Texas, A Global Problem Now. Food Inflation Next?

Baltic Dry Index. 1756 +261 Brent Crude 65.15

Spot Gold 1784

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 18/02/21 World 110,435,805

Deaths 2,441,044

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has blamed intermittent renewable power sources for the blackouts, while the state’s agriculture commissioner said on Facebook that no wind turbine should ever be built in the state again. Both are Republicans.

The big news this morning is the continuing chaos in Texas. Who’d have thought the USA could be so unprepared. More on that below.

But as usual, up first news from the central bankster funded stock casinos. In the current stock mania, the punters turn to ever higher risk.

China shares rise on return from holiday, profit-taking hits other markets

February 17, 2021  11:36 PM  By Stanley White, Pete Schroeder

TOKYO/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - Chinese shares rose on Thursday during the first trading session after the week-long Lunar New Year holiday amid renewed optimism for an acceleration in global growth, but other Asian markets were hit by profit-taking.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.15% but was still close to an all-time high. Shares in China rose 0.77%. Australian stocks erased gains to trade 0.05% lower, while Japan’s Nikkei was unchanged.

E-mini futures for the S&P 500 fell 0.04%.

Yields on two-year Treasuries hit a record low and the 10-year yield extended a pullback from a one-year high as a bond market sell-off started to fade.

Strong U.S. retail sales, new signs the Federal Reserve will maintain its accommodative stance, and an ongoing push for further U.S. stimulus have bolstered economic optimism, but some analysts remain cautious because new strains of the coronavirus continue to emerge.

“With an even larger stimulus package likely to be passed by Congress before the end of March, the U.S. economic recovery could gain more momentum in 2021,” wrote Commonwealth Bank of Australia currency analyst Carol Kong.

“Despite the recent positive vaccine developments, the global economic outlook remains uncertain partly because of the spreading virus variants.”

On Wall Street, technology stocks fell, driving down the Nasdaq while other companies rose on broader economic optimism.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.29%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.03% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.58%.

The MSCI’s global stock index fell 0.04% but was still near a record high.

While investors eyed inflation, minutes from the January Fed meeting showed policymakers willing to push further accommodation to boost the pandemic-scarred U.S. economy.

More

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/china-shares-rise-on-return-from-holiday-profit-taking-hits-other-markets-idUSKBN2AH2YY

Traders chase sky-high returns in leveraged exchange traded products

February 17, 2021  6:08 AM  By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Frenzied speculation in the shares of GameStop may have subsided, but it is business as usual in a small corner of the market where traders looking to turbocharge their gains dabble in what may be some of the market’s most volatile funds.

Leveraged and inverse exchange traded products (ETPs) - which aim to magnify the moves of an underlying index or stock several times over - account for only around 1% of the $5.9 trillion universe of U.S.-listed exchange traded products, according to CFRA.

Yet some of these ETPs are drawing heavy interest from both professional traders and retail investors, though no definite numbers are available on their participation rates. But it is another sign of the voracious appetite for risk that has gripped markets in the wake of unprecedented stimulus from the Federal Reserve, expectations of another fiscal package from lawmakers and a rally that has boosted the S&P 500 Index about 80% from its March lows.

In recent weeks, investors looking to capitalize on the sharp rise in the PHLX Semiconductor index have poured money into the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares, which seeks to amplify daily moves in the chip index threefold.

The fund is up about 1,000% over the last 11 months compared with a rally of about 150% in the chip index. It has logged inflows for five straight weeks, the longest such stretch since April, helping boost its assets to a record $3.27 billion.

Meanwhile, assets in the ProShares Ultra VIX Short Term Futures ETF, which provides leveraged exposure to short-term volatility futures, hit a record $2.5 billion on Friday, up about 50% since Feb. 3.

Another leveraged ETF, the ProShares UltraPro QQQ which targets 3X the one-day return on the Nasdaq 100 Index, has nearly doubled its assets over the last 9 months to $11.13 billion, according to data from ProShares.

The inflows to these funds come amid signs that investors are becoming increasingly willing to take risks, less than a year since a COVID-19 driven sell-off lopped about a third off the S&P 500 Index.

Although these ETPs are leveraged, investors risk only the amount they invested, unless they bought on margin. Still, when the market moves against some of these trades, the losses can be quick and staggering.The latest fund manager survey by BofA Global Research showed cash allocations down to their lowest level since March 2013, allocations to stocks and commodities at their highest level in around a decade and a record in the net percentage of investors taking higher-than-normal risk.

More

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-markets-etps/traders-chase-sky-high-returns-in-leveraged-exchange-traded-products-idUSKBN2AH0FK

 

Now more on the great Texas whiteout that brought on a blackout and energy chaos.

Does Sweden have a solution for Texas wind turbines?

Germany take notice, you can’t rely on US Nat Gas shipments. Get on with completing the Nord Stream Two gas pipeline.

Big Freeze in Texas Is Becoming a Global Oil Market Crisis

By Alex Longley

February 17, 2021, 1:59 PM EST

More than 4 million barrels a day of supply has been curtailed

·         Fuel output also curbed following cuts to refinery processing

What began as a power issue for a handful of U.S. states is rippling into a shock for the world’s oil market.

More than 4 million barrels a day of output -- almost 40% of the nation’s crude production -- is now offline, according to traders and executives. One of the world’s biggest oil refining centers has seen output drastically cut back. The waterways that help U.S. oil flow to the rest of the world have been disrupted for much of the week.

“The market is underestimating the amount of oil production lost in Texas due to the bad weather,” said Ben Luckock, co-head of oil trading at commodity giant Trafigura Group.

Brent crude surged to within 25 cents of $65 a barrel on Wednesday, a level not seen since last January. Ten months ago it slumped below $16 because of a demand shock caused by Covid-19.

In the past the weather-related disruption would largely have been a U.S. issue. Now it’s unmistakably global. Crude markets in Europe are rallying as traders replace lost U.S. exports. OPEC and its allies must decide how much longer they keep millions of barrels of their supply off the market.

Estimates for how long the outages may last have gotten progressively longer in recent days as analysts try to figure out the timespan involved in thawing out infrastructure, especially in those areas where freezing weather isn’t the norm.

Higher Estimates

At first, traders and consultants expected a hit to U.S. production that would last between two and three days. Now it’s looking unlikely that things will start to recover much before the weekend.

That means ever more barrels are being removed from the global market. Citigroup Inc. said it expects a production loss of 16 million barrels through early March, but some trader estimates are now almost double that. Vast swaths of production in the Permian -- the heartland of U.S. shale output -- have been shut in.

The result has been a surge in the value of crude barrels in other parts of the world. North Sea traders have been frantically bidding for the region’s cargoes this week as replacements are sought for U.S. crude exports. As Europe’s supplies have gotten more expensive, Asian buyers have been snapping up Middle Eastern shipments at higher premiums.

And though headline crude futures are at their highest level in over a year, they’re yet to rip higher because the loss of refining capacity is equally acute. The country’s largest plant has closed, and at least 3 million barrels a day of processing got taken offline. Traders are rushing to send millions of barrels of diesel across the Atlantic to the U.S., a potential boon for Europe’s downtrodden refining industry.

Gasoline Machine

“The Gulf Coast is a gasoline machine and sends products across the U.S. as well as international markets,” said Kitt Haines, analyst at consultant Energy Aspects. “For a brief period at least, this could help European refining.”

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/big-freeze-in-texas-is-becoming-a-global-oil-market-crisis?cmpid=BBD021721_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=210217&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily

Amid Texas freeze, oil producers still shut; governor bans natural gas exports

February 17, 2021  2:04 PM  By Devika Krishna Kumar, Gary McWilliams, Jennifer Hiller

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas oil producers and refiners remained shut for a fifth day on Wednesday after several days of blistering cold, and the governor ordered a ban on natural gas exports from the state to try to speed the restoration of power.

The cold snap, which has killed at least 21 people and knocked out power to more than 4 million people in Texas, is not expected to let up until this weekend.

Governor Greg Abbott directed Texas natural gas providers not to ship outside the state until Sunday and asked the state energy regulator to enforce his export ban.

“That will also increase the power that’s going to be produced and sent to homes here in Texas,” Abbott said at a news conference Wednesday.

The ban prompted a response from officials in Mexico, which relies on imports via pipeline from Texas. More than 40% of U.S. natural gas exports come from Texas.

Texas produces more natural gas and oil than any other U.S. state, and its operators, unlike those in North Dakota or Alaska, are not used to dealing with frigid temperatures.

The state accounts for roughly one-quarter of U.S. natural gas production, about 27.8 billion cubic feet per day, but it consumes only part of that, shipping the rest to other states or via pipeline to Mexico, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

---- Natural gas output also slumped. At this time a week ago, Texas was producing about 7.9 billion cubic feet per day, but that fell to 1.9 billion on Wednesday, according to preliminary data from Refinitiv Eikon. Natural gas accounts for half of Texas’ power generation.

U.S. gas pipeline exports to Mexico dropped to 3.8 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day on Wednesday, down from an average over the past 30 days of 5.7 bcf, according to data from Refinitiv, about three-quarters of which comes from Texas.

Mexico’s economy minister, Tatiana Clouthier, said Wednesday she had contacted the U.S. government’s representative in Mexico, seeking to guarantee supplies of natural gas for Mexico during the cold snap.

One cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) loaded at Freeport LNG in Texas on Wednesday had been slated to sail to Mexico, according to Refinitiv Eikon data. The tanker remained off the coast of Texas. A Freeport LNG spokeswoman declined to comment.

Operations at Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi plant, the state’s largest LNG producer, were halted by weather disruptions this week. A spokesman declined to comment on the governor’s order.

Overall, daily U.S. natural gas production is down by roughly 19% from the end of last week to 71.9 bcf per day on Wednesday, according to preliminary Eikon data.

With more snow expected in key oil-and-gas production areas like the Permian and northern Louisiana, production is expected to stay offline through Friday, said Anna Lenzmeier, energy analyst at BTU Analytics.

More

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-weather-texas-energy/amid-texas-freeze-oil-producers-still-shut-governor-bans-natural-gas-exports-idUSKBN2AH1V2

In Texas’s Black-Swan Blackout, Everything Went Wrong at Once

Rachel Adams-Heard   February 17, 2021

·  Natural gas output malfunctioned as wind turbines froze

The finger-pointing began immediately: It was the frozen wind turbines that foolishly replaced traditional sources. No, fossil fuels were at fault. No, Texas’s deregulated power market, unique in the country, had allowed companies to skimp on maintenance and upgrades.

As the hours ticked by and millions more were plunged into frozen darkness, a more sober reality emerged. The greatest forced blackout in U.S. history, as this event has almost certainly become, was the result of a systemic and multifaceted failure. There are no promises of when power will be restored and little likelihood that the episode won’t be repeated in a corner of the country hard hit by climate change.

“This feels like a technical design failure,” said Michael Webber, who founded the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin and serves as chief science and technology officer at French utility Engie.

Power plants weren’t fully weatherized, wiping out generation capacity. The ones that were still standing struggled to get enough fuel, with shale wells experiencing so-called freeze-offs. Many wind turbines stopped spinning. Texas, with a grid notoriously isolated from the rest of the U.S., was unable to call on neighboring states for help.

Still, as the pressure dropped last week and frigid air descended from the north, some saw what was coming and felt like they were witnessing a train crash. They lay part of the blame on Ercot, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the flow of power to consumers and says the extreme nature of the weather made it hard to be ready.

---- Adam Sinn, owner of Aspire Commodities LLC, a power and gas trader, was one of those wondering why so little was being done. He said that a week ago, when the seven-day outlook hit, Ercot’s own projections showed too little supply to meet soaring demand.

“We were looking at this week thinking, they are going to have to cut 10,000 megawatts of consumers,” he said. “I really think Ercot is to blame on this one.” He said there were spare megawatts that weren’t brought online. For example, Vistra Corp., a large generator, had 4,000 megawatts off line for maintenance in four plants that could have been turned on quickly, he said, citing data from Genscape Inc.

---- “The financial incentive isn’t there to harden that infrastructure,” he added. “From a generator perspective, the only incentive is to bring energy to market as cheaply as possible.”

Power prices spiked on several days to the price cap in Texas -- a staggering $9,000 a megawatt-hour.

A 100-megawatt wind farm in the state that might have normally made almost $40,000 over a two-day period in February could reap more than $9.5 million on Monday and Tuesday alone, Nicholas Steckler, a power-markets analyst at BloombergNEF, said. On Monday, electricity sales likely totaled $10 billion, according to Wood Mackenzie.

More

https://outlook.live.com/mail/inbox/id/AQMkADAwATEyODM3LTRjMmMtYzM0NAAtMDACLTAwCgBGAAADQRNns3806EGEdmuacr5nJgcA7UaNFSPVKkyjNNpztB6gvQAAAgEMAAAA7UaNFSPVKkyjNNpztB6gvQAE6%2FE2rQAAAA%3D%3D?state=0

Sweden Shows Texas How to Keep Turbines Going in Icy Weather

Jesper Starn

With the right gear, wind turbines can keep on generating through the harshest winter weather.

That’s the experience by researchers at an Arctic test site in Sweden, and their knowledge would have come handy thousands of miles away as ice and snow storms in Texas downed generators and triggered widespread blackouts. As much as half of the wind power capacity came offline due to the extreme cold.

The disaster underlines how vulnerable the world has become in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather brought on by climate change, and it’s raising questions about the global push to electrify everything from transportation to heating and cooling.

Keeping wind power going through extreme events isn’t impossible as researchers in Sweden have proved. Turbines in the Arctic Circle can work in temperatures as low as -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit). And most turbine makers, from Vestas Wind Systems A/S and General Electric Co. are now able to offer versions of their units that come armed with ice mitigation systems and heating for some of the equipment.

At its site in Uljabuoda in Sweden, the utility Skelleftea Kraft AB was one of the first developers to try to build wind turbines in extreme arctic climate a decade ago.

“The problem with sub-zero temperatures and humid air is that ice will form on the wind turbines,” said Stefan Skarp, head of wind power at Skelleftea Kraft. “When ice freezes on to the wings, the aerodynamic changes for the worse so that wings catch less and less wind until they don’t catch any wind at all.”

The ice also creates an hazardous environment for the maintenance workers, with tons of ice stuck on the turbine that can fall down at any time, or smaller lumps of ice flung from the tip of moving wings at 300 kilometers per hour. For added protection Skelleftea Kraft maintenance workers ride on armored vehicles when visiting wind sites in the winter.

By adding a thin layer of carbon fiber to the wings that can be automatically heated, the formation of ice can be halted altogether. There are also versions that use heated air inside the wings. This all comes at a cost, the winter-proof units will be as much as 5% more expensive and will have to reduce some of its output to keep warm, Skarp said.

“The standard case for wind power was that it should not build in rough and cold conditions, but the development of the technology has reached very far in a short amount of time since then,” Skarp said.

However, investment in anti-icing technologies is often not justified for warmer climates as the systems can have a negative impact on turbine efficiency and is expensive, according to Aaron Barr, principal wind energy consultant at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. The average age of the fleet in Texas is also more than eight years old, meaning they were built when technologies were not yet widely available, he said.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-16/sweden-shows-texas-how-to-keep-turbines-spinning-in-icy-weather

Finally, is food price inflation about to explode? Commodity inflation in general?

In addition to complications from the coronavirus pandemic, blame the central banksters Magic Money Tree forests if it does. The Great Global Warming Texas freeze may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Expect great social disorder if/when it happens.

The World Will Pay More for Meat as Food Inflation Deepens

Tue, February 16, 2021, 5:47 PM

(Bloomberg) -- There are signs that the food inflation that’s gripped the world over the past year, raising prices of everything from shredded cheese to peanut butter, is about to get worse.

The Covid-19 pandemic upended food supply chains, paralyzing shipping, sickening workers that keep the world fed and ultimately raising consumer grocery costs around the globe last year. Now farmers -- especially ones raising cattle, hogs and poultry -- are getting squeezed by the highest corn and soybean prices in seven years. It’s lifted the costs of feeding their herds by 30% or more. To stay profitable, producers including Tyson Foods Inc. are increasing prices, which will ripple through supply chains and show up in the coming months as higher price tags for beef, pork and chicken around the world.

Feed prices “go up and down, and you tend to take the rough with the smooth,” said Mark Gorton, managing director at the British chicken and turkey producer Traditional Norfolk Poultry. “But when it rallies as much as it has, it starts to impact massively on the business.”

The last time grains were this expensive was after the U.S. drought of 2012, and meat prices saw a dramatic run-up. Now, meat is again poised to become a driver of global food inflation, and part of the intensifying debate over the path of overall inflation and exactly what central banks and policymakers should do to aid economies still working to recover from the pandemic.

Vaccinations promising a return to normal life and fiscal stimulus programs amounting to trillions of dollars are already expected to unleash pent-up demand and drive a surge in consumer prices. U.S. and European bond markets are sending signals that inflation is back. Americans’ one-year inflation expectations last week rose to the highest since 2014.

As for what’s driving the feed prices, that’s due to bad crop weather shrinking world harvests. Demand is also increasing. China, the biggest buyer of commodities, is scooping up record amounts of the available supplies to feed its expanding hog herds.

Meat producers across major exporting countries are feeling the impact of the higher grain costs. In Brazil, the biggest poultry shipper, the cost of raising chickens jumped 39% last year due to feed, according to Embrapa, a state-owned agricultural research agency. Costs rose again last month by around 6%, said Itau BBA bank.

In Europe profitability of livestock operations has plunged due to the combination of high feed expenses and stifled demand from Covid-19 lockdowns. Some smaller hog farmers may be forced to exit the market, according to Rabobank senior analyst Chenjun Pan.

The United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization said global meat prices in January climbed for the fourth straight month.

Since Dec. 1, corn futures in Chicago have risen 29% and soybeans 19%.

More

https://news.yahoo.com/world-pay-more-meat-food-050000496.html

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Vaccines Mandatory in Indonesia, UK Cases Falls: Virus Update

Bloomberg News

17 February 2021, 22:57 GMT Updated on 18 February 2021, 05:29 GMT

Coronavirus infections in England have fallen “significantly” in recent weeks, a boost to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he weighs how quickly to re-open Britain’s economy.

It will be mandatory for eligible Indonesians to get vaccinated, the government said Thursday, while New Zealand has made masks compulsory on most forms of public transport after ending its lockdown in Auckland.

The United Nations is pushing for a worldwide vaccination effort. In the U.K., scientists are set to carry out the world’s first study to deliberately expose volunteers to the new coronavirus to speed research.

• Global Tracker: Cases exceed 109.8 million; deaths pass 2.4 million
• Vaccine Tracker: More than 186 million shots given worldwide
• U.S. Spotlight: Deaths in nursing homes fall after ravaging residents
• Vaccine rollouts cloud Covid-19 testing industry outlook
• Mayo Clinic AI study shows shots work well in real world
• Why delaying the second Covid shot is messy: QuickTake
• Can a vaccinated person still spread the coronavirus?: QuickTake

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/eu-wins-vaccine-deal-doses-go-unused-in-germany-virus-update?srnd=coronavirus

Japan starts COVID-19 vaccinations with eye on Olympics

By MARI YAMAGUCHI  February 17, 2021

TOKYO (AP) — Japan launched its coronavirus vaccination campaign Wednesday, months after other major economies started giving shots and amid questions about whether the drive would would reach enough people quickly enough to save a Summer Olympics already delayed by the pandemic.

Despite a recent rise in infections, Japan has largely dodged the kind of cataclysm that has battered other wealthy countries’ economies, social networks and health care systems. But the fate of the Olympics, and the billions of dollars at stake, makes Japan’s vaccine campaign crucial. Japanese officials are also well aware that rival China, which has had success beating back the virus, will host the Winter Olympics next year, heightening the desire to make the Tokyo Games happen.

Hanging over the rollout of the vaccines — which will go first to medical workers, then the elderly and vulnerable, and then, possibly in late spring or early summer, the rest of the population — are worries about shortages of the imported vaccines Japan relies on, and a long-time reluctance among many Japanese to take vaccines because of fears of rare side effects.

While medical workers say vaccinations will help protect them and their families, and business leaders hope the drive will allow economic activity to return to normal, the late rollout will make it impossible to reach so-called herd immunity before the Olympics begin in July, experts say.

That will leave officials struggling to quell widespread wariness — and even outright opposition — among citizens to hosting the Games. About 80% of those polled in recent media surveys support cancellation or further postponement of the Olympics.

Despite that, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and others in his government are forging ahead with Olympic plans, billing the Games as “proof of human victory against the pandemic.”

More

https://apnews.com/article/world-news-tokyo-coronavirus-pandemic-japan-olympic-games-1d146ac28b1241845bc5defe7f090536

COVID-19 bill would scale up ability to spot virus mutations

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR February 17, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. scientists would gain vastly expanded capabilities to identify potentially deadlier mutations of the coronavirus under COVID-19 relief legislation advancing in Congress.

The U.S. now maps only the genetic makeup of a minuscule fraction of positive virus samples, a situation some experts liken to flying blind. It means the true domestic spread of problematic mutations first identified in the United Kingdom and South Africa remains a matter of guesswork.

Such ignorance could prove costly. One worry is that more transmissible forms such as the UK variant could move faster than the nation’s ability to get the vaccine into Americans’ arms.

“You’ve got a small number of academic and public health labs that have been basically doing the genomic surveillance,” said David O’Connor, an AIDS researcher at the University of Wisconsin. “But there is no national coherence to the strategy.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to shepherd those efforts, aligning with the government’s own advanced detection work, but the COVID-19 legislation would take the hunt to another level.

A bill cleared for floor debate last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee would provide $1.75 billion for genomic sequencing. It calls for the CDC to organize a national network to use the technology to track the spread of mutations and guide public health countermeasures.

In the Senate, Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin has introduced legislation that would provide $2 billion. Baldwin says the U.S. should be using gene-mapping technology to analyze at least 15% of positive virus samples. That might not sound like much, but the current rate is believed to be 0.3% to 0.5%. Analyzing 15% of positive samples would expand surveillance by at least 30 times.

“Variants represent a growing threat,” said Baldwin. “At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing our testing capacity was essential to our ability to track and slow the spread of the virus — the same is true for finding and tracking these variants.”

More

https://apnews.com/article/technology-public-health-genomics-united-kingdom-legislation-71879bce09ddc9956ed3e32f5925c0cf

 

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Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some other useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Covid19info.live 

https://wuflu.live/

Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

Lead-based anode for lithium batteries doubles energy storage capacity

By Nick Lavars  February 16, 2021

When it comes to expanding the capabilities of today’s lithium-ion batteries, all kinds of alternative materials are on the table, from salt, to silicon, to microwaved plastics. Owing to its abundance, low cost and familiarity in battery systems, lead is one option with plenty of appeal, and scientists have just demonstrated how the material can form the basis of a new lithium battery anode that offers far greater storage capacity.

As one of the two electrodes in a lithium battery, the anode is loaded up with lithium ions during charging and releases them during discharge. Graphite is the material of choice for lithium battery anodes today, and serves them well, remaining stable across thousands of charging cycles. But where scientists would like to see some improvement is in their storage capacity, and for a team at Argonne National Laboratory, there is plenty of potential in lead.

Because it is widely used in lead-acid batteries, the oldest type of rechargeable batteries, there are well-established supply chains for lead, as well as systems in place to recycle the material at the end of its life. This, combined with the its low-cost and availability led the team to experiment with a lead-based anode for use in a lithium ion battery, with some promising early results.

The team started with large lead-oxide particles, which were combined with a carbon powder and shaken for several hours. This sees them converted into smaller, microscopic particles embedded in a carbon matrix, all encapsulated in a thin lead-oxide shell.

This new anode material was put to the test in battery cells in the lab, where it offered twice the energy storage capacity of conventional graphite anodes over 100 charging cycles, and proved perfectly stable throughout. The team was able to boost its performance further by adding fluoroethylene carbonate to the electrolyte solution, which carries the battery’s electrical charge.

“Our discovery challenges the current understanding of this type of electrode material,” says Christopher Johnson, the principal investigator of the project. ​“Our findings also provide exciting implications for designing low-cost, high-performance anode materials for transportation and stationary energy storage, such as backup power for the electric grid.”

The research was published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

https://newatlas.com/energy/lead-based-anode-lithium-batteries-double-capacity/