Baltic Dry Index. 2596 Fri. Brent Crude 70.16
Spot Gold 1912
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 01/06/21 World 171,468,758
Deaths 3,565,021
If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.
John Maynard Keynes.
Great news out of Asia this morning, despite a surge in the Covid pandemic, Asia’s booming again.
Less good news out of Europe this morning, Denmark’s spying on Germany for the USA. What do both suspect that Germany’s about to do to the rest of us?
Below the latest early morning updates. Look away from crude oil and spot gold now. The OECD says it’s nothing, no really, trust us we’re economists!
The OECD said central banks in advanced economies should keep financial conditions relaxed and tolerate inflation overshooting their targets.
Asia-Pacific stocks mixed; private survey shows Chinese factory activity expanding in May
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Tuesday morning trade, as investors reacted to the release of a private survey on Chinese manufacturing activity in May.
Mainland Chinese stocks were little changed, with both the Shanghai composite and Shenzhen component hovering around the flatline. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.2%.
The Caixin/Markit manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for May came in at 52, higher than expectations for a reading of 51.9 by analysts in a Reuters poll. The figure for May also compared against April’s reading of 51.9.
The official manufacturing PMI for May, released Monday, came in 51.0 — slightly lower than analyst expectations for a reading of 51.1 in a Reuters poll.
PMI readings above 50 represent expansion while those below that level signify contraction. PMI readings are sequential and represent month-on-month expansion or contraction.
Mixed Asia-Pacific markets
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.35% in morning trade while the Topix index shed 0.1%. South Korea’s Kospi edged 0.83% higher.
Shares in Australia slipped, with the S&P/ASX 200 declining 0.49%. The Reserve Bank of Australia is set to announce its interest rate decision at 12:30 p.m. HK/SIN on Tuesday.
MSCi’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.36% higher.
Over in Southeast Asia, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index slipped 0.2% in morning trade. Malaysia’s prime minister on Monday announced an additional 40 billion ringgit (about $9.7 billion) stimulus package, just hours before stricter lockdown measures to curb the Covid spread in the country were set to kick in.
Oil prices jump
Oil prices were higher in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 1.17% to $70.13 per barrel. U.S. crude futures advanced 1.88% to $67.57 per barrel.
More
South Korea’s exports post fastest expansion in 32 years as chip and car shipments surge
South Korea exports logged their sharpest expansion in 32 years in May, marking another robust month of shipments fueled by stronger consumer demand globally as many economies start to reopen.
Surging chip and car shipments helped power a 45.6% surge in South Korea’s exports from a year earlier, government data showed on Tuesday, posting the fastest growth since August 1988 and extending their expansion to a seventh month in a row.
Exports growth, however, slightly missed a consensus of a 48.5% gain in a Reuters poll.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy is the first major exporting economy to report monthly trade data that includes key IT products and the strength of its exports could further build confidence in a global economic recovery.
“Robust U.S. consumer spending means demand (for Korean products) will remain strong, and suggests May trade data for China and Japan will also be robust,” said Park Sung-woo, an economist at DB Financial Investment said.
In South Korea’s largest port of Pusan, port congestion is so bad that the Pusan Newport International Terminal, one of the largest terminals in the country, has begun accepting container boxes only if they are due for shipment within five days, down from seven previously.
----Exports of chips gained 24.5% on-year, rising for an 11th month in a row, while shipments of cars soared 93.7%. Petrochemical products exports surged 94.9% from a year earlier.
Average exports per working day grew 49% in May, far outperforming a 29.5% increase of April when shipments gained 41.2%.
Imports gained 37.9% on-year, missing forecasts for a 40.5% jump.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/01/south-korea-may-2021-exports.html
Australia's home prices surge, adding challenges for dovish RBA
June 1, 20214:20 AM BST
Australian home prices surged in May while approvals to build new houses reached record highs, helped by super-low rates, adding yet another challenge for the country's central bank, which wants to keep rates low until inflation revives.
Data from property consultant CoreLogic out on Tuesday showed national home prices climbed 2.2% in May, their second fastest increase since the late 1980s and the eighth straight monthly gain.
Separate figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed approvals to build private houses skyrocketed 67.4% in April from a year ago while total dwelling approvals soared nearly 40%.
Record low borrowing rates together with a government "HomeBuilder" incentive has pushed up housing demand, which is likely to extend despite the conclusion of the fiscal scheme. The red-hot market has provided a much-needed windfall to consumer wealth and confidence.
Buyers have been further encouraged by the outlook for borrowing costs, with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) repeatedly saying rates were likely to remain at a historic low of 0.1% until at least 2024.
The RBA announces its monthly monetary policy decision at 0430 GMT at which it is widely expected to hold rates and reiterate its dovish stance despite exuberance in recent data, as there are few signs of inflation and wage pressures.
Other figures from the ABS out on Tuesday showed Australia's current account surplus hitting a record of A$18.3 billion, suggesting the A$2 trillion ($1.6 trillion) economy may have expanded at a faster pace than previously thought.
----First-quarter GDP data is due on Wednesday where economists have forecast a brisk 1% quarterly rise, which would take annual output back to its pre-pandemic level.
The better-than-expected numbers were still unlikely to shake the RBA's dovish stance, in contrast to its New Zealand counterpart which has signalled interest rate hikes from as early as next year.
More
In EUSSR news, did tiny Denmark rat out Merkel for the USA’s NSA? Yes, is the simple answer. Just imagine the faux outrage if Russia or China did something like this.
Another example of fine European cooperation, just not with a member of the EUSSR.
NSA spying row: Denmark accused of helping US spy on European officials
31 May, 2021
Denmark's secret service helped the US spy on European politicians including German Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2012 to 2014, Danish media say.
The Defence Intelligence Service (FE) collaborated with the US National Security Agency (NSA) to gather information, according to Danish public service broadcaster DR.
Intelligence was allegedly collected on other officials from Germany, France, Sweden and Norway.
Similar allegations emerged in 2013.
Then, secrets leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden alleged tapping of the German chancellor's phone by the NSA.
When those allegations were made, the White House gave no outright denial but said Mrs Merkel's phone was not being bugged at the time and would not be in future.
Germany is a close ally of the US.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and a spokesperson for Angela Merkel have said they were not aware of Danish involvement until the DR report, which was shared with other European media over the weekend.
The NSA is said to have accessed text messages and the phone conversations of a number of prominent individuals by tapping into Danish internet cables in co-operation with the FE.
The alleged set-up, said in the report to have been codenamed "Operation Dunhammer", allowed the NSA to obtain data using the telephone numbers of politicians as search parameters, according to DR.
---- Along with Mrs Merkel, then-German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the opposition leader at the time, Peer Steinbrück, are also said to have been targeted.
"Politically I view this as a scandal," Mr Steinbrück told German media.
Denmark's Defence Minister Trine Bramsen, who had reportedly been earlier informed of the espionage, told DR that "systematic wiretapping of close allies is unacceptable".
Other European politicians have condemned the reports.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told public broadcaster NRK: "It's unacceptable if countries which have close allied co-operation feel the need to spy on one another."
France's Europe Minister Clement Beaune told France Info radio the allegations were "extremely serious".
Neither the FE nor the NSA have yet commented on the latest reports.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57302806
Finally, will the G-7 come looking to get even with the Silicon Six? More than get even, perhaps? But Japan’s FinMin doesn’t think so.
Is the silicon free tax ride about to come to a very rough end? After all, President Biden’s very left-wing Democrat socialists are after their slippery, untaxed money too.
‘Silicon Six’ tech giants accused of inflating tax payments by almost $100bn
Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent Mon., May 31, 2021, 8:01 a.m.
The giant US tech firms known as the “Silicon Six” have been accused of inflating their stated tax payments by almost $100bn (£70bn) over the past decade.
As Chancellor Rishi Sunak called on world leaders to back a new tech tax ahead of next week’s G7 summit in the UK, a report by the campaign group Fair Tax Foundation singled out Amazon, Facebook, Google’s owner, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft.
It said they paid $96bn less in tax between 2011 and 2020 than the notional taxation figures they cite in their annual financial reports. .
The six firms named handed over $149bn less to global tax authorities than would be expected if they had the paid headline rates where they operated, Fair Tax Foundation said.
Multinationals exploit gaps and mismatches in the international tax system through a technique known as “profit-shifting”. This involves artificially allocating sales derived in one country to a lower-tax country. One of the ways this is achieved is by companies setting up a subsidiary in a tax haven and registering their intellectual property there. That entity then charges the company’s subsidiaries in other, higher-tax jurisdictions large royalty fees. By charging that “cost” to the market where the majority of revenues are made, profits can be reduced or eliminated, meaning no tax is paid. The royalty fees extracted in this way are booked as profit in the low-tax location. Profits are often shifted to countries such as the British Virgin Islands or Bermuda, which charge no corporation tax.
Tax abuse by multinationals and avoidance by rich individuals costs countries around the world $427bn a year in lost revenues, according to research by the Tax Justice Network campaign group. The UK is estimated to lose £25bn of tax income due to profit-shifting.
Proposals for a minimum global tax rate and allocating taxing rights based on where companies make their money – rather than whichever low-tax zone a firm chooses to book its profits – would help to end the “race to the bottom” where one nation slashes tax to attract business only to be outdone by another country. Such a plan would give governments greater certainty on revenue raising.
---- Under pillar one, taxing rights would be granted to a portion of a multinational’s profits based on where its customers reside, irrespective of the company’s physical presence in that location. That might include a threshold that would mean this captures the world’s 100 biggest multinationals but not smaller companies.
Under pillar two, governments would still be able to set whatever local corporate tax rate they wanted. But as part of a global minimum rule, if companies paid lower rates in a particular country their home governments could claim “top-ups” to the agreed tax floor, eliminating the advantage of shifting profits to a tax haven.
More
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/silicon-six-tech-giants-accused-070116735.html
Japan finmin does not expect G7 meet to debate specific tax rates
June 1, 20215:08 AM BST
Finance leaders from the Group of Seven rich countries have narrowed their difference of opinions over global taxation but they are unlikely to debate specific figures on minimum tax rates at their weekend meeting, Finance Minister Taro Aso said.
Aso said he is planning on a bilateral meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the sidelines of the June 4-5 G7 meeting in Britain, although the details weren't finalised.
The G7 will vow this week to support their economies as they emerge from the pandemic and reach an "ambitious" deal on a minimum global corporate tax in July, a draft communique showed. read more
This tax would aim to solve the problem of large companies that generate huge revenues but pay very little tax because they set up offices for tax purposes in low-tax jurisdictions.
"I don't think the June meeting would reach a debate on specific figures," Aso told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
Asked about Japan's position on minimum global tax and how he would address Japan's stance in a meeting with Yellen at G7, Aso did not elaborate further, saying that the matter has not been put formally on agenda.
However, "the difference of opinions has narrowed over global taxation," he added.
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
“Sizeable spare capacity in the global economy would help keep a sustained increase in inflation at bay despite recent price pressures triggered by supply chain bottlenecks as economies reopen, it said.”
But what if they’re wrong? Have they been wrong before?
Did they see the Black Monday 1987 crash coming? The 1992 Black Wednesday crash of Sterling from the Exchange Rate Mechanism, the US Housing Bubble of 2003-2011, the European and Greek debt crisis of 2009-2019?
OECD raises growth forecasts on vaccine rollouts, U.S. stimulus
Published Mon, May 31 2021 4:51 AM EDT
The global economic outlook is improving as vaccine rollouts allow businesses to resume operations and as the United States pumps trillions of dollars into the world’s largest economy, the OECD said on Monday, nudging its forecasts higher.
The global economy is set to grow 5.8% this year and 4.4% next year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said, raising its estimates from 5.6% and 4.0% respectively in its last forecasts released in March.
The global economy has now returned to pre-pandemic activity levels, but has not yet achieved the growth expected prior to the global health crisis, the OECD said in its latest Economic Outlook publication.
“The world economy is currently navigating towards the recovery, with lots of frictions,” OECD chief economist Laurence Boone said in an editorial to the Outlook.
“The risk that sufficient post-pandemic growth is not achieved or widely shared is elevated,” she added.
While vaccination campaigns were allowing advanced economies to gradually reopen for business, many emerging market economies were being held back by slow vaccination deployment and new COVID-19 outbreaks, the OECD said.
The OECD said central banks in advanced economies should keep financial conditions relaxed and tolerate inflation overshooting their targets.
Sizeable spare capacity in the global economy would help keep a sustained increase in inflation at bay despite recent price pressures triggered by supply chain bottlenecks as economies reopen, it said.
----Buoyed by a multi-trillion-dollar stimulus plan, the U.S. economy was seen growing 6.9% this year, the OECD said, up from a previous forecast of 6.5%. It is expected to expand 3.6% in 2022, down from a 4.0% forecast in March.
The U.S. stimulus plan was seen adding 3-4 percentage points to U.S growth and 1% to global growth while bringing the U.S. economy back to pre-crisis levels by mid-2021.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/31/oecd-raises-growth-forecasts-on-vaccine-rollouts-us-stimulus-.html
Brent hits $70 on demand prospects of U.S. summer driving season
The price of Tesla vehicles is increasing due to supply chain pressures across the auto industry, particularly for raw materials, Elon Musk said on Monday in response to a tweet.
“Prices increasing due to major supply chain price pressure industry-wide. Raw materials especially,” Musk said in a tweet.
He was responding to an unverified Twitter account called @Ryanth3nerd, which said, “I really don’t like the direction @tesla is going raising prices of vehicles but removing features like lumbar for the Model Y...”
In May, Tesla increased its Model 3 and Model Y prices, the automaker’s fifth incremental price increase for its vehicles in just a few months, the Electrek website reported.
During an earnings conference call in April, Musk said Tesla had experienced “some of the most difficult supply chain challenges,” citing a chip shortage. “We’re mostly out of that particular problem,” he added at the time.
In response to the removal of lumbar support on the passenger side in Tesla’s Model Y, Musk said, “Moving lumbar was removed only in the front passenger seat of 3/Y (obv not there in rear seats). Logs showed almost no usage. Not worth cost/mass for everyone when almost never used.”
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Japan Eyes Olympic Spectators; New Variant Names: Virus Update
Bloomberg News 1 June 2021, 03:13 BSTJapan is preparing to hold next month’s Olympics with some spectators present, even as experts warn it would be difficult to stage the games unless the pace of infections falls in the capital, according to media reports.
The World Health Organization announced a new naming scheme for coronavirus variants using the Greek alphabet, aiming to help public discussion of variants of concern and variants of interest.
Malaysia unveiled a $9.7 billion package to help people and companies through the two-week nationwide lockdown that starts today, which is reported to have shut down production at Toyota and Honda plants. Vietnam is asking Samsung and other foreign companies to find vaccines for their workers as the nation grapples with its own virus surge. Thailand’s Covid panel decided to delay a plan to ease restrictions on some businesses in Bangkok, while the Philippines kept its capital under loose movement restrictions.
Key Developments:
- Global Tracker: Cases top 170.5 million; deaths pass 3.54 million
- Vaccine Tracker: More than 1.91 billion doses given
- Brazil’s recovery optimism rises despite Covid outbreak, inflation
· Indian economy faces resilience test amid risks from virus
· Sinovac shot controlled Covid in Brazil town after 75% covered
Find Covid Origin or Face Another Pandemic, U.S. Experts Warn
By John Tozzi30 May 2021, 18:08 BST
· Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to report back
· China decries ‘political manipulation’ behind U.S. efforts
The world needs the cooperation of the Chinese government to trace the origins of Covid-19 and prevent future pandemic threats, two leading U.S. disease experts said Sunday.
Information to support the theory that the SARS-CoV-2 virus may have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, has increased, said Scott Gottlieb, a commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in the Trump administration who now sits on the board of Pfizer Inc.
China hasn’t provided evidence to disprove that theory, while the search for signs that the virus emerged from wildlife hasn’t yielded results, Gottlieb said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
Not knowing how the pandemic started puts the world at risk of future outbreaks, Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said in a separate TV appearance.
“There’s going to be Covid-26 and Covid-32 unless we fully understand the origins of Covid-19,” Hotez said on NBC’s “Meet the press.”
Debate over the virus’s origin was fueled anew by a Wall Street Journal report on May 23 that three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care for “symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”
Scientists should be allowed to conduct a long-term investigation in China and take blood samples from humans and animals, Hotez said. The U.S. should pressure China, including with the threat of sanctions, to allow for an inquiry.
“We need a team of scientists, epidemiologists, virologists, bat ecologists in Hubei province for a six-month, year-long period,” Hotez said.
Chinese officials have disputed the Wuhan lab theory. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Thursday dismissed Biden’s inquiry as an attempt to engage in “stigmatization, political manipulation and blame-shifting.”
More
Former FDA commissioner says lab leaks 'happen all the time' amid COVID-19 origin scrutiny
Calls for further investigation of the pandemic’s origins have intensified in recent days
May 31, 2021
Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday that accidental lab leaks "happen all the time" amid mounting concern regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gottlieb expressed concern about safety protocols at research labs in the U.S. and abroad during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation." The former commissioner said a conclusive determination on where the pandemic originated was critical to prevent deadly outbreaks in the future.
"These kinds of lab leaks happen all the time, actually," Gottlieb said. "Even here in the United States, we’ve had mishaps, and in China, the last six known outbreaks of SARS-1 have been out of labs, including the last known outbreak, which was a pretty extensive outbreak that China initially wouldn’t disclose that it came out of a lab."
Calls for further investigation of the pandemic’s origins have intensified in recent days. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported three researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology displayed symptoms severe enough to seek hospital treatment with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in late 2019.
FACEBOOK ENDS BAN ON POSTS CLAIMING COVID-19 IS MAN-MADE
President Biden said the intelligence community has yet to determine whether the pandemic began after human contact with infected animals or because of a lab accident. Officials are expected to deliver an updated report on their conclusion within the next few months.
Biden has pledged to make any relevant findings from their investigation public.
Gottlieb called on officials to view the pandemic and lab safety as matters of national security, given the impact of COVID-19.
"It’s important to understand what the possibility is that this came out of a lab so we can focus more international attention on trying to get better inventories around these labs, what they’re doing, better security, make sure they’re properly built," he added. "We need to also look at public health through the lens of national security. This was an asymmetric harm to the United States. COVID hurt the U.S. a lot more than it hurt many other countries."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-fda-commissioner-lab-leaks-covid-19-origin-scrutiny
Getting COVID-19 after vaccination is incredibly rare, CDC report finds
Rich Haridy May 30, 2021
A promising new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found less than 1,000 cases of COVID-19 needing hospitalization out of more than 100 million fully vaccinated people. The CDC admits it is probably undercounting positive COVID-19 cases, however, the report offers a powerful reminder of the real-world effectiveness of vaccines.
The CDC report chronicles a volume of what are called "breakthrough infections." These are positive COVID-19 cases seen in subjects who are at least 14 days post all recommended doses of a vaccine.
By April 30, 2021, the CDC reports around 101 million fully vaccinated individuals in the United States. Amongst that large fully vaccinated cohort, the CDC says only 10,262 breakthrough infections were officially recorded.
Around a quarter of those breakthrough infections were classified as asymptomatic. Just 995 of these infections led to hospitalization, and only 160 deaths were recorded. The average age of those patients who died was 82, and nearly 20 percent of the deaths were reported as potentially unrelated to COVID-19.
The CDC is cautious to note the limitations of the report, in particular noting that the overall breakthrough infection numbers are highly likely to be undercounted.
“…the number of reported COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough cases is likely a substantial undercount of all SARS-CoV-2 infections among fully vaccinated persons,” the report states. “The national surveillance system relies on passive and voluntary reporting, and data might not be complete or representative. Many persons with vaccine breakthrough infections, especially those who are asymptomatic or who experience mild illness, might not seek testing.”
Despite the potentially larger number of uncounted asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 cases, the stunningly small volume of hospitalizations and deaths in vaccinated individuals echoes another recent large real-world study out of Israel. That study, published in The Lancet in early May, looked at nearly 5 million people vaccinated with the Pfizer mRNA candidate. It found 95.3 percent of those vaccinated were protected from symptomatic infection.
Another recent real-world CDC study looked at mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in those aged over 65. It found vaccination reduced the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19 in that age group by 94 percent.
Influenced by these recent findings the CDC has now moved to primarily monitoring breakthrough infections in hospitalized patients. At a recent briefing CDC director Rochelle Walensky argued the agency’s key focus is on severe illness and death.
“You know these vaccines were studied to prevent severe illness, hospitalization and deaths. And as we look at these breakthrough infections these are the ones we're most concerned about,” says Walensky. “Before we started only studying breakthrough infections in only hospitalized patients, we were studying all breakthrough infections. What we were starting to find is a large portion of them were fully asymptomatic and in fact when we went to study them and sequence them there was inadequate virus to even do so.”
However, not everyone is confident this new CDC focus on just monitoring severe COVID-19 cases is the correct approach. While the CDC argues it is reasonable to concentrate on monitoring severe cases that lead to hospitalization, others are claiming this could mean new surging virus variants could be missed.
“If there is a new variant or there is a change in frequency of a variant, you might want to find out earlier than wait for it to appear in severe and hospitalized cases,” says Saad Omar, an infectious disease epidemiologist from Yale University. “That gives you the ability to be ahead of the outbreak rather than follow it.”
Source: CDC
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/cdc-breakthrough-infection-covid19-rare/
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
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.
China claims new fusion record with its "artificial sun" nuclear reactor
Nick Lavars May 30, 2021
China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is one of a number of promising nuclear fusion research devices in operation around the world, and over the past few years we've seen it take some impressive steps forward. Chinese state media is now reporting that scientists working on the project have achieved a new world record by holding plasma of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in their latest round of experiments, edging closer to the long-pursued goal of clean and limitless energy.
The idea behind nuclear fusion research is to recreate the process that the Sun uses to produce monumental amounts of energy, where intense heat and pressure combine to produce plasma in which atomic nuclei fuse at incredible velocities. Scientists are working with a range of experimental devices to trigger and study these reactions here on Earth, but experts consider donut-shaped tokamaks, like the EAST at China's Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the most promising approach.
This metal torus features a series of magnetic coils designed to hold superheated streams of hydrogen plasma in place for long enough for the reactions to occur. In 2016, we saw scientists at EAST manage to heat hydrogen plasma to around 50 million °C (90 million °F) and sustain it for 102 seconds. The team then upped the ante to 100 million °C (180 million °F), more than six times hotter than the Sun's core, in 2018, holding it there for around 10 seconds.
The latest round of experiments mark another step forward for the researchers. According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, they have set a new record of 120 million °C (216 million °F) for heated plasma, and sustaining it for 101 seconds. In separate experiments, the "artificial Sun," as it is called, heated plasma to 160 million °C (288 million °F) for 20 seconds. Ultimately, the publicly stated goal of EAST is to hold plasma at around 100 million °C for more than 1,000 seconds, or around 17 minutes.
These kinds of experiments aren't designed to generate usable electricity, but to advance the field of nuclear fusion physics for next-generation devices like ITER, which will be the world's largest nuclear fusion reactor when completed in 2025. Like EAST, experiments on Korea's KSTAR reactor, which itself set a world record by maintaining plasma at over 100 million °C for 20 seconds last year, will inform the development of ITER, which is expected to begin full operation in 2035.
Source: Xinhua
https://newatlas.com/energy/china-claims-fusion-record-artificial-sun-nuclear-reactor/
In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results far much less.
John Kenneth Galbraith.
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