Baltic Dry Index. 3371 unch Brent Crude 69.36
Spot Gold 1737
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 10/08/21 World 204,156,758
Deaths 4,316,412
What Is the Taper Tantrum?
The phrase, taper tantrum, describes the 2013 surge in U.S. Treasury yields, resulting from the Federal Reserve's (Fed) announcement of future tapering of its policy of quantitative easing. The Fed announced that it would be reducing the pace of its purchases of Treasury bonds, to reduce the amount of money it was feeding into the economy. The ensuing rise in bond yields in reaction to the announcement was referred to as a taper tantrum in financial media.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/taper-tantrum.asp
Will/is the Delta more transmissible Covid variant going to reverse or severely curtail the global recovery? It’s the big question facing the markets, central banksters and global population in H2 21.
And now as all the athletes, organisers and hangers on disperse from the Tokyo Olympics, we are two to three weeks away from finding out if the Olympic Covid gamble paid off or set off the next global pandemic wave.
In the stock casinos the jury is still out. In the gold and crude oil markets, the jury has come in with a kill the recovery verdict, just as some at the Fed are talking of tapering.
If central banksters taper into a global economy on the verge of a new downturn, the stock casinos are on the cusp of a massive bloodbath.
Chinese stocks subdued as Covid worries weigh on sentiment; South Korean game developer Krafton slumps on debut
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Tuesday trade as South Korean game developer Krafton plunged in its debut, while Covid concerns weighed on investor sentiment regionally.
South Korea’s broader Kospi slumped 0.62%.
Shares of South Korean game developer Krafton slumped as much as 17% from its IPO price on its market debut, according to Refinitiv Eikon data. Krafton, the game maker behind the blockbuster game PUBG, later pared some of those losses but was still more than 12% lower in Tuesday afternoon trade.
Shares of companies related to South Korean conglomerate Samsung declined in Tuesday afternoon trade. Shares of Samsung Electronics slipped 1.47% while Samsung C&T fell 1.75%. Samsung Life Insurance slipped 0.52% and Samsung SDS dropped 2.41%.
South Korea’s justice ministry announced Monday that the firm’s heir Jay Y. Lee is set to be released on parole later this week, according to Reuters.
Chinese stocks subdued on Covid fears
Mainland Chinese stocks were subdued by Tuesday afternoon. The Shanghai composite fell 0.14% while the Shenzhen component declined 0.344%.
Worries over a widening Covid resurgence in China continued to weigh on sentiment as China reported more infections this week, and cities embarked on mass testing.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index edged 0.29% higher.
Shares of Evergrande Property Services, an arm of indebted Chinese developer China Evergrande, soared around 11.87%. China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group jumped around 4%.
Reuters had reported, citing sources, that Evergrande is in talks to sell stakes in its electric vehicle and property management businesses — China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group and Evergrande Property Services Group respectively.
In other markets, the Nikkei 225 in Japan gained about 0.1% while the Topix index advanced 0.27%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.07%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.04%.
Overnight stateside, the Dow declined 106.66 points to 35,101.85 while the S&P 500 slipped about 0.1% to 4,432.35. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed, rising 0.16% to 14,860.18.
Worries about the impact of Covid on global growth continued to weigh on investor sentiment, with countries grappling with the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/asia-markets-samsung-covid-currencies-oil.html
Charts show that Covid is hitting parts of Asia harder now than when the pandemic began
SINGAPORE — Southeast Asia experienced a major surge in Covid-19 cases last month that has shown little signs of slowing, and the situation is expected to delay most of the region’s economic recovery.
Major economies in this part of the world including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines saw a sharp rise in daily reported cases and deaths from the disease in July.
Information compiled by online publication Our World In Data showed, based on a seven-day moving average basis, Malaysia recorded 515.88 confirmed Covid infections per million people on July 31. That number steadily increased since June 30, when it was around 180.85.
Behind Malaysia was Thailand with 236.02 new cases per million people on July 31, followed by Indonesia with 147.20 cases even as it imposed a partial lockdown and ramped up contact tracing and quarantine efforts. Cumulatively, Indonesia recorded more than 1.2 million new cases in July.
Vietnam, Philippines and Singapore also saw increases in daily new cases per million people, but the figures were smaller compared with those of the other three countries.
Bank of America in a research note last week said its calculations showed average daily cases in the region surged by 162% last month to reach a new record of 72,200, while daily deaths tripled from 500 a day to 1,500 people on average.
Indonesia and Malaysia recorded the highest death rates per million population in July, according to the bank.
The situation forced Southeast Asian governments to reintroduce lockdowns and social restrictions in an attempt to slow the spread as some ran out of hospital beds, medical equipment and oxygen supplies.
Malaysia struggled to tame the outbreak despite implementing multiple rounds of restrictions and a state of emergency. Reports say that the country will relax some restrictions for fully vaccinated people in eight states that have reduced case numbers and achieved higher inoculation rates.
Singapore tightened restrictions in July following the emergence of several clusters around karaoke lounges, wet markets and hawker food centers. Those measures are now gradually being eased.
Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand have extended some of the restrictions into August as reported Covid cases show no signs of slowing down.
The highly contagious delta variant has also been detected in the region, which adds to concerns around limiting transmission and complicates reopening plans. Prolonged lockdowns can be extremely costly and damaging, particularly in countries like Indonesia where there is a large informal sector and many people earn daily wages.
Economic impact
Lockdowns and social restrictions are likely to affect economic activity in the region. Experts say the impact is set to be more pronounced in nations with tougher restrictions — including Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.
This could potentially hit the region’s manufacturing sector, which mostly tends to be low-tech and labor intensive, making it more susceptible to pandemic-led disruptions.
Bank of America economists in a separate note last week said the recent lockdown measures in Southeast Asian economies “started to take a toll on factory output.” They pointed to a decline in manufacturing purchasing manager’s index, or PMI — a measure of factory activity — in places like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.
----“While the impact of the lockdown on ASEAN PMI this time was not as significant as that in Apr 2020, the magnitude is already close to a 4-standard deviation negative shock,” the Bank of America economists wrote, adding that the consequences were already greater than what they had seen in India during its devastating second wave.
More
Fed officials say tapering is near, advancing discussion on rate hike
August 9, 20219:54 PM BST
Aug 9 (Reuters) - Two Federal Reserve officials said on Monday that the U.S. economy is growing rapidly and that while the labor market still has room for improvement, inflation is already at a level that could satisfy one leg of a key test for the beginning of interest rate hikes.
Rosengren: Fed should begin slowing stimulus efforts by fall
WASHINGTON (AP) — The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston added his voice Monday to a growing number of people, inside and outside the Fed, who say the central bank should soon begin to dial back its extraordinary aid for an economy that is strongly recovering from the pandemic recession.
Eric Rosengren said in an interview with The Associated Press that the central bank should announce in September that it will begin reducing its $120 billion in purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds “this fall.” The bond buying, which the Fed initiated after the coronavirus erupted in March of last year, has been intended to lower longer-term interest rates and encourage borrowing and spending.
Rosengren also echoed some of the Fed’s recent critics by arguing that the bond purchases are no longer helping to create jobs but are instead mostly helping drive up the prices of interest-rate sensitive goods such as homes and cars. Home prices are rising at the fastest pace in nearly 20 years.
More
https://apnews.com/article/business-health-coronavirus-pandemic-b7766deeda2afcbecf427ca7e2658adf
Finally, will inflation get stopped by a US and global surge in the Delta variant? And if it does, is this a good thing or a bad thing for most of us?
My take, stopping a rising pandemic by an economic collapse or near collapse can never be a good thing. In the rich developed countries rising societal disorder. Elsewhere, rising poverty, hunger, malnutrition and deaths.
Companies Thought They Had Plans for Fall. Now They Are Scrapping Them.
The fast-spreading Delta variant has managers revamping schedules, with bosses delaying office reopenings and canceling events
Updated Aug. 8, 2021 5:11 pm ET
Up until a few weeks ago, corporate leaders felt confident about what to expect this fall.
Offices would reopen after Labor Day. Business travel would resume more broadly. Long-delayed work gatherings, conventions and off-site meetings would finally take place.
The pandemic has, once again, upended many of those plans.
The swift, startling resurgence of Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations across the U.S. is causing corporate leaders to rip up playbooks for the next few months.
No longer is a September return a target for many companies. Some employers, such as banking giant Wells Fargo WFC 3.79% & Co. and managed-care company Centene Corp. CNC -0.64% , have in recent days shifted return-to-office dates to October. Meanwhile, a range of other prominent companies now predict it will be 2022 until most workers return.
Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday delayed its return for corporate employees to at least Jan. 3, from September. Lyft Inc. pushed back its planned office reopening to February 2022. Other companies, such as Dell Technologies Inc., DELL 0.20% have postponed fall returns in the U.S. without giving new reopening dates. Business travel at the company also remains largely restricted.
In a memo to employees Tuesday, Dell Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke said that, because of the Delta variant, many cities where Dell operates in the U.S. have moved from “green” to “red” on an internal company risk dashboard.
---- The delays come at a precarious time for many companies and workers. White-collar employees, while often not eager to give up remote arrangements entirely, have looked forward to some measure of normalcy in the coming months, with more in-person interactions with colleagues. Bosses remain concerned about their workers’ mental health and how to keep them motivated as the pandemic drags on.
---- Much is changing, and quickly. Events that had been planned for later this month or this fall have been scrapped or gone virtual. Organizers of the New York auto show, scheduled to run from Aug. 20 to Aug. 29, canceled the event, citing challenges related to the Delta variant. In Nashville, Tenn., the 3686 Festival, which draws startup founders, investors and others, canceled its event that was scheduled for September. “We look forward to connecting again in person in 2022,” organizers said in a note to attendees.
On Sunday, organizers of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival pushed its mid-October event to the spring, citing the rise of new Covid-19 cases in the region. Anschutz Entertainment Group’s AEG Presents said the annual festival will return to its traditional spring time frame next year. The postponement follows a similar pattern to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which was rescheduled several times and is slated for next spring.
More
Global Inflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
China's July factory price growth quickens, adds to business and broad economic pressures
August 9, 2021 3:03 AM By Reuters Staff
BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s factory gate inflation in July rose at a faster clip from the previous month and exceeded market expectations, adding to strains on an economy losing recovery momentum as businesses struggle with high raw material costs.
The world’s second-biggest economy is on track to expand more than 8% this year but analysts say pent-up coronavirus demand has peaked and forecast growth to moderate amid supply chain bottle necks and outbreaks of the Delta variant of COVID-19.
The producer price index (PPI) grew 9.0% from a year earlier, matching the high seen in May, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement on Monday. Analysts in a Reuters poll had expected the PPI to rise 8.8%, unchanged from June.
Consumer inflation slowed slightly, the data showed, giving policymakers room to act if required.
China’s economy has largely recovered from disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the expansion is losing steam as businesses face intensifying strains from higher commodity prices and global supply chain bottlenecks.
“We believe domestic inflationary pressure is largely controllable, and Beijing will unlikely overreact to the stronger-than-expected July inflation data,” analysts from Nomura wrote in a note.
“Instead, we expect Beijing to maintain its unique policy mix of ‘targeted tightening + universal easing’ through the remainder of this year.”
China cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves in July, releasing around 1 trillion yuan ($154.40 billion). Many analysts expect another cut later in the year.
The global spread of the more-infectious Delta variant of the virus and new outbreaks of cases at home, on top of recent heavy rainfall and floods in some Chinese provinces have also disrupted economic activity.
“The pandemic worsened and caused more disruption in the global supply chain,” said Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
The PPI, a benchmark gauge of a country’s industrial profitability, inched up 0.5% on a monthly basis, accelerating from a 0.3% uptick in June.
Higher crude oil prices and increased demand for thermal coal as China copes with hot weather helped drive up prices, said Dong Lijuan, an official with NBS, in a statement released alongside the data.
Prices in the coal mining and washing and ferrous metal extraction industries jumped 45.7% and 54.6% in July year on-year, respectively.
China’s “zero tolerance” policy to COVID cases will probably put further stress on the supply chain, and inflation pressure may persist in the second half, said Zhang.
More
Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible anyway, and if it is, it won’t be quick and it will be very inflationary, setting off a new long-term commodity Supercycle. Probably the largest seen so far.
The “New Energy Economy”: An Exercise in Magical Thinking
https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0319-MM.pdf
Mines, Minerals, and "Green" Energy: A Reality Check
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/mines-minerals-and-green-energy-reality-check
"An Environmental Disaster": An EV Battery Metals Crunch Is On The Horizon As The Industry Races To Recycle
by Tyler Durden Monday, Aug 02, 2021 - 08:40 PM
Covid-19 Watch
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Moderna may be superior to Pfizer against delta variant — breakthrough odds rise with time
The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for Covid-19.
Moderna’s vaccine may be best against Delta
The mRNA vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech may be less effective than Moderna’s against the delta variant of the coronavirus, according to two reports posted on medRxiv on Sunday ahead of peer review. In a study of more than 50,000 patients in the Mayo Clinic Health System, researchers found the effectiveness of Moderna’s vaccine against infection had dropped to 76% in July - when the delta variant was predominant - from 86% in early 2021. Over the same period, the effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had fallen to 42% from 76%, researchers said. While both vaccines remain effective at preventing Covid hospitalization, a Moderna booster shot may be necessary soon for anyone who got the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines earlier this year, said Dr. Venky Soundararajan of Massachusetts data analytics company nference, who led the Mayo study.
In a separate study, elderly nursing home residents in Ontario produced stronger immune responses - especially to worrisome variants - after the Moderna vaccine than after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. The elderly may need higher vaccine doses, boosters, and other preventative measures, said Anne-Claude Gingras of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute in Toronto, who led the Canadian study. When asked to comment on both research reports, a Pfizer spokesperson said, “We continue to believe... a third dose booster may be needed within 6 to 12 months after full vaccination to maintain the highest levels of protection.”
Breakthrough Covid-19 more likely months after vaccination
People who received their second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine five or more months ago are more likely to test positive for Covid-19 than people who were fully vaccinated less than five months ago, new data suggest. Researchers studied nearly 34,000 fully vaccinated adults in Israel who were tested to see if they had a breakthrough case of Covid-19. Overall, 1.8% tested positive. At all ages, the odds of testing positive were higher when the last vaccine dose was received at least 146 days earlier, the research team reported Thursday on medRxiv ahead of peer review. Among patients older than 60, the odds of a positive test were almost three times higher when at least 146 days had passed since the second dose.
More
Data Suggest Vaccines Make ‘Limited Difference in Infectiousness’ of Delta Variant: PHE
By August 8, 2021 Updated: August 8, 2021
Vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, may be as infectious as their unvaccinated counterparts, early analysis from Public Health England (PHE) suggests.
This coincides with a recent study from the United States, where similar results were observed in Wisconsin.
“Some initial findings … indicate that levels of virus in those who become infected with Delta having already been vaccinated may be similar to levels found in unvaccinated people,” PHE said in a statement.
“This may have implications for people’s infectiousness, whether they have been vaccinated or not,” it added. “However, this is early exploratory analysis, and further targeted studies are needed to confirm whether this is the case.”
----In a technical briefing (pdf) published on Aug. 6, PHE said that NHS Test and Trace case data show that since June 14, where cycle threshold (Ct) value data are available, the mean and median lowest Ct values are similar between vaccinated and unvaccinated people with the Delta variant, “with a median of 17.8 for unvaccinated and 18.0 for those with 2 vaccine doses.”
Ct value is the number of cycles needed to boost the viral signal in a sample when conducting an RT-PCR test.
The non-age-stratified data indicate that “whilst vaccination may reduce an individual’s overall risk of becoming infected, once they are infected there is limited difference in viral load (and Ct values) between those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated,” PHE said.
---- In a separate statement, PHE said that “there is preliminary laboratory evidence to suggest that vaccination and previous infection may be less effective at preventing infection” with the Lambda (B.1.621) variant.
“However, this data is very limited and more research is required. There is no evidence to suggest that [it] is more transmissible than the dominant Delta variant,” it said.
According to PHE, England has 37 confirmed cases of the Lambda variant.
In a new risk assessment (pdf), PHE said that while there are no real-world data on vaccine effectiveness against the variant, pseudovirus data from the UK indicate that it may evade vaccine-derived immunity.
The document also said there’s evidence indicating that the Lambda variant evades natural immunity from previous Delta infections.
A recently published preprint of a Japanese study said the Lambda variant (C.37) exhibits higher infectivity and immune resistance.
More
Novavax positions its COVID-19 vaccine as "universal booster of choice"
Rich Haridy August 08, 2021
Biotech company Novavax has announced it will be initially prioritizing regulatory submissions for its promising COVID-19 vaccine in countries with urgent needs such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines. The long-anticipated vaccine is also being trialed as a third booster in people initially administered other vaccines.
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine is what's known as a protein subunit vaccine. Currently available COVID-19 vaccines are designed to coax cells into producing a part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which then trigger the immune system to recognize it. Novavax’s candidate is a little different. It directly delivers lab-grown coronavirus spike proteins into the body in the form of nanoparticles created to mimic the structure of the virus.
So far, Phase 3 trials have demonstrated incredibly promising efficacy, but the company has been facing some challenging manufacturing hurdles. Most recently the company revealed its manufacturing facilities in the United States were struggling to pass the US Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory requirements, delaying its local approval until the end of 2021.
A recent announcement from Novavax reveals it is moving forward with manufacturing in India as part of a massive production deal with the Serum Institute of India. Regulatory submissions have now reportedly been filed with India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The plan is to soon sort regulatory approval with the World Health Organization in order to allow low-income countries to access the vaccine. Over one billion doses are promised to these regions through a WHO scheme named COVAX.
"Today's submission of our recombinant nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine, the first protein-based option filed with any regulatory agency, represents a major milestone in Novavax's transformation into a commercial global vaccine company," says Novavax CEO Stanley Erck. "This important step toward access to millions of doses of a safe and effective vaccine for countries with an urgent need to control the pandemic was made possible through our strategic partnership with Serum Institute of India, and it demonstrates the power of global collaboration."
With current vaccine supplies not a problem in countries such as the US, it is unsurprising Novavax is shifting its current focus toward those parts of the world in great immediate need. Looking forward to 2022, Novavax is positioning its vaccine to be the booster of choice for countries with populations initially immunized with other vaccines.
Early data from an ongoing booster study indicate very effective antibody responses are generated by a third dose against new virus variants such as Delta. While that data is from trials investigating individuals vaccinated solely with Novavax’s candidate, a large mix-and-match booster trial in the United Kingdom is set to deliver valuable insights into the efficacy of different vaccines given as a third dose.
More
The world is nowhere near the end of the pandemic, says famed epidemiologist Larry Brilliant
Published Sun, Aug 8 2021 8:51 PM EDT
The pandemic is not coming to an end soon — given that only a small proportion of the world population has been vaccinated against Covid-19, a well-known epidemiologist told CNBC.
Dr. Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist who was part of the World Health Organization’s team that helped eradicate smallpox, said the delta variant is “maybe the most contagious virus” ever.
In recent months, the U.S., India and China, as well as other countries in Europe, Africa and Asia have been grappling with a highly transmissible delta variant of the virus.
WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic last March — after the disease, which first emerged in China in late 2019, spread throughout the world.
The good news is that vaccines — particularly those using messenger RNA technology and the one by Johnson & Johnson — are holding up against the delta variant, Brilliant told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Friday.
Still, only 15% of the world population has been vaccinated and more than 100 countries have inoculated less than 5% of their people, noted Brilliant.
“I think we’re closer to the beginning than we are to the end [of the pandemic], and that’s not because the variant that we’re looking at right now is going to last that long,” said Brilliant, who is now the founder and CEO of a pandemic response consultancy, Pandefense Advisory.
“Unless we vaccinate everyone in 200 plus countries, there will still be new variants,” he said, predicting that the coronavirus will eventually become a “forever virus” like influenza.
More
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.
Next-gen battery for long-range EVs uses a novel sponge to avoid failure
Nick Lavars August 08, 2021
With the type of energy density that could see smartphones run for five days or electric planes fly twice as far, lithium-sulfur batteries hold tremendous potential, but inherent instabilities are a key roadblock to their widespread adoption. Scientists in Japan have put forward a promising solution to this problem, integrating a novel sponge material that enables a prototype lithium-sulfur battery to safely endure hundreds of cycles.
Compared to the lithium-ion batteries that power so much of modern society, lithium-sulfur batteries are lighter and offer up to five times more energy per weight, making them particularly well suited to use in electric vehicles. Energy density is a key issue for such applications, where the range of electric cars, trucks and particularly planes are limited by the amount of energy that can be packed into their very heavy battery packs.
“Lithium sulfur batteries can store more energy than the lithium ion batteries that are already commercially available,” says Dr. Hui Zhang, first author of the new study. “To put this in numbers, an electric vehicle that runs on lithium ion batteries can drive an average of 300 km (186 mi) before it needs to be charged. With the improved energy storage provided by lithium sulfur batteries, it should be possible to extend this to 500 km (310 mi).”
While their potential is clear, scientists working on next-generation lithium-sulfur batteries have grappled with issues around their stability, which can cause key components to quickly deteriorate and the device to promptly fail. This new research, carried out by material scientists at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, takes aim at the formation of polysulfides that significantly reduce the battery's lifespan.
Inside the battery, a chemical reaction between the lithium and sulfur first creates lithium polysulfide, which then tends to quickly dissolve into the troublesome polysulfides. In a perfect lithium-sulfur battery, the lithium polysulfide needs to convert into lithium sulfide or lithium persulfide as quickly as possible, and the team believes it has developed just the thing to hurry things along.
The scientists created a nanoscale porous sponge out of carbon nanotubes and coated it in titanium nitride and titanium dioxide, which offered some useful properties. The titanium nitride serves to accelerate the conversion of lithium polysulfide into the finished product, while the titanium dioxide absorbs any unwanted polysulfides that are created in the process.
“Using these two materials, we developed a hybrid that is low cost and easy to apply,” says Dr. Luis Ono, second author of this study. “We found that it had an excellent ability to improve the battery performance.”
The resulting battery exhibited an improved performance compared to versions without the hybrid sponge material, with a shorter charging time, a longer time between charges thanks to high specific capacity and, importantly, a greater overall lifespan with an ability to endure 200 cycles with no losses in efficiency.
“We will continue to further optimize the materials to improve the performance,” says Professor Yabing Qi, senior author of the study. “There are a lot of brilliant minds working on lithium sulfur batteries and it’s a really promising and exciting technology.”
The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
Source: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
https://newatlas.com/energy/lithium-sulfur-battery-long-range-evs-sponge/
Black Monday (1987)
Black Monday is the name commonly attached to the global, sudden, severe, and largely unexpected[1] stock market crash on October 19, 1987. In Australia and New Zealand, the day is also referred to as Black Tuesday because of the time zone difference from other English speaking countries.
All of the twenty-three major world markets experienced a sharp decline in October 1987. When measured in United States dollars, eight markets declined by 20 to 29%, three by 30 to 39% (Malaysia, Mexico and New Zealand), and three by more than 40% (Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore).[2][A] The least affected was Austria (a fall of 11.4%) while the most affected was Hong Kong with a drop of 45.8%. Out of twenty-three major industrial countries, nineteen had a decline greater than 20%.[3] Worldwide losses were estimated at US$1.71 trillion.[4] The severity of the crash sparked fears of extended economic instability[5] or even a reprise of the Great Depression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987)
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