“My daughter asked me when she came home from school, “What’s the financial crisis?” and I said, it’s something that happens every five to seven years.”

It is month-end and end of quarter, ordinarily a time to dress up the stock casino indexes to boost money manager bonuses and prevent hedge fund client redemptions.

But this is no ordinary time. Many banks are still reeling from the effects of the Archegos Capital Management crisis, with no certainty that the distressed selling is over.

President Biden is just about to announce his latest Magic Money Tree plan of up to 3 trillion newly created fiat currency dollars for infrastructure projects.

While in the real economy, supply chain disruption has increased with each successive month of 2021. With more disruption to come from last week’s Suez Canal blockage.

Probably not a good day to try faking the end of quarter numbers. Better luck next quarter.

Asian shares defensive, set for monthly loss on bond rout

March 31, 2021 12:31 AM By Swati Pandey

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian stocks were on the backfoot on Wednesday while the safe-haven dollar held near a one-year high as Treasury yields resumed their upward march, hitting sentiment even as Chinese data underpinned signs of a solid global economic recovery.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside of Japan eased from a one-week high of 682.36 points to be last at 680.04 and still a fair distance away from an all-time peak of 745.89 touched just last month.

For the month so far, the index is down 1.6% to be on track for its first loss in five months. It is poised for its fourth consecutive quarterly gain though it would be the smallest increase since a 21% fall in March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a standstill.

“Markets are watching closely to gauge the damage and potential ripple effects caused by the Archegos Capital Management crisis,” ANZ analysts wrote in a note.

Some global banks are facing billions of dollars in losses after U.S. investment firm Archegos Capital Management LP defaulted on margin calls, putting investors on edge about who else might be exposed.

“For some this serves as a timely reminder that while pandemic risks are abating, financial market risks remain elevated,” ANZ added.

The risk-off mood lately has been set off by a surge in bond yields. U.S. Treasury yields skyrocketed 83 basis points just this quarter, the biggest increase in over a decade, making equity valuations look lofty particularly for major tech companies which have borne the brunt of the sell-off.

On Wednesday, 10-year Treasury yields rose as high as 1.742% from Tuesday’s 1.708%.

---- Sentiment in Asia remained downbeat despite data showing China’s factory activity expanded at a faster-than-expected pace in March while the country’s services sector surged too.

Chinese shares started in the red and deepened their losses, with the blue-chip index off 1.1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped 0.2%.

Japan’s Nikkei slid 0.7% as the country’s industrial output fell in February due to declines in the production of cars and electrical machinery.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/asian-shares-defensive-set-for-monthly-loss-on-bond-rout-idUSKBN2BM3EO?il=0

JPMorgan Says Banks’ Archegos Hit May Be Up to $10 Billion

By Jan-Patrick Barnert and Marion Halftermeyer

30 March 2021, 16:16 BST Updated on 30 March 2021, 16:25 BST

Credit Suisse faces loss up to $4 billion: Berenberg

· JPMorgan analysts say watch out for credit agency statements

Banks roiled by the Archegos Capital fallout may see total losses in the range of $5 billion to $10 billion, according to JPMorgan.

Losses from trades unwinding related to Archegos will be “very material” in relation to lending exposure for a business that is mark-to-market and holds liquid collateral, analysts led by Kian Abouhossein wrote in a note. They added that Nomura Holdings Inc.’s indication of potentially losing $2 billion and press speculation of a $3 billion to $4 billion loss at Credit Suisse AG is “not an unlikely outcome.”

Analysts and investors are trying to figure out the final losses to banks exposed to the Archegos implosion, with the task made harder by the opaque nature of the leveraged trading involved. JPMorgan had previously estimated losses in the range of $2 billion to $5 billion.

“We are still puzzled why Credit Suisse and Nomura have been unable to unwind all their positions at this point,” the analysts wrote, adding that they expect to see full disclosures from lenders by the end of this week.

Credit Suisse Girds for Billions in Losses From Archegos Hit

The analysts advised investors to keep an eye on credit agencies’ statements as they expect poor risk management to be an issue.

That’s an emerging theme at Credit Suisse, where executives are expecting the loss related to Archego to run into the billions, according to people with knowledge of the matter. March’s blowups may wipe out more than a year of profits for the bank and threaten its stock buyback plans, as well as adding to the reputational hit from other missteps.

Buyback Risk

The bank’s plans to buy back 1.5 billion Swiss francs ($1.6 billion) of shares are at risk, according to Berenberg analyst Eoin Mullany. He estimates the lender could face losses of $3 billion to $4 billion.

“The hits just keep coming for Credit Suisse,” he wrote in a note Mullany.

Preceding the Archegos losses were the liquidation of its supply-chain finance funds linked to collapsed financier Lex Greensill and a writedown on a stake in hedge fund York Capital Management taken in the fourth quarter.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-30/banks-may-take-up-to-10-billion-hit-on-archegos-loss-jpmorgan-kmw5xjkh?srnd=premium-europe

Breakingviews - Hedge funds take third strike vs. U.S. watchdogs

March 29, 2021 9:56 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Hedge funds just took their third strike against U.S. watchdogs. Archegos Capital Management’s leveraged bet against ViacomCBS and others unwound last week, triggering banks to offload equities at a rapid rate. The default hasn’t yet amounted to a systemic impact like other crises, but it’s one of many recent big market disruptions. Regulators may be ready to call an out.

The family office run by former Tiger Asia manager Bill Hwang was caught flat-footed when the stock price of ViacomCBS fell. That created a domino effect: banks that had lent money to the fund, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, began selling the stock Archegos posted as collateral. Nomura and Credit Suisse warned of big losses because of its prime broker client.

It’s the third time in a relatively short period that trading risks have caused uncomfortable disruption. The U.S. government had to backstop markets last year as investors including hedge funds stockpiled cash shortly following lockdowns. Then there was the GameStop debacle. Robinhood had to temporarily shut down trading in GameStop after a coordinated effort among amateur traders to buy shares of the retailer left it short on collateral. Citadel Securities executed some of those trades, and as a result the firm’s founder Ken Griffin landed himself a seat in front of Congress.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, made up of U.S. regulators, may step in to look at the potentially risky activities of money managers to see if additional rules are necessary.

---- Parts of Archegos’ issues are a result of regulatory cracks. There’s little information about the fund in SEC filings, possibly because family offices don’t have to register as investment advisers. It also made its moves through opaque over-the-counter equity swaps that are traded privately.

But broadly global watchdogs are eyeing opaque areas of the market. Assets among shadow banks have increased following the financial crisis, totaling more than $200 trillion in 2019, now making up about 50% of the global financial system, according to the Financial Stability Board, compared to 42% in 2008. That’s reason enough for financial police to take a look.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-regulation-hedgefunds-breakingvie/breakingviews-hedge-funds-take-third-strike-vs-u-s-watchdogs-idUSKBN2BL2TZ

In global insurance news, that canal closure will be costly even if it only lasted barely a week.

With ship now freed, a probe into Suez Canal blockage begins

By SAMY MAGDY and JON GAMBRELL March 30, 2021

SUEZ, Egypt (AP) — Experts boarded the massive container ship Tuesday that had blocked Egypt’s vital Suez Canal and disrupted global trade for nearly a week, seeking answers to a single question that could have billions of dollars in legal repercussions: What went wrong?

As convoys of ships again began traveling through the artery linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas, a canal service provider said more than 300 vessels carrying everything from crude oil to cattle were waiting for their turn, a process that will take days. Egyptian government officials, insurers, shippers and others similarly waited for more details about what caused the skyscraper-sized Ever Given to become wedged across the canal on March 23.

When blame gets assigned, it will likely lead to years of litigation to recoup the costs of repairing the ship, fixing the canal and reimbursing those who saw their cargo shipments disrupted. Since the vessel is owned by a Japanese firm, operated by a Taiwanese shipper, flagged in Panama and now stuck in Egypt, matters quickly become an international morass.

“This ship is a multinational conglomeration,” said Capt. John Konrad, the founder and CEO of the shipping news website gcaptain.com.

Experts boarded the Ever Given as it idled Tuesday in Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake, just north of the site where it previously blocked the canal. A senior canal pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists, told The Associated Press that experts were looking for signs of damage and trying to determine why the vessel ran aground.

There could be significant damage to the the ship, Konrad warned. Stuck for days across the canal, the ship’s middle rose and fell with the tide, bending up and down under the tremendous weight of some 20,000 containers across its 400-meter (quarter-mile) length. On Monday, when workers partially floated the ship, all that pressure came forward to its bow.

“Structural integrity is No. 1. You know, there was a lot of strain on that ship as it was sagging in the waterway,” Konrad said. “They have to check everything for cracks and particularly that rudder and the propeller in the back that’s connected to the engine room.”

“And then they have to go through all the mechanical equipment, make sure they test the engines, all the safety valves, all the equipment, and then determine that it’s safe to sail either by itself or with a tug escort to the next port,” he added.

The ship’s owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., said Tuesday that it would be part of the investigation along with other parties, though it did not identify them by name. It also refused to discuss possible causes of the grounding, including the ship’s speed and the high winds that buffeted it during a sandstorm, saying it could not comment on an ongoing investigation. Initial reports also suggested a “blackout” struck the vessel, something denied by the ship’s technical manager.

The company added that any damage to the ship was believed to be mostly on its keel. It said it was not immediately known whether the vessel will be repaired on site in Egypt or elsewhere, or whether it will eventually head to its initial destination of Rotterdam. That is a decision to be made by its operator, rather than the shipowner, the company said.

https://apnews.com/article/egypt-middle-east-coronavirus-pandemic-shipping-suez-canal-494901d4bf6f06c88e30d56d7f5a86d8?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Tuesday_Morning_Wire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers

Global reinsurers stare at massive losses from Suez Canal blockage, Fitch says

March 29, 2021 12:23 PM By Reuters Staff

(Reuters) - The blocking of the Suez Canal by one of the world’s largest container ships is likely to result in losses worth hundreds of millions of euros for the reinsurance industry, Fitch Ratings said, even as rescue teams were successful in partially refloating the vessel on Monday.

The 400-metre (430-yard) long Ever Given got wedged diagonally across the canal in high winds early last Tuesday, blocking the path for hundreds of vessels waiting to transit the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia.

This event will reduce global reinsurers' earnings but should not materially affect their credit profiles, while prices for marine reinsurance will rise further, the credit rating agency said.

Shipping rates for oil product tankers nearly doubled after the ship got jammed, and the blockage has disrupted global supply chains, threatening costly delays for companies already dealing with COVID-19 restrictions.

---- A large share of losses will probably be reinsured by a global panel of reinsurers, Fitch said, adding that this will add pressure to first-half earnings.

Global reinsurers are already on the hook for natural disasters such as winter storms in the U.S. and flooding in Australia, as well as COVID-19 pandemic-related losses.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-suezcanal-ship-reinsurance/global-reinsurers-stare-at-massive-losses-from-suez-canal-blockage-fitch-says-idUSKBN2BL1CQ?il=0

Finally, yet more supply chain stress. Can anything else go wrong in 2021?

Renesas says normal production at fire-hit chip plant to take 100-120 days

March 30, 2021 4:51 AM By Eimi Yamamitsu

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics said on Tuesday it would take at least 100 days to get back to normal production at its fire-hit plant, even as the government urged some Taiwanese companies to help with alternative chip production.

The company’s chip factory in northeast Japan was hit by fire on March 19 due to a power surge in one of the machines, putting more pressure on the broader chips industry amid a global shortage of semiconductors that is hurting the production of cars, smartphones and home appliances.

Renesas, which commands nearly a third of the global market share for microcontroller chips used in cars, said 23 machines were damaged in the fire and needed to be replaced or fixed, nearly double its initial estimate of 11.

Renesas’ Chief Executive Officer Hidetoshi Shibata told a news conference that while production at the plant looked likely to resume within a month, recovery to pre-fire levels was expected to take around 100 to 120 days from the incident.

“I’m not too pessimistic about the situation,” he said. “I think we won’t be too far off from the recovery timing...which is within one month. And our outlook is that the manufacturing capacity will recover as close as 100%.”

He added that while any short-term shipment of alternative chip production was impossible, the company has been getting support from outsourcing companies. The company would recuperate losses in the six months ending December through alternative production, both in-house and via outsourcing, Shibata said.

He also said Renesas would take a related sales hit of between 19.5 billion yen and 26 billion yen ($177.4 million to $236.5 million).

Car manufacturers around the world including Toyota, Hyundai, GM and Ford have been assessing the impact on their production, as two-thirds of output at the affected line of the fire-hit plant are automotive chips.

Chip supplies to car makers would stop around the end of April and Renesas expects these companies to feel the impact for a month-and-a-half to two months, Shibata said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-renesas-taiwan/renesas-says-normal-production-at-fire-hit-chip-plant-to-take-100-120-days-idUSKBN2BM09M?il=0

Hyundai Motor to suspend some South Korea output due to chip, component supply issues

March 29, 2021 11:22 AM Updated an hour ago

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co said on Tuesday it plans to temporarily suspend production at its Ulsan No.1 plant in South Korea due to chip and component supply issues from April 7-14.

“We are closely monitoring the situation to take prompt and necessary measures and optimize production in line with the supply conditions,” Hyundai said in a statement.

The South Korean automaker said in a statement that the supply issues involve front view camera systems for Kona sport utility vehicle (SUV) and power electric modules for the IONIQ 5.

The factory produces 311,000 vehicles annually, including the Kona SUV and Ioniq 5.

Hyundai was until recently one of the automakers least affected by the chip shortage, largely because it maintained a large stockpile of chips unlike its global peers, Reuters reported last month.

Last week, Honda Motor Co Ltd and General Motors Co both announced that they would continue production suspensions at plants in North America for the coming weeks, citing the chip shortage as one of several reasons.

A confluence of factors including factory shutdowns, booming demand for laptops and tablets, and sanctions against Chinese tech companies caused the shortage of chips in December.

Originally concentrated in the auto industry, the shortage has widened to affect a range of consumer electronics, including smartphones.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hyundai-motor-semiconductor/hyundai-motor-to-suspend-some-south-korea-output-due-to-chip-component-supply-issues-idUSKBN2BL16Y

With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.

Friedrich A. Hayek

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

T cells induced by COVID-19 infection respond to new virus variants: U.S. study

March 30, 2021 11:50 PM By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A critical component of the immune system known as T cells that respond to fight infection from the original version of the novel coronavirus appear to also protect against three of the most concerning new virus variants, according to a U.S. laboratory study released on Tuesday.

Several recent studies have shown that certain variants of the novel coronavirus can undermine immune protection from antibodies and vaccines.

But antibodies - which block the coronavirus from attaching to human cells - may not tell the whole story, according to the study by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). T cells appear to play an important additionally protective role.

“Our data, as well as the results from other groups, shows that the T cell response to COVID-19 in individuals infected with the initial viral variants appears to fully recognize the major new variants identified in the UK, South Africa and Brazil,” said Andrew Redd of the NIAID and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who led the study.

The researchers analyzed blood from 30 people who had recovered from COVID-19 before the emergence of the new more contagious variants.

From those samples, they identified a specific form of T cell that was active against the virus, and looked to see how these T cells fared against the concerning variants from South Africa, the UK and Brazil.

They found the T-cell responses remained largely intact and could recognize virtually all mutations in the variants studied.

The findings add to a prior study that also suggested T cell protection appears to remain intact against the variants.

The NIAID researchers said larger studies are needed to confirm the findings. Continued monitoring for variants that escape both antibody and T cell protection is needed, Redd said.

The paper has been accepted for publication in Open Forum Infectious Diseases but has yet to be peer reviewed.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-variants/t-cells-induced-by-covid-19-infection-respond-to-new-virus-variants-u-s-study-idUSKBN2BM3BZ

Austria in talks to buy a million doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine

March 30, 2021 12:39 PM By Reuters Staff

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria is in talks with Russia to buy a million doses of its Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, which has yet to be approved by the European Medicines Agency, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s office said on Tuesday.

Conservative leader Kurz is under fire from opposition parties because his government did not buy as many coronavirus vaccines as it could have under the European Union’s collective purchasing scheme.

“There must be no geopolitical blinkers regarding vaccines,” Kurz said in a statement issued by his office, adding that Austria is in talks with Russia and Moscow has offered to sell it a million doses as of April. “The only thing that must count is whether the vaccine is effective and safe.”

The statement noted that EMA has launched a rolling review of Sputnik V, but it did not repeat Kurz’s previous comments that Austria would only use the vaccine if it is cleared by the regulator for the 27-nation EU.

Sputnik V has been approved for use in 58 countries, most recently Mali, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which promotes the vaccine abroad, said on Tuesday.

Kurz has blamed an Austrian official on the EU’s vaccination steering board, where extra doses not bought up by member states are then redistributed, for deciding on purchases without consulting Vienna, and says he only recently learned of how the steering board system worked. The official has been replaced.

Kurz has also complained that vaccines are distributed unevenly within the EU because of that system.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-austria-sputnik/austria-in-talks-to-buy-a-million-doses-of-russias-sputnik-v-vaccine-idUSKBN2BM1HV?il=0

U.S., 13 countries concerned WHO COVID-19 origin study was delayed, lacked access - statement

March 30, 2021 6:26 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and 13 other countries expressed concerns on Tuesday that the World Health Organization (WHO) report on the origins of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was delayed and lacked access to complete data, according to a joint statement.

It followed WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s assertion that data was withheld from its investigators who traveled to China to research the origins of the pandemic.

"It is equally essential that we voice our shared concerns that the international expert study on the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples," said the joint statement released on the website of the U.S. State Department (bit.ly/2QSQfrC).

The statement was signed by the governments of Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

China refused to provide raw data on early COVID-19 cases to the WHO-led team, one of the team’s investigators has already said, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the global pandemic began.

The countries’ joint statement supported further studies of animals to find how the virus was introduced to humans, and called for a renewed commitment from WHO and member countries to access, transparency and timeliness.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-statement/u-s-13-countries-concerned-who-covid-19-origin-study-was-delayed-lacked-access-statement-idUSKBN2BM2JG

Covid: Germany limits use of AstraZeneca Covid jab for under-60s

31 March, 2021

Germany is suspending routine use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for people aged below 60 because of a risk of rare blood clots.

The German medicines regulator found 31 cases of a type of rare blood clot among the nearly 2.7 million people who had received the vaccine in Germany.

Canada earlier suspended use of the AstraZeneca jab in people under 55.

AstraZeneca said international regulators had found the benefits of its jab outweighed risks significantly.

It said it was continuing to analyse its database to understand "whether these very rare cases of blood clots associated with thrombocytopenia occur any more commonly than would be expected naturally in a population of millions of people".

"We will continue to work with German authorities to address any questions they may have," it added.

The EU and UK medicine regulators both backed the vaccine after previous cautionary suspensions in Europe this month.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the UK Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency stressed that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine continued to outweigh the risk of side effects.

In the UK, a government spokesperson said: "The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is safe, effective and has already saved thousands of lives in this country. As the UK's independent regulator has said, when people are called forward, they should get the jab.

"Over 30 million people have already received their first dose of a vaccine, and we are on track to offer jabs to all over-50s by 15 April and all adults by the end of July."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56580728

Provinces suspend AstraZeneca shots for people under 55 after advice from national panel

The advisory committee recommended that more information is needed on a possible link between the shot and rare blood clots

Author of the article: Morgan Lowrie and Mia Rabson Publishing date: Mar 29, 2021

Canadian provinces suspended use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in people under age 55 on Monday, acting on an advisory committee’s concerns about a possible link between the shot and rare blood clots.

Meanwhile, British Columbia imposed new public-health measures for the next three weeks to slow the rapid spread of the virus, as it announced 2,518 new cases over the past three days.

Dr. Shelley Deeks, the vice-chair of Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization, said the committee updated its recommendations amid new data from Europe that suggests the risk of blood clots is now potentially up to one in 100,000 — much higher than the one in one million risk believed before.

Health Canada demanded Monday that AstraZeneca do a detailed study on the risks and benefits of its COVID-19 vaccine across multiple age groups, and Deeks said the advisory committee recommended the shot be suspended for younger groups pending the outcome of that review.

“NACI has determined that there is substantial uncertainty about the benefit of providing AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to adults under 55 years of age, given the potential risks associated with it,” Deeks said.

“As a precautionary measure, while Health Canada carries out an updated benefit-risk analysis based on emerging data, NACI recommends that the vaccine not be used in adults under the age of 55 years.”

She said most of the patients in Europe who developed a rare blood clot after vaccination with AstraZeneca were women under the age of 55, and the fatality rate among those who developed clots is as high as 40 per cent.

The blood clot condition is known as Vaccine-Induced Prothrombotic Immune Thrombocytopenia. Deeks said it is treatable, and the fatality rate could go down now that it has been identified and symptoms are communicated.

Health Canada said it has not received any reports of the blood clots in Canada, and the department’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Supriya Sharma, said she believes the vaccine’s benefits outweigh the risks.

The department changed its label on the vaccine last week to warn about the rare risk of blood clots. Sharma said Health Canada hasn’t changed its decision to authorize AstraZeneca.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-press-newsalert-p-e-i-suspends-use-of-astrazeneca-vaccine-among-young

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/

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.

Graphene made from old tires helps strengthen concrete

By Michael Irving March 29, 2021

Researchers at Rice University have developed a new process to convert old tires into graphene, which can then be used to make concrete. Not only is it more environmentally friendly, but the team says the resulting concrete is substantially stronger.

The research builds on the team’s previous breakthroughs in making graphene through a process called flash Joule heating. Essentially, this involves using a jolt of electricity to quickly superheat almost any carbon source to around 2,725 °C (4,940 °F), converting it into graphene flakes. Specifically, it’s a form of the material known as turbostratic graphene, which has layers that don’t line up perfectly. That makes it more soluble, and easier to integrate into composite materials.

Last year the team demonstrated the technique using waste products like food or plastic – and now, they’ve moved onto discarded tires. The Rice team says that previous efforts to convert tires directly into graphene didn’t yield the best results, so for the new study they turned to the material left over after they’ve undergone a common recycling process.

Pyrolysis involves burning tires in a low-oxygen environment, which creates an oil that’s very useful for a range of industrial processes. But it also produces a solid carbon residue that’s been harder to find new life for.

The Rice researchers found that this tire-derived carbon black was a great candidate for producing flash graphene. When they put the material through flash Joule heating, some 70 percent of it was converted into graphene, while a mixture of shredded tire rubber and commercial carbon black yielded around 47 percent.

Next, the team demonstrated a particular use case for the new graphene material – concrete production. They added 0.1 weight/percent (wt%) for the graphene produced from tire carbon black, and 0.05 wt% for the mixture of carbon black and shredded rubber into Portland cement. They found that concrete cylinders made with this cement showed around 30 percent better compressive strength than concrete made without the graphene additive.

“This increase in strength is in part due to a seeding effect of 2D graphene for better growth of cement hydrate products, and in part due to a reinforcing effect at later stages,” says Rouzbeh Shahsavari, co-lead author of the study.

The team says that the graphene-reinforced concrete has several environmental benefits. Not only could it help prevent waste tires from ending up in landfill, but the extra strength of the final material could reduce the amount of concrete needed in structures.

“Concrete is the most-produced material in the world, and simply making it produces as much as 9 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions,” says James Tour, co-lead author of the study. “If we can use less concrete in our roads, buildings and bridges, we can eliminate some of the emissions at the very start.”

The research was published in the journal Carbon.

Source: Rice University

https://newatlas.com/materials/graphene-tires-strengthen-concrete/

Experience, however, shows that neither a state nor a bank ever have had the unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power; in all states, therefore, the issue of paper money ought to be under some check and control; and none seems so proper for that purpose as that of subjecting the issuers of paper money to the obligation of paying their notes either in gold coin or bullion.

David Ricardo

London Irvine Report

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Wednesday, 31 March 2021

A Dodgy Month-End. Now What? Inflation?