Arizona restricts farming to protect groundwater supply


This April 18, 2022 photo provided by Mohave County shows orchards near Kingman, Ariz. where irrigation now has been limited. The Arizona Department of Water Resources made the decision this week to protect a dwindling groundwater supply. (Mohave County via AP)More

FELICIA FONSECA
Wed, December 21, 2022 

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The outskirts of Kingman, Arizona, used to be a place where pilots would train and recreationists tested their all-terrain vehicles.

The dry and empty landscape has since morphed into something much more green that supports pistachio and almond orchards, as well as garlic and potato fields, in a climate similar to California's Central Valley. The crops are fed by groundwater that also serves the city of Kingman.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources this week put a limit on the amount of land that can be watered, designating the Hualapai Valley as an irrigation non-expansion area. That means anyone who hasn't farmed more than 2 acres there during the past five years can't.

It's the first such designation in Arizona in four decades — highlighting struggles around the U.S. as water supplies dwindle and tensions grow between farmers and cities. Just last week, a board that advises the Kansas governor voted to make a historic recommendation to protect the Ogallala aquifer, which has been tapped for decades to irrigate crops in an arid region.

In Arizona, elected officials supported the designation, saying they want to ensure residents have access to affordable water in the future.

Some residents saw the designation as an assault on their private property rights, and farmers felt they were targeted as water guzzlers despite using what they say is the best available technology to conserve.

“It's really tricky," said Kathy Tackett-Hicks, a consultant for Peacock Nuts, LLC, which grows pistachio trees on roughly 5 square miles (13 square kilometers) in the valley. “No one is totally right, and no one is totally wrong.”

The Hualapai Valley stretches more than 60 miles (97 kilometers) from where the Colorado River exits the Grand Canyon to the south and east of Kingman, taking in small, unincorporated communities in Mohave County. According to some estimates, nearly 22 square miles (57 square kilometers) are irrigated.

State Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke said the rate at which the groundwater is being recharged isn't keeping up with what is being taken out. Without action, the department said, one in 20 wells would no longer produce in 100 years. Groundwater levels are expected to drop regardless.

The new designation doesn’t restrict the amount of water that can be used but rather prohibits irrigating any more land than has been in production over the past five years. The restriction doesn’t apply to people who want to grow gardens or farm on less than 2 acres.

Property owners with larger pieces of land who can show they have made a substantial capital investment toward farming also could be exempt.

Meters will have to be installed on wells equipped to pump more than 35 gallons (132 liters) a minute, which applies mostly to commercial operations. The amount of water used also must be reported to the state.

Groundwater use generally is unregulated in Arizona outside of major metropolitan areas.

Elected officials in Mohave County first requested the irrigation non-expansion area designation in 2016 to regulate what they expected to be rapid and dramatic growth in corporate agriculture in the valley. The land has been advertised as ideal for growing — with little regulation, established wells, a good climate and proximity to Interstate 40 and rail lines.

The Water Resources Department twice declined requests for the designation before agreeing to consider it this year because new data was available. The department held public hearings and solicited comments before Buschatzke signed off on the designation Monday.

Mohave County Supervisor Jean Bishop said the rapid growth in farming changed the perspective that the aquifer can produce indefinitely. She said she appreciates technological advances in farming but said it's still unsustainable over the long term.

“It’s been a long, hard road," she said of advocating for limits.

Tackett-Hicks and the Arizona Farm Bureau said they're disappointed and don't believe the hydrology justifies the designation. They said local growers have been good stewards and are economic drivers in the county.

“This decision limits any potential growth of this industry, thereby limiting the future success of Kingman and Mohave County," said Chelsea McGuire, the bureau's government relations director.

The designation won't be final until after a 30-day period in which a motion for rehearing or review could be filed with the state. So far, nothing has been filed.

Arizona has two other irrigation non-expansion areas near Joseph City and in the Harquahala Valley that straddles Interstate 10 west of Phoenix. They were established more than 40 years ago. Another near Douglas recently was expanded to regulate more groundwater uses.

SCI FI TECH

Giant Laser From ‘Star Trek’ to Be Tested in Fusion Breakthrough




David R Baker and Will Wade
Wed, December 21, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- The breakthrough came in an impossibly small slice of time, less than it takes a beam of light to move an inch. In that tiny moment, nuclear fusion as an energy source went from far-away dream to reality. The world is now grappling with the implications of the historic milestone. For Arthur Pak and the countless other scientists who’ve spent decades getting to this point, the work is just beginning.

Pak and his colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are now faced with a daunting task: Do it again, but better — and bigger.

That means perfecting the use of the world’s largest laser, housed in the lab’s National Ignition Facility that science-fiction fans will recognize from the film Star Trek: Into Darkness, when it was used as a set for the warp core of the starship Enterprise. Just after 1 a.m. on Dec. 5, the laser shot 192 beams in three carefully modulated pulses at a cylinder containing a tiny diamond capsule filled with hydrogen, in an attempt to spark the first fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create. It succeeded, starting the path toward what scientists hope will someday be a new, carbon-free power source that will allow humans to harness the same source of energy that lights the stars.

Pak, who joined the Lawrence Livermore lab outside San Francisco in 2010, woke at 3 a.m. that day, unable to resist checking the initial results from his San Jose home. He'd tried staying awake for the shot itself, finally giving up as the experiment's painstaking preparations dragged late into the night. “If you stayed up for every shot, every time for 10 years, you'd go insane,” he said.

For the last several months, it was clear his team was getting close, and in the pre-dawn dark, he checked for a key number that could show whether they'd succeeded — a count of neutrons the blast produced.

“When I saw that number, I was blown away,” he said.

“You can work your whole career and never see this moment. You’re doing it because you believe in the destination, and you like the challenge,” said Pak, leader for diagnostics on the experiment. “When humans come together and work collectively, we can do amazing things.”

The team at Lawrence Livermore — a government-funded research lab — will likely run its next test in February, with several more experiments to come in the months after. The goal will be to keep increasing the amount of energy that’s produced in the reaction. The means more tinkering: Use more laser energy. Fine-tune the laser blast. Generate more x-rays within the target — a key step of the process — using the same amount of energy. Maybe, eventually, upgrade the facility itself, a decision that would require buy-in from the Energy Department and a huge amount of funding.

All of that will take years, if not decades, starting with the Lawrence Livermore lab’s bite-sized experiments that last just nanoseconds.

“We need to figure out: Can we make it simpler? Can we make this process easier and more repeatable? Can we begin to do it more than one time a day?” said Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore lab. “Each of these is an incredible scientific and engineering challenge for us.”

Most experts forecast that the world is still at least 20 to 30 years away from fusion technology becoming viable on a scale that’s large and affordable enough to produce commercial power. That timeline places fusion beyond the scope of significantly being used to reach the world’s net-zero emissions goals by 2050. In that sense, fusion could be the carbon-free energy source of the future, but not of the current global energy transition that’s faced continuous hurdles.

Fusion has captured the scientific imagination for decades. It's already used to give modern nuclear weapons their devastating power, but the dream is taming it for civilian energy demand. If it can be brought to scale, it would lead to power plants that supply abundant electricity day and night without emitting greenhouse gases. And unlike the nuclear power of today, sparked through a process called fission, it wouldn’t create long-lived radioactive waste. Entire generations of scientists have pursued it. President Joe Biden’s chief science advisor, Arati Prabhakar, spent a summer working on the lab’s laser-fusion program as a 19-year-old college student in bell bottoms — in 1978.

“This is such a tremendous example of what perseverance can achieve,” she said at a press conference last week. “This is how you do really big, hard things.”

Merging Atoms

The successful laser shot produced fusion reactions generating 3.15 megajoules of power, topping the 2.05 megajoules imparted by the laser. It was a major threshold, the first time more energy came out than went in from the laser. But the equation needs to tilt much more in the direction of how much comes out to become commercially viable.

While today’s nuclear power plants employ fission, splitting atoms apart, fusion merges atoms together. Fusion researchers have followed two primary tracks. Lawrence Livermore, using a process called inertial confinement, blasts targets with laser beams, imploding a small amount of hydrogen until it fuses into helium. A commercial plant using this approach would need to repeat the process over and over again, extremely rapidly, to generate enough energy to power the electric grid.

Numerous companies are developing inertial confinement systems, though there are significant differences. Some are looking at different materials for the target, while others use particle accelerators instead of lasers, triggering the fusion reaction by slamming atoms together.

The main competing idea is called magnetic confinement, with systems that create a cloud of plasma, superheated to hundreds of millions of degrees, which can trigger a fusion reaction. Powerful magnets control the plasma and sustain the reaction. This approach has not yet achieved a net-energy gain, and the approach faces challenges including developing better magnets and creating materials that can withstand superhot temperatures and be used for the container to contain the plasma.

About $5 billion in funding has gone into fusion companies to date, with the vast majority aimed at magnetic confinement technologies, according to the Fusion Industry Association trade group.

Inertial confinement may be better suited to proving that fusion can work, said Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at The Breakthrough Institute, an Oakland, California-based research group. But in the longer run when it comes to commercialization, “plasma magnetic confinement is more likely to succeed,” he said.

‘Be an Optimist’

Years were spent refining each part of the process at the Lawrence Livermore lab.

A lot of the success came down to precision. The fuel capsules all contain minute imperfections that can make a significant difference in how the reaction proceeds. So can the frozen hydrogen inside, a mix of the isotopes deuterium and tritium. The team would often produce the hydrogen ice, melt it back down and try again several times before a shot, hoping to get the best possible target and increase the chances of success.

Everyone working on fusion “has to be an optimist,” said Denise Hinkel, a physicist who focuses on improving the predictive ability of the program’s computer simulations and who has worked at Lawerence Livermore for 30 years. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t stay in the field.”

By this summer, the giant laser will be able to deliver about 8% more energy than it did during this month's shot, according to Jean-Michel Di Nicola, chief engineer for the National Ignition Facility’s laser. Michael Stadermann, the target fabrication program manager, said that the lab is also developing a computer program that can examine the fuel-capsule shells for flaws much faster than humans can. They're also working with capsule maker on improving the fabrication process.

It’s possible that the Lawrence Livermore breakthrough will remain just a moment of scientific history, and not mark the beginning of a new fusion industry powering the globe. Bridging the gap from experiment to commercialization could take decades, if it happens at all. And magnetic confinement could eventually be the fusion method that wins out, providing the world abundant clean energy. Pak, a soft-spoken man with a swoop of brown hair and a quick wit, said that outcome wouldn’t disappoint him.

“They can learn from us — we can learn from them,” Pak, 40, said. “When I’m an old man, I’m going to be really satisfied with my contributions.”

Gates-Backed Venture Plans to Build $760 Million Battery Plant




Brian Eckhouse and Mark Bergen
Thu, December 22, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Form Energy Inc., an energy-storage company backed by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, is planning a $760 million factory in West Virginia, the latest plant announced in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law.

After years of depending on foreign imports for its clean-energy supplies, the US is on the verge of a revival in domestic cleantech manufacturing. A key product: energy storage for the country’s grids and electric vehicles. The support of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin was critical to the passage of the climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

Form Energy is developing storage that’s intended to last far longer than the four-hour batteries that are slowly being added to US electric systems, potentially for days at a time. Such technology could speed the energy transition by making grids less vulnerable to the whims of wind and solar power — thus eliminating an advantage coal and gas have enjoyed over renewables.

The company expects to start construction of the Weirton-based factory in 2023 and begin manufacturing in 2024, according to a statement Thursday. It’s forecast to create at least 750 jobs.

The Massachusetts-based company has attracted considerable investor interest thanks to its promised innovation in battery technology. To make its cells, the startup plans to use iron, a more readily available material than lithium-ion. ArcelorMittal SA, the steel and mining giant, has invested alongside top-tier climate technology funds.

In October, Form Energy announced a $450 million Series E funding round.

Form Energy has previously said that it will spend less than $6 per kilowatt-hour of storage for its battery cell system, a steep cut that would make its offering competitive with fossil-fuel plants.

The company’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Mateo Jaramillo, previously helped develop Tesla Inc.’s Powerwall battery storage system.

--With assistance from David R. Baker.

Japan adopts plan to maximize nuclear energy, in major shift


This aerial photo shows the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, north of Tokyo, on March 17, 2022. Japan on Thursday, Dec. 22, adopted a new policy promoting greater use of nuclear energy to ensure a stable power supply amid global fuel shortages and reduce carbon emissions - a major reversal of its phase-out plan since the Fukushima crisis.

 (Shohei Miyano/Kyodo News via AP, File)


TOKYO (AP) — Japan adopted a plan on Thursday to extend the lifespan of nuclear reactors, replace the old and even build new ones, a major shift in a country scarred by the Fukushima disaster that once planned to phase out atomic power.

In the face of global fuel shortages, rising prices and pressure to reduce carbon emissions, Japan’s leaders have begun to turn back toward nuclear energy, but the announcement was their clearest commitment yet after keeping mum on delicate topics like the possibility of building new reactors.

Under the new policy, Japan will maximize the use of existing reactors by restarting as many of them as possible and prolonging the operating life of aging ones beyond a 60-year limit. The government also pledged to develop next-generation reactors.

In 2011, a powerful earthquake and the ensuing tsunami caused multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant — a disaster that supercharged anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan and at one point led the government to promise to phase out the energy by around 2030. But since then, the government has recommitted to the technology, including setting a target for nuclear to make up 20-22% of the country's energy mix by the end of the decade.

Still, restart approvals for idled nuclear reactors have come slowly since the Fukushima disaster, which led to stricter safety standards. Utility companies have applied for restarts at 27 reactors in the past decade. Seventeen have passed safety checks and only 10 have resumed operation.

According the paper laying out the new policy, nuclear power serves “an important role as a carbon-free baseload energy source in achieving supply stability and carbon neutrality” and pledged to “sustain use of nuclear power into the future.” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he planned to get the Cabinet to approve the policy and submit necessary bills to Parliament.

As part of the new policy, the Economy and Industry Ministry has drafted a plan to allow extensions every 10 years for reactors after 30 years of operation while also permitting utilities to subtract offline periods in calculating reactors’ operational life.

The plan was endorsed on Wednesday by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, Japan’s nuclear watchdog. New safety inspection rules still need to be put into law and approved by Parliament.

The regulation authority’s commissioner, Shinichi Yamanaka, told a news conference the new safety rules requiring operational permits every decade after 30 years will be safer than a current one-time 20-year extension option for 40-year-old reactors. But experts cast some doubt on that.

Takeo Kikkawa, an economics professor at the International University of Japan and an expert on energy, said utility operators under the new policy could keep using old equipment instead of investing in new technology or renewables.

“Naturally, we should aim for newer technology and use it safely. Therefore, extending reactors’ lifespans is an undesirable move,” Kikkawa recently told a talk show.

Most nuclear reactors in Japan are more than 30 years old. Four reactors that have operated for more than 40 years have received permission to operate, and one is currently online.

Under the new policy, Japan will also push for the development and construction of “next-generation innovative reactors” to replace about 20 reactors now set for decommissioning.

Kenichi Oshima, a Ryukoku University professor of environmental economy and energy policy, said some of what the government calls “innovative” reactors are not so different from existing technology and that prospects for nuclear fusion and other next-generation reactors are largely uncertain and not achievable anytime soon.

Thursday’s adoption of the new policy comes less than four months after Kishida launched the “GX (Green Transformation) Implementation Council” of outside experts and ministers to “consider all options” to compile a new policy that addresses global fuel shortages amid Russia’s war on Ukraine and seeks to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Nuclear energy accounts for less than 7% of Japan’s energy supply, and achieving the government’s goal of raising that share to 20-22% by 2030 will require about 27 reactors, from the current 10 — a target some say is not achievable. The new policy also does not help address imminent supply shortages because reactors cannot be restarted quickly enough.

While public opinion on nuclear energy has softened since Fukushima, opponents still argue atomic power is not flexible and not even cheaper than renewables when final waste management and necessary safety measures are considered — and that it can cause immeasurable damage in an accident.

Ruiko Muto, a survivor of the Fukushima disaster, called the new policy “extremely disappointing.” She added: “The Fukushima disaster is not over yet and the government seems to have already forgotten what happened.”

The regulation authority came under fire Wednesday after revelations by a civil group that a few of its experts had discussed details with industry ministry officials before the watchdog was officially asked to consider a rule change for aging reactors, despite their compulsory independence.

Prime Minister Kishida also said Thursday that the government will do more to find candidate sites for a final repository for high-level nuclear waste that Japan does not yet have. Preliminary studies have begun in two small towns in Hokkaido, angering some residents.

Rosatom says talks with IAEA on Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant safe zone to continue

Thu, 22 December 2022

A view shows the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant outside Enerhodar


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Rosatom state nuclear energy company said on Thursday that talks with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi about a safe zone around Ukraine's Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant would continue.

In a statement posted on Telegram, Rosatom said "approaches to the creation of a nuclear and physical safety protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant were discussed" and that there was "significant closeness" between the two sides' positions.

It said that talks would continue based on "understanding of the need to reach a mutually acceptable text as soon as possible".

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, Europe's largest, was captured by Russian troops in March, in the opening days of Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine. It remains close to the frontlines, and has repeatedly come under fire in recent months, raising fears of a nuclear disaster.

Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for the shelling. The IAEA, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has proposed a safe zone around the plant to guard against any damage to the facility.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Alison Williams)

Westinghouse’s VVER-1000 Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Agreement Helps Cement Bulgaria’s Energy Security

Thu, 22 December 2022

Westinghouse and Kozloduy Sign Long-Term Partnership for Nuclear Fuel

SOFIA, Bulgaria, December 22, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Westinghouse Electric Company and Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP) have signed a 10-year contract to fabricate and deliver VVER-1000 nuclear fuel for Unit 5. This new agreement guarantees reliable supply of the only fully Western option for VVER nuclear fuel fabrication.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221222005344/en/

Georgi Kirkov, Executive Director of Kozloduy NPP, left, and Aziz Dag, Westinghouse Vice President of Fuel VVER, signed the agreement in Sofia, Bulgaria, Dec. 22, 2022.

 (Photo: Business Wire)

"We appreciate counting on Westinghouse as a business partner for this agreement, which is in line with our long-term goals of nuclear fuel diversification and security of supply," said Mr. Georgi Kirkov, Executive Director of Kozloduy NPP.

"Westinghouse provides best-in-class fuel assemblies for VVER-type reactors. We are proud to support Bulgaria on its path to ensure diversification and energy security," said Tarik Choho, Westinghouse President of Nuclear Fuel. "This long-term partnership will also reinforce the plant’s operational efficiency and high standards of safety."

Westinghouse has an excellent track record of VVER nuclear fuel design used in VVER-1000 nuclear power plants in Ukraine with a decade of exceptional operational performance. The fuel will be supplied out of Westinghouse’s fabrication site in Västerås, Sweden and is the only fully independent alternative to Russian supply.

KNPP is the only nuclear power plant in Bulgaria and the largest in the region. Units 5 and 6 have a total installed capacity of 2GW and supply approximately one-third of the country's electricity. These units have been upgraded and modernized to extend their operational lives by 30 years each.

Westinghouse Electric Company is shaping the future of carbon-free energy by providing safe, innovative nuclear technologies to utilities globally. Westinghouse supplied the world’s first commercial pressurized water reactor in 1957 and the company’s technology is the basis for nearly one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants. Over 135 years of innovation make Westinghouse the preferred partner for advanced technologies covering the complete nuclear energy life cycle. For more information, visit www.westinghousenuclear.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221222005344/en/

Germany Revives Coal as Energy Security Trumps Climate Goals

Josefine Fokuhl and Todd Gillespie
Thu, 22 December 2022 

Germany Revives Coal as Energy Security Trumps Climate Goals


(Bloomberg) -- Germany is set to boost its reliance on coal as it battles an unprecedented energy crisis — even at the expense of its ambitious climate goals.

Europe’s largest economy is burning the fossil fuel for electricity at the fastest pace in at least six years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It’s also poised to be one of the few nations to increase coal imports next year.

On Thursday, utility Uniper SE said it would extend commercial operations of two of its coal-fired plants in Germany until March 2024 at the latest, in an effort to conserve natural gas in the coming winters.

Across the globe, highly polluting — and relatively cheap — coal is making a comeback as countries seek to prevent soaring energy costs from triggering an economic meltdown. In Europe, the crisis is acute, after Russia curbed gas supplies in the fallout of its war in Ukraine. Germany is now trying to balance the short-term priority of bolstering energy security with the longer-term goal of net-zero emissions by 2045.

“Everyone is keeping their climate targets, but it’s true that when you face the dilemma to keep the lights on or decrease carbon emissions, the choice is to keep the lights on,” said Carlos Fernandez Alvarez, the acting head of gas, coal and power at the International Energy Agency.

Germany plans to phase out coal use by 2038, but the ruling coalition is pushing for an even earlier target of 2030. To weather the current crisis, the country has temporarily brought back some plants that were offline.

In most countries, a limited amount of capacity is returning to service. “Only in Germany, with 10 gigawatts, is the reversal at a significant scale,” the IEA said in a report. That’s enough to power about 5 million homes, according to Bloomberg estimates.

Germany now generates more than a third of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, according to Destatis, the federal statistical office. In the third quarter, its electricity from the fuel was 13.3% higher than the same period a year earlier, the agency said.

“The coal phase-out ideally by 2030 is not in question,” a spokeswoman for the German Economy Ministry said in a statement. “Against the backdrop of the crisis situation, the most important thing is that we have apparently succeeded in consuming significantly less energy in 2022, especially natural gas.”

Germany’s power-market interventions that have led to an increase in emissions are limited in time, and the country has accelerated the development of renewable energy, she said.

Revival’s Origins

The German coal revival has two main causes: fuel switching away from expensive natural gas, and rising power demand from France, where electricity generation has been hobbled by nuclear-reactor outages.

European gas prices spiked to record levels over the summer and remain about twice the five-year average for the time of year. Earlier this year, companies including power generator Steag GmbH brought back coal capacity due to soaring gas prices. Automaker Volkswagen AG also shelved a plan to switch away from coal at its Wolfsburg facility in Germany.

While both gas and coal prices have declined recently, it’s still more profitable to burn the dirtier fuel to produce electricity.

“Coal is coming back as a baseload generator,” said Guillaume Perret, who leads energy consultancy Perret Associates Ltd. “We think it will be less seasonal than it has been – with more coal-burning in summer, spring and autumn, as long as coal remains so much in the money versus gas and there remains a gas shortage.”

It’s possible that Germany’s emergency coal stations could be kept online as far into the future as December 2024, nine months after the government’s planned closure date, Perret added. He noted that the European Union and Turkey are the only major energy users worldwide expected to increase coal imports in 2023 compared to 2022.

This year Germany will also likely be a net exporter of electricity to France, the first time that has happened in record-keeping since at least 1990, according to Destatis.

At times this month, German electricity became as polluting as power produced in South Africa and India, after lower wind speeds curbed renewable generation and coal consumption spiked, according to Electricity Maps, an app that aggregates grid data.

Path Forward

There are some bright spots for Europe that may help it avoid burning coal. Gas prices have slumped as previously mild weather pushed back the start of the heating season, and the region has seen record levels of liquefied natural gas imports recently. Gas inventories also remain above the seasonal average.

In addition, nuclear power in France has started to return. While some delays continue, reactor availability is now at about 68%, grid data show. That compares with about 50% in early November. Germany also plans to keep its three remaining nuclear plants online until at latest mid-April, beyond their original retirement date.

While Europe’s imports of coal are likely to rise, exactly how much of it is actually burned for power production is unpredictable, especially if hydropower increases in the region. Germany also increased its renewable energy generation by 2.9% on an annual basis in the third quarter of this year, according to Destatis.

“The acceleration of renewables deployment is the linchpin for both achieving energy sovereignty in the middle of this decade and our 2030 climate targets,” said Fabian Hein, project manager for EU policy at think tank Agora Energiewende.

--With assistance from Carolynn Look, Olivia Fletcher, Brian E. Wall, Petra Sorge and Vanessa Dezem.

Inside Joe Biden’s battle to destroy the Chinese microchip industry

Matt Oliver
Wed, December 21, 2022 

joe biden - Ross D. Franklin/AP

Joe Biden was in a jovial mood as he touted not one but two new microchip factories being built in Arizona.

“American manufacturing is back, folks,” the US President grinned.

He was speaking at the launch of a major new project spearheaded by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest chip maker. The company plans to produce 600,000 high-tech chip wafers per year at the new site in Phoenix and sell them to customers including iPhone maker Apple.

The $40bn project will catapult America back into a market it has not been a serious player in for 30 years.

But this is not simply the President sticking his mark on a factory that is bringing jobs to a crucial swing state: the backdrop is a growing divide between Washington and Beijing, and a tug of war with China over the critical technologies of the future.

Half of Biden’s plan to get America back to the top table of chip production involves dangling a juicy carrot in front of big businesses, offering them massive subsidies to expand or build new semiconductor factories on American soil.

That has already helped to attract tens of billions of dollars in fresh investment from the likes of Intel, Samsung and GlobalFoundries, along with TSMC.

Yet the other, perhaps more significant, part of the plan has been to wield an intimidatingly big stick in the direction of China.

Experts say the White House is effectively trying to choke off Beijing’s access to all advanced chips, with export restrictions that bar US companies from dealing with Chinese counterparts.

“It’s a huge gamble on Biden’s part,” says Matthew Byatt, a semiconductor industry expert at Acuity Advisors.

“The Americans are trying to build and improve their own home-grown capacity, while also putting short to medium term pressure on China.

“They are essentially betting that the semiconductor industry is so complicated that Beijing will just never be able to catch up.”

joe biden Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company 

- RICK D'ELIA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Underlying these aggressive steps are major concerns about the geopolitical ambitions of the Chinese government, which is becoming increasingly strident on the world stage.

US lawmakers fear Beijing is exploiting western-designed technology to bolster its growing military. Officials on both sides of the political divide hope that restrictions will slam on the breaks on the advances of the Chinese army.

“For a long time there has been a dispute in policy circles: Do you look at the long-term and keep exporting key components to China, to maintain their reliance on us and ensure that you still have leverage in 10 years or so? Or do you play the cards we have right now, because who knows what will happen in future?” says Matt Sheehan, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“When the White House announced these new export restrictions, they came firmly down on the side of the former.”

Coupled with concerns about an increasingly bellicose Beijing are anxieties about an overreliance on Taiwan.

Taiwan makes 65pc of the world's semiconductors and more than 90pc of the advanced chips that go into smartphones, laptops and technology that powers data centres and artificial intelligence (AI).

If Chinese president Xi Jinping eventually makes good on his promise to seize control of the democratically-governed island, it threatens to cripple the chip industry - and the global economy.

Making microchips - also known as semiconductors - is fiendishly complicated and involves supply chains that straddle the globe.

While much of the valuable research and development happens in the West, the manufacturing processes have been refined and perfected by businesses in Asia.

Typically, an American, European or Japanese firm might design and licence part of a chip, create software that is used to design it, or the key equipment used to produce it.

Meanwhile, materials that go into the designs may be processed somewhere like South Korea, before a foundry in Taiwan handles manufacturing: for instance imprinting wafers - discs of chip material - with circuit patterns.

Ron Black, chief executive of German chip designer Codasip, and former boss of Britain’s Imagination Technologies, says production was originally outsourced to Asia because of lower labour costs but is now focused there because of ingrained expertise.

“TSMC has become the best in the world at taking all this complex machinery and getting it all to work together in a way that is extremely efficient,” he says. “That is institutional knowledge that has been developed over decades.”

“It is not that you cannot do this somewhere else,” he adds. “With enough time, money and will, you could transfer it to the US. But it cannot be done quickly.”

The heavy codependency of the chip industry - once a symbol of globalism in action - is now being weaponized by the Biden administration to slow China’s rise.

The White House has effectively blocked Chinese companies from accessing US designed chips, technology that takes advantage of US chips and even equipment they would need to make chips if it is licensed from American or European companies.

The blockade threatens to render the sophisticated chip-making machines at Chinese factories useless, says Byatt, because foreign manufacturers are barred from sending technicians to maintain them or provide spare parts needed for repairs.

“In the short to medium term, it is absolutely devastating for China,” he adds.

Restrictions began under the Trump administration four years ago, targeted at only telecoms firms ZTE and Huawei, but have gradually been broadened out as American officials seek to tighten the noose around the sector.

Yet this strategy is inherently risky, says Carnegie’s Sheehan, and could backfire. A chip-starved China could manage to innovate its way out of the chip blockade and become self-sufficient - and more powerful as a result.

“There is a risk that if this does not kill them, it will only make them stronger,” he says.

Emily Taylor, an associate fellow at Chatham House and chief executive of Oxford Information Labs, contrasts the US approach today to the response that followed the Soviet Union’s unveiling of the Sputnik satellite. The launch triggered a burst of competitive spending and innovation that eventually put American astronauts on the Moon.

“This is much more of a negative reaction,” Taylor says, “because it is about trying to contain what many people see as China’s inevitable advancement in the areas it has ambitions in.

“It might give the US more breathing room but, for Biden to succeed, it also has to be followed by massive investment and sustained commitment to innovation in manufacturing.”

There are some signs that the investment needed is coming - but the seeds planted in the Arizona desert, among other locations, will require nurturing.

“Where is it written that America can't lead the world once again in manufacturing?” Biden asked his audience in Phoenix. “We're proving it can.”

Judge questions San Francisco tactics in homeless sweeps

 A man stands next to tents on a sidewalk in San Francisco on April 21, 2020. Homeless people are asking a federal judge for an emergency order to stop San Francisco from dismantling tent encampments without offering shelter beds. They are also asking the court at a hearing Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022, to stop the city from destroying the belongings of homeless people. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) 

JANIE HAR
Thu, December 22, 2022 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A judge in federal court Thursday questioned San Francisco's tactics in homeless encampment cleanups, suggesting the city is not following its own policies of offering shelter beds to people being asked to leave a public area.

Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu in U.S. District Court in Oakland did not issue a ruling on a request by homeless plaintiffs to make the city stop dismantling encampments until it has thousands more shelter beds. She said she would issue a written order on the request for a preliminary injunction.

Attorneys for San Francisco said its policies balance the rights of homeless people with a need to maintain public spaces clean and safe for everyone. In court documents, they said homeless people get plenty of notice of upcoming cleanings, receive offers of help and shelter and are asked to leave an encampment only after declining an offer to stay elsewhere.

But the judge pointed to evidence provided by the Coalition on Homelessness and seven plaintiffs, containing academic analysis and detailed eyewitness accounts of numerous sweeps conducted in the past three years that show homeless people were deprived of personal items and pushed out with nowhere to go.
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“The policy isn’t the problem,” Ryu said in the virtual hearing. “The question is how is that policy being executed.”

The Coalition on Homelessness sued San Francisco in September, alleging that the city clears out encampments not to connect homeless people to services and housing as it claims, but in response to neighborhood complaints and to drive out homeless residents.

The lawsuit is among several pending in Western states where visible homelessness has grown amid a shortage of shelter beds and affordable housing.

The coalition in San Francisco also requested a preliminary injunction to stop city workers from seizing tents, clothing and other belongings of homeless people unless it follows its own policies of bagging and tagging items for safekeeping for up to 90 days.

Jim Emery, deputy city attorney for San Francisco, acknowledged that outreach workers may not have specific shelter beds available at the start of an encampment cleanup, but said everyone who wants one gets a bed indoors by the end of the day.

But legal declarations submitted by homeless people, formerly homeless people and their advocates show many instances where beds were not offered. Instead, people were cited and threatened with arrest if they did not leave the area and their belongings were haphazardly trashed in rushed, early-morning sweeps.

Both sides acknowledged that the city is short thousands of shelter beds and there is no way for homeless people to voluntarily get off the streets and into shelters unless they are offered one during a cleanup.

There were 34 beds available as of Friday, said Zal K. Shroff, senior attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, one of several legal organizations representing the coalition. There are an estimated 7,800 homeless people in San Francisco.

The judge was also skeptical of Emery's explanation that the reason city street cleaners disposed of laptops, prosthetics, a wheelchair and working bikes — as plaintiffs swore in legal declarations — was that the items might have intermingled with needles used to inject drugs.

City policy allows street cleaners to dispose of garbage, abandoned belongings and items that present a health or safety risk.

The lawsuit is the latest in a yearslong battle between politically liberal San Francisco and the thousands of people sleeping on sidewalks and in vehicles along neighborhood streets.

In 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled it unconstitutional to cite or arrest people for sleeping in public when there is no shelter available.

Last week, a federal judge issued an emergency injunction to stop the city of Phoenix from conducting sweeps of a large homeless encampment downtown, in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Arizona. Authorities cannot enforce camping bans on anyone unable to obtain a shelter bed and can only seize property that is illegal or a threat.

The ACLU of New Mexico and others sued the city of Albuquerque this week, alleging officials are destroying encampments and criminalizing people for being homeless.

Chinese Startup’s $140,000 Car Can Fly Over Traffic Jams

Jane Zhang
Thu, December 22, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- The crowd of hundreds roared in Mandarin as the gull-winged two-seater aircraft rose and hovered roughly 30 meters (100 feet) above their heads, before smoothly lowering back down to earth. “Make us Chinese proud in Dubai!” several of the more enthusiastic shouted in unison.

In the past months, China’s Xpeng Aeroht has staged two maiden public flights for its aircraft. The 90-second exercise near Dubai’s iconic Palm Jumeirah island in October was followed by another in Guangzhou, China — landmarks for the startup backed by electric-vehicle maker Xpeng Inc. The EV firm’s billionaire founder He Xiaopeng and other backers are betting large they can overcome regulatory hurdles and capture a slice of what’s been touted as a $1 trillion market that could redefine how we move around.

“The flying car is approaching reality and we think it was the right time to chip in,” Brian Gu, Xpeng’s president, said on the sidelines of the Dubai event, called GITEX. “The industry has produced a lot of technical breakthroughs, from weight reduction to obstacle avoidance and electrification.”

Some would say it’s far too early for that sort of chutzpah. Others buy into it. Aeroht, founded in 2013 by 45-year-old high-school dropout Zhao Deli, was the star exhibitor at GITEX, one of Dubai’s biggest annual trade conferences. The prime minister of the United Arab Emirates stopped by the booth. People lined up to snap selfies with its prototype at its stand, the busiest on the floor.

The hype belies the reality that rival startups have grappled with for years. Companies including Lilium NV, Joby Aviation Inc. and Archer Aviation Inc. wowed investors with multibillion-dollar listings but are now trading near historic lows. Google co-founder Larry Page’s KittyHawk shut in September.

Most investors expect company closures and industry consolidation in the coming years, even as orders gradually increase, according to a study commissioned by Canada’s Horizon Aircraft Inc. published this month.

Investors want to find “the Tesla of the flying car industry,” said Zhang Junyi, a partner at consultancy Oliver Wyman who helped establish investment house Nio Capital. But it could take 10 to 15 years for the market to bloom. “Investing in the flying car industry is a tough marathon.”

The prototype flown in Guangzhou makes Aeroht stand out. While many eVTOLs — electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft — have no wheels and can’t be driven on the ground, the Chinese company’s sixth-generation model is an actual car that also works on the road. It looks like a luxury automobile rather than a small plane with wheels, which is some contenders’ approach.

In fact, the model is designed to be driven on the road for more than 90% of the time and only flown when there are traffic jams or obstacles. Founder Zhao said in an interview the car — which sports four electric engines and eight propellers — may go into mass production in 2025.

He envisions a price tag of about 1 million yuan ($140,000), a fraction of Joby’s vehicle ($1.3 million). That’s partly because Aeroht can tap Xpeng’s extensive chain of suppliers across China, he said.

The pursuit of eVTOLs dates back at least a decade, when entrepreneurs dreamed of democratizing the skies. (Or, more prosaically, of soaring over what Elon Musk calls “soul-destroying” traffic.)

In ensuing years, the field got increasingly crowded as investors dreamed of bringing a vision that existed only in comic books and sci-fi into reality. Morgan Stanley analysts say the eVTOL or urban air mobility field could be worth $1 trillion by 2040.

Chinese firms including Aeroht, Ehang Holdings Ltd. and TCab Tech joined the race in about the past half-decade, drawing inspiration from American names such as Joby and Archer. They nurtured a generation of entrepreneurs and investors trying to replicate the success China’s had with EVs, employing many of the same advantages: an extensive supply chain, vast pool of skilled labor, giant domestic market and — importantly — official support.

Many are counting on President Xi Jinping’s effort to displace American technology in fields from semiconductors to climate technology to galvanize funding and policy assistance.

“There are a few examples where American companies told us which sector is promising and can make money, and their Chinese counterparts just went and grabbed the market with lower prices,” said Warren Zhou, an investor with Decent Capital and backer of TCab Tech. He cited drones, hoverboards and robot vacuums. “It will be the same with the eVTOL and flying car industry.”

Some of the biggest names in startup investing agree, including IDG Capital, Sequoia China, GGV Capital and Hillhouse Capital — all backers of Aeroht. They joined a funding round of more than $500 million in 2021 at a valuation of $1.5 billion.

Zhao first met He, the founder of Xpeng, in 2020 after struggling for about a decade to keep his startup from going under. Zhao claims he won the entrepreneur over with a demo. “Talk first or fly first?” Zhao said he asked He. “Fly first!”

Not long after that meeting in Dongguan, Guangdong province, He and Xpeng invested in Zhao’s startup and re-branded it Xpeng Aeroht. Headquartered in Guangzhou with R&D centers in Shenzhen and Shanghai, the unicorn has expanded from about a dozen staff in 2020 to over 700 employees as of July.

It joins a number of other well-backed startups, including Shanghai-based AutoFlight, which landed $100 million from a European investor last November to develop air taxis. Volant Aerotech, founded in June 2021, got more than $14 million early this year.

To be sure, the technology isn’t yet fully developed. Much hinges on the development of batteries with higher energy density — the amount of power versus its mass. As flying cars need more oomph and are more sensitive to loads, lighter and more capable batteries than those used in EVs are crucial. The batteries Aeroht now employs in prototypes are lab products from domestic suppliers.

Yet entrepreneurs and investors say the technology isn’t their biggest concern — it’s the commercial viability and regulatory approval.

Some eVTOL companies such as New York-listed Ehang target businesses and have started to generate revenue. This year, Ehang received pre-orders for 160 of its autonomous aerial vehicles from Malaysia and Indonesia. AutoFlight’s eVTOL entry, Prosperity, won 260 orders in August from two companies to offer sightseeing and logistics services. The UK’s Vertical Aerospace Ltd. has racked up more than 1,400 pre-orders for its aircraft, and even Volkswagen AG in China unveiled in July its first eVTOL passenger drone prototype.

But it’ll take more than a few hundred orders to drive a market. Aeroht is betting true scale will be found in consumer products — but that’s where the steepest regulatory hurdles remain.

No country has seriously contemplated opening up its low-altitude airspace any time soon — especially for aviators with no pilot training. China, though, has recently designated a handful of provinces including Hunan, Jiangxi, and Anhui for exploring the concept. That gives hope to startups like Aeroht, which is working with regulatory bodies in the country to find locations for trials.

“Which country gets an edge will depend on policy support and the government’s resolution for electrification reform,” said Siyi Mi, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF.

--With assistance from Siddharth Philip and Christopher Jasper.