Wednesday 25 May 2022

Tomorrow, World War Three?

 Baltic Dry Index. 3253 -116  Brent Crude 114.88

Spot Gold 1863

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 25/05/22 World 529,040,192

Deaths 6,303,862

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

Ernest Hemingway

Another day, another central bank rate hike. Tomorrow definitely dosen’t look like today.

According to George Soros, tomorrow looks like World War Three or a depression. Given the choice, I’d prefer the depression, given what nuclear war will bring.

Still, even with President Biden leading the free world, I suspect that given the diplomatic failure that led into the new European war, America and Europe’s diplomats aren’t about repeat that failure and bring on the catastrophe of World War Three.

In slightly better news, scroll down to the inflation/stagflation section.

Shares in Asia-Pacific nudge higher; New Zealand central bank hikes rates again

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific nudged higher in Wednesday trade, with New Zealand’s central bank announcing yet another rate hike.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index advanced 0.64% by the afternoon, while the Shanghai Composite in mainland China edged about 0.6% higher and the Shenzhen Component gained 0.145%.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan climbed 0.11% while the Topix index stood 0.24% higher.

Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.81%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia advanced 0.77%.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.79% higher.

RBNZ announces rate hike

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand announced Wednesday its decision to hike its official cash rate by 50 basis points to 2%, a decision expected by most of the economists polled by Reuters.

″ A larger and earlier increase in the [official cash rate] reduces the risk of inflation becoming persistent, while also providing more policy flexibility ahead in light of the highly uncertain global economic environment,” the RBNZ said in a release announcing the rate hike.

The New Zealand dollar changed hands at $0.6503 following the rate hike announcement, bouncing after seeing an earlier low of $0.6418.

This latest rate hike would be the country’s fifth in a row.

“The RBNZ, like a lot of other central banks, is a long way behind the curve,” Jeremy Lawson, chief economist at abrdn, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Wednesday.

“The narrative is that … these rate hikes are front loaded, the central bank is starting to get ahead of the game. Actually I don’t think that’s really true, cause really the policy adjustment needed to start last year in many economies and it didn’t and so now we’re in this sort of very sort of steep policy tightening phase,” Lawson said.

Shares of dual-listed Chinese tech stocks in Hong Kong fell. By Wednesday afternoon in the city, shares of Alibaba declined around 1% while JD.com and Baidu slipped 0.94% and 1.71%, respectively.

Those losses came after comments from a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official on Tuesday that “time is running out” in negotiations between U.S. and Chinese authorities regarding audit inspections. Baidu and JD.com are among Chinese firms placed by the SEC on a list of companies that face potential delistings stateside.

----Overnight on Wall Street, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 2.35% to 11,264.45 after a warning from Snap CEO about slowing growth at the company was made public and sent investors fleeing social media stocks.

The S&P 500 dipped 0.81% to 3,941.48. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 48.38 points, or 0.15%, to 31,928.62.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/25/asia-markets-overnight-tech-stocks-sell-off-reserve-bank-of-new-zealand-currencies-oil.html

Ukraine invasion may be start of ‘third world war’, says George Soros

Veteran philanthropist tells World Economic Forum civilisation ‘may not survive’ what is coming

Tue 24 May 2022 19.24 BST

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to be the “beginning of the third world war” that could spell the end of civilisation, the veteran philanthropist and former financier George Soros has warned.

In a ferocious attack on Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Soros warned that autocratic regimes were in the ascendant and the global economy was heading for a depression.

Soros, who has become a hate figure for the hard right in the US, also heavily criticised the former German chancellor Angela Merkel for cosying up to Moscow and Beijing.

With the mood in Davos already downbeat due to the war in Ukraine, Soros ramped up the gloomy rhetoric to new heights.

“The invasion may have been the beginning of the third world war and our civilisation may not survive it,” he said.

“The invasion of Ukraine didn’t come out of the blue. The world has been increasingly engaged in a struggle between two systems of governance that are diametrically opposed to each other: open society and closed society.”

The 91-year-old former hedge fund owner said the tide had started to turn against open societies in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US in 2001. “Repressive regimes are now in the ascendant and open societies are under siege. Today China and Russia present the greatest threat to open society.”

Soros, who led the speculative financial attack that drove the pound out of the European exchange rate mechanism 30 years ago, said Europe had responded well to the crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion.

“It will take a long time to work out the details, but Europe seems to be moving in the right direction. It has responded to the invasion of Ukraine with greater speed, unity and vigour than ever before in its history.”

He added: “But Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels remains excessive, due largely to the mercantilist policies pursued by former chancellor Angela Merkel. She had made special deals with Russia for the supply of gas and made China Germany’s largest export market. That made Germany the best performing economy in Europe but now there is a heavy price to pay. Germany’s economy needs to be reoriented. And that will take a long time.”

More

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/24/ukraine-invasion-may-be-start-of-third-world-war-says-george-soros

Aramco CEO warns of global oil crunch due to lack of investment

DAVOS, May 23 (Reuters) - The world is facing a major oil supply crunch as most companies are afraid to invest in the sector as they face green energy pressures, the head of Saudi Aramco told Reuters, adding it cannot expand production capacity any faster than promised.

Amin Nasser, head of the world's largest oil producer, said on Monday he was sticking to the target of expanding capacity to 13 million barrels per day from the current 12 million by 2027, despite calls to do it faster.

"The world is running with less than 2% of spare capacity. Before COVID the aviation industry was consuming 2.5 million bpd more than today. If the aviation industry picks up speed, you are going to have a major problem," Nasser told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"What happened in Russia-Ukraine masked what would have happened. We were going through an energy crisis because of a lack of investment. And it started to bite following the pandemic," he added.

Nasser said COVID restrictions in China would not last long and global oil demand would therefore resume its growth.

Saudi Arabia is currently producing 10.5 million bpd, or every tenth barrel in the world, and will likely raise output to 11 million bpd later this year when a broader pact between OPEC and allies such as Russia expires.

Riyadh has faced calls from the West to raise output more quickly and expand capacity faster to help combat the energy crisis.

"If we could do it (expand capacity) before 2027 we would have done it. This is what we tell policymakers. It takes time".

CHAOTIC TRANSITION

Nasser also said dialogue between the oil industry and policymakers over the transition from fossil fuels to energy which does not result in carbon emissions has been problematic.

"I don't think there is a lot of constructive dialogue going on. In certain areas we are not brought to the table. We were not invited to COP in Glasgow," he said referring the last year's U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

He also said last year's message from the International Energy Agency that world oil demand was set to fall and no new investment in fossil fuel was needed had a profound impact.

"We need a more constructive dialogue. They say we don't need you by 2030, so why would you go and build a project that takes 6-7 years. Your shareholder will not allow you to do it".

The energy transition process was therefore often proving chaotic and disruptive, he said.

"There is no good plan... When you don't have plan B ready, don't demonise plan A," he said. "The pressure and the rhetoric is -- don't invest, you will have stranded assets. It makes difficult for CEOs to make investments."

More

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/aramco-ceo-warns-global-oil-crunch-due-lack-investment-2022-05-23/

Finally, is President Biden losing it? How long before we have new leaders in Washington (and Moscow?) Hopefully London and Toronto.

Keep in mind, this is the pro-Biden Washington Post. Are the Democrats planning a Biden retirement after the November elections? Is that good or bad for the global economy?

The White House keeps walking back Biden’s remarks

Ashley Parker, Tyler Pager  May 24, 2022

Speaking Monday in Tokyo, President Biden sent his aides scrambling when, deviating from decades of carefully crafted policy, he declared that the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if China attacked it.

“Yes, that’s the commitment we made,” Biden said.

Biden’s team was quick to claim that the administration’s policy had not changed. But the moment was reminiscent of one two months prior, in March, when Biden ended a speech in Warsaw by ad-libbing the line that Vladmir Putin cannot remain in power as Russia’s president — which his advisers again raced to walk back.

Which was reminiscent of the moment two months before that, in January, when Biden seemed to imply that the United States might tolerate “a minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine — an assertion both Biden and his aides clambered to clarify.

“I’ve been absolutely clear with President Putin,” Biden said the following day, responding to the public outcry. “He has no misunderstanding. If any — any — assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.”

Biden is a self-described “gaffe machine” who once, in 1987, found the need to explain to reporters, “I feel very capable of using my mouth in sync with my mind.” But as president, his rinse-and-repeat cycle of veering off-script — followed by his team’s now well-honed cleanup efforts — has at times complicated U.S. policy goals and even undermined Biden himself.

----Bonnie Glaser, the director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said she has counted five times the president has spoken about Taiwan, and each time she says he has misstated America’s foreign policy.

“The issue here is President Biden has usually added statements that mischaracterize U.S. policy toward Taiwan,” Glaser said. “He has said several times we have a commitment to defend Taiwan. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, we do not have such a commitment. We do not have an obligation to defend Taiwan.”

Glaser added that Biden’s comments may in fact “undermine U.S. interests” by provoking China and leading to an escalation of tensions.

In an ironic twist, when then-President George W. Bush made almost identical comments about Taiwan in 2001, it was Sen. Joe Biden — then the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee — who excoriated him in a Washington Post op-ed titled “Not So Deft On Taiwan.”

“Words matter,” Biden chided Bush.

With his nine-word ad-lib at the end of his Warsaw speech — “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” he said, referring to Putin — he upended a rousing, 30-minute paean to democracy, leaving his team racing to clarify that Biden had not, in fact, meant what he had just said while the presidential motorcade idled outside of Warsaw’s Royal Castle.

“The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said in a statement at the time. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

Two days later, back in Washington, Biden seemed to walk back the walk-back, saying, “I’m not walking anything back.”

Yet in the same breath, he also contended: “But I want to make it clear: I wasn’t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it.”

Biden made his Taiwan comment during a trip to South Korea and Japan this week, where a key focus was supposed to be a new economic framework intended to counter China’s growing influence in Asia.

Instead, Biden’s unplanned Taiwan comment in response to a reporter’s question overshadowed the announcement, a senior administration official said, likening it to the time Biden’s comment in Poland overtook the broader message of his speech on Ukraine.

More

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-white-house-keeps-walking-back-biden-e2-80-99s-remarks/ar-AAXFqgN?ocid=uxbndlbing

Global Inflation/Stagflation Watch.

Given our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,  inflation now needs an entire section of its own.

U.S. PLANTING CATCHES UP: 72% OF CORN, 50% OF SOYBEANS NOW IN THE GROUND
May 24, 2022

BrownfieldAgNews reports:

U.S. corn and soybean planting moved closer to normal last week. Activity got off to a slow start in many areas this year due to cool, wet weather and while conditions still haven't been ideal overall in parts of the region, a recent somewhat warmer, drier pattern has helped planting pick up steam.

The USDA says that as of Sunday, 72% of corn is planted, compared to the five-year average of 79%, and 39% of the crop has emerged, compared to 51% on average.

Half of the soybean crop is planted, compared to the normal rate of 55%, with 21% emerged, compared to 26% on average.

28% of winter wheat is in good to excellent shape, up 1% on the week, with 63% of the crop headed, compared to 65% on average.

49% of spring wheat is planted, compared to 83% typically in late May, with 29% emerged, compared to 50% on average.

54% of cotton is planted, compared to usual pace of 51%.

91% of rice is planted, compared to the five-year average of 89%, with 66% emerged, compared to 71% normally, and 70% of the crop in good to excellent condition, 1% below a year ago.

22% of U.S. pastures and rangelands are called good to excellent, unchanged from last week.

https://www.agrimarketing.com/s/141008

Electronics are set to get even more expensive as chip giants hike their prices

Published Tue, May 24 2022 1:15 AM EDT

Products that rely on semiconductors are set to get even more expensive as chip foundries prepare to increase their prices, according to analysts.

The world’s biggest foundries — including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Samsung and Intel — are considering further price hikes, analysts told CNBC.

“Foundries have already increased prices 10-20% in the past year,” Bain semiconductor analyst Peter Hanbury told CNBC. “We expect a further round of price increases this year, but smaller (i.e. 5-7%).”

The foundries are increasing their prices partly because they can, but also because it’s becoming more expensive for them to fund their growing operations.

“The chemicals used in [chip] manufacturing have increased 10-20%,” Hanbury said. “Similarly, the labor required to build new semiconductor facilities has also seen shortages and increased wage rates.”

TSMC warned clients for the second time in less than a year that it plans to raise prices, Nikkei Asia reported last Tuesday, citing people briefed on the matter.

The Hsinchu-headquartered firm is reportedly planning to increase its prices by single digit percentage points. It has cited looming inflation concerns, rising costs and its own expansion plans as the reason for the price rises.

A spokesperson for TSMC told CNBC that the company does not comment on its pricing.

Elsewhere, rival Samsung is set to increase its chipmaking prices by up to 20%, according to a Bloomberg report last Friday. Samsung did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

“With the continued shortage of semiconductor chips the manufacturers are able to charge a premium as customers continue pushing to secure supply,” Hanbury said, adding that his firm expects the shortage to start to ease on certain chips by the end of the year.

Intel did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

More

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/24/electronics-set-to-rise-as-chip-giants-like-tsmc-samsung-hike-prices.html

Toyota to cut global production plan by 100,000 in June

TOKYO, May 24 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) will cut its global production plan by about 100,000 to roughly 850,000 vehicles in June due to the semiconductor shortage, it said on Tuesday.

The company did not change its estimate of producing about 9.7 million vehicles worldwide by March 2023.

The automaker also announced additional domestic factory line suspension due to supply shortage triggered by COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai. The additional suspension will be up to five days between Wednesday and June 3, affecting 16 lines at 10 factories for May and June in total.

It is planning to produce about 850,000 vehicles globally a month on average from June through August, it said, adding chips shortage and COVID-19 outbreaks and other factors "are making it difficult to look ahead."

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-cut-global-production-by-100000-june-2022-05-24/

Below, why a “green energy” economy may not be possible, 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

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/environmental-disaster-ev-battery-metals-crunch-horizon-industry-races-recycle

Covid-19 Corner

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

These Vaccinated People Have a Higher Risk of Getting COVID, Studies Find

Tue, May 24, 2022, 4:46 PM

After nearly two months of relief, the coronavirus is back to circulating at heightened levels across the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), infections have increased by more than 18 percent in the last week while hospitalizations rose by over 24 percent. This uptick has been propelled by concerning Omicron subvariants, with the BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 variants each making up about half of the cases in the country right now, per the CDC. These subvariants are even more transmissible than the original Omicron, prompting continued warnings from virus experts about the need for widespread vaccination.

But with rising COVID cases and highly infectious variants, unvaccinated people are not the only ones at risk. According to the CDC, fully vaccinated individuals can still get infected with the virus because vaccines "are not 100 percent effective at preventing infection." These breakthrough infections are even more common now, rising up along with the Omicron surge, which also coincided with waning immunity from initial shots. In the state of Washington alone, the average number of COVID cases occurring among vaccinated people doubled during Omicron's reign in comparison to the Delta wave.

"Current vaccines protect against severe illness, hospitalizations, and deaths due to infection with the Omicron variant. However, breakthrough infections in people who are vaccinated can occur," the CDC says.

More

https://www.yahoo.com/news/vaccinated-people-higher-risk-getting-154619421.html

Covid damages heart, Scottish study proves

24 May, 2022

Covid led to serious heart damage in “healthy” middle-aged patients who were more likely to die as a result, a major Scottish study found.

The virus led to impaired function of the right side of the heart and this was associated with an 86 per cent mortality rate. None of the patients had serious heart problems before they contracted the virus.

Around one in three showed evidence of Right Ventricular Dysfunction which affects the heart’s ability to pump blood to the lungs.

Doctors said there was now “no doubt” that Covid affects heart function after the ground-breaking study, which involved 10 intensive care units and 121 patients treated over September 2020 to March 2021, when the majority of people were not vaccinated.

Nearly half of ventilated patients in the study (47%) died because of Covid-19, a figure that is comparable to national and international death rates.

The majority of patients (66%) were men. 

Doctors hope the findings will improve outcomes for patients most at risk of serious illness in future outbreaks of the virus or other pandemics.

Screening could be used to spot the early signs of heart damage with treatments administered at an earlier stage.

Dr Philip McCall, a consultant in cardiothoracic anaesthesia, who led the study said the condition is “difficult to spot unless you are looking for it”, adding: “That’s why the results of this study are so important.

“We now know that Covid-19 is a problem associated not just with ventilation, but can affect the heart.

----He said the majority of patients were in their 50s and that whilst around one third of them had high blood pressure, none had “significant heart problems”. 

He added: “One patient in an intensive care bed looks very similar to another patient – you have to go looking for this with ultrasound to find out how well the heart is functioning.”

The left side of the heart pumps blood around the body while the right side pumps blood to the lungs.

“If you have sick lungs, such as if you have Covid, that puts a lot of back pressure on the right side of the heart,” said Dr McCall. “Imagine standing on a hose and watching the pressure build up.

More

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/20160049.covid-damages-heart-scottish-study-proves/

Covid can cause ongoing damage to heart, lungs and kidneys, study finds

One in eight Covid hospital patients have heart inflammation up to two months later, researchers find

Mon 23 May 2022 16.00 BST

Damage to the body’s organs including the lungs and kidneys is common in people who were admitted to hospital with Covid, with one in eight found to have heart inflammation, researchers have revealed.

As the pandemic evolved, it became clear that some people who had Covid were being left with ongoing symptoms – a condition that has been called long Covid.

Previous studies have revealed that fewer than a third of patients who have ongoing Covid symptoms after being hospitalised with the disease feel fully recovered a year later, while some experts have warned long Covid could result in a generation affected by disability.

Now researchers tracking the progress of patients who were treated in hospital for Covid say they have found evidence the disease can take a toll on a range of organs.

What’s more, they say the severity of ongoing symptoms appears to be linked to the severity of the Covid infection itself.

“Even fit, healthy individuals can suffer severe Covid-19 illness and to avoid this, members of the public should take up the offer of vaccination,” said Prof Colin Berry, of the University of Glasgow, which led the CISCO-19 (Cardiac imaging in Sars coronavirus disease-19) study.

“Our study provides objective evidence of abnormalities at one to two months post-Covid and these findings tie in with persisting symptoms at that time and the likelihood of ongoing health needs one year later,” Berry added.

Writing in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers describe how they tracked the outcomes of 159 people hospitalised with Covid between May 2020 and March 2021.

The team carried out a range of scans and blood tests at 28-60 days after the Covid patients were discharged, with patients also given questionnaires to complete. The results were compared with those from a control group of 29 people with a similar age, sex, ethnicity, and cardiovascular risk factors, who had not had Covid.

The authors write that, compared with controls, those who had been hospitalised with Covid showed several abnormalities, including in results from imaging of the heart, lungs and kidneys.

The team found about 13%, or one in eight, of those hospitalised for Covid were deemed by experts to be very likely to have myocarditis, or heart inflammation, compared with just one control participant. This led to a “lower health-related quality of life, greater illness perception, higher levels of anxiety and depression [and] lower levels of physical activity,” said Dr Andrew Morrow, also from the University of Glasgow.

More

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/23/covid-can-cause-ongoing-damage-to-heart-lungs-and-kidneys-study-finds

Omicron patients may develop Long COVID less frequently than those who had other variants, study finds

Sun, May 22, 2022, 8:09 PM

Those who had Omicron may develop Long COVID less frequently than those who had other variants, the authors of a new study out of Japan concluded.

The study, published this week to journal preprint server medRxiv, found that only one Omicron patient out of 18 interviewed had long-term symptoms, versus 10 out of 18 in a group of similar patients who had other COVID variants.

Symptoms were similar among those who experienced Long COVID, regardless of variant, wrote the authors, who are affiliated with the National Center for Global Health and Medicine Hospital in Tokyo.

The study defined Long COVID, which it refers to as "post COVID-19 condition," as at least one symptom that lasts for at least two months, with an onset within three months of COVID infection. Symptoms seen in patients included fatigue, difficulty breathing, cough, hair loss, depression, brain dog, difficulty concentrating, and memory issues. Researchers were unable to rule out alternate diagnoses that could cause these symptoms, the report stated.

The study represents the first time epidemiological data on Long COVID in Omicron patients has been examined. But more research is needed to see if findings are applicable to Omicron patients as a whole, and to determine the long-term impact of the variant "on health-related quality of life and social productivity," the paper stated.

More

https://www.yahoo.com/news/omicron-patients-may-develop-long-190921284.html

Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada.

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Trackerhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine trackerhttps://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

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, among other things, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

Solar energy that usually escapes Earth overnight can now be captured, say scientists

By Charlotte Elton 22/05/2022 - 11:29

The world is one step closer to nighttime solar power after a breakthrough discovery by Australian scientists.

University of New South Wales (UNSW) scientists have found a way to ‘catch’ energy that flows out of the earth at night.

“This could mean being able to achieve the ultimate dream of renewable energy: power generation uninterrupted by the setting of the sun,” the researchers claim.

So how does this sci-fi technology work - and when will it hit the market?

How does nighttime solar power work?

Nighttime solar taps into a “large and unused spectrum of potential power,” the research team says.

Heat - which is a form of energy - flows from hot areas to cold areas.

Every day, the earth absorbs heat from the sun. At night, this heat escapes the earth in the form of infrared light, and is sucked out into the icy vacuum of space.

If it didn’t, the planet would quickly become far too hot to sustain life.

UNSW scientists use the catchily-named ‘thermoradiative diode’ - a type of semiconductor also used in nigh vision goggles - to capture the infrared radiation as it escapes earth.

They then convert the ‘captured’ power into electricity.

Both normal and nighttime solar depend on the flow of energy from hot to cold areas, explains Ned Ekins-Daukes, the teams’ lead researcher..

“[With normal solar power], the sun provides the hot source and a relatively cool solar panel on the Earth’s surface provides a cold absorber. This allows electricity to be produced,” he adds.

“[At night] it is now the Earth that is the comparatively warm body, with the vast void of space being extremely cold.

“By the same principles of thermodynamics, it is possible to generate electricity from this temperature difference too: the emission of infrared light into space.”

‘Nighttime solar’ power is still in the early stages of development.

The amount of energy produced by UNSW researchers was very small, roughly equivalent to 0.001 per cent of a normal solar powered cell.

But given the right investment, the technology could one day generate around 10 per cent of the power produced by a solar powered cell. 

Other teams around the globe are also working hard to develop night solar. Stanford scientists are developing a different technique to 'catch' the earth's radiant heat.

More

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/05/19/new-technology-can-generate-solar-power-at-night-time-by-catching-earth-s-heat

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

Vladimir Lenin.

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