ONE OF THE 3  R's; REUSE

One for the road: Glenfiddich uses whisky waste to fuel trucks
By Nick Carey

© Reuters/WILLIAM GRANT & SONS Glenfiddich biogas truck in Dufftown

LONDON (Reuters) - Scotch whisky maker Glenfiddich has begun converting its delivery trucks to run on low-emission biogas made from waste products from its own whisky distilling process as part of a "closed loop" sustainability initiative, it said on Tuesday.

Glenfiddich said it has installed fueling stations at its Dufftown distillery in north-eastern Scotland that use technology developed by its parent company William Grant & Sons to convert its production waste and residues into an Ultra-Low Carbon Fuel (ULCF) gas that produces minimal carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions.

Stuart Watts, distillery director at family-owned William Grant & Sons, said traditionally Glenfiddich has sold off spent grains left over from the malting process to be used for a high-protein cattle feed.

But through anaerobic digestion - where bacteria break down organic matter producing biogas - the distillery can also use liquid waste from the process to make fuel and eventually recycle all of its waste products this way.

"The thought process behind this was 'what can we do that's better for us all?'," Watts said.

The distiller, which sells more than 14 million bottles of single malt whisky a year, said its whisky waste-based biogas is already powering three specially-converted trucks that transport Glenfiddich spirit from production at Dufftown through to bottling and packaging, covering four William Grant & Sons sites in central and western Scotland.

Sixteenth century English chronicler Raphael Holinshed wrote that, consumed moderately, whisky's many medicinal benefits include preventing the "head from whirling, the tongue from lisping ... the hands from shivering, the bones from aching."

But it turns out its waste products could also benefit the environment.

The distiller said the biogas cuts CO2 emissions by over 95% compared to diesel and other fossil fuels, and reduces other harmful particulates and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 99%.

Each truck will displace up to 250 tonnes of CO2 annually, Glenfiddich said.

The trucks Glenfiddich is using are converted vehicles from truckmaker Iveco that normally run on liquefied natural gas.

Watts said Glenfiddich had a fleet of around 20 trucks and the technology could be applied throughout the delivery fleets of William Grant & Sons' whisky brands and could be scaled up to fuel other company's trucks.

The Scottish whisky industry hopes to hit carbon net zero targets by 2040.

(Reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Mark Potter)

ECOCIDE

Explosion at chemical complex shakes German city

A dark cloud of smoke rises into the air in Leverkusen, Germany (Mirko Wolf/dpa via AP)

TUE, 27 JUL, 2021 - 11:13
ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTERS

An explosion at an industrial park for chemical companies shook the German city of Leverkusen on Tuesday, sending a large black cloud rising into the air.

Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance classified the explosion as “an extreme threat” and asked residents to stay inside and keep windows and doors closed, German news agency dpa reported.


Operators of the Chempark site in Leverkusen, about 13 miles north of Cologne on the Rhine river, said the cause of the explosion was unclear.

They said on Twitter that firefighters and pollution detection vans had been deployed.

A dark cloud of smoke rises above the Chempark in Leverkusen, Germany (Oliver Berg/dpa via AP)

Police in nearby Cologne said they did not have any information on the cause or size of the explosion and were not aware of any injuries at this point, but that a large number of police and ambulances had been deployed to the scene.

They asked all residents to stay inside and warned people from outside of Leverkusen to avoid the region.

They also shut down several nearby major roads.

Daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger reported that the explosion took place in the Buerrig neighbourhood at a rubbish incineration plant of the chemical park.

The paper reported that the smoke cloud was moving in a north-western direction toward the towns of Burscheid and Leichlingen.

It said firefighters from all over the region had been called in to help extinguish the fire.

Hong Kong waiter convicted of terrorism in security laws’ first verdict

July 27, 2021 —

Hong Kong: The first person to be tried under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law was found guilty of secessionism and terrorism on Tuesday.

The Hong Kong High Court handed down the verdict in the case of Tong Ying-kit, age 24, whose trial ended July 20, with the verdict being closely watched for indications as to how similar cases will be dealt with in future.

More than 100 people have been arrested under the security legislation.

In this July 6, 2020, file photo, Tong Ying-kit arrives at a court in a police van in Hong Kong .CREDIT:AP

Tong is accused of driving his motorcycle into a group of police officers while carrying a flag bearing the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” on July 1 last year, a day after Beijing imposed sweeping national security legislation on Hong Kong following months of anti-government protests in 2019.



Tong pleaded not guilty to charges of inciting secession, terrorism and an alternative charge of dangerous driving. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The trial was held in the High Court with no jury, under rules allowing this exception from Hong Kong’s common law system if state secrets need to be protected, foreign forces are involved or if the personal safety of jurors needs to be protected. Trials are presided over by judges handpicked by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam.

Tong’s defence lawyer has said it’s impossible to prove that Tong was inciting secession merely by having used the slogan.

Protesters, police at Hong Kong subversion hearing

Protest slogans rang out as about 1,000 people gathered outside a Hong Kong court on Monday for the hearing of 47 democracy activists charged with conspiracy to commit subversion, as authorities intensify a crackdown on the opposition.

The defence also said there is no evidence that Tong committed the act deliberately, that he avoided crashing into officers and that his actions couldn’t be considered terrorism since there was no serious violence or harm to society.
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While Hong Kong has its own Legislative Council, Beijing’s ceremonial legislature imposed the national security law on the semiautonomous city after it determined the body was unable to pass the legislation itself because of political opposition.

That followed the increasingly violent 2019 protests against China’s growing influence over the city’s affairs, despite commitments to allow the city to maintain its own system for 50 years after the 1997 handover from British rule.

China’s legislature has mandated changes to the makeup of the city’s Legislative Council to ensure an overwhelming pro-Beijing majority, and required that only those it determines “patriots” can hold office.

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Authorities have banned the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” stating that it has secessionist connotations. Library books and school curricula have also been investigated for alleged secessionist messages.

During the trial, one of the prosecution’s witnesses, Lau Chi-pang, a professor of Chinese history at Lingnan University, said the Chinese definitions of “liberate” and “revolution” established more than 1,000 years ago suggested a desire to overthrow the government.

Defence witnesses testified that the slogan had several meanings. Tong’s defence said in its closing argument that the slogan was “too vague” to incite secession.

Hong Kong officials say the legislation targets only an “extremely small minority,” but human rights groups and foreign governments say it is being wielded to erode political freedoms.

Hong Kong’s last remaining pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, was forced out of business last month and a court denied bail for four editors and journalists held on charges of endangering national security as part of the widening crackdown.

Beijing has dismissed criticisms, saying it is merely restoring order to the city and instituting they same type of national security protections found in other countries.


AP, Bloomberg

Guilty verdict in first trial under Hong Kong security law



THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JULY 27, 2021 

HONG KONG

The first person to be tried under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law was found guilty of secessionism and terrorism on Tuesday.

The Hong Kong High Court handed down the verdict in the case of Tong Ying-kit, age 24. He's accused of driving his motorcycle into a group of police officers while carrying a flag bearing the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” on July 1 last year, a day after Beijing imposed sweeping national security legislation on Hong Kong following months of anti-government protests in 2019.

The verdict was closely watched for indications as to how similar cases will be dealt with in future. More than 100 people have been arrested under the security legislation.


Tong pleaded not guilty to charges of inciting secession, terrorism and an alternative charge of dangerous driving. He faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if found guilty.

The trial, which ended July 20, was held in the High Court with no jury, under rules allowing this exception from Hong Kong's common law system if state secrets need to be protected, foreign forces are involved or if the personal safety of jurors needs to be protected. Trials are presided over by judges handpicked by Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam.

Tong’s defense lawyer has said it’s impossible to prove that Tong was inciting secession merely by having used the slogan.

The defense also said there is no evidence that Tong committed the act deliberately, that he avoided crashing into officers and that his actions couldn’t be considered terrorism since there was no serious violence or harm to society.

While Hong Kong has its own Legislative Council, Beijing's ceremonial legislature imposed the national security law on the semiautonomous city after it determined the body was unable to pass the legislation itself because of political opposition.

That followed the increasingly violent 2019 protests against China’s growing influence over the city's affairs, despite commitments to allow the city to maintain its own system for 50 years after the 1997 handover from British rule.

China's legislature has mandated changes to the makeup of the city's Legislative Council to ensure an overwhelming pro-Beijing majority, and required that only those it determines “patriots" can hold office.

Authorities have banned the protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” stating that it has secessionist connotations. Library books and school curricula have also been investigated for alleged secessionist messages.

Hong Kong's last remaining pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, was forced out of business last month and a court denied bail for four editors and journalists held on charges of endangering national security as part of the widening crackdown.

Beijing has dismissed criticisms, saying it is merely restoring order to the city and instituting they same type of national security protections found in other countries.

Hong Kong national security law: First person to stand trial found guilty of secession, terrorism

JULY 27, 2021

By BRIAN WONGS

OUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Leon Tong was accused of ramming his motorcycle into three police officers while flying a banner calling for Hong Kong’s ‘liberation’.
Pexels

The first person to stand trial under the national security law faces life in prison after three judges selected by Hong Kong’s leader found him guilty of secession and terrorism for ramming his motorcycle into a group of police officers while carrying a flag that called for the city’s liberation last year.

The three-judge panel at the High Court on Tuesday held that Leon Tong Ying Kit had incited separatism by displaying the signature rallying call of the 2019 demonstrations , “Liberate Hong Kong; revolution of our times”, when he roamed the streets during a July 1 in Wan Chai rally last year.More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.

The 24-year-old former restaurant worker had also caused great harm to society by inflicting grave injuries on three police officers who tried to block him after he ignored repeated warnings to stop, they ruled.

Providing a summary of the panel’s findings, Judge Esther Toh Lye Ping said they were satisfied the slogan was capable of inciting others to commit secession “having regard to the natural and reasonable effect of displaying the flag” and “in the particular circumstances of the case”.

“When the defendant displayed the slogan in the manner he did, he intended to communicate the secessionist meaning of the slogan to others and he intended to incite others to commit secession by separating the [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] from the [People’s Republic of China],” Toh said.

The three judges also found the defendant’s failure to stop at the police check lines, eventually crashing into the three officers, was “a deliberate challenge mounted against the police, a symbol of Hong Kong’s law and order”.

“The defendant’s acts were acts involving serious violence against persons and/or were dangerous activities which seriously jeopardised public safety or security,” Toh continued.

“The defendant’s act had caused grave harm to the society. The defendant carried out those acts with a view to intimidating the public in order to pursue his political agenda. Accordingly, we convict the defendant of both counts.”

Leon Tong leaves his detention facility on his way to an earlier hearing.
PHOTO: South China Morning Post

The ruling came almost 13 months after the security law took effect on June 30 last year.

The prosecution argued in the 15-day trial that Tong intentionally displayed the flag with the disputed slogan in a high-profile fashion to attract media attention that afternoon and encourage others to break the law, which Beijing had imposed only the night before.


Read Also First person charged under Hong Kong's national security law pleads not guilty


Tong also aimed to cause serious harm to society by ramming his way through multiple police roadblocks and causing serious injuries to officers to further his push for the city’s independence, the court was told.

The defence had countered by saying the collision was accidental, and that the rallying cry was ambiguous and did not necessarily carry a political message.

Prosecutor Anthony Chau Tin-hang on Tuesday said the Department of Justice would apply to confiscate Tong’s motorcycle and suspend his driving licence at the next hearing.

Defence counsel Clive Grossman SC, meanwhile, revealed he had “quite a lot of letters from people” who pleaded for leniency on his client’s behalf.

The court will hear mitigation on Thursday.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.

Vaccines Don't Cause Male Infertility or Sexual Dysfunction, But COVID-19 Might

RANJITH RAMASAMY, THE CONVERSATION
27 JULY 2021

Contrary to myths circulating on social media, COVID-19 vaccines do not cause erectile dysfunction and male infertility.

What is true: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, poses a risk for both disorders.

Until now, little research has been done on how the virus or the vaccines affect the male reproductive system. But recent investigations by physicians and researchers here at the University of Miami have shed new light on these questions.

The team, which includes me, has discovered potentially far-reaching implications for men of all ages - including younger and middle-aged men who want to have children.
What the team found

I am the director of the Reproductive Urology Program at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. My colleagues and I analyzed the autopsy tissues of the testicles of six men who died of COVID-19 infection.

The result: COVID-19 virus appeared in the tissues of one of the men; decreased numbers of sperm appeared in three.

Another patient - this one survived COVID-19 - had a testis biopsy about three months after his initial COVID-19 infection cleared up. The biopsy showed the coronavirus was still in his testicles.

Our team also discovered that COVID-19 affects the penis. An analysis of penile tissue from two men receiving penile implants showed the virus was present seven to nine months after their COVID-19 diagnosis. Both men had developed severe erectile dysfunction, probably because the infection caused reduced blood supply to the penis.


Notably, one of the men had only mild COVID-19 symptoms. The other had been hospitalized. This suggests that even those with a relatively light case of the virus can experience severe erectile dysfunction after recovery.

These findings are not entirely surprising. After all, scientists know other viruses invade the testicles and affect sperm production and fertility.

One example: Investigators studying testes tissues from six patients who died from the 2006 SARS-CoV virus found all of them had widespread cell destruction, with few to no sperm.

It is also known that mumps and Zika viruses can enter the testicles and cause inflammation. Up to 20 percent of men infected with these viruses will have impaired sperm production.
A new study on vaccine safety

Additional research by my team brought welcome news. A study of 45 men showed the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines appear safe for the male reproductive system.

This, then, is another reason to get the vaccinations - to preserve male fertility and sexual function.

Granted, the research is only a first step on how COVID-19 might affect male sexual health; the samples were small. Studies should continue.


Still, for men who have had COVID-19 and then experienced testicular pain, it is reasonable to consider that the virus has invaded testes tissue. Erectile dysfunction can be the result. Those men should see a urologist.

I also believe the research presents an urgent public health message to the US regarding the COVID-19 vaccines.

For the millions of American men who remain unvaccinated, you may want to again consider the consequences if and when this highly aggressive virus finds you.

One reason for vaccine hesitancy is the perception among many that COVID-19 shots might affect male fertility. Our research shows the opposite.

There is no evidence the vaccine harms a man's reproductive system. But ignoring the vaccine and contracting COVID-19 very well could.

Ranjith Ramasamy, Associate Professor of Urology, University of Miami.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Drought pushes 2 major U.S. lakes to historic lows

Rebecca Falconer

Kayakers at a boat launch ramp Page, Arizona, on July 3, which was made unusable by record low water levels at Lake Powell as the drought continues to worsen near. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

Two significant U.S. lakes, one of which is a major reservoir, are experiencing historic lows amid a drought that scientists have linked to climate change.

What's happening: Lake Powell, the second largest reservoir in the U.S., has fallen to 3,554 feet in elevation, leaving the crucial lake on the Colorado River, at 33% capacity — the lowest since it was filled over half a century ago, new U.S. Bureau of Reclamation data shows.

Utah's Great Salt Lake, the biggest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, saw levels plunge in the south roughly an inch below the previous record low of 4,191.4ft above sea level, set in 1963, the U.S. Geological Survey announced Saturday.

Wildlife is already suffering from the decline, birds and shrimp in particular.

Threat level: Utah Department of Natural Resources executive director Brian Steed noted in a statement that while the state's lake has been gradually declining for some time, "current drought conditions have accelerated its fall to this new historic low."

USGS Utah Water Science Center data chief Ryan Rowland wrote that based on current trends and historical data, it's anticipated that "water levels may decline an additional foot over the next several months."

A major threat to Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona border line, is that demand for water across seven U.S. and two Mexican states "that rely on the Colorado River has not declined fast enough to match the reduced supply," noted Brad Udall, a climate scientist at Colorado State University, to Cronkite News.

"The hard lesson we're learning about climate change is that it’s not a gradual, slow descent to a new state of affairs," Udall added.

The big picture: Lakes across the country are under strain from a mega-drought.

95% of the West is experiencing drought conditions — and over 28% is facing exceptional drought, according to the U.S. drought monitor.

UK

Labour would give gig economy workers the right to sick pay under its new “workers’ rights charter”.

By Alexander Brown

Tuesday, 27th July 2021, 4:45 am


The party launched its “new deal for working people” on Monday, claiming it would see an additional 6.1 million workers eligible for statutory sick pay.

Labour cited Office for National Statistics figures, which suggest 4.2 million self-employed workers, including gig economy workers, do not currently qualify for statutory sick pay, alongside 1.9 million people who are currently employed, but cannot claim it.

Andy McDonald MP, Labour’s shadow employment rights and protections secretary, said: “Millions of workers are in insecure employment with low pay and few rights and protections, particularly key workers whose efforts got the country through the pandemic.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer and Deputy Leader Angela Rayner during a visit to The Construction Skills Centre in London.

“A lack of basic rights and protections forces working people into poverty and insecurity.

“This is terrible for working people, damaging for the economy and, as we have seen throughout the pandemic, devastating for public health.

“We need a new deal for working people. Labour would ensure that all work balances the flexibility workers want with the security they deserve.”

The plans would see the three separate legal statuses of employment rolled into one status of “worker” and given the same rights.


These further 6.1 million people would then be offered rights including sick pay, National Minimum Wage entitlement, holiday pay, paid parental leave, and protection against unfair dismissal.

The pledge follows a series of court cases over the gig economy, with the Court of Appeal ruling in July that Deliveroo riders were not workers and therefore not entitled to collective bargaining rights.

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner launched the party’s workers rights charter on Monday morning at a co-working hub in central London and hailed it as the “minimum” workers could expect after the pandemic.

She said: “Today the new deal is about – we are at a fork in the road as we come out of this pandemic – that people in Britain shouldn’t have to go to work and really struggle to feed their families and support themselves in very low paid, insecure work.

“Today is about making sure that everybody gets rights from day one in employment, can have the right to flexible working, not just for the employer, but for the employees as well who have done so much adapting and working from home in this period, and making sure that everybody has at least a minimum of £10 an hour, a real living wage.

“I think that will really boost our economy, but also give people some security and respect in work. We think that is the absolute minimum that people should expect.”

The Ashton-under-Lyne MP explained the party wanted "good-quality jobs" that pay a "proper wage that people can raise a family on".

She said: "Under the Conservatives we have a broken economic model defined by insecure work, low wages and in-work poverty and a lack of opportunity for people who want to get on and find good work to support themselves and their families."

Amanda Milling MP, co-chairman of the Conservative Party said: "While Labour carp from the sidelines, we're continuing to support business while taking the tough decisions needed to rebuild from the pandemic and protect people's jobs and livelihoods."

Covid-19 origin: 'Go to Fort Detrick lab in US', China tells WHO

There have been calls to investigate the Wuhan Institute of Virology to know about the origin of Covid-19.(Reuters File Photo)

WORLD NEWS

The WHO said earlier this month that a second stage of the international probe should include audits of Chinese labs, amid increasing pressure from the United States for an investigation into Covid-19 origin. China's vice health minister Zeng Yixin said that he was "extremely surprised" by the plan.

By hindustantimes.com | Edited by Amit Chaturvedi, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

PUBLISHED ON JUL 27, 2021 12:04 PM IST

China has hit back at the United States over investigation into the origin of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Monday that if labs are to be investigated, the World Health Organization (WHO) officials should go to Fort Detrick.

"If labs are to be investigated, then the WHO experts should go to Fort Detrick. The US should act transparently & responsibly as soon as possible and invite WHO experts for an inquiry into the Fort Detrick lab. Only in this way can truth be revealed to the world," Zhao said on Twitter.

The tweet was in response to calls for a second round of investigation in Covid-19 origin. Fort Detrick is a military base located in Frederick, Maryland.

The WHO said earlier this month that a second stage of the international probe should include audits of Chinese labs, amid increasing pressure from the US for an investigation into Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The proposal outlined by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus included "audits of relevant laboratories and research institutions operating in the area of the initial human cases identified in December 2019".

Reacting to it, China's vice health minister Zeng Yixin said that he was "extremely surprised" by the plan, which he said showed "disrespect for common sense and arrogance towards science"

Beijing has repeatedly insisted that a leak from one of its laboratories would have been "extremely unlikely", citing the conclusion reached by a joint WHO-Chinese mission to Wuhan in January. The WHO has accused China of not sharing the important raw data during the first phase of the investigation.

The theory that the virus leaked from a Chinese laboratory has gained momentum in the last few months.

Earlier, Chinese tabloid Global Times said it had collected five million signatures from the country's internet users on a petition to investigate the US lab.

 

Jeff Bezos-backed fake meat and dairy company NotCo raises $235M

By Lisa Fickenscher

July 26, 2021 | 

Enlarge Image

NotCo food products are already a hit in Latin America.Alamy Stock Photo

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NotCo, a Jeff Bezos-backed, fake meat and dairy company, has just joined the unicorn club.

The Chilean-based company, which uses an artificial intelligence program called Giuseppe to make plant-based milk and meat products, said Monday it has raised another $235 million in a funding round that values the company at $1.5 billion.

NotCo said its latest round is being led by Tiger Global. Tennis great Roger Federer, race car driver Lewis Hamilton and DJ Questlove are becoming investors as well. Bezos invested $30 million in the company in 2019 when it launched mayonnaise that is made primarily from chickpeas.

NotCo, which launched five years ago in Latin America, introduced its its NotMilk products seven months ago to the US, where NotCo has five US patents for its technology, according to the company.

NotCo counts tennis star Roger Federer among its investors.

Getty Images

“Our patented A.I. gives us a significant competitive advantage due to the speed and accuracy with which we’re able to develop and bring new products to market,” NotCo Founder and CEO Matias Muchnick said in a statement.

NotCo’s products such as plant-based burgers are competing in a burgeoning marketplace.

NotCo

In June, restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Enlightened Hospitality Investments (EHI) invested in NotCo, but terms of that transaction were not disclosed.

Demand for plant-based foods and meat alternatives has grown during the pandemic as consumers look for healthier lifestyles and diets. One recent study shows that vegetarians were significantly less likely to contract COVID-19.

The company claims that its Giuseppe algorithms analyze thousands of plants in its database to come up with unique combinations that “replicate animal-based products almost to perfection.”

In Latin America, where the company has become the fastest-growing food tech company,  it sells NotMilk™, NotBurger™, NotMeat™, NotIceCream™ and NotMayo™ in more than 6,000 retailers globally. It also operates its own direct to consumer ecommerce, and has partnerships with Burger King and Papa John’s. 

NotCo founder Matias Muchnick says artificial intelligence gives the plant-based foods company an advantage.

LinkedIn

Jeff Bezos offers Nasa $2bn in exchange for moon mission contract

Billionaire lost out to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in lunar bid

Contract is to build craft to take astronauts to the moon

A Nasa spokesperson said the agency was aware of Bezos’s letter but declined to comment further. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Reuters
Tue 27 Jul 2021 

Fresh off his trip to space, Jeff Bezos on Monday offered to cover up to $2bn in Nasa costs if the US space agency awards his company Blue Origin a contract to make a spacecraft designed to land astronauts back on the moon.

Nasa in April awarded SpaceX, owned by rival billionaire Elon Musk, a $2.9bn contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2024, rejecting bids from Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. Blue Origin had partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper in the bid.

The space agency cited its own funding shortfalls, SpaceX’s proven record of orbital missions and other factors in a contract decision that senior Nasa official Kathy Lueders called “what’s the best value to the government”.

In a letter to Nasa administrator Bill Nelson, Bezos said Blue Origin would waive payments in the government’s current fiscal year and the next ones after that up to $2bn, and pay for an orbital mission to vet its technology. In exchange, Blue Origin would accept a firm, fixed-priced contract, and cover any system development cost overruns, Bezos said.



01:40Jeff Bezos successfully completes space flight – video



Why does Jeff Bezos’s rocket look like that? An inquiry


“Nasa veered from its original dual-source acquisition strategy due to perceived near-term budgetary issues, and this offer removes that obstacle,” Bezos wrote.

A Nasa spokesperson said the agency was aware of Bezos’s letter but declined to comment further, citing the protest Blue Origin filed with the US government Accountability Office accusing the agency of giving SpaceX an unfair advantage by allowing it to revise its pricing.

The GAO’s decision is expected by early August, though industry sources said Blue Origin views the possibility of a reversal as unlikely.

A SpaceX spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Before choosing SpaceX, Nasa had asked for proposals for a spacecraft that would carry astronauts to the lunar surface under its Artemis program to return humans to the moon for the first time since 1972. Blue Origin’s lunar lander is called “Blue Moon”. Bezos and Musk are the world’s richest and third-richest people respectively, according to Forbes.

Bezos’ offer came six days after he flew alongside three crewmates to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin’s rocket-and-capsule New Shepard, a milestone for the company’s bid to become a major player in an emerging space tourism market.

Space: the final frontier for the planet’s wealthiest?

Space travel was once about collective efforts to go beyond the limits of one’s imagination. 

Now it’s an exhibition of extreme entitlement


Rashmee Roshan Lall
24 July 2021

Billionaire Jeff Bezos is launched into space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket on 20 July 2021 | Joe Skipper/Reuters/Alamy

On 20 July, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos became the second billionaire in a matter of weeks to take a flashy joyride into space. The date was significant, marking 52 years since the first moon landing in 1969.

Nine days previously, another billionaire, British business mogul Richard Branson, had also taken off for the edge of space. A third billionaire, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, has reportedly reserved a seat to visit space with Virgin Galactic, Branson’s company.

What’s the point of these intergalactic endeavors? The three billionaires claim it’s a necessary, almost philanthropic, investment in the future of humanity.

Bezos, who founded his Blue Origin rocket company more than 20 years ago, ultimately wants to build space pods, in which “trillions” of people would live and work – an idea thought to have been influenced by one of his Princeton professors, Gerard K O’Neill.

“The solar system can easily support a trillion humans,” Bezos said. “If we had a trillion humans, we would have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts and unlimited, for all practical purposes, resources and solar power.”

Branson, who first announced his intention to make a space plane in 2004, to ferry hundreds of thousands of ordinary people into space, argues that trips to space will help preserve Earth. “I want people to be able to look back at our beautiful Earth and come home and work very hard to try to do magic to look after it.”

Musk, meanwhile, has an even more outrageous plan. He says human beings should be a “multi-planet species” and prepare to settle on Mars.

But as well as an obsession with space travel, the three men have something else in common: all have track records of avoiding or minimizing their tax bills.

Amazon, Bezos’s company, finally paid some federal tax in 2019 after two years of paying $0 in US federal income tax. In fact, in both 2017 and 2018, Amazon actually received a federal tax refund of $137m and $129m respectively. In 2020, corporate filings by Amazon EU Sarl – the company’s Luxembourg unit, through which it handles sales for its European operations – showed record-high income for 2019, but it still managed to pay zero corporation tax.

As for Bezos himself, according to an investigation published by ProPublica in June, his wealth increased by $127bn between 2006 and 2018. During that period, he paid a ‘true tax rate’ of just 1.1%.

The billionaire space race comes at a time when 712 million people live in extreme poverty


Branson, meanwhile, has paid no income tax in his home country since moving to Necker, a tax-free island in the Caribbean, 15 years ago. The billionaire, whose fortune is estimated at $6.6bn, has dismissed the resulting criticism and claimed that he and his wife “did not leave Britain for tax reasons but for our love of the beautiful British Virgin Islands and in particular Necker Island”.

According to ProPublica, Musk is one of thousands of America’s wealthiest people who has managed to avoid paying much tax. Musk, whose estimated net worth is $178bn, paid less than $70,000 in US federal income taxes between 2015 and 2017 and nothing at all in 2018. He simply borrowed money from Tesla and didn’t take a salary from the company.

Behind all the big talk of saving humanity, critics fear the billionaire space race is really about something else entirely: ego and commercial ventures.

Virgin Galactic’s ultimate goal is to deliver at least one flight of tourists into space every day, and Branson’s flagship launch is thought to have had huge propaganda value for the company. It is expected to take paying passengers in its rocket-planes from next year.

Blue Origin is already pursuing several business opportunities in space, including contracts for a NASA moon lander and US defense department satellites. According to Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith, it is also planning half a dozen human spaceflights next year, “getting to an every-two-weeks kind of cadence… [and] tens of millions of dollars of sales”. Meanwhile, SpaceX is building an enormous rocket called Starship for its planned Mars missions, to add to its already lucrative space business, even as Musk sanctimoniously declares, “space represents hope for so many people”.

The billionaire space race comes at a time when upwards of 712 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty – defined as subsisting on less than $1.90 a day – and more than 34 million are one step away from starvation, while 4.2 billion people do not have basic sanitation and three billion lack basic hand-washing facilities.

In the US, which Bezos credits as the reason for Amazon’s success, hundreds of schools have lead in their drinking water, the poverty rate stands at 10.5%, and decades of under-investment in infrastructure raises the specter of catastrophic collapses of aging bridges and rail lines, dam breaches, and failing water and electricity supplies. President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party wants to raise taxes on the rich to pay for badly needed infrastructure upgrades and to combat climate change.

The world’s ten richest billionaires saw a $540bn wealth increase between March and December 2020

Some years ago, lovemoney.com, a personal finance site, compiled a rundown on what it would take to fix the world’s biggest problems. It found it would take $1bn to eliminate trachoma, a disease that causes blindness; $1.5bn to eradicate polio; $6.3bn to wipe out canine rabies; $8.5bn for malaria; $30bn a year to end hunger; $150bn to provide safe drinking water and decent sanitation to everyone, everywhere; and $175bn to lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty.

The figures were much larger than the $75bn considered by Bjorn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center think tank and former director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute. Lomborg’s 2013 book, ‘How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place’, took advice from 50 of the world’s leading economists on how to spend money smartly and do the greatest possible good.

The biggest priority, the panel of experts said, was to fight malnutrition with an investment of $3bn annually. The second priority – at a mere $300m, according to those experts – was preventing child deaths from malaria. Other priorities included investments in tuberculosis treatment, childhood immunization, an HIV/AIDS vaccine, and low-cost drugs for heart attacks, as well as research and development to increase agricultural output.

These are all good ideas. And clearly possible for the very wealthy to fund on their own, should they be so minded. But here’s a better idea: let’s ensure the wealthiest on the planet pay higher taxes. Rather than offering charity at whim from the proceeds of millions in tax avoidance, billionaires should be made to pay their fair share.

In January, the UK charity Oxfam issued a report titled ‘The Inequality Virus’. It said that billionaires’ wealth worldwide increased by nearly $4trn between 18 March 2020, when the pandemic began, and 31 December 2020. The world’s ten richest billionaires – with Bezos and Musk leading the pack – have collectively seen their wealth increase by $540bn over this period. That amount “is more than enough to prevent anyone on Earth from falling into poverty because of the virus, and to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine for everyone”, the report added.

No one really expects such a dramatic redistribution of wealth to occur. But were the richest to pay higher amounts in tax, at least in democracies, it would provide the essential resources governments need to fix roads, improve schools, give nurses and teachers their due, and set up social care facilities.

Once upon a time, space travel was about a collective effort by a country to go beyond the frontiers of imagination. Now, it is an exhibition of extreme entitlement.

There is no particular reason to stop the rich from spending their own money to indulge their dreams of space exploration, so long as they also pay their dues.