Baltic Dry Index. 2104 -33 Brent Crude 116.90
Spot Gold 1939 Wheat 1,209 +75.00
Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000
Deaths 53,100
Coronavirus Cases 04/03/22 World 442,412,126
Deaths 6,001,84
The crying need today is not for more laws, but for fewer. The world must be saved from its saviors. If the friends of liberty and law could have only one slogan it should be: Stop the remedies!
Henry Hazlitt.
In the madness of our new European war, all because Washington and NATO wouldn’t work out some sort of security deal with Russia over Ukraine, Russia overnight started firing on Europe’s largest nuclear power station!
Thankfully only a training building was set on fire, since put out, but we are one miscalculation away from a nuclear disaster.
Almost as bad is the disruption to the global food supply chain, prompting food and medicine rationing in Hong Kong by retailers. How long before we all become Hong Kong?
The BBC is reporting that almost no agricultural work is going on in Ukraine, since most of the workforce is now involved in war.
Below, bad news upon bad news, as we enter the second weekend of our new European war.
Hong Kong and Japan drop more than 2% as Asia stocks slide; investors monitor Ukraine-Russia developments
SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific slipped in Friday trade as investors remain on edge over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index led losses regionally as it fell 2.64%, with shares of HSBC slipping about 4%. In mainland China, the Shanghai composite shed 0.81% while the Shenzhen component dipped 1.13%.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan fell 2.25%, with shares of conglomerate SoftBank Group dropping more than 4%, while the Topix index shed 1.78%.
South Korea’s Kospi dipped 1.28%. Over in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.83%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 1.57% lower.
The major indexes in Asia-Pacific initially extended losses Friday after reports that smoke was visible from a nuclear power plant in Ukraine — the largest in Europe — after Russian troops attacked it.
Some of those losses were later pared after the nuclear power plant’s director said the facility’s nuclear security is secured at the moment.
The situation in Ukraine is rapidly deteriorating, and reports from the country are difficult to confirm.
“Risk sentiment remains fragile and is very much being swung around by Russia/Ukraine headlines as well by central banks who seem committed to hiking rates, and who are also noting upside risks to inflation,” Tapas Strickland, an economist at National Australia Bank, wrote in a note.
Investors also continued to monitor oil prices, which have surged in recent days. In the afternoon of Asia trading hours on Friday, international benchmark Brent crude futures gained 1.63% to $112.26 per barrel. U.S. crude futures also advanced 1.96% to $109.78 per barrel.
----Overnight stateside, The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 96.69 points to 33,794.66 while the S&P 500 dipped about 0.53% to 4,363.49. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.56% to 13,537.94.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/04/asia-markets-russia-ukraine-currencies-oil.html
Ukrainians put out fire at nuclear complex after Russian attack - officials
March 4, 2022 5:37 AM GMT
LVIV, Ukraine, March 4 (Reuters) - A fire that broke out in a training building near the largest nuclear power plant in Europe during intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has been extinguished, Ukraine's state emergency service said on Friday.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said there was no indication of elevated radiation levels at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which provides more than a fifth of total electricity generated in Ukraine.
Earlier, a video feed from the plant verified by Reuters showed shelling and smoke rising near a five-storey building at the plant compound.
The footage shot at night showed one building aflame, and a volley of incoming shells, before a large candescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound. It was not immediately clear who was in control of the plant.
More
Russian foreign spy chief says Cold War with West has turned hot
Thu, March 3, 2022, 4:27 PM
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The head of Russia's foreign intelligence agency said on Thursday it was wrong to speak of a new Cold War between Russia and the West because the situation was already "hot".
"Western politicians and commentators like to call what is happening a 'new cold war.' It seems that historical parallels are not entirely appropriate here," Sergei Naryshkin said on his agency's website.
"If only because in the second half of the 20th century Russia fought with the West on the distant approaches, and now the war has come to the very borders of our Motherland. So for us it is definitely not 'cold', but quite 'hot'".
Naryshkin's comments followed a series of reminders from President Vladimir Putin and other top officials, before and since the invasion of Ukraine, that Russia is a leading nuclear weapons state.
The comments have been interpreted by Western governments as a warning that Putin may further escalate the conflict, although Moscow denies that.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Thursday that the idea of nuclear war was "constantly spinning in the heads of Western politicians" but not of Russians.
Russia rejects the term invasion and says its actions in Ukraine are not designed to occupy territory but to destroy Kyiv's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists - a pretext rejected by Ukraine and the West as baseless propaganda.
Naryshkin said it would be for Ukrainians to determine their own future. "But it will be a completely different Ukraine and a different story," he said.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-foreign-spy-chief-says-162728852.html
World Bank warns Ukraine war will cut global growth
By Jonathan Josephs Business reporter, BBC News 4 March, 2020
The president of the World Bank has told the BBC that the war in Ukraine is a catastrophe for the world which will cut global economic growth.
"The war in Ukraine comes at a bad time for the world because inflation was already rising," said David Malpass.
He stressed his biggest concern is "about the pure human loss of lives" that is occurring.
Thousands of civilians and soldiers are thought to have been killed by the fighting.
Mr Malpass said the economic impact of the war stretches beyond Ukraine's borders, and the rises in global energy prices in particular "hit the poor the most, as does inflation".
Food prices have also been pushed up by the war, and "are a very real consideration and problem for people in poor countries".
Mr Malpass points out that both Russia and Ukraine are big food producers. Ukraine is the world's biggest producer of sunflower oil, with Russia number two, according to S&P Global Platts. Between them they account for 60% of global production.
The two countries also account for 28.9% of global wheat exports according to JP Morgan. Wheat prices on the Chicago future exchange have been trading at 14-year highs.
Russian supplies of these commodities are being restricted because of the widespread sanctions which make it hard for the rest of the world to buy its products. Ukrainian supplies have been stopped because fighting has closed the country's ports.
"There's no way to adjust quickly enough to the loss of supply from Ukraine and from Russia, and so that adds to prices" said Mr Malpass.
He says the same is true of Russian energy supplies, and it is particularly damaging for western Europe, where governments have "neglected other aspects of how to have enough electricity". About 39% of the EU's electricity comes from power stations that burn fossil fuels, and Russia is the biggest source of that oil and gas.
More
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60610537
World’s largest shipping companies suspend bookings to and from Russia
Published Thu, Mar 3 2022 2:56 AM EST
The world’s three largest container shipping lines have all temporarily suspended non-essential bookings to and from Russia, joining a fast-growing list of companies to shun Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Shipping giants including Switzerland-based MSC, Denmark’s Maersk and France’s CMA CGM all announced on Tuesday that they would halt cargo bookings to and from Russia until further notice.
The move exempted deliveries of essential supplies, such as food, medical equipment and humanitarian goods.
It comes as Russia intensifies its onslaught of key Ukrainian cities, with fighting raging in the north, east and south of the country. The United Nations says 1 million refugees from Ukraine have now fled to neighboring countries.
The confluence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the barrage of punitive Western sanctions has triggered a mass corporate exodus from Moscow.
MSC said on Tuesday that it was enforcing a temporary stoppage on all cargo bookings to and from Russia with immediate effect. The world’s largest shipping container line said this covers areas including the Baltics, Black Sea and Far East Russia.
Maersk said it was “deeply concerned by how the crisis keeps escalating in Ukraine.” The Copenhagen-headquartered firm had said earlier in the week that it was considering the suspension of all non-essential bookings to and from Russia.
----Meanwhile, CMA CGM said on Tuesday that in the interest of safety it had taken the decision to suspend all bookings to and from Russia “as of today and until further notice.”
Container shipping companies play a pivotal role in global trade, carrying the bulk of the world’s manufactured goods. These steps taken by the world’s largest container shipping lines effectively cut Russia off from a large chunk of the world’s shipping capacity.
The escalating conflict and severity of the Russian sanctions are expected to have a significant impact on the shipping industry for some time.
“The market is scrambling to get to grips with what the sanctions mean in practice, and the steps they need to take,” Nick Austin, shipping partner at global law firm Reed Smith, said on Wednesday.
“Owners and charterers are looking closely at their fixtures to understand their legal rights under traditional ‘war clauses,’” he added. “But these provisions come in different shapes and sizes, and so need to be carefully reviewed.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/03/russia-shipping-giants-maersk-msc-and-cma-cgm-suspend-bookings.html
‘Economic destruction’ may lie ahead as oil prices push higher, analyst says
Published Thu, Mar 3 2022 4:19 AM EST
Oil prices are spiraling higher on supply concerns as the Russia-Ukraine crisis develops, and this could lead to demand destruction and an economic recession, according to an oil analyst.
“I’m concerned that we don’t have enough oil at all here, and we need to go to $120 to $150 [per barrel], and then we get into economic destruction,” said Paul Sankey of Sankey Research.
The firm sees oil trading between $100 and $150 per barrel until the situation in Ukraine is resolved, according to a research note.
International benchmark Brent crude futures jumped 3.24% to $116.59 per barrel, after earlier crossing the $119 level. U.S. crude futures climbed 3.26% to $114.21 per barrel.
Oil cargoes from Russia “simply aren’t moving” following the invasion and news of sanctions, despite lower prices, Sankey told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
“There’s a major, physical, immediate outage that caught an already tight market with very low inventories,” he said.
Everyone is worried that the elevated prices will be highly recessionary, destroy oil demand and slow down many economies, he added.
Despite the extreme oil price moves, Sankey suggested that it may have been the right call for OPEC and its allies to stick to their small production increase in April as planned.
“The scale of the emergency here is so severe that you probably don’t want to be doing what the Western governments are doing, which is … releasing emergency stocks, leaving yourself with even lower stocks,” he said.
“By the same token, if Saudi and the UAE run down their spare capacity, well, you don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he added.
Pointing to countries such as Libya and Iraq, Sankey said “any risky supply source might go missing,” and oil prices could then leap to $200 per barrel.
OPEC+ is “probably just sitting on their hands here, to see how this plays out,” he said.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/03/economic-destruction-may-lie-ahead-as-oil-prices-surge-analyst.html
Finally, in European propaganda war news, all that glitters isn’t always gold.
Fact check: Video shows American train carrying tanks, not Russian military convoy
Thu, March 3, 2022, 1:37 AM
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, numerous social media posts have shared photos and videos claiming to show the armed conflict. But in many cases, the footage was taken prior to the invasion.
Such is the case with a video shared March 1 on Facebook.
The nearly 10-minute clip shows a train snaking its way through the countryside, pulling a long line of flatcars loaded with tanks.
“A huge military convoy heading to Ukraine …” reads the caption of the video, which racked up more than 300,000 views within a day.
On March 1, satellite images from Maxar Technologies, a space intelligence company, showed a 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks and vehicles on its way to Kyiv, Ukraine's capital. But the Facebook video doesn't show that convoy.
The same video was published on YouTube in 2017. It was taken in California, not Eastern Europe.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the video for comment.
The Facebook video is at least four and a half years old, as independent fact-checking outlets have reported.
The original video was published July 16, 2017, on YouTube. Titled “BNSF Military (Abrams Tanks) Train over Tehachapi," the clip has more than 9 million views.
BNSF is a railway company that operates solely in North America, according to its website. The company has a long history of working with the U.S. military to transport equipment.
“BNSF” can be seen on some of the locomotives in the video. Other engines sport the logo of Norfolk Southern, another American freight company.
Tehachapi, the location mentioned in the video caption, is a city in Southern California – not Eastern Europe.
The Tehachapi Pass Railroad Line accommodates an average of 36 freight trains per day, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. USA TODAY found several other YouTube videos showing BNSF trains in the area.
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that a video shows a “huge” military convoy heading to Ukraine.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-video-shows-american-012159511.html
Fact check roundup: What's true and what's false about the Russian invasion of Ukraine
False and misleading information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine has spread rapidly on social media since Russian forces launched a military assault in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 24.
Here’s a roundup of claims related to the Ukraine-Russia conflict analyzed by the USA TODAY Fact Check team:
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Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.
Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Palladium hits 7-1/2-month peak as Russia-Ukraine conflict deepens
March 4, 2022 5:22 AM GMT
March 4 (Reuters) - Palladium prices rose on Friday to a 7-1/2-month peak on supply concerns, while safe-haven demand kept gold on course for a fourth weekly gain in five, after Russia attacked a nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the largest of its kind in Europe.
Spot palladium was up 0.4% at $2,785.59, as of 0430 GMT. Earlier in the session, it hit its highest since mid-July at $2,835.48.
Russia accounts for 40% of the global production of the auto-catalyst metal used by automakers in catalytic converters to curb emissions.
The metal has gained 18% so far this week in what could be its best weekly rise since March 2020.
"There are two other interesting factors (apart from war premium) driving this market into a complete big shortage," said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
"The supply chain is one, but if we look at other commodity markets right now, there's a buyer strike on virtually everything coming out of Russia. Palladium is no exception."
Meanwhile, spot gold rose 0.2% to $1,939.67 per ounce and was on track for a weekly gain of about 3%.
More
Aluminium hits record top; oil, wheat at multi-year highs on supply woes
Thu, March 3, 2022, 6:55 AM
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Commodity markets extended their bull runs on Thursday, with aluminium, coal and palm oil all hitting new records while crude oil and wheat scaled multi-year highs as Russia's invasion of Ukraine disrupted global raw material flows.
Russia's stature as a top supplier in oil, gas, metals, grain and shipping markets has meant that the harsh sanctions applied to several Russian entities following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has upended several critical resource supply chains.
Aluminium prices on the London Metal Exchange have gained 30 percent this year, while U.S. wheat futures have surged 25% this week alone as markets attempt to price in the impact of a potential loss of Russian supplies if the international community rolls out additional punitive measures against Moscow.
The United States is preparing a sanctions package targeting more Russian oligarchs as well as their companies and assets, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, as Washington steps up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Brent crude oil rose above $118 a barrel for the first time since February 2013 as buyers grappled with financing and shipping issues that have paralysed purchases from the third-largest oil producer this week. [O/R]
Australia's ANZ raised its short-term target for oil to $125 a barrel, adding that supply shortages could see further upside.
In industrial metals, LME aluminium rose 2.3% to an all-time high of $3,650 a tonne, while nickel climbed over 4% to $26,935 a tonne as traders tried to factor in the loss of supply from the third-largest producer of both metals. [MET/L]
For grains, Russia and Ukraine were projected to account for 28.5% of global wheat exports in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so global wheat prices have jolted higher to try to accommodate a big drop in supplies from both counties.
Chicago wheat futures are up nearly 40% in the past month, and have climbed to 14-year highs of $11.34 a bushel. [GRA/]
Russia and Ukraine also account for 19% of corn exports and 80% of exports of sunflower oil, which competes with soyoil and palm oil.
Malaysian palm oil prices hit record highs of 6,950 ringgit a tonne on Thursday, while U.S. soyoil hit its highest since 2008.
Newcastle coal futures have also been on a blistering run since sanctions were slapped on the third-largest exporter, surging to a record $440 a tonne this week, up 100% from a month ago.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/aluminium-hits-record-top-oil-065533883.html
U.S. house prices to rise another 10% this year - Reuters poll
Wed, March 2, 2022, 1:09 PM
BENGALURU (Reuters) - U.S. house prices are set to climb in double digits this year even as the Federal Reserve embarks on its expected series of interest rate hikes, according to a Reuters poll of property analysts who forecast a sellers' market for another two years.
Record low interest rates and a scarcity of homes to buy, combined with unexpectedly explosive demand during the pandemic, sent the average house price up 17% last year, the strongest annual rise in at least two decades.
That has stretched affordability ever further, particularly for aspiring new homebuyers, a common theme across most developed economies as the global economy emerges from the worst of COVID-19 and central banks raise interest rates.
The Feb. 8-28 poll of 33 property analysts suggested U.S. house prices would rise 10.3% this year. That was an upgrade from 8.0% in the December poll, suggesting underlying demand for housing is still strong and housing supply is still tight.
Prices are forecast to rise 5.0% next year and 4.1% in 2024, marginal upgrades compared with 4.0% and 3.7% in the last poll.
Predictions are based on the Case/Shiller index.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing conflict has injected some caution into interest rate expectations, which could keep 30-year mortgage rates lower and in turn may leave the near-term trend largely intact.
"The recent pace of home price increase is clearly unsustainable," said Brad Hunter, head of independent consultancy Hunter Housing Economics, who expects just under 8% house price inflation this year, followed by 4.1% in 2023.
---- When asked what federal funds rate would bring about a significant slowdown in the housing market this year, analysts returned a median of 1.75%. That is 50 basis points above where a separate Reuters poll predicted it to end 2022, at 1.25%, and also well above money market pricing. [ECILT/US]
"We consider a funds rate above 2% to be restrictive, a rate that would slow economic growth and probably dampen housing activity," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at consultancy Oxford Economics, said.
In the meantime, house prices are set to keep climbing.
A like-for-like analysis showed 12 of 18 analysts had upgraded their predictions from the December poll. While four kept them unchanged, two analysts downgraded them.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-house-prices-rise-another-130926324.html
‘Stagflation’ Is Coming. What You Need to Know.
Wed, March 2, 2022, 5:15 PM
If full-blown stagflation is here, strategists say the best moves are into commodities, playable via miners, oil companies and fertilizer manufacturers. Then there’s cash.
There is no question that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is going to push inflation higher, given the amount of energy and food commodities produced by the region and the responses by countries and companies world-wide. What is less clear is whether this worsening period of inflation will turn into stagflation.
Since Russia began its invasion of its neighbor, the price of wheat has risen more than 20% and the price of crude oil by about 10%.
More
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stagflation-what-to-know-51646234216?siteid=yhoof2
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
New documents show US officials knew China was withholding data, trained Wuhan Institute scientists
Wed, March 2, 2022, 8:56 PM
FIRST ON FOX: A legal watchdog organization has released 90 pages of communication records between the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Wuhan Institute of Virology on the subject of grants to the now-infamous laboratory.
Judicial Watch obtained the records, first obtained by Fox News Digital, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The emails draw attention to records between the State Department and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), run by Dr. Anthony Fauci, that suggest U.S. officials were aware of the Chinese Communist Party withholding key information on the coronavirus before the pandemic outbreak.
"These FOIA documents show that Fauci’s agency has been hiding information on China’s failure to provide essential data on COVID-19," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told Fox News Digital. "The slow-rolling and stonewalling by Fauci’s agency on China, gain of function, and its COVID response generally is pure obstruction."
In a Jan. 7, 2020 email sent from the American Embassy in Beijing titled "PRC Response to Pneumonia Cases Shows Increased Transparency Over Past Outbreaks, but Gaps in Epidemiological Data Remain," officials express concern that a lack of "basic epidemiologic information" was hindering risk assessment and strategic cooperation for scientists outside China.
While [People's Republic of China (PRC)] health officials have released timely and open general information about the outbreak, a lack of epidemiological data, including an ‘epi curve’ (a summary of dates of onset of the illness), characteristics of infected individuals and other basic epidemiological information hinders better risk assessment and response by public health officials," the email stated.
"Authorities have also not released information on how they are defining a ‘case.’ Given these gaps in detailed information to-date, and lack of a final confirmed pathogen, the risk to the United States and global health is difficult to assess at this time.
"The flow of official PRC information on this outbreak is limited to that coming from the Wuhan Health Commission and National Health Commission," the email adds. "China CDC is referring queries to the three official notices issued to-date by the Wuhan Health Commission."
The coronavirus outbreak was first documented in December 2019.
The records also show U.S. officials were working with great care with Chinese counterparts to improve and support the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab where the outbreak eventually took place.
More
https://www.yahoo.com/news/documents-show-us-officials-knew-205619827.html
France to suspend rules requiring Covid-19 vaccine passes on March 14
Issued on: 03/03/2022
Rules requiring people to show a Covid-19 vaccine passport to access venues will be lifted in France on March 14 – about a month before the presidential election - said French Prime Minister Jean Castex, as the country gradually eases Covid health protocols amid signs the virus is receeding in France.
“The health situation is improving,” Castex told TF1 television on Thursday.
Face masks will also no longer be needed indoors from March 14, with the exception of public transport.
The vaccine pass, however, remains mandatory to access elderly home care centres, Castex added.
Hong Kong retail chains ration staples to curb COVID panic buying
March 4, 2022 3:23 AM GMT
HONG KONG, March 4 (Reuters) - Two of Hong Kong's largest consumer retail chains started rationing some food and drug items on Friday to curb panic buying that has plagued the city over the past week amid fears of a citywide lockdown as COVID-19 cases soar.
Supermarket chain ParknShop announced limits of five items per customer on staples such as rice, canned food and toilet paper while pharmacy Watsons put the same limits on medication for pain, fever and colds, Hong Kong media reported.
On Wednesday, ParknShop announced shorter opening hours, with some of its 200 branches shutting at 3 p.m. - by which time many shops across the Asian financial hub have been stripped of fresh and frozen meat and vegetables in recent days.
Both ParknShop and Watsons are units of the Hong Kong listed conglomerate, CK Hutchison (0001.HK).
Hong Kong officials have repeatedly urged people against panic buying this week, saying supplies were adequate.
Amid public complaints of confused official messaging, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said her government had no plan for a "complete lockdown" while it plots compulsory testing of the city's 7.4 million residents.
The government would announce details of the plan when finalised, she said.
Authorities reported a new daily record of 56,827 new infections and 144 deaths on Thursday, an exponential rise from about 100 in early February.
The surge in cases and fears over a lockdown have sparked mass departures of people from the city, where authorities are clinging to a "dynamic zero" policy that seeks to eradicate all outbreaks.
More
Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.
NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html
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.
Hybrid system produces electricity and irrigation water in the desert
Ben Coxworth March 01, 2022
In remote desert locations, at least two things are likely to be lacking: an electrical grid, and a source of water for agriculture. An experimental new system addresses both problems, by combining photovoltaic panels with an absorbent hydrogel.
Developed by scientists at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the setup is known as the integrated water-electricity-crop co-production system – or WEC2P, for short.
It incorporates an array of connected photovoltaic panels, each one of which lies directly atop a layer of hydrogel. Both the panel and the gel form the lid of a downward-sloping metal box, which has a spout at the bottom.
At night, the box is left open, allowing the hydrogel to absorb moisture from the air. During the day, the box is closed. The photovoltaic panel then produces electricity as the sun shines on it. That sunlight also causes both the panel and the underlying hydrogel to heat up.
As a result, the absorbed water evaporates out of the gel, and condenses on the back of the panel. As that liquid water subsequently trickles off the panel, it carries away excess heat, providing a cooling effect that allows the panel to function up to 9 percent more efficiently. The water then runs into the bottom of the metal box and out the spout, where it can be collected for use in irrigation – or for drinking.
A small-scale test of the system was conducted over a two-week period in June, in the Saudi Arabian desert. Utilizing a photovoltaic panel and hydrogel layer that were about the size of "the top of a student desk," the setup generated a total of 1,519 watt-hours of electricity, along with about 2 liters (0.5 US gal) of water. That water was used to irrigate 60 spinach seeds planted in a plastic grow box, 57 of which sprouted and grew to a height of 18 cm (7 in).
"Making sure everyone on Earth has access to clean water and affordable clean energy is part of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations," says the study's senior author, Prof. Peng Wang. "I hope our design can be a decentralized power and water system to light homes and water crops."
A paper on the research was recently published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.
Another weekend and another weekend of an unnecessary but deadly war. The result of the total failure of US, western and Russian diplomacy. What were they thinking in Moscow and Washington? Does anyone, anywhere even know how to stop this war? Just how bad will the coming food and energy price inflation get?
Once the idea is accepted that money is something whose supply is determined simply by the printing press, it becomes impossible for the politicians in power to resist the constant demands for further inflation.
Henry Hazlitt.
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