrastructure and more modern cities — also fear that his government’s Hindu-supremacist policies and growing intolerance of scrutiny will keep India from truly standing as a superpower and democratic alternative to China.

Vinod Khosla, a prominent Silicon Valley investor, who has often pushed for closer U.S.-India relations, said in an interview that India’s greatest risk is a disruption to economic growth from the instability and inequality inflamed by Hindu nationalism. Others worry that Mr. Modi, in a bubble of political celebrity and religious certitude, is ignoring the fragility of positive momentum in a complex, diverse and volatile nation of 1.4 billion people.

“The demographics only work for India if there is progressivism and inclusion,” said Arun Subramony, a private equity banker in Washington with digital, health and other investments in India. “The party has to make an extra effort to make clear that India is for everyone.”

Techno-Utopian Dreams

The bond between the diaspora and the B.J.P. began with pragmatism — and with the first B.J.P. prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who promoted information technology as the solution to India’s development problems in the late 1990s.

Kanwal Rekhi, the first Indian American to take a company public on the Nasdaq, heard Mr. Vajpayee’s speeches and thought: This guy gets it. He asked for a meeting and arrived in New Delhi in April 2000, leading a group called The IndUS Entrepreneurs, or TiE.

At the prime minister’s residence, there were paratroopers on the roof and tanks nearby, vestiges of a recent conflict with Pakistan. Mr. Rekhi was there promising that entrepreneurship could bridge divides — India and Pakistan, Muslims and Hindus. Mr. Vajpayee welcomed their techno-utopianism.

“He asked: ‘What is your sense of India and Indians?’ Then he said, ‘Our future is very bright, and you need to show us the way,’” Mr. Rekhi said in an interview.

So began a relationship with the diaspora that reversed decades of rancor, when those who left with university degrees were seen as traitors to India’s needs. Once Mr. Vajpayee made clear that he saw Indians overseas as guides and consultants, that is what they became.

TiE made several recommendations, bolstered by Stanford professors, and Mr. Vajpayee followed their suggestions. In 2001, for example, his government loosened its monopoly on internet infrastructure, allowing more private competition.

Naren Bakshi, another tech executive in the meetings, recalled that Mr. Vajpayee insisted that the diaspora also play a direct role.

“If you care for India,” he told them, “come to India.”

Mr. Bakshi bought a home near where he had grown up in the state of Rajasthan, and he has spent four months a year in India ever since.

In the early 2000s, he also helped found the India Community Center in Milpitas, Calif., a sprawling complex in a South Asian suburb of San Jose that has become a hub for yoga, Muslim and Hindu holidays, weddings — and, increasingly, meetings with visiting Indian officials.

“People here are very much involved,” Raj Desai, the center’s president, said over tea one recent morning.

In Silicon Valley and elsewhere, Overseas Friends of the B.J.P., the party’s international arm, has become an established presence. Helping with immigration issues and other challenges, its members supplement and compete with India’s understaffed corps of around 950 foreign service officers — a fraction of the roughly 16,000 who work for the United States.

Hindus from the diaspora celebrating the Ganesh Festival in 2015 in Jersey City, N.J. Mr. Vajpayee made clear that he saw Indians overseas as guides and consultants for their country.Credit...Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

Last year — even though voting in India’s elections must be done in person — the B.J.P. sponsored events with party officials in Texas, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina, as well as several events at the India Community Center in California, according to its mandatory registration filings as a foreign agent.

Visiting officials also bring together smaller groups for dinners and discussion. Mr. Sachdev, the Uniphore chief executive, said he had gone to several such gatherings, adding that the conversations focused on business policy more than politics.

He and other attendees said they had never been asked to contribute to B.J.P. campaigns.

But political scientists believe that the B.J.P. and Hindu organizations draw a significant flow of money from the diaspora. In 2018, Mr. Modi’s government rushed through Parliament a law allowing Indians living abroad and foreign companies with subsidiaries in India to make undisclosed political donations. Spending on India’s 2019 campaign topped $8 billion, making it the most expensive election in the world.

“There’s an absence of transparency, and it’s by design,” said Gilles Verniers, a senior fellow at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

In the United States, the B.J.P. registered its presence — a requirement for any foreign political party — only after questions were raised about the financing of a giant “Howdy Modi” celebration in 2019 in Houston with President Donald J. Trump.

In Australia, the organization still does not appear in the foreign transparency register, despite the costs associated with Mr. Modi’s rally in May at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena, where hundreds of people lined up outside for selfies with twin Modi cardboard cutouts framing a giant sign with “We ❤️ Modi” in bright white lights.

Visitors lining up to take photos with a cardboard cut out of Mr. Modi during a rally in Sydney. Groups had reached the event by bus and flights chartered by a local B.J.P. chapter.Credit...Matthew Abbott for The New York Times

“He’s the leader of the century,” said Meera Rawat, after snapping a photo with one of the cardboard Modis.

Her group had reached Sydney on a bus chartered by a local B.J.P. chapter. Several flights were also chartered by the party.

Asked about the process, B.J.P. officials in Australia said everything was “fully funded by the local Indian community and businesses.”

Albel Singh Kang, secretary of the Australian Sikh Association, said his group had initially been recruited for the event. When organizers declined to identify its funders, he passed. Indian Muslim leaders also stayed away, noting that members of Mr. Modi’s party have called for Muslims to be murdered — without strong condemnation from the prime minister.

Pushing for Change

Many Indians overseas fret about bloodshed in India, where religious minorities make up 20 percent of the population, and where Hindu mobs are regularly accused of lynching people, mostly Muslims, for their food, style of dress, or interfaith marriages. But India’s emigrant families also worry about violence leeching into the countries where they have moved.

In 2021, men armed with bats and hammers attacked four Sikh students in a car in Sydney. After one of the men served a six-month sentence, he returned to India, where he received a hero’s welcome. Tensions among Indian immigrants in Britain, Canada and the United States have also been rising in recent years, along with vandalism and threats.

“The fact is, there are divisions within India, and they are bound to express themselves because politics doesn’t stop at the national shores,” said C. Raja Mohan, a senior fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute in Delhi.

Rising concerns about polarization are often overlooked amid the Modi pageantry. At the diaspora event in Sydney, Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, compared Mr. Modi to Bruce Springsteen, calling India’s leader “The Boss,” to huge cheers.

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., and his wife, Anjali Pichai, at the White House in June. Mr. Modi relies on an exceptionally successful diaspora to spread the message of a strong India.Credit...Samuel Corum for The New York Times

In Washington, where 7,000 Indian Americans joined him in an exuberant celebration on the White House lawn, Mr. Modi said at a news conference that discrimination against minorities did not exist under his government. A few hours later, human rights activists gathered outside the gate, including Muslims who had fled to the United States after facing persecution in India. The TV crews had already moved on.

Behind the scenes, American officials say there has been more nudging of Mr. Modi.

Ro Khanna, co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, who represents the district that includes the India Community Center, said that he had spoken to Mr. Modi about the importance of pluralism.

“I want us to be very much focused on strengthening the U.S.-India relationship under the principle of India’s founding and our founding,” Mr. Khanna said, “and not a celebration of any particular individual.”

Some business leaders say that Mr. Modi deserves their unflagging support. “What’s important to me is, has he been able to put India on a trajectory of growth and global leadership?” said Mr. Sachdev of Uniphore. The United Nations recently reported that India’s economy had lifted 415 million people out of poverty in the past 15 years.

Others have started mixing praise with pragmatic concern. Mr. Khosla, the prominent investor, said it was time to recognize that the government’s favoring of Hindus “can take attention off the principal path of economic progress, and set it back, and set back global relationships.”

Mr. Modi with President Joe Biden last month. Behind the scenes, American officials say there has been more nudging of Mr. Modi about the importance of pluralism, along with other topics.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Even in Washington’s supportive diaspora crowds, there was a blend of pride and appeals for moderation, for equal opportunity and constructive critique.

Mr. Subramony, the private equity banker, said he grew up in southern India without regular water or electricity, in a compound of 10 families practicing four different religions. He called Mr. Modi “a very quick learner” who would hopefully defend India’s more tolerant values.

“It’s also our responsibility, the people who are feeding Modi, who are being inspired by what is going on in India,” he said. “It is our duty to make him change.”

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…”I had the privilege of attending the AmChamChile meeting with former President Lagos and gaining valuable insights into his experience in the negotiations of the Chile-US Trade and Development Agreement. It is truly remarkable to think that two decades have already passed since those negotiations concluded. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to AmChamChile for generously sharing their invaluable insights and knowledge with us. Thank once again.

Javier Dib

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AES Andes

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Image: Ukraine is a major exporter of foodstuffs, and Africa, in particular, relies on grain stored in silos like these, in Marianske, in the southern Dnipro region, in June.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

Russia Stops Ukraine Grain Deal, Shaking World Food Markets

Moscow, which has repeatedly complained that the U.N.-brokered agreement is one-sided in Ukraine’s favor, said it could return to the deal if its demands were met.

NYT By Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Ivan Nechepurenko, Liz Alderman and Farnaz Fassihi, July 17, 2023

Russia said on Monday it was withdrawing from a wartime agreement to allow grain exports from Ukraine through the Black Sea until its demands to loosen sanctions on its own agricultural exports were met, upending a deal that has helped stabilize global food prices and alleviate shortages in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

The agreement, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, was struck a year ago, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, to alleviate a global food crisis after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia had blockaded Ukrainian ports, blocking ships from carrying its grain and sending global prices soaring to record highs. The deal has been extended three times, most recently in May. The latest extension expired on Monday.

The United Nations’ secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply disappointed” by Moscow’s decision, and that millions of people facing hunger, as well as consumers confronting a cost-of-living crisis, would “pay a price.” He also said he had sent proposals last week to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to facilitate Moscow’s demands. Mr. Putin never responded directly, a U.N. spokesman said.

Russia has repeatedly complained about the agreement, which it calls one-sided in Ukraine’s favor. Moscow has said that Western sanctions, imposed because of Moscow’s devastating war, have restricted the sale of Russia’s agricultural products, and Moscow has sought guarantees that free up those exports.

In April, Russia’s Foreign Ministry also listed other demands to renew the grain deal: reconnect the state-owned Russian Agricultural Bank to the international SWIFT messaging service that is critical for cross-border payments; lift restrictions on maritime insurance and on the supply of spare parts used in agricultural machinery; end sanctions against fertilizer companies and the people linked to them; and restore an ammonia pipeline that crosses Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, who announced on Monday that the Black Sea grain agreement was “halted,” said, “As soon as the Russian part is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of that deal.”

Russia’s announcement came hours after a deadly attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking the occupied Crimea Peninsula to mainland Russia. Mr. Peskov said the decision to suspend the grain deal was not connected to the attack.

Ukraine is one of the world’s major exporters of wheat, corn, sunflower seeds and vegetable oil. It has exported 32.9 million tons of grain and other food under the initiative, according to U.N. data. Under the agreement, ships are permitted to pass by Russian naval vessels that kept other vessels from using Ukraine’s ports since the start of Russia’s war. The ships are inspected off the coast of Istanbul, in part to ensure they are not carrying weapons.

The effects of the suspended grain deal were quickly apparent. It rattled wheat markets, seesawing prices and exposing vulnerable countries in Africa and the global south to the prospect of a new round of food insecurity.

Chicago wheat futures, a barometer for global prices, briefly jumped more than 4 percent as the Kremlin’s move jeopardized a key trade route to global markets for grain from Ukraine. Later, prices swung to more than 1 percent lower for the day.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters at the State Department on Monday: “I hope that every country is watching this very closely. They will see that Russia is responsible for denying food to people who are desperately needy around the world.”

John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, called Russia’s move a “military act of aggression” and said that the United States was already seeing a rise in global wheat, corn and soybean prices.

“We urge the government of Russia to immediately reverse its decision,” he added.

Russia’s decision appears to be part of a broader effort by Mr. Putin to reassert an aura of unassailable authority after a failed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group, said Timothy Ash, a senior strategist at BlueBay Asset Management in London and an expert on Russia and Ukraine.

“It will hurt specific countries dependent on these exports,” Mr. Ash said. But beyond that, “it shows how weak Putin is after the Wagner coup: He is now desperate to take any bit of leverage he can.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Moscow had broken its agreement with the United Nations and with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, rather than with his country, given that Ukraine had made a separate deal with the two mediators over grain. In remarks conveyed by his press office, Mr. Zelensky added that Ukraine was ready to restart shipments if the United Nations and Turkey agreed.

With Black Sea ports closed again, Ukraine may have to redouble its use of alternative routes, exporting grain by truck, train and river barge — journeys that take a longer time than shipping by sea, and cannot handle the same volume.

Mr. Blinken said that the United States would help Ukraine find other means of export, but that “it’s really hard to replace what’s now being lost as a result of Russia weaponizing food.”

Mr. Erdogan said he would speak to Mr. Putin about the agreement and signaled hope that it could be revived. “Despite the statement today, I believe the president of the Russian Federation, my friend Putin, wants the continuation of this humanitarian bridge,” Mr. Erdogan said in Istanbul.

The deal between Ukraine and Russia — which is also a major global supplier of grain, oil and other affordable food products — is particularly important in 14 African nations that depend on the two nations for half of their wheat imports, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. Eritrea is fully dependent on them.

When the grain deal began in July 2022, Célestin Tawamba, the chief executive officer of La Pasta, the largest flour and pasta producer in Cameroon, said, “The noose was tightening, so the deal should help us breathe.”

The initial agreement allowed Ukraine to restart the export of millions of tons of grain that had languished for months. Food prices have dropped over 23 percent from their peak in March 2022, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index. The accord has allowed vital food products to be exported from Ukrainian ports to 45 countries on three continents, the United Nations said.

But again and again, before each negotiated extension has run out, Russia has signaled it might withdraw from the agreement. Last year, after accusing Ukraine of attacking its warships in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol with a swarm of drones, Russia pulled out, halting participation in inspections that were part of the agreement. Then it rejoined in a matter of days.

The collapse of the grain deal dominated the U.N. Security Council’s session on Ukraine on Monday. China, an ally of Russia’s, stopped short of directly condemning Russia for withdrawing from the deal but called on both sides to resume negotiations to restore the pact.

Mr. Guterres said earlier that to help meet Russia’s demands, he had sent Mr. Putin proposals to “remove hurdles” affecting its financial transactions. He said the United Nations had proposed enabling a subsidiary of the Russian Agricultural Bank — one of several institutions barred by Western sanctions from SWIFT because of Russia’s aggression — to regain access with the European Commission, and that the agency had built a bespoke payment mechanism outside of SWIFT for the bank through JP Morgan.

The U.N. spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said that Russia’s response to the letter apparently came in the form of Monday’s announcement. Mr. Guterres said, however, that the United Nations intended to start negotiating a new grain proposal with Mr. Putin.

Despite Russia’s move, analysts say, some factors may prevent food prices from surging to the staggering levels seen just after Russia invaded Ukraine.

For one thing, the global commodity price outlook is weaker than a year ago because of a faltering economic recovery in China. A global cost-of-living crisis has been eroding demand more generally, Mr. Ash, the strategist, said. Supply chain stresses are also easing, and manufacturing and production costs have cooled, according to an analysis by Oxford Economics, a research institute.

Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at the financial services firm StoneX, said that Russia was still dumping cheap wheat on the global market, “so we are not running out of wheat right now.”

“This particular development today may not do a lot to risk world hunger,” he said, “but the continual escalation with no resolution in sight means the risks are still growing.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Mary and Gary Freeman stand in a pit in Newry, Maine, where they have excavated 700 tons of the lithium-bearing mineral spodumene under an exploratory permit, on June 6. The site, also known as Plumbago North, contains some of the largest specimens of spodumene ever uncovered, with some measuring up to 36 feet in length. The state of Maine currently bars them from further extracting the rock. /Garrick Hoffman—The Maine Monitor/Editing by Germán & Co

Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs. Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up

The world’s richest known lithium deposit lies deep in the woods of western Maine, in a yawning, sparkling mouth of white and brown rocks that looks like a landslide carved into the side of Plumbago Mountain.

TIME BY ALANA SEMUELS AND KATE COUGH / MAINE MONITOR, JULY 17, 2023 

Mary Freeman and her husband Gary found the deposit five years ago while hunting for tourmaline, a striking, multi-colored gemstone found in the region.

The Freemans make their living selling lab supplies through the Florida-based company they founded 40 years ago, Awareness Technology. But their true love is digging for gemstones, which has brought them for years to Mary’s home state of Maine, the site of some of the best tourmaline hunting in the world.

Since 2003, they’ve been buying up property parcels, studying core samples and old geological maps to determine where to try digging next, then spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on blasting and equipment. The couple has dug more than a mile of tunnels in pursuit of beautiful stones, and many of their finds—like blue elbaite and rich watermelon tourmaline—have wound up on display at the Maine Mineral & Gem Museum in nearby Bethel.

Now, the Freemans want to expand this pit, near the town of Newry, Maine, so they can mine spodumene, crystals that contain the lithium the U.S. needs for the clean energy transition. The timing of their discovery, in what has been named Plumbago North, is remarkable; the Freemans have stumbled across one of the only hard-rock sources of lithium in the U.S. at a time when the material is desperately needed for the clean energy transition. By 2040, the world will need at least 1.1 million metric tons of lithium annually, more than ten times what it currently produces, according to projections by the International Energy Agency. Should the Maine deposit be mined, it could be worth as much as $1.5 billion, a huge windfall for the Freemans and a boon to the Biden Administration’s efforts to jumpstart more domestic mining, processing, and recycling of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements to reduce the U.S.’ dependence on China. This is one of the few lithium deposits in the U.S. currently found in hard rock, which means it is higher-quality and faster to process than lithium mined from brine.

“I consider myself an environmentalist,” says Mary, who on a recent rainy visit to the test quarry, was wearing jeans, a sweater, and hiking boots, her white hair pulled into a low ponytail. Most of the country’s critical minerals are mined elsewhere and processed in China, she adds. “I think [the U.S.] should try to be a little bit more self-sufficient.”

But like just about everywhere in the U.S. where new mines have been proposed, there is strong opposition here. Maine has some of the strictest mining and water quality standards in the country, and prohibits digging for metals in open pits larger than three acres. There have not been any active metal mines in the state for decades, and no company has applied for a permit since a particularly strict law passed in 2017. As more companies begin prospecting in Maine and searching for sizable nickel, copper, and silver deposits, towns are beginning to pass their own bans on industrial mining.

“This is a story that has been played out in Maine for generations,” says Bill Pluecker, a member of the state’s House of Representatives, whose hometown of Warren—a 45-minute drive from the capital city of Augusta—recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of a temporary ban on industrial metal mining after a Canadian company came looking for minerals near a beloved local pond. “We build industries based on the needs of populations not living here and then the bottom drops out, leaving us struggling again to pick up the pieces.”

Mainers often invoke the Callahan Mine in the coastal town of Brooksville as a warning. Tailings from the mine, which operated for several years in the late 1960s, were disposed of in a pile next to a salt marsh and creek. The former mine is now a Superfund site, and a 2013 study by researchers at Dartmouth College found widespread evidence of toxic metals in nearby sediment, water and fish. Cleanup costs, borne by taxpayers, are estimated between $23 million and $45 million.

“Our gold rush mentality regarding oil has fueled the climate crisis,” says State Rep. Margaret O’Neil, who presented a bill last session that would have halted lithium mining for five years while the state worked out rules (the legislation ultimately failed). “As we facilitate our transition away from fossil fuels, we must examine the risks of lithium mining and consider whether the benefits of mining here in Maine justify the harms.”

The Freemans’ point out that they plan to dig for the spodumene, then ship it out of state for processing, so there would be no chemical ponds or tailings piles. They liken the excavation of the minerals to quarrying for granite or limestone, which enjoys a long, rich history in Maine.

Advocates for mining in the U.S. argue that, since the country outsources most of its mining to places with less strict environmental and labor regulations, those harms are currently being born by foreign residents, while putting U.S. manufacturers in the precarious position of depending on faraway sources for the minerals they need. Though there are more than 12,000 active mines in the U.S., the bulk of them are for stone, coal, sand, and gravel.

There is only one operational lithium mine in the U.S., in Nevada, and one operational rare earth element mine, in Mountain Pass, Calif., meaning that the U.S. is dependent on other countries for the materials essential for clean energy technologies like batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels. Even after they’re mined, those materials currently have to be shipped to China for processing since the U.S. does not have any processing facilities.

“If we’re talking about critical metals and materials, we’re so far behind that it’s crazy,” says Corby Anderson, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines. “It’s the dichotomy of the current administration—they have incentives for electric vehicles and all these things, but they need materials like graphite, manganese, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and copper. The only one we mine and refine in this country is copper.”

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the problems of faraway supply chains; as U.S. consumers shopped online in their homes, the goods they bought, mostly from Asia, experienced lengthy delays at clogged ports. What’s more, diplomatic tensions with China motivated the U.S. government to seek other potential sources for mining, material processing, and recycling.

That’s why, in the pandemic’s aftermath, the Biden Administration launched an initiative to secure a Made in America supply chain for critical minerals. It included billions in funding for companies trying to mine and process critical minerals domestically.

The rocks in Plumbago North would seem to help provide a domestic supply chain for critical minerals; they are thought to be among the largest specimens of spodumene ever found, with crystals of such high quality that in addition to batteries, they could be used to make scientific glassware or computer screens, where the lithium metal would help lower the melting temperature.

The Freemans are just two of the hundreds of people prospecting for critical materials across the country as the U.S. tries to strengthen the domestic supply chain. According to an analysis by Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit environmental organization, more than 100 companies have staked claims for lithium deposits in the American West. Companies also have applied for permits to mine cobalt in Idaho, nickel and copper in Minnesota, and lithium in North Carolina.

Geologists say there’s also likely a lot more lithium in spodumene deposits across New England. Communities that haven’t had working mines in years may soon find themselves a key source for lithium and other minerals needed for car batteries, solar panels, and many of the objects people will need more of to transition themselves off polluting fossil fuels.

There are good reasons for U.S. communities to have healthy skepticism about mining projects; there is no shortage of examples of a company coming into a community, mining until doing so becomes too expensive, then leaving a polluted site for someone else to clean up. There are more than 50,000 abandoned mines in the western United States alone, 80% of which still need to be remediated. Passage of landmark environmental laws like the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972 hasn’t made mining safe enough, environmentalists say.

“All mines pollute in one way or another, and mines are really bad at predicting how much they’re going to pollute,” says Jan Morrill, who studies mining at the environmental group Earthworks, which recently found that 76% of mining companies in the U.S. polluted groundwater after saying they wouldn’t.

One of the most problematic parts of mines is the tailings, or waste, Morrill says: Companies extract the minerals they need, then are left with a giant pile of rock, liquid, and chemicals that they store in ponds or behind dams that sometimes prove unstable. These tailings have caused landslides, excessive dust, and water pollution; more than 300 mine tailing dams have failed worldwide over the last century, according to Christopher Sergeant, a research scientist at the University of Montana.

It is not uncommon for tailings to leak into water, in fact, there is a permit that mine owners can get in case they find their projections were wrong and they need to discharge into U.S. waters.

Even “modern mines” that adhere to the latest U.S. standards—which are among the strictest in the world—still pollute, Earthworks has found. Though there are, theoretically, non-polluting ways to store mine tailings, doing so is much more expensive and mine operators have largely not paid to do so, Morrill says. That’s because, says Aimee Boulanger, executive director of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, “laws and markets have not fully incentivized companies to do that.”

Indeed, the Biden initiative to increase domestic mining includes, for example, a $700 million loan for Ioneer, a company planning a lithium mine on Rhyolite Ridge in Nevada, where environmental groups say the mine, as proposed, would cause the extinction of an endangered species called Tiehm’s buckwheat. The Administration is also spending $115 million to help Talon Nickel build a battery minerals processing facility in North Dakota, but the potential mine they would source from, in Minnesota, is opposed by Indigenous groups and environmentalists who fear it could contaminate wells in the area.

Still, the U.S. has a more rigorous regulatory environment than many other countries, she says, and there are domestic mines that even some environmentalists support, like the Stillwater Mine in Montana. Community organizations there signed a Good Neighbor Agreement in 2000 with the Sibanye-Stillwater Mining Company allowing the firm to extract platinum and palladium—while also establishing clear and enforceable water standards, restrictions to minimize local traffic, and third-party auditors to ensure the mine adheres to the standards it set out. The mine is now one of the top employers and private-sector income generators in Montana.

But advocates had to force the Agreement; three grassroots organizations sued to stop the construction of the mine, and after a year of negotiations, the mining company and grassroots groups agreed to the contract instead of going to court. With support from elected officials trying to find ways to mine more critical minerals in the U.S., companies may not feel the need to make similar promises to the local community.

Environmental concerns aren’t the only problem with mining, Morrill says. The history of mining in the U.S. is linked to colonialism; Christopher Columbus was looking for gold when he stumbled across North America, and as Europeans expanded into the continent, they took land from Indigenous people to mine for gold, silver, and other metals.

Today, mining in the U.S. often encroaches on Indigenous land. Under mining laws in the U.S. that date to 1872, anyone can stake a claim on federal public lands and apply for permits to start mining if they find “valuable” mineral deposits there. Most lithium, cobalt, and nickel mines are within 35 miles of a Native American reservation, Morrill says, largely because in the aftermath of the 1849 gold rush, the U.S. military removed tribes to reservations not far from mineral deposits in the West. In one particularly controversial project, the mining company Rio Tinto wants to build a copper mine on Oak Flat, Ariz., a desert area adjacent to an Apache reservation that Indigenous groups have used for centuries to conduct cultural ceremonies.

Yet fears about the effects of climate change are escalating the pressure on local communities to get out of the way of mines, says Thea Riofrancos, an associate professor of political science at Providence College who studies mining and the green energy transition. She and other scholars have questioned whether projections that the world will face lithium shortages by 2025 are accurate; recycling more batteries and transitioning away from private vehicles to more public transportation, for example, could reduce our long-term need for lithium-ion energy storage.

“We should think about what is driving this demand, why does this rush feel so intensive, why is there not a version where we are going to try and do this transition with the least amount of mining possible?” Riofrancos says.

Most environmentalists agree that the 1872 mining law needs to be updated and there are several bills in Congress that would do so. The Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act of 2023, for example, introduced by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) in May, would require more tribal consultation and change how mining is approved on federal lands.

Finding a way to mine in the U.S. could help address a moral quandary, that we consume these materials but ask other countries to bear the brunt of their extraction, says Boulanger, with IRMA.

“There’s an argument to be made that if we’re going to use these materials, and we live in the most consumptive country in the world, we shouldn’t be making other countries be the bank account of our natural resources,” she says.

If lawmakers and regulators can’t agree on how to mine on U.S. soil, it could leave the U.S. susceptible to essentially outsourcing its mining problems to less-regulated countries. For example, last October, the Department of Energy used the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to give a $141.7 million grant to Piedmont Lithium, which is building a plant in Tennessee to expand U.S. supply of lithium hydroxide, used in long-range batteries for electric vehicles. In March, Blue Orca Capital, a hedge fund, said it was “shorting,” or betting against the stock of Piedmont Lithium, alleging that the spodumene the firm plans to refine into lithium at its Tennessee facility was guaranteed by bribes to the son of a high-level politician in Ghana—“because of corruption,” those raw materials are likely to never come to fruition, the hedge fund says. Piedmont denies the allegations and says in a statement provided to TIME that the Minerals Income Investment Fund of Ghana told the company that it has valid licenses and permits for all its current activities.

Most of the proposed critical materials mines in the U.S. are not near a big population center—or economic activity, and some communities are in favor of a mine for the jobs it would create. But the proposed locations could instead lead to situations where sparsely populated communities don’t learn about a planned mine until it’s too late to stop it. “It can feel really fast—all of a sudden an enormous project is being proposed next door to you, it took years for the company to prospect but you didn’t hear about it ‘til now,” says Riofrancos.

The Freemans’ mine is not one of these projects. Though it is five miles from the nearest town, Maine is going through an extensive review process to decide whether to let the couple keep digging. Earlier in 2023, there were seven bills in the legislature regarding the potential of mining lithium in Maine. Lawmakers ultimately settled on legislation that may open the door to extracting the Freemans’ lithium by allowing larger open pit metal mines, so long as developers can prove they won’t pollute groundwater and the local environment. But the new law will require changing the state’s mining regulations, which may mean it could be years before the couple is able to start digging in earnest.

The Freemans say their mine would not pollute the surrounding land and water, as the chemical composition of the crystals and the rocks around them is such that they would not dissolve into dangerous acid when exposed to air and water. Geologists that TIME/Maine Monitor spoke with agree with that assessment. Further, the crystals, says Mary, would be shipped out of state in large chunks for processing, so there would be no chemical ponds or tailings.

Many geologists agree that the Freemans’ proposal would not be as disruptive as other proposed mines across the country. Other metals (like nickel, silver, and zinc) typically occur in bands of rock deep below the surface that contain iron sulfides, which create sulfuric acid when exposed to air and water, polluting waterways for decades, a phenomenon known as acid mine drainage. Some spodumene crystals at Plumbago North, by contrast, have been naturally exposed to air and water for hundreds of millions of years and not broken down.

On a visit to the test quarry this spring, Gary Freeman pointed out one large piece of spodumene lying at the bottom of a nearby brook, the water over it rushing fast and clear, not the rusty orange of an acid-contaminated stream. (The waterway is known, fittingly, as Spodumene Brook.) “The water is so good Poland Spring wants to bottle it and sell it,” says Mary.

Still, Morrill, of Earthworks, says there’s just not enough research about the effects of hard rock spodumene mining to say for sure that the mine wouldn’t harm the environment. Since so many people in Maine depend on recreation and tourism for their livelihoods, she says, it makes the most sense to keep protective regulations in place.

Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection has rejected the Freemans’ request to consider the land a quarry, and is instead classifying spodumene as a metallic mineral. As the law stands, the Freemans will have to apply for permits under Maine’s 2017 Metallic Mineral Mining Act, a costly process (the application processing fee alone is $500,000) that would take years.

Meanwhile, the local community is divided. After all, in Maine it’s not difficult to find people still living with the long-term damage of older mines. On the other hand, many Mainers are pragmatic and understand the state has long, dark winters, and will need battery storage for any renewable energy it generates on sunny or windy days. The alternative is to continue relying on fossil fuels, which would exacerbate climate change.

Myles Felch, curator at the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum, is one of these practical Mainers. He was raised in Union, where a groundswell of opposition has formed to resist a proposal by Canada-based Exiro Minerals to look for nickel near a beloved local pond. Felch isn’t thrilled with the prospect, but also knows we can’t continue to be so detached from the minerals we use in our daily life.

“I love the place where I grew up and I wouldn’t want anything to ever happen to it,” says Felch. But “you need mineral resources. Most people were probably texting ‘stop the mine’ with a nickel cobalt battery in their phones.”

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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Wind power stations of German utility RWE, one of Europe's biggest electricity companies are pictured in front of RWE's brown coal fired power plants of Neurath near Jackerath, north-west of Cologne, Germany, March 18, 2022. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo

Germany adds 60% more onshore wind power in H1 but pace seen too slow

The drop in Russian fossil fuel exports to Germany last year highlighted the hazards of relying on imports and emphasized the urgency of implementing a local energy plan.

Reuters by Vera Eckert, July 18, 2023

FRANKFURT, July 18 (Reuters) - Germany added 60% more onshore wind capacity in the first half of 2023 than a year earlier at a total of 1,565 megawatts (MW), but needs far more to reach its 2030 target, wind industry lobbies said on Tuesday.

Wind power is central to Germany's transition to renewable energy as Berlin aims to generate at least 80% of electricity output by 2030 from green sources such as solar and wind, to lower carbon emissions.

The roll-out has become more pressing with the drop of Russian fossil fuel exports to Germany last year, demonstrating the risks of reliance on imports and the need for local energy.

Associations BWE and the VDMA Power Systems engineering group, which represent turbine makers including Nordex (NDXG.DE), Vestas Deutschland (VWS.CO) and GE Deutschland (GE.N), issued statistics showing that the 1,565 MW total compared with 977 MW added in the first half of 2022.

The organisations credited the government's interventions in favour of building activity and the speeding of permits for the increase.

Assuming these developments will continue, they expect that at least the upper end of a full-year projection made in January for additions totalling 2,700-3,200 MW will be reached this year, said Baerbel Heidebroek, BWE's president, at a virtual news conference.

However, even the significantly increased permit numbers are not enough to achieve growth rates of 10,000 MW per year from 2025, which would be necessary to achieve the government's green energy targets for 115,000 MW of onshore wind in 2030, she said.

"We must streamline and tighten the approval procedures and set strict deadlines," she added.

Dennis Rendschmidt, VDMA Power Systems' managing director, said approvals for heavy road transports of parts are taking an average of 12 weeks in Germany compared with four to five days in the Netherlands.

Ministries outside the economy ministry run by the Greens' Robert Habeck and state and local authorities should cooperate better, the two organisations said.

Germany's total installed onshore wind capacity had reached 59,343 MW at the end of June 2023, the data from the two organisations showed.

This represented a net increase of 4.4% from a year earlier, after accounting for dismantling and revamps of existing turbines.

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Image: An artist’s rendering shows Westinghouse’s planned AP300 small modular nuclear power reactor, which the company officially unveiled on May 4, 2023, and hopes will be built in the United States and around the world. Westinghouse/Handout via REUTERS

Britain opens small nuclear reactor competition, launches new nuclear body

Ambitious Plan: Boosting Nuclear Power to Meet Climate Targets

Reuters by Susanna Twidale, July 18, 2023

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - Britain on Tuesday opened a competition to develop small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), such as those being developed by Rolls-Royce (RR.L), as it launched its new Great British Nuclear body designed to help drive the expansion of projects in the country.

Britain is aiming to increase its nuclear power capacity to 24 gigawatts (GW) by 2050 as part of efforts to meet climate targets and boost energy security. That would meet around a quarter of projected electricity demand, up sharply from about 14% today.

Large new nuclear projects, with high upfront costs, have struggled to attract financing and the government hopes some older plants could be replaced by a fleet of SMRs which can be made in factories, with lower costs and faster construction.

Companies can, from Tuesday, register their interest in the government’s SMR competition. The Great British Nuclear body, also launched on Tuesday, will select technologies that have met the criteria in the Autumn.

The competition "could result in billions of pounds of public and private sector investment," Secretary of State for Energy Security, Grant Shapps said.

Companies selected will then start discussions as part of an Invitation to Negotiate phase, the government said.

The SMR competition was first announced alongside the budget in March this year.

In 2021 the government committed 210 million pounds to Rolls-Royce for its 500-million pound SMR programme which could see the company open factories to build the reactors in Britain.

Britain previously announced a competition for SMRs in the 2015 Autumn Statement which ultimately closed in 2017 without moving beyond the initial, information-gathering first stage.

Along with SMRs the government said it is committed to large-scale new projects, such as EDF’s (EDF.PA) Hinkley Point C, the first new plant in more than 20 years, and EDF’s Sizewell C in which the government has invested around 700 million pounds, becoming a 50% shareholder in the development phase.

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An illustration of Widerøe's electric aircraft Foto: Rolls-Royce

Pioneers in Green Aviation: Could Norwegian Electric Planes Be a Model for the Rest of the World?

The global aviation industry has a massive climate problem, and many are looking to Norway for a possible solution. The country wants all short-haul flights to be conducted with electric planes as early as 2040. But doubts persist about whether the technology will be ready.

Spiegel by Marcus Efler, 18.07.2023

The days when airliners took off from Säve airfield near the Swedish city of Gothenburg are long gone. What's left now is an access road with a rusty gate, wooden barracks in an advanced state of decay and a container village that is used as a hostel. Anyone wishing to visit Heart Aerospace has to seek out the only new building on the forested site.

That's where the startup is tinkering with the future of passenger aviation, which is currently plagued by concerns about the climate, at least for short-haul flights. English is spoken on the company's premises, and 200 employees from more than 30 nations work in plain, open-plan offices in the main building and adjacent containers, as well as in two large hangars.

In one, components are made by hand; in the other, a metallic skeleton in the shape of an airplane reaches up to the ceiling. Soon, what currently looks almost like a dinosaur skeleton will hopefully become an aircraft of the future: the Heart ES-30, a high-wing aircraft with 30 seats, four electric motors on the wings and a five-ton battery in the fuselage.

If, as planned, three prototypes of the Heart ES-30 actually take off for their first test flight in 2026 and serially-manufactured planes are then delivered to airlines, the Swedish aircraft would be the first electric aircraft to meet international Part 25 certification standards. It is the highest standard class -- applying, for instance, to the Airbus A380 superjumbo.

The impetus for the electric aircraft came from neighboring Norway. "From 2040, short-haul flights in Norway will have to be 100 percent electric," says Markus Kochs-Kämper, Heart's chief engineer, who hails from Germany. "We think battery-powered electric motors are the best solution."

Following the country's radical switch to electric cars, Norway is also set to become a pioneer in zero-emissions aviation with its strict requirements. The regulation is to apply to all flights lasting up to one and a half hours, including cross-border services. Scandinavia is becoming a pioneering region for green aviation, moving ahead at a speed much faster than the rest of the European Union. The new rules, which were quickly implemented, could also have an effect on airlines like Germany's Lufthansa.

A Laboratory for Electric Aviation

But how realistic is such a rushed transition? The certification of new aircraft by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and its U.S. counterpart, the FAA, alone, can take years.

What is clear is that something has to change. Airplanes are responsible for around 2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. And Norway is particularly well suited as a real-world laboratory for an experiment like electric aviation. Because of its exceptionally beautiful but difficult-to-access landscape, airplanes are often the only way for people to stay connected there besides smartphones and the internet. "It takes hours to drive a car around a fjord," says Kochs-Kämper, "a plane only takes a few minutes."

Fewer than 5.5 million inhabitants live in an area roughly the size of Germany, and its population density is far lower.

"It takes hours to drive a car around a fjord. A plane only take a few minutes." Markus Kochs-Kämper, chief engineer

Remote regions are barely served by roads and even less by rail. The widespread expansion of roads and railways are impeded by nearly 40,000 lakes larger than four hectares and up to 300 mountains whose peaks rise at least 2,000 meters above sea level.

It's no wonder, then, that Norway maintains a disproportionately large number of airports, with at least 50 served by regular flights. "Given the population distribution, short-haul flights undoubtedly make sense," says Markus Fischer, a divisional group leader for aeronautics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), who is following developments in Norway with interest.

Cautious Optimism

Another argument in favor of the electrification of the Scandinavian skies is that almost all the electricity in Norway – close to 90 percent – is generated in a climate-neutral way using hydropower. Natural gas and other fossil fuels are hardly to be found in the Norwegian electricity mix.

As such, conditions are perfect for electrically powered seaplanes like the ones currently being developed by the Norwegian startup Elfly. They are building a high-wing aircraft with nine seats and two propellers engines powered by batteries, in partnership with the Norwegian Research Council. Called the Noemi ("no emissions"), the high-wing plane is expected to land in fjords on the west coast to drop off passengers and cargo starting in 2030.

The country's largest regional airline, Widerøe, is also seeking to push forward green aviation. Three-quarters of Widerøe flights are over distances shorter than 300 kilometers, with many of them less than half that distance. However, classic propeller-driven aircraft burn a disproportionate amount of fuel, especially during takeoff. Switching to electric aircraft would be worthwhile not only for the climate, but also economically.

There is also "massive political pressure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in aviation, as well," says Widerøe CEO Andreas Kollbye Aks. He is optimistic that he will be able to achieve the required electrification, but he is also quick to qualify that claim. "We're starting with flights on the west coast in the south, avoiding weather fronts or even landing in strong winds – energy-consuming tasks that electric aviation isn't yet ready to handle." Does that mean that the idea of electric aviation is still a utopian one?

Enthusiasm about the opportunities offered by the new technology has always been accompanied by persistent doubts about whether it can become reality. There have been reasons for skepticism. The aircraft manufacturer Tecnam, for example, has already halted construction of its own electric plane due to doubts about its suitability for everyday use. The Italian company had originally planned to introduce an 11-seat aircraft to the market and deliver it to Widerøe, but development of the P-Volt model has been put on hold.

How Long Do the Batteries Really Last?

The company mainly sees problems with its forecasted efficiency and sustainability. The company, based in Capua near Naples, recently announced that its assumptions had been based on "extremely aggressive" scenarios for technological development. In other words: Their hope rests on a leap in battery technology -- though no one knows when or if it will even come.

The aging of the power storage units after only a few weeks of operation and the associated decrease in range also frightened the developers. According to Tecnam's calculations, even with extremely gentle handling, the capacity falls below a critical value after just a few hundred hours of operation. Airlines would then be forced to buy new batteries – and the operating costs for the planes would be horrendous. Tecnam thus came to a clear assessment in its statement: The all-electric passenger aircraft is the "Green Transition flagship" rather than a real player in the decarbonization of aviation, it says.

So, is electric flight just a fanciful dream that might be good for a little airline greenwashing? Jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce isn't on board. "We are very proud to be able to contribute to sustainable aviation," says Matheu Parr, who is responsible for the British company's nascent business for customers of electric aircraft.

In the past, the company specialized in gigantic jet engines that hang under the wings of the Airbus A380, for instance, and burn tons of jet fuel. Now they are also working on cleaner planes: Its electric engine, a duo of four-blade propellers driven by electric motors each rated at 350 kilowatts, was supposed to be used on Tecnam's P-Volt.

Rolls-Royce is disappointed by the end of the project, because the manufacturer had hoped to gain important insights for the development of further e-engines. But the company is still sticking to its plan. "The market is demanding sustainable solutions, which is why we will continue to push electric and hybrid engines," the company says.

Parr sees electric propulsion as the optimal solution for aircraft with nine to 19 seats that have to cover distances "of 40 to 50 nautical miles," around 90 kilometers, which is practically nothing in aviation. For longer distances, developers of the technology have so far been faced with a dilemma that is almost impossible to resolve. The more non-stop flight time an aircraft is expected to achieve, the larger and heavier the battery becomes, which in turn consumes energy. Electric cars have the same problem, but it is much greater for aircraft, which are particularly sensitive to weight. And it is reinforced by the fact that, for safety reasons, the power storage units have to supply energy for twice as long as would actually be needed for the route in question, so that the aircraft could still reach another airport or can circle in the air in case of emergency.

Finding the Right Partners

Batteries with a large capacity also have correspondingly long charging times. What is a significant annoyance for drivers of electric cars on long trips could pose a challenge for airlines' business model. An aircraft that has to be charged for hours at the destination airport before it can take off again is no good for fast-turnaround short-haul traffic. Even the Megawatt Charging System (MDC), which pumps batteries full of up to 3.75 megawatts of charging power, can't eliminate the problem – even though that's more than 10 times what fast chargers for electric cars currently offer as a maximum.

Widerøe wants to ensure that its aircraft can take off again 15 minutes after landing. That's why the airline and Rolls-Royce are relying on battery swaps. "It takes about five minutes to change batteries," promises Qinyin Zhang, the man responsible for Rolls-Royce's short-haul electric aircraft business, "whereas charging can take up to three hours."

Widerøe is continuing to pursue its electric aspirations and hasn't been deterred by the demise of P-Volt. "Our plans are not affected by this," says Aks, the Widerøe CEO. He adds that they will test with other partners whether new, sustainable aircraft can be operated economically. "Although the concept has not yet proven to be viable, that could change as the technology continues to mature," Aks says, referring to Tecnam.

Just an Interim Solution?

At the airfield in Säve, however, the people at Heart Aerospace are not convinced by the concept of swapping batteries. Kochs-Kämper, the chief engineer, says that specialists are needed to replace the batteries without making mistakes. He says it is also uncertain whether they will always be ready on time.

The Swedes are instead relying on a different solution: Two turbo motors are to be mounted at the rear of their aircraft that can run on sustainably produced fuel. When needed, they can kick in and increase the range to 400 kilometers. That would also solve the safety problems. Drivers are familiar with the principle through the range extenders that manufacturers included in early electric cars like the first-generation BMW i3. Heart calls it a "reserve hybrid system."

This crutch has since disappeared in modern battery-powered vehicles, and the era of plug-in hybrids is drawing to a close. In the air, too, the electricity-fuel mix is only considered to be a temporary solution.

"As battery technology develops, there will no longer be a need for such interim solutions," says DLR expert Fischer. He points to new storage technologies such as condensed matter batteries, which at 500 watt-hours per kilogram of net weight are said to have about twice the energy density of lithium-ion batteries.

Heart Aerospace has designed its electric plane in a way that will allow airlines to incorporate more efficient energy storage once it becomes available. That would also be a battery swap of sorts, but it would only happen rarely and during major maintenance.

"We Want To Keep the Aircraft as Conventional as Possible"

The first airlines have already placed orders for the Heart airplane. So far, North American companies have been the main buyers of the aircraft, which is actually tailor-made for Norway. Mesa, a regional carrier based in Phoenix, as well as United Airlines and Air Canada have already ordered a total of 25 ES.30s, with options on a further 100. Heart says it is in talks with Northern European airlines, including SAS and Icelandair.

Meanwhile, as hobby pilots' single-engine Cessnas rattle above Säve's run-down airfield, the Heart ES-30 is taking off in a simulator inside the "Integrated Test Facility" as the corresponding Heart hanger is called.

When the simulator's four thrust levels are pushed forward, an electric buzz sounds from behind – future passengers and residents near the airport will probably not hear much more than that and the whirl of the propeller.

The plane reaches 90 knots, or just under 170 kilometers per hour, after a relatively short distance. With a light tug of the control stick, the high-wing aircraft takes off.

Sitting in the left-hand seat, Peter, the Heart test pilot, retracts the flaps and landing gear. At an altitude of 2,500 feet, he moves the joystick to the right: The ES-30 tilts into the curve. Then it turns to the left as it prepares to land again. There is little distinguishing the handling of the ES-30 from that of regional aircraft with turboprops. At least in the flight simulator.

The design of the passenger cabin, which is shown as a one-to-one model, also doesn't look any different. "Apart from the propulsion system, we want to keep the aircraft as conventional as possible," explains Kochs-Kämper. For example, the fuselage isn't made of carbon, but of the usual light metals. The interior is kept classic and functional. Too much innovation at once would overload the development just as it would later overwhelm the passengers.

Opportunities for Small Airports

The biggest difference for planners and pilots is the relatively short takeoff distance of 750 meters for an aircraft of this size. People are also familiar with this effect from electric cars. Through their disproportionately higher torque, e-motors generate enormous thrust.

Airlines like Widerøe would thus be able to fly even to the smallest airfields in the future, ones whose runways are currently too short for conventional aircraft. The higher purchase price of the planes would be offset by low operating and maintenance costs. According to Rolls-Royce expert Parr, electric aircraft have an operating cost of just 65 cents per passenger per nautical mile, compared to at least 85 cents for a comparable propeller plane. "The operational cost of a 50-seat electric aircraft will be the same as a 30-seat conventional aircraft," predicts Simon Newitt, Heart's customer service manager.

Given this, the promise of clean mobility by air is is accompanied by hope for a new, small boom in flying, thanks to lower ticket prices. In Germany, too, where short-haul flights are currently viewed critically, enthusiasm for the new technology in the industry is also growing. "With low-emission engines, short-haul services that have been discontinued in Germany could also be resumed," says DLR expert Fischer. "And smaller airports could also be added to the route network."

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News round-up, July 17, 2023

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Quote of the days…

Kremlin says it won't cut ties with West, dialogue channels still needed

Mr. Peskov emphasized the extensive level of coordination that exists between the Kyiv regime, Washington, several European capitals, and NATO.

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Most read…

El Salvador in the grip of the 'Bukele system'

Bukele has aligned himself with a group of Latin American leaders, including Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Juan Orlando Hernandez in Honduras, who are willing to ignore constitutional limits to extend their time in power.

 Le Monde by Angeline Montoya, published yesterday at 5:00 pm (Paris)

Big Heat and Big Oil

A rapid end to burning fossil fuel would arrest the heating that has caused extreme damage in recent weeks; and that rapid end is possible.

The New Yorker By Bill McKibben, July 16, 2023

Vietnam's big bet on LNG may not ease its power crisis

Vietnam's urgent need to improve its electricity supply, which has been exposed by recent power outages, has raised concerns among foreign investors about Vietnam's reliability as a viable option for diversifying manufacturing operations away from China.

Reuters By Francesco Guarascio, Emily Chow and Khanh Vu, July 17, 2023

EU considers gas imports from Argentina, document shows

The draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) emphasizes the common objectives of both parties in reducing global warming.

Reuters by Kate Abnett, July 17, 2023

Kremlin says it won't cut ties with West, dialogue channels still needed

Mr. Peskov emphasized the extensive level of coordination that exists between the Kyiv regime, Washington, several European capitals, and NATO.

Reuters, July 17, 2023

Russia-Ukraine War: “Explosions on Crimean Bridge Disrupt Key Link to Russia

A deadly attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge was the latest blow to a Russian military already dealing with internal strife.

NOW/The New York Time

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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SOPA IMAGES/ Editing by Germán & Co

El Salvador in the grip of the 'Bukele system'

Bukele has aligned himself with a group of Latin American leaders, including Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Juan Orlando Hernandez in Honduras, who are willing to ignore constitutional limits to extend their time in power.

 Le Monde by Angeline Montoya, published yesterday at 5:00 pm (Paris)

InvestigationNayib Bukele, the president of the Central American country, enjoys great popularity thanks to his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and his fight against gangs. But his opponents criticize increasingly frequent breaches of democratic principles.

Nayib Bukele has won a war. The Salvadoran president often boasts on Twitter: "We're not the same anymore." Four years of "Bukeleism" have changed the face of El Salvador. Its 6.6 million nationals adore him, someot idolize him. He succeeded where all the others failed in defeating the pandillas, the gangs that have bloodied the country – and the Central American region – for more than two decades. Almost every day, Bukele tweets to his 5.2 million followers: "Another day with zero homicides," an assertion that has an undeniable impact when seven years earlier, there were almost 20 murders a day in the country.

The changes were noticeable when strolling through the streets of San Salvador, the capital. That day, children were playing football in a square. A couple was about to enjoy a drink on a terrace. A woman visited a friend. These scenes of everyday life were unthinkable just two years ago when gangs were sowing terror, extorting money from businesses, controlling entrances and exits to neighborhoods, threatening residents, and even banning the brands of sneakers worn by rival gangs.

The turning point came on March 27, 2022. After a particularly deadly weekend – authorities reported 87 murders – that undermined his stated policy of reducing crime, the president declared a war on gangs, greeted by the applause of an exasperated population. He also declared a state of emergency, which is still in force today. He deployed the army in the streets, surrounded entire towns to root out gang members, the pandilleros, and threw 70,000 people into prison. As a result, 1.6% of the population is now behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world. One year and three months later, the facts are striking. The investigative website El Faro verified this by visiting 14 towns previously under criminal groups' thumb. "The gangs do not exist at this moment as El Salvador knew them for decades," it writes.

Bukele, 41, is delighted. In the past, El Faro vilified his strategy against the pandilleros and the international community urged him to respect the rights of the detainees. "Let all the 'human rights' non-governmental organizations know we will wipe out these bloody murderers and their collaborators. We will put them in prison, and they will never get out," he tweeted again on May 17, after the murder of a police officer. Under his tweet were hundreds of replies from ministers, lawmakers, civil servants, journalists close to the government, and influencers, all determined to applaud, even praise, the most beloved president of the American continent. A CID Gallup study recently reported he enjoys a 92% popularity rating.

In the space of four years, the Salvadoran leader has become the model for a portion of the Latin American right. His recipes for tackling crime receive commendations. "El Salvador is a benchmark," said Zury Rios, the daughter of Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who was in power from 1982 to 1983. "He pulled off a real miracle in El Salvador," according to the far-right mayor of Lima, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, believed to be about to launch a "Bukele plan" to combat crime in Peru.

'Almost-religious relationship'

The war has been won, but at what price and for how long? According to numerous reports by local and international human rights organizations, thousands of innocent people have been arrested. Torture and inhuman treatment are "widespread" and "systematic" in prisons. Scores of detainees – at least 153, according to the NGO Cristosal, perhaps twice as many – have died from beatings, starvation, or lack of medical care. Public freedoms and civil society, particularly journalists, are under threat.

Although El Salvador is drifting toward authoritarianism, its residents seem willing to accept anything from the man who has also put an end to the 30-year hegemony of the two parties accused of plundering the country's wealth and increasing corruption to stratospheric levels: the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA, formed from the nationalist right) and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (a Marxist guerrilla group that became a party after the 1992 peace accords that put an end to 12 years of civil war, FLMN).

"Two phenomena have converged to fuel Bukele's popularity," said analyst Oscar Picardo, director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Innovation at Francisco-Gavidia University in San Salvador. "On the one hand, there was the public's frustration with the corruption of these two parties. On the other, the disruptive figure of a young man, with an enchanting speech, and visually different, with his cap and jeans."

Government propaganda is helping reinforce that image: "Around a hundred videos promoting Bukele's image and policies are posted on social media every day, hammering positive messages and creating a cult of his personality," Picardo said. "An almost-religious relationship has developed between him and the population." A horde of young YouTubers and Twitter users glorify the self-proclaimed "coolest president in the world."

El Filtro, an alliance of four online media outlets, analyzed thousands of videos. On May 17 alone, YouTubers published 31 hours and 45 minutes of pro-Bukele content. "The majority of the population is hypnotized by the government's huge advertising machine," according to Jorge Guzman, a former examining magistrate. "Bukele does not even need to repress rare demonstrations of discontent. Authoritarian governments that repress have become unpopular, as in Nicaragua. This is not the case here."

Bukele knows a thing or two about propaganda. After failing law school, he took over the family advertising business set up by his father, Armando Bukele Kattan, a descendant of Christians from Bethlehem, Palestine. Discriminated against when they arrived in El Salvador at the beginning of the 20th century, Palestinian migrants became prosperous businessmen in the space of a century, imposing themselves on the wealthy local coffee producers to the extent that this minority of barely 1% of the population now accounts for up to 50% of the national economy.

This evolution cannot be explained without the Handals, the Zablahs, the Simans, and the Pomas families. "But the Bukeles were not part of the new elite," said a diplomat based in San Salvador. "Especially since Nayib's father had converted to Islam, founding El Salvador's first mosque, while almost all the Palestinians were Christians. They were doubly discriminated against: Because they were Palestinians, and because they were Muslims."

Demigod

Bukele, born on July 24, 1981, quickly tried to overcome the frustration of not belonging to the dominant class. As a teenager, he soon became a leader. "He was an average student, but he was the boss of a small group of classmates, many of whom joined his cabinet, and he was already sarcastic," said Picardo who was also his middle school social sciences teacher. He uses the same sarcasm to respond to today's critics. "If you like pandilleros so much, come and get them, and take them to your countries," he tells an international community poised to denounce the abuses of his "war on gangs."

In a country considered, like the rest of Central America, as the United States' backyard, his rhetoric against "Yanqui" imperialism and Western diktats on how to govern his country hits the mark. The inclusion in a list of corrupt Central Americans of many high-ranking Salvadoran officials and MPs reinforces the feeling that Washington, as always, wants to assert its rule.

Bukele presents himself as the guarantor of independence against the North American giant, accused of solely defending its interests. "The Americans spent the early days of his mandate publicly humiliating him, notably on Twitter," said a Western diplomatic source. "He managed to turn this into political capital and gain an aura throughout the region, which has good, historical reasons, to be 'anti-Yanqui.'"

Already acclaimed for his leadership as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlan (2012-2015), a small town on the outskirts of the capital, and then as mayor of San Salvador (2015-2018), in both cases under the FMLN banner, Bukele honed his image as an incorruptible outsider by multiplying attacks on his party, accusing it of having sold out to neoliberalism. So much so that the FMLN decided to expel him in 2017. But the real springboard to his popularity was the Covid-19 pandemic.

The distribution of $300 in subsidies and food baskets made the new head of state, elected in 2019, a demigod in the eyes of the poor and disenfranchised. "No president has ever given me anything," said Rosalinda, a street vendor who has hung a portrait of the revered president delivered with the food baskets in her living room.

With Bukele, there was no conspiracy talk when it came to vaccines. He went out of his way to immunize his population, even affording himself the luxury of sending tens of thousands of doses to neighboring Honduras. In response to the economic crisis, he raised the minimum wage by 20% in August 2021 on the back of a one-year subsidy for small and medium-sized businesses and even subsidized petrol. The measures were hailed by an exsanguinated population ready to flee to the US.

Being the first country to introduce Bitcoin as its national currency also put El Salvador in the international spotlight, giving a sense of pride to a people too often associated with violence. "We signed our independence, but we were never really sovereign," Bukele said on the bicentenary of independence on September 15, 2022. "Now, El Salvador makes its own decisions."

So when he declared in the following sentence before an audience of ministers, senior civil servants, MPs, and ambassadors, that he would again run for the presidency on February 4, 2024, the audience – except for the diplomatic corps – rose to their feet roaring: "Re-election! Re-election!" But three constitutional articles prohibit immediate re-election. Article 88 of El Salvador's Constitution even obliges the population to insurrection in the event of failure to comply with the "indispensable" principle of transfer of power. As for those who "promote or support re-election," Article 74 strips them of citizenship rights. But Bukele does not bother with such details.

Authoritarian

The dismissal of the judges of the constitutional court on May 1, 2021, enabled their replacements to reinterpret the constitution more meekly: In September 2021, they decided that all the president needed to do to stand for re-election was to resign six months before the end of his term. Felix Ulloa, the country's vice president, told Le Monde last year: "The current constitution prohibits immediate re-election." On Sunday, June 25, he and Bukele officially registered as pre-candidates. "Nayib Bukele will resign before December 1, 2023," six months before the end of his current term of office, that is, Ulloa said on television.

Following Daniel Ortega's footsteps in Nicaragua, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Juan Orlando Hernandez ("JOH") in Honduras, Bukele joined the Latin American heads of state club determined to flout constitutional obstacles to stay in power. "He doesn't want to end up like 'JOH,' extradited to the US for drug trafficking at the end of his mandate," said a Salvadoran source close to the business community. "There's no way he will risk going to prison for taking state money."

Bukele presents himself as a herald of anti-corruption, but severe embezzlement suspicions hang over his government. To date, however, no investigation has been launched. In June 2021, the new prosecutor appointed by the government dismantled the International Commission for the Fight against Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES). Set up by Bukele himself in 2019, it had exposed at least 12 cases involving government members.

On June 1, during his address to the nation to mark his four years in office, Bukele said that, after his war against gangs, he would wage another, this time against corruption. He even promised a special prison for the corrupt, like a "terrorism detention center" designed to house 40,000 pandilleros inaugurated in January. El Salvador's former president Alfredo Cristiani, in office from 1989 to 1994, accused of being "one of the politicians who have done the most harm" to the country, was identified as his first target. "The president is very aggressive against the corruption of the past, but he protects the corruption of the present," said Johnny Wright, a former MP with the ARENA now affiliated with a center-left party. "He aims to wipe out any opposition linked to the ARENA or the FMLN." back to the early days of his mandate. The most serious warning came on February 9, 2020. That day, Bukele stormed the country's Legislative Assembly with military troops to force MPs to vote on funding a program combatting insecurity. He eventually backtracked after receiving a message from God, which asked him to be "patient." According to the international community and part of civil society, the development was dangerous. In the eyes of the population, which loves a strong man, it was a sign that the leader was ready to do anything to defend it against the establishment and the ARENA and FMLN MPs, who still have a majority and are fond of parliamentary obstruction.

'Judicial coup'

A year later, Bukele had his revenge. Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas, NI), the party he founded after being expelled from the FMLN, won two-thirds of the seats in the February 2021 legislative elections. The assembly, from that point dominated by his supporters, immediately dismissed the country's attorney general, in addition to magistrates of the constitutional tribunal. Appointed by the ARENA and the FMLN, they had blocked some of Bukele's initiatives during the first wave of Covid-19.

"Salvadorans returning from a trip, or others who failed to comply with quarantine requirements, were locked up for almost two months in detention centers without being given the results of their tests, or were contaminated on the spot," said Antonio Duran, a judge with the Zacatecoluca city court. "Some died for lack of treatment. The court then ordered their release, which led Bukele to say that the magistrates wanted the Salvadorans dead."

As for the attorney general, Raul Melara, he was investigating, with CICIES, corruption cases affecting the president's allies. "May 1, 2021, was one of the saddest days of my life," said Wright, who also took office that day. "We knew it would be a disruptive assembly, but nobody expected that. Looking back, we realize that judiciary control was an essential step for everything to follow."

A few days later, the new prosecutor, Rodolfo Delgado, terminated the CICIES' mandate. Bukele was able to govern without any checks and balances.

But he did not stop there. At the end of August 2021, he ordered the retirement of judges over 60 or with more than 30 years of service. They had the option of staying on for another five years, but on condition that they made themselves available to the Supreme Court. "This was a way of making them give up their independence since the government now controls the Court," said Guzman. Around a hundred magistrates took the deal on offer. Guzman resigned.

The best-trained and most experienced magistrates were either dismissed or moved to less central jurisdictions and replaced by colleagues easier to influence. This was the case of Duran, transferred from San Salvador to Zacatecoluca after criticizing a "judicial coup." "The idea was to isolate us from each other," he said.

There was no possibility of appeal. "The government co-opts all bodies: The police, the public prosecutor's office, the courts, the Supreme Court," said a judge who has also moved away from the capital and spoke on condition of anonymity. The same goes for the National Judicial Council, the Audit Office, and the Supreme Electoral Court. "We are no longer in the law but in the arbitrary," the judge said. Hector Gustavo Villatoro, the Salvadoran minister of justice, did not respond to interview requests by Le Monde.

Resentment

None of this has dented Bukele's popularity. "He was able to read the Salvadoran population," said anthropologist and journalist Juan Martinez d'Aubuisson, a gang specialist. "The population believes in authoritarianism, thinks that violence is didactic and a way of solving problems."

"One thing is that it's popular; another is that it's a good thing," emphasized Claudia Ortiz, an MP with the right-wing Christian Democrat party Vamos, founded in 2017, of which she is the sole representative in the Assembly. According to Ortiz, the reasons for the government's stated successes are not necessarily those people think.

Independent media have shown, for example, that the drop in homicides, which began before Bukele came to power and continued thereafter, was not so much due to government policy as to an agreement forged with the gangs. The murder of 87 people on the deadly weekend in March 2022, was the result of a breach of this agreement. Recordings revealed close contact between a high-ranking civil servant and criminal group leaders. Hundreds of disappearances were also reportedly not taken into account.

All previous governments have stumbled over the pandilla problem. Various methods have been tried – repression, secret or open negotiations with the gangs – to no avail. Bukele, on the other hand, has succeeded in establishing that he is the only one to have faced the problem and taken radical measures.

But among human rights activists and security experts, fears of yet another cycle of violence are high: "The [crackdown] campaign could generate resentment and perhaps backlash from gang members," warned the International Crisis Group in a report. According to researcher and security expert Jeannette Aguilar, the arbitrary arrests of innocent people are part of "an intimidation approach designed to instill fear in the population. The message is also aimed at opposition sectors and critical voices."

Members of NGOs, judges, and independent journalists are perceived as enemies. Journalists from El Faro, Revista Factum, Gato Encerrado, and La Prensa Grafica are in the crosshairs. Some 35 of them were spied on with Israel's Pegasus surveillance software, which the government denies having used.

A law passed in April 2022 punishes with 15 years' imprisonment anyone who transmits messages from the pandillas "likely to generate anxiety and panic among the population." When interviewed by Le Monde in August 2022, Ulloa admitted that the law was primarily aimed at journalists. El Faro was forced to move its administrative headquarters to Costa Rica to escape the pressure.

Public information, on the other hand, is systematically classified as a "state secret." Whether it concerns statistics on homicides, femicides, disappearances, Bitcoin purchases, or health policy, everything is confidential. "The government launches projects that are used for publicity, but then there's no way of knowing whether they've been useful, what the results have been," Ortiz said. "We have to take the government's word for it." The country's evolution is such that Duran and Guzman no longer hesitate to speak of "dictatorial drift." "We've gone back to the worst days of the armed conflict," Duran said. In such a context, the opposition struggles to make itself heard, crushed by the weight of MPs affiliated with NI and their allies. Bills are introduced at night, without consultation, and voted on the next day. The lack of "minimum working conditions" is why Wright has decided not to stand for re-election in 2024.

'Achilles' heel'

One year before the end of his mandate, Bukele is pursuing his policy of concentrating power. In early June, with the official aim of limiting state spending and fighting corruption, he passed a law reducing the number of seats in the Assembly from 84 to 60 and the number of municipalities from 262 to 44.

The international community is struggling to strike a balance between the diatribes uttered, to no effect, by Washington and the circumspection of the Europeans, anxious not to cut off the channels of communication with the government. "International bodies such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States have demonstrated that they do not have sufficient tools to curb the advance of authoritarianism in the region, including Nicaragua and Guatemala," Wright said. "The international community simply doesn't know what to do."

For some experts, the Bukele system can only be overcome if the economic situation deteriorates. "For the moment, the situation is stable," Picardo said, "but the government is going to need oxygen, and negotiations with the International Monetary Fund [IMF] are still at a standstill because of Bitcoin," something the IMF does not want to hear about. Admittedly, "country risk" – a measure of the risk of a government defaulting on its debts – has eased somewhat this year following the repayment of an $800 million bond maturity in January. As for inflation (7.3% in 2022), it remains under control compared with neighboring countries. But foreign investors are skeptical. "The economy will become the government's Achilles' heel," according to Picardo. "Bukele has spent millions organizing the World Surfing Championships and the Miss Universe ceremony. This will last another two or three years."

Wilson Sandoval, a political scientist and member of El Salvador's Center for Anti-Corruption Legal Advice, is convinced that while the regime is, for the time being, "a sophisticated dictatorship that doesn't yet need bloodshed," it is following the same path as Nicaragua. "Daniel Ortega also had very high levels of popularity at the start of his first term, around 80%," he said. "But then the population got fed up and ended up taking its authoritarian leaders to the scaffold. It may take ten years, but that's what's going to happen."

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…”I had the privilege of attending the AmChamChile meeting with former President Lagos and gaining valuable insights into his experience in the negotiations of the Chile-US Trade and Development Agreement. It is truly remarkable to think that two decades have already passed since those negotiations concluded. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to AmChamChile for generously sharing their invaluable insights and knowledge with us. Thank once again.

Javier Dib

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AES Andes

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Illustration by João Fazenda

Big Heat and Big Oil

The New Yorker By Bill McKibben, July 16, 2023

A rapid end to burning fossil fuel would arrest the heating that has caused extreme damage in recent weeks; and that rapid end is possible.

In the list of ill-timed corporate announcements, historians may someday give pride of place to one made by Wael Sawan, the new C.E.O. of Shell, the largest energy company in Europe. In 2021, Shell said that it would reduce oil and gas production by one to two per cent a year up to 2030—a modest gesture in the direction of an energy transition. But Sawan, who assumed command of the company in January, signalled a different direction. The rise in oil and natural-gas prices, following the invasion of Ukraine, had doubled Shell’s annual profits, to a record forty billion dollars. That windfall had an effect. While Shell remains committed to fighting climate change, Sawan told the BBC, cutting fossil-fuel production would actually be “dangerous and irresponsible,” because doing so could cause the “cost of living” to start to “shoot up.” (The company has also said that it already met the target it set in 2021 through asset sales, which would include the sale of various drilling sites to ConocoPhillips—a step that seems unlikely to fool the atmosphere.)

The BBC aired the interview on July 6th—the day that many scientists believe was the hottest so far in human history. Since 1979, a global network of satellites, ocean buoys, and land stations has been recording average daily temperatures, measured two metres above the ground, around the world. We’re at the very start of what seems likely to be a major El Niño warming event; the previous global high temperature came at the height of the El Niño in 2016, when the average hit 16.92 degrees Celsius, or 62.45 degrees Fahrenheit. Estimates vary somewhat, but on July 3rd the average temperature reached 17.01 C, and three days later it hit 17.23 C, or 63.01 F. Scientists who calculate historic temperatures by examining proxy records, such as lake sediments or ice cores, believe that this may well be the hottest it’s been on Earth since at least the peak of an era known as the Eemian, a hundred and twenty-five thousand years ago, when rising temperatures pushed mastodons north from present-day Texas to the Yukon. This would mean that nothing even remotely resembling a human civilization has ever known a world this hot.

To use Sawan’s first adjective, that heat is clearly dangerous. The fires and floods that have occurred in just these past weeks, all of them exacerbated by the heat, are too numerous to even begin to list here. If you’re not in a place currently experiencing or recovering from some weather emergency, consider yourself lucky, and use the respite to make preparations for the inevitable. (There was something symbolic about last week’s historic flooding in the Hudson Valley overwhelming West Point, the spiritual heart of what many might call the most powerful human force ever assembled.) The damage goes well beyond what you can capture in a cell-phone video: estimates indicate that at least forty per cent of the world’s oceans are currently undergoing what biologists have dubbed “marine heat waves,” doing systemic damage that we can only guess at; the temperature of the ocean, like that of the air, has never been higher in human history.

To use Sawan’s other adjective, standing by as this warming happened is the most irresponsible thing that humans have ever done. In June, 1988, the nasa scientist James Hansen told Congress to expect more or less what we saw last week. Fossil-fuel companies were already aware of the risks, but they decided to deny the science of climate change through three decades, when we could have been doing preventive work. There’s always been a reason for oil companies to stand in the way of action. At the moment, Sawan cites the risk of temporary inflation, and also the idea that, if we don’t expand oil and gas production, children in the Global South—he mentioned Bangladesh and Pakistan in particular—will have to study by “the light of candles.”

But solar lights that can shine all night charged with just four hours of sunlight can be had for a dollar, and Bangladesh is a world leader in small-scale solar. In recent years, homes in that country that do not get their power from the national grid have relied on rooftop solar panels to cope with power cuts. As for Pakistan, last fall it had the worst flooding in at least a decade—the kind of sustained deluge that happens only on a heating planet where the air holds increased amounts of water vapor. It left a third of the country underwater, and, more than six months later, unicef estimated that twenty million Pakistanis in the flood zones, including nine million children, were still in need of humanitarian aid.

The Earth’s temperature is going to go higher, no matter what we do: this month’s all-time records will almost certainly be broken in the coming year, as the new El Niño gathers strength. Many scientists predict that we will at least temporarily pass the 1.5-degree-Celsius increase that nations vowed, in the Paris Climate Agreement, to try to avoid. But how much higher is still an open question: a rapid end to burning fossil fuel would arrest the heating; and that rapid end is possible, because solar and wind power and batteries to store it are now cheap and available. Texas got through an epic heat wave in the past few weeks largely because it has increased its solar and wind capacity, which kept air-conditioners running even as conventional power plants faltered.

But, in Texas, the Republican-led legislature spent much of the past year at work on laws that would discourage the use of renewables and prop up oil and gas. In Congress and on the campaign trail, the G.O.P. is expending far more energy in defending gas stoves than in doing anything about this growing crisis. So far, there’s no real political penalty for that kind of reckless behavior. Indeed, Sawan told the BBC that, while there are not currently any plans, Shell wouldn’t rule out moving its headquarters from the United Kingdom to the United States, where oil companies get higher market prices for their shares. (Britain has also implemented a windfall-profits tax on energy companies. ) This suggested to him that the U.S. is more supportive of oil and gas companies, and, as he has told investors, he wants to “reward our shareholders today and far into the future.”

That is pretty much the definition of “business as usual,” and it’s precisely what has generated this completely unprecedented heat. If the disasters we’re seeing this month aren’t enough to shake us out of that torpor, then the chances of our persevering for another hundred and twenty-five thousand years seem remote. 

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Model of LNG tanker is seen in this illustration taken May 19, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo/Editing by Germán & Co

Vietnam's big bet on LNG may not ease its power crisis

Vietnam's urgent need to improve its electricity supply, which has been exposed by recent power outages, has raised concerns among foreign investors about Vietnam's reliability as a viable option for diversifying manufacturing operations away from China.

Reuters By Francesco Guarascio, Emily Chow and Khanh Vu, July 17, 2023

HANOI, July 17 (Reuters) - Vietnam received its first shipment of liquefied natural gas this month, a milestone for the energy-hungry country, but various hurdles mean it could take years for imported gas to ease the country's long-running power shortages.

Disagreement over pricing, plant construction delays and lack of supply contracts are dogging the Southeast Asian manufacturing hub's adoption of LNG, hampering its ambitions to make imported gas a major fuel, industry insiders say.

Vietnam's urgent need to boost electricity supply, laid bare by recent rolling blackouts, has raised concerns among foreign investors about whether Vietnam can remain a reliable option to diversify manufacturing away from China.

Half the businesses in a June poll by the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam said the power crisis had hurt investment plans. Some were considering alternatives or pausing spending on factories.

Failure to execute on its LNG plans would mark another blow to Hanoi's climate goals, which include imported and domestic gas as a transition fuel to reduce coal reliance.

With demand forecast to grow 6% annually for the rest of the decade, Vietnam in May unveiled a $135 billion electricity roadmap that, among other investments, would add 13 power plants fed by gas imported as LNG by 2030.

Integrating LNG into its fuel mix, Vietnam would join neighbours Thailand and Singapore as well as the Philippines, a recent-adopter.

Vietnam's industry ministry did not respond to a request for comment on implementing its LNG plan.

TROUBLED PLANTS

The first LNG shipment reached Vietnam last week. The test cargo of super-chilled gas was sent to state-owned PetroVietnam Gas's (PV Gas) (GAS.HM) new Thi Vai terminal near Ho Chi Minh City for conversion back to gas.

Vietnam targets LNG-sourced gas generating up to 22.4 gigawatts (GW) of power by 2030, enough to power 20 million households and account for nearly 15% of national power supply. But Kaushal Ramesh, an analyst at Oslo-based Rystad Energy, said a realistic expectation was just 5 GW.

Complicating LNG efforts, much of Vietnam's planned gas power investment is directed to the south of the country despite the under-served north's greater vulnerability to blackouts.

The first northern plant that would be fuelled by imported gas is not scheduled to begin operation until the second half of 2027, said its Japanese developer, Tokyo Gas (9531.T).

The first plant due to come online, the Nhon Trach 3 facility being built by state-run PetroVietnam Power (PV Power) (POW.HM) near Ho Chi Minh City, is scheduled to begin operation in late 2024. Industry sources say 2026 or 2027 is more realistic.

The local authority cited delays caused by lack of long-term contracts and problems over funding and permits.

A key hurdle is that PV Power is struggling to agree with grid operator EVN on the volume of purchases and prices for electricity generated from its plants running on imported gas, now some 50% more expensive than domestic gas, people familiar with the talks said.

PV Power wants to sell at least 80% to 90% of its imported gas-fuelled power to EVN at a set price for two decades, while EVN wants to commit to a lower portion, four sources said.

Plant developers are seeking state guarantees on their power contracts with EVN, warning that lenders would not fund their projects otherwise, an industry insider said.

Disagreements over power pricing contributed to a slow uptake of the wind industry, leaving a significant share of wind farms unplugged from the grid for years and stranding at least 4.6 GW of onshore wind capacity, according to an internal document from a Group of Seven nation, seen by Reuters.

Foreign developers of LNG-supplied plants, which include U.S.-based AES (AES.N) and Japan's Marubeni (8002.T), are closely watching the pricing talks, which could set a benchmark for their negotiations.

Takafumi Akino of Tokyo Gas, which is building an LNG terminal and a gas plant in northern Quang Ninh province, predicted "hard negotiations".

PV Power and EVN did not reply to requests for comment.

The biggest proposed plant earmarked for imported gas, a 3.2 GW project developed by Singapore-based Delta Offshore Energy, is undergoing debt restructuring after defaulting on a $10 million loan from Gulf International Holdings, court documents showed.

Delta Offshore did not respond to requests for comment. Gulf International's parent, Thailand-based Gulf Energy Development (GULF.BK), declined to comment.

LOCKING IN SUPPLY

Delays and uncertainty make it harder to secure long-term LNG supplies as Vietnam must compete with other importers. Buyers across China, South and Southeast Asia have inked a slew of multi-year deals this year.

PV Gas said this month it was in talks with U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil and Russia's Novatek on LNG cooperation.

Two trading sources who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter said PV Gas had been seeking LNG supplies at "unrealistically low prices".

PV Power and EVN did not reply to requests for comment.

Without long-term LNG supply, Vietnam would be exposed to volatile spot prices, which in Asia spiked to a record $70 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) last year before sinking to $12/mmBtu now.

"There may be suppliers willing to offload some volume to PV Gas, although this is a completely different risk and credit profile compared to what LNG producers are used to," Rystad's Ramesh said.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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 general view shows a special ship, "Neptune", the floating liquefied natural gas terminal, during the inauguration of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal 'Deutsche Ostsee' in the port of Lubmin, Germany January 14, 2023. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse/File Photo

EU considers gas imports from Argentina, document shows

The draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) emphasizes the common objectives of both parties in reducing global warming.

Reuters by Kate Abnett, July 17, 2023

BRUSSELS, July 17 (Reuters) - The European Union is considering possible gas imports from Argentina, which is a net gas importer but plans to expand domestic production, a draft document showed.

A draft memorandum of understanding, which the two sides plan to sign on Monday, said any gas trade should not impact Argentina's own consumption needs, and the two sides' targets to curb climate change.

"The participants endeavour to cooperate towards enabling a stable delivery of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Argentina to the European Union," said the document, seen by Reuters, which could be changed before it is published.

The European Commission declined to comment on the draft.

Argentina has an energy deficit, meaning it needs to import fuel during the months when it consumes the most. It registered a $5 billion energy trade balance deficit in 2022.

But the country, which has the world's second largest unconventional gas reserves, is expanding production at Vaca Muerta, a shale formation in Patagonia.

European countries have for the last year been seeking new gas supplies, after former top supplier Russia cut flows following its invasion of Ukraine.

But the EU also expects its gas use to fall by the end of the decade as it seeks to meet climate change goals. It has said the majority of Russian gas supplies should be replaced with clean sources of energy, not fossil fuels.

Lisa Fischer, Programme Lead at climate think tank E3G, called on the EU to focus on supporting Argentina in developing renewable energy and other solutions that do not cause climate change.

"By the time the Argentinean gas comes online - and they don't even have the full export infrastructure to do so [to export gas to Europe] - I don't think the European Union will need that gas any longer," Fischer said.

The draft document said the two sides would work together in the areas of renewable energy and hydrogen fuel, and endeavour to cut methane emissions in their gas supply chains.

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Image by Germán & Co

Kremlin says it won't cut ties with West, dialogue channels still needed

Mr. Peskov emphasized the extensive level of coordination that exists between the Kyiv regime, Washington, several European capitals, and NATO.

Reuters, July 17, 2023

July 17 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that it knew "very well" that NATO and the United States were providing intelligence to Ukraine but this was not a reason to cut off diplomatic ties with them following an attack on the bridge linking Russia and Crimea.

"In the most acute moments, we need channels for dialogue," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Peskov was asked about a comment by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova who, without providing evidence, accused Ukraine of carrying out the overnight attack on the bridge with the involvement of Britain and the United States.

"We know very well how deep the coordination is between the Kyiv regime, Washington, a number of European capitals and NATO," Peskov said.

"We know perfectly well how much information comes from NATO and Washington to Kyiv on a permanent basis. Therefore, we have no illusions here."

But a reporter's question about the possibility of cutting diplomatic relations with the West was "not quite correct" because of the need to keep dialogue channels open, he said.

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NYT/Editing by Germán & Co

Russia-Ukraine War: “Explosions on Crimean Bridge Disrupt Key Link to Russia

A deadly attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge was the latest blow to a Russian military already dealing with internal strife.

NOW/The New York Time

A predawn assault on a critical bridge linking the occupied Crimean Peninsula to mainland Russia forced the temporary closure on Monday of a main artery used by its military to support its troops in southern Ukraine, in yet another blow to a Russian military command that was already dealing with internal strife.

Hours after the attack, Moscow announced that it was pulling out of the Black Sea grain deal, an agreement that helped keep global food prices stable. But Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said the attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge and Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the deal were not connected.

Given the deep strategic and symbolic importance of the bridge, Monday’s assault was another embarrassment for Russia’s military leadership, which has been roiled by the fallout from last month’s failed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group.

Russian officials said two people were killed in the attack and a third was injured. The extent of the damage remained unclear, but the assault again highlighted the vulnerability of this key piece of infrastructure far from the front lines.

Rail service over the bridge resumed Monday morning. But damage to the car lanes — which appeared to leave part of the road tilting, according to video verified by The New York Times — threatened to constrict Russian logistical operations. If the bridge were destroyed or severely damaged, Moscow would be left with a single major land route from Russia along the southern coast of Ukraine to support tens of thousands of soldiers fighting to hold onto territory captured in the first weeks of the invasion.

Pro-war Russian military bloggers and commentators were quick to use the attack on the bridge as evidence of what they said was another failure by the Russian military command. Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer who runs a prominent blog about military affairs, said that Ukraine would strike again and again until the link is severed.

The attack came as Ukrainian forces were engaged in a grinding five-week-long counteroffensive aimed at driving Russian forces from areas of southern and eastern Ukraine. Russian forces are dug in behind fields laden with land mines, so the Ukrainian military has been forced to move cautiously and progress has been slow.

Isolating Russian forces in Crimea is an essential part of the Ukrainian counteroffensive strategy, according to analysts. Ukrainian ground forces have been seeking to drive a wedge through the natural land bridge that connects Russia to the peninsula through southern Ukraine, and have repeatedly targeted the bridge that President Vladimir V. Putin ordered be built after Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.

Ukrainian officials offered no comment on the incident on Monday. But they have previously said that the 12-mile-long structure, a road and railway bridge that run in parallel, is a legitimate target because of its vital logistical role in the Kremlin’s war effort.

On Monday, Ukrainian officials celebrated the attack even as they maintained a studied policy of strategic ambiguity, declining to comment on any possible Ukrainian role.

“Any illegal structures used to deliver Russian instruments of mass murder are necessarily short-lived, regardless of the reasons for the destruction,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, said in a statement.

Monday’s assault came a little more than nine months after an Oct. 8 attack on the bridge by an explosives-laden truck forced the closure of one lane of traffic and damaged the railroad tracks.

Ukraine did not officially claim responsibility for that attack until May of this year, when the head of Ukraine’s security service, Vasyl Maliuk, acknowledged that the intelligence services took “certain measures” that allowed for the assault.

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee of the Russian Federation said in a statement that Ukraine attacked the bridge Monday using two maritime drones, a claim that could not be independently verified. Video and photographs verified by The Times showed damage to both sides of the road bridge, with the most significant being along a span of the bridge heading into Russia. One photo also showed a damaged car on the bridge.

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News round-up, July 13, 2023

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Editorial…

Vietnam holds a significant place in Marguerite Duras's soul...

Vietnam, particularly Saigon, has garnered considerable acclaim among readers for its depiction of love and sensuality in Marguerite Duras' renowned literary work, "The Lover."  As we get immersed in a captivating narrative that elicits deep-seated emotions, it is common to disregard the historical context against which the story unfolds. During her time in Saigon, Marguerite developed a deep affection for Huynh Thuy Le, the son of a prosperous Chinese businessman. Despite the significant age difference of twelve years, they met on a ferry that connected Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Over time, their relationship evolved into a romantic one.

The iconic photograph titled "Kim Phuc, The Girl in the Picture" also takes us back to the historical context of the Mekong Delta conflict, a pivotal event that precipitated the Vietnam War.

But Vietnam's history, characterized by a lot of love and hardships, has witnessed remarkable progress in both economic and social spheres in recent decades. Vietnam, initially one of the most impoverished nations in the mid-1980s, successfully attained lower middle-income status in 2010 as a result of a comprehensive economic transformation.

The transformation was initiated by the 1986 "Doi Moi" reforms, which involved the dismantling of the predominantly planned economy, the opening up of the country to international markets and trade, and the implementation of pro-business reforms. These reforms were implemented alongside a comprehensive social agenda, spearheaded by the expansion of education and electricity, with the aim of promoting inclusivity for all.

Vietnam has demonstrated noteworthy advancements in its pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), consistently ranking in the top quartile of SDG performance among emerging market economies for most indicators. Education has been a national priority since the implementation of Doi Moi, with an increasing focus on enhancing its quality. The literacy rate for children aged 15 and above was recorded at 95 percent in 2016, indicating a high level of educational attainment. Additionally, most children in the primary school age group are currently enrolled in educational institutions. Vietnam has successfully attained Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5, which focuses on maternal health, and the nation is making ongoing advancements in the field of healthcare. Infrastructure development has been a crucial factor in Vietnam's economic growth, as evidenced by the substantial contribution of government capital spending, which has averaged nearly 8 percent of GDP per year. Additionally, state-owned enterprises have consistently invested around 5 percent of GDP annually, further bolstering the country's development. These investments have significantly contributed to the expansion of infrastructure stocks, thereby facilitating Vietnam's ability to provide essential infrastructure access to its rapidly expanding industrial and manufacturing sector.

Indeed, it can be argued that Marguerite Duras would be delighted to witness the essence of her beloved Vietnam encapsulated within the persona of Huynh Thuy Le. It is truly inspiring to witness the transformation of this deep affection into a driving force for constructive transformation and progress, ultimately benefiting the collective welfare.

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Most read…

Biden’s economic dream is becoming reality — but how long can he sustain it?

Biden has navigated through two years of pitfalls and emerged with a rallying economy. The White House will take that for now.

Politico.com By ADAM CANCRYN, July 12, 2023

Sorry Russia, the Baltic Sea is now NATO’s lake

Expanding the alliance creates big problems for Russia.

POLITICO EU BY LAURA KAYALI, JULY 13, 2023 

Oil prices rise on cooling US inflation, China trade data

Reuters By Jeslyn Lerh, July 13, 2023

AES, PV Gas receive investment policy approval for LNG terminal project in central Vietnam

The venture will be managed by PV Gas and AES Corporation, and is slated to commence operations in 2027, boasting a capacity of 450 TBtu.

theinvestor.vn By Tri Duc, July 13, 2023 

Xi Jinping Chokes Off Crucial Engine of China’s Economy

Foreign direct investment in China fell to $20 billion in the first quarter from $100 billion a year earlier, hurting an already struggling economy

WSJ By Lingling Wei, July 13, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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A White House that has bet President Joe Biden’s political future on the economy’s resilience — so much so that they’re branding it with the president’s name — got the latest encouraging sign Wednesday that its strategy is paying off. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo/ Editing by Germán & Co

Biden’s economic dream is becoming reality — but how long can he sustain it?

Biden has navigated through two years of pitfalls and emerged with a rallying economy. The White House will take that for now.

Politico.com By ADAM CANCRYN, July 12, 2023

“Now he just needs to figure out how to keep it that way…

A White House that has bet Biden’s political future on the economy’s resilience — so much so that they’re branding it with the president’s name — got the latest encouraging sign Wednesday that its strategy is paying off, with new data showing a sharper than expected slowdown in consumer costs.

The measure is a major reversal of fortune for Biden, after two years battling soaring inflation and accusations his agenda had contributed to the pain. But it’s just the latest in a string of economic developments that’s bolstered the administration’s confidence it can set the U.S. on a glide path without first plunging it into a downturn.

“Despite repeated forecasts that recession is just around the corner, the U.S. recovery is solid,” National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York shortly after the inflation data came out Wednesday. “The economy is defying predictions that inflation would not fall absent significant job destruction.”

Yet even as fears of a disastrous recession fade, Biden and his allies are already turning their attention toward a range of smaller obstacles that threaten to dampen the White House’s political narrative. There remains a wariness within the ranks that taking a full victory lap on the economy could invite political troubles down the road — and that the administration lacks the tools to deal with a serious setback should one occur between now and the election in 16 months.

“Good news is good news for the White House at this point,” said Tobin Marcus, a former economic adviser to Biden. “It doesn’t rule out the possibility that things do go rougher than they hope.”

The administration is bracing for the mass resumption of student loan payments this fall, which could send a financial shock through millions of households that have benefited from the three-year reprieve. Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are already signaling plans to wage a budget battle likely to shut down the government and further shake the nation’s political stability. And then there’s the Federal Reserve, which remains determined to hike interest rates in pursuit of lowering inflation to 2 percent, despite warnings it could end up tipping the U.S. into recession.

“Do we want to sacrifice the economy to the altar of the 2 percent inflation rate?” Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, said earlier this week. On Wednesday, he tweeted that the latest inflation report served as more reason to “rethink” the Fed’s strategy.

Biden allies insist those are each manageable elements on their own. But the White House is already struggling to convince Americans that the economy is, in fact, good at a time when all the major indicators are moving in the right direction. And together, those looming hurdles represent a reminder that Biden and his team can only exercise so much control over the economy’s path in the run-up to 2024.

“There’s going to be cooling because economies just cool down — they can’t grow endlessly,” said one economic adviser to the White House, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “The only thing I worry about is the shock that I can’t predict.”

Biden himself has shown some restraint in how he frames the economic recovery, even amid an extended road tour to claim credit for strengthening conditions across the country. In an otherwise triumphant June speech meant to formally outline his Bidenomics agenda, Biden closed by cautioning, “I’m not here to declare victory.”

He repeated the disclaimer in South Carolina last week, warning that “we have a lot more work to do.”

Inside the administration, aides described their focus more on alleviating voters’ existing misgivings about the state of the economy rather than promising a rosy future. The White House has long harbored deep frustrations with media coverage that officials view as obsessed with the threat of recession, even as the underlying data showed consistent signs of strength — a dynamic they blame in part for the public’s dim view of how Biden has handled the economy.

“We have heard doomsayers saying a recession is around the corner for more than a year,” said one White House official, who was granted anonymity to describe the outlook inside the building. “Obviously, there will always be bumps on the road, but we have dealt with unexpected bumps and our economic recovery has powered through.”

The administration has sought to smooth out some of the impending bumps that it can predict. After the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s bid to cancel billions of dollars in student debt, the White House rolled out a new strategy that will ease repayment penalties for financially vulnerable borrowers over the next year.

The “on ramp” policy won’t avert the anticipated drop in borrowers’ spending that could ripple through the economy and slow its progress. But it could help spread some of the impact over several months, rather than having it hit all at once.

“The hardship for households in some cases is going to be very real,” Marcus said. “Macroeconomically, I don’t see that being the thing that tips us into recession.”

Biden has also begun taking aim at individual Republicans over economic issues. Having navigated a potentially disastrous debt ceiling showdown, he is now moving to insulate himself from the political fallout of a potential government shutdown. In particular, the White House has been highlighting GOP lawmakers who opposed his policies — even as they tout the ways in which their districts have benefited from them.

Biden: I compromised on the budget, not debt ceiling

But beyond that bully pulpit, Biden has few major levers remaining to stabilize the economy if it falters more significantly, especially as much of the pandemic aid that proved a critical financial cushion over the last few years expires.

Though the White House has steered clear of commenting on the Fed, aides and allies have kept close watch on a rate-hiking campaign many privately worry will go too far in its bid to lower inflation.

There’s also some trepidation over how much longer the economy can keep up its pace, and whether even small signs of cooling around this time next year could unravel all the work officials are doing now to sell voters on Biden’s economic record.

But for now, Biden has navigated through two years of pitfalls and emerged with a strengthening economy in hand. Voters may say they don’t yet feel it. Still, it’s a frame the White House is increasingly willing to embrace — for as long as it lasts.

“The story of almost every recession in modern American history is something bad happened, and it was something bad we didn’t see coming,” said Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan. “What could happen between now and 2024? A shit-ton of bad things. You know what else could happen? Good things.”

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…”I had the privilege of attending the AmChamChile meeting with former President Lagos and gaining valuable insights into his experience in the negotiations of the Chile-US Trade and Development Agreement. It is truly remarkable to think that two decades have already passed since those negotiations concluded. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to AmChamChile for generously sharing their invaluable insights and knowledge with us. Thank once again.

Javier Dib

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AES Andes

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JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft of the Swedish Air Force is pictured during Arctic Challenge Exercise 23 live air operations drill in Pirkkala near Tampere, Finland on May 31, 2023 | Kalle Parkinen/AFP/Editing by Germán & Co

Sorry Russia, the Baltic Sea is now NATO’s lake

Expanding the alliance creates big problems for Russia.

POLITICO EU BY LAURA KAYALI, JULY 13, 2023 

VILNIUS — A resurgent NATO is set to tighten its grip on the Baltic Sea, complicating a vital transit route for Vladimir Putin’s navy in Russia’s backyard.

This week’s alliance summit in Vilnius was Finland’s first as a NATO member. On the summit’s eve, Turkey agreed to back Sweden’s bid to join — paving the way for a strategic shift in a region Moscow once dominated.

“[Sweden and Finland] make NATO much more geographically coherent. The Baltic Sea becomes a NATO lake, which is generally useful, also because of the Arctic’s increased importance,” said Ulrike Franke, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 

NATO has steadily increased its control of the Baltic Sea — a crucial maritime gateway for the Russian fleet which has bases near St. Petersburg and in the heavily militarized Kaliningrad exclave. During the Cold War, only Denmark and Germany at the far western edge of the Baltic were in the alliance. Poland joining NATO in 1999 and the three Baltic republics in 2004 put most of the sea’s southern shore under alliance control.

Finland and Sweden in NATO will close the vise on the sea from the north, leaving Russia with limited access. Both countries dropped their long-standing neutrality — in Sweden’s case dating back centuries — and last May applied to join the alliance in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

That means significantly expanding NATO’s border with Russia, strengthening defense in Northern Europe and making the alliance’s deterrence more credible.

“The Baltic states were worried about being a little isolated,” said Camille Grand, a former NATO assistant secretary-general. “One could imagine that Sweden and Finland would not have let them down, but access to ports and airports was not 100 percent guaranteed.”

Sweden and Finland joining also means expanding the alliance’s presence in the Arctic, a region increasingly strategic to both Russia and China.

Moscow isn’t pleased…

“It’s extremely important to realize under the current conditions that the Russian military infrastructure has never shifted towards Western Europe, it has always moved in the opposite direction,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. “It’s certainly regrettable that the Europeans fail to realize this mistake.”

Sweden’s accession to the alliance would “definitely be negative,” he added.

Hard power 

On Tuesday, NATO allies agreed to implement renewed regional defense plans. Sweden and Finland’s presence as members will be fully reflected in the alliance’s plans, exercises and targets, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at a press conference.

The two Nordic countries will help make the “magical promise” of Article 5 more effective, according to Kristine Berzina, managing director for the German Marshall Fund’s Geostrategy North. Under Article 5 — NATO’s cornerstone — an armed attack against one or more members is considered an attack on all.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the start of a meeting with NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners during the NATO summit, in Vilnius on July 12 | Pool photo by Jacques Witt via Getty images

The addition of the well-equipped Swedish and Finnish militaries will make it much more difficult for Russia to stage any attacks in the region.

“You need to have enough in place that, in case of a Crimea or a Ukrainian scenario, there’s actual ability to defend territory,” Berzina said. “With Finland and Sweden in, and [the Swedish Baltic island of] Gotland so close to Kaliningrad, in case of highly unlikely yet possible aggression from Russia, Russia cannot use the sea to its strategic advantage as it could right now.”

On the ground, this means more information sharing, more joint exercises and planning, and more military integration.

For example, a Finnish fighter jet flying near the Russian border can collect data and communicate with the Norwegians, who can then ask for more intel or ask the plane to fly elsewhere, said Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a leading researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

Before NATO membership, “you could do it technically but, politically, you couldn’t plan to do that,” he said.

Soldiers, submarines, 5G

While benefitting from NATO’s protection, Stockholm and Helsinki will also bring assets to the table in terms of air defense, land forces and naval capabilities.

“The two countries are already interoperable with NATO, operate NATO-standard weapons systems, and participated in NATO exercise missions, which is one of the reasons why they were able to get in so quickly,” said Grand, adding that Helsinki and Stockholm won’t be “free riders” in the alliance.

Unlike most European countries, Finland didn’t stop spending money on the military after the Cold War ended.

According to Finnish media, Helsinki has one of the largest artillery arsenals and land forces in Europe — ranking ahead of heavyweights such as France, Germany and the U.K. Finland recently renewed its air fleet and is expected to have 64 U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets by 2026.

Sweden reinstated conscription in 2017, which applies to both men and women.

Stockholm did decrease defense spending in the 1990s and 2000s, but started ramping up again in recent years. However, it doesn’t expect to hit NATO’s 2 percent of GDP target until 2026.

Stockholm’s strength is in its navy, which is well-calibrated for the Baltic Sea. The Swedish air force is equipped with locally developed Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighters — designed to respond to a Russian attack and seen as a possible weapon that could be donated to Ukraine.

Beyond weaponry, Sweden and Finland can also help NATO with 5G, the fifth-generation of telecoms infrastructure, Grand said.

The two Nordic countries “bring know-how in an important technology and are trusted partners in the deployment of 5G for military needs,” he explained. Finland’s Nokia, Sweden’s Ericsson and China’s Huawei dominate the 5G civil market.

The two nations’ advanced military and technological capabilities come from being outside of NATO, Berzina said.

“They’re good at everything,” she said, “because they were by themselves.” 

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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A view of the Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea, January 7, 2020. Carina Johansen/NTB Scanpix/via REUTERS/File Photo/Editing by Germán & Co

Oil prices rise on cooling US inflation, China trade data

Reuters By Jeslyn Lerh, July 13, 2023

SINGAPORE, July 13 (Reuters) - Oil prices climbed on Thursday after U.S. inflation and economic data sparked hopes that the Federal Reserve may have fewer interest rate hikes in store and Chinese trade figures showed monthly oil imports were the second-highest on record in June.

Brent crude futures gained 21 cents, or 0.3%, to $80.32 per barrel by 0630 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures were up 13 cents, or 0.2%, at $75.88.

U.S. data on Wednesday showed consumer prices rose modestly in June, registering the smallest annual increase in more than two years. Markets expect one more interest rate rise, but oil traders hope that may be it because higher rates can slow economic growth and reduce oil demand.

"The lower-than-expected read in U.S. inflation suggests that the tightening cycle from the Fed so far is having its desired effect in moderating pricing pressures," said Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist at IG, adding this had provided a "risk-on" environment for oil prices.

"Some catch-up gains seem to be at play, with the lacklustre U.S. dollar and some follow-through in China's stimulus hopes lately providing the catalysts for bearish sentiments to unwind," Yeap said.

Meanwhile, China's crude imports in June totalled 52.06 million metric tons, or 12.67 million barrels per day (bpd), jumping 45.3% on the year and hitting its second highest monthly figure on record, customs data released on Thursday showed.

Crude oil imports for January-June were up 11.7% at 282.1 million metric tons, while refined oil products exports for January-June were up 44.7% at 31.31 million metric tons, customs data showed.

However, sluggish global economic growth, slowing world trade and investment and geopolitical risks continue to impact China's trade, Lv Daliang, a General Administration of Customs spokesperson, said on Thursday.

Another factor capping price gains was a U.S. Energy Information Administration report of a much bigger-than-expected U.S. crude stock build of nearly 6 million barrels last week.

Gasoline inventories remained largely unchanged at 219.5 million barrels during the Fourth of July holiday week, a situation that is "almost unheard of," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures group.

Analysts had expected a big drawdown of gasoline stocks as drivers took to the roads for holiday travel.

Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh in Singapore; Additional reporting by Laura Sanicola in Washington; Editing by Jamie Freed and Jacqueline Wong

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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AES executive vice president and chief operating officer Bernerd Da Santos and AES Vietnam president Joseph Uddo discuss the Son My projects with Binh Thuan province's authorities in February 2023. Photo courtesy of the company. /Editing by Germán & Co

AES, PV Gas receive investment policy approval for LNG terminal project in central Vietnam

The venture will be managed by PV Gas and AES Corporation, and is slated to commence operations in 2027, boasting a capacity of 450 TBtu.

theinvestor.vn By Tri Duc, July 13, 2023 

A joint venture between American energy firm AES Corporation and Petrovietnam subsidiary PV Gas was granted investment policy approval for its $1.4 billion Son My LNG Terminal project by authorities in Binh Thuan province on Tuesday.

The terminal, to be built by the Son My LNG Terminal Project Company in the south-central province, will have an installed capacity of 450 TBtu and is expected to begin commercial operations in 2027, AES said in a release.

Plans for the Son My LNG Terminal in Binh Thuan province, south-central Vietnam. Photo courtesy of PV Gas.

“The investment policy approval for Son My LNG Terminal is a significant milestone that enables us to move forward with the development of this critical infrastructure project," said Joseph Uddo, president of AES Vietnam.

"With more than 12 years of operations in Vietnam, AES is committed to accelerating the future of energy through important projects like this. We are pleased to receive approval from the Binh Thuan People’s Committee and excited to partner with PV Gas on this strategic project that will contribute to Vietnam’s energy transition and economic growth,” he added.

U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Marc E. Knapper said:

“The Son My project will bring energy security to Vietnam in the transition to cleaner sources of energy. I am happy to see a world class U.S. company like AES as a partner of choice for PV Gas and the Government of Vietnam.”

The Son My LNG terminal project, together with AES’s 2.2 GW Son My 2 combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT), represents a multibillion-dollar investment. Son My 2 CCGT, which received investment policy approval earlier this year, will bring safe and reliable energy to power growth in Vietnam while supporting the transition to cleaner and greener technologies.

The Son My LNG Terminal project has received investment policy approval from authorities in Binh Thuan province. The joint venture between AES Corporation and PV Gas will oversee the $1.4 billion project, which will have an installed capacity of 450 TBtu and begin commercial operations in 2027. AES Vietnam's President, Joseph Uddo, referred to the approval as a "significant milestone" and highlighted that the project will contribute to Vietnam's energy transition and economic growth. The project, along with AES's Son My 2 combined cycle gas turbine, represents a substantial investment aimed at supporting the adoption of cleaner and greener technologies.

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A national-security campaign led by Xi has hit Western management consultants, auditors and other firms GREG BAKER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Editing by Germán & Co

Xi Jinping Chokes Off Crucial Engine of China’s Economy

Foreign direct investment in China fell to $20 billion in the first quarter from $100 billion a year earlier, hurting an already struggling economy

WSJ By Lingling Wei, July 13, 2023

Desperate for capital and with their economies struggling, China’s cities are wooing Western businesses with previously unavailable goodies. Beijing has labeled 2023 the “Year of Investing in China” and local officials have embarked on promotional tours overseas to drum up interest from investors.

That effort is running headlong into President Xi Jinping’s national-security agenda, with its focus on fending off perceived foreign threats. That has made any Chinese investment a potential minefield for foreign firms.

A Xi-led campaign this year has hit Western management consultants, auditors and other firms with a wave of raids, investigations and detentions. Meanwhile, an expanded anti-espionage law has added to foreign executives’ worry that conducting routine business activities in China, such as market research, could be construed as spying.

The perception that doing business in China has become much riskier is choking the flow of capital into an economy already struggling with weak private investment and consumption, as well as soaring youth unemployment.

Foreign direct investment in China fell to $20 billion in the first quarter of this year, compared with $100 billion in last year’s first quarter, according to an analysis of government figures by analyst Mark Witzke at research firm Rhodium Group.

Goldman Sachs economists predict outflows from China this year will cancel out investment going into the country, a stunning change for a country that over the past four decades has consistently seen more money coming in than going out.

China’s growth, which in recent decades has been fueled by the country’s opening to the West, depends on foreign investment and expertise to boost innovation and productivity.

For Chinese leaders, keeping pressure on foreign firms while simultaneously trying to get them to invest is becoming an evermore precarious balancing act, which threatens to deprive the country of the capital, technologies, ideas and management skills that have helped power China’s rise.

Distressed cities

The tug of war is leaving financially distressed cities and townships across China in the lurch. Mired in debt and struggling to create jobs after three years of Covid-19 restrictions, many are in dire need of capital.

Local governments spent more last year than the year before, according to official statistics, triggered mainly by an 18% jump in health expenses used to cover Covid testing and related costs. Meanwhile, their income dropped, mainly because of a 23% year-over-year plunge in revenue from land sales to developers, a funding source on which local authorities long relied. Localities have borrowed more than they could afford, with debts owed directly by local governments amounting to 120% of their revenue.

Many officials say their traditional strategies for attracting foreign investment have foundered.

A trade official in Chengdu, the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, recently embarked on an investment-promotion trip to Europe. He returned empty-handed. “In my 20 years of trying to get investments from Europe, this was the first time we didn’t get to sign even one memorandum of understanding,” the official said.

A senior official in a county of southern Guangdong province, which earlier this year set a goal of attracting nearly $300 billion in investment in the next five years, told a visiting American trade group recently that the county would reward any U.S. corporate “decision maker” investing there 10% of the value of the promised deal, according to people briefed on the matter.

The trade group turned down the county official’s offer, which in the U.S. would constitute an illegal bribe, the people said. The Guangdong government didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Business pause

Recent surveys by business groups in China have shown American, German and other European companies pausing expansion or reducing investment in China. Crane, a large U.S. maker of vending machines and other industrial products that has been manufacturing in China since the 1990s, has sharply scaled back its investments in the country partly because of increased policy uncertainty, according to people close to the firm. Crane, based in Stamford, Conn., didn’t respond to questions.

Sean Stein, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and a former U.S. Consul General in the city, said the recent pressure on U.S. consulting firms risks “cutting off the eyes and ears of foreign businesses.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen objected to China’s treatment of U.S. companies when she met with senior officials in Beijing last week. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is also expected to raise the issue for her coming trip to China.

In the seaport city of Ningbo in Zhejiang province, local officials held a “Investing in Zhejiang” forum, where they touted a checklist of initiatives they could offer foreign investors, from building better roads and pipes to offering tax incentives and subsidies for purchases of high-end equipment.

“The message is that we’re really open for business,” said Cameron Johnson, a partner at TidalWave Solutions, a U.S. consultant and one of the half-dozen Westerners who attended the event in May.

At the same time, uncertainty over policies from Beijing has created paralysis in global corporate boardrooms, he said. “What’s the government’s real focus?” said Johnson, an American who has spent more than two decades in China. “Can there be more clarity or guidance on policy so foreign businesses can develop a road map to comply?”

Mixed messages

Pixelworks, a Portland, Ore., designer and producer of chips used in videos and other electronic display devices, has been welcomed with open arms by local officials in Shanghai, where its China operation is based. They are especially supportive of efforts by Pixelworks’ CEO Todd DeBonis to get the company’s Chinese subsidiary listed on Shanghai’s STAR board, the country’s equivalent to the Nasdaq.

“We’re going all-in in China,” DeBonis said, adding that most of Pixelworks’ research and development talent is based in China, and that is where the firm derives most of its revenue.

Despite the local support, Pixelworks is facing pressure from China’s central government to reconfigure its Chinese subsidiary to make sure it is independent from the company’s American operations. That is the kind of requirement increasingly imposed on foreign companies as part of Beijing’s national-security agenda, business consultants and lawyers advising multinational companies say. 

For Pixelworks, that means the company has had to essentially split itself in two, with its China operation separated from its U.S. parent firm, to get Chinese regulators to approve its initial-public-offering application.

Over the past 2½ years, Pixelworks has undergone a painstaking process aimed at making its Chinese subsidiary independent from the U.S. parent. As part of that effort, Pixelworks has transferred the intellectual property specific to its China operation from the U.S. parent to the China entity—a move intended to ensure the security of those patents and trademarks against any potential U.S. sanctions that could make them off limits to China’s markets.

To comply with Chinese security concerns, Pixelworks recently moved 15 employees who worked on projects for the U.S. parent to a separate floor of its office tower. Those employees, all Chinese nationals, have their own office networks that are completely separate from Pixelworks’ China operations, and confine their work to U.S. projects.

In late June, several officials from China’s Commerce Ministry in Beijing visited Pixelworks’ offices to “better understand” its businesses and the company’s progress in separating its China operation, said DeBonis, who at the time was attending a U.S.-China forum and fly-fishing in Montana and was informed of the visit by his China staffers.

DeBonis said Pixelworks’ China operation aims to submit its IPO application to Chinese regulators later this year. To be approved, it will need to convince Beijing it has bulletproofed its intellectual property against any potential U.S. sanctions.

“They won’t approve your application unless you mitigate the risks to Chinese shareholders,” DeBonis said.

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News round-up, July 12, 2023

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Image credit: illustration 18511393 © Melonstone | Dreamstime.com by Energy Central

Adding Esteemed New Members to the Energy Central 100,000 View Club!

“Hard to believe we're already past the halfway point of 2023, but that's the reality. And with those first 6 months have come some key and compelling utility industry stories-- from clean energy transitions to keeping the grid reliable amid challenging conditions to policy and regulations driving the coming evolution in the sector, the Energy Central Community has been at the forefront of it all. 

And as we all use this community to stay on top of the latest news, we especially want to shout out the dedicated members of the community who continue to share and keep us all informed and discussing, debating, and learning as our top contributors. 

Those top contributors are valuable to us, and we like to take a moment to take stock of them-- and so that means it's time for our regular check-in to see which heavy-hitting contributors have reached the milestone of the Energy Central 100,000 View Club.

We've previously welcomed 38 different Energy Central members to this stratosphere (Induction classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9), and it's time to welcome 3 more entries into the club:

• Doug Houseman, Utility Industry Innovator with Burns & McDonnell

  • Recommended recent post: Plan to Zero (#27) Balancing the “-ility” issues

• Germán Toro Ghio, CEO of Germán & Co.

  • Recommended recent post: "The Covert Conflict on Lithium: An Examination of the Other Hidden War"

• John Egan, President of Egan Energy Communications

  • Recommended recent post: Utility Community Relations: Say “Hello” to the People (AKA “Customers”) Who Pay Your Salary

These Energy Central regulars join the rest of the 100k club members who have garnered a combined 100,000 views of the content they have submitted to Energy Central. Achieved through an impressive combination of frequency in sharing and high-quality of contributions when they do share (thus allowing their articles to reach even more eyeballs). 

As these devoted members of the Energy Central Community have demonstrated, the power of Energy Central is only as strong as the insights and discussions brought in by our community of experts, professionals, and passionate individuals. Thanks to our community members, whether you have 100,000 views or 100 views, for making that happen!

And are you interested in one day making this esteemed list of elite Energy Central contributors, and thus establishing yourself as a real thought leader in the community? Well, the only way to start is by sharing your thoughts and your work today! So, share a post today, start a valuable conversation, and who knows—maybe it will become viral and you’ll join the vaunted members of this club soon enough!

Can't wait to see you join this list next!

Matt Chester

Community Manager

Most read…

The Energy Transition Is Underway. Fossil Fuel Workers Could Be Left Behind.

The Biden administration is trying to increase renewable energy investments in distressed regions, but some are skeptical those measures would be enough to make up for job losses.

NYT By Madeleine Ngo, reporting from Washington, July 12, 2023

Measure It Differently, and Inflation Is Behind Us

Investors who think that underlying inflation is falling but not fast enough for the Fed should be troubled by an alternative measure of price increases

WSJ By James Mackintosh, July 12, 2023

OpenAI’s Sam Altman Is Taking a Nuclear-Energy Startup Public

Oklo, which is developing a small modular nuclear reactor, is valued around $850 million

WSJ By Jennifer Hiller and Amrith Ramkumar, July 11, 2023 

Hydrogen boiler trial scrapped in setback for net zero

Scheme abandoned following opposition from residents who preferred gas boilers and heat pumps

The Telegraph By Melissa Lawford, July 11, 2023

Exclusive: Shell, BP pursue arbitration claims against Venture Global LNG

A similar lawsuit was filed by Edison SpA in May, as well as the London Court of International Arbitration. Meanwhile, Repsol SA, one of Venture Global LNG's clients, has requested confidential records from US regulators that could reveal more information about the plant's launch.

REUTERS By Marwa Rashad and Curtis Williams, July 12, 2023

NOW/China lashes back at NATO criticism, warns it will protect its rights

Reuters, July 12, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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The coal-fired power plant in Coshocton County, Ohio, was shut down in 2020.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

The Energy Transition Is Underway. Fossil Fuel Workers Could Be Left Behind.

The Biden administration is trying to increase renewable energy investments in distressed regions, but some are skeptical those measures would be enough to make up for job losses.

NYT By Madeleine Ngo, reporting from Washington, July 12, 2023

Tiffany Berger spent more than a decade working at a coal-fired power plant in Coshocton County, Ohio, eventually becoming a unit operator making about $100,000 annually.

But in 2020, American Electric Power shut down the plant, and Ms. Berger struggled to find a job nearby that offered a comparable salary. She sold her house, moved in with her parents and decided to help run their farm in Newcomerstown, Ohio, about 30 minutes away.

They sell some of the corn, beans and beef they harvest, but it is only enough to keep the farm running. Ms. Berger, 39, started working part time at a local fertilizer and seed company last year, making just a third of what she used to earn. She said she had “never dreamed” the plant would close.

“I thought I was set to retire from there,” Ms. Berger said. “It’s a power plant. I mean, everybody needs power.”

The United States is undergoing a rapid shift away from fossil fuels as new battery factories, wind and solar projects, and other clean energy investments crop up across the country. An expansive climate law that Democrats passed last year could be even more effective than Biden administration officials had estimated at reducing fossil fuel emissions.

While the transition is projected to create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, it could be devastating for many workers and counties that have relied on coal, oil and gas for their economic stability.

Estimates of the potential job losses in the coming years vary, but roughly 900,000 workers were directly employed by fossil fuel industries in 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Politics Across the United States

The Biden administration is trying to mitigate the impact, mostly by providing additional tax advantages for renewable energy projects that are built in areas vulnerable to the energy transition.

But some economists, climate researchers and union leaders said they are skeptical the initiatives will be enough. Beyond construction, wind and solar farms typically require few workers to operate, and new clean energy jobs might not necessarily offer comparable wages or align with the skills of laid-off workers.

Coal plants have already been shutting down for years, and the nation’s coal production has fallen from its peak in the late 2000s. U.S. coal-fired generation capacity is projected to decline sharply to about 50 percent of current levels by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration. About 41,000 workers remain in the coal mining industry, down from about 177,000 in the mid-1980s.

The industry’s demise is a problem not just for its workers but also for the communities that have long relied on coal to power their tax revenue. The loss of revenue from mines, plants and workers can mean less money for schools, roads and law enforcement. A recent paper from the Aspen Institute found that from 1980 to 2019, regions exposed to the decline of coal saw long-run reductions in earnings and employment rates, greater uptake of Medicare and Medicaid benefits and substantial decreases in population, particularly among younger workers. That “leaves behind a population that is disproportionately old, sick and poor,” according to the paper.

The Biden administration has promised to help those communities weather the impact, for both economic and political reasons. Failure to adequately help displaced workers could translate into the kind of populist backlash that hurt Democrats in the wake of globalization as companies shifted factories to China. Promises to restore coal jobs also helped Donald J. Trump clinch the 2016 election, securing him crucial votes in states like Pennsylvania.

Federal officials have vowed to create jobs in hard-hit communities and ensure that displaced workers “benefit from the new clean energy economy” by offering developers billions in bonus tax credits to put renewable energy projects in regions dependent on fossil fuels.

Tiffany Berger, who was laid off when the plant in Coshocton County was shut down, struggled to find work that offered a comparable salary. She moved in with her parents and decided to help run her family’s farm.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

If new investments like solar farms or battery storage facilities are built in those regions, called “energy communities,” developers could get as much as 40 percent of a project’s cost covered. Businesses receiving credits for producing electricity from renewable sources could earn a 10 percent boost.

The Inflation Reduction Act also set aside at least $4 billion in tax credits that could be used to build clean energy manufacturing facilities, among other projects, in regions with closed coal mines or plants, and it created a program that could guarantee up to $250 billion in loans to repurpose facilities like a shuttered power plant for clean energy uses.

Brian Anderson, the executive director of the Biden administration’s interagency working group on energy communities, pointed to other federal initiatives, including increased funding for projects to reclaim abandoned mine lands and relief funds to revitalize coal communities.

Still, he said that the efforts would not be enough, and that officials had limited funding to directly assist more communities.

“We’re standing right at the cusp of potentially still leaving them behind again,” Mr. Anderson said.

Phil Smith, the chief of staff at the United Mine Workers of America, said that the tax credits for manufacturers could help create more jobs but that $4 billion likely would not be enough to attract facilities to every region. He said he also hoped for more direct assistance for laid-off workers, but Congress did not fund those initiatives.

“We think that’s still something that needs to be done,” Mr. Smith said.

Gordon Hanson, the author of the Aspen Institute paper and a professor of urban policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said he worried the federal government was relying too heavily on the tax credits, in part because companies would likely be more inclined to invest in growing areas. He urged federal officials to increase unemployment benefits to distressed regions and funding for work force development programs.

Even with the bonus credit, clean energy investments might not reach the hardest-hit areas because a broad swath of regions meets the federal definition of an energy community, said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future.

“If the intention of that provision was to specifically provide an advantage to the hardest-hit fossil fuel communities, I don’t think it’s done that,” Mr. Raimi said.

Local officials have had mixed reactions to the federal efforts. Steve Henry, the judge-executive of Webster County, Ky., said he believed they could bring renewable energy investments and help attract other industries to the region. The county experienced a significant drop in tax revenue after its last mine shut down in 2019, and it now employs fewer 911 dispatchers and deputy sheriffs because officials cannot offer more competitive wages.

“I think we can recover,” he said. “But it’s going to be a long recovery.”

Adam O’Nan, the judge-executive of Union County, Ky., which has one coal mine left, said he thought renewable energy would bring few jobs to the area, and he doubted that a manufacturing plant would be built because of the county’s inadequate infrastructure.

“It’s kind of difficult to see how it reaches down into Union County at this point,” Mr. O’Nan said. “We’re best suited for coal at the moment.”

Federal and state efforts so far have done little to help workers like James Ault, 42, who was employed at an oil refinery in Contra Costa County, Calif., for 14 years before he was laid off in 2020. To keep his family afloat, he depleted his pension and withdrew most of the money from his 401(k) early.

In early 2022, he moved to Roseville, Calif., to work at a power plant, but he was laid off again after four months. He worked briefly as a meal delivery driver before landing a job in February at a nearby chemical manufacturer.

He now makes $17 an hour less than he did at the refinery and is barely able to cover his mortgage. Still, he said he would not return to the oil industry.

“With our push away from gasoline, I feel that I would be going into an industry that is kind of dying,” Mr. Ault said.

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…”I had the privilege of attending the AmChamChile meeting with former President Lagos and gaining valuable insights into his experience in the negotiations of the Chile-US Trade and Development Agreement. It is truly remarkable to think that two decades have already passed since those negotiations concluded. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to AmChamChile for generously sharing their invaluable insights and knowledge with us. Thank once again.

Javier Dib

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AES Andes

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The Fed is striving to tame inflation, which is at different levels depending on how it is measured. PHOTO: ERIN SCOTT/BLOOMBERG NEWS/Editing by Germán & Co

Measure It Differently, and Inflation Is Behind Us

Investors who think that underlying inflation is falling but not fast enough for the Fed should be troubled by an alternative measure of price increases

WSJ By James Mackintosh, July 12, 2023

If core inflation came in just below 3%, the Federal Reserve would breathe a huge sigh of relief, stocks would head to the races and consumers could relax about the rising cost of living. 

It isn’t merely a dream: Measure U.S. price changes the way Europe does, and inflation was already there in May. Measure them as the U.S. does, and on Wednesday new figures are predicted by economists to show core inflation far higher, at 5% for June.

The U.S. and Europe use different methods to calculate inflation data, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates American price rises the European way too, although the statistic remains obscure.

Right now, measuring U.S. inflation using the two methods shows radically different results. Investors who think they have a handle on the current consensus—that underlying inflation is falling but not fast enough for the Fed—should be troubled by the alternative message coming from the much lower European version of the figures.

As inflation climbs in the U.S., rising food and energy costs have pushed the nation’s most popular price index to its highest level in four decades. WSJ’s Gwynn Guilford explains how the consumer-price index works and what it can tell you about inflation. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds

U.S. core inflation—which excludes volatile food and energy—measured using the standard consumer-price index was 2.3 percentage points higher than the European-style inflation, known as the harmonized index of consumer prices. It is the biggest gap there has ever been. 

The main reason is that Europe’s measure, known as HICP, doesn’t include the imaginary cost of what a homeowner would pay to rent their house, which makes up about a third of the U.S. core CPI. Known as “owners’ equivalent rent” or imputed rent, the measure has long had its critics.

Exclude something that no one actually pays, and which is calculated from guesses by homeowners of the rental value of their house, and core inflation’s looking basically fine, at a fraction under 3%. I’ve concentrated on core inflation, because food and oil prices swing so much that they make it hard to tell if the economy is generating inflation pressures the central bank needs to tackle.

So why is everyone still so concerned about inflation?

The answer is partly about biases and partly about change, but it is mostly about worries that the economy is running too hot to be confident that inflation will come down to the 2% target.

The bias is that CPI is long established and widely used in the U.S. The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces its own HICP inflation data as an experimental measure; many economists and investors don’t even realize it is available. 

Housing Makes the Difference

The HICP inflation gauge excludes imputed rent for homeowners, so is much lower.

Gap between inflation measures

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics (HICP), Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (CPI, PCE)

To make matters even more confusing, CPI gets almost all the focus, even though the Fed sets its inflation target based on the personal-consumption expenditures price index, PCE, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. PCE comes in lower than CPI, but still puts large weight on imputed rent that isn’t actually paid.

Even if the Fed thought HICP was better—and there is no sign it does—there is no way it could change the measure without drawing political heat. Inflation figures are already subject to deep skepticism from some economists, who point out that improvements to the indexes usually make inflation come in lower than on older methods.

The most important question that the gauges seek to answer is whether the underlying pressures are so strong that the economy needs to be restrained further. Will a strong jobs market mean workers flush with pay increases can consume more, keeping demand up and so allowing companies to raise prices? 

If so, the Fed will have to keep raising rates. The lower core HICP inflation suggests the problem of a strong jobs market is less worrisome than on the CPI measure. But hawks are concerned that continued above-inflation pay increases will push inflation up, as companies pass on higher costs. Persistent inflation above 2% might push up expectations of inflation, in turn leading to more pay demands.

Alternatively, will companies facing more expensive borrowing trim spending, hire fewer people and resist pay demands? If so, wages will moderate, demand fall and the Fed relax—at least so long as slowdown doesn’t turn into recession. Doves point to tentative signs that jobs are less plentiful, with initial unemployment claims up and wage increases decelerating for the hourly, less-skilled and lower-paid workers who were most in demand. Doves are also reassured by inflation expectations from consumers and investors not far from the 2% target.

Indicators that have a history of moving in tandem often converge again after a period of moving apart. CPI and PCE might well come down toward HICP, because rent increases have slowed. Unfortunately, even if core inflation does drop more, it will still be too high for comfort on the CPI and PCE gauges that investors and the Fed focus on.

Inflation isn’t the only place where the economic signals are haywire. Lots of the usual indicators of what the economy is doing and where it is going are telling different stories, something I’ll come back to in the next Streetwise. Meanwhile, all of this leaves me concerned—and confused, never a good place to be when trying to figure out what the market will do next.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the nuclear-energy industry can make electricity that is ‘a way better deal than anything else out there.’ PHOTO: CLARA MOKRI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

OpenAI’s Sam Altman Is Taking a Nuclear-Energy Startup Public

Oklo, which is developing a small modular nuclear reactor, is valued around $850 million

WSJ By Jennifer Hiller and Amrith Ramkumar, July 11, 2023 

Oklo, a nuclear-fission startup backed by Sam Altman, plans to go public through a merger with his special-purpose acquisition company, company officials said Tuesday.

The deal would add to recent SPAC mergers involving nuclear companies and test investor appetite for clean-energy startups, which surged in 2020 and early 2021 before falling out of favor. Companies such as Oklo trying to build a new generation of smaller nuclear power projects must prove they can deliver on time and on budget, unlike the fleet of large nuclear plants that preceded them. 

California-based Oklo is developing a small modular nuclear reactor design and plans to sell electricity into the competitive power market, including through the kind of agreements that wind and solar developers often cut with corporate and industrial firms that want to buy carbon-free power.

Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI—the artificial-intelligence startup behind the viral chatbot ChatGPT—said the nuclear-energy industry can make electricity that is “a way better deal than anything else out there.” 

At their peak, SPACs accounted for 70% of all IPOs, with $95 billion raised. But now, the market has dried up and shares of companies that did SPAC deals have crashed. WSJ explains the decline of the IPO vehicle. Illustration: Ali Larkin

Nuclear fission can generate energy without greenhouse-gas emissions, and, unlike other technologies such as solar, it can do so 24 hours a day. The process of splitting atoms in nuclear-fission power plants provides nearly 20% of U.S. electricity.

Oklo is valued in the transaction at roughly $850 million. Somewhat unusually, it would go public by combining with AltC Acquisition ALCC -1.42%decrease; red down pointing triangle, a SPAC co-founded by Altman and Michael Klein, a former Citigroup banker and serial blank-check company creator. 

Also known as a blank-check company, a SPAC is a shell company that raises money, then lists publicly with the sole intent of combining with a private company to take it public. After regulators approve the transaction, the company going public replaces the SPAC in the stock market.

Such deals are notorious for enriching company insiders at the expense of other investors. At least a dozen startups that went public during the SPAC boom have filed for bankruptcy, and many others are burning through their cash.

Even in the risky world of SPACs, it is uncommon for an investor to take one of their companies public through one of their own blank-check companies, though not unprecedented. Having the same investor on both sides of a deal can raise concerns for other shareholders about whether they are getting the best outcome. 

The AltC SPAC is also running up against its deadline to do a deal before it has to return cash to its investors, raising questions about the merger’s timing.

AltC and Oklo said they have been working on the transaction for nine months and that AltC had entered into a letter of intent that extended the deadline for three months. Altman recused himself from the transaction review and approval processes on both sides. Altman, Oklo’s founders and Klein have agreed not to sell shares until well after the deal closes, the companies said.

AltC holds $500 million in cash that Oklo could use to expand the business, though that figure will likely drop. SPAC investors can pull their money out of such deals before they close and have been withdrawing in droves during market turbulence over the past two years, making it harder for companies to raise substantial amounts of cash from the transactions. Mergers that lack simultaneous private investments such as the proposed Oklo transaction have been among the worst performers.

Small modular reactor startup X-energy is attempting to go public through a SPAC backed by private-equity firm Ares Management in a $1.8 billion deal. The two sides lowered the valuation by $300 million last month. Competitor NuScale Power went through a blank-check merger last year. Its stock is down about 25%, less than the average decline for companies that went public this way. 

“It has been a difficult year in the SPAC world but I always try not to pay too much attention to trends and look at each opportunity,” Altman said.

Altman is also a backer of nuclear-fusion startup Helion Energy, which signed a deal with Microsoft, believed to be the first commercial agreement for fusion power. Nuclear-fusion systems such as Helion’s would theoretically generate electricity from the energy released when hydrogen and helium are combined, the process that powers the stars. Microsoft has agreed to purchase electricity from Helion within about five years. 

Both Oklo and Helion will try to directly compete with other forms of power generation, as opposed to asking utility companies and their ratepayers to commit to funding projects for which the first-of-a-kind design costs could be uncertain.

Oklo plans to deliver its first reactors in Idaho and Ohio and must navigate a rigorous licensing process with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It is also developing nuclear fuel-recycling technologies with the U.S. Energy Department and U.S. national laboratories, which would provide fuel for its reactors and others.

Altman has a long history with Oklo. He met the founders in 2013 around the time they started the firm, recruited them to startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2014 and invested in the company and became board chair in 2015, a position he still holds.

Altman said the goals of making artificial intelligence and energy cheap and abundant are tied together.

“The AI systems of the future will need tremendous amounts of energy and this fission and fusion can help deliver them,” Altman said, adding that he thinks that as AI advances it will contribute to nuclear-system designs.

Dozens of developers globally are testing small modular reactor designs, though there are no SMRs making electricity in the U.S., and none under construction. Supporters say the smaller-scale reactors could prove cheaper and faster to build than their massive predecessors; skeptics say the effort is a gamble on a technology with unproven economics. At the earliest, such reactors could be available later this decade. 

Jacob DeWitte, co-founder and chief executive of Oklo, said the company is trying to avoid the mistakes of the past, in which utility customers paid rising costs for building a reactor. “That traditional business model is just very difficult to deliver and to execute on,” DeWitte said.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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Source: IEA

Hydrogen boiler trial scrapped in setback for net zero

Scheme abandoned following opposition from residents who preferred gas boilers and heat pumps

The Telegraph By Melissa Lawford, July 11, 2023

A net zero trial of hydrogen heating systems in a town near Liverpool has been scrapped after locals pushed back in favour of gas boilers and heat pumps.

In a blow to the Government’s race to go green, the energy minister Lord Callanan announced on Twitter on Monday that plans to make Whitby, Ellesmere Port, into the UK’s first hydrogen-powered village would be scrapped because of a lack of support from residents.

Cadent and British Gas had proposed to install and trial hydrogen heating systems in 2,000 homes in the town for a period of two years.

Lord Callanan said: “After listening to the views of residents, it’s clear that there is no strong local support, therefore Whitby will no longer be considered as the location for the UK’s first hydrogen village trial.”

Residents complained over a 10-month consultation process that they wanted to keep their gas boilers and wanted to use heat pumps instead, Cadent said.

The pushback highlights the challenge faced by the ministers as they scramble to decarbonise Britain’s homes.

In 2021, the Government announced plans for a trial village as part of a plan to become a “world-leading hydrogen economy” in its bid to hit net zero by 2050. 

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UK HYDROGEN DEMAND FORECAST

Source: BEIS

Unlike natural gas, hydrogen does not release carbon when it is burnt.

Many families were apparently still opposed to the plans despite terms laid out by Cadent and British Gas when they submitted their bid at the end of March, which included making the trial optional and letting residents continue to power their homes using gas if they preferred.

Those who opted to participate were promised new hydrogen appliances, installed and maintained for free; price-matching to natural gas for the programme’s duration; and £2,500 in home energy efficiency improvements.

The decision to scrap the trial followed heavy criticism in a report by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which last month blamed the Government’s “lack of a strategic direction” on electrification and hydrogen policy for “creating systemic uncertainty”, which the CCC said is holding back progress on hydrogen infrastructure.

Lord Callanan said that the Government was in ongoing discussions with the Northern Gas Networks (NGN) about plans for a separate hydrogen trial in Redcar, a town on the Yorkshire coast, and will “announce next steps shortly.” 

NGN has proposed 2,000 homes in parts of Redcar use hydrogen instead of natural gas for a minimum of two years from 2025.

A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We have always said we wouldn’t force these trials on communities without their support, and we have listened to the people of Whitby after they raised their concerns.”

A Cadent spokesman said: “We believe strongly in the role that hydrogen can play alongside other technologies and energy sources in reaching net zero. 

“While Whitby won’t to be the location for the trial, the information we have gained over the last 12 months will still play an invaluable role in shaping how the UK heats its homes and businesses in the future.”

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Source: Reuters

Exclusive: Shell, BP pursue arbitration claims against Venture Global LNG

A similar lawsuit was filed by Edison SpA in May, as well as the London Court of International Arbitration. Meanwhile, Repsol SA, one of Venture Global LNG's clients, has requested confidential records from US regulators that could reveal more information about the plant's launch.

REUTERS By Marwa Rashad and Curtis Williams, July 12, 2023

[1/2]The Bermuda-flagged LNG tanker Methane Lydon Volney, is seen offshore of the islet of Revithoussa, Greece, September 21, 2022. REUTERS/Costas Baltas/File Photo

LONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - Top LNG traders Shell (SHEL.L) and BP (BP.L) have separately filed for arbitration against U.S. exporter Venture Global LNG for failing to supply contracted cargoes, even as it sold to non-contract customers as prices soared, four people familiar with the matter said.

A Venture Global LNG spokesperson did not comment on the Shell and BP claims. Last month, the company said it was in full compliance with terms of its long-term contracts and cited a need for extensive commissioning of its modular facility.

Shell and BP missed out on billions of dollars in sales that went to Venture Global LNG because they were unable to get their contracted fuel, one of the people familiar with the arbitration filings said. Prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) soared last year on Russia's gas-supply cuts to Europe.

The companies filed their cases at the London Court of International Arbitration. A similar case was brought by Italian utility Edison SpA (EDNn.MI) in May. Another Venture Global LNG contract customer, Spanish energy firm Repsol SA (REP.MC), has asked U.S. regulators to release confidential records that would shed light on the plant's startup.

Founded by a former energy lawyer and investment banker, Venture Global LNG has emerged as a market force with its ability to obtain financing and rapidly build export plants. It has pledged to produce 70 million tons of LNG per year once the projects are completed.

The contracts were tied to Calcasieu Pass LNG, the first of Venture Global LNG's three planned facilities. It stitched together 18 liquefaction units to produce up to 12 million tons per year of the supercooled gas.

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Image by Germán & Co

NOW/China lashes back at NATO criticism, warns it will protect its rights

Reuters, July 12, 2023

BEIJING, July 12 (Reuters) - Beijing lashed back at NATO's accusation that China challenges the bloc's interests and security, and opposed any attempt by the military alliance to expand its footprint into the Asia-Pacific region.

In a strongly worded communique issued midway into a two-day summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on Tuesday, NATO said the People's Republic of China (PRC) challenged its interests, security and values with its "ambitions and coercive policies".

"The PRC employs a broad range of political, economic, and military tools to increase its global footprint and project power, while remaining opaque about its strategy, intentions and military build-up," NATO heads of state said in their communique.

"The PRC's malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target Allies and harm Alliance security."

The Chinese mission to the European said in a statement on Tuesday the China-related content of the communique disregarded basic facts, distorted China's position and policies, and deliberately discredited China.

"We firmly oppose and reject this," it said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the summit that while China was not a NATO "adversary", it was increasingly challenging the rules-based international order with its "coercive behaviour."

"China is increasingly challenging the rules-based international order, refusing to condemn Russia's war against Ukraine, threatening Taiwan, and carrying out a substantial military build-up," he said.

However, NATO made no mention of Taiwan in its communique.

Taiwan's foreign ministry said it was "very meaningful" for Stoltenberg to once again clearly express his concern for security in the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan is a responsible, democratic member of the Indo-Pacific region, and is willing to work with like-minded partners such as Europe and the United States to jointly combat coercion by and challenges from authoritarian regimes, it added.

'SPREADING ITS TENTACLES'

Attendance at the two-day summit also includes some Asia-Pacific leaders.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, joining for a second time, aimed to remind the military alliance to pay heed to East Asia risks, while South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol sought deeper international security cooperation amid rising North Korean threats and tension over China.

In May, Kishida said Japan had no plans to become a NATO member, even though NATO was planning a Tokyo office, its first in Asia, to facilitate consultations in the region.

The Chinese mission said China resolutely opposed NATO's "eastward movement into the Asia-Pacific region" and warned any action threatening Beijing's rights would be met with a resolute response.

"Any act that jeopardises China's legitimate rights and interests will be met with a resolute response," it said.

In the communique, NATO said China sought to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains, and that Beijing also used its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency hit back, saying in a report that the wars and conflicts involving NATO states suggest the bloc is a "grave challenge" to global peace and stability.

"Despite all the chaos and conflict already inflicted, NATO is spreading its tentacles to the Asia-Pacific region with an express aim of containing China."

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News round-up, July 11, 2023

Thoughts for a day on Tuesday 11 July

"Cluster munitions are the only viable, unfortunately —solution— to put end Ukraine's warfare… 

According to the International Red Cross, cluster munitions have been a significant issue for many years. These weapons have a broad range and often fail to detonate as intended, causing numerous civilian casualties. Even though only a few countries have used cluster munitions, many possess them in their stockpiles. The consequences could be worse if even a small amount of these stockpiled cluster munitions were used or transferred to other countries or non-State armed groups. Numerous countries are signing up for the Convention on Cluster Munitions to tackle the humanitarian problems linked to these weapons. 

There are approximately 90 countries that have stockpiles of cluster munitions, with around 30 of them producing these weapons. The use of cluster munitions has been documented in over 20 countries, causing harm to both military personnel and civilians. Most victims of cluster munitions are civilians, including children, who often mistake these submunitions for toys or other harmless objects. Using these weapons also has long-term effects on the environment, as unexploded submunitions can remain active for years after deployment, making areas unsafe for habitation or farming. 

Efforts to enhance the technology of cluster munitions, including the creation of self-destruct systems or submunitions with lower explosive force, have yet to prove to be entirely feasible or effective in solving the underlying issue. The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits these weapons' use, production, and stockpiling, has been signed by 119 countries, showing the international community's dedication to addressing the humanitarian concerns associated with cluster munitions.

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Most read…

IEA says critical minerals supply could pull close to demand by 2030

While the supply picture in the energy sector is indeed improving, we must not overlook the warning from the Paris-based energy watchdog regarding the potential risks posed by delays and cost overruns for projects.

Reuters By Eric Onstad, July 11, 2023, editing by Germán & Co

In Ukraine I saw a brave but ravaged land in limbo. It needs a future – it needs Nato

Joe Biden must be bold at this week’s summit, and help to give Kyiv the security that would allow it to rebuild

The Guardian by Timothy Garton Ash, July 11, 2023

Biden’s hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust

The EU is investing billions into becoming a green energy superpower. But Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act means it’s the U.S. reaping the rewards.

POLITICO.COM By GABRIEL GAVIN and BEN LEFEBVRE, July 7, 2023 

New power lines take a decade to build because of red tape, complains National Grid

Energy company blasts Britain’s planning rules amid ongoing row over delays

The Telegraph By Gareth Corfield,  July 11, 2023 

The Flawed Moral Logic of Sending Cluster Munitions to Ukraine

The New York Times By *The Editorial Board, July 10, 2023

*The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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IEA says critical minerals supply could pull close to demand by 2030

While the supply picture in the energy sector is indeed improving, we must not overlook the warning from the Paris-based energy watchdog regarding the potential risks posed by delays and cost overruns for projects.

Reuters By Eric Onstad, July 11, 2023, editing by Germán & Co

LONDON, July 11 (Reuters) - Supply of minerals critical to the energy transition could move close to levels needed to support climate pledges by 2030 after a surge in investment, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday - provided all projects go as planned.

Consultants and analysts have warned of looming shortages due to surging demand for key minerals like lithium and cobalt used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies.

But after investment in critical minerals production jumped 30% last year to $41 billion, having gained 20% in 2021, that picture is looking brighter, the IEA said.

In key battery mineral lithium, the IEA forecasts supply by 2030 will reach 420,000 metric tons - only a touch short of demand estimated at 443,000 to meet government pledges, though well below the 702,000 required for net zero.

"We are happy that for a change we can give some good news," IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told Reuters in an interview.

"This is testimony that the markets are buying in to the fact that the clean energy transition is moving very fast."

While the supply picture is improving, the Paris-based energy watchdog warned that delays and cost overruns for projects posed a risk to the upbeat scenario.

More work is also needed to diversify from key nations that have tight control on output of many minerals, such as China, Indonesia and Congo, the IEA added in a report.

The newly financed projects will help meet rising demand for critical minerals that the IEA has calculated will be needed to meet climate pledges made by governments, which would likely result in a global temperature rise of 1.7 C by 2100.

The agency made separate estimates of what would be necessary to meet a net zero-emission scenario by 2050.

Mining companies needed to make more progress in curbing greenhouse gas emissions and water use, the IEA said.

Twenty top miners emitted 0.18 kg of CO2 per kg of minerals in 2021, the same as in 2020, while water use climbed to 7.9 cubic metres per metric ton of mined output in 2021 from 5.4 cubic metres in 2019, the IEA said.

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…”We proudly announce that several AES companies have been certified as Great Places to Work, including AES El Salvador, AES Dominicana, AES México, AES Panamá, and AES Puerto Rico. AES Servicios América ranked 3rd in the Great Place to Work for Women Argentina 2023. We're committed to providing an inclusive and empowering work environment for all, and our employees are our most valuable asset. Let's collaborate for a brighter, cleaner, and more sustainable future.

Ricardo Manuel Falú

Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and President, New Energy Technologies SBU

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President Joe Biden with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, in May. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP/Editing by Germán & Co

In Ukraine I saw a brave but ravaged land in limbo. It needs a future – it needs Nato

Joe Biden must be bold at this week’s summit, and help to give Kyiv the security that would allow it to rebuild

The Guardian by Timothy Garton Ash, July 11, 2023

Unless the US gives bolder leadership on long-term security for Ukraine at Nato’s Vilnius summit this week, historians may one day ask, “Who lost Ukraine?” And their shocking answer might be: President Joe Biden.

I say this after talking to a wide range of people in Kyiv last week, before departing Ukraine on Saturday, the 500th day of the largest war in Europe since 1945. There’s still the extraordinary fighting spirit that I found on my last visit, in February. But in five months, some people seem to have aged five years. They are exhausted. The casualties, military and civilian, continue to mount.

With other members of our European Council on Foreign Relations fact-finding mission, I witnessed prayers being chanted in St Michael’s monastery over the coffin of the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina. As she was visiting Kramatorsk to document Russian war crimes, she herself became the victim of a Russian war crime. While the Biden administration worries at every single step about escalation, Vladimir Putin has continued to escalate – notably with the blowing-up of the Kakhovka dam, which has ruined vast tracts of Ukrainian land. Ecocide complements genocide.

In a recent poll, 78% of Ukrainians said close family members or friends had been wounded or killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. The pain is partly masked by the adrenaline of resistance, but after the war, the country will face widespread trauma. A priest told us about a soldier who returned after some months at the front, but could not sleep. Back home, it was just too quiet.

Senior defence officials frankly acknowledged how slowly this summer’s counteroffensive was progressing, especially against Russia’s minefields and multiple lines of anti-tank defences in the south. The big combined arms push by western-trained and equipped brigades is yet to come, but in this kind of warfare the advantage lies with entrenched defence. Crucially, Russia is stronger in the skies. Hence the constant Ukrainian insistence on the need for more air defence systems – and F-16 fighter jets.

In a survey this May, 87% of Ukrainians said they were optimistic about their country’s future, but there’s an increasingly sober mood in private. We were told that as many as one in every five Ukrainian children is now outside the country. Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of Kyiv School of Economics, shared with us its projection that on current trends the workforce would be reduced by as much as a third over the next few years. It’s a daunting challenge to produce the jobs, housing and schools without which millions of Ukrainians will not return from abroad.

So when I say, “Who lost Ukraine?”, I don’t mean losing the war. I mean losing the peace: a country exhausted, ravaged, traumatised, still robbed of some of its territory, a land in limbo. For this is now Putin’s brutal, vengeful objective: if he can’t force Ukraine back into the Russian empire, he will try to ruin it.

Here’s where the buck comes back to the US. Its military support is essential for Ukraine to win the war. Long-term security is essential for Ukraine to win the peace. Without security, there will be little investment, fewer returnees, no successful reconstruction. And that ultimately means Nato membership for Ukraine is critical.

While US military and economic assistance to Ukraine has been massive and indispensable, Europe is now ahead of the US in its strategic stance towards the embattled country. The EU has done what Nato has not: unambiguously committed to Ukrainian membership. As elsewhere in central and eastern Europe since 1989, this is already having a transformative impact on the country’s politics and policies. For everyone in Ukraine now has this big shared goal of “joining Europe”. Non-governmental experts and activists told us they actually wanted tougher EU conditionality, to fight corruption, strengthen the rule of law and improve governance. The EU’s four-year, €50bn support package is framing a domestic agenda of reconstruction and reform.

Europeans are also ahead when it comes to calling for a strong statement from the Vilnius summit on Ukraine’s future Nato membership. And that’s not just the central and eastern Europeans. In what one Kyiv thinktanker called a “magic transformation” of the French position, President Emmanuel Macron has come out strongly in favour. Germany is more hesitant, but Kyiv’s biggest problem is now in Washington.

Ukrainians are realistic. They know they can’t join Nato while there’s a war on. They want what they call a “political invitation”, which would be implemented only when conditions are right. As a bridge to that moment, they seek security commitments from leading Nato powers such as the US, Britain, France and Germany. These are sometimes called “security guarantees”, but as one expert explained, a more accurate description would be “security assistance guarantees”. Those powers would undertake to go on supplying the military means necessary for Ukraine to fight off the aggressor. This would be something like what the US does for Israel, but from multiple partners and with a clear path to eventual Nato membership.

At the time of writing, Biden is still not there. On Sunday, he told the CNN journalist Fareed Zakaria that Ukraine was not ready for Nato membership and that Israel-style security arrangements should be available “if there is a ceasefire, if there is a peace agreement”. He emphasised the word “if”. Cross-checking this with public and private statements by senior US officials, one detects a rather hard-nosed stance. Nato membership is to be deployed as a future reward for Ukraine negotiating the best peace it can get, probably accepting some significant loss of territory.

If this were to be the outcome of the Vilnius summit, there would be massive disappointment in Ukraine. (The morally dubious gift of American cluster bombs is no substitute for long-term security commitments, and only confuses the debate.) We already heard indications in Kyiv of growing anger against the west. Left to fight on alone for another 500 days, without a firm promise of future security, even the bravest of the brave would find it difficult to rebuild their battered, exhausted, traumatised country.

But if the west gives Ukraine the military means to win this war, adding a firm promise of future Nato membership when it’s over, then the US will end up with a Europe much more capable of defending itself against a weakened Russia. The US will then be able to devote more of its own resources to the geostrategic threat from China.

The final decision will only be taken this week, over the leaders’ table in Vilnius. Come on, Mr President, do the right, the bold, the truly strategic thing. History is watching you.

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Nel is one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of electrolyzers for hydrogen production, and its Michigan gigafactory will be one of the largest in the world. | Trond R. Teigen/AP Photo

Biden’s hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust

The EU is investing billions into becoming a green energy superpower. But Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act means it’s the U.S. reaping the rewards.

POLITICO.COM By GABRIEL GAVIN and BEN LEFEBVRE, July 7, 2023 

European leaders have devoted tens of billions of dollars toward encouraging production of hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that advocates say will create jobs and help fight climate change.

But now, many of those jobs will be going to the United States instead.

The clean energy subsidies that undergird President Joe Biden’s climate agenda have just prompted one Norwegian manufacturer to choose Michigan, not Europe, as the site of a nearly $500 million factory that will produce the equipment needed to extract hydrogen from water. And other European-based companies are being tempted to follow suit, people involved in the continent’s hydrogen efforts say — making the universe’s most abundant substance the latest focus of the transatlantic trade battle on green energy.

The Norwegian firm, Nel, announced its decision in May, nine months after Congress approved Biden’s flagship climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The move takes 500 new jobs to the other side of the Atlantic, despite the European Union’s efforts to position itself as the obvious place for clean tech investment.

Gas grab riles Europeans

“There’s not one single driver behind the decision to put it in the U.S.,” Nel CEO Håkon Volldal told POLITICO, pointing to the benefit of being close to customers and partners like General Motors, as well as the financial benefits of the IRA, the Biden-era CHIPS and Science Act that provides funding for technology development, and Michigan’s own grants for green tech.

“If you take the IRA and the CHIPS Act together, we’re talking about more than $400 billion,” Volldal said. “On top of that, you have subsidies for renewable power and so on. Europe is dwarfed by the numbers we see in the U.S.”

The global hydrogen industry was valued at more than $155 billion last year, and the EU plans to produce and import a total of 20 million tons of renewable hydrogen a year by 2030. Supporters say this will help replace natural gas, powering vehicles and generating electricity.

Now, though, the U.S. has its sights set on overtaking Europe when it comes to both hydrogen and the electrolyzers that extract it. The IRA introduced a $3-per-kilogram subsidy for green hydrogen and tens of billions of dollars in loans and other incentives for international investors to put money into the industry.

“A year ago, the EU clearly had the yellow jersey,” Volldal said, referring to the garment that the fastest cyclist wears in the Tour de France. “Now the U.S. has it.”

Jorgo Chatzimarkakis agrees. As the CEO of Hydrogen Europe, he’s one of the continent’s most influential lobbyists, having helped secure industry handouts worth billions of dollars. “We have a very robust framework in the EU, but we fail to attract our own companies because it’s all too complex,” he said. “We have ambitious targets, but we don’t have simple and efficient instruments to incentivize businesses.

“In their typical bureaucratic way, the Europeans will kill this business,” Chatzimarkakis said.

That leaves those who’ve helped launch the industry at risk of losing out, Chatzimarkakis added.

“Dung beetles spend hours rolling up balls of dung to attract females,” he said. “But there are some very smart dung beetles that just sit by the side and watch while others do hard work. Then they shoot in, take the dung ball, take the girl and run away with everything. That’s Joe Biden.”

Revving up subsidies in Michigan

Michigan wants to cement its growing reputation as a home for the hydrogen industry, hoping that the U.S. Department of Energy will designate it as one of four hydrogen development hubs in the country. That would make it eligible for even more money in the form of federal grants.

Luring Nel is a major early coup. The company is one of Europe’s largest manufacturers of electrolyzers for hydrogen production, and its Michigan gigafactory will be one of the largest in the world.

“Hydrogen is one of the fuels for the future,” Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who has worked with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to bring in green investment, said in an interview. “We want to locate all kinds of different alternative technologies here.”

The White House has spent months responding to European criticism that its landmark energy policy is unfairly stealing business from U.S. allies on the continent. The administration counters that flooding the market with U.S. government funding is increasing the odds of success for companies on both sides of the Atlantic.

The IRA “benefits both the United States and our partners and allies, contributing to the advancement of the clean energy sector globally and presenting significant opportunities for our partners,” a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said in a statement. “We continue to listen to our partners’ perspectives ... and are turning the IRA into a source of economic growth and partnership.”

The spokesperson was granted anonymity to comment candidly on diplomatic relations.

The scale of the competition is now becoming clear. A senior European Commission official who has worked closely on the bloc’s hydrogen industry incentives policy, granted anonymity to speak openly, acknowledged that Michigan and other U.S. states are becoming an attractive prospect for firms. “The IRA has a tool we don’t have — tax credits.”

In Europe, the official added, businesses have to go through a “tendering process” in which government agencies assess companies’ proposals on their merits, with separate pots of money available for national and EU-level funds. But to get U.S. subsidies, “they just have to meet certain requirements. That’s attractive for industry.”

However, the official insisted Brussels isn’t worried about losing jobs to the U.S. just yet. The EU is making €800 million in funding available for a pilot auction under its Hydrogen Bank scheme to help subsidize the cost of producing the gas, while a range of other incentives exists to kickstart the industry and more are still being planned, the official said. “If the market is here, people will be here.”

America first

Mona Dajani, global head of the renewable energy deals at the law firm Shearman and Sterling, said that after the passage of the IRA, countries from Europe, Asia and the Middle East are investing in clean energy projects in the U.S. at a rate she’s not seen in her 25 years in the practice.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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 by Germán & Co

New power lines take a decade to build because of red tape, complains National Grid

Energy company blasts Britain’s planning rules amid ongoing row over delays

The Telegraph By Gareth Corfield,  July 11, 2023 

The boss of National Grid has complained that it takes a decade to build a new power line in an attack on planning red tape.

John Pettigrew, the company’s chief executive, said that Britain’s planning rules add seven years of delays to the construction time for cables.

His warning comes amid ongoing rows over delays in connecting new wind and solar farms to the UK’s electricity grid, which are threatening the Government’s target of making the network carbon neutral by 2035.

Speaking to shareholders at National Grid’s annual meeting, Mr Pettigrew said: “Typically, to build a transmission line in the UK it takes about 10 years.

“Seven of it is in the planning process and three in construction.”

Fierce rows have raged over delays to grid connections, with some renewable energy developers complaining that they have been pushed to the back of the queue until the 2030s.

National Grid itself is responsible for managing the waiting list of projects, but says it is forced to deliver them on a first come, first served basis that leaves legitimate schemes stuck in limbo behind others that are highly speculative and unlikely to ever be built.

Energy watchdog Ofgem’s chief executive has accused National Grid of presiding over “unacceptable” delays and threatened to strip the company of its role in the planning process.

The company, meanwhile, argues that the first come, first served rules are the problem and has called for reform. In February, National Grid told The Telegraph that it had a backlog of 600 requests to connect, even though around 70pc of such applications ultimately come to nothing.

Mr Pettigrew said on Monday: “The reason there’s a delay is those at the front of the queue, even if they have no intention of developing, actually hold up those people who are behind.

“We need a new regulatory framework to accelerate the ability for people who have genuinely got projects they want to get onto the system to the front of the queue.”

The one-time state monopoly’s boss added that there are “about three times more generation [companies] wanting to connect to the system than is actually needed to meet any of the net zero targets that have been set”.

Current plans require Britain to have up to 248 gigawatts (GW) of electricity generation capacity by 2035, more than double today’s 104GW, as heating and cars go electric.

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Image by Germán & via Shutterstock

The Flawed Moral Logic of Sending Cluster Munitions to Ukraine

The New York Times By *The Editorial Board, July 10, 2023

*The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

In the brutal logic of warfare, cluster munitions may appear to make solid sense for Ukraine’s slow-moving counteroffensive against well-dug-in Russian troops. Delivered by artillery, a 155-millimeter shell packed with 72 armor-piercing, soldier-killing bomblets can strike from 20 miles away and scatter them over a vast area.

On Friday, the Biden administration announced it would start delivering these weapons to Ukraine, over objections from, among others, human rights organizations and key allies. President Biden said the United States would supply cluster munitions from its large stockpile until suppliers could catch up with Ukraine’s shortage of conventional artillery shells, a key weapon in the static warfare in eastern and southern Ukraine.

With Ukraine using up ordinary artillery shells at a huge rate (the United States alone has sent more than two million rounds to Ukraine), the cluster munitions, of which the United States has a bountiful supply, could give Ukrainian forces an advantage in prying the Russians from their trenches and fortifications along the 620-mile-long front. Besides, Russia has been using its own cluster munitions, as has Ukraine, from the outset of the war, and Ukraine’s leaders have been urgently asking for more.

This is a flawed and troubling logic. In the face of the widespread global condemnation of cluster munitions and the danger they pose to civilians long after the fighting is over, this is not a weapon that a nation with the power and influence of the United States should be spreading.

However compelling it may be to use any available weapon to protect one’s homeland, nations in the rules-based international order have increasingly sought to draw a red line against use of weapons of mass destruction or weapons that pose a severe and lingering risk to noncombatants. Cluster munitions clearly fall into the second category.

The reason is that not all bomblets explode as they’re meant to, and thousands of small, unexploded grenades can lie around for years, even decades, before somebody — often, a child spotting a brightly colored, battery-size doodad on the ground — accidentally sets it off. The weapons used today by Russia and Ukraine are said to leave as many as 40 percent duds lying around, and they will remain a threat to the people of Ukraine, no matter the outcome of this conflict.

This danger prompted the adoption of a Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2008. The United Nations secretary general at the time, Ban Ki-moon, spoke of “not only the world’s collective revulsion at these abhorrent weapons but also the power of collaboration among governments, civil society and the United Nations to change attitudes and policies on a threat faced by all humankind.” As of today, 123 nations — including many of America’s allies — have agreed never to use, transfer, produce or stockpile cluster munitions.

But not Russia or Ukraine or the United States, which used cluster munitions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the United States actively opposed the treaty. This editorial board argued at the time: “As the main holdout, the United States gives cover to countries like Russia and China, which also rejected the ban. The treaty is weaker for it: Together, these three nations have more than a billion cluster munitions stockpiled, far more than the number of weapons expected to be destroyed.”

Defending the decision to supply the weapons to Ukraine, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, argued that Ukraine would not be using the munitions in a foreign land but on its own territory. “These are their citizens they’re protecting, and they are motivated to use any weapon system they have in a way that minimizes the risk to these citizens,” he said.

In fact, there is considerable risk. Cluster munitions used by both Ukrainian and Russian forces have led to, reportedly, at least dozens of civilian deaths and serious injuries, according to a Human Rights Watch report published Thursday. Specifically, the report said Ukrainian cluster-munition rocket attacks on Russian-controlled areas around the city of Izium in 2022 “caused many casualties among Ukrainian civilians.” (Ukraine denied that cluster munitions were used there.)

While it is Ukraine’s decision to choose what weapons it uses in its defense, it is for America to decide which weapons to supply. At the outset of the conflict, the United States resisted sending advanced weapons for fear of encouraging a wider war and Russian retaliation. But as the fighting dragged on and Ukraine proved increasingly capable of standing up to Russia, line after line has been crossed, with Washington and its allies agreeing to provide sophisticated weapons like the Patriot air-defense system, the HIMARS long-range rocket launcher, the Abrams tank and soon the F-16 jet fighter.

There is a legitimate debate about whether this amounts to the sort of mission creep that marked conflicts in Vietnam or Afghanistan. Sending cluster munitions to Ukraine amounts to a clear escalation of a conflict that has already become far too brutal and destructive. But the greater issue here is sharing a weapon that has been condemned by a majority of the world’s nations, including most of America’s close allies, as morally repugnant for the indiscriminate carnage it can cause long after the combatants have gone.

The Pentagon’s central defense against such proscriptions is that the dud rate of the American weapons — the number of bomblets that do not explode and are left on the battlefield — is down to 2.35 percent, compared with an estimated 40 percent for Russia’s. In 2008 the Pentagon set a limit of 1 percent on cluster munitions, and Congress has since banned the use, production or transfer of weapons over that rate. Even the 2.35 percent rate, an average, may be misleading. As John Ismay reported in The Times on Saturday, the cluster munitions in question may include an older type known to have a failure rate of 14 percent or more. That could leave the land littered with unexploded bombs.

The White House bypassed Congress by invoking a provision of the Foreign Assistance Act that allows the president to disregard arms export restrictions if he deems the aid to be a vital national security interest. Several members of Congress have denounced the export of these weapons and will add an amendment to the annual defense bill that would prohibit export of almost all cluster munitions.

This board has consistently supported the supply of arms to Ukraine by the United States and its allies. Ukraine is battling an invader prepared to use all sorts of weapons, including indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets. It needs and deserves help.

But providing weapons that much of the world justifiably condemns is wrong. The United States had wisely started to move away from the use of cluster munitions. To now disregard the long-term consequences of these weapons would undermine one of the fundamental reasons to support Ukraine: to defend the norms that secure peace and stability in Europe, norms that Russia violated so blatantly. Encouraging the use and proliferation of these weapons could weaken the support of allies who until this point have rallied behind American leadership.

The rain of bomblets may give Ukraine a military advantage in the short term, but it would not be decisive, and it would not outweigh the damage in suffering to civilians in Ukraine, now and likely for generations to come.

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News round-up, July 10, 2023

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Water is a precious resource that we have almost drained...

Water is considered the fundamental source and primordial element that precedes all forms. The philosopher, Thales of Miletus first introduced the concept of —-water's significance—-, suggesting that our understanding of its importance predates our comprehension of chemistry.

"We have a better understanding of the enormity of the cosmos that surpasses our comprehension of the immeasurable depths of the ocean.

In metaphysics, Aristotle emphasizes the significance of water as the primary element essential for preserving life. Water symbolizes:

"Mortality and renewal, purification, the cyclical nature of existence, and eternal recurrence.

Undoubtedly, water is an invaluable and indispensable resource for our sustenance. However, it has consistently been scarce throughout history. Water scarcity and conflict have a consistent correlation, evident in numerous historical contexts. This historical legacy can be traced back to ancient Babylon and has persisted through various conflicts, including the Vietnam War. Moreover, recent events remind us of the difficulties we confront in this matter, such as the dispersal of polluted water from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe into the sea, prolonged periods of drought, and the escalating temperatures occurring in different parts of the world.

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Most read…

Water is more than a common good

As the ready availability of fresh water becomes increasingly threatened around the world, attention has focused on minimising water use. But that obscures how deeply political the issue of universal access to water is.

Franck Poupeau's Le Monde Diplomatique, July Editions

The South American capital with a week’s worth of water left

Workers have begun drilling wells in the capital to reach the water beneath the ground, while protests have erupted over shortages

The Telegraph By Harriet Barber, 7 July 2023

Five Ways the Bull Market Makes Investors Nervous

Investors can’t stop looking over their shoulders for major risks looming in markets

WSJ By Caitlin McCabe, July 10 , 2023

Putin met Prigozhin in Moscow after Wagner mutiny

Mercenary group ‘ready to continue to fight’ for Russia, Kremlin spokesperson says.

POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, JULY 10, 2023

After Yellen visit, China speaks of ‘rainbows’ but prepares for trade battle

In the complex realm of international relations, China aims to underscore the importance of collaboration and mutual understanding with the United States. Rather than perceiving each other as primary competitors vying for global dominance, China advocates for a different approach, urging the United States to abandon the concept of forming exclusive alliances akin to forming a gang.

TWP By Christian Shepherd, July 10, 2023 

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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The Central Arizona Project canal helps serve 80% of the population of Arizona, Peoria, 8 June 2023
Mario Tama 

Water is more than a common good

As the ready availability of fresh water becomes increasingly threatened around the world, attention has focused on minimising water use. But that obscures how deeply political the issue of universal access to water is.

Franck Poupeau's Le Monde Diplomatique, July Editions

Driving through southwestern Arizona under a scorching sun, I was struck by how absurd it is that while the western half of the United States is suffering a prolonged drought, new residential complexes are being built far into the Sonoran desert. The dusty plains of Pima County around Tucson airport are scattered with rundown housing without air conditioning and sometimes even running water. Yet just a few kilometres away there are luxury villas with valley views, surrounded by hundred-year-old cacti and elaborate desert gardens with artfully placed rocks, designed to comply with official injunctions not to waste water.

To support this urban sprawl and the economic benefits it brings, a canal diverts water from the Colorado river. Opened in 1993, the Central Arizona Project, 541km long and averaging seven metres wide, with 14 pumping plants and dozens of sluice gates, carries 85 cubic metres per second.

Pima County, which lives above its means in terms of water, is pursuing various environmental initiatives. The Santa Cruz river, which had been dry for decades because of excessive pumping from aquifers and waterways (for cattle ranching, agroindustry, cotton growing, mining and urban growth), is flowing again, with reclaimed wastewater from Tucson. It doesn’t quite amount to an ecological restoration project, which would entail re-establishing a fully functional water cycle and self-regulating ecosystem, but it highlights a key feature of our relationship with natural resources today, even when we have the best environmental intentions. Access to water depends on massive technological infrastructure (1) – in this case, water treatment plants (which use chemicals) and pipelines to carry the reclaimed water to the Santa Cruz. Commentary on water conflicts often overlooks this simple fact in favour of a broad and (apparently) generous idea that water should be considered a common good essential to life. This would imply a right to water, formalising the obvious link between nature and humanity. Yet nothing could be less natural than access to water and how societies have acquired it.

Move to managing demand

Civil engineer and city planner Bernard Barraqué (2) identifies three periods in the development of Europe’s water industry: the ‘age of quantity’, when civil engineering brought water from distant sources (19th century), the ‘age of quality’, when sanitary engineering and local government became involved (late 19th-early 20th centuries), and lastly the age of ‘integrated and demand-side management and environmental engineering’ (since the late 20th century). In this third age, he writes, the water industry has moved from supply management (expanding availability) to demand management (discouraging use) in which water is treated less as a natural resource than as a service, especially in cities.

Most international institutions have adopted this supply-and-demand model, but the Global Water Partnership (GWP) – a specialist intergovernmental organisation concerned with water resource management – criticises the apparent lack of concern over drought in EU directives, and the virtual absence of measures to encourage cutting back on water use. Although EU management plans call for increasing the water supply, demand management is ‘broadly missing in the current EU architecture’ (3). Which means ordinary citizens need to work even harder to use less water (give up swimming pools, brush their teeth and pee in the shower).

From water infrastructure to supply and demand policies, the problems are the same. Who should pay for the water we use?

But by placing the burden of responsibility on the individual, and depoliticising the issues – the building, ownership and monitoring of the infrastructure required for collective living – these exhortations to use less water actually limit the scope of what can be done.

Water supply and sewage usually depend on networks of pipes. While rejecting unnecessary mega-projects (huge reservoirs, canals to divert water from one region to another etc), we should not forget that even the worthiest environmental initiatives depend on technology, whether it’s reclaiming wastewater, capturing rainwater, restoring waterways or installing permeable paving.

Implementing these initiatives requires a knowledge of hydrology, economics (pricing, provider status, contracts) and especially environmental engineering which takes account of ecosystems. There are many ‘ecosystem infrastructure’ projects being developed (4), especially the eco-neighbourhoods of the global North, which offer alternative and decentralised solutions.

When water shortages cause conflict

In recent years, water policy has become a focus of attention because of recurrent droughts following severe disruption of the hydrosocial cycle (5): high temperatures lead to more evaporation, streams and rivers run dry, and aquifers are slow to replenish, so access to water is no longer guaranteed everywhere, all year round, even in areas not previously considered arid. Across a growing part of France, water agencies expect shortfalls of up to 50% of annual consumption by 2050. Water shortages have given rise to conflict, as between farmers and environmentalists over ‘mega-basins’ (see Is storing water the real answer?, in this issue). But it’s hard to see what can be done when the balance of political power is so unfavourable to reform.

Whether the starting point is water infrastructure or a vision of a common good to be managed through supply and demand policies, the practical problems are the same. Who should pay for the water we use? Who should finance, build and maintain supply networks, and, above all, who should own and control those networks? For years, it was the state: in Asia and Africa, governments often based their authority on water mega-projects such as irrigation canals and flood defences; and from the 19th century the landscape of the American West was shaped by federal investment in huge water and transport projects, and the greening of the desert.

Western governments saw cities as strategic hubs for growing the economies of developing countries, and in the 1980s and 90s pushed them to outsource the running of urban infrastructure to the private sector, so the water industry became part of the great dismantling of public services. Meanwhile, international institutions mobilised private enterprise to develop networks in the global South.

These policies challenged the universal distribution model that had been seen as the best response to the problem of access to water for all. In particular, water management and major engineering projects were considered too costly for the poor of emerging countries. Yet projects in a number of countries of the global South have shown that people who don’t have access to public water services (and therefore have to buy bottled water, have water delivered by tanker or pay for rainwater capture equipment) end up paying more than those living in neighbourhoods connected to the mains (6). Most would be able to help pay for the building of water networks, provided the service really met their needs. This is one of the paradoxes of demand for urban services: even in poor countries, people would rather have better access than free services.

So it’s not enough to argue that the world’s poorest should have access to water simply because they have the right to it. The situation in regions suffering from water stress shows that (setting aside criteria such as fairness and democratic participation) we need to determine whether the supply model established in Europe and the US in the 19th century – urban networks or operators covering a particular area – is still the best answer to growing demand. It could be better to focus on the decentralised solutions that are emerging in the global North, such as eco-neighbourhoods, which for now exist alongside infrastructure supplying relatively wide areas. These residential developments are equipped to treat wastewater on site, capture rainwater and produce sewage sludge to fertilise their vegetable gardens.

However, these practices, though touted by the well-to-do and politicians keen to promote green technology, may actually be undermining the economic viability of the universal distribution model. Promoters of ‘green secessionism’ have been accused of abandoning public services, and therefore solidarity with society’s poorest. Between the power of the water authorities and the might of the multinationals, is it enough to encourage water-saving measures without addressing the financial and political question that underpins the roll-out of water infrastructure for all?

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…”We proudly announce that several AES companies have been certified as Great Places to Work, including AES El Salvador, AES Dominicana, AES México, AES Panamá, and AES Puerto Rico. AES Servicios América ranked 3rd in the Great Place to Work for Women Argentina 2023. We're committed to providing an inclusive and empowering work environment for all, and our employees are our most valuable asset. Let's collaborate for a brighter, cleaner, and more sustainable future.

Ricardo Manuel Falú

Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and President, New Energy Technologies SBU

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People protest against the high levels of chloride and sodium in the drinking water, which were raised due to Uruguay's persistent drought CREDIT: EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP

The South American capital with a week’s worth of water left

Workers have begun drilling wells in the capital to reach the water beneath the ground, while protests have erupted over shortages

The Telegraph By Harriet Barber, 7 July 2023

Uruguay’s capital is days away from running out of drinking water amid the nation’s worst drought in 74 years.

The government has told locals in Montevideo, a metropolis of more than 1.3 million people, that they have seven to ten days of drinking water left.

It follows a multi-year drought and high temperatures which have drained the city’s reservoirs. Officials announced that reserves are at 1.8 per cent of their capacity.

The state’s water company has begun drilling wells in the centre of the capital to reach the water beneath the ground, while protests have erupted over shortages.

Uruguay is the only country in Latin America to have achieved quasi-universal access to safe drinking water – meaning almost everyone has easy access to water free from contamination – after enshrining access to water as a fundamental right in a 2005 constitutional amendment.

However, locals have already been forced to turn to bottled water after the state-owned water company, Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE), began mixing salty water with fresh water to stretch supplies in June.

A bridge that emerged after 30 years under water of the Santa Lucia river at Paso Severino reservoir CREDIT: Ernesto Ryan

The mixing of salt water has triggered health concerns from vulnerable populations.

“It’s horrible. You can’t drink it,” teacher Adrian Dias told Reuters. “My wife has hypertension, so it’s impossible for her to drink this water for the amount of salt it has.”

Although the health minister said the mixed water was not a risk to most people, she advised people with hypertension and kidney disease, as well as those who are pregnant, to limit or avoid tap water completely.

Many residents in Montevideo and the surrounding area cannot afford to buy bottled water, and have been forced to keep drinking from the taps.

Anger over water shortages has incited multiple protests on the streets of Montevideo.

“There’s water, but it’s in private hands,” reads a banner hanging outside the offices of OSE, in Montevideo.

People take part in a protest called by Uruguay's Central Union in "defense of water" CREDIT: EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP

Federico Kreimerman, an OSE union leader, said agribusiness was partially to blame for Uruguay’s water woes, explaining water from the Santa Lucia River is syphoned off to private reservoirs for irrigation.

“The share of water for human consumption is tiny,” Mr Kreimerman told Reuters news agency. “Agribusiness entrepreneurs dam the river and use it for themselves.”

Redes-Amigos de la Tierra, an environmental protection group, also blamed the situation on “plundering” factories, rice-growing companies and soy farmers.

“Almost 80 per cent of our freshwater goes to the agricultural and forestry sector, so we can certainly say water resource exploitation is very high in Uruguay,” biologist and environmental expert Mariana Meerhoff told DW, a German media outlet.

“Because so much water is used in industry, the amount for water for personal use and nature is obviously very limited.”

Production has been paused in some of the city’s factories. The Frigorífico Canelones meatpacking company sent 700 workers to collect unemployment insurance when it halted production this week, according to the Buenos Aires Herald.

The dry lakebed of the Canelon Grande dam that normally provides drinking water for the capital CREDIT: Matilde Campodonico/AP

Climate change is exacerbating both water scarcity and water-related hazards, such as floods and droughts, in countries around the world. Neighbouring Argentina is also grappling with its worst drought in decades, which is having a severe impact on farming.

In June, Uruguay’s government declared a water emergency, exempting taxes on bottled water and ordering the construction of a new reservoir.

President Luis Lacalle Pou insisted his government was “hurrying all the works and trying to continue looking for alternative sources” of water.

The government is also distributing drinking water to vulnerable groups like schools, nursing homes and hospitals, said Gerardo Amarilla, undersecretary at Uruguay’s environment ministry.

At Canelon Grande Reservoir, a major water source for Montevideo, water levels have been so low that grass now covers what was once a lake.

“It’s bleak,” local Mario del Pino said, standing in the middle of the reservoir, surrounded by weeds and cracked dirt. “Water used to cover everything you can see.”

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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

Five Ways the Bull Market Makes Investors Nervous

Investors can’t stop looking over their shoulders for major risks looming in markets

WSJ By Caitlin McCabe, July 10 , 2023

A familiar question has crept back onto Wall Street: Could this be the most-hated bull market ever?

The S&P 500 charged into bull-market territory in the first six months of 2023, marking a 20% rally from a recent low, yet investors say they can’t stop looking over their shoulders. Even after U.S. stocks overcame big risks—including repeated interest-rate hikes and a banking crisis—money managers say they aren’t convinced this rally is sustainable.

History shows that investors don’t tend to love bull markets when they are in them. Traders grumbled about the 11-year bull run born out of the financial crisis. So far this time, investor anxieties have been largely suppressed. Yet a drop in stocks and surge in bond yields last week after a round of strong economic data show how brittle the current bull market may be.

Investors say they are monitoring worrisome trends in the market. Here are five that are on their minds:

1. Earnings Season Could Reveal Hidden Weakness

S&P 500 companies' net profit margin

Source: FactSetNote: Q2 2023 is a blend of reported results and analyst forecasts.

Earnings season kicks off in earnest this week. Some investors are warning it could be bumpy.

Companies in the S&P 500 are expected to report a 7.2% decline in earnings for the second quarter, FactSet data show, marking what would be the third consecutive year-over-year earnings decline.

Investors are on the lookout for whether corporate pricing power is ebbing. The net profit margin of companies in the S&P 500 is expected to fall to 11.4%, down slightly from the previous quarter and notably lower than the 13% peak reached in 2021. Companies might find themselves squeezed at both ends, investors say, as they face rising financing costs while also struggling to raise prices further as inflation ebbs.

“The market is pricing in a very angelic scenario [for earnings], and we are very reluctant to buy into that,” said Florian Ielpo, head of macro at Lombard Odier Investment Managers. His team has started trimming exposure to stocks in the firm’s flagship multiasset portfolio, he said, while also keeping 25% of it in cash.

2. The Yield Curve Inversion Is Deepening 

10-year U.S. Treasury yield minus two-year yield

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

A year ago, the U.S. bond market began consistently flashing a recession signal. Lately, the warning has been getting louder.

Part of the U.S. Treasury yield curve has been persistently inverted since last July, when the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note slipped below that of its two-year counterpart. Last week, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note dropped to 1.08 percentage point below that of the two-year yield—the widest negative gap since 1981. 

Investors look to the U.S. Treasury yield curve as a gauge of economic health. When the curve inverts, that means bond traders are betting the Federal Reserve will keep rates high in the near term to fight inflation but will then need to cut them later to resuscitate the economy.

Some investors are betting the yield curve will trump more positive signs about growth, including recent data showing continuing resiliency in the labor market.

3. Global Markets Look Cloudy, Too 

Performance of global indexes, year-to-date

Source: FactSet

Markets outside the U.S. started 2023 on a positive note. China had just lifted its Covid-19 restrictions, stirring optimism that a flurry of spending from Chinese consumers would unleash economic growth at home and abroad. Asian stock indexes initially soared, as did those in Europe.

Since then, excitement has faded. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is in the red for the year, while the Shanghai Composite has gained just 3.5%. Europe’s pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 is up only slightly more—5.4% for the year—and on Thursday suffered its largest decline since March.

Fading optimism has been driven by darkened economic outlooks. The eurozone has slid into a recession, and investors continue to worry about the impact of the war in Ukraine and inflation that remains more stubborn compared with the U.S. China’s era of rapid growth, meanwhile, seems to be over, felled in part by its troubled property market, mounting debt burden and high youth unemployment. 

4. Trouble From Higher Rates Keeps Bubbling 

Response from market professionals when asked if higher rates will cause more accidents in​global markets

Source: Deutsche Bank Research Note: Based on survey of 400 global participants conducted June 27-29.

Accidents will continue and​cause some market stressAccidents will be quickly​contained, with limited​market impactBigger accidents are coming,​with serious financial stressUnlikely there will be any​more big accidents0%102030405060

Even the seemingly safest areas of the market are vulnerable to stress when interest rates rise. 

The first warning shot came last fall, when rising rates sparked turmoil in U.K. bond and currency markets. Then came Silicon Valley Bank, whose collapse was sparked in part by a disclosure that the bank had booked a $1.8 billion loss on its bond portfolio due to rising rates. Even British utility Thames Water has recently come under stress, as it grapples with a large debt load and rising debt-service costs.

Many investors say they are nervous about what could break next. A June Deutsche Bank survey of market professionals showed that nearly all of its 400 respondents expect higher rates to cause more global accidents. Some 18% of them believe the strains will be significant, causing “serious financial stress.”

5. U.S. Stock Positioning Looks Stretched

Average investor positioning levels in U.S. stocks, five-day rolling average

Source: JPMorgan Data Assets & Alpha Group, Positioning IntelligenceNote: Positioning reflects multiple investor types, including hedge funds, retail investors, mutual funds, and in​the options market. A value of '0' marks the average over the last eight years.

After sitting on the sidelines at the start of this year, asset managers, hedge funds and individual investors have picked up buying activity, joining quant funds.

Together, that buying has pushed their U.S. stock market positioning to its highest level in nearly 18 months, according to an estimate from JPMorgan Chase. Positioning in some parts of the tech sector, namely software and semiconductor companies, looks particularly stretched, said Eloise Goulder, head of the data assets and alpha group at the bank.

This crowded positioning has stirred worries that U.S. stocks could be vulnerable to a rapid reversal. Eight stocks in the S&P 500—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, Tesla and Nvidia—now account for 30% of the index’s market capitalization, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Tech’s influence, combined with crowded positioning, could magnify moves in the market if sentiment shifts and investors try to simultaneously exit positions.

FOMO, or fear of missing out, “is in full swing,” JPMorgan strategists led by Mislav Matejka said in a recent note. 

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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Yevgeny Prigozhin shows Vladimir Putin his school lunch factory outside Saint Petersburg in 2010 | Alexey Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

Putin met Prigozhin in Moscow after Wagner mutiny

Mercenary group ‘ready to continue to fight’ for Russia, Kremlin spokesperson says.

POLITICO EU BY NICOLAS CAMUT, JULY 10, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the Kremlin after the paramilitary group’s aborted mutiny last month, according to Russian media reports.

“This meeting took place in the Kremlin on June 29. It lasted almost three hours,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday, according to state-owned newswire Ria Novosti.

Prigozhin rebelled against the Russian military establishment on June 23, seizing the city of Rostov-on-Don the next morning and sending his Wagner Group mercenaries on a march to Moscow. The mutinous warlord only turned his tanks around as they came within 200 kilometers of the Russian capital and threatened to tip the country into civil war.

Thirty-five people were invited to attend the high-stakes Moscow meeting, including “all the commanders of the military detachments” and Prigozhin, Peskov said.

During the meeting in the Kremlin, Putin “gave an assessment of the company’s actions” on the front line in Ukraine and of “the events of [the rebellion on] June 24,” the spokesperson said.

The Wagner commanders were then offered “further options for employment and further combat use,” Peskov said, adding that the paramilitaries said they were “ready to continue to fight” for Russia.

“Putin listened to the explanations of the commanders and offered them further options for employment and further combat use,” Peskov added.

After the mutiny was aborted following talks between Prigozhin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who negotiated a climbdown from the mercenaries, the Wagner leader was supposed to be exiled to Belarus.

He has not, however, been seen in public since. Lukashenko initially confirmed that Prigozhin had popped up in Belarus, before later saying that he wasn’t actually there — and could even be in Russia.

Usually very active on social media, oligarch-turned warlord Prigozhin has been discreet since the mutiny ended — only appearing a couple times on Telegram.

Wagner troops have been involved in some of the bloodiest fighting in Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including in the city of Bakhmut which was battered for months by invading Russian forces during the winter and spring.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing on Saturday. (Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/AP) / Editing by Germán & Co

After Yellen visit, China speaks of ‘rainbows’ but prepares for trade battle

In the complex realm of international relations, China aims to underscore the importance of collaboration and mutual understanding with the United States. Rather than perceiving each other as primary competitors vying for global dominance, China advocates for a different approach, urging the United States to abandon the concept of forming exclusive alliances akin to forming a gang.

TWP By Christian Shepherd, July 10, 2023 

BEIJING — China hailed the absence of major contention during the visit to Beijing by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen as progress toward easing long-standing tensions, even as it continues to prepare for a protracted standoff with the United States over critical technologies.

In a statement released Monday, the Finance Ministry called discussions over Yellen’s four-day visit “frank, pragmatic, in-depth and constructive” while giving China an opportunity to clarify its position on what constitutes “healthy economic competition.”

But Chinese scholars and policy advisers have also underscored that serious disagreement remains over the ground rules for the trade relationship. They said that Beijing is unwilling to accept the terms of economic engagement being offered and will continue to strike back at what it sees as unfair trade restrictions imposed by Washington.

Yellen hails modest gains in economic talks with Chinese leaders

Tensions remain in part because China is strongly opposed to even limited trade restrictions on sensitive technologies, especially when American allies and partners are involved, said Lu Feng, an economist at Peking University.

“China wants to convince the United States that working together requires not viewing us as a primary competitor or gathering your friends to form a gang,” he said.

On Friday, Premier Li Qiang — the face of China’s efforts to attract foreign businesses and revive a sluggish economy — spoke of “rainbows” after the storm when receiving Yellen in the Great Hall of the People, before warning against “total politicization and securitization” of the economic relationship and urging that the United States see China’s development as a “plus not a risk.”

Unlike past engagement with the United States, talks now are less about expanding the relationship and more about “recalibrating” within the United States’ framework of great power competition, said Sun Chenghao, a research fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University.

Beijing’s dislike of that framing makes it more likely to drive a hard bargain. “China will more often conduct exchanges based on its own interests where benefits for each side are reciprocal, rather than going along with requests for cooperation from the United States,” he said.

U.S. and European policymakers are increasingly talking about “de-risking” to broaden economic supply lines, lessen dependence on the Chinese economy and reduce Chinese access to advanced technologies with military applications — a distinction from “decoupling” that Beijing does not buy.

For China, de-risking is little better than earlier threats of “decoupling” because the meaningful content is the same, said Shen Yamei, director of American Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, a think tank under the Foreign Ministry.

“The U.S. interpretation of de-risking is actually de-Sinification, which is to say that it means excluding China,” she said.

U.S. and Chinese flags before Yellen's meeting in Beijing on Saturday. (Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/Reuters)

Yet even as it criticizes de-risking, China is engaging in a series of measures to confront the U.S. economy, including lessening its dependence on American manufacturers.

Days before Yellen was due to touch down, the government announced export controls on metals primarily found in China that are critical for the manufacture of microchips and fiber optic cables — Beijing’s first official “rare earth” restrictions since an export control law was passed in 2020.

The announcement was part of a years-long effort to become better equipped to stare down the United States in a trade and technology war that began under the Trump administration and, from Beijing’s perspective, continued — at lower volume — under President Biden.

Unlike during Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit last month, Yellen did not meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who spent the day of her arrival visiting the Eastern Theater Command, the branch of the military in charge of enforcing Beijing’s claims over self-governed Taiwan.

Underscoring the importance Xi places on building indigenous advanced manufacturing capabilities, he also visited HYC Technologies, a tester of machinery used for semiconductors and electric vehicles, as part of his tour of Jiangsu province.

Beijing has long used its economic heft as leverage in geopolitical standoffs, including temporary restrictions on rare earth metal exports to Japan in 2010. But more recently, the Chinese government has rapidly expanded a framework of laws and regulations that Chinese experts tout as a means to fight back should the tentative détente fail.

China’s export controls were a countermeasure to “unbearable bullying” from the United States, Chen Fengying, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a think tank under the Ministry of State Security, told state-run media.

Before Yellen arrived, Chinese officials made exacting demands for substantial shifts in U.S. trade policy, including canceling plans to add new tariffs on imports and reversing a Trump-era intellectual property investigation’s ruling that underpins existing ones.

The export controls come on top of a string of actions that have spooked the international business community. Authorities raided American firms Mintz and Bain, and Chinese police publicly named and shamed expert network Capvision, a Chinese company with offices in New York and a large number of international clients, over alleged spying.

Revisions to Chinese counterespionage laws that came into effect on July 1 have heightened the United States’ concerns about national security impinging on business interests — fears intensified by the growing use of exit bans to prevent foreigners and Chinese alike from leaving.

China’s national security ban on sales of U.S.-made Micron memory chips to Chinese entities involved in key infrastructure has also been interpreted as a sign that long-running efforts to curb dependence on American-sourced components are accelerating.

If an American company in China works on areas deemed sensitive and critical for the country’s future development, “you can start planning your exit strategy,” said one Beijing-based executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “It’s a question of when, not if.”

News that the United States had updated its travel advisory for China to urging U.S. citizens to reconsider travel to the country over concerns about arbitrary enforcement of local laws also sparked an angry response last week. China’s Foreign Ministry called it “gratuitous political manipulation.”

For some Chinese scholars, American concern over China’s evolving national security legislation is just another sign that there is no immediate end in sight to the tensions.

“China asks the United States to understand how its legal system is built but doesn’t expect complete acceptance,” said Wang Wen, executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University. “Going forward, China-U.S. contestation will continue to be very intense.”

News round-up, July 7, 2023

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Editorial…

Why do the monetary authorities refuse to recognize that we are —or very close— in a deep economic crisis, perhaps one of the worst in history?

The New York Times, in the October 20, 2023 edition, published the following article: “A Warning for the World Economy: "The Worst Is Yet to Come" The International Monetary Fund has lowered its growth outlook for 2023 and has suggested that interest rate increases could trigger a severe global recession. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stated that the global economy was facing challenging times ahead. The IMF downgraded its projections for global growth for the upcoming year and cautioned that a severe global recession could occur if policymakers mishandled the battle against inflation. The grim assessment was detailed in the fund's closely watched World Economic Outlook report, which was published as the world's top economic officials traveled to Washington for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. The gathering arrives at a critical time, as ongoing supply chain disruptions and Russia's conflict in Ukraine have resulted in a significant increase in energy and food prices in the past year. As a result, central bankers have been compelled to raise interest rates significantly in order to stabilize their economies and mitigate inflationary pressures. Raising borrowing costs will likely curb inflation by reducing business investment and consumer spending. Still, higher interest rates could also lead to a new set of problems: a series of recessions in wealthy nations and debt crises in poorer ones…

Everything points today at to the International Monetary Fund's economic prognosis being fulfilled.

Today the media outlets worldwide focus on the stock market's "unfavorable" performance and the predictions of an upcoming financial crisis. This morning, “The Telegraph U.K.” reported that the stock market had experienced a significant decline due to concerns about possible interest rate increases. As a result, borrowing costs have risen to their highest level in 15 years. This drop is a result of a worldwide "sell-off" triggered by high inflation... On Thursday, the stock market experienced a sharp decline, causing government borrowing costs to soar to their highest level since 2008. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 index reached its lowest point this year, while gilts climbed to their highest level in over a decade. This market behavior was driven by investors speculating that the Bank of England would raise interest rates to 6.5% by the beginning of next year.

Furthermore, unexpectedly strong U.S. jobs data has raised concerns about potential price increases across the Atlantic, further exacerbating the situation. The FTSE 100 index fell by 2.17% due to worries that higher interest rates would have a negative impact on company investments and consumer demand. Paris markets closed with a 3.13% decline, and shares fell by 2.57% in Germany. On Wall Street, the S& P 500 index experienced a 0.8% decline. HSBC, one of the largest mortgage lenders in Britain, announced on Thursday evening that it would be withdrawing all deals offered to new customers through brokers for the third time in a month. This decision burdens borrowers more, as the bank plans to reintroduce these deals with higher interest rates on Monday. The market turmoil has also led to a significant increase in the Treasury's borrowing costs.

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Most read…

Is China really leading the clean energy revolution? Not exactly

The country generates more solar energy than all other countries combined, but burns half the planet’s coal. There are lessons here for the rest of us, though

The Guardian by *Li Shuo, July 6, 2023 

‘Revolutionary’ solar power cell innovations break key energy threshold

Next generation cells surpass limits of today’s cells and will accelerate rollout of cheaper, more efficient solar power

The Guardian by Damian Carrington Environment editor, July 7, 2023

Stock market falls sharply amid fears of further interest rate rises

Borrowing costs soar to 15-year high amid global sell-off triggered by rampant inflation

The Telegraph By Szu Ping Chan and Adam Mawardi, July 6,  2023 

EXCLUSIVE: “Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping America take on China…

SubCom, a New Jersey company born out of a Cold War spy project, has become a key player in the U.S.-China tech war. It’s laying internet cables on the ocean floor to boost Washington’s economic and military might, including a clandestine mission to a remote island naval base, Reuters can reveal.

REUTERS By JOE BROCK, July 6, 2023

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At the COA Spring Gala 2023, Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES and Chairman of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, presented President Lacalle Pou with the prestigious Gold Insigne. This award was given in recognition of President Lacalle Pou's outstanding leadership in successfully transforming Uruguay into a prominent technology and innovation hub, all while upholding a thriving democracy and robust economy.

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Image by Germán & Co

‘Revolutionary’ solar power cell innovations break key energy threshold

Next generation cells surpass limits of today’s cells and will accelerate rollout of cheaper, more efficient solar power

The Guardian by Damian Carrington Environment editor, July 7, 2023

Solar power cells have raced past the key milestone of 30% energy efficiency, after innovations by multiple research groups around the world. The feat makes this a “revolutionary” year, according to one expert, and could accelerate the rollout of solar power.

Today’s solar panels use silicon-based cells but are rapidly approaching their maximum conversion of sunlight to electricity of 29%. At the same time, the installation rate of solar power needs to increase tenfold in order to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists.

The breakthrough is adding a layer of perovskite, another semiconductor, on top of the silicon layer. This captures blue light from the visible spectrum, while the silicon captures red light, boosting the total light captured overall. With more energy absorbed per cell, the cost of solar electricity is even cheaper, and deployment can proceed faster to help keep global heating under control.

The perovskite-silicon “tandem” cells have been under research for about a decade, but recent technical improvements have now pushed them past the 30% milestone. Experts said that if the scaling-up of production of the tandem cells proceeds smoothly, they could be commercially available within five years, about the same time silicon-only cells reach their maximum efficiency.

Two groups published the details of their efficiency breakthroughs in the journal Science on Thursday, and at least two others are known to have pushed well beyond 30%.

“This year is a revolutionary year,” said Prof Stefaan De Wolf, at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. “It’s very exciting that things are moving rapidly with multiple groups.”

The current efficiency record for silicon-only solar cells is 24.5% in commercial cells and 27% in the laboratory. The latter may well be as close the cells can practically get to the theoretical maximum of 29%.

But one group, led by Prof Steve Albrecht at the Helmholtz Center Berlin for Materials and Energy in Germany, has now published information about how they achieved efficiencies of up to 32.5% for silicon-perovskite cells. The other group, led by Dr Xin Yu Chin at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, demonstrated an efficiency of 31.25% and said tandem cells had the “potential for both high efficiency and low manufacturing costs”.

“What these two groups have shown are really milestones,” said De Wolf. His own group achieved 33.7% efficiency with a tandem cell in June, but has yet to publish the results in a journal. All the efficiency measurements were independently verified.

“Overcoming the 30% threshold provides confidence that high performance, low-cost PVs can be brought to the market,” said De Wolf. Global solar power capacity reached 1.2 terawatts (TW) in 2022. “Yet to avert the catastrophic scenarios associated with global warming, the total capacity needs to increase to about 75TW by 2050,” he said.

The solar industry is also part of the race to high efficiency. Chinese company LONGi, the world’s biggest producer of solar cells, announced in June they had reached 33.5% in their research. “Reducing the cost of electricity remains the perpetual theme driving the development of the photovoltaic industry,” said Li Zhenguo, the president of LONGi.

“The industry is running very, very fast,” De Wolf said. “And I’m sure that multiple companies are working on this in China.” Europe and the US need to increase its research and development funding to keep up and contribute to an accelerating roll out of solar power, he said.

A worker produces photovoltaic modules used for solar panels at a factory in China’s eastern Jiangsu province in May 2023. China is one of the leaders in the race to high solar efficiency. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

All of the high-efficiency tandem cells above 30% efficiency are small so far, measuring 1cm by 1cm. They now need to be scaled up to the size of commercial cells, which are 16-cm squares.

The scale-up is already under way with UK company Oxford PV announcing in May a record 28.6% efficiency for a commercial-size cell. “Solar is already one of the least expensive and cleanest forms of energy available, and our technology will make it even more affordable,” said Chris Case, chief technology officer at Oxford PV.

The Oxford PV cell was made on the same production line as conventional silicon-only cells, making the large-scale production of tandem cells far easier. Tandem cells may prove to be more expensive than silicon-only cells, but the cells are only a small part of the cost of producing and installing solar panels, De Wolf said.

One issue that remains to be resolved is how fast the tandem cells degrade over time in real-world conditions. Today’s solar cells still have 80-90% of their capacity after 25 years and De Wolf said tandems would have to match that, but that there was only limited data on their stability to date.

The key to the higher efficiencies of the tandem cells from the German and Swiss groups was tackling tiny defects on the surface of the perovskite layer. These allow some electrons liberated by solar photons to flow back into the perovskite, rather than contributing to the cell’s electrical current and therefore reducing its efficiency.

The solution was to put a layer of organic molecules between the perovskite and the conducting layer through which the current flows, which compensated for the defects.

Significantly, all the groups used different methods to address the problem, giving more options in the search for the best commercial design, said De Wolf. “There’s still lots of room to go further,” he said. “I believe that the practical limit is well beyond 35%.”

Prof Rob Gross, director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said: “Solar is already a low-cost way to generate electricity and has a wide resource base across the world. The cost reductions already achieved are the main reason solar now plays such a large role in scenarios of decarbonised energy systems. Improvements in efficiency have the potential to increase the output of solar and therefore will help to reinforce that effect.”

There are other technologies, such as multi-junction cells, which can have efficiencies as high as 47%, but these are very expensive to produce and would only be suitable for niche uses such as on space satellites or when sunlight is highly concentrated on to the cells.

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…”We proudly announce that several AES companies have been certified as Great Places to Work, including AES El Salvador, AES Dominicana, AES México, AES Panamá, and AES Puerto Rico. AES Servicios América ranked 3rd in the Great Place to Work for Women Argentina 2023. We're committed to providing an inclusive and empowering work environment for all, and our employees are our most valuable asset. Let's collaborate for a brighter, cleaner, and more sustainable future.

Ricardo Manuel Falú

Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy and Commercial Officer and President, New Energy Technologies SBU

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A molten salt tower harvests solar power in Jiuquan, north-west China. Photograph: Hu Chengwei/Editing by Germán & Co

Is China really leading the clean energy revolution? Not exactly

The country generates more solar energy than all other countries combined, but burns half the planet’s coal. There are lessons here for the rest of us, though

The Guardian by *Li Shuo, July 6, 2023 

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“Big numbers are a hallmark of China’s economy and now its energy transition: they thrill, they mystify, and at times they contradict, at least on the surface.

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China’s solar capacity is now 228 gigawatts (GW), more than the rest of the world combined, according to Global Energy Monitor. And wind capacity, at a whopping 310GW, also leads the world. With another 750GW of new wind and solar projects in the pipeline, China will hit its 2030 target of 1,200GW – an unimaginable number when proposed just a few years ago – five years early.

Scratching through the big numbers, two issues deserve the world’s deeper understanding. The first is that China’s successful clean technology campaign has more to do with its economic strategy than its climate commitments. The second is that, alongside its impressive achievements in renewable energy, China is also one of the world’s biggest polluters. Neither is likely to change imminently.

The ability to manufacture at scale and quality, and deploy funds competitively, underpins China’s impressive growth of wind and solar, as well as electric vehicles. This is the outcome of an industrial policy that features consistent state support, highly integrated supply chains, cut-throat competition, indigenous innovation and entrepreneurship, and the economies of scale that only a country the size of China can offer. China’s EV manufacturers, for example, have been supplying millions of cars in a fiercely competitive domestic market for years, and have been boosted by government support. In contrast, their western counterparts are only beginning to enjoy a similar market scale at home. They also face stronger resistance from conventional vehicle producers.

This is not to say that the rest of the world is hopeless in the face of an established clean technology giant. But other countries need to do much better in translating cutting-edge technologies into actual manufacturing. Western countries have prided themselves on innovations in the lab for so long. Failing to bring them to the factory floor or to realise that many innovations take place along the assembly line would be a grave mistake.

For China, the good news is that the economic conditions that propelled its rapid clean technology growth are here to stay. Astronomical numbers are the forecast for the foreseeable future. If anything, Chinese solar and electric vehicle manufacturers will become more efficient and supply ever cheaper solutions to reduce carbon emissions nationally and globally.

These opportunities are key points of leverage as the international community tries to appeal for greater climate ambition from China. Climate diplomats coming to Beijing need to help Chinese leaders realise the alignment between their economic agenda and the climate agenda. Global climate conversations in places such as the G20 and Cops will be better served if they incentivise Chinese action based on its strengths.

China’s current and future domination of clean technology also raises important questions for other countries. Can they become more cost-efficient than China? Are they prepared, economically and politically, to risk the bankruptcy and failure suffered by their Chinese counterparts before many of them emerged as industry leaders? What does deglobalisation in the clean energy supply chain mean for the effort of combating climate crisis? For sound policies and a liveable planet, these questions require serious thought by world leaders, but they have so far been overshadowed by geopolitical zeal.

China on course to hit wind and solar power target five years ahead of time

Meanwhile, China’s rapid clean energy expansion needs to be read together with its continued expansion of new coal power. More than half of all coal the world consumed over the past decade was consumed in China, and the country’s coal fever shows no sign of waning. Just in the first quarter of 2023, provincial governments in China have already approved at least 20.45GW of new coal projects. Coal combustion is currently projected to increase at a “reasonable speed” into 2030.

While the pro-growth and pro-infrastructure development mentality has boosted China’s clean energy sector, it is exactly the same logic that fuels coal development. Beijing is simultaneously becoming the biggest solution provider and the biggest troublemaker.

But in the current climate crisis, the world cannot afford this trend of renewable energy and coal going head to head with one another. Currently, the percentage of China’s electricity that is generated by wind and solar is expected to grow by less than 1% a year between 2023 and 2030. At this rate, the country may achieve peak CO2 emissions before 2030, but is less likely to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, as President Xi Jinping pledged in 2020.

The challenge for China is to maintain its record on clean technology but to shut off the coal pipeline. That will require decisive reforms in its power sector, where many of the rules still favour coal over clean energy sources. Technological solutions such as energy storage could also help the transition in the interim. But ultimately, the country needs to gather the political courage to stop building coal plants and start phasing them out.

As for the rest of the world, global persuasion for China to shift its course on coal is critical. Climate diplomacy won’t be pain free, but it is the only way to tackle the defining global crisis of our times. Countries in the west also need to learn from China, even if there is no simple cut-and-paste solution for them. It is a blessing that a template for success exists. Refusing to learn from each other, in a world where countries are more interested in fighting one another than climate change, would be futile.

*Li Shuo is senior policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia

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Image: Germán & Co

Cooperate with objective and ethical thinking…

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Borrowing costs reach highest level since financial crisis, Blomberg / Editing by Germán & Co

Stock market falls sharply amid fears of further interest rate rises

Borrowing costs soar to 15-year high amid global sell-off triggered by rampant inflation

The Telegraph By Szu Ping Chan and Adam Mawardi, July 6,  2023 

The stock market fell sharply and Government borrowing costs soared to a 15-year high on Thursday amid a global sell-off triggered by rampant inflation and rising interest rates.

In Britain, the FTSE 100 fell to its lowest level this year, while gilts climbed to their highest since 2008 as investors bet the Bank of England will raise interest rates to 6.5pc by the start of next year.

Further chaos was caused by unexpectedly strong US jobs data, leading to fears that price rises might also take off across the Atlantic.

The prospect that higher interest rates would hit company investment and consumer demand sent the FTSE 100 down 2.17pc. Paris markets closed down 3.13pc and in Germany, shares fell 2.57pc. The S&P 500 fell 0.8pc on Wall Street.

In a sign of more pain to come for borrowers, HSBC – one of Britain’s biggest mortgage lenders – announced late on Thursday that it was pulling all deals offered to new customers through brokers for the third time in a month. The bank will return to the market on Monday with higher rates.

The chaos also sent the Treasury’s borrowing costs sharply higher.

Two-year gilt yields, which are more sensitive to interest rate bets, rose above 5.5pc to their highest since 2008. Benchmark 10-year borrowing costs almost hit 4.7pc, rising above their highs in the aftermath of then-Prime Minister Lizz Truss’s tax-cutting mini-Budget.

Nearly all stocks on the FTSE 100 sank on Thursday, with Britain’s blue chip index recording its worst one-day drop since the US regional banking crisis sparked a brutal sell-off in March.

The UK’s blue-chip index ended trading at 7,280.50, its lowest point since November 3. The domestically-focused FTSE 250 midcap index finished down 2.59pc at 17,916.46.

It came as US statistics showed that 497,000 new private sector jobs were created last month, more than double analysts’ estimates.

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The strong reading will add to speculation of higher rates, a day after the US Federal Reserve’s June meeting revealed that “almost all” policymakers expected more increases despite agreeing to hold rates last month.

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The Bank of England has already increased rates 13 times to 5pc in an attempt to cool the economy. Lifting them to 6.5pc would take borrowing costs to the highest level since 1998.

Analysts warned that the surge has also left taxpayers on the hook for much bigger losses from Threadneedle Street’s money-printing programme.

”Losses from QT will be greater the higher Bank Rate and yields go,” she said. “These costs should not be underestimated – a reasonable base case could be that together, the cumulative hit between now and end-2026 could be higher than £150bn.”

This would be around 50pc higher than Bank estimates published only in April.

The Bank estimated in its annual report on Thursday that the Treasury would be forced to stump up £191bn if it sold off its entire bond stockpile in one go under an indemnity deal struck during the financial crisis.

This is up from £22bn last year, and reflects the surge in borrowing costs.

A separate report by Moody’s Analytics warned more fixed-rate mortgages in the UK had created a “refinancing time bomb”, while also damping the impact of rate rises.

It said people who fixed their mortgage two years ago faced the most “severe” increases in payments, with a typical borrower now facing a near £500 jump in monthly payments.

“As a share of average incomes, this represents a larger increase than in those periods of the past when interest rates rose,” said David Muir, . More than a million families will refinance in the next 12 months.

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Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…

…“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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Source: REUTERS

Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping America take on China

SubCom, a New Jersey company born out of a Cold War spy project, has become a key player in the U.S.-China tech war. It’s laying internet cables on the ocean floor to boost Washington’s economic and military might, including a clandestine mission to a remote island naval base, Reuters can reveal.

REUTERS By JOE BROCK, July 6, 2023

On Feb. 10 last year, the cable ship CS Dependable appeared off the coast of the island of Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean atoll that’s home to a discreet U.S. naval base.

Over the next month, the ship’s crew covertly laid an underwater fiber-optic cable to the military base, an operation code-named “Big Wave,” according to four people with direct knowledge of the mission, as well as a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and ship tracking data.

The new super-fast internet link to Diego Garcia, which has not previously been reported, will boost U.S. military readiness in the Indian Ocean, a region where China has expanded its naval influence over the last decade.

The CS Dependable is owned by SubCom, a small-town New Jersey cable manufacturer that’s playing an outsized role in a race between the United States and China to control advanced military and digital technologies that could decide which country emerges as the world’s preeminent superpower.

SubCom, a company born out of a U.S. Cold War project to spy on Soviet submarines, is living a double life.

Publicly, it is one of the world’s biggest developers of undersea fiber-optic cables for telecom firms and tech giants like Alphabet’s Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta Platforms.

Behind the scenes, SubCom is the exclusive undersea cable contractor to the U.S. military, laying a web of internet and surveillance cables across the ocean floor, according to the four people with knowledge of the matter: two SubCom employees and two U.S. Navy staffers. The individuals asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the operations.

The cable-laying vessel CS Dependable is shown docked at Taiwan’s Port of Taichung on April 18, 2023. The ship’s private-sector owner, New Jersey-based SubCom, is central to Washington’s efforts to deter foreign spying on international internet traffic moving through undersea fiber-optic cables. REUTERS/Ann Wang

This dual role has made SubCom increasingly valuable to Washington as global internet infrastructure – from undersea cables to data centers and 5G mobile networks – risks fracturing into two systems, one backed by the United States, the other controlled by China.

SubCom is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based private equity firm that has invested in defense contractors and national security assets. Last year, Cerberus paid $300 million for a Philippine shipyard on a former U.S. Navy base close to the South China Sea, beating out Chinese competitors for control of a strategic site in a region where Beijing has been flexing its military muscle.

Cerberus is headed by Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire political donor whom former President Donald Trump drafted onto the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which counsels the commander-in-chief on U.S. foreign intelligence matters.

SubCom, Cerberus and Feinberg did not respond to requests for comment.

Presented with Reuters’ findings, a spokesperson for the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet confirmed the existence of a new high-speed undersea internet cable to Diego Garcia. It was the first official acknowledgement of that cable.

“The resiliency, redundancy, and security of our communication infrastructure represents a top priority for U.S. Pacific Fleet,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The statement said the Navy could not discuss specifics for operational security reasons. The Navy did not respond to Reuters’ questions about SubCom or name the company in its statement.

SubCom’s journey from Cold War experiment to global cable constructor and now a shadowy player in the U.S.-China tech war is detailed in this story for the first time.

SubCom is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a New York private equity firm with investments in defense contractors. Stephen Feinberg, co-founder and co-chief executive of Cerberus, is a billionaire political donor. He was tapped by former U.S. President Donald Trump to serve on a national security advisory board. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration

Reuters is revealing details of the Diego Garcia project and SubCom’s deepening ties with the Pentagon. The news agency is also the first to report on a confidential contract the company secured from tech giant Google to build the world’s largest private undersea internet network.

That partnership is the kind of America Inc project that President Joe Biden has been calling for in his drive to promote U.S. advanced technologies.

Google did not respond to requests for comment.

Undersea cables transmit 99% of all transcontinental internet traffic, including instant messenger chats, stock market transactions and military secrets. This underwater network has become one of the key weapons in the U.S.-China tech war, as detailed in a Reuters investigation published in March. Subsea cables are vulnerable to sabotage and espionage, and Beijing and Washington have accused each other of tapping cables to spy on data or carry out cyberattacks.

SubCom’s increasing importance to the United States can be split into two categories, one military and one economic, according to two subsea cable industry officials who have worked on U.S. government projects.

Based in the small borough of Eatontown, New Jersey, undersea internet cable firm SubCom is playing an outsized role in the race between the United States and China to dominate advanced technologies. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

First, Washington needs SubCom to expand the Navy’s undersea cable network so that it can better coordinate military operations and enhance surveillance on China’s expanding fleet of submarines and warships, the people said. Second, the Biden administration wants SubCom to build more commercial subsea internet cables controlled by U.S. companies, a strategy aimed at ensuring that America remains the primary custodian of the internet, according to the two industry officials.

SubCom operates six cable-laying ships: bespoke deep-sea vessels fitted with vast storage drums to hold sheaves of fiber-optic cable. The Navy has only one such ship – the 40-year-old USNS Zeus – a vessel so old that it is limited to carrying out repairs, according to Eckhard Bruckschen, director of the UK-based Undersea Cable Consultancy.

“SubCom is indispensable to America if it wants to control subsea cables. They’ve got no one else,” Bruckschen told Reuters.

There are only four major companies in the world that manufacture and lay subsea cables: America’s SubCom, Japan’s NEC Corporation, France’s Alcatel Submarine Networks and China’s HMN Tech.

For sensitive U.S. projects, Washington only works with SubCom, according to five industry sources who have worked on projects with the cable company.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

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Picking sides

Until a U.S. crackdown on Chinese tech companies ramped up five years ago, SubCom laid cables for telecom and tech companies worldwide, including the big state-owned Chinese carriers.

Not anymore. The cable firm now works almost exclusively for the U.S. military and big U.S. tech firms, two SubCom employees told Reuters.

SubCom’s pivot reflects a sea change underway in the internet infrastructure industry, which has long seen choosing sides in great-power politics as bad for business. But U.S. sanctions on Chinese tech companies and an increase in trade-protectionist policies under Biden and his predecessor Trump have forced American tech firms to work mainly with companies and countries viewed as friendly to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice in 2020 blocked Google, Meta and Amazon from building fiber-optic cables from the United States to Hong Kong due to concerns about Chinese spying.

Microsoft – whose President Brad Smith said in 2017 that the tech sector needed to be a “neutral digital Switzerland”– announced in May that it had discovered Chinese state-sponsored hackers targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, a rare example of a big tech firm calling out Beijing for espionage. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at the time that the accusations were part of a U.S. disinformation campaign, describing America as the “empire of hacking.”

In December of last year, the Pentagon awarded $9 billion worth of Cloud computing contracts to Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle, entrusting these companies to keep America’s most closely held secrets under digital lock and key.

Sailors participate in a July 2021 beach cleanup on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, home to a remote U.S. Navy base. SubCom last year delivered super-fast internet service to the atoll via a secret spur off a commercial undersea fiber-optic cable it was laying nearby. U.S. Navy via Reuters

“Silicon Valley is waking up to the reality that it has to pick a side,” said Jacob Helberg, former head of Google’s news policy and a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a government agency.

Google did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle declined to comment.

SubCom’s loyalty is especially important because it is the only major U.S. subsea cable company. Headquartered in the quiet borough of Eatontown, New Jersey, SubCom secured a $10 million-a-year contract in 2021 from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to run a two-vessel fleet to provide undersea cable security, according to one SubCom employee and one Navy staffer with knowledge of the deal. A 2020 DOT notice to prospective applicants said winners would be responsible for laying, maintaining and repairing subsea cables to support U.S. national security and economic interests, in partnership with the Department of Defense.

The SubCom ships CS Dependable and CS Decisive now make up the U.S. government’s first Cable Security Fleet, the people said.

The DOT and SubCom did not respond to requests for comment.

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Operation ‘Big Wave’

One of CS Dependable’s destinations was Diego Garcia, a horseshoe-shaped atoll which hosts U.S. aircraft carriers and submarines, and has an airfield capable of landing long-range bombers.

Located in the heart of the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia is a British overseas territory. Since the 1970s, Britain has allowed the United States to operate a naval base there. The island is currently home to around 3,000 people, including Navy sailors, family members and support staff, two people who have worked on the atoll told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Diego Garcia boasts shops, restaurants, bars and pristine beaches, the people said.

Prior to the laying of the new subsea cable, the island base accessed the internet via satellites, which are slower and less reliable than cables, the two people said.

The CS Dependable’s clandestine underwater operation on Diego Garcia was never mentioned publicly by participants in the business deal that made it happen. Rather, they carefully obscured the U.S. military component within a larger private-sector cable project, according to four subsea cable industry sources with knowledge of the arrangement.

In 2020, SubCom announced that it had been commissioned by an Australian tech mogul to lay a $300 million commercial internet cable from Australia to the Sultanate of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula, a route that traverses the Indian Ocean.

That project, known as the Oman Australia Cable, was spearheaded by SUBCO, a Brisbane-based subsea cable investment company owned by Australian entrepreneur Bevan Slattery.

The industry was skeptical about the commercial viability of the route, given it would mostly serve a small pool of Australian telecom firms that already had access to multiple cables running through Southeast Asia to the Middle East, five industry sources told Reuters.

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The Secret Splice

SubCom announced in 2020 that it was building a commercial subsea internet cable from Australia to Oman. The $300 million project included a clandestine link to a U.S. Navy base on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which was funded by the Pentagon.

Sources: TeleGeography; Natural Earth

What many of them didn’t know was that the Pentagon had paid for around a third of the entire cable on the condition that it include a splice connecting its commercial trunk to Diego Garcia, two of the people with knowledge of the project told Reuters.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet, in its statement to Reuters, said SUBCO’s Oman Australia Cable offered “a unique opportunity” to connect the remote island with an undersea fiber-optic internet cable.

The statement said the U.S. Pacific Fleet partnered with companies laying the Oman Australia Cable to extend a branch to Diego Garcia, but did not disclose how much it paid for the spur.

“This partnership has increased the digital resiliency and security of our communication infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific,” the statement said.

While the Navy had said nothing officially about the cable until now, sailors on Diego Garcia were tipped off last year. Captain Richard Payne, then-commander on Diego Garcia, mentioned the cable during a Feb. 9 guest appearance on the base’s local radio station, “99.1 The Eagle,” a recording of which was posted on the Navy radio station’s Facebook page.

Payne, who was fielding questions submitted by listeners, volunteered that an unusual vessel could be sighted off the western shore of Diego Garcia.

“We're going to have fiber optics here on the island very soon,” Payne told the program’s host, Alex Kerska or “DJ Special K,” during the segment in which he also addressed complaints about high beer prices on the atoll and called on island residents to attend a kickball tournament.

“Starting today (or) tomorrow, we have the cable-laying ship that is out there off the coast now. It’s a commercial company doing that … It’s a very interesting ship,” Payne continued, without naming the company or the ship.

Payne, who now works in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, did not respond to a request for comment.

The ship Payne was referring to was the CS Dependable, according to the SubCom and Navy sources with knowledge of the operation.

Capt. Richard D. Payne, then-commanding officer of the U.S. Navy base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, salutes comrades on July 6, 2021. Payne mentioned the arrival of a cable-laying ship during a 2022 guest appearance on the base’s radio station. That vessel, which he didn’t name, was SubCom’s CS Dependable. U.S. Navy via Reuters

SubCom’s CS Reliance vessel laid the first half of the commercial cable from Perth, Australia, to the middle of the Indian Ocean. From there, the CS Dependable took over, running the splice to Diego Garcia and laying the rest of the main trunk up to Oman, the people said.

Reuters analyzed satellite images and ship tracking data on Eikon, the financial analysis platform owned by the London Stock Exchange Group. That information showed the CS Dependable operating around Diego Garcia in February and March of 2022, then sailing on to Oman.

The delicate operation was made possible by a decades-long friendship between three veterans of the subsea cable industry, according to two people with knowledge of the dealings.

a) SubCom CEO David Coughlan talks about undersea cable technology in a video posted to YouTube on July 15, 2021. He coordinated the laying of the secret cable to a U.S. Navy base on the remote island of Diego Garcia, according to Navy and SubCom sources. Pacific Telecommunications Council via YouTube/Screenshot

b) Helping Coughlan in that effort, sources said, was Catherine Creese, director of the U.S. Naval Seafloor Cable Protection Office, shown here speaking at an April 8, 2021, virtual forum about Asia’s evolving subsea cable networks. She previously worked with Coughlan at the company now known as SubCom. Center for Strategic and International Studies via YouTube/Screenshot

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Coordinating the Pentagon’s end was Catherine Creese, a former U.S. Coast Guard officer who is now Director of the U.S. Naval Seafloor Cable Protection Office, the unit that oversees the Navy’s subsea cables.

Prior to joining the Navy in 2006, Creese worked at SubCom for 11 years, a time when it was known as Tyco Telecommunications. There she worked closely alongside the man who is now SubCom’s CEO, David Coughlan, according to two former SubCom employees who worked with Coughlan and Creese.

Coughlan and Creese planned and executed the Diego Garcia operation, according to one current SubCom employee and one Navy staffer.

Creese and Coughlan did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. Navy did not respond to questions about Creese’s involvement.

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‘Dreams come true’

Selling the cable to investors, meanwhile, was the purview of Slattery, the Australian entrepreneur, who has made a fortune building and selling private undersea cables. In a conservative industry, the businessman stands out as a gregarious and outspoken character who is willing to take on risky projects, according to three industry sources who have worked with Slattery.

Slattery did not respond to requests for comment.

SubCom’s Coughlan helped Slattery pull off his first major cable deal in the late 2000s, setting him on course to become one of Australia’s wealthiest tech moguls, according to two industry sources with knowledge of the matter.

That project, a SubCom-built cable running between Brisbane and Guam, a U.S. Pacific island territory that’s also home to a naval base, almost bankrupted Slattery, the businessman told the Australian Financial Review in a 2016 interview.

Thanks to sympathetic suppliers, Slattery got that cable, known as PIPE, over the line, according to the Financial Review article. Crucially, SubCom, the main supplier on the project, extended Slattery credit to get the cable finished, the two industry sources said.

Slattery sold the company that owned the PIPE cable for A$373 million ($248 million) in 2010, the first of a string of successful tech infrastructure bets. Slattery has a personal net worth of A$564 million ($375 million), according to a 2020 “Rich List” published by the Financial Review.

The entrepreneur pitched the Oman Australia Cable in public statements as an alternative to the traditional route between Australia and the Middle East that passes through Southeast Asia. The spur to Diego Garcia was never mentioned.

A blueprint for such a project already existed. Slattery’s cable was essentially a revival and rerouting of a 2017 plan to build a cable between Australia and the Republic of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, with a secret link to Diego Garcia funded by the Pentagon, according to a person directly involved in that deal. Djibouti is the site of China’s first-ever overseas military base, which opened in 2017.

The earlier proposed cable – known as the Australia West Express – was never built because the U.S. company behind the project, GoTo Networks, couldn’t secure the private investment needed to cover the portion not funded by the Pentagon, the person said.

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SubCom’s cable ship tracked near remote U.S. Navy base

The CS Dependable spent weeks in the waters around Diego Garcia in February and March of 2022, ship tracking data shows. In this period, the ship’s crew laid a secret subsea fiber-optic internet cable to a U.S. Navy base on the atoll, according to SubCom and Navy sources.

Source: Refinitiv Eikon

John Mariano, who was the CEO of the now-defunct GoTo Networks, declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. An official from the president’s office in Djibouti declined to comment.

Cables are typically owned by a consortium of telecom and tech companies that spread the cost and risk. Occasionally, entrepreneurs or private equity firms build a cable on spec with the aim of selling bandwidth to carriers and tech companies before flipping the cable for a profit.

Slattery is a master of such deals, two people who worked with him told Reuters. He used his experience and contacts to attract enough investors to supplement the Pentagon funding to get the Oman Australia Cable built, the two people said.

The 10,000-kilometer cable was officially opened by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in October 2022. It includes a splice to the Cocos Islands, an Australian territory which comprises a cluster of tiny islands between Sri Lanka and Australia. Australia’s military has been seeking parliamentary approval for funds to upgrade an airfield there and make other improvements aimed at strengthening its maritime surveillance capabilities in the region.

Subsea cable entrepreneur Bevan Slattery (far right) and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (center) celebrate the 2022 completion of a fiber-optic cable stretching from Australia to Oman across the Indian Ocean. That commercial cable contained a secret branch to a remote U.S. Navy base. Via Twitter/Screenshot

Slattery on Nov. 19, 2022, tweeted a group photo that included himself and Albanese, both with broad grins, celebrating the cable and the team that made “dreams come true.”

Albanese’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the project, its funding or potential military uses. In an Oct. 22, 2022, tweet sent from his Twitter account, he lauded the cable’s speed, security and reliability, and boasted that it could stream “over 65 million Netflix shows simultaneously.”

The government of Oman did not respond to a request for comment.

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Levers of power

SubCom’s role in the project marked a return to its Cold War roots.

The company was founded in 1955, according to its website, the year the first subsea transatlantic telephone cable system was laid between Scotland and Newfoundland. That cable was deployed by AT&T’s submarine cable unit, which would eventually become SubCom.

The true origins of AT&T’s subsea cable business go back five years earlier, when the company was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to build a network of undersea surveillance cables to listen for Soviet submarines, according to three former employees with knowledge of the matter.

The project was known as the Sound Surveillance System, or “Project Caesar,” according to a declassified document about the program available on the U.S. Navy’s website. The document does not mention AT&T’s involvement.

Once the Navy project was complete, AT&T’s submarine cable project morphed into a commercial business, the former employees said.

AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.

In 1997, AT&T sold its cable-laying operation, including a fleet of ships, to Tyco International, a security company based in New Jersey. In 2018, Tyco sold the cable unit, by this time dubbed TE SubCom, for $325 million to Cerberus, the New York private equity firm.

SubCom doesn’t make public many details about its business. The company has more than 1,300 employees and an annual revenue of $344 million, according to data on Eikon.

Last year, SubCom signed a “master service agreement” with Google, one of the world’s biggest investors in subsea internet cables, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.

That contract, which the people said is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, could help Google build the world’s largest-ever private data network, connecting Cloud data centers around the world with a web of SubCom-manufactured undersea cables.

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

More undersea cables and data centers in the hands of U.S. companies like Google and SubCom is a win for Washington as it seeks to keep Chinese firms away from the internet hardware that will underpin global economic and military progress for decades to come, said Kellee Wicker, director of the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think tank.

“Cables are an enormous lever of power,” Wicker said. “If you can’t control these networks directly, you want a company you can trust to control them.”

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