MUMBAI, March 1 (Reuters) - Palm
oil has become the costliest among the four major edible oils for the first
time as buyers rush to secure replacements for sunflower oil shipments from the
top exporting Black Sea region that were disrupted by Russia's invasion of
Ukraine.
Palm oil's record premium over
rival oils could squeeze price-sensitive Asian and African consumers already
reeling from spiralling fuel and food costs, and force them to curtail
consumption and shift to rival soyoil , dealers said.
Crude palm oil (CPO) is being offered at about $1,925 a tonne, including cost,
insurance and freight (CIF), in India for March shipments, compared with $1,865
for crude soybean oil.
Crude rapeseed oil was offered
at around $1,900, while traders were not offering crude sunflower oil as ports
are closed due to the Ukraine crisis.
The Black Sea accounts for 60% of world sunflower oil
output and 76% of exports. Ports in Ukraine will remain closed until the
invasion ends. read
more
"Asian and European refiners have raised palm oil purchases for near-month
shipments to replace sunoil. This buying has lifted palm oil to irrational
price level," said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.
"They have the option of
buying soyoil as well. But prompt soyoil shipments are limited and they take
much longer to land in Asia compared to palm oil," he said.
Soybean production in Argentina,
Brazil and Paraguay is expected to fall because of dry weather.
Price-sensitive Asian buyers traditionally
relied on palm oil because of low costs and quick shipping times, but now they
are paying more than $50 per tonne premium over soyoil and sunoil, said a Kuala
Lumpur-based edible oil dealer.
Palm oil's price premium is temporary, however, and could
fade in the next few weeks as buyers shift to soyoil for April shipments, the
dealer said.
Most of the incremental demand
for palm oil is fulfilled by Malaysia, as Indonesia has put restriction on the
exports, said an Indian refiner.
"Malaysian stocks are
depleting fast because of the surge in demand. It is the biggest beneficiary of
the current geopolitical situation," he said.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/palm-oil-becomes-costliest-vegoil-ukraine-war-halts-sunoil-supply-2022-03-01/
Economic dangers from Russia’s
invasion ripple across globe By
PAUL WISEMAN and DAVID McHUGH March 2, 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — Moscow’s war on
Ukraine and the ferocious financial backlash it’s unleashed are not only
inflicting an economic catastrophe on President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The
repercussions are also menacing the global economy, shaking financial markets
and making life more perilous for everyone from Uzbek migrant workers to
European consumers to hungry Yemeni families.
Even before Putin’s troops invaded
Ukraine, the global economy was straining under a range of burdens: Surging
inflation. Tangled supply chains. Tumbling stock prices.
The Ukraine crisis both magnified
each threat and complicated the potential solutions.
“We are actually in uncharted
territory,” said Clay Lowery, executive vice president at the Institute of
International Finance, a trade group of global banks. “We know there are
consequences that we cannot predict.’’
For now at least, the damage to the
overall global economy appears to be relatively slight, if only because Russia
and Ukraine are not economic powerhouses. Important as they are as exporters of
energy, precious metals, wheat and other commodities, the two together account
for less than 2% of the world’s gross domestic product. Most major economies
have only limited trade exposure to Russia: For the U.S., it’s 0.5% of total
trade. For China, around 2.4%.
Barring a major escalation of the
war — far from impossible — “the effects on the U.S., China and most of the
emerging world should be limited,” said Adam Slater, lead economist at Oxford
Economics. He foresees only a 0.2% drop in global GDP this year.
Still, Russia is a vitally important
supplier of oil, natural gas and metals, and higher prices for those
commodities are sure to inflict economic damage around the world. Europe relies
on Russia for nearly 40% of its natural gas and 25% of its oil. For the
European continent, Russia’s war has significantly heightened the likelihood of
runaway inflation, another economic setback — or both.
Here
is a deeper look:
More
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-9478a9825c9abfde5f6505bd34b2998c?user_email=427dabf021c0657f2ce4fe4260f86229ce001b054a4a374ed7059797c19bdfd2&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mar02_MorningWire&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers
Bjorn Lomborg: If you think
today's energy prices are high, wait until net-zero Fossil fuels still deliver the vast majority of
energy, powering everything we value about life today
Bjorn
Lomborg, Special to Financial Post Publishing
date: Mar 01, 2022
Energy
costs are climbing out of control around the world. Gas prices are spiking in
the United States. Europe has been plunged into an
energy crisis as heating bills soar. In the United
Kingdom, there are warnings elderly
people are going without food or heat to cope with
energy bill hikes. While part of this is due to the world restarting after the
pandemic, and part a result of Russia first threatening and then actually
invading Ukraine, climate policies are also increasingly driving prices up. New
net-zero emission pledges add trillions in costs, putting the cart before the
horse to fix climate change.
Fossil fuels still deliver the vast
majority of energy, powering everything we value about life today — even for
the most climate-concerned people. The European Union constantly puts climate
at the top of its political agenda, yet more than 80 per cent of its primary
energy needs are met by fossil fuels, according to the International Energy
Agency. Despite endless environmental talk, solar and wind only contribute
about three per cent of Europe’s total energy.
Making a transition away from fossil
fuels to green energy will be costly. Solar and wind can only deliver
electricity, which accounts for less than a fifth of total energy consumption.
Moreover, as Europe is learning to its great cost, leaning on unreliable
sources like wind leaves households vulnerable: wind speeds were unusually low
for most of 2021, causing much of Europe’s current energy pain. When the sun
doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, prices rise quickly and we have to
revert to fossil fuels for back-up.
----
As countries move to achieve “net-zero carbon” emissions, costs will escalate
much higher again. The
Bank of America has found that achieving net-zero
will cost US$150 trillion over 30 years — almost twice the combined GDP of
every single country on Earth. The annual cost of US$5 trillion is more than
all the world’s governments and households spend every year on education.
That
estimate is based on the heroic assumption that costs are spread efficiently,
with big emitters China and India cutting the most. But India says it will only
keep moving toward net-zero if the rest of the world pays it $1
trillion by 2030 — something that won’t happen. Most
cuts will likely only happen in rich countries, which will mean a relatively
trifling cut to global emissions. The rich world will get all pain for little
gain.
More
https://financialpost.com/opinion/bjorn-lomborg-if-you-think-todays-energy-prices-are-high-wait-until-net-zero
Covid-19 Corner
This
section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
WHO says war in Ukraine will
increase Covid transmission, putting large numbers of people at risk of severe
disease Published Wed, Mar 2 2022 11:22 AM EST
The WHO on Wednesday said the mass
displacement of people in Ukraine will increase Covid transmission, warning
that large numbers of people are at risk of severe disease as oxygen supplies
are critically low.
“Infectious diseases ruthlessly
exploit the conditions created by war,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor at
the WHO, said during a press briefing in Geneva, warning that refugees are
particularly vulnerable to severe disease and death in war-time.
At least three major oxygen plants
are now closed in Ukraine due to the fighting, according to the WHO.
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said medical supplies delivered to
Kyiv before Russia invaded the nation are currently inaccessible. Tedros called
for a safe humanitarian corridor to deliver critically needed medical supplies
to Ukraine. There’s also a shortage of cancer medicine and insulin, according
to the WHO.
The WHO director said the mass
displacement of people will increase Covid transmission, also putting increased
pressure on health-care systems in neighboring countries.
“Prior to the conflict, Ukraine
experienced recent surge of cases of Covid-19,” Tedros said at the press
conference. “Low rates of testing since the start of the conflict mean there is
likely to be significant undetected transmission coupled with low vaccination
coverage. This increases the risk of large numbers of people developing severe
disease.”
Tedros said health facilities have
come under attack during the war — without naming Russia. When asked to name
Russia as the aggressor, WHO’s head of emergencies programs, Dr. Mike Ryan,
said the global health agency does not want to get involved in politics. He
did, however, ask Moscow to reconsider its position.
More
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/02/who-says-war-in-ukraine-will-increase-covid-transmission.html
Hong Kong's Covid Death Rate Is
Now One of the World's Highest ·
·
1 March 2022, 04:14 GMTUpdated on1 March 2022, 08:46 GMT
Hong Kong’s Covid-19 fatality rate is now the highest in
the developed world amid a wave of deaths among its under-vaccinated elderly
population, ramping up pressure on officials to get the city’s worst outbreak
since the pandemic began under control.
The financial hub averaged eight deaths per 1 million
people in the 10 days through Monday, the most among advanced economies,
according to Bloomberg calculations based on Johns Hopkins University
data.
While most major Western countries are past the peak of
their latest
wave of infections and aren’t reporting a high number of fatalities, Hong
Kong’s current ratio is about to surpass the nine deaths per 1 million that the
U.S. recorded at the peak of its omicron wave in late January.
Hong Kong reported a record of 117 new deaths Tuesday. Most
of the fatalities during the current wave have been elderly people, and 91% of
those who died weren’t double vaccinated, according to government data released
Sunday.
The city’s death toll is likely to keep climbing as the
outbreak spreads through a growing number of care facilities, a sector which in
many places has accounted for a disproportionate share of Covid fatalities.
More than 600 care homes in Hong Kong are experiencing outbreaks, with 3,150
residents and about 900 staff infected. Almost 75,000 elderly and disabled
people live in residential facilities in Hong Kong.
---- More than two years into the pandemic, scenes
reminiscent of the chaotic days of early 2020 are now playing out in Hong Kong.
The health-care system is overwhelmed, patients are being put outside hospitals
on gurneys, public morgues
are inundated, and there’s speculation the city may go into a lockdown.
The situation is at risk of worsening. Authorities
announced more than 32,000 cases on Tuesday.
Hong Kong might have seen as many as 2.86 million
infections since the start of the current outbreak, according to an updated forecast
from the Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health and the University of Hong
Kong’s WHO Collaborating Center for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and
Control. The wave is expected to peak in the coming week or so, while the
cumulative number of deaths by the end of April could be around 4,645.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-01/hong-kong-virus-deaths-among-world-s-worst-on-at-risk-elderly
New studies point to nerve damage
as a cause of long COVID By Rich Haridy March 01, 2022
New
research from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the National
Institutes of Health hypothesizes nerve damage as the cause of long COVID
symptoms in some people. The small study found treating patients with
immunotherapies targeting the neuropathy could improve long COVID symptoms.
Scientists
and doctors are continuing to grapple with the emergence of long COVID, a
post-viral condition characterized by persistent symptoms of COVID-19. It is
still unclear exactly what causes long COVID, how long the condition may last,
and perhaps most importantly, how to treat the chronic illness.
Lead author on the new research,
Anne Louise Oaklander, from the Department of Neurology at MGH, said as the
acute impact of COVID-19 begins to settle around the world, it will become
increasingly important to understand how to best treat long COVID. The overall
prevalence of the condition is not clear, but it is suspected anywhere from 10
to 30 percent of those contracting COVID could experience symptoms that persist
for longer than three months.
"This is one of the early
papers looking into causes of long-COVID, which will steadily increase in
importance as acute COVID wanes," said Oaklander. "Our findings
suggest that some long-COVID patients had damage to their peripheral nerve
fibers, and that damage to the small-fiber type of nerve cell may be prominent."
The small new study followed 17
patients with a variety of long COVID symptoms. The researchers evaluated the
patients for a condition known as peripheral neuropathy, a type of nerve damage
signaled by pain in the hands or feet, weakness, fatigue and sensory changes.
The study found 59 percent of the
long COVID patients could effectively fit a clinical diagnosis of peripheral
neuropathy. Even more significantly, the researchers found treating some of the
patients with immunotherapies used to target inflammatory neuropathy led to
improvements in symptoms.
Oaklander does point out not all
patients responded to neuropathy treatments and some patients spontaneously
improved without any kind of immunotherapy, so she suspects not all cases of
long COVID can be characterized by this kind of nerve damage. However, it could
be valuable for patients to consult with a neurologist if their symptoms are
not improving.
More
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/nerve-damage-vagus-long-covid/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=8bcc8d9427-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_03_02_09_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-8bcc8d9427-90625829
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
https://rt.live/
Centers for Disease Control
Coronavirus
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
The Spectator
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.
Pacific Northwest National Lab
makes license available for vanadium flow battery technology By
Cameron
Murray March 2, 2022
The US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National
Lab (PNNL) has made a third semi-exclusive commercial licence for vanadium
redox flow battery technology available.
The national laboratory has already partnered with two
companies for the long-duration storage technology and this third licence is
its final one for vanadium redox, PNNL said.
In addition to the commercial licence, PNNL has also
developed a high-performance mixed-acid electrolyte compatible with vanadium
redox batteries which it says can store more energy than many other
technologies over a range of temperatures. The electrolyte is available on a
non-exclusive basis.
“This emerging grid-scale storage technology has great
commercial and energy security potential. We are eager to partner with
additional industry partners to bring this technology to market and to support
expanded use of renewable energies on the grid,” said Allan Tuan,
commercialisation manager for energy, grid and advanced fuel research at PNNL.
In an interview last year with our quarterly journal PV
Tech Power , Prof Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, one of the inventors of the
vanadium flow battery nearly 40 years ago at the University of New South Wales
in Australia talked about how the patents expired for key aspects of the technology from
2006 .
This opened up the opportunity for companies and research
groups to get involved, Prof Skyllas-Kazacos said, but it took a while longer
for the wider energy sector to take an interest in its long-duration storage
potential.
“It took quite a long time, but once they started observing
huge issues with grid stability, they realised the grid isn’t so good at
stabilising all these renewable energies,” Skyllas-Kazacos said.
“People have realised that for the sort of energy storage
we need for renewables, you really need long duration. And that’s why flow
batteries have been attracting a lot of attention.”
The US government has identified long-duration storage as a
key pillar in its move to de-carbonise its energy sector with the Secretary of
Energy tweeting that flow batteries are “good for grid storage”. Over the past
year, it has announced nearly US$100 million in funding for long-duration
energy storage research and support .
US$17.9 million went to four flow battery manufacturing
research & development (R&D) projects, while US$75 million is being
spent on a long-duration energy storage research centre at PNNL, expected to
open in 2025.
The UK government has dedicated £68 million (US$90 million) to
long-duration storage through a competitive funding opportunity, making the
first £6.7 million of awards public last week, with funding going to 24 separate projects across a range of technologies .
In Europe meanwhile a group of national and continental
trade associations recently urged the European Union to support long-duration storage in the European Green Deal
package .
California’s state government recently announced US$380 million in support for
long-duration energy storage projects across two years, the biggest example of
such funding to date.
https://www.energy-storage.news/pacific-northwest-national-lab-vanadium-redox-flow-battery-licence-pnnl/
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how
justified, is not a crime. Ernest Hemingway.
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