New Omicron Subvariant BA.2 Spreading Rapidly, Accounts For Roughly 1 Out Of Every 5 New Covid Cases Sequenced Globally, Says WHO

Tom Tapp
Wed, February 16, 2022


The World Health Organization has released a new report on Omicron sub-variant BA.2 which shows the strain accounted for 21.5% of all new Omicron cases analyzed worldwide in the first week of February. Omicron, in turn, represented nearly all of the variants identified globally (98.3%) in the genomically-sequenced samples submitted to the GISAID data-sharing hub in the previous 30 days.

Translation: BA.2 is spreading rapidly, though it is unclear to what effect.

BA.2 — sometimes called “Stealth Omicron” — accounted for the majority of new cases identified in 10 countries as of Monday. Those include Denmark, India, China, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Guam, Montenegro, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines. The report notes, however, that there are massive differences
in its spread across the globe “with the South-East Asia Region reporting the highest prevalence of BA.2 among Omicron sequences (44.7%) and the Region of the Americas reporting the lowest prevalence (1%).”

That’s good news for the U.S., most of which is removing restrictions after the winter Omicron wave. The prevalence of BA.2 has tripled from 1.2% during the week ending 29 January 2022 to 3.6% during the week ending 5 February 2022, but it still makes up a very small proportion of new cases.

By contrast, the new Omicron strain’s prevalence in South Africa rose from 27% on February 4 to 86% by February 11. In the United Kingdom it jumped six-fold from January 17-31, from 2.2% to 12%. Denmark saw its BA.2 numbers double from the last week of 2021 to mid-January 2022, from 20% to 45%. It became the dominant variant in that country by the third week of January, at 66% of sequenced samples.

Chart Showing growth of variants: Omicron BA.1 in purple & BA.2 in lavender 

- Credit: Emma B. Hodcroft, https://covariants.org/

A late-January report from the Statens Serum Institut, which operates under the auspices of the Dutch Ministry of Health, found that BA.2 will likely account for “nearly 100% of all cases by mid-February 2022.” The report also found that “BA.2 may be approx. 30% more transmissible than BA.1 (the original Omicron). “Consequently,” the assessment continues, “this quick increase in BA.2 may lead to a steeper epidemic curve with a higher peak and may postpone the time at which infection rates decline until February.”

The WHO, which was among the first prominent bodies to raise concern over the new strain, created a chart outlining its current thinking about BA.2, which indicates its real departure from other variants is, indeed, in transmissibility.

. - Credit: WHO

WHO

The reasons for the differences in rates of spread among countries are unclear. “The difference in growth potential between countries may be linked to differences in vaccination coverage and contact patterns arising because of restrictions, population densities, etc.,” the WHO report suggests. But an analysis of those factors does not provide clarity.

Denmark recently dropped nearly all of its restrictions, but its citizens are highly vaccinated, at over 80% according to Johns Hopkins University. By comparison, 65% percent of U.S. citizens are vaccinated. Yet we have not experienced the kind of growth that Denmark has, although we are only now broadly lifting masking restrictions.

Meanwhile South Africa, where Omicron was first identified and where BA.2 is now dominant, has just 29% of its population fully vaccinated, but still requires masks in indoor public places.

As for population density, Denmark overall is far more concentrated than either South Africa or the United States — which, of course, does have highly dense urban centers.

One thing that is clear: Cases are down in all three countries, despite the growth of BA.2. Also on the way down, however, is the number of tests, which muddies the analysis. Test positivity in all three countries is also a mixed bag, with Denmark moving up to at 35% the last week of January, the U.S. falling to 8.7% today and South Africa trending down to 11.3% in the first week of February.

Facebook owner said: We want only green energy. Idaho Power said OK. What it means to you


John Sowell
Thu, February 17, 2022

One thing that attracted Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, to Idaho for its planned data center in Kuna is the state’s low-cost electricity.

Data centers consume large amounts of electricity, and Idaho Power’s electricity is cheaper than that found in many other regions of the United States, thanks largely to the utility’s reliance on hydropower.

Meta will be the first Idaho Power customer to take part in a program that will assign only “renewable energy from new resources” to the Meta data center.

Meta’s needs will be met by adding electrical generation from wind and solar energy, Adam Richins, chief operating officer for Idaho Power, said in an interview.

“Throughout the year, they’ll offset 100% of their use, whatever that might be, by the same amount of renewable energy production,” Richins said.

Meta’s need for electricity to handle data for Facebook, Instagram and its other services will not cause rates for other Idaho Power customers to rise, he said.

“They made sure that the costs that they caused are paid by them, not other customers,” Richins said.

Of course, there’s no spigot to open for channeling electricity created by solar and wind power to Meta’s power lines after the data center planned for Kuna is built. Idaho Power will track how much electricity the center uses, and then each megawatt hour of electricity will be offset by a megawatt hour of renewable energy, he said.

Both Richins and Meta declined to say how much electricity Meta plans to use at the site at Kuna Mora and Cole roads. Idaho Power has enough capacity to easily supply the data center, Richins said. Idaho Power has a 20-year plan that allows it to meet projected needs well into the future.

When a large user hooks into an electrical system, it’s normal for residential customers and other businesses to wonder whether the price they pay for electricity could be affected.

“Meta has been really good at making sure that that’s not the case,” Richins said. “All the new resources that we will utilize to source their facilities will be paid for directly by Meta, and they do this all over the United States. They don’t want to come into an area and cause rates to increase in that area.”

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission will review the rate schedule for the company to ensure that other customers are not affected, Richins said.

An architect’s rendering of the data center Meta plans on what is now farmland at the northeast corner of Cole and Kuna-Mora roads in Kuna.

Solar power is on the rise in Idaho. RPlus Energies, an energy company in Salt Lake City, has proposed to build a giant solar farm southeast of Boise.

The Pleasant Valley Solar Project would be built at the South Orchard Access Road and East Monroe Avenue a few miles south of the Boise Stage Stop on Interstate 84, about halfway between Boise and Mountain Home. It would transmit solar energy to Idaho Power.

The solar farm would occupy 3,000 acres, more than 4.5 square miles. Construction would take one to two years.

Meta, formerly Facebook, plans to build a big center in Boise area. What we know

Meta pledges to make improvements so Kuna can attract more homeowners, businesses

5 things to know about Meta, parent company of Facebook, as it builds new Idaho facility

Victims Of Vancouver’s 1953 ‘Babes In The Woods’ Murders Finally Identified



Jax Miller
Wed, February 16, 2022


Nearly 70 years after two boys were found murdered in the woods, authorities in Canada say they’ve finally identified the victims.

The skeletal remains of two boys were discovered by a groundskeeper near Beaver Lake in Vancouver's Stanley Park in 1953, lending locals to refer to them as the "Babes in The Woods" murders, according to Vancouver Police. It was determined that the children were bludgeoned in their heads with a hatchet, which was found on the scene, then covered with a woman’s coat and concealed under thick brush, which grew around their small bodies over time.

Authorities believed that the victims had been killed in 1948.

On Tuesday, Vancouver Police formally announced that they’d identified the children as brothers Derek and David D’Alton, ages 6 and 7.

“These murders have haunted generations of homicide investigators, and we are relieved to now give these children a name and to bring some closure to this horrific case,” Vancouver Police Major Crime Section Inspector Dale Weidman stated. “Although significant folklore has surrounded this case for years, we must not forget that these were real children who died a tragic and heartbreaking death.”

For decades, the children’s remains had actually been displayed as an exhibit at the Vancouver Police Museum, according to The Globe and Mail. Photos displayed with the children's skeletons provided visitors with a glimpse into the crime scene, showing a lunch box, a leather aviator’s cap and a woman’s shoe found near the victims. In the 1990s, the boys' bones were finally cremated and scattered in the waters off Kits Point.

Last May, police announced that they had formed a partnership with Redgrave Research Forensic Services, a Massachusetts-based company specializing in genetic genealogy. Investigators used DNA samples collected from the boys’ skulls, and the lab matched one of the samples to a maternal grandparent, according to police. Those results led the company to create a family tree and connect the boys with relatives who’d already voluntarily submitted their DNA to private companies for genetic testing.

“We knew there were good odds of finding a living family member out there somewhere,” Detective Constable Aida Rodriguez, the lead investigator on the case, said. “But once we discovered that DNA match, we still had a significant amount of work to do to locate family members, check school records, and confirm specific details about the victims so we could be absolutely certain about their identities.”

Earlier this month, investigators visited a distant relative of the boys who lives outside of Vancouver. According to the CBC, that relative submitted their DNA for the sole purpose of finding out what really happened.

“The story that had been handed down to them was that the boys had been removed from the residence by the ministry,” said Rodriguez. “Even though this family member did their best to talk about the boys and try to get the story, the only response they got from family was silence. The absence of the boys was never discussed.”

According to the CBC, authorities claim they're looking into the validity behind theories that children’s protection services were involved with the family. Police confirmed with the outlet that the boys lived in poverty and were never reported missing.

Thanks to the relative’s information, authorities believe that the boys were descended from Russian immigrants who came to Canada at the turn of the 20th century, according to police; the family changed its name in the 1950s after the boys disappeared, police added. Although police didn’t reveal a suspect in the boys' death, they believe “the person who killed Derek and David was likely a close relative who died approximately 25 years ago.”

Journalists and law enforcement have long speculated that the children might have been killed by their own mother, as reported in the CBC and The Globe And Mail.

For now, those working the case are proud to give these boys their names.

“After seven decades as a cold case, we presumed that the person who killed Derek and David had likely passed away,” said Weidman. “But at this stage in the investigation, it was never about seeing someone charged for these crimes. It was always about giving these boys a name and finally telling their story. I’m proud to be part of the team that has done that.”

THIRD WORLD USA

186,000 New Jerseyans are about to find out they have lead drinking water pipes

Scott Fallon, NorthJersey.com
Thu, February 17, 2022, 2:41 PM·3 min read

More than 180,000 residents across New Jersey will be notified by Tuesday that drinking water is coming into their homes through a lead pipe, state officials said Thursday.

The properties with known lead service lines are scattered in hundreds of water systems throughout the state, but they tend to be in older communities where lead was often used before its toxic properties were fully known.

Water utilities are required to send notification via certified mail by Feb. 22 as part of a bill package signed into law last year by Gov. Phil Murphy that also forces providers to replace all lead pipes that stretch from water mains into a home within the next decade.


"There is no safe level of lead in drinking water or elsewhere," Shawn LaTourette, the state environmental commissioner, said Thursday. "We have to eliminate it where we find it, period."

The Department of Environmental Protection held briefings with some municipal officials and members of the press on Thursday to get the word out because the agency suspects that many homeowners and tenants will be learning for the first time that they have lead water lines.

Suez utility workers replacing an old lead service line, seen at right, with new copper line, coiled at left. Service lines connect water mains with homes and businesses.

Children exposed to lead can develop lifelong health problems, such as learning disabilities and neurological disorders.

The letters may generate an onslaught of questions and concerns to water utilities, town officials and the DEP or even to runs on bottled water.

"We hope not to see that kind of panic, but it's a possibility," LaTourette said.

DEP officials are directing homeowners to its webpage on lead abatement: nj.gov/dep/lead.

Forever chemicals: High levels of PFAS found in 34 NJ drinking water systems affecting 500K+ people

Suez: Utility spent $95M to remove lead pipes, and lead levels in NJ drinking water have dropped

The latest round of data submitted by water providers to state officials showed that at least 186,830 lead lines still exist in New Jersey. A map provided by the DEP shows the lead lines concentrated in the eastern portion of New Jersey from the New York border down through much of the Jersey Shore. Other areas include central New Jersey from Edison to Trenton, as well as some South Jersey towns near Philadelphia.

Providers still don't know the makeup of 1 million water lines, some of which are more than a century old. Poor records — sometimes even no records — on the composition of decades-old pipes have hampered efforts to identify areas with the greatest concentration of lead and which customers are most at risk from a metal that can cause harm even at low levels.

The American Water Works Association, an industry group, estimates there are 350,000 lead service lines in New Jersey. Removing all that lead could cost $2.3 billion, state officials have said.

Utilities from Suez to the Passaic Valley Water Commission have spent recent years replacing thousands of lead pipes after tests showed elevated levels. Last week, Newark officials celebrated the removal of 24,000 lead lines in less than three years after elevated levels drew national attention.

Some utilities are offering free water testing to residents, but they are not required to do so.

Utilities must eventually replace the entire service line into the home. Government-owned utilities can recoup the costs by billing individual homeowners or raising rates on everyone. Private companies such as Suez can only raise rates across its system to pay for the project.

Lead may also be in plumbing fixtures throughout a home, such as older faucets. The homeowner is responsible for replacing them.

Scott Fallon has covered the COVID-19 pandemic since its onset in March 2020. 
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ drinking water: 180K residents to learn of lead pipes

Union work will build the future of West Tennessee and strengthen communities | Opinion


Jeff Taylor and Brandon Osbahr

Thu, February 17, 2022

Six months ago, Governor Bill Lee made an announcement that would forever change West Tennessee: the arrival of a 3,600-acre Ford electric vehicle plant that would bring over 27,000 new jobs. Located between Jackson and Memphis in rural Haywood County, this mega campus will require an infrastructure overhaul, including the installation of 40 miles of pipe for water and waste.

The Tennessee State Pipe Trades Association represents nearly 5,000 men and women working in the piping industry. Our members across the state have built some of Tennessee’s largest economic development projects, from Nissan Stadium to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to the TVA power plants that keep electricity going in throughout the Tennessee Valley.

As the ones who will build the megasite’s infrastructure and help staff the completed factory, our union knows what kind of work this is going to take. We recently met with our union counterparts in Detroit to learn directly from those who have built America’s automobile industry infrastructure the workforce and level of skill our members will need to bring to the table for this project.

Volunteers from the Tennessee State Pipe Trades Association hand out water to help in the disaster recovery after a tornado ripped through Mayfield, Kent., on Dec. 10.

Ready to take care of business

TSPTA’s plumbers and steamfitters stand ready to build the next era of West Tennessee and we are excited to play a role in this unparalleled economic opportunity for our state. The influx of revenue created by the Megasite will bring new housing, businesses, and hospitals to the area, creating new jobs and further stimulating the economy. Local governments will also benefit from more funding for schools and public safety. Once built, the Megasite has the opportunity to create a higher standard for jobs that will be felt for years to come in West Tennessee.

We are ready to play a foundational role in this community transformation and are equipped to do so thanks to the connections and opportunities that unions like TSPTA provide. The opportunity to regularly make more per hour than non-union counterparts on a jobsite. The opportunity to receive health benefits and a retirement plan.

The opportunity to perform good quality, honest work to hang your hat on at the end of the day. The opportunity to thrive in ways previous generations hoped we could. Anything less is simply not good enough. Ford’s steadfast history as a union shop can help rebuild Tennessee’s middle class and deliver on those promises of the past for Tennessee’s workers now and in the future.

Yet calls for anti-union ‘secret ballots’ and other attempts by the legislature to undercut employee rights could threaten the quality of life for all West Tennesseans. That’s because the legacy of Jimmy Hoffa is alive and well in the private sector as corporations and their anti-employee lobbyists have taken on the mantle of corruption and self-dealing, vilifying the unions who stand up for workers rights and their quality of life.

Because of our union, we are trusted by employers and practice the highest standards in safety, training, and expertise. That’s because we’re entrusted to keep power plants running, hospitals functioning, and auto manufacturing plants humming.

To prepare for maintaining facilities such as these and the Ford Megasite, TSPTA members take specialized courses, receive hands-on experience in workshops and mock hospital settings, practice troubleshooting and the drawing of pipe network blueprints, and refine their math skills. Our 5-year apprenticeship program ensures a job well done while fostering a sense of brotherhood and community.

Our plumbers and steamfitters take pride in everything we do. We are eager to contribute to the West Tennessee community and show our neighbors that union labor will play a critical part in building the future of both electric vehicles and the state of Tennessee for decades to come.

Brandon Osbahr is the Business Manager for UA Plumbers Local 17.

Jeff Taylor is the Business Manager for UA Steamfitters Local 614. Both represent Memphis and West Tennessee in the Tennessee State Pipe Trades Association.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Why union work will strengthen West Tennessee and Ford megasite

Ford, battery maker face job requirement for Tennessee plant


Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks during a presentation on the planned factory to build electric F-Series trucks and the batteries to power future electric Ford and Lincoln vehicles on, Sept. 28, 2021, in Memphis, Tenn. Ford Motor Co. and a South Korean company would have to create more than 5,000 full-time jobs at a planned electric pickup truck factory and battery manufacturing plant in Tennessee or pay back at least part of a $500 million state grant for the project, according to a lease approved Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, by a regional board

.(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)


ADRIAN SAINZ
Thu, February 17, 2022

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Ford Motor Co. and a South Korean company would have to create more than 5,000 full-time jobs at a planned electric pickup truck factory and battery manufacturing plant in Tennessee or pay back at least part of a $500 million state grant for the project, according to a lease approved Thursday by a regional board.

The Megasite Authority of West Tennessee's board of directors voted to approve the lease during a meeting to discuss the $5.6 billion project to build electric F-Series pickups and batteries at a 3,600-acre (1,460-hectare) parcel of land in rural Stanton, northeast of Memphis.

Ford, battery maker SK Innovation and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced the project in September. A joint venture called BlueOvalSK will also construct twin battery plants in Glendale, Kentucky, in an estimated $5.8 billion investment. The projects are expected to create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker’s future manufacturing footprint toward the South while putting an emphasis on green energy.

Construction on the Tennessee site, named BlueOval City, is expected to begin later this year. Ford has said it plans to start production by 2025.

“The approval of the site lease for BlueOval City is another important step in keeping the project moving forward," Ford said in a statement.

In October, Tennessee lawmakers committed to spending nearly $900 million on state incentives, infrastructure upgrades and more as part of a sweeping plan with Ford. The agreement included $500 million in capital grant funds.

The lease approved by the board essentially grants the land to Ford through December 2051. The rent is $1 for the entire lease term.

Under conditions in the lease, an accountability agreement requires the creation of 90% of the committed 5,760 jobs in connection with the $500 million grant, according to details presented during the meeting by attorney Chris Bowles.

If less than 5,184 jobs are created within 10 years, Ford and SK will have to repay a portion of the grant plus $175 million, which represents the value of the land, according to the lease presentation.

“We thought to ourselves, ‘What protections does the state have if ... either the joint venture or Ford default on the obligation?’” Bowles said, adding: “That’s not what we expect to happen.”

The deal includes only full-time workers at the plant, not the estimated 30,000 jobs tied to the construction of the facility.

Bob Rolfe, Tennessee’s economic development commissioner, noted Swedish appliance maker Electrolux’s decision in 2019 to shut down its Memphis factory after receiving a large incentive package.

The state’s 2010 agreement with Electrolux didn’t include clawback provisions to recover $100 million in state incentives if job thresholds weren’t met. Electrolux later agreed to pay local taxes on the factory.

“Basically, Electrolux took $100 million from the state and lot of money from the city and the county, and then just woke up in year six and said ... we’re going to shut the plant down and we own everything, and there were no repercussions,” Rolfe said.

Rolfe added that the Ford payback provisions are “almost the opposite” of the Electrolux deal.

“There’s an enormous amount of capital at risk here,” Rolfe said.

Before landing the Ford project, Tennessee had invested more than $174 million in the Memphis megasite but struggled to lure the big tenant it wanted.

With an economy based largely on farming, Haywood County saw its population shrink by 4.9% to 17,864 people from 2010 to 2020, one of 14 counties to lose population as Tennessee grew as a whole by 8.9%, according to census data.

The meeting was held in Brownsville and livestreamed on the Internet.

AI acquires the power to manipulate fusion, but wait, it's actually good news


Devin Coldewey
Wed, February 16, 2022, 


A research group has taught AI to magnetically wrangle a high-powered stream of plasma used for fusion research — but wait! Put away your EMPs and screwdrivers, this is definitely a good thing, not a terrifying weapon for use against humanity in the coming robocalypse.

The project is a collaboration between Google's DeepMind and l'École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) started years ago when AI researchers from the former and fusion researchers from the latter met at a London hackathon. EPFL's Federico Felici explained the problem his lab was having with plasma maintenance in his tokamak.

Such an everyday complaint! Yet it struck a chord with DeepMind and the two got to work.

Fusion research is conducted in many ways, but all of them involve plasmas formed at incredibly high temperatures — hundreds of millions of degrees. Sounds dangerous, and it is, but a tokamak is one way to keep it under control and allow close observation of the fusion activity happening within. It's basically a torus or donut through which the superheated plasma travels in a circle, its path carefully constricted by magnetic fields.

To be clear, this isn't a fusion reactor of the type you hear about giving nearly unlimited clean energy; it doesn't produce energy, and if it suddenly started, you wouldn't want to be anywhere nearby. It's a research tool for testing and observing how these volatile but promising processes can be controlled and used for good.

In particular, the "variable-configuration" tokamak at the Swiss Plasma Center allows not just the containment of a ring of plasma, but for researchers to control its shape and path. By adjusting the magnetic parameters thousands of times per second, the ring can be made wider, thinner, more dense or diffuse, all kinds of factors that might affect its qualities.

Images of the tokamak machine and a 3D model of it.
Image Credits: DeepMind & SPC/EPFL

The precise settings for the machine's magnetic fields must be determined ahead of time, naturally, as the cost of improvising them badly is potentially serious damage. The settings are configured using a powerful simulator of the tokamak and plasma, which the team has been updating for years. But as Felici explained in an EPFL news release: "Lengthy calculations are still needed to determine the right value for each variable in the control system. That’s where our joint research project with DeepMind comes in."

The teams trained a machine learning system first to predict what plasma pattern a given set of settings would produce, then to work backwards from a desired plasma pattern and identify the settings that would produce it. (Simply stated, not so simply achieved, as is often the case with AI applications like this.)

According to a paper published today in the journal Nature, the approach was a resounding success:

This architecture meets control objectives specified at a high level, at the same time satisfying physical and operational constraints. This approach has unprecedented flexibility and generality in problem specification and yields a notable reduction in design effort to produce new plasma configurations. We successfully produce and control a diverse set of plasma configurations on the Tokamak à Configuration Variable including elongated, conventional shapes, as well as advanced configurations, such as negative triangularity and ‘snowflake’ configurations.

And here are some examples of different shapes and configurations the model was able to produce:

Animation showing cutaway view of the tokamak machine with a blob of plasma inside.
Slice of the tokamak "donut" showing cutaway view of interior and beam. 

Image Credits: DeepMind & SPC/EPFL

This is important work because experimenting with plasma like this — let alone using it for power — involves lots and lots (think millions) of tiny tweaks and those can't all be manually configured. If a theory calls for two streams, one 22% larger than the other, it might take weeks or months of work to come up with the theoretical settings to produce that using "traditional" methods (which, to be clear, are already fantastically complex digital simulations). But an AI could come up with a good match in a tiny fraction of that time, either creating the solution right there or giving human auditors a strong starting point to work from.

It also could be important for safety, since no human can improvise settings over a second or two that could contain an anomaly in time. But an AI might be able to change the settings in real time to prevent damage.

DeepMind researcher Martin Riedmiller admitted that it's "early days," but of course that can be said for nearly every AI application in science. Machine learning is proving to be a powerful and versatile tool for innumerable disciplines — but like good scientists they are taking every success with a grain of salt and looking forward to the next, more confident result.

Cryptocurrencies will suffer massive losses as the Fed ends 'crazy' speculation by hiking rates, JPMorgan strategist says


Harry Robertson
Wed, February 16, 2022

Bitcoin has tumbled since hitting a record high in November.

Marvin Recinos/Getty Images

Cryptocurrencies are likely to plunge even further as the Fed hikes interest rates, a senior JPMorgan strategist said.

"At some stage, I expect to see massive losses in crypto, because there is nothing there," David Kelly told Insider.

Kelly's crypto skepticism may not be universally shared at JPMorgan, which ventured into the metaverse Tuesday.

Cryptocurrencies are likely to plunge even further as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates and brings an era of "crazy" speculation to an end, according to a senior JPMorgan strategist.

"At some stage, I expect to see massive losses in crypto, because there is nothing there," David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told Insider.

Cryptocurrencies have already dropped sharply, with bitcoin tumbling from a high of above $68,000 in November to around $44,000 on Wednesday. The market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has slumped from above $3 trillion in November to less than $2 trillion today.

Investors have pivoted away from riskier investments, given the Fed prepares to hike interest rates numerous times in 2022 in an effort to tame inflation.

But Kelly said the rout isn't done yet, and he argues that digital assets are in particular danger because they serve no purpose. "It's still all fairy dust and very vulnerable to higher interest rates," he said.

The Fed's pandemic-era stimulus forced bond yields down to ultra-low levels, which prompted investors to turn to highly speculative investments such as cryptocurrencies and unprofitable tech stocks, according to the veteran strategist.

"If you push real interest rates up to a positive level, you will starve the crazy ideas of cash and funnel money towards projects that actually have a positive, real economic return," he said.

Kelly's skepticism about digital assets is not universally shared within JPMorgan, which gives customers access to crypto investment products.

The lender has a dedicated blockchain unit, called Onyx, that on Tuesday revealed it had bought a space within a crypto-powered metaverse called Decentraland. A metaverse is a virtual world where avatars can interact with each other, play games, hold meetings, trade assets and many other activities.

Kelly's thinking is more in tune with that of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who in October called bitcoin "worthless." Yet Dimon has said the bank's customers are adults, and the bank will give them access to digital assets if they want it.

The Fed could rock markets if it moves faster than investors currently expect, Kelly said — perhaps by hiking interest rates by 50 basis points in March, in response to January's red-hot inflation numbers.

"Anything carrying very high valuations would be vulnerable, if you expect the Fed to be more aggressive early," he said.

Report says new nuclear reactor is risky; utilities disagree


This Sept. 28, 2010, file photo shows the coal-fired Hunter 2 power plant in Castle Dale, Utah. A new type of nuclear reactor that would provide carbon-free energy to utilities in four states in the Western U.S. poses financial risks for utilities and their ratepayers, according to a report released Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022 that was immediately criticized by owner of the project and the company developing the reactor. The reactors are part of a broader nationwide effort to reduce greenhouse gases, like those from this coal plant in Utah.

(AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, File)

JENNIFER McDERMOTT
Thu, February 17, 2022

A new type of nuclear reactor that would provide carbon-free energy to at least four states in the Western U.S. poses financial risks for utilities and their ratepayers, according to a report released Thursday that was immediately criticized by the project's owner and the company developing the reactor.

The report by the Ohio-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said the small modular nuclear reactor being developed by NuScale Power in Oregon is "too expensive, too risky and too uncertain."

The NuScale design is the only small-scale reactor to win safety approval so far from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the agency is poised to issue a rule this summer that would fully certify it.

The Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, a cooperative representing utilities in seven Western states, wants to build and operate six of the company's reactors at the Idaho National Laboratory as part of a broader effort to reduce greenhouse gases and fight climate change. The first is projected to come online in 2029.

In addition to Utah, utilities in Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico have signed on to receive power from the NuScale reactors, and utilities in Washington and Oregon are considering it, according to the cooperative.

A recent Associated Press survey of the energy policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia found that a strong majority — about two-thirds — say nuclear energy will help take the place of fossil fuels. Many state energy experts have concluded that power generated from wind, solar, water and other renewable sources won't be enough to fully replace energy from oil, coal and natural gas.

The new nuclear reactors being developed are far smaller than those in a traditional nuclear power plant. Some use water to cool the core, while advanced reactors use something else such as gas, liquid metal or molten salt. The NRC expects more designs to be submitted.

The report from the institute, which supports renewable energy, said it's likely the NuScale reactor will take longer to build than estimated and that the final cost of power will be higher than anticipated and greater than the cost of power from renewable alternatives.

“The nuclear industry has been claiming that small modular reactors ... are the wave of the future and are essential in the fight against climate change,” report co-author David Schlissel said. “Based on the industry's long history of overpromising and underproducing in terms of providing low-cost power, we believe that these claims must be viewed carefully and cautiously.”

LaVarr Webb, spokesperson for the Utah energy cooperative, said the report omitted important facts, including the federal government's strong support for the project. The Energy Department approved a cost-sharing arrangement in 2020 that could provide up to $1.4 billion. The plans called for 12 reactors, but the cooperative said last year that it needs only six.

Webb said that while the authors highlighted construction cost overruns at some large traditional nuclear plants, they didn’t mention that the NuScale modules will be built in a factory and not at a site that could be affected by weather delays.

“There was a lot of misinformation,” he said. “Our members are very supportive of the project and we will go forward as planned.”

Both Webb and NuScale said they were not asked for feedback before the report was published.

“This report provides a wholly uninformed view of the value of advanced nuclear energy technology in meeting our energy needs and climate goals,” Diane Hughes, a vice president at NuScale, wrote in an email. “The report also mischaracterizes NuScale’s costs, does not accurately reflect or examine schedule timeframes and even fails to understand the output.”

Thom Carter, the energy advisor to Utah’s governor, said replacing carbon energy sources such as coal for generating electricity is a “nationwide struggle without an easy answer.”

“We do believe that nuclear power needs to be part of the decarbonizing conversation,” he said after receiving the report.

NuScale signed an agreement this week to explore bringing its small modular reactor technology to Poland. The company says it has 20 tentative agreements with customers in 11 countries.


Report slams NuScale SMR: "Too late, too expensive, too risky"



Alan Neuhauser
Thu, February 17, 2022

An analysis released Thursday by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) drops the hammer on NuScale's small modular reactor (SMR), which is arguably the most prominent next-generation nuclear reactor project currently planned in the U.S.

Why It Matters: NuScale is among the handful of companies developing SMRs, with the intent of reinvigorating the U.S. nuclear power sector.

Advocates argue that the technology will be vital for fully decarbonizing the electricity sector while ensuring reliable power.

Recent months have seen significant milestones, with Ontario Public Power moving to build an SMR from GE Hitachi, and the Tennessee Valley Authority last week green lighting up to $200 million to prepare for the potential construction of a similar SMR.

Skeptics contend that the billions of dollars being invested in advanced nuclear can be better spent on rapidly deploying wind, solar, storage, and efficiency resources.

What happened: The report by IEEFA, a research nonprofit, sharply criticizes the NuScale effort, set to be built in Idaho by 2030.

The report argues that the company's SMR will cost far more than the company claims, take much longer to build, and impede efforts to build other, zero-emissions options such as solar, wind, storage, and efficiency measures.

In 2020, the planned SMR became the first to win a design certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Details: The report's opening line: "Too late, too expensive, too risky and too uncertain. That, in a nutshell, describes NuScale’s planned small modular reactor (SMR) project, which has been in development since 2001 and will not begin commercial operations before 2029, if ever."

It continues: "This first-of-a-kind reactor poses serious financial risks for members of the Utah Associated Municipal Power System (UAMPS), currently the lead buyer, and other municipalities and utilities that sign up for a share of the project’s power."

Communities that have agreed to buy power from the NuScale project could find themselves on the hook if prices soar past the company's estimates.

NuScale was not consulted for the report. The authors say they drew from the company’s public statements, reports, presentations, disclosures, and correspondence with regulators.

What They’re Saying: Studies by researchers at Princeton University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are among those that have concluded that the U.S. electric grid can be largely decarbonized without the construction of new nuclear.

"Getting to an 80% reduction in CO2 can be easily done with renewables and storage," report author David Schlissel says. “The last 20% needs these exotic technologies like SMRs or carbon capture."

Diane Hughes, NuScale's vice president of marketing and communication, said in a statement, "While we have not received or reviewed the IEEFA report, the UAMPS project remains on schedule, and NuScale is excited [to create] an energy source that is smarter, cleaner, safer, and cost competitive."

Of Note: NuScale, backed by Guggenheim Partners, is planning to go public via SPAC later this year.

The Ancient Greeks also lived through a plague, and they too blamed their leaders for their suffering


Joel Christensen, Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis University
Wed, February 16, 2022

A painting by Nicolas Poussin titled 'The Athenian Plague' shows people dying of the plague. Bettmann / Contributor via Getty Images

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a scholar of ancient Greek literature, I have returned again and again to the Greek historian Thucydides to try understand the historical parallels to the American response to the health crisis.

Thucydides – a onetime general and historian of the Peloponnesian War, a generationlong struggle between Athens and Sparta – presents one of the most famous accounts of a plague from antiquity.

Then, as now, the story forms the backdrop for tragedy and conflict as Thucydides focuses on the emotional impact of living through a plague.

Parallels with plague

At the beginning of its conflict with its historical adversary, Sparta, Athens pulled its people and forces within the long walls that protected the central city’s access to the sea. With Athens’ maritime and economic supremacy, its leader Pericles believed that with such a strategy, the city-state would be impossible to conquer.

An unintended consequence of this strategy, however, was that the crowded confines of the city made it a fertile ground for a novel pathogen. The emergence of plague led to a temporary suspension of Athenian life, but it did not change the policy on the war or its strategy, despite the death toll.

Thucydides’ account records vividly the onset and progress of the disease as it fell on Athens. Some of what he wrote might sound familiar today: The symptoms of what was then an unidentified disease included chest pain, a cough, fever and diarrhea; if the disease was not fatal, it often left scars and a loss of memory.

Just as the spread of COVID-19 across the world led to a heightened focus on its origins, Thucydides tracked how the plague allegedly moved from Egypt through the Persian Empire and into Greece.

Thucydides also noted another fallout – despair. He described despair as the “most terrible feature of the sickness” and recorded that depression and fear were common. Like today, families lost their loved ones to the disease, and any kind of social order dissipated.

The despair of disease

I have also been deeply affected by Thucydides’ ability to talk about the plague from his own experience. As he notes at the beginning of his narrative of the disease, he became sick himself and watched others suffer.

Few people I know made it through 2020 and 2021 without anxiety about their own or their loved ones’ health. But the despair of actually contracting the disease and the feeling of utter powerlessness of watching one’s family getting it as well was something I personally evaded until January 2022.

Even though my spouse, my two older children and I were all vaccinated, we all contracted the virus. Our “mild” COVID experience left me winded going up stairs for weeks. And over a month later there is no one who can say what the long-term effects will be for us or our children.

Thucydides describes not just the despair of getting sick but the danger faced in “caring for one another.” My wife and I considered ourselves lucky that our fevers peaked at different times, leaving one of us to comfort our 9-month-old through four days of fever and a worrisome cough.

People dressed in coats holding burning candles for a memorial.

While we were sick, an average of 3,000 people died a day in the United States. Local and federal officials in many areas have pushed for a return to normal by planning to drop mask mandates and other restrictions. Experts have cautioned about the risk of new variants emerging as a large number of people in low-income countries remain unvaccinated.

Plague and leadership

The stories we tell and don’t tell about COVID-19 follow a pattern familiar to those who have spent time with ancient literature. Greek plague narratives take little interest in the nameless suffering masses and instead focus on the leaders who allow it to happen.

In Homer’s “Iliad,” the Greeks suffer a plague because their leader Agamemnon refuses the divinely sanctioned custom of accepting a ransom in exchange for a prisoner; the plague is sent as a punishment. Sophocles’ famous tragedy puts an Oedipus on stage. He wants to save his people but can’t see that he is the main cause for the spread of the disease.

Faulty public policies in the U.S., the U.K., Brazil and elsewhere have led to a large number of deaths that many experts considered preventable. The virus is only the beginning of the problem.

Plague stories provide settings in which fate pushes human organization to the limit. Leaders almost always play a pivotal role, as Zeus observes in Homer’s “Odyssey,” saying, “Humans are always blaming the gods for their suffering / but they experience pain beyond their fate because of their own recklessness.”
Leading for the public good

The Athenians lost the war with Sparta not because of the plague, but the plague did reveal the fault lines beneath the surface of Athenian culture. As Katherine Kelaidis, a scholar at the National Hellenic Museum, frames it, the disease was a moral test of the physical and political structures of Athens.

The Athenians lost tens of thousands of their citizens and soldiers and uncounted numbers of enslaved peoples and resident aliens, but they continued to fight for another 20 years. In the end, political factions and civil strife undermined their efforts to defend their state.

Two young scientists wearing protective masks and caps working on their computers that have an image of the coronavirus.

COVID-19 has shown the deep divisions among Americans, the lack of concern many of our neighbors show for one another, the fragility of the public health system and the limits of the leadership to meet collective challenges. But it has also shown the remarkable speed and creativity of scientists and the benefits of collaboration across international boundaries in helping us meet the unexpected.

Ancient Greek history and literature can help us understand the long-term social impacts of disease. They also show how fractious politics can undermine even heroic responses to public health challenges.


This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Joel Christensen, Brandeis University.

Read more:

Ancient Greek wisdom for today’s leadership crisis

An ancient Greek approach to risk and the lessons it can offer the modern world

Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.