The Most Overlooked Energy Source On Earth

By Alex Kimani - Feb 11, 2021, 

About a month ago, a report by clean energy watchdog Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) confirmed that the renewable energy sector has remained the most resilient to the ravages of Covid-19, with global energy transition investments in 2020 clocking in at a record $501.3 billion, good for 9% Y/Y growth. As expected, solar, wind power, and EVs commanded the lion’s share of clean energy investments, while investments in hydrogen tech and carbon capture and storage (CCS) managed to reach a combined $4.5B.

Unfortunately, one renewable energy source has continued to be conspicuous by its absence: Tidal and wave power.

But make no mistake about it: BNEF has warned that the world could be unable to reach its climate goals in the stipulated time to avoid catastrophic climate change if it continues to ignore fringe technologies such as CCS and hydrogen. You can add ocean power to that list.

IRENA has estimated the wave energy potential at around 29,500 TWh per year, meaning ocean power alone could theoretically meet the energy needs of the entire globe. 

Yet, tidal and wave power have remained woefully underrepresented in our energy mix. For instance, Europe has some of the most developed ocean power facilities for electricity generation. Yet, ocean energy accounted for a mere 0.06% of all electricity generated by the formerly 28-member bloc from renewable sources in 2019.

However, this could be the tipping point when tidal and wave power finally go mainstream and even begins to rival conventional renewables such as solar and wind.

Blue energy explosion

The EU has acknowledged that blue energy is destined to play a much bigger role in our energy mix as the world transitions to clean energy.

While still focusing chiefly on wind power, the commission’s upcoming offshore energy strategy will seek to boost other ocean energy sources, including wave and tidal, according to a draft policy document. The objective is for offshore wind to reach installed capacities of 60 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and 1-3 GW for ocean energy by a similar date. That will pave the way for a much bigger buildout of 300 and 60 GW, for offshore wind and ocean power, respectively, by 2050.

Just how ambitious is that goal?

Well, the commission points out that aiming for 60 GW of ocean energy by 2050 will mean a massive ramp-up of the technology at a speed that has no equivalent in any other energy technologies in the past.

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Currently, there are 13 MW of ocean power facilities being tested in EU waters, with tidal considered closest to commercialization while wave energy technologies are mostly still at the R&D stage.

And a lot more money will have to flow into the sector for that ambitious goal to be met. Wave and tidal technologies in Europe have only managed to attract a total of  €3.84 billion in research funds between 2007 and 2019, with the majority (€2.74 billion) coming from private sources.

Riding the Tidal Wave

The EU is in good company.

The Ocean Energy Systems (OES), an offshoot of the International Energy Agency, has been working round the clock to pool all the research it can in a bid to achieve large-scale ocean power deployment in the near future.

The 24-member OES, including the United States, China, most E.U. nations, and India, believes ocean power has the potential to become the Holy Grail of renewable energy due to its sheer potential.

The OES has identified several challenges centered around affordability, reliability, operability, installability, standardization, funding availability, and capacity building that will require to be solved before ocean power can become a mainstream renewable energy source.

The organization, in particular, emphasizes the need for significant cost reductions required for ocean energy technologies to compete successfully with other low-carbon technologies. The European target is to get tidal stream energy down to €0.10 per kilowatt-hour and wave power down to €0.15 by 2030, which would also make them competitive with fossil fuels if these traditional sources were obliged to pay for capture and storage of the carbon dioxide they generate

Ocean power benefits

Ocean power comes with some distinct advantages.

First off, it’s clean and compact, featuring higher energy density than either solar and wind projects. For instance, Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station in South Korea, the world’s largest tidal project with an installed capacity of 254MW, was easily added to a 12.5km-long seawall that was built in 1994 to protect the coast against flooding. Compare that to the 781.5MW Roscoe wind farm in Texas, which takes up 400km2 of farmland, or the 150MW-Fowler Ridge wind project in Indiana that sits on a 202.3km2 parcel of land.Related: Iran’s Geopolitical Powerplay Continues With Iraqi Oil Deals

Even solar farms are usually bigger, such as the Bhadla Industrial Solar Park in Rajasthan, India, that is spread across 45km2 of land or the Tengger Desert Solar Park in China that covers 43km2. This means that even smaller countries with long enough stretches of coastline can use tidal power to compete with bigger, land-rich countries such as the United States, China, and India that can afford to dedicate large tracts of land for solar and wind projects.

Unfortunately, only Scotland currently generates any meaningful amounts of ocean power. 

Scotland has enormous natural potential thanks to its impressive archipelago of islands with heavy tidal currents that can be easily tapped. Located in the Northern territory of the U.K., the nation now boasts the largest tidal array of underwater turbines in the world. Scotland’s tidal turbines have even exceeded expectations, with the MeyGen company now planning to vastly increase the number of installations.

Other leading countries developing ocean power technologies are Canada and the United Kingdom, both endowed with some of the highest tides anywhere in the world. Canada has a number of tidal energy schemes along its Atlantic coast, primarily in Nova Scotia, where scores of competing companies are testing various prototypes. The U.K. has more than 20 of these projects in the pipeline, some still in the research and development stage, but many in the process of being scaled up for deployment.

Meanwhile, China encourages tidal stream energy by offering a generous feed-in tariff 3x the price of fossil fuels. That’s similar to the rate deployed by countries that are trying to launch solar and wind power. The incentive is high enough that one Chinese company is already feeding ocean power into the main grid profitably.

As for the United States, the EIA says that the country lacks an abundance of suitable sites to harness ocean power and will have to be content with other low-carbon technologies such as solar, wind, and biofuels, where it has better competitive advantage.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

Nova Scotia's first in-stream tidal turbine starts producing power

The Maritime province's two-megawatt turbine is now connected to the power grid



Left: An illustration of Cape Sharp Tidal's in-stream tidal turbine, which was deployed in the Bay of Fundy on Nov. 7 and was connected to the grid today. Right: Map showing location of the Fundy Ocean Research Centre (FORCE). (Illustration: Tyana Awada/Canadian Geographic; Map: ©2016 Google)

By Michela Rosano
November 22, 2016


Nova Scotians are about to receive a flicker of power from North America's first in-stream tidal turbine. On Nov. 7 Cape Sharp Tidal, a partnership between Emera and OpenHydro/DCNS, deployed the first of two 1,000-tonne two-megawatt turbines at the Fundy Ocean Research Centre (FORCE) in the Bay of Fundy’s Minas Passage and today, it was connected to Nova Scotia Power’s transmission system. The turbine will help power 500 homes.

A second 16-metre turbine will be lowered into the surging tides in 2017 and complete the first phase of a commercial-scale tidal energy project at FORCE, which aims to produce up to 300MW of power in the 2020s.

FORCE is a non-profit organization that provides a testing site for tidal technology in four underwater, 200-metre-wide berths (the only sea floor in Fundy with a Crown lease for energy development), and doubles as a research institute with an environmental watchdog mandate.

These infographics, adapted from a larger piece that appeared in Canadian Geographic’s July/August 2015 issue, depict the four tidal-power prototypes (including the Cape Sharp Tidal turbine) that had been signed up for testing at FORCE at the time of the magazine's publication, and where they were set to be deployed. 




(Illustrations: Tyana Awada/Canadian Geographic; Maps: Chris Brackley/Canadian Geographic)

Water Is Being Traded on the Stock Market for the First Time

Some say trading water as a commodity could help mitigate future water crises, but others are highly skeptical


Drew Costley

THE COLOR OF CLIMATE

Photo illustration, sources via Getty: Abstract Aerial Art/DigitalVision; Marnie Griffiths/Moment; Creativ Studio Heinemann

This is The Color of Climate, a weekly column from Future Human exploring how climate change and other environmental issues uniquely impact the future of communities of color.

In 2016, California experienced one of the worst droughts in the history of the state. Over 100 million trees died and billions of dollars in agriculture were lost. Farmers across the state were stuck between a rock and dry place: They needed more water for their crops, but the price of water was higher and more uncertain because of the drought.

Now, despite a powerful recent winter storm that brought rain and snow to California, the state is once again experiencing some form of drought. This is a recurring and growing problem for local farmers, especially in Southern California, as the historically dry state becomes even drier as a result of climate change. And in December 2020, to address the dire need for water, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange recently made a historical move: For the first time, it allowed investors to trade water as a commodity on the stock market. Some say trading water as a commodity will partially help improve California’s water crisis, but others are highly skeptical of the move.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange partnered with two companies — WestWater Research, a consulting firm that generates the pricing data used for the market, and Nasdaq — to make this possible. These companies say the move will help farmers and water districts in Southern California have more price certainty during dry periods and could help mitigate the state’s water scarcity problem.

“This isn’t going to solve any water problems. This isn’t going to produce more water.”

California previously divided its water supply through “water rights.” Whoever holds the rights to the water in a certain location can pump it from the state’s ground and reservoirs. Districts with surplus water supply can sell their water rights to other districts in need. The problem is that during dry years, water is more expensive for the farmers who need it the most, and there is uncertainty in terms of the supply of water in the state at any given time (and how much it will cost) because of how dry the state gets.

The creators of the new exchange hope that it will bring more price transparency to the state’s water market by creating price points in the future that investors can bet on.

Now, with the new exchange, districts that are paying for extra water in a dry year can bet on futures contracts — agreements between buyers and sellers to trade something at a predetermined price and at a specific time — to offset the price of water rights in the future.

“We’re bringing first and foremost more marketing information or price transparency into the market that alone should help drive a lot of efficiency around how people make decisions about how much water they need, or how much water they may make available for others to use,” Clay Landry, managing director at WestWater Research, tells Future Human.

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futurehuman.medium.com


The futures contracts will help Californians “manage the financial risk of droughts,” wrote Ellen Hanak, an economist and director of the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center, in a guest commentary for the Sacramento-based nonprofit newsroom CalMatters.

“By compensating those with long-standing water rights for moving water to activities and places where the lack of water will be more costly, trading encourages partnerships and cooperation in the sustainable management of this vital resource,” she wrote.

Others have mixed feelings about the exchange. Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, a water research institute based in Oakland, California, tells Future Human he’s “concerned” about the possibility of investors betting on the scarcity of water in an already dry state.

“This isn’t going to solve any water problems. This isn’t going to produce more water,” Gleick says. “It’s a financial tool to hedge changes in the price of water, which might provide a little bit of an economic benefit to certain well-water users.”

Basav Sen, climate justice project director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, told Earther that he was “horrified” when he first read about the exchange.

“What this represents is a cynical attempt at setting up what’s almost like a betting casino so some people can make money from others suffering,” Sen told Earther.

Landry, however, says that a “people versus the market” narrative is false. “I don’t think anyone wants people in our society to go without water,” he says.

In her guest commentary for CalMatters, Hanak acknowledged and addressed the fear that many Californians have about the new exchange but said investor involvement in the state’s water market won’t change the amount of water that’s available in California or its price. “Crucially,” she wrote, “the futures market won’t disrupt protections already in place to ensure actual water trades are done responsibly.”

Although there is a lot of disagreement about the potential benefits and perils of the exchange, there is agreement that the immediate impact of it will be small. On the day Landry spoke to Future Human, he said there had been seven trades on the exchange, and that it hasn’t been very active since its inception. Still, with California looking like it’s headed for another drought, it should be interesting to see how activity on the exchange picks up.

California isn’t the only state experiencing water scarcity that could end up trying this strategy to help with the issue. Landry says WestWater is looking at areas with “similar geographies” to California, like Arizona, Colorado, and Washington, to set up potential exchanges in the future.

The fear of commoditizing water has been covered for decades now in documentaries, by environmental justice activists, and even through films like Mad Max. As Landry tells Future Human, It’s a “messy and complicated situation” about a resource that everyone needs, which warrants innovations like water futures. But we should keep an eye on this going forward to make sure investors aren’t taking advantage of the system.

Biden says Trump ‘did not do his job’ on coronavirus vaccination program, urges patience

By Reuters• 12 February 2021

BETHESDA, Md., Feb 11 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday said the coronavirus vaccination program he inherited from Donald Trump was in "much worse shape" than he had expected, while urging patience and also announcing the government has bought 200 million more doses

“We’re not going to have everything fixed for a while, but we’re going to fix it,” Biden said in remarks at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

With demand for the vaccine far outstripping supply, Americans are struggling to get appointments for their inoculations, leaving Biden with an acute problem less than a month after taking over from Trump.

Biden said Trump, who spent his last two months in office in a futile effort to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election that he lost, did not order enough vaccine and did not do enough to get people lined up to get vaccinated.

He said the vaccine program he inherited was in “much worse shape” than he had anticipated and that his transition team had been misled about the vaccine supply.

“While scientists did their job in discovering vaccines in record time, my predecessor – I’ll be very blunt about it – did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions,” Biden said.

Brian Morgenstern, a former White House official involved with the coronavirus effort, said the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program had prepared plans well in advance, aided by many career officials still serving in government. “That is why the new Administration’s goals were being surpassed before they even came into office. Enough with the lies, excuses & political pot shots. Time to lead,” he said.(WARP SPEED WAS FOR R&D FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT ONLY)

Trump had expressed pride in the speed of the vaccine development on his watch.

Biden said the U.S. coronavirus death toll is likely to reach 500,000 next month. He urged Americans to wear masks to prevent the spread.

“We’ve now purchased enough vaccine to vaccinate all Americans,” Biden said.

He said the U.S. government has signed contracts for 100 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and 100 million more from Pfizer to help reach the target.

“We appreciate the confidence that the U.S. government has demonstrated in our COVID-19 Vaccine,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a press release.

Pfizer spokeswoman Sharon Castillo confirmed that it and BioNTech had reached a deal with the U.S. government.

“We will deliver 100 million doses by the end of March, a total of 200 million doses by the end of May, and the full 300 million doses by the end of July,” she said.

The new vaccine orders, in addition to 400 million doses previously contracted, would allow the United States to vaccinate a total of 300 million people by July 31 using doses from the two vaccines authorized.

That would be enough to vaccinate most people in the 330 million population who want it, given that the two vaccines are not authorized for children and that many people have said they don’t want shots.

In addition, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate is likely to be authorized later this month, and the company expects to supply 100 million doses of its single-shot vaccine to the United States by the middle of the year.

(Reporting by Alexandra Alper, additional reporting by Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal, Michael Erman and Peter Henderson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Grant McCool)

RIP

American jazz musician Chick Corea dies of cancer

The 23-time Grammy winner Chick Corea died of a rare form of cancer, according to a Facebook post shared by his team. He was part of Miles Davis' band and later formed his own group.

    

Corea died at the age of 79 due to a rare form of cancer

American jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea died of cancer at age 79, according to a post on his Facebook page. 

The post said Corea passed away due to a rare form of cancer, which was only recently discovered.

"I want to thank all of those along my journey who have helped keep the music fires burning bright. It is my hope that those who have an inkling to play, write, perform or otherwise, do so. If not for yourself then for the rest of us. It’s not only that the world needs more artists, it’s also just a lot of fun," he said in a message prior to his death, which was shared in the Facebook post. 

23-time Grammy winner

The 23-time Grammy award winner was best known for his compositions such as  "Spain," "500 Miles High," "La Fiesta," "Armando's Rhumba" and "Windows." He was known to push the boundaries of the genre, and worked alongside other jazz legends such as Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock.

Corea was part of Miles Davis' group from 1968. He replaced Hancock, and played on landmark albums such as "In a Silent Way'' and "Bitches Brew.''

He later formed his own group, Circle, and Return to Forever. Throughout his career, he worked on many collaborative projects, including those with Hancock and Gary Burton. He also performed classical music, standards, solo originals, Latin jazz and tributes to great jazz pianists.

Corea has the most jazz Grammy nominations in the show's history. He has also been nominated for best improvised jazz solo for "All Blues" and best jazz instrumental album for "Trilogy 2," for the awards that will be held in March this year. 

tg/sms (AP, AFP)

China Finalizes Internet Antitrust Rules in Just Three Months

(Bloomberg) -- China finalized rules to root out monopolistic practices in the internet industry just three months after unveiling the draft guidelines, underscoring the urgency of a campaign to rein in its tech giants.

The rules, aimed at curbing anti-competitive behavior such as sharing sensitive consumer data, forming alliances that squeeze out smaller rivals and subsidizing below-cost services to eliminate competitors, take effect immediately, according to a statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation. The antitrust watchdog had first sought feedback on the draft legislation in November, sparking a sell-off in the tech industry.

The speedy formalization of the rules compare with a previous antitrust law governing the automobile sector that took years to finalize. China’s Politburo, the top decision-making body of the Communist Party, vowed in a meeting at the end of last year to strengthen anti-monopoly efforts in 2021. Less than two weeks later, Beijing kicked off an investigation into Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. for alleged anti-competitive practices.

“The three-month period is considered a fast process, indicating Beijing’s commitment to clamp down on monopolistic practices,” said Scott Yu, an antitrust lawyer with Beijing-based Zhong Lun Law Firm.

Suspected monopolistic behaviors in the platform economy have emerged in recent years in which the strong get stronger, SAMR said a statement. Law enforcement agencies globally have taken steps to step up oversight of tech companies, especially the largest internet giants. China is implementing the antitrust rules to create a fair and competitive market environment, they added.

Read More: China Clampdown on Big Tech Puts More Billionaires on Notice

Alibaba Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang told analysts last week the firm has set up a taskforce to conduct internal reviews and is actively communicating with regulators on complying with their requirements as investigations continue. The probe, along with the aborted initial public offering and forced restructuring of affiliate Ant Group Co., has wiped roughly $130 billion off the market value of Jack Ma’s flagship e-commerce company. The stock was little changed in Hong Kong trading Monday.

While Alibaba has been the most high-profile target, other companies have also come under fire. Discount retailer Vipshop Holdings Ltd. was fined 3 million yuan ($464,000) for unfair competition, SAMR said Monday. In December, regulators also handed Alibaba and Tencent Holdings Ltd.-affiliate China Literature Ltd. a 500,000 yuan fine each over a pair of years-old acquisitions and said it’s reviewing an impending Tencent-led merger of DouYu International Holdings Ltd. and Huya Inc.

ByteDance Ltd. last week sued Tencent over alleged monopolies in its WeChat and QQ platforms, escalating a feud between two giants of Chinese social media. A court in Beijing has agreed to hear the case, a ByteDance representative confirmed on Sunday.

(Updates with comment in fourth paragraph and context throughout.)

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

South Korea celebrity suicides put spotlight on gender inequality

The recent death of a young actress has triggered a debate about gender inequality and increasing societal pressures facing young women in South Korea.




Over 4,000 South Korean women took their own lives in 2019, including young female K-pop artists Goo Hara and Sulli

Young actress-model Song Yoo-jung had enjoyed a successful career before a recent downturn in work and prospects. On January 23, she died suddenly. Initial media reports suggested she took her own life. If true, she would be the latest in a series of young South Korean female entertainers to die by suicide.

In addition to uncovering the mental health challenges facing those in the spotlight, it shows the alarming trend of suicides among young women in a country already grappling with a high suicide rate.

Actress Oh In-hye, 36, took her life last September. Singer Sulli, followed by her celebrity friend Goo Hara, ended their own lives months apart in late 2019. Male celebrities have also died by suicide in recent years, most notably Kim Jong-hyun from the group SHINee in December 2017.

The reasons behind this disturbing development are many. For Song and Oh, it may have been most connected to the waning of their careers. For Sulli and Goo Hara, more related to the stress of lives in the public eye.

Sulli had stepped out of the carefully corporate-crafted mold of K-pop idolatry to expose South Korea's societal Achilles' heel — gender inequality. After joining a feminist group advocating women not to wear bras, she was bombarded by online trolls, which many suggested contributed to her vulnerability.

Song Yoo-jung's death has triggered a debate about gender inequality in South Korea

Mental health under stress

For the last ten years, the suicide rate of young South Korean women has been increasing by roughly 5% per year. Overall, South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) club of advanced industrial nations, with about 14,000 people taking their own lives in 2018. Although men still die by suicide more often than women, by about 2 to 1, more women attempt suicide.

Several factors drive the phenomenon: poverty, unemployment, gender inequality and gender-based violence, generational conflict, single-person households, poor parenting, inadequate social welfare, and perhaps — above all — competition, Jang Soong-nang, a researcher of social epidemiology at the Chung-ang University, told DW.

When it comes to suicide among celebrities, Jang explains that social media plays a role. Everything celebrities do and say is revealed, manipulated, critiqued and sometimes — driven by identity politics — shown hate.

The increase in suicide is not due to the so-called Werther effect, Jang said, arguing that it's not a copycat trend. What is seen in South Korea is an ongoing increase in female suicides, with numerous interrelated causes, the expert pointed out.


K-POP: THE SCANDALS AND TRAGEDIES OF 2019
More and more deaths
Cha In-ha, a popular South Korean actor-singer, was found dead at his home on December 3, 2019. A police official told media that the cause of Cha's death was not immediately known. The 27-year-old celebrity made his film debut in 2017 and was part of the Surprise U band, which released two albums. There were no reports to suggest that Cha had been a target of personal attacks or cyberbullying. PHOTOS 123456

'There is endless competition'

After the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korea enjoyed rapid economic development, but the so-called Miracle on the Han River did not happen without great sacrifice.

That ideal of sacrifice, coupled with classicism, ageism, and patriarchy in society, creates an insurmountable obstacle for the modern, perhaps ambitious, unconventional young woman.

The way to success is seen as paved by education, dependent on the brand of the institute attended, like the "SKY" universities. For graduates of Seoul National, Korea and Yonsei Universities, doors open. For others, it's more of a struggle.

"There is endless competition. They are just enduring life day-to-day. Staying alive itself is very tough, it's a suffering, and the only happiness they feel is in very minor things like eating something delicious," Jang said. "As for everything else in life, things are unbearable, tough, and competitive." And when they get out of university, the patriarchal nature of South Korea's working culture can be oppressive.


Everything celebrities do and say is revealed, manipulated, critiqued and sometimes — driven by identity politics — shown hate, said Jang
Pandemic hits young women hard

Now, young people in South Korea also confront the effects of COVID-19. In the first half of 2020, when the pandemic struck the country, there was a 30% spike in young female suicides. The societal consequences of the health crisis have weighed more heavily on young women here.

South Korea has fared relatively well economically since the onset of the pandemic, with GDP declining by just 1%. The modest decline was partly due to the nation's export-driven economy, which offers little comfort to the hardships faced by those in low-end, temporary and service jobs, predominantly women, said Jang.

Prior to the health emergency, the youth jobless rate stood at about 20%, now it's roughly 25%, say government statistics.

Strengthening suicide prevention is not enough, argued Jang. The problems driving people to take their own lives here stem from deep-rooted societal inequalities, she said. "These require mid- to long-term solutions … employment and economic support for youth in their 20s and 30s, and much more support for young families with children."

If you are suffering from emotional strain or suicidal thoughts, do not hesitate to seek professional help. You can find information on where to find such help, no matter where you live in the world, at this website: https://www.befrienders.org/

Germany sees spike in anti-Semitic crimes — reports

The Central Council of Jews in Germany blames coronavirus conspiracy theorists for the recent rise in anti-Semitic hate crime.

According to the data collated by the German police, the vast majority of anti-Semitic hate crimes came from the far-right. Cases involving Islamists, left-wingers and others were just a small minority.


Anti-Semitic attacks and hate crime have been increasing in recent years, including the deadly attack outside a Synagogue in Halle in 2019

The number of registered anti-Semitic hate crimes in Germany hit a new upward trend in 2020, according to figures released by the German government and seen on Thursday by the Tagesspiegel newspaper and the Evangelische Pressedienst news agency.

The authorities have logged at least 2,275 crimes with an anti-Semitic background until the end of January 2021. Some 55 of those were acts of violence.

Only five suspects were detained by the authorities, despite police investigating 1,367 cases- No arrest warrants have been issued.

Watch video 00:32 Charlotte Knobloch: Anti-Semitism has become socially acceptable again

This is the highest number of anti-Semitic hate crimes since German police started collecting data on "politically motivated criminality" in 2001. The preliminary numbers were released upon the request of Left party member and Bundestag Vice-President Petra Pau. The tally could rise further as various states give updates on their crime statistics.

The number of anti-Semitic hate crimes in Germany has been steadily growing from 1,799 recorded in 2018, to 2,032 in 2019.
How did the Jewish community react?

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, saw the root of the problem in the spread of conspiracy theories and coronavirus skepticism.

"In view of the numerous anti-Semitic incidents at the coronavirus-denier protests last year and the conspiracy myths online, it was, unfortunately, to be expected that the number of anti-Semitic crimes would rise again," he told the Tagesspiegel.

Schuster said that the spike in hate crime showed that "the radicalization of society is progressing and respect for minorities is declining."

He called for the anti-Semitic developments to be stopped "especially in the upcoming elections."

Watch video00:40 Trailer: Young, German and Jewish

Germany must 'stand together' against anti-Semitism

The federal government's Anti-Semitism Commissioner Felix Klein told the paper that the new figures "must be a warning to us."

The increase in criminal acts is "a clear sign that democracy must show itself to be defensible, especially in crises like the ongoing pandemic."

The commissioner said that social cohesion "is measured, especially here in Germany, by how firmly we stand together against hatred of Jews."

According to the data collated by the German police, the vast majority of anti-Semitic hate crimes came from the far-right. Cases involving Islamists, left-wingers and others were just a small minority.

A Previously Unseen Chemical Reaction Has Been Detected on Mars

The giant Martian sandstorm of 2018 wasn't just a wild ride - it also gave us a previously undetected gas in the planet's atmosphere. For the first time, the ExoMars orbiter sampled traces of hydrogen chloride, composed of a hydrogen and a chlorine atom.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech

This gas presents Mars scientists with a new mystery to solve: how it got there.

"We've discovered hydrogen chloride for the first time on Mars," said physicist Kevin Olsen of the University of Oxford in the UK.

"This is the first detection of a halogen gas in the atmosphere of Mars, and represents a new chemical cycle to understand."

Scientists have been keeping an eye out for gases that contain chlorine in the atmosphere of Mars, since they could confirm that the planet is volcanically active. However, if hydrogen chloride was produced by volcanic activity, it should only spike very regionally, and be accompanied by other volcanic gases.

The hydrogen chloride detected by ExoMars did not, and was not. It was sniffed out in both the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars during the dust storm, and the absence of other volcanic gases was glaring.

This suggests that the gas was being produced by some other process; luckily, we have similar processes here on Earth that can help us understand what it could be.

It's a several-step process that requires a few key ingredients. First, you need sodium chloride (that's regular salt), left over from evaporative processes. There's plenty of that on Mars, thought to be the remnants of ancient salt lakes. When a dust storm stirs up the surface, the sodium chloride gets kicked up into the atmosphere.

Then there's the Martian polar ice caps which, when warmed during the summer, sublimate. When the resulting water vapour mingles with the salt, the resulting reaction releases chlorine, which then reacts further to form hydrogen chloride.




1/1 SLIDES © Provided by ScienceAlert
How hydrogen chloride may be created on Mars pillars
Graphic showing the potentially new chemistry cycle detected on Mars. (ESA)


"You need water vapour to free chlorine and you need the by-products of water - hydrogen ­- to form hydrogen chloride. Water is critical in this chemistry," Olsen said.

"We also observe a correlation to dust: we see more hydrogen chloride when dust activity ramps up, a process linked to the seasonal heating of the southern hemisphere."

This model is supported by a detection of hydrogen chloride during the following 2019 dusty season, which the team is still analysing.

However, confirmation is still pending. Future and ongoing observations will help put together a more comprehensive picture of the process's cycles.

Meanwhile, laboratory experiments, modelling and simulations will help scientists rule out or confirm potential mechanisms behind the release of hydrogen chloride in the Martian atmosphere.

The research has been published in Science Advances.

Smoking gun of rare "zombie star" supernova discovered in Milky Way
By Michael Irving
February 09, 2021

Chandra X-ray image of Sagittarius A East, which may turn out to be a rare Type Iax supernova – the first observed in the Milky Way
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Nanjing Univ./P. Zhou et al. Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA

Astronomers have identified the remains of a rare type of supernova in our home galaxy for the first time. These events, known as Type Iax supernovae, occur when white dwarfs explode and may leave behind a “zombie star.”

Not all supernovae are created equal. Some occur when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse into a neutron star or black hole. Others are produced by white dwarf stars that slurp too much material off a companion star, triggering runaway nuclear fusion. The latter is known as a Type Ia supernova, and the brightness they emit is so consistent that they’ve been dubbed “standard candles” and used as yardsticks to measure distance in the cosmos.

A rare subgroup of these is what’s called Type Iax, which appear to occur under similar circumstances but throw off material at a slower speed and don’t shine as bright. Only about 30 of these are currently known and, most intriguingly, they’ve been hypothesized to leave behind an unexploded remnant nicknamed a zombie star.

And now, astronomers may have discovered the smoking gun of one of these Type Iax supernovae in the Milky Way, for the first time. The object in question is named Sagittarius A East (Sgr A East), and located close to the center of the galaxy near the similarly-named supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.


An annotated image of Sagittarius A East, showing the supernova remnant and its proximity to the supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Nanjing Univ./P. Zhou et al. Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA

Sgr A East has appeared as a cloud-like shape on images of the region for decades, with astronomers mostly assuming it to be a run-of-the-mill supernova remnant, or perhaps a Type Ia. But for the new study, researchers used the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to watch the object for 35 days, and found that it’s probably a Type Iax.

“While we’ve found Type Iax supernovae in other galaxies, we haven’t identified evidence for one in the Milky Way until now,” says Ping Zhou, lead author of the study. “This discovery is important for getting a handle of the myriad ways white dwarfs explode.”

The team came to this conclusion by studying Sgr A East’s X-ray spectrum, which can reveal the fingerprints of elements produced in the explosion, and in what amounts they occur. From this, the researchers came to the conclusion that the blast was weaker than most, in line with a Type Iax supernova.

“This supernova remnant is in the background of many Chandra images of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole taken over the last 20 years,” says Zhiyuan Li, an author of the study. “We finally may have worked out what this object is and how it came to be.”

If its identity is confirmed, the team says this would be the closest known Type Iax supernova to Earth – and possibly, the nearest zombie star, too.

The research was published in the Astrophysical Journal. The work is described in the video below.

Mystery of gamma radiation solved: Hidden cannibal star is just having dinner

The mystery at the heart of an unexplained, bright point of gamma-ray light in the sky has been solved: There's a deadly spider star flaying a second, wimpier star to bits, sending out rapid-fire bursts of gamma radiation in the process

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An illustration shows the orbits of PSR J2039-5617 and its companion.

"Black widows" and "redbacks" in astronomy, as Live Science previously reported, are species of neutron stars — the ultradense remnant cores of giant stars that exploded. Some neutron stars, called pulsars, rotate at regular intervals, flashing like lighthouses. The fastest-spinning among them are millisecond pulsars. When a millisecond pulsar is locked in a rare, tight orbit with a lightweight star, it slowly shreds its partner to bits with each rotation. These binary cannibals are known as black widow or redback stars. Now, with the help of citizen scientists, a team of researchers has revealed a new redback at the heart of a bright system known as PSR J2039–5617.

Related: 15 unforgettable images of stars

Since its discovery in 2014, researchers have suspected that PSR J2039–5617 contained a millisecond pulsar and a second star. The bright source of X-rays, gamma rays and visible light closely matched the expected traits of such a system. But proving it required scads of telescope data and more number-crunching than a typical desktop computer could do in a century.

To prove that the star system was indeed a redback, the researchers leaned on the computing power of Einstein@Home — a project of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Germany's Max Planck Institute where more than 500,000 volunteers let their idle computers work together on complex astronomy problems.

In two months, the researchers revealed that PSR J2039–5617 houses a deadly redback, heating up one side of its companion star so that side appears brighter and bluer. The redback’s massive gravity also warps its companion's shape, causing "the apparent size of the star to vary over the orbit," lead author Colin Clark, a University of Manchester astronomer, said in a statement,

The redback's radio emissions also sometimes get eclipsed by material blown off the surface of the companion star. All those features of the complex system produce strange, varying light patterns, described in a paper set to be published in March (and available online now) in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Originally published on Live Science.