News round-up, March 29, 2023
A word from the Editors…
Bad memories from the future…
It is said that we so-called human beings have short memories not because of neurodegenerative problems that come with age but because our personal interests, especially our political ambitions, outweigh those of humanity. Time and time again, we make blunders that have ruthless repercussions on society, especially politicians. Regrettable but true...
Warning against Appeasement…
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West, 2016.…”Solzhenitsyn’s warnings take several forms in this work. Most persistently, he calls for the West to stop providing aid to the Soviet Union, to stop signing treaties with the Soviet Union, and to quit believing in détente, which Solzhenitsyn saw as nothing more than a sham. For one, the Soviet Union would never have admitted to having received help from the West. Solzhenitsyn’s case in point is the American Relief Administration (ARA), which was led by future President Herbert Hoover shortly after the First World War. The effort employed “more than 120,000 Russians and fed 10.5 million people daily,” according to Infogalactic. According to Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet authorities later denounced the ARA as a spy operation. The ARA ceased its operations in the Soviet Union in 1923 when they discovered that the Soviets were once again exporting grain. Solzhenitsyn further elaborates on how modern Western leaders were all too eager to sign accords with the Soviets while remaining blind to how the Soviets had always violated those accords:
Take the SALT [Strategic Arms Limitations Talks] alone: in these negotiations, your opponent is continually deceiving you. Either he is testing radar in a way which is forbidden by the agreement, or he is violating the limitations on the dimensions of missiles, or he is violating the limitations on their destructive force, or else he is violating the conditions on multiple warheads.
Most read…
EU threatens more sanctions if Russia moves nukes to Belarus
Borrell tweeted: “Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation & threat to European security. Belarus can still stop it, it is their choice. The EU stands ready to respond with further sanctions.”
Euronews with AP, 28/03/2023Here’s How to Handle North Korea: Give Peace a Chance
Nuclear weapons are in North Korea, since last year, it has tested a record number of missiles, including potent ICBMs thought to be capable of dropping a warhead anywhere on American soil.
NYT by Dan Leaf, March 29, 2023EU countries seek legal option to stop Russian LNG imports
This month, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson advised European businesses not to enter into new LNG contracts with Russia, a recommendation from Spanish Energy Minister Teresa Ribera.
REUTERS By Kate AbnettRussia March fuel oil exports to Singapore and Malaysia hit record-traders, data
Russian fuel oil and VGO shipments might amount to more than 4.5 million tonnes and be at their highest level since October 2022 as traders try to eliminate excess volumes following loading delays brought on by bad weather in February.
ReutersOur stove is the first appliance to get a battery, but not the last…
It's going to revolutionize the game, says Baker. "Absorbing this [electricity] locally actually makes financial sense. Using appliances to complete the task is optimal.
TWP Advice by Michael J. Coren, March 28, 2023 
“We’re living in a volatile world…
it’s easy to get distracted by things like changeable commodity prices or a shortage of solar panels. But this wouldn’t be true to our purpose – we can’t allow ourselves to lose sight of our end goal; said Andres Gluski, CEO of energy and utility AES Corp
Image: www.taz.de "Alexander Solzhenitsyn on his return from exile, 1994. President W. Putin, Germán & Co by ShutterstockEU threatens more sanctions if Russia moves nukes to Belarus
Borrell tweeted: “Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation & threat to European security. Belarus can still stop it, it is their choice. The EU stands ready to respond with further sanctions.”
Euronews with AP, 28/03/2023The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has cautioned Belarus about allowing Russia to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.
In an interview on Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the move was triggered by Britain’s decision last week to provide Ukraine with armour-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.
Tactical nuclear weapons are intended for use on the battlefield. They have a short range and a low yield compared with much more powerful nuclear warheads fitted to long-range missiles.
The move also drew swift condemnation from NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu, who called it "dangerous and irresponsible".
The US says there has been no indication Russia has moved nuclear weapons across its border.
"We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture," the US Defense Department said in a statement.
On Sunday, Ukraine called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council, with Ukrainian Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov saying the Kremlin had taken Belarus "nuclear hostage".
It is a "step towards the internal destabilisation of the country," he added.
Putin said Russia planned to maintain control over the nukes it sends to Belarus, with the construction of storage facilities to be completed by 1 July.
He didn’t say how many nuclear weapons Russia would keep in Belarus, which shares a long border with Ukraine and NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
The US government believes Russia has about 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, including bombs that can be carried by tactical aircraft, warheads for short-range missiles and artillery rounds.
Putin argued that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the United States, noting the country has nukes in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
“We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the launch platforms and training their crews,” Putin said, speaking in an interview on state television that aired Saturday night.
“We are going to do the same thing.”
The Russian leader claimed the move would not violate existing nuclear-non-proliferation agreements.
Russia currently stores tactical nuclear weapons at dedicated depots on its territory.
Moving part of the arsenal to a storage facility in Belarus would up the ante in the Ukrainian conflict by placing them closer to the combat zone and NATO states.
This will be the first time Moscow has based nuclear weapons outside of its borders.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it stationed nukes in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. However, they were transferred back to Russian territories in 1996.
Image: Germán & Co by ShutterstockHere’s How to Handle North Korea: Give Peace a Chance
Nuclear weapons are in North Korea, since last year, it has tested a record number of missiles, including potent ICBMs thought to be capable of dropping a warhead anywhere on American soil.
NYT by Dan Leaf, March 29, 2023Mr. Leaf is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general and a former deputy commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command
Not many people know how to wage nuclear war. I’m one of them.
As a young U.S. Air Force fighter pilot in the late 1970s, I was trained to carry out nuclear strikes in a rigorous process designed to ensure that no contingencies — mechanical or ethical — deter your mission. Certain things remain burned into my memory: Maps and photos of my target and the realization of the Armageddon I would leave in my wake. Training culminated with a sworn pledge to vaporize that target without hesitation.
Much of my 33-year career was spent as a nuclear warrior — I later oversaw the U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile fleet and served as deputy commander of American military forces in the Pacific — experience that informs my deep alarm over the growing risk of nuclear conflict with North Korea.
The United States has tried for decades to prevent the country from becoming a nuclear threat, veering from diplomacy to pressure to patience. None of these approaches have worked.
North Korea has nuclear weapons. It has conducted missile tests at a record pace since last year, including powerful ICBMs believed to be capable of delivering a warhead anywhere in the continental United States. In January, Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, ordered an “exponential” expansion of the country’s nuclear arsenal, and last year his government passed a law authorizing a pre-emptive nuclear strike. In response, President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea has said his country may consider developing nuclear weapons.
In this hair-trigger environment, one bad decision or misunderstanding could kill millions.
I spent four years in South Korea, including in high-level positions at the headquarters of combined U.S., South Korean and U.N. forces, overseeing the vast destructive forces amassed for a war that was no longer being fought. In my time in the region, I went from scratching my head to pulling my hair out. The standoff is one of the great absurdities in global geopolitics.
You must be aggressive to win wars but assertive to make peace. No matter how challenging the negotiations and politics of securing peace on the Korean Peninsula may prove, they are nothing compared to nuclear war.
A permanent peace agreement would undermine Mr. Kim’s portrayal of the United States as an existential threat and his justification for building up his conventional and nuclear arsenal. It could also short-circuit the siege mentality underlying his repressive regime. Sanctions relief and economic development could follow, leading to long-hoped-for improvements in the quality of life and human rights for North Korea’s 25 million people.
The United States, North Korea and South Korea have all pledged in recent years to pursue a lasting peace agreement. Separate meetings that President Donald Trump and then-President Moon Jae-in of South Korea held with Mr. Kim in 2018 committed to that goal. It brought an immediate easing of tensions. Land mines were removed from portions of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, Korean families held reunions, Mr. Kim declared a moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear tests, the North returned remains of U.S. servicemen and released three detained Americans. Even after Mr. Trump’s outreach to Mr. Kim collapsed in 2019, Mr. Kim indicated he was still open to diplomacy.
There is currently a bill in the House of Representatives calling for a peace deal. The Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act would require the secretary of state to submit a “clear road map for achieving a permanent peace agreement”; pursue “serious, urgent” diplomacy in pursuit of a binding agreement; and begin to address America’s lack of diplomatic relations with North Korea by establishing liaison offices on each other’s soil.
The bill is imperfect. Much of it focuses on creating the conditions for Korean Americans to visit relatives in the North. (U.S. law currently bars travel by Americans to North Korea unless it serves an ill-defined “national interest.”) It also lacks other steps necessary to entrench peace, such as a process for U.S.-North Korean reconciliation, normalization of disputed maritime boundaries and a framework for talks between the opposing military forces.
There is an urgent need for progress. After the diplomatic overtures of recent years fell apart, Mr. Kim has only become more belligerent and the risk of conflict is more acute. Passage of a strengthened Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act is essential to securing a lasting solution, yet the current bill has not advanced since it was first introduced in 2021.
Critics argue that a peace agreement may actually increase the risk of war by undermining safeguards put in place by the armistice nearly 70 years ago. These include specific demarcation lines and protocols for communications, movement and other actions within the DMZ. But there is nothing foolproof about the armistice. President Bill Clinton considered bombing North Korea in 1994, and Mr. Trump reportedly discussed using nuclear weapons in 2017. North Korea occasionally carries out provocations, and the North and South have exchanged artillery fire on several occasions.
There are other risks: Pyongyang may use a peace agreement as a pretext to demand the removal of U.S. troops from South Korea, which is a matter between Seoul and Washington.
But the hardest part of ending the war might be building the political will for it in Washington. Accommodating North Korea would inevitably lead to accusations that we are rewarding bad behavior and legitimizing a totalitarian regime. But the Kim family has ruled for 75 years; it’s time to accept that this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
At this moment, the next generation of men and women north and south of the DMZ are preparing for nuclear war. May they never have to put their training to use.
Image: LNG tanker SCF La Perouse sails along Nakhodka Bay near the port city of Nakhodka, Russia June 13, 2022. REUTERS/Tatiana MeelEU countries seek legal option to stop Russian LNG imports
This month, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson advised European businesses not to enter into new LNG contracts with Russia, a recommendation from Spanish Energy Minister Teresa Ribera.
REUTERS By Kate AbnettLNG tanker SCF La Perouse sails along Nakhodka Bay near the port city of Nakhodka, Russia June 13, 2022. REUTERS/Tatiana Meel
BRUSSELS, March 28 (Reuters) - European Union countries agreed on Tuesday to seek a legal option to stop Russian companies sending liquefied natural gas to EU nations, by preventing Russian firms from booking infrastructure capacity.
EU countries' energy ministers proposed that new EU gas market rules should include the option for governments to temporarily stop Russian and Belarusian gas exporters from bidding up-front for capacity on the infrastructure needed to deliver LNG into Europe.
The proposal is part of countries' negotiating position on new EU gas market rules. It must be negotiated with the European Parliament - a process that can take months.
The 27-country EU has pledged to ditch Russian gas in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Europe's pipeline imports of gas from Russia have plunged since the invasion, but LNG imports have increased.
Russian LNG deliveries to Europe increased last year - to 22 bcm, up from around 16 bcm in 2021, according to EU analysis.
Lithuanian Vice Minister for Energy Albinas Zananavicius said the proposal would avoid a situation where LNG infrastructure designed to help countries swap Russian gas for alternatives, was in fact being used to import more from Moscow.
"You build the infrastructure to get rid of the supplier who manipulated your (gas) markets and caused great difficulties to you - and then you accept the same supplier through LNG? There's something wrong with the logic," he told Reuters.
If approved, the proposal would offer member states a route to stop Russian LNG imports without using sanctions - which are politically harder to greenlight because they need unanimous approval from all 27 EU member states.
Hungary said it could not support the negotiating position on the new EU gas market law, which also includes a raft of new rules to integrate more low-carbon gases.
EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson this month urged European companies not to sign new Russian LNG deals - a request also made by Spanish Energy Minister Teresa Ribera to firms in Spain.
However, such requests are not binding, since Russian gas and LNG are not subject to EU sanctions. The EU does have a ban on seaborne crude oil and oil products imports from Russia.
Image: Germán & CoRussia March fuel oil exports to Singapore and Malaysia hit record-traders, data
Russian fuel oil and VGO shipments might amount to more than 4.5 million tonnes and be at their highest level since October 2022 as traders try to eliminate excess volumes following loading delays brought on by bad weather in February.
ReutersMOSCOW, March 29 (Reuters) - Russia has sent record volumes of sea-borne fuel oil and vacuum gasoil (VGO) to Singapore and Malaysia in March, adding to oversupplied Asian markets, traders said and Refinitiv data showed.
The European Union's full embargo on Russian oil products came into effect on Feb. 5 and the bulk of Russia's fuel oil and VGO was redirected to other regions, mostly Asia, long before the deadline.
According to Refinitiv data, in March fuel oil and VGO shipments from Russian ports to Singapore and Malaysia could exceed 1.1 million tonnes, in line with loadings from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
In total, Russian fuel oil and VGO exports could be at their highest since October, 2022, and reach more than 4.5 million tonnes, as traders look to get rid of surplus volumes after loading delays in February due to storm weather.
Meanwhile, Fujairah as a major trading hub in the UAE has also received volumes of Russian dirty oil products, which could total this month at least 300,000 tonnes.
Some Russian oil products are shipped to Asia via ship-to-ship (STS) loadings, and this month dirty oil product flows from Russian ports to STS loadings near Kalamata port are expected to reach between 0.8 and 1.0 million tonnes, Refinitiv figures showed.
Several tankers loaded in Russian ports also have no final destinations yet, so the real total of fuel oil shipments in March from Russia to Singapore and Malaysia could be much higher than 1 million tonnes, traders said.
"I believe that a huge part of those supplies will be `on the water`, for storage", one trader said.
About 350,000-400,000 tonnes of fuel oil and VGO loaded from Russian ports in March could end up in Turkey, while supplies to India have fallen drastically to less than 100,000 tonnes, according to Refinitiv data.
Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country
…Armando Rodríguez, vice-president and executive director of the company, talks to us about their projects in the DR, where they have been operating for 32 years.
More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.
Image: Illustration by Emily Sabens/The Washington Post; iStock.Our stove is the first appliance to get a battery, but not the last…
It's going to revolutionize the game, says Baker. "Absorbing this [electricity] locally actually makes financial sense. Using appliances to complete the task is optimal.
TWP Advice by Michael J. Coren, March 28, 2023 Your appliances, you should know, will come loaded with batteries. We’ll probably have energy storage in our stoves and water heaters, perhaps even our washers and dryers.
Traditionally, batteries’ main purpose was to make gadgets portable. Today, they’re emerging as a shortcut on our path to “electrify everything.”
To switch from fossil fuels, we’ll need to plug in a bunch of new things: our cars, our stoves, our heaters and more. Many homes were not designed to carry this kind of load. Installing high-voltage wires, upgrading panels and rewiring your connection to utility poles is like building an electric highway into your home when all you have is a country road.
These retrofits are expensive — if you can find someone to do them, given the crush of new demand. Instead of rewiring our homes and upgrading grid infrastructure, appliances with batteries will allow us to stash energy around the house for when we need it, eliminating a final barrier to stop burning natural gas and heating oil inside our homes.
This is one of our best shots to decarbonize existing buildings. In the transportation and electricity sector, only a few hundred companies, automakers and utilities, must change their practices to phase out fossil fuels. But tamping down buildings’ emissions requires millions of individual households and property owners to make expensive, unfamiliar investments.
Little batteries are here to help…
Induction stoves
Induction stoves are the first major appliances to come with batteries. While a standard 120-volt plug can handle most daily cooking routines, running an electric oven and four burners draws a blistering 10 kilowatts, equivalent to more than 10 space heaters running full blast simultaneously. To handle that much juice, if only for a few minutes, you need a 240-volt outlet, like the ones for clothes dryers or conventional electric ovens.
Millions of homes do not have one, especially in the kitchen. In my own 1940s condominium, my electrician estimated running the wiring for a 240-volt outlet for an induction stove will cost $3,800. Battery-enabled stoves avoid this by plugging into an existing 120-volt outlet. When a burst of electricity is needed, the battery discharges energy. No new wiring necessary.
These little batteries are not quite here yet. For now, no major manufacturers are integrating batteries into their appliances. Rheem, a global water heater manufacturer, released the first 120-volt water heater heat pump last year, although it doesn’t include energy storage.
But start-ups are rushing into this space.
San Francisco-based Impulse Labs plans to sell its first battery-enabled induction stove in the next year or so. Its 3-kilowatt-hour battery packs enough electricity to roast a Thanksgiving turkey with all the fixings, or cook three meals during a blackout, says founder Sam D’Amico. Channing Street Copper will ship its full-range Charlie model later this year for $5,999 before incentives. Charlie offers the option to plug other appliances into the stove, like your refrigerator or phone, as backup power. Both appliances use batteries to supplement, rather than replace, electricity from the 120-volt outlet. The batteries’ lithium-ion phosphate chemistry is more stable and environmentally friendly than traditional lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles or phones.
Neither is aimed at the lower end of the market, even after generous rebates. But both start-ups say prices will come down, and for people wanting to have backup power storage in their home, it will be much cheaper to buy plug-in-ready batteries within appliances than installing stand-alone energy storage. By some estimates, it is 3 to 10 times more expensive to install equipment like home batteries, compared to the batteries themselves. Eventually, these companies plan to integrate their customers’ batteries into massive networks that represent many megawatts of flexible energy storage.
“We won’t stop at doing stoves,” says D’Amico. “You’ll get a number of appliances, and all of them will come with appropriately sized batteries. As you incrementally electrify your house, you get incremental energy storage. It’s like getting a Tesla Powerwall without ever getting a Powerwall.”
Backing up your home grid
Little affordable batteries could help countries leapfrog into a renewable future, rather than wait for utilities to invest billions of dollars in new transmission, better home connections and energy storage.
Right now, your appliances use little energy for most of the day. Yet each morning and evening, your home’s energy use spikes when water heaters click on or the oven fires up. Multiply this intense burst of electricity by millions of appliances. You can see the problem.
In the United Kingdom, there’s a name for this phenomenon: the kettle surge. During breaks in popular TV programs, millions of electric kettles turn on at once, leading to a massive, destabilizing surge of demand. To meet it, a dedicated “grid energy balancing” team at the national utility uses computer models to forecast electricity consumption, even tracking popular TV dramas. A standard soap opera episode might imply an extra 300 megawatts of power during breaks, but if a main character dies during the episode, the audience might need 600 megawatts or more.
Smoothing out spikes like this means the U.K. must run power plants on standby, or import huge volumes of energy from mainland Europe.
But small batteries could step up to the plate.
Stoves, heat pumps, washers and dryers. Even kettles. At a national scale, these could soak up cheap power when renewables are plentiful, and dispatch it during the peak hours in the mornings and evenings when electricity supplies are tight. As people swap gas for electricity, and less consistent wind and solar energy comes online, this will only become more valuable. It will help manage spikes — and maybe even earn you money from selling power to the grid or dodging peak electricity prices.
Energy companies and appliance manufacturers like Impulse and Channing Street Copper are already vying to manage the megawatts of power stored in millions of appliances.
It seems like a clear climate win. But since battery manufacturing is so energy-intensive, it’s not clear if installing so many batteries guarantees lower overall emissions. “It’s an open question still whether or not getting batteries into the home is on its face a decarbonization strategy,” Wyatt Merrill, who works on building electrification at the Department of Energy, told the climate podcast Volts. “It definitely has the potential to be. But when you think about the entire life cycle of mining lithium and developing the batteries and shipping them around, you really have a hole to dig out of.”
Still, economic forces may usher in a world of little batteries everywhere faster than we think. Priced at more than $10,000, large stationary batteries like Tesla Powerwalls — another solution to support a clean grid — remain too expensive for many homes. With utilities imposing time-of-use rates and curtailing homeowners’ ability to sell solar electricity back to the grid, storage in your home will only become more valuable.
Kyri Baker, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, says these new appliances can deliver low-cost energy storage at home while building the grid’s capacity to absorb clean, excess energy.
“It’s going to be a game changer,” says Baker. “It really makes financial sense to absorb this [electricity] locally. The best way is to let appliances do it.”
