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.

Not Even $200 a Barrel: Shale Giants Swear They Won't Drill More


Kevin Crowley and David Wethe
Thu, February 17, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- The Texas wildcatters that ushered in America’s shale revolution are resisting the temptation to pump more oil as the market rallies, signaling higher gasoline prices for consumers already battered by the worst inflation in a generation.

Crude prices hurtling toward $100 a barrel typically would spark a frenzy of new drilling by independent explorers in shale fields from the desert Southwest to the Upper Great Plains -- but not this year. Influential players like Pioneer Natural Resources Co., Devon Energy Corp. and Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources Inc. just pledged to limit 2022 production increases to no more than 5%, a fraction of the 20% or higher annual growth rates meted out in the pre-pandemic era.

The timing couldn’t be worse for consumers. Outside of OPEC, which has rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s pleas to accelerate production increases, domestic shale fields are the only other source of crude that can quickly respond to supply shortfalls. Together with fast-rising global consumption, American drillers’ conservatism is likely to keep oil prices elevated for some time to come.

“Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans,’’ Pioneer Chief Executive Officer Scott Sheffield said during a Bloomberg Television interview. “If the president wants us to grow, I just don’t think the industry can grow anyway.’’

To be sure, U.S. oil output will rise substantially this year and is forecast to return to pre-pandemic levels by 2023. But it probably won’t be enough to knock oil prices off their upward trajectory any time soon.

Publicly-listed independent explorers like Pioneer and Devon account for more than half of the roughly 10.5 million barrels that America produces daily from fields in the contiguous 48 states, according to IHS Markit Ltd. The rest comes from closely held outfits, family-run enterprises and the international supermajors, all of which are aggressively boosting output.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., for example, are targeting 25% and 10% shale growth, respectively, this year. At the same time, closely-held entities bankrolled by private-equity firms and family funds now control the majority of the country’s active drilling rigs. Going into this week’s quarterly earnings season, investors were apprehensive that the independents would evince signs of weakening discipline. After all, the benchmark North American oil price has surged 22% this year, at one point approaching $96 a barrel. That’s more than double the price needed to earn a healthy profit in places like the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico. Retail gasoline at U.S. filling stations, meanwhile, is already higher than it’s been since 2014, an ominous sign in a market that closely tracks fluctuations in crude markets.

“Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans.” — Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield

But the message from shale country is loud and clear: the independents won’t repeat the mistakes of the past by flooding the world with cheap oil. Record cash flows will go right back to investors through dividends and buybacks, CEOs are saying. That means U.S. drillers are leaving a lot of crude in the ground. If they chose the other path — pouring windfall profits into new drilling — they easily could inflate domestic production by 2 million barrels a day, according to IHS Markit. Current forecasts are for the U.S. to add less than half that to global supplies this year.

“We've had enough head fakes that we’re going to be very thoughtful in ramping activity up," Rick Muncrief, CEO of Devon Energy Corp., said during a phone interview. "Let’s face it: we all are recovering in one way or another from this pandemic. We’re just slowly getting healthier and healthier over time, but you don’t get there overnight.”

Such comments are a world away from the free-wheeling “drill, baby, drill’’ heyday earlier this century when shale upended global oil markets with year after year of record-high production. Seasoned CEOs like Muncrief, Sheffield and Hamm have seen too many bust cycles to get carried away again.

The unprecedented oil-price crash of 2020 exposed an industry that burned through more than $200 billion over the previous decade to make America the world’s biggest crude producer, leaving little left for shareholders. Even after the rally in oil stocks over the past year, U.S. energy companies are just 3.6% of the S&P 500 Index, down from more than 12% a decade ago.

“The growth experiment failed,” said Jeff Wyll, a senior analyst at fund manager Neuberger Berman Group LLC, which has about $400 billion of assets under management. “We are in a new paradigm.”The U.S. will add between 750,000 and 1 million barrels of daily output this year, according to recent estimates from the Energy Information Administration, Rystad Energy AS, ESAI Energy LLC and Lium LLC. But that’s less than a third of the International Energy Agency’s forecast for global demand growth, meaning it won’t be enough to tame the oil rally.

“Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans.” — Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield

It’s down to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the only two OPEC countries with significant spare capacity, to fill any supply gaps, according to Pioneer’s Sheffield. Crucially, independent U.S. drillers are still extremely wary of elbowing in on too much of the market share controlled by OPEC and its allies, which waged two price wars with shale in the space of less than 10 years.

“U.S. shale has lost twice already in a head-to-head battle with OPEC,’’ said Devin McDermott, an analyst at Morgan Stanley. Independent producers are “focused on cleaning up balance sheets, lowering break even prices and returning cash back to investors -- not looking for growth.’’

Shortage of Suzuki car mirrors reflects Sri Lanka's growing economic crisis

Thu, February 17, 2022
By Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Car spare parts dealers in Sri Lanka's main city of Colombo are receiving a steady stream of customers looking for what is fast becoming a prized commodity in the island nation - side mirrors for Suzuki's compact Wagon R.

The scramble for the humble product highlights rising economic risks for the South Asian country as imports slump, foreign exchange reserves plummet and a potential sovereign default looms.

Suzuki's boxy, five-seater vehicle is hugely popular in Sri Lanka, given its low running costs. With some 30,000 of the cars sold over the past four years in a nation that has relatively high road crash rates, replacement side mirrors are commonly sought in the spare parts shops scattered across the suburb of Nugegoda.

"Everyone is looking for Wagon R parts," said Supun Deshak, a salesman at one store in the district where shop fronts are piled high with reconditioned spare parts.

The difficulty is that importers are struggling to source car parts because they are deemed non-essential imports under rules drawn up by the government to save dwindling foreign exchange reserves after the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Reserves have plummeted to $2.36 billion from $7.5 billion in January 2020. At the same time, the government faces a debt obligation of around $4 billion this year, and local banks are often unable to provide dollars that importers need.

"The biggest concern right now is the difficulty in importing spare parts for maintaining the existing fleet of vehicles," said Yasendra Amerasinghe, chairman of the Ceylon Motor Traders Association (CMTA), which represents the country's major vehicle importers.

The CMTA estimates imports of car spare parts will fall by around 30% in value terms this fiscal year, compared to pre-pandemic levels, primarily because of the foreign exchange shortages in the past few months.

Five auto dealers in Colombo told Reuters many spare parts were already in short supply, with only a trickle of new stock coming in from abroad, driving up local prices.

Exacerbating the problem are thieves looking to make a quick buck by stealing side mirrors of popular models like the Wagon R to sell in a thriving grey market, the dealers said.

The price of reconditioned Wagon R mirrors has surged by more than 35% from pre-pandemic levels to at least 30,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($148.5) per piece, the dealers said.

SECOND-HAND CAR PRICE SURGE

The economic crisis facing the country - its worst in a decade - has also triggered an escalation in second-hand vehicle prices.

Almost all car imports were banned in March 2020, followed by a stop on imports of other non-essential goods like airconditioners, refrigerators and video games consoles, as part of the government's bid to deal with the financial strife.

That has pushed the cost of some second-hand vehicles up by more than 100%, the CMTA said. Sri Lanka does not mass produce any cars locally.

A used Wagon R currently costs around 5 million rupees ($24,752), well above the 2.8 million rupees a brand new vehicle cost in 2018, said CMTA Vice Chairman Virann De Zoysa.

That's added further pressure on the spares market as many car owners look to cash in on the price jump but first try to spruce up their vehicle with replacement parts, said Musthaq Nazeer of Azka Auto Supply, a small shop packed with car mirrors and lights.

As global automotive supply chain disruptions add another layer to the problem, the CMTA said it has asked the government to classify car spare parts as an essential item, along with some food and medicine, to increase imports.

"Every distributor's out of many, many key parts," De Zoysa said. "We're turning away customers on a daily basis."

(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal and Uditha Jayasinghe; editing by Jane Wardell)

California officials say 500-pound bear that broke into 38 homes must be killed

Bear League, an advocacy group, told the outlet that euthanizing the bear is unnecessary and cruel.

Asha C. Gilbert, USA TODAY
Thu, February 17, 2022, 

A search has started for a 500-pound bear in California after it broke into homes, but an advocacy group doesn't want the animal to be killed.

CBS 13 reports the bear has broken into 38 homes in South Lake Tahoe, resulting in more than 150 calls to police. And now the California Department of Fish and Wildlife says there is only one option to resolve the issue: Killing the bear.

Bear League, an advocacy group, told the outlet that euthanizing the bear is unnecessary and cruel.

“He’s always lived his life in that area,” Ann Bryant, executive director of the Bear League, told CBS 13. “We don’t want anybody to get hurt. Nobody wants that. We don’t want the bear to die either.”

As word spread about the plans to have the bear killed, some residents disagreed with Fish and Wildlife's stance and sided with the Bear League.

"They do not want the bear to pay the price for human ignorance. So when a bear is set to die in their community, people take a stand,” Bryant said.

Attempts to trap the bear have failed so far. The Bear League hopes to have the animal relocated to a sanctuary in Colorado.

"The Bear League reached out to the director of an excellent out-of-state wildlife sanctuary, who agreed he has room and would be very willing to give this bear a permanent home," Bryant told KCRA.

According to KCRA, the Department of Wildlife isn't sure that plan will work because black bears can't be imported into Colorado without permits and approval from the state's parks and wildlife agency.

Until the bear is captured, the department wants anyone who spots the animal to call law enforcement or the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Revolutionary new solar panels don’t need sunlight to generate energy


Joshua Hawkins
Wed, February 16, 2022


The idea of solar panels that don’t need sunlight might sound crazy, but it’s not completely impossible. As a cornerstone of the revolution to bring more clean energy to people, solar panels have become one of the best options out there. However, these energy conductors have one fatal flaw. They require direct sunlight to create energy. What if we could remove that flaw, though? That was the idea behind AuREUS, a new solar panel that doesn’t rely on direct sunlight to generate energy.

These solar panels don’t need sunlight to generate electricity

But how do you make solar panels that don’t rely on sunlight? Well, you don’t. At least, not entirely. Instead, you make solar panels that can feed off the ultraviolet rays of the Sun that clouds don’t hinder.

Carvey Ehren Maigue is a student at Mapua University in the Philippines. To create the panels, Maigue used luminescent particles from fruit and vegetable waste. These are the same particles that absorb the Sun’s ultraviolet rays and turn them into visible light. By using particles like this, Maigue created a solar film capable of capturing ultraviolet rays. The film then converts the rays into visible light which is used to generate energy.

The idea is an ingenious one, and one that helps cut down on even more waste around the world. Additionally, because it doesn’t rely on direct sunlight, it can continue to generate power even when it’s cloudy outside. The current prototype is only a 3-by-2-foot panel installed in a window of Maigue’s apartment. It’s capable of generating enough electricity to charge two phones each day, though. When scaled up, Maigue says he believed it could enable buildings to completely run off their own electricity.

Expanding renewable energy

Part of what is really exciting about solar panels that don’t need sunlight, though, is the scalability. The film-like panel that Maigue created is flexible. It’s made of resin and could possibly even be applied to pieces of clothing. The idea was so good, in fact, it won the Sustainability Award from the James Dyson Foundation in 2020.

Because it is so flexible, the solar film leaves a lot of room for more innovators to step up and find new applications. Even the basic design that Maigue used could prove useful, as it would only require you to apply the film to your window to gather electricity. This means less worry about expensive solar panels being on your roof or having to install them some other way. We could even see it installed in cars, too, giving new means of energy creation to electric vehicles.

STATE CAPITALI$M AMERICAN STYLE
What is the US Government Doing With Billions of Pounds of Cheese?

Angela L. Pagán
Wed, February 16, 2022,

Photo: Anadolu Agency / Contributor (Getty Images)

Deep in the caves of Missouri the U.S. government has stored 1.4 billion pounds of cheese for decades, reports Deseret News. We’re not just talking cheddar here either, the cave has Swiss, American, and many others.

Funny that government and private agencies are sitting on a cheese mine in Missouri when over in New York City there’s a bagel and schmear crisis. This insane reserve of cheese was actually started because of a surplus with the intention of it being used for those in need. Back in the 1970s the U.S. government started buying up cheese to help out farmers, but then farmers actually started producing too much so the government had to figure out what to do with everything that was left.


The solution came in the form of government food assistance programs that would distribute millions of pounds of dairy products. However, that wasn’t enough to deplete the surplus so then big business got involved. A semi-public marketing board was formed and the government started making deals with fast food companies to sell the cheese and make some cheddar. This marketing board is actually responsible for the creation of the “Got Milk?” campaign that had celebrities sporting milk mustaches and the rest of us chugging back 2%.

What happened to all that government cheese?

Today, the underground of Missouri holds more than just government cheese. According to the website, “Springfield Underground contains 3.2 million square feet of leasable space free from exposure to the outdoor elements.” The website also explains that the former limestone mine maintains a constant temperature of 62 degrees and offers refrigerated buildings from negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit to 55 degrees. So, no need to worry about spoiled Swiss.

As grocery prices continue to rise and supply chain issues run rampant, you’d think the U.S. government would put a pause on its cheese stockpiling, but apparently not. As recently as August of 2020, the Department of Agriculture announced the Cheese Purchase Program. The program is meant to “purchase Mozzarella, Process and Natural American Cheddar Cheese for the National School Lunch Program and other Federal food nutrition assistance programs.” Though the announcement came in 2020, the actual cheese deliveries were intended for the entire year of 2021.

Now that I think about it, a government conspiracy makes a lot more sense to me than celebrities genuinely just wanting people to drink more milk.

Tracks of elusive endangered animal found in Yosemite National Park. ‘Rare treat’

Maddie Capron
Thu, February 17, 2022

An elusive endangered animal wanders Yosemite National Park — but it’s rarely seen.

A critter the size of a cat with a long, bushy tail, short legs and feet that can turn nearly backwards left behind footprints for researchers to track down, Yosemite park rangers said.

Fishers roam Yosemite, but they’re almost never seen. But researchers recently found fisher tracks in the snow while collecting data.

“Sometimes, tracks are the only way to ‘see’ a fisher; they are usually silent, elusive mammals, and a sighting is a rare treat for most people,” park rangers said Feb. 15 on Facebook. “When snow records the impressions made by wildlife tracks, it is like a time-lapse photograph.”

The tracks show researchers how the fisher traveled through the snow. The animal used its typical “loping gate” to get across.

Fisher tracks were spotted in Yosemite National Park.

“It starts by thrusting its front feet forward with the spring action of its spine, then brings its back feet forward to replace the front feet as it begins another bound,” rangers said.

The fisher also leaves behind a scent that humans couldn’t notice. The critter has tiny scent glands on the bottom of its paw pads that are used for mating.

Yosemite researchers have been actively looking for fishers to collect data. The team wants to better understand the population.

Since 2014, up to half of habitat that’s suitable living space for fishers has been destroyed by wildfires. The animal often finds shelter in hollowed-out trees to make their dens, according to the National Park Service.

A fisher is about the size of a house cat, according to the National Park Service

Prolonged drought and beetle infestations have also harmed fisher habitat.

“By identifying suitable fisher habitat, we can better manage and protect these areas, so fishers will always have a home in Yosemite,” park rangers said.

Cameras spot a rare, weasel-like animal called a fisher roaming Yosemite National Park

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