PLUTONIAN MOUNTAINS AREN’T ICE VOLCANOES

Careful study of data from the New Horizons mission indicates that an iconic, caldera-looking feature isn’t what it seems.

BY: CAMILLE M. CARLISLE 

OCTOBER 6, 2021  

When the New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto in July 2015, it stunned us with a landscape of ice mountains, glaciers, and strange geologic features. One of these mysterious features was Wright Mons and its companion, Piccard Mons. Located along the southern hemisphere’s day-night boundary when New Horizons sped by, these two features rise a few kilometers high but are immensely broad, each spanning well over 100 km.

Wright Mons (ring-shaped feature at center) is about 155 km wide and about 5 km high. The hole at center plunges down to the same depth as the putative mount’s height. Its sides (both inside and out) exhibit a distinctive hummocky texture.
NASA / JHU-APL / SWRI

Seen in stark relief, Wright’s central pit looks like a gaping hole plunging into the dwarf planet’s heart. Piccard lies in evening shadow; we only see hints of it thanks to sunlight scattered by Pluto’s hazy atmosphere, but it does seem to have a central depression, too. Initially, mission scientists thought Wright and Piccard might be cryovolcanoes, spouts that spew lava made of sludge-like water ice. (Out here at the edge of the solar system, water ice is so hard that it serves as rock.)

But appearances can be deceiving.

Instead of being the collapsed summits of ice volcanoes, Wright and Piccard’s holes may just be places not overrun by vast outpourings of icy goo from vents in the landscape, Kelsi Singer (Southwest Research Institute) suggested October 4th at the annual Division for Planetary Sciences meeting.

Singer and her colleagues used New Horizons’ data to take a closer look at the terrain around Wright. It’s a landscape of broad swells, with undulations roughly 10 km wide overlain by nubbly patterns that themselves are about a kilometer in scale. We’ve seen nothing quite like it in the solar system.

What’s intriguing about this wonderland is how the elevation changes — or, rather, doesn’t. Draw a chord from north to south across Wright Mons and plot the elevations along the line, and here’s what you’ll see:

A traverse from north to south across Wright Mons (line, top panel) doesn’t encounter the dramatic changes in elevation one might expect based on the image alone. The bottom panel shows the elevation changes along the line (left to right is north to south).
Modified from Kelsi Singer et al.

No surging slopes or bottomless pits to be had, and the floor of Wright’s maw is about level with the surrounding surface. That suggests that what looks like a ring-shaped massif is instead part of a gradual, irregular pileup of material that — for whatever reason — didn’t fill in this part of the terrain.

Wright looks so dramatic because sunlight hits it at a steep angle in New Horizons’ images. But adjust the contrast in the image or check the topographic map, and it becomes clear that the mount’s interior is as hummock-ridden as the exterior, Singer says. If we look at a projection with a more accurate perspective, the depression is less striking: 

A perspective view of Wright Mons (upper right) and its surroundings, overlaid on topographic data. The view exaggerates the vertical elevation by a factor of two. Piccard Mons is in the shadow toward the bottom left. The “haze” is merely an artifact from merging the images.
NASA / JHU-APL / SWRI / Kelsi Singer / Paul Schenk

Singer herself long thought Wright was a caldera, but she couldn’t find the evidence. “I felt like I was barking up the wrong tree for several years,” she says. “When I stopped trying to make the middle of Wright and Piccard the middle of anything, then things were still mysterious but weren't nearly as hard to explain.”

Instead, she thinks that icy lava oozed up from below through unidentified openings. There are signs of older, fractured terrain peeking out from underneath the material, but there’s no clear direction to the flow — and definitely no signs that it flowed out of Wright. (Piccard’s too fuzzy to see properly.)

At Pluto’s surface temperature of about 40 kelvin (−390°F), water ice would quickly freeze on the surface — even with things like ammonia keeping it from becoming rock-hard — so the ooze could have formed a hard carapace as it traveled.

The near-total absence of craters suggests this terrain might be only 1 billion years old. But that raises a question: What’s the heat source that would melt Pluto’s water-ice rock to become molten? Planetary scientists face the same problem in explaining the vast, active glacier Sputnik Planitia (the left lobe of Pluto’s “heart”). The dwarf planet should have cooled off long ago, and because it and its largest moon, Charon, always point the same face at each other, there’s no tidal pull to knead the world’s interior.

“There is still a lot to be figured out about how this kind of effusion onto the surface could work at all,” Singer says. “But we see these crazy resurfaced terrains that don't look like they are just from erosion, and we see what might be evidence for multiple events. So some kind of movement of material onto the surface still seems like the best way to make these terrains.”

The study is currently under review for publication and will hopefully come out in a few months.

References:

K. Singer et al. “Exploring morphometry, composition, and cryovolcanic emplacement mechanisms for the Wright Mons Region on Pluto.” Abstract 114.02. DPS 2021 meeting.

O. L. White et al. “The Geology of Pluto.” The Pluto System After New Horizons, eds. S. A. Stern et al. University of Arizona Press 2021.

IT WASN'T ALBERTA

Letter by future King Edward VIII insults 'pip squeak province' during 1919 visit to Canada

In soon to be auctioned letter, the future Edward VIII, who would eventually abdicate, complains of 'official wonk and these cornie pompous stunts' on the tour

Author of the article:
The Telegraph
Hannah Furness
Publishing date:Oct 08, 2021 • 

The Duke of Windsor, then Edward, Prince of Wales, smiles while performing his official duties in Halifax during his 1919 royal tour. A letter up for auction reveals he was less happy with the tour than he appeared. 

PHOTO BY ERNEST BROOKS/CENTRAL PRESS/GETTY IMAGES

A letter written during a tour of Canada in which Edward VIII reveals his disenchantment with life in the Royal Family — from meeting “deadly dull” heads of state to “cornie pompous stunts” — is to be sold at auction.

The 1919 letter, written by the then Prince of Wales to his mistress, insults the “pip squeak province” which hosted him on a royal tour to Canada, and the “official wonk” of his speeches.

Written when he was 25, it spells out his distaste for royal life more than a decade before he met American divorcee Wallis Simpson, whom he would eventually abdicate for.

Addressed to his lover, Freda Dudley Ward, who was at the time married to Liberal MP William Dudley Ward, the four-page letter was written aboard HMS Renown as it took him on a tour of Canada.

Their affair continued until 1934, ending when Edward became involved with Simpson.

While it’s not clear which province he referred to as a “pip squeak,” his tour of the country lasted two months and was meant to thank Canadians for their contribution to the Allied victory in the First World War.

The description to his lover was the opposite of what he told his mother, Queen Mary.

“We belong to Canada and the other Dominions just as much as we do the UK,” he wrote in a letter home, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Indeed, Edward was the first Royal to describe himself as a Canadian on an official tour, the Canadian Encyclopedia said. In speech delivered in Calgary on the 1919 tour, he said, “I came to Canada as a Canadian in mind and spirit, I am now rapidly becoming a Westerner.”

During that same trip he bought a 41-acre ranch near Pekisko Creek in rural Alberta and returned to the ranch several times. He didn’t sell the property until 1962.

Charles Ashton, a director at auctioneers Cheffins, said the letter to Mrs. Dudley Ward gives a window into his “disenchantment with his life as a royal.”

In the letter, the future king referred to speeches he had made, writing: “What I think of all this official wonk and these cornie pompous stunts; I’ve made no less than 7 speeches today.”

He described Robert Borden, the Canadian prime minister, whom he had dined with, as “such a stick & deadly dull except re politics & I can’t tackle him on that subject.”

Expressing how much he misses her, he added: “I do love you, love you, my very own blessed little Fredie darling & I find life very hard & dour without you……it’s hell when we are parted sweetheart & when I can’t hear you say all your divine things which is what keeps me alive.”

The letter, accompanied by the original envelope bearing a black wax seal, is part of the Cheffins Library Sale auction in Cambridge on Oct. 21, with a pre-sale estimate of pounds 400 to pounds 600.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

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Rare Edward VIII coin bought for million pounds

Does Canada consider WikiLeaks a terrorist group, Chelsea Manning's lawyer asks at immigration hearing

The two-day IRB hearing that ended Friday did not settle the matter of whether Manning will be allowed into Canada

CANADIAN BORDER SERVICES ARE PATERNALISTIC CENSORORUS PURVEYORS OF PURITAN PRUDITY 

THEY HAVE CENSORED LGBTQ LIT AS PORN OVER MANY YEARS. THEY ARE CANADA'S SELF APPOINTED CENSORS

Author of the article: Adrian Humphreys
Publishing date: Oct 08, 2021 

Canada Border Services Agency is seeking to have U.S. whistleblower Chelsea Manning declared inadmissible to the country, which would prevent her from visiting and speaking at events in Canada. PHOTO BY SCREEN CAPTURE

A four-year fight by U.S. whistleblower Chelsea Manning for permission to come to Canada will continue until at least next year, after her immigration hearing ended Friday not with a decision, but a lengthy timetable for more legal arguments.

Manning, 33, was deemed inadmissible to Canada because of criminal convictions in the United States after she leaked a massive trove of U.S. military and diplomatic secrets to WikiLeaks in 2010.

That designation by Canada Border Services Agency blocks her from visiting Canada, and Manning is fighting the decision at the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

Manning’s lawyers, Joshua Blum and Lex Gill, argued the charges she was convicted of in the United States are not equivalent to the criminal offences in Canada that the government used as the basis for banning Manning from the country.

Canadian law declares it an offence to share damaging government secrets to a foreign entity or to a terrorist group, unlike U.S. laws that do not care who receives the information for a finding of guilt.

At the hearing Friday, Gill asked the government’s lawyers whether Ottawa considers WikiLeaks to itself be a terrorist group or a foreign entity, or whether they claim that such a group could learn the secrets indirectly by reading accounts of WikiLeaks’ releases.

The federal government lawyers, Josée Barrette and Anthony Lashley, said to wait for their written submissions to find out.

Manning was convicted under the U.S. Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest sentence ever issued in the United States for whistleblowing.

In 2017, after seven years in prison, Manning’s sentence was commuted by U.S. President Barack Obama. Shortly after, Manning tried to visit friends in Montreal but was stopped at the border.

The two-day IRB hearing that ended Friday did not settle the matter.

Instead, the IRB gave lawyers timetables for submitting additional written arguments — on top of the hundreds of pages of exhibits submitted by the government and more than 1,000 pages from Manning.

Manning also argues there was no evidence the leaked material caused actual harm to the United States, and that she leaked it as a public service and in the public interest.

Earlier at the hearing, Manning described her extraordinary experience as one of the best-known whistleblowers of the digital age, and the repercussions she faced, both legally and mentally.

While a military analyst with the U.S. Army deployed to Iraq, Manning leaked hundreds of thousands of documents, including an explosive video of two U.S. helicopters opening fire and killing 11 people on the ground, including two children and two journalists.

She said she did it to alert the public to what was really going on in the war on terror and how it differed from official versions.

On Friday, the IRB heard additional testimony from Heidi Matthews, an assistant professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, on the importance of Manning’s whistleblowing. Matthews provided oral evidence and a written report.

“From torture to murder, from disproportionate civilian casualties to abusive detention and interrogation practices, the information Ms. Manning disclosed details evidence of violations of international human rights law, international humanitarian law and domestic military and civilian law that put truth to the lie about the humanitarian commitments of counterinsurgency doctrine,” Matthews said in her report.

The material Manning gave to WikiLeaks included about 75,000 Afghanistan war-related significant activity reports, 400,000 Iraq war-related significant activity reports, 800 Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and 250,000 U.S. Department of State diplomatic cables.

IRB adjudicator Marisa Musto gave the government 30 days to provide its written submissions, followed by 30 days for Manning’s lawyers to respond to it. The government then has until Dec. 20 to reply to Manning’s submission.

Musto said her decision would be issued in writing, and because of the large volume of materials and complexity of the issues, would not be doing so until early 2022.

If Musto accepts the government decision that Manning is inadmissible to Canada, and that she’s not covered by whistleblower protections, the IRB will then have to consider Manning’s constitutional challenge of the laws used to restrict her from entering Canada.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | Twitter: AD_Humphreys

What is Ladishah? How one woman is reviving Kashmir's 150-year-old poetry style

Syed Areej Safvi, 25, is reinventing the old musical storytelling technique through YouTube

Syed Areej Safvi is Kashmir's first female Ladishah, which is a folkfore form of storytelling. 

Photo: Syed Areej Safvi

Shaistha Khan
Oct 8, 2021

While flipping through television channels one day, Syed Areej Safvi, 25, came across a Ladishah performance by Rajendra Tiku, a renowned Indian artist. The psychology student from Kashmir, India was inspired by this broadcast to pen down her first Ladishah.

Ladishah is a Kashmiri indigenous form of poetry storytelling that is said to have a 150-year-old history. As a form of entertainment, Bhaand Paa’thhar or a group of local artists would travel from village to village performing skits, dances or Ladishah. Linguists believe that Bhaand comes from the Sanskrit word "bhaandiya" meaning “a bluffer” (or maskharra in Urdu) and Paa’thhar meaning character in a play. Ladishahs delivered messages that were based on socio-cultural and political issues; their performances were meant to entertain, but at the same time, were satirical and crafted to make people ponder on the state of affairs.

Impulsively, Safvi penned her first Ladishah about the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act. “The central idea of my Ladishah was as you sow, you shall reap.”

Wearing a pheran, the traditional robe-like Kashmiri outfit, she recited the Ladishah on camera and posted her video on YouTube last year. The video went viral and, since then, Safvi has gone on to garner 48,000 followers on her channel, Areejological, so far.


The Ladishah follows a metre of one rhythm and short, rhyming sentences. While Ladishahs typically use a rudimentary rod-like instrument (dhukar) with thin metal rings to create accompanying music, Safvi only recites the ballad. She has performed on social issues surrounding marriage, pseudo-feminism and how commercialisation is affecting the quality of education in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.


“I think of Ladishah as the torchbearer of the society,” she says. “Every society and time will have its issues, but people may still be in slumber. People need to wake up, give it a thought and create an alternative opinion on a particular issue.”

Journalist and poet Rajesh Raina recalls visiting the famed Kashmir Bhagat Theatre as a child to watch Ladishah. “It was a source of livelihood for artists. People used to give them rice, walnuts or some money,” he explains. “With the emergence of other forms of entertainment like television and radio, this folklore form started dying out.”

Raina decided to revive Ladishah through his news channel News18 Urdu. In 2014, Raina, along with Tiku, started airing a weekly Ladishah programme that was pegged to the news cycle.

“When I watched him [Tiku] perform, I was very fascinated with this style of poetry,” Safvi says. “He was talking about hardcore news, but in a humorous way.”

One of the reasons I was inspired to choose this art form was that the Ladishah’s way of presenting things will never get old
Syed Areej Safvi, a female Ladishah performer from Kashmir

When Raina approached several artists to revive the art form, many believed that a Ladishah programme – in this time and age – would not be relevant or interesting to audiences. However, the journalist says it has gained tremendous popularity, like in the case of Safvi. “I have received several videos of children writing and reciting Ladishah,” Raina says. “There is curiosity among youngsters to learn.”


With the art form nearly extinct, Safvi is aware of only two male Ladishahs who are still performing. “One of the reasons I was inspired to choose this art form was that even though a Ladishah may exist no more, but the Ladishah’s way of presenting things will never get old,” she says. “Why not take it to the younger generation?

“When they become aware of it, maybe they will be inspired to take it up.”

Safvi has received immense support from the older generation. “Younger people will often message me and say that my grandparents are amazed to see someone from this generation reviving a long forgotten art form.”

While it was traditionally a male-only occupation, Safvi has also received criticism for being the first and only female Ladishah.

Raina further explains that although other cultural troupes had women, Bhaand didn’t have any females performing as dancing and singing were not considered noble professions for women. With Safvi being the first one to pen and recite Ladishah, he is happy to see that women are also entering this field. “It is a form of art and should not be restricted to one gender alone,” he says.


“Kashmiri society can still be very conservative,” Safvi explains. “I’ve noticed a gender bias and discrimination where Kashmiri male content creators – who create humorous videos and comic vines like me – get very positive engagement and response.

“But many will criticise my content, in what seems like a personal attack.”

As the next step, Safvi plans to visit schools across Srinagar in Kashmir. “School is where one’s initial personality and interests are developed. And extracurricular activities play a major role in shaping one’s personality and individuality.

“It should be introduced at a primary or secondary level. At least it creates an awareness among the youth, lest they grow up and, like me, think ‘I wish I had known about it earlier, maybe I would have tried performing Ladishah.’”

  

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA

Tesla holds 'Giga Fest' at disputed German factory

Tesla is holding a "Giga Fest" to win over opponents of a controversial new factory near Berlin 

Odd ANDERSEN AFP

Issued on: 09/10/2021 

Berlin (AFP)

With a big wheel, music and an appearance by CEO Elon Musk, Tesla is pulling out all the stops Saturday to win over opponents of the electric carmaker's controversial new "gigafactory" near Berlin.

Construction had begun under an exceptional procedure granted by authorities two years ago, but opposition from locals over environmental concerns has held up final approval for the plant.

Some local residents have planned a counter-protest at the site on the day of the event to underline their opposition to the factory.

Musk will personally drop by at the "Giga Fest", where the company has laid on a big wheel, electronic music and vegetarian food trucks -- an event conceived in the image of Berlin, Europe's party capital.

Thousands are expected to attend, with locals given priority for the guest list announced by Tesla earlier this week.

Devotees of the brand shared their excitement ahead of the day on social media. "Gigafest here we come. Thrilled to see what they have built in my hometown," tweeted one.

The project's opponents are planning another form of welcome. "Let's take to the streets against this environmental devastation pushed by politicians," is the call made by protest organisers.

- Environmental concerns -

Tesla began construction at the site in Gruenheide in 2019 after receiving preliminary approval under a special procedure.

Despite local resistance, construction has been completed in double-quick time

 Odd ANDERSEN AFP/File

But local authorities are still in the process of evaluating the environmental impact of the factory, despite construction being all but done.

The special treatment afforded to the company angered some residents, who are concerned about the impact the plant could have on the water supply and biodiversity.

Supported by NGOs, opponents have sent letters, held protests and gone to court to try and stop the project.

"Tesla has to follow the same procedures as other companies," the Green League campaign group said recently.

Last year, work at the Tesla site was temporarily stopped after NGOs requested an injunction to protect the nearby natural habitat of endangered species of lizards and snakes while they were in their winter slumber.

A residents' consultation, part of the approval process, is due to close on October 14.

Until the survey is completed, final approval cannot be given and production at the factory will not be allowed to begin.

Even then, the state environment ministry in Brandenburg, where the plant is located, told AFP "no date has been fixed" for this authorisation.

Despite local resistance, construction has been completed in double-quick time, replacing a swathe of pine forest with an enormous concrete-paved expanse accessed via "Tesla Road".

- Economies of scale -

About 500,000 cars a year should roll off the line at the factory just outside Berlin, Tesla's first production location in Europe.

'WOT ME WORRY'

Tesla CEO Elon Musk will personally drop by at the "Giga Fest" 

Odd ANDERSEN AFP/File

On the same 300-hectare plot, Musk also plans to build "the world's biggest battery factory".

The site will equally boast the "world's largest die-casting machine", said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Germany.

The custom-built equipment should allow Tesla to "significantly reduce production costs", Dudenhoeffer said.

In the event that the factory is not approved, the carmaker will be compelled to dismantle the entire works at its own cost.

Such a turn of events is, however, "unlikely", said Dudenhoeffer, since the project has considerable "political support".

"Every political party is in favour," the car expert explained, while noting that changes to the factory facade could be requested by authorities, delaying the beginning of production further.

First planned for July 2021, the start has already been pushed back to the end of this year as a result of the company's administrative troubles.

Tesla was "irritated" by these setbacks, as it wrote in an open letter in March, in which the company called for a "reform" of Germany's planning procedures.

Despite the country's reputation for efficiency, major infrastructure projects are often slowed down by excess bureaucracy.

Berlin's new international airport opened in October 2020 eight years later than first planned, while the construction of a new train station in Stuttgart is not yet finished, having begun in 2010.

© 2021 AFP

Mark Zuckerberg’s former adviser hails Facebook whistleblower

Roger McNamee called for strong regulations to stop harmful technologies from hitting the market


Facebook faced blistering criticism during a Congressional hearing on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Alkesh Sharma
Oct 8, 2021

Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor and former adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, has praised whistleblower Frances Haugen for coming forward with explosive claims about the social media giant and has called for strong regulations to stop harmful technologies.

Mr McNamee, who wrote the book Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe in 2019, said the California-based social site often shifts responsibility for its shortcomings to others, including users.

“All incentives direct the company to stay on its current course … because many other companies are imitating Facebook in the hopes of profit, fixing Facebook will not be enough,” Mr McNamee wrote in Time magazine.

“Every time Facebook faces pressure for change, it does something that sounds helpful but is not.”

Facebook and Mr Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism over the company’s practices and policies during testimony from Ms Haugen on Tuesday.

The former Facebook employee told a Senate commerce sub-committee hearing that Facebook algorithms promote posts with high levels of engagement, often pushing harmful or divisive content to users.

This "dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people", she told legislators, noting that Facebook is "accountable to no one".

Before appearing before the Senate, Ms Haugen went on national US television on Sunday evening. This was followed by a nearly six-hour Facebook breakdown – along with its associated services WhatsApp and Instagram – on Monday.

The sudden disruption was caused by a domain name server issue, bringing a big chunk of online activity to a halt.

“Their communications systems have become central to our way of life, as the impact of this week’s … outage underscores, but they have their thumb on the scale, amplifying content that triggers fear and outrage because doing so maximises profits,” said Mr McNamee.


He said Ms Haugen, a data scientist from Iowa, has transformed the conversation about technology reform and accomplished more than what he and others had achieved in years of effort.

Time illustration of its front cover. Photo: Time

Ms Haugen, who began working for the company in 2019 and resigned in April 2021, leaked internal documents to The Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Congress and other news outlets.

Mr McNamee said it is evident that policymakers and media have constantly miscalculated the danger posed by Facebook, “buying into the company’s rosy claims” about the power of connecting the world and giving benefit of the doubt where none was deserved.

The tech industry is mainly unregulated, allowing big companies like Facebook to behave as “unelected governments”, he added.

“We need something like an FDA [Food and Drug Administration] for technology products … it would set safety standards, require annual safety audits and certification as a condition for every product and impose huge financial penalties for any harms that result,” Mr McNamee wrote.

Facebook whistleblower says company puts profits over well-being of users

He also condemned the practice of “surveillance capitalism”, whereby companies sell every last scrap of personal data they gather.

Surveillance capitalism is profitable for Facebook because users make decisions in predictable ways, “which facilitates manipulation”.

“Everything we do on a smartphone, every financial transaction we make, every trip, every prescription and medical test, every action we take on the Internet or in apps is tracked and most of it is available for purchase in a data marketplace,” he said.

He recommended regulations that would address three problems across tech – safety, privacy and competition.

“At a minimum, Congress must ban third-party use of sensitive data, such as that related to health, location, financial transactions, web browsing and app data," Mr McNamee wrote.

Mr Zuckerberg has disputed the allegations.

“It’s difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives. At the most basic level, I think most of us just don’t recognise the false picture of the company that is being painted,” he said in a Facebook post

.

Reacting to the allegations raised against the company's culture, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said it is difficult to see the coverage that misrepresents the company's work and motives. 

AFP

Updated: October 9th 2021

Air India back under Tata's control after $2.4bn bid

India had struggled for decades to sell off the airline, partly due to its large debt-burden

The Indian government confirmed on October 8 that Tata Sons, India's oldest

 and largest conglomerate, will be the new owner of the country's debt-laden 

national carrier Air India. EPA

Rebecca Bundhun

Oct 9, 2021

Tata Sons is in a strong position to turn around the country's loss-making Air India, after it emerged as the winning bidder in the long-awaited privatisation of the country's flag carrier, according to industry analysts.

The move sees history coming full circle, as the airline was started by the group's JRD Tata in 1932 under the name Tata Airlines, before it was nationalised about 20 years later.

Tata – India's oldest and largest conglomerate with interests ranging from automobile manufacturing to steel – already has a strong presence in the country's aviation sector, with its joint ventures in the airline Vistara, which it owns along with Singapore Airlines and AirAsia India. Its industry experience will help it chart the future of Air India.

“The deal is positive because Tata can turn around the airline into a profitable entity in a few years,” said Vijay L Bhambwani, head of research, behavioural technical analysis at research firm Equitymaster.

India had struggled for decades to sell off the airline, partly due to its large debt-burden, which meant the last attempt in 2018 failed to attract a single bidder. But the government sweetened the deal by reducing the amount of debt the buyer would have to take on and allowing full ownership of the carrier.

Tata's winning bid was 180 billion rupees ($2.4bn) for a 100 per cent stake and it will take on about $2bn of Air India's debt, which stands at more than $8bn.

Tata has a strong record of successfully turning around ailing companies, with its takeover of British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover being a prime example. Tata Motors bought the troubled Jaguar and Land Rover brands from Ford in 2008 and cut costs early on as part of its turn around strategy as it invested more than $16bn in product development with new models such as the second-generation Range Rover Evoque, a new Land Rover Defender and hybrid variants.

Still, turning around the carrier will be challenging. Tata's takeover comes at a time when India's aviation sector is struggling. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, carriers were grappling with a fiercely competitive environment and high operating costs, which led to the financial failure of Jet Airways in 2019. The pandemic has only worsened the situation.

“The ability [for Tata] to optimise costs, and streamline operations will be a formidable challenge and the key to profitability in the group’s airline operations,” says Suman Chowdhury, the chief analytical officer at Acuité Ratings & Research.

Air India has not turned a profit since 2007 when it merged with Indian Airlines. The company has a bloated workforce of some 8,000 employees, which Tata will have to keep on for at least a year, according to the conditions of the deal.

It also has about 120 planes, and before the pandemic Air India was flying to more than 100 international and domestic destinations.

Air India also has coveted landing slots, including London Heathrow, and with expectations that passenger traffic will return to strong growth in India after the pandemic, these are some of the factors that mean there is potential for the airline to eventually deliver a strong financial performance.

Tata's ownership of Air India “could positively and structurally re-set the sector”, leading to a more level playing field once the government is no longer involved, said Vivek Keerthy, the practice lead, strategy, at CAPA India, an aviation consultancy.

But adding to the competition in the market, Jet Airways could be set to resume flights in the first quarter of 2022 and a new "ultra low-cost carrier” called Akasa Air is also preparing to launch operations next year.

With so many carriers in the market, and given that Air India will be Tata's third airline, analysts see consolidation in the future.

“Tata Group’s acquisition of a 100 per cent stake in Air India is likely to result in a consolidation in the domestic civil aviation market,” says Mr Chowdhury.

Tata Sons has been working on a plan to combine Vistara, Air India, and AirAsia, The Hindu Business Line reported, citing sources.

Ratan Tata, the chairman emeritus of the group, tweeted it would “take considerable effort to rebuild Air India” but added “it will hopefully provide a very strong market opportunity to the Tata Group's presence in the aviation industry”.

The deal also bodes well for prime minister Narendra Modi's government's wider privatisation plans as it seeks to raise 1.75tn rupees in the current financial year from the sale of state-owned companies. Mr Bhambwani says that the Air India deal sends a “positive signal to global investors”.

The deal comes as the government is focused on boosting the pandemic-battered economy and creating much-needed jobs. Air India was proving to be a huge drain on taxpayers' money and it is widely believed these funds could be better utilised elsewhere.

Updated: October 9th 2021, 2:32 AM

Automakers funding new tech aimed at making greener lithium for EVs

Reuters | October 7, 2021 | 

IAA 2021, Munich. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Automakers, investors and even oilfield giant Schlumberger NV are beginning to embrace environmentally friendly technologies to produce lithium that could help meet 25% or more of global demand for the electric vehicle battery metal by the end of the decade.


Stellantis, Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and others have invested millions of dollars or signed supply agreements with so-called direct lithium extraction (DLE) start-ups in recent months in an attempt to propel the technology to commercial production, expected within the next year or two.

DLE technologies use less land and groundwater than hard rock mining and brine evaporation ponds – the traditional ways to process the white metal. Industry analysts see it as a new way to help ensure lithium supply for the EV industry – if the technology can work on a large scale.

“More green lithium is the promise of this new technology,” said Kasper Sage of BMW i Ventures, BMW’s venture capital fund, which this week invested in DLE tech start-up firm Lilac Solutions Inc.

DLE technologies are comparable to common household water softeners, which remove metals from drinking water.

The process can take as little as a few hours to filter the metal inside an average-sized warehouse. By contrast, traditional evaporation ponds can be hundreds of acres in size, permanently drain nearby aquifers and take several years to produce lithium.

However, most DLE technologies are more expensive to operate than evaporation ponds, which use sunlight, and some require large volumes of freshwater and electricity.

Albemarle Corp and other traditional lithium producers say they have studied DLE technologies but feel they will not go mainstream until later this decade, given worries about high energy and water use.

“Access to clean water is one of the key hindrances to DLE,” said John Peichel of Suez PA’s water technology division, which sells equipment to the lithium industry.

Schlumberger, known for its hydraulic fracturing work, is building a DLE project in Nevada and says its “ultimate goal” is to produce lithium without any freshwater. It is a goal the U.S. Department of Energy is supporting with a $4 million contest for the best geothermal lithium technological developments.

Wall Street

The potential hurdles have not hindered Wall Street’s interest in so-called green lithium.

Standard Lithium Ltd.’s shares have risen six-fold since they started trading in New York in July, even though the company’s DLE technology is still being piloted in Arkansas.

Australia’s Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd shares are up 40% since August on its plans to supply automakers Stellantis and Renault SA from its German DLE project.

Chris Berry, an independent industry analyst with House Mountain Partners, says that based on existing announcements, DLE could produce a quarter of global lithium supply by the end of the decade, though he noted not all technologies should be treated as equal. Other industry consultants put that figure even higher.

Global demand for lithium last year was about 320,000 tonnes, and is expected to hit 1 million tonnes by 2025 and 3 million tonnes by the end of the decade.

“Investors need to weigh the benefits of DLE technology against a host of challenges in tailoring the technology to each lithium deposit,” Berry said.

One area drawing attention from DLE developers is California’s Salton Sea, roughly 160 miles (258 km) southeast of Los Angeles. Superhot brines teeming with lithium swirl under the area, which sits atop the San Andreas Fault.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc and EnergySource LLC are studying ways to add DLE technology to existing power plants there so they can process lithium while producing electricity.

Nearby, privately held Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd is developing a geothermal lithium brine project to supply General Motors, which said CTR could supply “a sizeable amount of our lithium needs” by 2024.

That project, as well as a similar one in Argentina, are backed by technology from Lilac Solutions and seen by some analysts as one of DLE’s first commercial tests.

The DLE attention comes as prices for lithium are near all-time highs, according to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, fueling the race for new technologies.

“Lithium supply is the main bottleneck to electrification and DLE can help boost that supply,” said Teague Egan, chief executive of Energy Exploration Technologies Inc, a privately held company working with Argentina lithium producer Orocobre Ltd.

(By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Dam disasters were wake up call for Vale, CEO says

Reuters | October 6, 2021 |

Vale CEO Eduardo Bartolomeo (Credit: Vale)

After two deadly dam disasters that made Vale SA a pariah of the global green movement, Brazil’s largest mining company is striving to put the environment and climate at the heart of its business, Chief Executive Eduardo Bartolomeo told Reuters.


Bartolomeo, speaking in an interview at the Reuters Impact conference, said the disasters – which killed nearly 300 people and caused huge environmental damage in Brazil – were a wake up call that forced the company to think differently.

“I think everybody woke up. I think the incidents, the tragedies, unfortunately pushed us to open up our minds. It’s a driving force behind everything we do here at Vale and it is a driving force for the industry as well,” he said.

Beyond improving safety, it helped Vale reconsider its wider role too, according to Bartolomeo.

“We need to give back to society, we are a mining company, we extract natural resources, we are only going to be accepted if we share value with society,” he said.

WATCH: Fire halts copper production at Vale’s Salobo mine

Vale plans to invest between $4 billion and $6 billion to reduce emissions by 2030, aiming to cut its direct and indirect carbon emissions by 33%. It plans to hit zero net emissions by 2050.

Bartolomeo said his own remuneration package now sets targets for safety and sustainability, with 20% of his long-term compensation associated with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals.

Vale is also developing a new iron ore pellet that aims to reduce the emissions of steelmaking clients. The so-called green briquette, the result of nearly 10 years of research and development, will be produced in 2023. It is made up of iron ore and a technological binder solution which includes sand from the treatment of mining tailings in its composition, and is capable of resisting high blast furnace temperatures without disintegrating.

“This is a new pellet, but a new pellet with 80% less carbon footprint,” Bartolomeo said. The estimate is that, in the long term, the company will have the capacity to produce over 50 million tons per year of green briquettes, generating value as well as environmental gains.

“It’s a new business for Vale”, he said. “This is not greenwashing.”
YES IT IS 

(By Marta Nogueira and Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Richard Pullin)

ALBERTA

Allowing Rocky Mountain coal lease transfers during debate sends wrong signal: group

EDMONTON — An environmental group says an exchange of coal exploration lease applications in Alberta's Rocky Mountains suggests mining companies expect to be able to go ahead with their plans despite a provincial debate on the industry's future.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"They wouldn't be buying those lease applications if they didn't think they could do something with them down the road," said Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

Morrison said her group has found that Cabin Ridge Project Ltd., one of several companies hoping to develop open-pit coal mines in the Rockies, has purchased 2,000 hectares of coal exploration lease applications from a second company, Peace River Coal.

The purchases took place over July and August, after Alberta suspended exploration activity and the sale of new leases in response to public concern over the high-impact industry in one of the province's most beloved landscapes. The purchases also coincided with the work of a government panel tasked with hearing from Albertans about how or if they want industry on those summits and foothills.

The purchases concern so-called Category 2 lands, which are deemed the most environmentally sensitive and valuable.

Energy Minister Sonya Savage said she is baffled. "I am puzzled why any coal company would want to purchase a lease application for Category 2 lands in that area given the strong concerns raised by Albertans," she said in an email. "We have been clear that all exploration activity in that region has been halted."

Cabin Ridge did not return a request for comment.

The Alberta Energy Regulator, which approved the transfers, referred questions to Alberta Energy.

New Democrat Opposition environment critic Marlin Schmidt said, despite Savage's statement, the lease transfers are in line with the United Conservative government's actions.

“Even when the UCP attempted to backpedal on their decision to open up the mountains for coal mining, Minister Savage said the government's goal was still to develop a coal policy, not a regional plan," he said in a release.

“I’m concerned that this continued approach by the UCP is what is leading these companies on to continue their investments in coal mining exploration."

Morrison said the lease transfers violate the spirit of the government's promise not to sell new exploration leases in the area. She said the transfers should not have been approved by the regulator.

"Allowing Cabin Ridge to buy a new coal lease is sending the signal that things are progressing as normal, that they'll get this coal engagement thing out of the way and then they'll be allowed to keep going despite the fact we've said, 'let's stop it all until we figure it out.'

"There's no public interest reason for (the regulator) to have approved the transfer of that application."

Alberta has been debating the possibility of more coal mines in a long stretch of the Rockies that covers most of their range in the province since the government revoked a 1976 policy that protected them. Those landscapes are favourite recreation destinations, as well as the source of most of the province's drinking water.

A public outcry against coal mines, including voices from urban environmentalists to small-town mayors and ranchers, forced the province to restore protections and strike a committee to hear from Albertans before making further moves.

The head of that committee, Ron Wallace, has said it's clear from the input he's received that Albertans want an overall policy for what happens on those landscapes, not just a list of where coal mines might be acceptable. His committee is slated to report in November.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2021.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press