Car Scoops (April 19)
“The auto industry is at a crossroads with EVs, and this is becoming increasingly evident. Nearly every automobile manufacturer has been forced into some level of self-reflection as far as electric cars are concerned. Some are forging ahead in hope, while others are slowing down and reassessing their plans as market demand fluctuates and prices rise.”
Tags: Auto industry, Crossroads, Evident, EVs, Forging ahead, Hope, Manufacturer, Market demand, Plans, Prices, Reassessing, Self-reflection, Slowing down
The Guardian (April 19)
A 1,200-year cherry blossom dataset shows that global warming is “unsettling nature’s rhythms.” Based on data associated with the late Professor Aono, peak bloom “now occurs around two weeks earlier than in previous centuries. In the 1820s full bloom arrived in mid-April. In 2023 the full-flowering date was 25 March.” The professor’s work indicates “that March temperatures in Kyoto have risen by several degrees since the early 19th century – enough to shift peak bloom by weeks rather than days.”
Tags: 1820s, Aono, Cherry blossom, Dataset, Earlier, Global warming, Kyoto, March 25, Mid-April, Nature’s rhythms, Peak bloom, Temperatures, Two weeks, Unsettling
Euronews (April 18)
“The war on Iran has unexpectedly ignited a renewables race, as Europe grapples with the reality of its fossil fuel reliance.” Amid ongoing climate change, however, renewables may not provide quite the “silver bullet” we seek. Climate change might be “too hot for solar and too much wind for turbines.” For example, the efficiency of photovoltaic cells drops for every degree above 25°C and when gusts are too strong “wind turbines are often turned off (a process known as curtailment) leading to gas plants being paid to switch back on.”
Tags: Gas plants
The Week (April 16)
“The world is reeling from a war-induced oil shock, and China is poised to take advantage. The country builds nearly every component of the 21st-century electrical grid that will be needed to replace the oil currently bottled up in the Strait of Hormuz.” As the age of the petrostate fades, China looks set to become “the world’s first electrostate.”
Tags: 21st century, Advantage, China, Electrical grid, Electrostate, Oil, Oil shock, Petrostate, Poised, Reeling, Replace, Strait of Hormuz, War-induced, World
Financial Times (April 16)
“Iran is America’s Suez crisis — and just as ridiculous. The parallels with Britain’s disastrous Middle East adventure in the 1950s are impossible to resist.”
Tags: 1950s, Adventure, Disastrous, Iran, Middle East, Parallels, Ridiculous, Suez crisis, U.S., UK
Time (April 16)
There’s a “looming risk of too many satellites and debris in space.” Current counts indicate there are over 525,000 objects larger than 1 cm and over 100 million of all sizes. “That’s a huge problem, since even such small bits of scrap can carry the bang of a bullet when they’re traveling at orbital speed.” And each collision generates more “more debris clouds, which would strike still more spacecraft, leading to a chain reaction known as the Kessler syndrome that could potentially wipe out whole flocks of spacecraft in that orbital band.”
Tags: 100 million, Chain reaction, Collision, Debris, Debris clouds, Kessler syndrome, Looming, Objects, Orbital speed, Risk, Satellites, Scrap, Space, Spacecraft
NBC News (April 15)
“Oil prices have started to slip — but not necessarily for reasons that suggest a return to market normalcy.” According to the IEA, “demand destruction” is resulting from “the acute energy commodity shortages stemming from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.” Oil is now at the “point where it is now so expensive that overseas businesses and households have begun curbing investment and consumption.”
Tags: Acute, Businesses, Closure, Demand destruction, Energy commodity, Expensive, Households, IEA, Investment, Market normalcy, Oil prices, Overseas, Shortages, Slip, Strait of Hormuz
Harvard Business School (April 15)
“Traditionally, investors have accepted a lower yield—or interest rate—for Treasuries because of their perceived safety and liquidity. Buy a Treasury and you could sell or pledge it almost instantly for cash anywhere in the world. Today, that ‘convenience yield’ has disappeared amid record US debt.” Two factors, namely “scarcity in dollar lending” and “oversupply of Treasuries” are creating a divergence in the value of the dollar, which continues to command a premium, and the value of Treasuries, which have “lost their special premium relative to G10 bonds, and have less of an advantage against emerging market bonds.”
Tags: G10 bonds
Fortune (April 14)
“The White House promised a manufacturing renaissance. Instead, the factory floor keeps shrinking…. During Trump’s first year back in the White House, the manufacturing sector alone shed 108,000 jobs—even as the administration touted a coming ‘manufacturing boom.’” The trajectory has not improved. As of this March, there have been about 150,000 net job losses per year in the manufacturing and construction sectors.
Tags: 150k, Construction, Factory floor, Job losses, Manufacturing, Manufacturing boom, Renaissance, Shrinking, Trump, White House
Wall Street Journal (April 13)
“It’s still too soon for a verdict on President Trump’s ‘excursion’ in the Middle East…. But it isn’t too soon to offer a tentative judgment on the president’s biggest foreign-policy action to date: ill-conceived, ill-planned, ill-executed and, so far, failing.”
Tags: Excursion, Failing, Foreign policy, Ill-conceived, Ill-executed, Ill-planned, Middle East, Tentative judgment, Too soon, Trump, Verdict
