Saturday, December 04, 2021

'HOSTS' AS IN PARASITE

Biden seeks willing hosts for nuclear waste storage sites

Richard Valdmanis Reuters

PUBLISHED

NOV 30, 2021

CREDIT: REUTERS/HO NEW
The Biden administration on Tuesday said it was seeking local communities willing to host nuclear waste storage sites, arguing they are needed to deal with the nation’s existing waste and encourage growth in virtually emissions-free nuclear power to fight climate change.

Nov 30 (Reuters) - The Biden administration on Tuesday said it was seeking local communities willing to host nuclear waste storage sites, arguing they are needed to deal with the nation’s existing waste and encourage growth in virtually emissions-free nuclear power to fight climate change.

The U.S. government tried for decades to create a large-scale nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain in Nevada to store waste accumulating at reactor sites, but the project was ultimately rejected due to public concerns about safety.

"Nuclear energy is essential to achieving the Administration’s goals to create a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by 2050,” the Department of Energy said in a press release announcing the effort.

“Managing waste not only makes nuclear a more sustainable option but also helps fulfill DOE’s obligation to manage the nation’s spent nuclear fuel,” it said.

The DOE said it was issuing a “request for information on a consent-based siting process” that would be used to identify sites.

Kathryn Huff, the Department of Energy's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, said hosting such sites could bring communities jobs and new infrastructure and that she expected "thousands of responses" to the request for information.

“DOE is committed to responsibly managing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and willing communities have the right to explore the benefits and conditions they need to host a federal interim storage facility,” she said.

"We think that this consent based approach is the right thing to do, and also our best chance for success," she added.

The United States has accumulated about 83,000 metric tons of radioactive nuclear waste since the 1950s, which is now stored in steel and concrete enclosures at 76 reactor sites in 34 states, according to the DOE.

ANTI-CHINA ASIAN ALLIANCE
Unlikely comrades: The US' and Vietnam’s militaries
By Patrick Winn -

© Luong Thai Linh/Pool photo via AP/File

When Ted Osius was a boy, the United States was mired in its bloody invasion of Vietnam.

How far the two governments have come.

In more recent years, as US ambassador to the country, Osius presided over the first major handover of American military hardware to Vietnam's communist government. (It was a fleet of high-tech patrol boats called Metal Sharks.)

That was in 2017. Since then, the two countries’ militaries have only grown closer. It is now routine for US naval vessels (including aircraft carriers) to visit Vietnam — and for the two armed forces to train together and share tactics.

It’s all part of a US-led strategy to help Vietnam’s navy stand up to China, namely in the South China Sea, the largest sea body on Earth, which is now flooded with Chinese warships and militarized island bases.

But how far will the US go to make a darling of Vietnam’s military?

The World's Southeast Asia correspondent Patrick Winn asked former Ambassador Osius, who served in Hanoi from 2014 to 2017. He is the author of the memoir “Nothing is Impossible: America’s Reconciliation with Vietnam.”

Patrick Winn: During your term, the US started giving military hardware to the communist government of Vietnam. And now, US warships and allies visit frequently. What does Vietnam get out of these military relations?

Ted Osius: Well, Vietnam faces a very formidable neighbor. Facing this situation with its northern neighbor, China, Vietnam has looked for friends. And the United States is prepared to be a friend. We haven’t talked about being allies, never in a serious way. But we’ve become partners.

Can you briefly lay out the reasons Vietnam is historically wary of China?

The Vietnamese have been fighting the Chinese for thousands of years. They’re going to resist domination, particularly by China. They’ll resist domination by any foreign power. They certainly resisted us. They resisted the French. But it’s in their DNA to resist the Chinese. Every village in Vietnam has streets named Bà Triệu and Hai Bà Trưng … and other Vietnamese heroes who fought the Chinese. This is part of who they are.

How often did you encounter high-ranking communist officials who were uneasy seeing the US get closer and closer to Vietnam? Or maybe worrying they’re being used as a proxy against China?

Oh, quite often! I encountered loads of people who were quite suspicious of US motives. Maybe just one short story to illustrate: I hosted Defense Secretary Ash Carter when he visited Hanoi. And we went to meet with Defense Minister [Phùng Quang] Thanh. We had a lovely dinner. We drank lots of wine. It was very jovial. And at a certain point, Ash Carter said, “Mr. Minister, how did you meet your wife?” He said, “Well, she picked shrapnel out of my hip.” Now, the reason she picked shrapnel out of his hip is because Americans put it there. And then Minister Thanh said, “You know, if we’d had a dinner like this back then, there never would have been a war.” But it took a lot of evenings like that, a lot of trust building, before people who had fought against us could consider us their friends.

That brings us to a very recent visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to Vietnam, where she called China “bullies” and said we should work together to increase pressure on Beijing. But a naval standoff with China — that costs a fortune in military spending.

What does the average US citizen, living 8,000 miles away, actually get out of that?

Well, I don’t think the US citizen 8,000 miles away cares about who is in control of which islands in the South China Sea. What we have an interest in is freedom of navigation. The South China Sea is an area where half the world’s seaborne cargo passes through every year. It’s a very busy thoroughfare, an international waterway. And for something like 250 years, the United States has stood very solidly for freedom of navigation. It’s critical to US security and it’s critical to the security of our friends and allies. So, the idea that the Chinese could draw a line around this international waterway and say, “Oh, this is ours. You have to ask our permission to come through.” That is anathema to the United States.

You also served under President Donald Trump. And you were in the room right before he met the prime minister of Vietnam at the time: Nguyễn Xuân Phúc. And Trump starts making racist jokes about his name, Phúc. Can you describe how you were feeling at the time?

Well, I felt really bad. It was a real contrast for me. When I’d been in the Oval Office with Barack Obama, he’d shown great respect to his Vietnamese visitor. He’d spent hours preparing for the meeting and the meeting changed the course of US-Vietnam relations. It was hugely impactful because he did the simple thing, which is to show respect. We couldn’t get Donald Trump to spend five minutes preparing for this meeting. We had given him a little piece of paper with a few checklist items. He wouldn’t read it. And when we tried to brief him, he made this racist joke, and clearly wasn’t at all interested in being briefed. I tried to interest his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in the substance of the meeting. That failed equally spectacularly. That meeting wasn’t a catastrophe. But the reason it wasn’t is because the Vietnamese were determined to put up with whatever — because they wanted a partnership with the United States.

Well, it ultimately doesn’t sound like the Trump years did major damage to the US-Vietnam friendship. Why do you think this is? Is this a military-driven relationship that goes beyond whoever is in the White House?

It’s very interesting to me that it wasn’t. I thought that when we withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and left the Vietnamese kind of holding the bag, that there would be a lot of anger. And there wasn’t. There was a determination made, right at the beginning, that [Vietnam would] keep going. To keep improving this relationship, you know? “So, there’s a different president in the White House? We’re going to figure out how to work with that new president.” And they did. They were very practical about it. The Vietnamese have continued to be very practical. Now, they’re marching forward with the Biden administration, finding ways we can enhance collaboration in health, climate change and, ideally, in trade as well.

In the US, there’s a lot of drama and celebrity-style attention toward politicians. In Vietnam, it’s very different. How would you describe the difference?

A lot of things in Vietnam happen behind the scenes. There is not a lot of flash on the part of Vietnamese leaders. … They tend not to get a lot of headlines for their work. They tend to do things quietly, effectively, behind the scenes. So, there would be times it was a little hard to tell what was going on in the politburo. Where, of course, in the United States, everything is out there, warts and all. These two styles … in some fields, caused a challenge. For example, with human rights. Barack Obama explained to Nguyễn Phú Trọng [an official who is now leader of Vietnam’s Communist Party] when he visited, we are who we are, warts and all. We’re constantly striving for a more-perfect union … we make our mistakes and we make them in public. We really did look at human rights in a very different way. That was something that was really hard to reconcile. I spent a lot of time on that, working really hard to see what we could do. I don’t know that we made as much progress as I would have liked.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Russia, Southeast Asia Conclude First Joint Naval Exercise

WAIT, WHAT?

IS ASEAN THE NEW NONALIGNED MOVEMENT

AKARTA, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Russia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have concluded their first joint naval exercise, Indonesia’s navy said on Saturday, as the region faces rising tensions with China.

The three-day exercise off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island aimed at increasing interoperability between the ASEAN member states and the Russian navy in the strategic maritime area. It comes amid rising tensions between major powers in the South China Sea, a resource-rich waterway of geopolitical significance.

“The exercise has a strategic impact because it was designed to cultivate friendships between the Indonesian government, ASEAN countries and Russia,” the navy said.

The two-stage drills involved eight warships and four aircraft from Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Brunei.

Aleksei Bolotnikov, commander of the Russian warship Admiral Panteleyev, was quoted as saying he hoped the next ASEAN-Russia exercise could take place in Vladivostok.

Russia and the Southeast Asian bloc held their fourth summit online in October, a meeting timed with the anniversary of relations between Russia and the 10-member regional grouping.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin urged China last month to “back off” after three Chinese coast guard vessels blocked and used a water cannon on resupply boats headed toward a Philippine-occupied atoll in the South China Sea.

China says the territory falls within its “nine-dash line”, a boundary including almost all the South China Sea that a tribunal at the Hague in 2016 found lacked legal basis.

Reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa and Stanley Widianto; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by William Mallard

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021.

Singapore navy taking part in first ASEAN-Russia maritime exercise

Republic of Singapore Navy personnel waving to representatives from participating countries on board Indonesian naval ship KRI Lepu at the ASEAN-Russia Maritime Exercise. (Photo: MINDEF)

Aqil Haziq Mahmud @AqilHaziqCNA
02 Dec 2021

SINGAPORE: A Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) warship is taking part in the inaugural Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Russia maritime exercise, held from Wednesday (Dec 1) to Friday.

The exercise is being conducted off Sabang, Indonesia, and involves eight ships and observers from ASEAN member states and Russia, Singapore's Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) said on Thursday.

The ships are from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

During the sea phase of the exercise, RSN's Victory-class missile corvette RSS Vigour joined the other ships in conducting communication and manoeuvring drills, a search and rescue exercise, and a maritime security exercise.

As part of the maritime security exercise, the ships tracked the movement of simulated vessels of interest, using alerts from ASEAN international liaison officers attached to RSN’s Information Fusion Centre.

The centre, which helps countries share maritime security information, uses a real-time, web-based system designed for rapid collaboration.

The exercise will conclude with a sail past of all participating ships.

MINDEF said the exercise is conducted in line with the Code for Unplanned Encounters At Sea, a "confidence-building measure" that includes safety procedures, communications plans and manoeuvring instructions to promote maritime security.

The code was adopted by ADMM-Plus navies in 2017 under Singapore and South Korea's co-chairmanship of the ADMM-Plus Experts’ Working Group on Maritime Security.

The ADMM-Plus is a platform for ASEAN and its eight partners – Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the United States – to strengthen security and defence cooperation in the region.

"Singapore’s participation in the exercise reaffirms our support for the ADMM-Plus and our commitment to uphold an open and inclusive regional security architecture," MINDEF said.

The exercise comes after the 4th ASEAN-Russia Summit in October, when Russia and ASEAN member states reaffirmed their commitment to ensuring "maritime security and safety, freedom of navigation and
overflight and unimpeded commerce".

This includes promoting self-restraint, non-use of force or the threat to use force, and resolving disputes through peaceful means in line with universally recognised principles of international law, said a joint statement by the nations.

RSS Vigour's commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Gavin Cheong said on Thursday that it is important for navies to cooperate with each other to protect key maritime trade routes while ensuring safer seas.

"This exercise allows the navies of ASEAN member states and Russia to strengthen collaboration, enhance understanding and build confidence in our ability to address common maritime security challenges at sea," he added.

DP World Pulls Out of Haifa Port Privatization Bid

A driver looks on as a container is being loaded onto his truck from a cargo ship while it is docked at the Port of Haifa, Israel August 8, 2021. REUTERS/Nir Elias

December 3, 2021

JERUSALEM, Dec 3 (Reuters) – Dubai’s DP World has pulled out of a joint bid with an Israeli company to privatise Israel’s Haifa port, Israel’s privatisation body said.

Israel is selling its state-owned ports and building new private docks in an effort to encourage competition and bring down costs.

DP World had signed an agreement with Israel Shipyards Industries for exclusive cooperation in the privatisation of the Haifa port, one of Israel’s two main sea terminals on its Mediterranean coast.

But in a statement released late Thursday, Israel’s Government Companies Authority said DP World had requested to end its participation in the bid, and that Israel Shipyards Industries had asked to continue on its own.

There was no immediate comment from DP World.

Their joint bid was one of many ventures between Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced after the two agreed to establish formal relations last year.

A winner in the Haifa port tender is expected to be announced before the end of 2021.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer and Ari Rabinovitch Writing by Rami Ayyub; editing by David Evans)(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021.

By Keith Laing (Bloomberg) –Dezjion Henson has wanted to be a truck driver his whole life. When he turned 18 last year he jumped at the chance and signed on as an apprentice with Total Transportation of Mississippi, LLC in Richland, Mississippi.

“Growing up, my dad used to drive trucks and I used to always ride with him,” he said. “I said that’s something I really want to do.”

He assumed he would have to wait until he turns 21 to book the lucrative, cross-country runs he took with his father. But the new infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden will let some drivers as young as 18 make interstate trips, a move aimed at easing the nation’s supply-chain squeeze but one that’s raising safety concerns.

The three-year pilot program was opposed by safety advocates who point out that teenagers crash at four times the rate of older drivers. But it was included in the infrastructure law at the urging of the industry, which says it’s 80,000 drivers short of where it needs to be to meet demand projections.

That lack of drivers has sent a ripple through the economy, contributing to backups at ports and kinks in the supply chain that threaten delivery of holiday gifts. Like lowering the age of drivers, some of the other proposals for government action to get more people behind the wheel raise their own safety concerns.

A proposal to relax federal rest requirements, for example, has been mired in controversy since the Obama administration. But there is renewed pressure to do it as a way to ease the backlog.

“Regulatory flexibilities, especially during emergencies, are vital to supply chain continuity,” a coalition of about 100 different trucking-related associations wrote in a Nov. 3 letter to Biden.

The Department of Transportation’s rules currently limit truckers to 11 hours in a work day and 70 hours in a week. And they have to be given at least one 30-minute break during the first eight hours of their shift. An exemption put in place by the Trump administration last year allows drivers making trips within a few hours of their starting point to work a 14-hour shift.

Safety groups have said Congress should steer clear of relaxing the scheduling rules for truckers.

“Long workdays, excessive driving hours, and unreasonable delivery demands jeopardize the safety of truck drivers and motorists,” Dawn King, president of the Truck Safety Coalition, said in a statement.

The coalition of industry groups that represent frequent shippers that wrote to Biden includes the Agricultural Retailers Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Trucking Associations and American Frozen Food Institute. They also want truckers to be left out of the federal vaccine mandate that is currently on hold after a federal court temporarily halted implementation. The industry argues that truck drivers should be exempt because they spend most of their time driving alone.

“We’re not anti-vaccine, but in our our survey of 120,000 truckers, 50% were vaccinated and 50% weren’t vaccinated,” Bill Sullivan, executive vice president for advocacy at the American Trucking Associations, said. “Thirty-seven percent of all drivers said they would go to a company that doesn’t have a vaccinate mandate or leave the industry all together.”

Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department, last month told a House committee that his union “wants to make sure that every worker has the protections” of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccine mandate that applies to companies with 100 or more employees.

For the foreseeable future, lowering the minimum age to haul cargo across state lines appears to be the closest to being enacted.

John Stomps, 66, president and chief executive officer of Total Transportation of Mississippi, said lowering the age limit is likely the only way to address the supply-chain crunch as it relates to trucks.

“Older drivers are leaving and retiring and we’re not bring in younger drivers to them fast enough,” he said.

It’s grueling work. Long distance truck drivers average about 125,000 miles (201,168 kilometers) per year and spend an average of 300 days on the road, according to the Woodford, Virginia-based CDS Tractor Trailer Training school. The median pay for the position in 2020 was $47,130 per year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The trucking industry employed 3.36 million truck drivers in 2020, down 6.8% from 3.5 million in 2019, according to the American Trucking Associations.

The pilot program in the $550 billion infrastructure law allows those as young as 18 to drive across state lines if they complete at least 400 hours of duty time. A similar program was already in existence for drivers who operated trucks in the military.

Safety advocates say allowing teenagers to drive big rigs on long interstate trips is dangerous. Teen drivers are four times as likely to crash as drivers who are 20 years old and older per mile driven, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said lowering the truck driver age limit would put “inexperienced, risk-prone teenagers” behind the wheel of 80,000 pound (36,000 kilogram) trucks traveling on interstate highways.

Russ Swift, co-chair of Parents Against Tired Truckers, said in a statement “allowing teens to drive big rigs across state borders in the face of research showing that this age group has significantly higher fatal crash rates is reckless and dangerous.”

“An empty store shelf is not as tragic as an empty chair at Christmas dinner because your loved one needlessly died in a crash caused by a teen trucker,” Swift said.

Supporters note that 49 states and the District of Columbia allow individuals to obtain a commercial driver’s license at the age 18. New York is the only exception, requiring all drivers to wait until they are 21.

Sullivan, the American Trucking Associations executive, said truck companies are committed to safety, even as they push to bring on younger drivers.

“The last thing any of our members want to do is do this unsafely,” he said. “We want to produce a driver who is at least as safe as a 21-year-old.”

For his part, Henson hopes to do his part to ease the backlogs by making long-distance runs when he completes his interstate driving program. He is halfway through and will have to drive 400 hours before he can take the wheel alone.

“I still see the full potential to be a trucker,” he said. “Trucks can go anywhere. We supply the food. We need more drivers to drive.”

Photo by Novikov Aleksey, Shutterstock

'MAYBE' TECH BROWN H2

Kawasaki Heavy Says First Liquefied Hydrogen Carrier May Leave Japan This Month

TOKYO, Dec 3 (Reuters) – The world’s first liquefied hydrogen carrier could leave Japan for Australia to pick up its first cargo of hydrogen late this month though the return date has yet to be set due to COVID-19, Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd said on Friday.

The A$500 million ($353 million) pilot project, led by Kawasaki and backed by the Japanese and Australian governments, was originally scheduled to ship its first cargo of hydrogen extracted from brown coal in Australia in spring. It was delayed to the second half of Kawasaki’s financial year in October to March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It will still depend on the pandemic situation, but we think the ship could leave Japan for Australia as early as late this month,” a Kawasaki spokesperson said.

Kawasaki Heavy aims to replicate its success as a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker producer with hydrogen, a key element that may help decarbonise industries and aid the global energy transition.

In March this year, the Japanese-Australian venture started producing hydrogen from brown coal in the test project that aims to show liquefied hydrogen can be produced and exported safely to Japan.

The Kawasaki spokesperson said the hydrogen carrier “Suiso Frontier” has been registered by ClassNK, a ship classification society, giving it recognition that it complies with International Maritime Organisation standards.

The schedule for the return journey from Australia is not yet fixed due to uncertainty about the impact of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, he said, adding a one-way trip takes about 16 days.

Partners on the Australian side of the project include Japan’s Electric Power Development Co (J-Power), Iwatani Corp, Marubeni Corp, Sumitomo Corp and Australia’s AGL Energy Ltd, whose mine is supplying the brown coal.

($1 = 1.4178 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021.

'MAYBE' TECH

Carbon capture services could break even in next 10 years

12/1/2021

CCS services for large industrial emitters could break even in the next 10 years if emitting a ton of carbon costs around 100 euros per ton, Equinor's CCS chief said at  the Reuters Next conference .

CCS transports CO2 from where it is emitted, typically a smokestack, and stores it, usually in a geological site, to prevent its release into the atmosphere.

"We believe there is potential to break even at 100 euros per ton," said Torbjørg Fossum, Vice President for Global CCS Solutions at the Norwegian energy firm Equinor.

"Today there is a gap between what it costs to emit (the) CO2 and what it costs to implement CCS. We believe that that gap is closing within the next ten years."

On the most established carbon market, the European Union's Emissions Trading System, pollution permits traded at around 76 euros a ton on Wednesday.

Until the breakeven price is reached, government funding is crucial to help early movers, she said, with projects such as Northern Lights in Norway and Britain's East Coast Clusters providing good blueprints.

CCS typically avoids additional carbon emissions from reaching the atmosphere, but the technology can be adapted to suck carbon out of the atmosphere in what is known as direct air capture. This negative emissions twist costs several times more than CCS.

"We need to do both. The disadvantage of direct air capture is that it requires a lot of energy to capture the CO2 from the air. So then it is more expensive than capturing when you have an exhaust source with a lot of CO2 in it," Fossum said.

"But on the other hand the beauty of direct air capture is that you can locate it wherever you want... where there is access to very cheap and clean energy."

'MAYBE' TECH CCS THE NEW TINA
What Is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)? The Vacuum the Climate May Depend On

The most recent report by the worlds top climate scientists was alarmingly clear: If we are to avoid the most calamitous consequences of warming our planet, we must get as good at taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as weve been at putting it in. Even if solar panels and wind turbines sprout like mushrooms, reaching net-zero is going to require capturing large amounts of emissions from activities that are hard to decarbonize, like making cement. Holding temperatures down will also require vacuuming huge amounts of carbon out of the air. The challenge is that current technology for both these tasks is a long, long way from being able to reach these goals.

1. How big is the problem?

In a projection by the

International Energy Agency (IEA) of a pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050, about 7.6 billion metric tons (or gigatons) would still need to be eliminated annually, a figure equal to about a fifth of current emissions. And depending on how quickly net-zero is reached, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-19th century levels could mean removing anywhere between 100 billion tons of carbon and 1 trillion tons by 2100. That last figure would mean sucking up all the carbon that has been emitted this century, and then some.

2. Couldnt we just plant a gazillion trees?

Everyone likes the idea of planting trees to pull carbon from the air through photosynthesis. Reforestation and other such natural climate solutions

could produce 37% of the cuts needed by 2030 to put the world on track to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to a 2017 estimate. But that much tree-planting would likely

require high-quality land three times the size of India. And meanwhile, we cant seem to

protect the forests we already have, in the

Amazon and elsewhere.

3. What are the main options?

Explore dynamic updates of the earths key data points

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Parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere

Million metric tons of greenhouse emissions, most recent annual data

Oct. 2021 increase in global temperature vs. 1900s average

Lahore, PakistanMost polluted air today, in sensor range

Carbon-free net power in Germany, most recent data

Two methods, known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), and direct air capture (DAC). Capture-and-storage has gotten most of the attention so far, largely because its been promoted by the fossil fuel industry as the thing that will solve its emissions problems. If you remember hearing the phrase clean coal, it was likely a reference to a CCS plant or, more likely, an idea of one rather than something that actually existed.

4. How does CCS work?

Think of a vacuum cleaner set on top of a smokestack. That is, CCS involves collecting CO as its being emitted by a big source of pollution by generators burning fossil fuel to make electricity or by factories or other industrial facilities then sending it for use elsewhere or for storage deep underground. The technology dates back to the 1970s, when oil companies in the U.S. realized that pushing carbon dioxide into aging oil wells would allow them to squeeze out a bit of extra oil. As a side effect, the carbon remained trapped in the surrounding rock. Then in the 1990s, as climate became more of a public concern, Norwegian oil giant

Equinor ASA began sinking CO in saline reservoirs so it could avoid paying a carbon tax. Ever since, CCS has been discussed as a way to limit the damage caused by fossil fuels without having to abandon them.

5. Whats the challenge for CCS?

The cost. Since 2010, dozens of projects have been shelved because the technology was too expensive. After nearly 50 years of commercial use, there are only about two dozen large-scale facilities that have CCS; altogether, they capture roughly 40 million tons of carbon annually, or about 0.1% of global emissions. CCS is also opposed by many climate activists. They say energy companies are using the prospect of CCS to slow the transition to an all-renewables economy.

6. Whats the case for CCS?

Some stark climate math. Since some crucial industries such as steel and cement production rely on carbon-based chemical processes or temperatures that are hard to reach except by burning carbon, climate scientists and many governments, businesses and investors have come to assume that CCS will be an inevitable part of getting to zero.

7. What is the private sector doing?

Betting on that inevitability: Since the start of 2020, governments and industry have committed more than $25 billion for CCS projects, according to the IEA. U.S. energy and chemical companies led by

Exxon Mobil Corp. have proposed building a $100 billion CCS hub to capture emissions from the cluster of refineries in and around Houston. They say the project could capture store 50 million tons of carbon a year by 2030 and double that amount by 2040, an amount equal to 22 million cars driven for a year but only, they say, if the government provides sufficient subsidies. Even that is a drop in the bucket of what might eventually be built. In a 2018 report,

Royal Dutch Shell Plc suggested that wed need 10,000 large-scale CCS facilities by 2070 to meet the 2C goal.

8. What are governments doing?

An infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden includes $3.5 billion to expand CCS programs. A tax credit for carbon capture was recently expanded from $20 a ton to $50 a ton to make such projects more financially rewarding. Bidens proposed Build Back Better legislation would raise that to $85 per ton for projects that capture 75% of their carbon emissions, a provision that some environmentalists complain could steer billions of dollars to coal plants. In the U.K., the Netherlands and Norway, national governments plan to spend about $5.6 billion to support large-scale projects to capture carbon emissions from industrial sites and store the gas under the North Sea. Rapidly rising carbon prices in Europe are also making the technology increasingly attractive. China is counting on CCS to help meet its 2060 net-zero goal, but currently the country has only a few small-scale pilot projects.

9. What is direct air capture?

If CCS is a vacuum cleaner on a smokestack, DAC is one set out in the open air. Cleaning up carbon this way is a much harder task: While nearly one-fifth of the gas going up a coal-burning plants smokestack is carbon dioxide, the atmosphere is only about 0.04% carbon.

10. How does it work?

Research labs and startups are developing competing methods to capture carbon through a variety of chemical reactions. (One of carbons notable characteristics is the ease with which it binds to other materials.) In some cases, the product is recycled for commercial purposes into such products as industrial chemicals or plastics. In others its stored beneath the ground, as with CCS.

11. What are its prospects?

This is an industry thats barely into infancy. The worlds largest functioning direct air capture plant, which will take 4,000 tons annually from the air and store it geologically, just

came online in Iceland in September. That just about doubled the worlds previous DAC capacity. Its also equal only to the annual emissions of 250 average U.S. citizens. And right now DAC is prohibitively expensive: Sucking up carbon at the Iceland plant costs about $600 per ton compared with a late November price of 75 euros ($85) on the EUs market for a permit to emit a ton of carbon. For it to be a useful climate remedy rather than a pipe dream, costs either have to come way down or the world has to decide its willing to spend trillions of dollars adjusting the atmosphere.

12. What are governments doing?

What on Earth?The Bloomberg Green newsletter is your guide to the latest in climate news, zero-emission tech and green finance.

The new U.S. infrastructure law includes $3.5 billion for carbon removal projects. The Biden administration also announced a

moonshot program to speed innovation in DAC with a goal of getting costs below $100 a ton. The EU in November set a goal of removing 5 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually by 2030. It was an early backer of Swiss startup

Climeworks AG, which built the Iceland plant. The U.K. government is spending 100 million pounds ($135 million) to support early-stage direct air capture technologies. It expects the technology will need to be scaled up in the late 2020s and early 2030s to help hit the countrys target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Elon Musk and his foundation have put up $100 million for an

XPrize carbon capture award, and Bill Gates, working with the EU, has raised hundreds of millions of dollars to support four young industries, including carbon capture.

13. Are there other alternatives?

Yes, though none of them have yet been shown to be more practical than CCS or DAC, and some come with greater risks or unknowns.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS): First, plants are grown that absorb carbon. Then that biomass is burned to generate power. Those emissions are captured and buried, making for a carbon-negative power system. As with reforestation, massive amounts of high-quality land would be needed.

Soil carbon sequestration: Making changes to agricultural practices, including increased use of cover crops and restoration of grasslands, could increase the amount of carbon thats stored in the ground.

Enhanced weathering: Silicate minerals, such as basalt, absorb carbon when exposed to air. Some scientists have proposed that grinding such stones to powder and spreading it over large areas could speed that process. Crushing and spreading the stone may involve large outlays of energy, but increased crop yields could be one benefit.

Ocean fertilization: In theory, adding iron to ocean waters could promote the growth of plants that can absorb carbon and store it on the seabed. In practice, there have been worries about side effects and whether it would even work.

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MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Japan's Kubota to buy Indian farm equipment maker Escorts

Deal aimed at raising Japanese company's share in world's largest tractor market

Kubota's purchase of Indian farm equipment maker Escorts aims to raise its share in the world's biggest tractor market. (Source photos by Atsushi Ooka and screenshot from Escorts' website)

Nikkei Staff writers

November 18, 2021 1

OSAKA -- Top Japanese farm equipment maker Kubota announced Thursday that it will purchase major Indian farm equipment maker Escorts for around 140 billion yen ($1.2 billion), turning the company into a subsidiary.

The move comes as Kubota is aiming to expand its business in India, the world's largest farm equipment market on a unit basis.

Kubota and Escorts established a joint venture to manufacture tractors in 2019. The following year, Kubota announced that it would buy a 10% stake in Escorts for 16 billion yen. The investment was meant to leverage Escorts' market knowledge and parts procurement network to reduce costs.

There is growing demand for low-priced tractors and other farm equipment developed jointly by the two companies, both in India and in other markets.

Escorts was founded in 1944. The company had revenue of around $870 million in the fiscal year ended March 2019. The company employed 11,000 people as of December 2019.

KARL MARX THE CONCENTRATION AND …

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2017-02-07 · Karl Marx The Concentration and Centralization of Capital. Although the basic Marxian model assumes perfectly competitive markets with a large number of small firms in each industry, Marx was aware of the growing size of firms, the consequent weakening of competition, and the growth of monopoly power. He concluded that this phenomenon derives from the increasing concentration and …

Estimated Reading Time: 4 mins

Marx's Law of Increasing Concentration of Capital

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2017-11-20 · Marx's Law of Increasing Concentration of Capital. To Marx, capitalism involved a large number of highly competitive companies, each with a desire to expand. Profits would not be spent on luxury consumption; instead, profits would be ploughed-back into the company as investment (called accumulation). For Marx the drive for accumulation would cause companies to wish to hire more …

Estimated Reading Time: 3 mins

Notes on Marx’s “General Law of Capitalist Accumulation ...

https://mronline.org/2019/06/19/notes-on-marxs-general-law-of...

2019-06-19 · In manufacturing, Marx said new technology would prompt a change in the “organic composition of capital.” “The growth in the mass of means of production,” he argued, “as compared with the mass of labour-power that vivifies them, is reflected in its value-composition by the increase of the constant constituent of capital at the expense of its variable constituent.”

Estimated Reading Time: 7 mins