‘Fortnite’ Has Actually Made The Metaverse After Everyone Else Quit

Paul Tassi
Senior Contributor
News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet.
Dec 10, 2023

Fortnite

EPIC

It is abundantly clear at this point that the last few years have taken the term “metaverse” from an aspirational (though also dystopian) sci-fi concept to a buzzword destroyed by tech companies and grifters trying to build some weird, demented, overmonetized version of it.

We saw this in big and small ways, a bunch of web3 blockchain “metaverses” where companies would buy land and Paris Hilton would hang out with an ugly avatar. These were dismal, empty, gross places that served no purpose except for attempting to make their founders rich by selling air.

Then we saw this at a huge scale with Facebook, I mean Meta, where they changed their name to Meta to better personify Mark Zuckerberg’s VR-driven vision of the metaverse. And while yes, in fiction, the metaverse is an immersive VR experience that transports the user “in person” to the virtual space, the tech we have now is not remotely close to that. Zuckerberg spent a fortune on his version of Ready Player One’s OASIS, Horizon Worlds, that featured a bunch of horrifying legless avatars running around (so to speak), getting up to a few hundred thousand players and then…promptly losing a few hundred thousand players. While the Meta VR arm still exists, VR itself remains a niche and not anywhere close to the metaverse that was promised. Meta, of course, is now pivoting mainly to AI like everyone else.

But, slow and steady may win the race, and I believe that’s what we’re seeing with Fortnite now. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has been a bit obnoxious with his side of the metaverse fight, where he believe its fundamental existence relies on getting Apple, Google, Steam and everyone else to get ride of their 30% revenue cut or else that will “strange the metaverse” before it can actually exist.

LEGO Fortnite

EPIC

But the rest of Epic? They have been…building the actual metaverse, or at least the closest we’re going to get to it. And unlike Facebook trying to capture the magic of OASIS with VR, Fortnite is doing it with normal gameplay, but creating the virtual spaces and cast of characters that made that universe so appealing in the first place. Something no one else trying to do this ever really understood.

We saw glimpses of this for years, with large-scale mass-watched events like meteor strikes or rocket launches on the Fortnite map, then Travis Scott or Ariana Grande concerts. Those were the first inklings of “metaverse moments” that made it feel like Fortnite was on the right track. But for a while, it felt like that came and went and Fortnite had missed its chance, stuck in the same rut with its wider ambitions stalled.

Instead, behind the scenes, they were prepping a large-scale launch that would make Fortnite more metaverse-y than ever. After refueling Fortnite’s playercount with its return to the OG map, they ended that period by launching LEGO Fortnite, a survival minigame and its own separate world, racing Fortnite channeling Rocket League and concert Fortnite which draws on Guitar Hero and Rock Band DNA.

So, in effect the game now has battle world (Fortnite Battle Royale) survival/building world, racing world and music world. This is a long-term vision as shared by Donald Mustard that is finally becoming real, and what the fictional metaverses have channeled before now:

There are always jokes that Fortnite is building a literal zoo of IPs for its game, as if there’s a popular movie, game or TV franchise you can think of, there’s probably an 80% chance Fortnite has grabbed it and made a handful of skins out of it.

This is a game that now has close to every major superhero in it. Ripley from Alien, Kratos from God of War. Master Chief from Halo. Chun-Li from Street Fighter. And now, Goku, Peter Griffin, The Incredible Hulk and Optimus Prime can rock out in a concert together.

And it’s working. Fortnite, especially after the launch of LEGO Fortnite which is siphoning off Minecraft players, is hitting new concurrent playercount records. There are more people playing Fortnite right now than every game on Steam combined. It has once again climbed to be one of the biggest games in the world, if not the biggest, outside of whatever big mobile title people are checking into a few times a day.

I always said that if anywhere had the potential to truly become the metaverse, it was Fortnite. These blockchain imitators almost killed the concept before they died themselves. Facebook making the metaverse was essentially channeling the villains from Ready Player One trying to do the same. But after a few years of relative quiet, Epic has come out and shown yeah, maybe they can actually do it now that everyone else has abandoned the concept. And I hope I they can.

COP28 pledges not enough to limit global warming to 1.5C, IEA warns


BY:RHODRI MORGAN
CITY A.M.
SUNDAY 10 DECEMBER 2023 


The IEA has said that the fossil fuel emission pledges made so far at COP28 are not enough

Pledges made at COP28 to cut fossil fuel emissions will not be enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, according to one of the world’s foremost energy bodies.

So far agreements have been reached to triple renewable energies and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements, while 50 oil and gas companies have agreed to cut out methane emissions and eliminate routine flaring by 2030 under the Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter.

But the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in an analysis published today that the commitments made so far at the climate conference “would not be nearly enough” to avoid the temperature benchmark.

According to the analysis, if everyone delivered on their commitments, it would lower global-energy related greenhouse gas emissions by 4 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2030.

That is about a third of the emissions gap that needs to be closed in the next six years to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed to in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“The IEA will continue to monitor the ongoing developments at COP28 and update its assessment as needed,” it said.

In September, the energy body said that global demand for fossil fuels is “set to hit a peak in the coming years” before gradually declining as the world’s push for renewable energies slowly takes over.

The COP summits have come under routine scepticism for serving more as a talking shop than a foreground to create real progress.

Last week, Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate tsar, warned countries negotiating at COP28 not to fall into point-scoring when pledging action on climate change.

The 1.5 degrees target has also been decried as unrealistic, including during the summit by billionaire philanthropist, Bill Gates.

University Of Wisconsin Regents Turn Down Deal With Legislature To Limit Diversity Efforts

Michael T. Nietzel
Senior Contributor
FORBES
Dec 10, 2023

A deal brokered by University of Wisconsin leaders and Republicans in the State Assembly has been voted down by the UW system Board of Regents.

GETTY

The University of Wisconsin (UW) System Board of Regents has voted to reject a deal the university’s own administrators had negotiated with Robin Vos, the top Republican in the Wisconsin State Assembly, to limit diversity efforts in exchange for additional UW funding.

The surprise 9-8 vote against the deal came after six months of bargaining had yielded a compromise that would have required UW to end various diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in exchange for $800 million for the UW system.

The proposed deal had several elements that Vos had hoped would sweeten the pot enough to get the university to go along with what many criticized as a betrayal of traditionally underrepresented groups.

For example, in exchange for capping DEI hiring for three years and restructuring about a third of existing DEI positions into student success roles, the UW system would have received $800 million for pay raises, a new engineering building at UW-Madison and several other building projects across the system.

Other elements of the deal were also problematic. For example:

• It would have required UW-Madison to end a hiring program aimed at diversifying its faculty ranks.
• It would have obligated the flagship campus to solicit private donations for a faculty position focused on “conservative political thought, classical economic theory or classical liberalism.”
• The UW System would have had to remove diversity statements from the student application process and support a bill that would guarantee admission to the top 5% of Wisconsin high school students (at UW-Madison) and the top 10% of in-state students (at other UW campuses).

"The Legislature has made decisions over the years that have proved to have a negative lingering effect on our public universities," Regent Angela Adams said during the special meeting, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "But to finally and begrudgingly propose to start funding the universities in exchange for insulting people historically excluded and underrepresented in higher education is a nonstarter for me. It's divisive, it's polarizing, and will ultimately lead to even more negative effects on the university system for decades to come."

The vote constitutes a significant dispute not only between the board and the State Assembly but between the board and UW System President Jay Rothman and UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, who had worked out the deal with Vos.

It’s highly unusual for a board to reject its chief administrators’ recommendations, particularly on a matter as public, partisan and protracted as this one, and what the rebuke means for their future in the system remains unclear. It’s also uncertain whether the board’s decision might be emulated by other governing boards facing pressure from their state legislatures to curtail DEI initiatives.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, who had previously sued the State Assembly over its blocking of the pay raises for UW employees and who appointed all the board members who voted against the deal Saturday, called for common ground:

It’s clear the regents are deeply divided over this proposal, have immense concerns about this process and the difficult position they were put in, and are all committed to their charge—doing what’s best for our past, present, and future students, faculty, and staff, and the institutions that have defined our state for generations.

I believe that’s what they did today in voting their values, and I understand and support their decision and vote.

I look forward to this discussion continuing in the weeks and months ahead. I urge legislative Republicans to remain in those conversations so we can work together and find common ground to do what’s best for the UW System, including investing in the UW-Madison engineering building.

In the meantime, I again urge legislative Republicans to release the already-approved UW System employee raises and investments included in the biennial budget that are well overdue.

Describing the deal as "our best and final offer," Vos said, "we negotiated in good faith and expected the same," in a text message to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in Saturday. "It's a shame they've denied employees their raises and the almost ($1 billion) investment that would have been made in the UW System to continue their ideological campaign to force students to believe only one viewpoint is acceptable on campus."

TORY PROTECTIONISM

Telegraph takeover ‘completely unacceptable’ says former MI6 chief

BY:JESS JONES

A former MI6 chief has sounded the alarm bells over what he calls a potentially calamitous foreign takeover of The Telegraph.

A former MI6 chief has sounded the alarm bells over what he calls a potentially calamitous takeover of The Telegraph by an Abu Dhabi-backed firm.

Sir Richard Dearlove, who led the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 to 2004, said ministers should block the “completely unacceptable” takeover by the authoritarian state, which poses a “profound security concern” to the UK.

The government should “put a peg in the ground and say no way”, Dearlove told The Sunday Telegraph.

“It’s completely inappropriate for an autocratic state – even at arm’s length – to be the owner of The Telegraph and The Spectator,” he added.

The Barclay brothers, former owners of the right-leaning titles, recently restored a nearly £1.2bn debt in an attempt to reclaim their titles. The amends was facilitated by RedBird IMI media fund, backed by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family.

Chief executive of Redbird IMI and former CNN boss, Jeff Zucker, said the Barclay era of ownership of the papers “will come to an end” if the takeover is green-lighted by the government.

Zucker faced a grilling on the deal over the weekend.

When questioned about staff concerns, Zucker told The Sunday Times: “I understand why they are anxious and nervous, and I respect it. But in time it will be proven to be misplaced.”

He has vowed to resign if the Telegraph faces any editorial influence from the UAE, arguing its value lies with its editorial freedom.

“I think the other thing that people are missing here is it makes no sense whatsoever for anyone to make an investment of this magnitude and to interfere and throw away that good money”, he added.

Nearly 70 per cent of Telegraph subscribers have said they would be “a bit less likely” or “much less likely” to continue subscribing in the event of a foreign takeover, according to a recent YouGov poll.

With the government’s intervention through a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN), watchdogs Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority are now tasked with probing the potential ownership transition.

The outcome, due by 24 January next year, rests in the hands of media secretary Lucy Frazer, who holds the final say.

Zucker is unbothered about the prospect of the government blocking the deal. “We’re confident that we can satisfactorily answer all questions of the government, and so I’m not going to get into that hypothetical,” he said.

If the government gives the go-ahead for the deal, Redbird IMI will gain control of the papers through a debt-for-equity swap.

Brazil petrochemical giant’s salt mine partially collapses

The Mutange neighborhood in Maceio, Brazil, where a mine belonging to Brazilian petrochemical giant Braskem collapsed on Sunday 

(Itawi Albuquerque/AP)

SUN, 10 DEC, 2023 - 
DIANNE JEANTET, 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

A mine belonging to Brazilian petrochemical giant Braskem ruptured and partially collapsed on Sunday in the northeastern coastal city of Maceio, the city’s civil defence authority said.

Video the authority distributed shows a sudden bubbling of the water in the Mundau lagoon in the city’s Mutange neighbourhood, caused by the mine’s rupture.

The area had previously been evacuated and there were was no risk to any people, it said in a statement.

Braskem’s 40 years of rock salt mining in Maceio has prompted the displacement of tens of thousands of people and on November 28 the company alerted authorities of the imminent risk the mine would collapse. Land around the mine has been steadily sinking ever since, falling a total of 2.35 metres as of Sunday morning.

Sunken ground at the Mutange neighbourhood in Maceio, Alagoas state, Brazil 

(Itawi Albuquerque/AP)


On November 30, Alagoas state governor Paulo Dantas warned of the possible “formation of large craters” following the mine’s collapse and said federal teams would arrive that night as back up.

Local residents were told not to travel near the area.

In the first few days, Braskem sent regular updates, including possible times at which the mine could collapse.

Between 1979 and 2019, when Braskem announced the shutdown of its rock salt operations in Maceio, the company operated 35 mines.

Troubles in Maceio began a year earlier, when large cracks first appeared on the surface. Some stretched several hundred metres. The first order to evacuate some areas — including parts of the Mutange neighborhood — came in 2019.

Since then, residents in five neighbourhoods have accepted Braskem’s payouts to relocate. According to the Brazilian Senate’s website, some 200,000 people in Maceio were affected by the company’s mining activities.

In July, the company reached a 356 million dollar (£284 million) settlement with the coastal city.

Aside from mine 18, which ruptured on Sunday, Braskem says it is in the process of filling eight other cavities with sand.

Rock salt mining is a process of extracting salt from deep underground deposits. Once the salt has been extracted, the cavities left behind can collapse, causing the soil above to settle. Structures built on top of such areas can topple.

Braskem is one of the biggest petrochemical companies in the Americas, owned primarily by Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras and construction giant Novonor, formerly known as Odebrecht.

John Whelan: Ireland is missing out on Green shipping-corridor expansion

The lack of involvement of Irish ports and the shipping lines that use them puts Irish exporters at a disadvantage to UK and other European exporters

\
The shipping lines operating from Irish ports have passed the cost of CO2 taxes on to their export and import customers. 

Picture: David Creedon

SUN, 10 DEC, 2023 
John Whelan

Members of the Global Maritime Forum have travelled to Dubai for the launch of their annual progress report on green shipping corridors, at COP28. Green-corridor initiatives have doubled and the number of stakeholders has increased significantly, but Ireland was a no-show.

The number of green-corridor initiatives around the world went from 21 to 44 over the past year, many of them in Europe, including green shipping corridors from the UK to Belgium, the Netherlands to the UK, the UK to Denmark, and Norway to the UK. Crucially, there was no mention of any green shipping corridor from Ireland.

The lack of involvement of Irish ports, and of the shipping lines that use them, puts Irish exporters who wish to move up the green value chain at a disadvantage to UK and other European exporters.

The omission of Ireland from green shipping corridors points to a lack of incentives to attract shipping lines to invest in the latest green shipping technology. Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, and Britain have co-invested with shipping lines to design new ammonia-, hydrogen-, and electric-powered ships for their routes in the Nordic area and in the Mediterranean.

These shipping lines are major operators in transporting goods in and out of Ireland weekly, and will continue with the older, higher-CO2-emitting vessels for longer than will countries that are committed to green corridors.

The report, released in conjunction with COP28, says that 2024 will be pivotal for green corridors, which are trade routes where zero-emission shipping is catalysed by public-sector and private-investor action. Along with the marked advancements, the report also identifies challenges when green shipping corridors commence, including fuel decisions to secure both commercial arrangements and the necessary port infrastructure.

Most of Ireland's ports are state-owned and operate under Climate and Transport Minister Eamonn Ryan's portfolio, which begs the question why an opportunity to show the nation's green credentials in this area of vital economic importance is not being taken.

The doubling of announced green-corridor initiatives over the past year was driven by increased government effort to establish green corridors, with the collaboration of industry and ports.

Green shipping corridors could enable the Department of Transport to create regulatory measures to decarbonise shipping, including financial incentives to lower the cost of green-fuel production. This could mobilise demand for green shipping.

Finally, green corridors could create secondary effects that reduce shipping emissions on other routes. For example, once the infrastructure to provide zero-emission fuel for one green corridor, such as Dublin to Holyhead, is established, it can then be used for shipping on other routes, such as Dublin to Cherbourg, fast tracking a second green corridor.

The UK has also pressed forward at COP28, with its initiative with the US, creating a Green Shipping Corridor Task Force to establish green shipping corridors between the two countries.

Europe's CO2 tax on shipping is also looming, with the introduction of EU ETS carbon-emissions regulations on January 1, 2024. The premise is that carriers must measure and report each ship's CO2 emissions and then buy allowances for each tonne of CO2 emitted. This should incentivise industry-wide investment in cleaner technologies, making them comparatively less expensive. However, the shipping lines operating from Irish ports have, instead, decided, in the absence of government support by way of green-corridor initiatives, to pass the cost of these CO2 taxes on to their export and import customers, adding to the difficulties created by this year’s weak trade growth.

Spotify slashes staff to move faster into AI – and Wall Street loves it

By Sergio Padilla, CNN
Sun December 10, 2023

The company joins other tech firms in retrenching as pandemic-era demand has dried up.

Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

New YorkCNN —

Spotify made a name for itself in the audio-streaming business through its hyper-personalized user experience, thanks to artificial intelligence and a team of 9,800 staffers at the end of 2022.

But after three rounds of layoffs in one year: 590 positions in January, 200 in June, and another 1,500 this week, Spotify’s investments into AI to boost margins for its podcasting and audiobook divisions look like a complete overhaul in strategy that Wall Street seems confident can work.

“Spotify is leveraging AI across its platform, launching AI DJ, simulating a traditional radio experience, in 50 additional markets and rolling out AI Voice Translation for podcasts,” said Justin Patterson, equity research analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets, in a research note. “Coupled with audiobooks rolling out to Premium Subscribers, we believe Spotify has several opportunities to drive engagement and eventually stronger monetization.”

Shares of parent company Spotify Technology SA are up more than 30% over the last six months and up more than 135% year to date.

The company joins other tech firms in retrenching as pandemic-era demand has dried up. It also has to make up for the more than $1 billion it spent on podcasting, much of which went toward deals with celebrities to make podcasts that never materialized and acquiring podcast studios that it later shuttered.

“Economic growth has slowed dramatically and capital has become more expensive. Spotify is not an exception to these realities,” Ek wrote in a letter to staff posted to the company’s website.

Jumping on the AI gravy train

In November, Spotify unveiled a partnership with Google Cloud to overhaul how the platform recommends audiobooks and podcasts through its use of one of Google Cloud’s language models, Vertex AI Search.

Large language models like ChatGPT are computer programs trained on large sets of data that can recite human-like text and information back to users based on what the program “knows.”

Spotify introduced an “AI DJ” in February and began using OpenAI’s “Whisper” voice translation tool to translate select episodes of English podcasts into Spanish, French and German.

A representative for Spotify said in an email to CNN that the company plans to expand the technology in the future pending creator and audience feedback. They also pointed to some comments made by Ek during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, where the word “efficiency” was used more than 20 times.

“The primary way you should think about these (AI) initiatives, (is that it creates) greater engagement and that greater engagement means we reduce churn,” he said during Spotify’s October earnings call. “Greater engagement also means we produce more value for consumers. And that value to price ratio is what then allows us to raise prices like we did this past quarter with great success.”

In a research note, Douglas Anmuth, managing director and internet analyst at JP Morgan, said that along with investments into advertisements by artists, investments into podcasts have the potential to drive engagement over the long term.
So how does personalization work?

Spotify has hyper-personalized its experience for users for about a decade. It was able to add that personal touch once it acquired music analytics firm, The Echo Nest Corp, in 2014, to combine machine learning and natural language processing.

Spotify’s technology builds a database of songs and artists by recognizing musical pitches and tempos and connecting the works of artists within a shared cultural context.

Metadata like release date and metrics like volume, duration and how likely a song is to get someone dancing also go into determining which songs fit a user’s taste.

From here, playlists like “Daily Mix” and “Discover Weekly” are born. So-called Time Capsules and “On Repeat” playlists gather a user’s most-listened to songs, to either keep users hooked to what they’re already listening to or revisit songs they haven’t heard in a while.

In an email to CNN, Anil Jain, global managing director of strategic consumer industries at Google Cloud said that its Vertex AI Search allows media and entertainment companies to build content discovery capabilities across video, audio, images and text. Jain did not comment on any details of the deal with Spotify.

Vertex AI Search considers a range of factors when recommending content for users such as real-time user behavior, content similarity and content related to what users are searching for.

Challenges and opportunities

Reece Hayden, senior analyst at ABI Research, expressed confidence that large language models (LLMs) could work to increase engagement across Spotify’s platform.

“Large language models can enhance personalization, improve recommendations, and ensure recommendations are more reflective of user interests by understanding entire text/video rather than utilizing keywords/metadata,” he said in an email to CNN.

He added that unlike keyword/metadata dependent “basic predictive models,” LLMs can understand and interpret podcasts to see if they match user interests and can gain a deeper understanding of user preferences by analyzing all user data to determine their preferences.

But that comes at a cost.

“Running LLMs to understand all podcasts/audiobooks is resource intensive and may add limited value compared to basic predictive models … LLMs bring additional data privacy and cost/resource challenges which will be significant,” he said.

He expressed faith in Whisper to help translate podcasts, but admitted mistakes may be made in the form of flubbed sentences or phrases as generative AI learns.

“Given the availability of data points, different language translations models like Whisper will quickly improve, ensuring a high degree of accuracy,” he said. “The downside of whisper is that its core competency is translating from other languages to English … Most podcasts are recorded in English and therefore it cannot be applied effectively across the board.”

Nuclear Power’s Pivotal Moment at COP28

Saleem H. Ali
Contributor
Environmental systems scientist at the University of Delaware

Dec 10, 2023,

TOPSHOT - France's President Emmanuel Macron (C) poses for a photo with other leaders and ... [+]

AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Among the less publicized achievements of COP28 has been a notable declaration by at least 20 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Canada to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050. This is a sensible science-based declaration, supported by the IAEA and the IPCC’s view that atomic energy has a role to play in decarbonization. The declaration thus deserves the attention of investors and the wider public. For too long, nuclear power has been stigmatized out of emotional fear rather than facts. The quest for a holy grail of global energy supply remains elusive, but much research continues to be cultivated and curated according to preferences and assumptions about a desired outcome.

The critics of nuclear energy tend to use selective science which needs to be confronted head-on. Let us use the example of a paper published a few years ago in the prestigious journal Nature Energy which reflects proclivities in favor of renewable energy with a clear objective of marginalizing nuclear power. Despite a very elegant hypothesis-driven conceptual framework, the authors have designed a study that diminishes the carbon benefits of nuclear by using a regression analysis that is not well-suited to the core societal question at hand: is the future of nuclear power likely to assist with carbon mitigation?

Instead of addressing this question, the authors use aggregate carbon emissions data for countries and compare nuclear energy versus renewable energy dominance for two historic periods until 2014. The correlations are based on asymmetric units of comparison (given that only 31 countries are nuclear power producers while the full sample of countries with renewable portfolios is 123 in their data set). What the analysis does usefully show is that a switch to renewable energy technologies has definitively led to reduced carbon emissions, and that there can be some competition between the energy sources in terms of investment prioritization.

The history of carbon comparisons research on nuclear is highly contentious as the range of life cycle analyses (LCA) and environmental product declarations (EPD) methods used to compare carbon footprints from mines to markets makes outputs astronomically different. Indeed, composite literature reviews conducted earlier reveal widely divergent assessments from 4 to 220 gCO2/kWh giving ample space for activist anti-nuclear scholars to pounce upon.

As further analysis by the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency has shown, much of the inflated carbon range with nuclear stems from assumptions about concentrations of uranium ore and the construction materials (specially concrete) of conventional plants. However, much less of this will likely be relevant with future nuclear development and that is where industrial ecological research investment should be made. The high capacity factors of nuclear as well as clearly demonstrable reduced carbon of future nuclear power has now been firmly acknowledged by the International Energy Agency.

China Launches World's First Fourth-Generation Nuclear Reactor

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Dec 10, 2023, 

• China started up the world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor this week.
• 
  
• The Shidaowan nuclear power plant, which features the world's first fourth-generation reactor, started commercial operations on December 6.
• 
  
• Lantau Group's David Fishman: "China is arguably peerless in actually building and commercializing next-generation nuclear power technology."

China has taken a step ahead of competitors in civil nuclear energy technology as it started up the world's first fourth-generation nuclear reactor this week.   

As many countries are starting to recognize that nuclear power generation will play an important role in the energy transition by providing additional net-zero electricity, the race for developing the latest generation of civil nuclear technology has begun.

And this week, China gained an advantage in that race.

The Shidaowan nuclear power plant, which features the world's first fourth-generation reactor, started commercial operations on December 6, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), one of the project's developers, said.

"China's independently developed high-temperature gas-cooled reactor demonstrator commenced commercial operation," CNNC said in a statement.

"It signifies that China has completed the world's first commercially operational modular nuclear power plant with fourth-generation nuclear technology, marking the transition of fourth-generation nuclear technology from experiments to the commercial market."

Generation IV reactors are considered safer and more efficient.

"The tests confirmed that commercial-scale reactors could be cooled down naturally without emergency core cooling systems for the first time in the world. It is the so-called inherently safe reactor," Tsinghua University, one of the joint developers of the reactor, said.

Such reactors can produce heat, electricity, and hydrogen and would help China and the world "become carbon neutral," Zhang Zuoyi, dean of the Tsinghua University Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology and chief designer of the Shidaowan reactor project, told South China Morning Post.

The fourth-generation reactor in operation now puts China "ahead of other countries in terms of nuclear technology research and development," Francois Morin, China director of industry group World Nuclear Association, told The Wall Street Journal.

According to Morin, Western countries are set to launch their fourth-generation nuclear reactors only in the early 2030s.

David Fishman, a China-based senior manager at energy consulting firm Lantau Group, told the Journal that "China is arguably peerless in actually building and commercializing next-generation nuclear power technology."

Many countries in the West, with the notable exception of Germany, have recognized that nuclear power generation would help them achieve net-zero emission goals.

At the COP28 climate summit currently underway in Dubai, the United States and 21 other countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, saying incorporating more nuclear power in their energy mix is critical for achieving their net zero goals in the coming decades.   

The United States, alongside Britain, France, Canada, Sweden, South Korea, Ghana, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), among others, signed the declaration at the COP28 climate summit.

"The Declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5-degree Celsius goal within reach," the U.S. Department of State said.

China is not a signatory to that declaration, but it aims to develop more nuclear energy capacities to reduce emissions as its demand for electricity rises.

As of 2020, nuclear energy accounted for 5% of China's generation mix, which continued to be dominated by coal, per data from the World Nuclear Association.

By 2035, nuclear energy is expected to make up 10% of the electricity generation mix and 18% by 2060, Chinese media quoted the China Nuclear Energy Association (CNEA) as saying earlier this year.

As of September 2023, China had 55 nuclear power units in operation with a combined installed capacity of 57 GW, and 24 units under construction with a total installed capacity of 27.8 GW, Xinhua quoted CNEA official Wang Binghua as saying. By 2060, that capacity is expected to jump to 400 GW, the official said.

China is also expected to approve six to eight nuclear power units each year "within the foreseeable future."   

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

These Are The 10 Most Polluted Cities In The EU

By ZeroHedge - Dec 10, 2023, 

• While the WHO has recommended a maximum level of five micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter of air for prolonged exposure since 2021, the vast majority of cities in the European Union far exceed this threshold.
• 
  
• Many of the cities most affected by PM2.5 are located in Poland.
• 
  
• In Italy, the Po Valley, due to its geography and concentration of industrial activities, remains one of the most polluted regions in Europe by fine particles.

The Dubai conference on climate change, or COP28, is currently underway, running from November 30 to December 12, 2023.

The international conference will bring together representatives from countries that are signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

One of the main objectives of COP28 is to continue the development of energy transition and accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels, major sources of greenhouse gasses and air pollutants. Beyond their impact on the climate, fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas also pose significant pollution problems; for example, their combustion emits fine particles (PM2.5).

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), prolonged exposure to these particles is likely to create or worsen various health problems, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. While the WHO has recommended a maximum level of five micrograms of PM2.5 per cubic meter of air for prolonged exposure since 2021, the vast majority of cities in the European Union far exceed this threshold.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the infographic below, based on data from the European Environment Agency compiled by Toute l’Europe, the most polluted city with PM2.5 in the EU in 2021-2022 was Slavonski Brod, Croatia, where the average was nearly six times the recommended maximum level, or 28 μg/m³.

Moreover, many of the cities most affected by PM2.5 are located in Poland, a country still heavily dependent on coal, which emits a high amount of fine particles when burned.

In Italy, the Po Valley, due to its geography and concentration of industrial activities, remains one of the most polluted regions in Europe by fine particles, leading to the presence of two Italian cities at the top of the list.

You will find more infographics at Statista

On the other end of the spectrum, based on data from the European Environment Agency compiled by the website Toute l’Europe, ten cities in Europe remained below the recommended level of fine particles by the WHO.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In 2021-2022, the least polluted European city in the study was Faro, Portugal, where the average concentration of PM2.5 in the air was only 3.7 μg/m³. Next were two Swedish cities, Umeå (3.9 μg/m³) and Uppsala (4 μg/m³).

By Zerohedge.com

Big Oil Acquisitions Are Strikingly Similar To Big Tobacco’s Moves

By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles - Dec 10, 2023

While you have been eagerly following the sterile debate in Doha about whether to phase out or phase down fossil fuels, you probably missed an announcement on December 6, one that you probably would not have noticed anyway because it is not in your line of business. But it could presage similar events in the oil business.

Here is what happened. British American Tobacco (BAT) announced that it would write off £25 billion of the £62 billion value of the US brands it acquired in 2017 (Reynolds American). Why? Because of a combination of slowing growth, consumer reluctance to spend, and losses in the vape market that was supposed to replace revenues from old lines of cigarettes. When BAT made the Reynolds acquisition management presumably knew cigarette sales were under pressure, that government health experts didn’t show sympathy for the vapes, and that many new firms were pushing into the vape market, thereby creating more competition that cigarette companies had become accustomed to over the years. Note that BAT did not write down the assets because those properties lost money, but rather because they were forced to recognize a severe loss of value. The reason we keep an eye on the tobacco industry is that tobacco and oil (or fossil fuels in general) have shared an almost identical regulatory and legal strategy for several decades—whether the issue was denying their products links to cancer or climate change. Related: COP28: Arab Coordination Group Promises $10B To Assist Developing Nations

The Reynolds American acquisition was similar in size to the recent ExxonMobil and Chevron acquisition announcements of this fall. As an aside, we should point out something about corporate mergers and ways to distinguish them. Simply consider the underlying business. Is it growing or in decline? Interestingly, it can be sensible for both high growth and declining businesses to find merger partners although the capital allocation challenges are reversed. The two oil giants, knowing that sales are slowing and facing uncertain litigation risk from a public that holds them responsible for global warming, decided to combine and manage their decline across a much larger revenue and asset base. The strategy here is to ultimately reduce costs faster than revenues decline. This may prove somewhat easier in a cartelized industry like oil which enjoys a modicum of price fixing via OPEC.

BAT, on the other hand, purchased Reynolds American for growth not simply scale. They wanted entry into the high-growth US vape market, which it saw as its future. With the benefit of hindsight we see they paid way too much for entry into a new market and a business with considerable regulatory overhang. ExxonMobil and Chevron aren’t taking on any new business risk by partnering, they each do the same thing just in different places. It’s just about eking out economies of even greater scale as revenues flatten and decline. The companies make clear that, despite all the warnings about climate and threats of new technologies and of the entry of firms vigorously trying to reduce their markets (Tesla and the entire Chinese automobile industry as examples) they feel good about their prospects and will robustly continue old policies. Frankly, we would not be surprised to hear they actually have a growth strategy that involves Africa, S. Asia and possibly other frontier markets.

What about climate change? Well, a proposal from Sheik Al Jaber, President of the COP28 climate conference in Doha, did not include calls for closure or phase outs of oil and gas infrastructure as, for example, former Vice President Gore has been advocating. Instead, proposed reductions in CO2 emissions are all about the offsets. Offsets are like behavioral swaps. In other words we get to keep doing the formerly environmentally harmful things (like driving, cooking, or heating our home) but by switching to new, cleaner technologies our emissions will be reduced. These emission reductions come mainly from two areas, increasing electrification (like electric vehicles and heat pumps) and a tripling in planned deployment of solar photovoltaics. The other two smaller “buckets” for CO2 removal were for reduction of methane emissions and “other” which included new nuclear power generation. New nuclear is not getting much love here despite a commitment from twenty or so nations to triple nuclear capacity.

So back to our original question: will oil mergers in a declining industry like Exxon/Chevron provide financially attractive results to investors or will they disappoint like BAT/Reynolds? There are several parallels: slowing growth, possible decline in demand, uncertain timing regarding litigation and its outcomes, and a public policy designed to reduce or eliminate sale of the product. But there is one key policy difference here, the concept of “offsets”. There were no offsets for the tobacco industry or for smokers for that matter. Just punitive financial penalties and harsh warnings on cigarette packages regarding smoking and lung cancer. Offsets are a pain free way to achieve policy outcomes. No plants or facilities have to be prematurely shuttered triggering financial write offs. No unemployment or even political unrest. As long as the favored policy vehicle includes economically pain free CO2 “offsets” via new technologies, as opposed to actual plant closures, then we feel pretty good about the prospects for oil and gas mergers.

Bottom line: obviously we don’t know for sure whether recent big mergers at solid valuations will end with large write-offs for oil and gas companies as they did for “big” tobacco. And we just can’t help but notice the similarities. But there is one difference between the two industries that seems to favor the energy industry. The Republican party in the US has adopted a policy strongly advocating for increased fossil fuel usage as well as claiming that climate change is a hoax. The tobacco industry for all their chutzpah never claimed lung cancer was a hoax.

By Leonard Hyman and William Tilles for Oilprice.com

Have Reports of Oil’s Death Been Greatly Exaggerated?

By Haley Zaremba - Dec 10, 2023

The International Energy Agency predicts a terminal decline for coal, oil, and gas by 2030, challenging dominant climate narratives.

Despite the predictions, oil profits are soaring, and supermajors like Chevron and Exxon Mobil are increasing investments in fossil fuel extraction.

Contradictions have arisen at COP28, where oil-funded climate talks discuss phasing down fossil fuels, while the industry walks back emission reduction pledges, fueling the debate over the future of oil, gas, and coal.

There is a great mismatch between dominant climate narratives and the reality of the global energy sector. While energy industry insiders and environmentalists alike claim that the energy industry is heavily investing in cleaner alternatives and that the death of fossil fuels is just around the corner, Big Oil’s ledgers tell a different story. “The death of the oil industry has been greatly overstated,” said Kevin Book, managing director at the consulting firm ClearView Energy. “The realities of demand and the limitations of alternatives haven't changed.”

In October, The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that coal, oil, and gas are all due to begin their terminal decline earlier than previously predicted in the World Energy Outlook 2023, its flagship annual report. The report found that with just the climate and energy policies that are already in place today, demand for coal, oil, and gas are each expected to peak by 2030. This projection comes as a shock – the report marks the first time that demand for each fuel has been predicted within this decade.

But reality might be a bit messier than those figures suggest. Oil profits are soaring, and many supermajors are planning to ramp up investments in future extraction of fossil fuels. The United States had a record year, and Chevron and Exxon Mobil are busily acquiring rivals with untapped reserves, indicating that they think they are none too concerned about the alleged looming threat of peak oil.

It goes without saying that the world can’t ditch fossil fuels overnight, and access to affordable and reliable baseload energies will be necessary to ease the energy transition and avoid painful energy shocks. “It is highly unlikely that society would accept the degradation in global standard of living required to permanently achieve a scenario like the IEA [scenario]”, Exxon said in its reply to the IEA’s 2050 net-zero emissions (NZE) scenario, which lays out a pathway for limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But many critics feel that Big Oil is using this line of argument as an excuse and even a scare tactic to continue investing in extraction rather than in finding better energy alternatives.










544.5K

110
U.S. Gasoline Prices Fall to 11-Month Low





Indeed, instead of continuing to intensify their efforts toward meeting global climate goals, many supermajors have been walking back their previous pledges or merely failing to achieve them. Earlier this year, BP announced that it would be slashing its promise to reduce carbon emissions from its energy production by 35 to 50 percent by 2030 to just 20 to 30 percent. But while their actions speak volumes, spokespeople for the oil and gas industry continue to avow their commitment to reducing emissions and collaborating with the decarbonization movement.

This contradiction is highly visible at this year’s COP28 United Nations Climate Change Conference currently taking place in Dubai’s Expo City in the United Arab Emirates in a conference venue paid for with oil wealth in the middle of one of the world’s most prominent petro-states. The UAE negotiating team has said with “cautious optimism” that it believes COP28 could result in a commitment to phasing down fossil fuels over the coming decades, an accomplishment that has proved to be impossible in previous COPs. However, no one is even suggesting that a hard date be set or that “abated” fossil fuels be challenged.

“Abated” fossil fuels are a contentious topic as technologies like carbon capture are a central platform of the decarbonization plans of oil and gas companies, but are largely dismissed by environmentalists. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has dismissed such tactics as “99 percent greenwashing,” saying: “What they're trying to do is protect their established ownership of fossil assets."

So is peak oil right around the corner? Or not? It seems that larger market forces are pushing oil, gas, and coal in the direction of the dodo, but it’s just as clear that there is still money to be made in their extraction. And until that changes, there will always be someone willing to drill.


By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com