Baltic Dry Index. 1063 -20 Brent Crude 90.04
Spot Gold 1927 US 2 Year Yield 4.94 +0.07
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Groucho Marx.
In the stock casinos, unexpected incoming fire from OPEC+.
Who, knew that if the G-7 want to mess/bring down, with the Russian and Saudi economies, they can play that game back too?
Look away from that depleted US strategic
petroleum reserve now. Anyway, we’re all going to have a mild winter, thanks to
El Nino, aren’t we?
Asia markets mixed after Saudi Arabia and Russia
extend oil cuts
UPDATED TUE, SEP 5 2023 9:59 PM
EDT
Asia-Pacific markets are mixed after Saudi
Arabia and Russia extended
voluntary oil production cuts to the end of the year.
Saudi Arabia will
extend its cut of 1 million barrels per day until the end of December, while
Russia will reduce its oil exports by 300,000 barrels per day.
Brent crude
futures settled at $90.04 a barrel, closing above the $90 mark for the first
time since November. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures traded near
$86.87 a barrel, also a 10-month high.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost
0.43%, after the country recorded a 2.1% growth in its second-quarter gross
domestic product, slightly higher than expectations from economists polled by
Reuters.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose
0.53%, while the Topix was up 0.54%. Separately, South Korea’s Kospi was down
0.42%, but the Kosdaq climbed 0.47%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped
0.54%, extending losses from Tuesday. Mainland Chinese markets also fell, with
the CSI 300 dropping 0.45%.
Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes lost
ground as the rise in crude oil prices weighed on stocks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost
0.56%, while the S&P
500 dropped 0.42%. The Nasdaq Composite edged
down 0.08%.
Asia
stock markets today: Live updates (cnbc.com)
European stocks head for flat open as investors
focus on oil market moves
UPDATED WED, SEP 6 2023 12:51 AM
EDT
European stocks are heading for a flat open
Wednesday as investors focus on the latest oil market moves after Saudi Arabia
and Russia extended
voluntary oil production cuts to the end of the year.
All three major U.S. indexes lost
ground as the rise in crude oil prices weighed on stocks late
on Tuesday while Asia-Pacific
markets were mixed overnight as traders reacted to the
decision.
Saudi Arabia will extend its cut
of 1 million barrels per day until the end of December, while Russia will
reduce its oil exports by 300,000 barrels per day.
Brent crude futures settled at
$90.04 a barrel, closing
above the $90 mark for the first time since November. U.S. West
Texas Intermediate crude futures traded near $86.87 a barrel, also a 10-month
high.
European
markets live updates: Latest stock moves, data and earnings (cnbc.com)
In other news, higher oil prices are likely with us through the year end. But will higher oil prices push a slowing global economy into recession?
If the vastly depleted US strategic petroleum
reserve starts to try to replenish now, the Brent crude oil price will probably
soar back above 100 dollars a barrel. Biden’s voter bribe ahead of last year’s
mid-term elections doesn’t look so clever now.
Saudi Arabia to extend voluntary cut of 1
million barrels per day until the end of the year
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday extended its 1 million
barrel per day voluntary crude oil production cut until the end of the year, according to the state-owned Saudi
Press Agency.
The reduction will put Saudi crude
output near 9 million barrels per day over October, November and December and
will be reviewed on a monthly basis.
Riyadh first applied the 1 million barrel per day reduction in July and
has since extended it on a monthly basis. The cut adds to 1.66 million barrels
per day of other voluntary crude output declines that some members of OPEC have
put in place until the end of 2024.
Fellow heavyweight oil producer Russia — which
leads the contingent that joins OPEC nations in the OPEC+ coalition — also
pledged to voluntarily reduce exports by 500,000 barrels per day in August and
by 300,000 barrels per day in September. Russian Deputy Prime Minister
Alexander Novak on Tuesday said that it will extend its 300,000 barrels per day
reduction of exports until the end of December 2023 and will likewise review
the measure on a monthly basis, according to the Kremlin.
The cuts are described as voluntary
because they are outside of OPEC+’s official policy, which commits every
nonexempt member to a share of production quotas. OPEC Secretary-General
Haitham al-Ghais has
previously said that resorting to voluntary reductions outside
of OPEC+ decisions does not suggest divisions in policy views among alliance
members.
The ICE Brent futures contract with
November delivery was up $1.07 per barrel to $90.07 per barrel at 2:13 p.m.
London time, or 9:13 a.m. in New York, with WTI futures higher by $1.40 per
barrel to $86.95 per barrel.
More
Euro zone August
downturn deeper than was thought
September 5, 202312:44 PM
GMT+1
LONDON, Sept 5 (Reuters) - The decline in euro zone business
activity accelerated faster than initially thought last month as the bloc's
dominant services industry fell into contraction, according to a survey which
suggests the bloc could drop into recession.
HCOB's final Composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI),
compiled by S&P Global and seen as a good barometer of overall economic
health, dropped to 46.7 in August from July's 48.6, a low not seen since
November 2020.
That was below the 50 mark separating growth from contraction
for a third month and shy of a preliminary estimate for 47.0.
"The euro zone didn't slip into recession in the first part
of the year, but the second half will present a greater challenge," said
Cyrus de la Rubia, chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank.
"The disappointing numbers contributed to a downward
revision of our GDP 'nowcast' which stands now at -0.1% for the third
quarter."
The headline services PMI sank to 47.9 from 50.9, below the
flash 48.3 estimate, as indebted consumers feeling the pinch from increased
borrowing fees and high living costs reined in spending.
The new business index, a gauge of demand, dropped further below
breakeven to 46.7 from 48.2, a low not seen since early 2021.
Still, the downturn in manufacturing eased
last month, suggesting the worst may be over for the bloc's beleaguered
factories, a sister survey showed on Friday.
Indicating firms were not expecting an imminent turnaround they
barely increased headcount last month. The composite employment index dropped
to 50.2 from 51.4.
"Employers weren't too keen on beefing up their teams. The
way things have been going down lately, it's a sign they'll be moving towards
job cuts sooner, not later," added de la Rubia.
Euro zone August downturn deeper than was thought |
Reuters
Floods from waning
Typhoon Haikui hit transport, force evacuations in China
By Liz Lee September 6, 20235:30 AM GMT+1
BEIJING, Sept 6
(Reuters) - Intense rain from the remnants of Typhoon Haikui lashed
southeastern China early on Wednesday, bringing floods and waterlogging that
forced cities in Fujian province to halt subway services, shut schools and
evacuate tens of thousands.
The rain
shattered 12-year-old records in the provincial capital of Fuzhou, weather
officials said, prompting warnings that 49 reservoirs had exceeded flood
limits.
More than 36,000
people were evacuated from homes, power and communications links were damaged
and nearly 4,195 hectares (10,366 acres) of farmland inundated, causing losses
the state broadcaster said stood at 552.1 million yuan ($75 million).
Floodwaters
gushed down streets in Fuzhou and the city of Fuqing to its south, knocking
over motorcycles and trash bins and stranding cars, video images on social
media showed.
Media reports
showed submerged cars, marooned shops and apartments as well as landslides and
mudslides.
Fuzhou received
up to 554 mm (1.8 feet) of cumulative rain on Tuesday, the national forecaster
said, for an hourly record of close to 150 mm (0.5 ft).
That surpassed
the volume brought by Typhoon Doksuri in late July, which ripped through Fujian
to cause floods and losses of $2 billion, state media said.
Fuzhou closed
subway lines and suspended train services, while schools shut for a second day.
The floods have
hit many cities in Fujian, exposing the fragility of urban drainage and other
infrastructure, state-backed The Paper quoted a provincial official, Chen
Yunong, as saying.
Waterlogging in
both old cities and new urban areas needs to be tackled, Chen said.
Putian and
Quanzhou were among six cities elsewhere in Fujian flagged as being at risk of
flash floods and landslides. The provincial government told local authorities
to prepare to move out people from areas likely to be the hardest hit.
The rains are
expected to last until Friday in central and southern parts of the province,
where Typhoon Haikui hit land early on Tuesday, before losing strength and
being downgraded to a tropical storm.
Floods
from waning Typhoon Haikui hit transport, force evacuations in China | Reuters
Finally, in commodities news, the “smart money” bets on a mild, El Nino induced, US winter. But will they be right, or is another commodity scandal brewing?
Another month another commodity fraud comes to light. You’ve got to love the commodities sector. They can’t pass a quarter without someone cheating someone else, it seems.
From the Great Salad Oil scandal to the Great Grain Robbery, via scandals in tin, copper, gold, oil and natural gas, to nickel and now back to copper yet again. Commodity traders can give Ali Baba and his friends a good run for their money.
Come back Tino, Marc, Pinky, and Mr. Copper, all is forgiven. It’s all normal and required now!
Thankfully, it couldn’t happen in the stock
casinos or banksterism, could it?
Column: Hedge funds
buy US crude as stocks fall
By John Kemp September 5, 20231:19 AM GMT+1
LONDON,
Sept 4 (Reuters) - Portfolio investors have become less bearish about the
outlook for U.S. crude oil prices as inventories fall, but the rest of the
petroleum complex continued to see light selling at the end of the seasonal
holiday slowdown.
Hedge
funds and other money managers purchased the equivalent of 19 million barrels
in the NYMEX and ICE U.S. crude (WTI) futures and options contracts over the
seven days ending on August 29.
As
a result, the WTI net position rose to 153 million barrels (14th percentile for
all weeks since 2013), up from a low of just 46 million (the second-lowest on
record) on June 27.
The
ratio of bullish long positions to bearish shorts climbed to 2.70:1 (25th
percentile), up from 1.27:1 (1st percentile) over the same period.
Bearish
short positions in the premier NYMEX WTI contract had been reduced to just 49
million barrels, down from 136 million.
Overall,
the hedge fund community remains more bullish towards refined fuels given the
low inventories of gasoline and especially diesel around the world but cautious
on crude.
U.S. NATURAL GAS
For
the second week running, investors sold U.S. natural gas futures and options
amid forecasts for a strong El Niño that would likely cut heating demand during
the winter of 2023/24.
Hedge
funds and other money managers sold the equivalent of 479 billion cubic feet of
gas futures and options over the seven days ending on August 29.
Sales
over the two most recent weeks totalled 776 billion cubic feet, according to
position records filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
In
consequence, the net position has been transformed into a small short of 69
billion cubic feet (29th percentile for all weeks since 2010) from a long of
707 billion (47th percentile) on August 15.
Futures
prices for deliveries in December 2023 had fallen below $3.50 per million
British thermal units on September 1 from almost $3.85 in mid-August.
Surface
waters of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean are warming with a
speed and intensity that has been consistent in the past with a strong El Niño
between December and February.
In
the last 50 years, strong El Niño episodes have cut U.S. heating demand by an
average of 7%, with the strongest impact on the northernmost tier of states
from Washington through Illinois to Maine.
Hedge
fund managers have been trying to get bullish towards U.S. gas prices, and the
inventory surplus inherited from 2022 has been shrinking.
But
the prospect of a warmer-than-average winter has forced a re-evaluation and
taken some of the bullishness out of the market.
Column: Hedge funds buy US crude as stocks fall |
Reuters
Copper crime ring is
latest scandal to rock the metals world
Bloomberg
News | September 3, 2023 | 11:30 am
The history of commodity markets is littered with
fraud and risk, and the opaque trade in scrap metal is no exception. But even veterans with
decades of experience say they’ve never seen anything like the scam now rocking
one of the world’s top copper recyclers.
The company has been hit by two different and
possibly connected crimes, one a few months ago involving the theft of precious
metals residues, and then the shock revelation this week that it has been
paying for scrap material that didn’t contain the metal it was supposed to. A
spokesperson for Aurubis said it is investigating a sophisticated criminal
operation involving both external suppliers and complicit employees at its main
smelter in Hamburg.
“My memory of this industry goes back quite a long
way, and I can’t recall any similar incidents on this kind of scale,” said
Michael Lion, who’s been involved in the recycling industry for more than 50
years and is one of its most well-known figures. “The very substantial sums of
money involved suggest that this was an extremely well-organized operation that
could well have involved a web of conspiring suppliers.” [???]
Aurubis has been in operation for more than a
century, and traditionally it has fed its smelters by sourcing a combination of
copper ore and various forms of metal scrap including electrical wiring and
water pipes. However, in recent years it’s invested heavily in new production
processes to extract copper and other metals from increasingly complex forms of
scrap, including old circuit boards and — most recently — lithium-ion
batteries.
----The sudden announcement and scale of the scam has sent tremors
through the tight-knit network of traders and scrap processors that supply
Aurubis. Speaking privately, representatives at two suppliers to Aurubis and a
major scrap buyer said they hadn’t heard any rumors about issues with fraud at
the company or in the broader market, even after the smaller-scale theft of
semi-processed precious metals in June left the industry on high alert.
There are still a lot of questions outstanding about how Aurubis found
itself with a shortfall in metal that it says could mean damages in the “low,
three-digit-million-euro range.”
According to a company spokesperson, certain of its recycling suppliers
appear to have “manipulated details” about the raw materials they delivered,
and have been working with employees in the sampling department.
More
Copper crime ring is latest scandal to rock the metals
world - MINING.COM
Marc Rich
Marc Rich (born Marcell
David Reich; December 18, 1934 – June 26, 2013) was an international commodities trader, financier, and
businessman. He founded the commodities company Glencore, and was later
indicted in the United States on federal charges of tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and
making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He fled to Switzerland at the time of the indictment and
never returned to the United States.[1] He received a
widely criticized presidential pardon from President Bill Clinton, on his last
day in office; Rich's ex-wife Denise had made large
donations to the Democratic
Party.
More
Sumitomo
copper affair [Mr. Copper.]
The Sumitomo copper affair refers
to a metal trading scandal in 1996 involving Yasuo Hamanaka, the
chief copper trader of the
Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corporation (Sumitomo). The scandal involves unauthorized trading
over a 10-year period by Hamanaka, which led Sumitomo to announce US$1.8
billion in related losses in 1996 when Hamanaka's trading was discovered, and
more related losses subsequently. The scandal also involved Hamanaka's attempts
to corner the
entire world's copper market through LME Copper futures
contracts on the London Metal Exchange (LME).
More
Sumitomo copper affair - Wikipedia
Great Salad
Oil Scandal
The Salad Oil Scandal was a
swindle that occurred in the 1960s by Anthony ("Tino") De Angelis in the cash vegetable oil and futures markets in
Chicago and New York and ensnared Wall Street brokerage firms, banks and
lenders and bankrupted 16 companies. The scandal led to the bankruptcy of De
Angelis' firm Allied Crude Vegetable Oil & Refining Co. of Bayonne, N.J.
and Wall Street firm Ira Haupt & Co. De Angelis bilked a total of 51 firms
out of $180 million.
The collapse of De Angelis
firm occurred in November 19, 1963, just prior to the assassination of U.S.
President John Kennedy. The New York Stock Exchange, which was impacted by Ira
Haupt's sudden collapse, used the time during the market closure after Kennedy's
assassination to keep the scandal from spreading.
The New York Produce
Exchange, a smaller futures exchange, shut down in response to De Aneglis'
bankruptcy.
American Express, which had a
subsidiary, American Express Warehousing, which would store, inspect and vouch
for oil that its customers used as collateral for its loans.[1]
More
Great Salad Oil Scandal - MarketsWiki, A Commonwealth
of Market Knowledge
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
Groucho Marx.
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
China's August
services activity slows amid sluggish demand - Caixin PMI
September 5, 20236:07 AM GMT+1
BEIJING, Sept 5
(Reuters) - China's services activity expanded at the slowest pace in eight
months in August, a private-sector survey showed on Tuesday, as weak demand
continued to dog the world's second-largest economy and stimulus failed to
meaningfully revive consumption.
The
Caixin/S&P Global services purchasing managers' index (PMI) dropped to 51.8
in August from 54.1 in July, the lowest reading since December when COVID-19
confined many consumers to their homes. The 50-point mark separates expansion
from contraction in activity.
The
data broadly aligned with the official
services PMI released last week, which
showed the sector continued to trend downwards. Even the record number of
passenger railway trips and stellar box office earnings during the summer
failed to drive up the reading.
Although both the
official and the Caixin manufacturing PMIs beat market expectations and showed
an increase from July to August, softening services activity still weighs on
the economy amid sluggish demand and a property downturn.
Caixin/S&P's
composite PMI, which includes both manufacturing and services activity, edged
down to 51.7 from 51.9 in July, marking the eighth straight month of expansion,
albeit the weakest since January.
"The
marginal slowdown in the services sector's supply and demand expansion offset
the improvement in manufacturing production and demand," said Wang Zhe, an
economist at Caixin Insight Group, adding "there was still considerable
downward pressure on the economy."
Beijing
has released a series
of measures in recent months to revive
slowing growth, with the central bank and top financial regulator last week
easing some borrowing rules to aid homebuyers. But analysts warn these measures
may struggle to move the needle amid a slowing labour market recovery and
uncertain household income expectations.
The increase in
new orders in the services sector was below the average seen for 2023 to date,
partly due to weaker foreign demand, according to Caixin services PMI.
New export
business fell for the first time since December amid sluggish overseas
conditions.
More
China's August services activity slows amid sluggish
demand - Caixin PMI | Reuters
Haldane:
Bank of England printed money for too long, and recession’s 50:50
MONDAY 04 SEPTEMBER 2023 7:07 PM
The Bank of England’s former chief
economist has said Threadneedle Street persisted “a little longer than we
needed to” with quantitative easing – helping to fuel inflation.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee
expanded its quantitative easing programme – effectively, printing money to buy
government debt – by £450bn in 2020 and 2021 as the country battled with
Covid-19.
But in an interview to be aired
tonight, Andy Haldane, who stepped down in April 2021, admits that the Bank
“went on printing money for a bit longer than it needed to.
“With the benefit of
hindsight… we probably did a little bit too much for a little too long,” he
told Sophy
Ridge in an interview for her Politics Hub show on Sky News.
The Bank stopped
buying bonds in late 2021 and is now actively selling them.
“At the time of
Covid-19, (it was needed) to protect jobs and to protect households and to
protect businesses,” Haldane – now the chief executive of the Royal Society of
Arts – said.
“But did we persist
with that a little longer than we needed to? And did (the Bank of England) step
on the brakes a little too late – and therefore a little harder now than they
needed to?”
Wonks
at the central bank have been criticised for failing to move fast enough at the
beginning of an inflationary cycle that continues to this day, and there are now questions about whether more than a
dozen interest rate hikes in a row will effectively strangle growth as that
wave of price hikes dissipates.
Haldane was regarded as the most
hawkish of MPC members, pushing for rate hikes before Governor Andrew
Bailey.
Haldane also warned that a
“pancake-like” economy that has flatlined for 18 months means the UK is
“stuck.”
He rated the risk of recession as
“evens” and said “it would take only the tiniest of tilt for us to enter
recessionary territory.”
Haldane: Bank of England printed money for too long,
and recession's 50:50 - CityAM
Covid-19 Corner
This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.
Fears of a new global pandemic soar as new mutant strain of
virus discovered in China
September 5, 2023
A subtype of
avian influenza found in Chinese poultry farms is undergoing mutations which
may increase the risk of widespread human transmission.
This is the
warning of a team of scientists from China and the UK, who are calling for
"concerted research" to monitor the evolution of the viruses and the
threat they may pose.
In humans,
infection with the H3N8 avian influenza virus has been known to cause acute
respiratory distress syndrome - and can even be fatal.
However,
exactly how it might be transmitted from animals to humans has been poorly
understood.
In their
study, the researchers analyzed a sample of H3N8 taken from a human patient,
using laboratory ferrets and mice as models for human infection.
They found
that the strain has undergone several adaptive changes that allow it to cause
severe animal infections - and have facilitated airborne transmission between
animals.
The analysis
was undertaken by veterinary molecular medicine expert Professor Kin-Chow Chang
of the University of Nottingham and his colleagues.
Prof. Chang
said: "We demonstrate that an avian H3N8 virus isolated from a patient
with severe pneumonia replicated effectively in human bronchial and lung
epithelial cells."
(Epithelial
cells are those that line the airways and make the mucus which lubricates and
protect the lungs.)
The virus,
Prof. Chang continued, "was extremely harmful in its effects in laboratory
mammalian hosts and could be passed on through respiratory droplets".
Paper co-author and
veterinary medicine researcher Professor Jinhua Liu of the China Agricultural
University in Beijing added: "Importantly, we discovered that the virus
had acquired human receptor binding preference and amino acid substitution PB2-E627K,
which are necessary for airborne transmission.
More
Fears of a new global pandemic soar as new mutant
strain of virus discovered in China (msn.com)
People Rarely
Transmit COVID-19 Before Experiencing Symptoms: Lancet Study
9/2/2023 Updated: 9/3/2023
In a blow to the
COVID-19 "silent spreader" narrative that has been used to push for
universal masking, including controversially among schoolchildren, a recent
study published in The Lancet suggests that people who are non-symptomatic
rarely have the ability to infect others.
Silent
transmission is the idea that those who are infected with COVID-19 but show no
symptoms can still spread the virus to other people.
While all
relevant studies show that presymptomatic and asymptomatic "silent
spreaders" account for some proportion of infections in other people, the
degree of silent transmission is less clear.
A number
of early studies—in some cases affected by limitations that may have led to their proportion of
presymptomatic transmission to be "artifactually inflated"—suggested
that silent transmission accounted for around half of secondary infections, or
even more.
The early
studies led public health authorities to argue that everyone should wear a mask
at all times when out in public or crowded places. This, in turn, helped drive
draconian universal masking policies, including in schools, in a bid to reduce
the spread of COVID-19.
For instance,
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID), initially discouraged universal mask-wearing early
in the pandemic but later did a U-turn.
Initially, “we
didn’t realize the extent of asymptotic spread," Dr. Fauci said in July 2020, adding that later, "we
fully realized that there are a lot of people who are asymptomatic who are spreading
infection."
"So it
became clear that we absolutely should be wearing masks consistently,” Dr.
Fauci said at the time.
But new
research calls into question the significance of the threat of silent
transmission, which comes as COVID-19 cases are on the rise in America, driving
what some are calling a renewed pandemic "hysteria" and calls for a
fresh round of restrictions, including mask mandates.
The new study,
published in the August issue of The Lancet's Microbe
journal, shows that people who are sick with COVID-19 but don't show any
symptoms have a limited ability to spread the virus to other people.
Participants
in the British study, which was carried out by researchers at Imperial College
London, were unvaccinated healthy adults aged 18-30 who were intentionally
infected with COVID-19.
The subjects
were monitored under controlled circumstances while self-reporting symptoms
three times per day, and researchers collected nose and throat swabs from them
daily, checking for the presence of the virus.
The
researchers also tested the inside of masks worn by the participants, checked
their hands, and examined the air and surfaces of rooms that the subjects were
kept in for a minimum of 14 days.
Ultimately,
the researchers found that less than 10 percent of the viral emissions from
infected participants took place before the first symptoms emerged.
More
People Rarely Transmit COVID-19 Before Experiencing Symptoms: Lancet Study | The Epoch Times
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.
Pursuit
of ultra low-cost perovskite solar with graphene wins government backing
Queensland-based
research efforts to cut the cost of flexible perovskite solar cell production
using lower cost, more abundant alternatives and more efficient manufacturing
methods have won federal government funding, as part of Australia’s renewed
pursuit of ultra low-cost solar.
The research
and development collaboration is made up of Western Australian graphene
supplier First Graphene and Halocell Energy, headquartered out of Wagga Wagga
and Italy, as well as Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
Together, the
three groups were awarded just over $2 million by Australian government through
its Cooperative Research Centres Project (CRC-P) funding stream, which will
support the R&D project over the next three years.
At the core of
the joint effort is a bid to commercialise ultra low-cost and flexible
perovskite solar cell fabrication techniques using Halocell’s roll-to-roll
(R2R) production process at its Wagga Wagga plant.
Such scalable
fabrication would help meet an anticipated 31% compound annual growth rate in
the perovskite solar cell market, according to First Graphene, a market which
is estimated to be valued at $US7.38 billion by the end of this decade.
“Thin Film
Solar technology is the future of ultra low-cost manufacturing in Australia, as
recognised by federal government’s critical technologies list,” said Paul
Moonie, CEO of Halocell Energry.
----Also among the priorities for the
project is First Graphene’s development of cost-effective graphene-based
electrode replacements for high-cost conductor materials used in cell
production such as gold and silver.
According to
First Graphene, solar cells made with alternative carbon-based materials have
been found to outperform conventional silicon cells in low and artificial light
conditions, such as indoor environments.
Halocell
Energy is amongst those who have proved the potential of carbon-based
materials, having used graphene for electrode materials in its perovskite cells
and increased efficiency by up to 38% and reduced production cost by over 83%.
More
Pursuit of ultra low-cost perovskite solar with graphene wins government backing | RenewEconomy
The
whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man
who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his
success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has
made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation,
the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any
circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or
that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness,
incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity.
Henry Hazlitt.
Henry had never met Tino, Marc, Pinky, and Mr. Copper.
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