Baltic
Dry Index. 1796 +01 Brent
Crude 82.12
Spot
Gold 2334 U S 2 Year Yield 4.93 +0.02
In
the run up to the UK General Election on July 4, the LIR will play its part.
Q. What's the difference between a politician and a flying pig?
A.
The letter "F".
In the US stock
casinos, with Nvidia and AI hype, NASDAQ closed the week at a new closing high.
Is “the stock market for the next hundred years” late 1990s PR hype back?
Away from the AI and technology mania, more stocks suffered
from a growing perception that the US central bank may not begin cutting their
key interest rate until September at the earliest, though a September cut might
look like US election interference in favour of President Biden Joe
Biden.
In the non casino gambling
world, welcome to the Monaco Grand Prix and Indy 500 weekend. Not an EV racer
in sight at either location.
Nasdaq closes Friday at record high as Nvidia and the AI
trade rallies on
UPDATED FRI, MAY 24 2024 4:20 PM EDT
The Nasdaq
closed Friday at a fresh record high as gains in chipmaker Nvidia outweighed
worries that the Federal Reserve will delay interest rate cuts.
The S&P 500 rose
0.7%, closing at 5,304.72, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced
1.1%, ending at 16,920.79. The Dow Jones
Industrial Average edged
up 4.3 points, or 0.01%, to finish at 39,069.59.
Week to date, the S&P 500
inched up just 0.03%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq outperformed, with a gain of 1.41%.
Meanwhile, the Dow shed 2.33%, marking its first negative week in five.
Nvidia shares
climbed around 2.6% Friday as enthusiasm continued over its blockbuster
earnings report, pushing the shares above $1,000 for the first time. The
bullish sentiment on the AI giant and other tech names powered the market
higher, even as concerns the Fed will not lower rates this summer lingered.
After several strong economic and
labor data releases this week, Goldman pushed its forecast for the Fed’s first
rate cut back to September from July.
“Inflation is likely to be much
improved by September, but hardly perfect, and still at a year-on-year rate
that makes cutting a less than obvious decision,” wrote Goldman economist David
Mericle.
Traders are now pricing in less
than a 50% chance the central bank will cut rates at its September meeting,
according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
Several tech names were higher on
Friday. Advanced Micro
Devices and Intel rose
3.7% and 2.1%, respectively. Meta and Netflix shares
also rallied 2.7% and 1.7% each. Their performance helped Nasdaq log its
eleventh record close of the year.
Stock
market news for May 24, 2024 (cnbc.com)
European stocks close lower as interest rate outlook
weighs on sentiment; Ocado up 6%
UPDATED FRI, MAY 24 2024 11:46 AM EDT
European
markets closed lower on Friday, mirroring a global trend as the U.S. interest
rate outlook weighed on sentiment.
The regional Stoxx 600 index
was down by 0.17%, trimming some losses into the close. Most sectors finished
in the red as utilities led losses for a second day, down 1.2%, while retail
stocks rose 0.3%.
The pan-European benchmark closed
down 0.26% for the week.
Wall Street’s Dow Jones Industrial Average had
its worst session in more than a year on Thursday, after the
minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting and strong U.S.
economic data reinforced a “higher for longer” narrative stateside. On Friday, U.S.
stocks ticked higher at the end of a choppy week.
While the European Central Bank
still looks on track to begin cutting interest rates in June, the Bank of
England’s own course was thrown further into doubt this week by hotter-than-expected inflation
figures.
European markets open to close: FTSE 100, DAX, CAC 40 (cnbc.com)
Finally, more on so
you really, really, really, want an EV. Well maybe not an EV fire engine. Would
you mind if we put out the fire in four hours after we recharge the battery?
About those
'all electric' 'zero emissions' fire trucks, they have diesel engines
May 23, 2024
(The Center Square) – When
Albuquerque announced plans to acquire a new fire engine, New Mexico's governor
lauded the "zero emissions"
technology while a fire department spokesman called it "all electric"
and KRQE 13 gushed
about the "fully electric" fire truck.
San Diego's NBC 7 reported on
what it called that city's first "all electric fire apparatus." When
the electric fire engine debuted in Portland, NBC's KGW 8 quoted
a fire department spokesman lauding the "monumental" "zero
emissions" vehicle.
When an
electric fire truck came to Gilbert, Arizona, FOX 10 quoted the
fire chief saying that "There’s no cancer coming out of the tail pipe and
I say it that way because diesel particulates are a contributor for
cancers."
Viewers could be forgiven for
thinking that the new fire trucks were all electric and zero emissions. They'd
be wrong. All the fire trucks also have a diesel engine and a tailpipe releases
those "cancer-causing particulates."
When the first Pierce
Volterra Electric Fire Truck rolled out in Madison, Wisconsin, the vehicle was
repeatedly called "all electric" or "zero emissions." You
had to listen 8 minutes into the presentation to get to the part where a fire
chief admits there's an internal combustion engine for pumping water on a fire.
Perhaps
journalists and fire department spokespeople were misled by Pierce
Manufacturing's web site ,which reads in bold headline type: "Zero
Emissions. Zero compromises."
Critics say it is because electric engines are being hyped beyond what
they can deliver. "As we’ve seen time and time again, electric engines are
not up to the powering a simple road trip, much less taking on a role as
critical as public safety," said Larry Behrens, Communications Director
for Power The Future. "The fact this over-hyped fire truck has a diesel
engine is proof they know it needs power that won’t run out."
The new fire trucks come with a hefty price tag – 40% to 50% more than a
comparable diesel fire truck. For example, the New Mexico hybrid fire truck
that has been ordered costs the local government $1.8 million with $400,000
coming from a federal grant.
More
About
those 'all electric' 'zero emissions' fire trucks, they have diesel engines
(msn.com)
US safety probe into Waymo self-driving vehicles finds more
incidents
By David Shepardson May 24, 2024 4:35 PM GMT+1
WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters)
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday it has learned
of nine additional incidents that raise concerns about the performance of
Alphabet's Waymo (GOOGL.O)self-driving vehicles.
Earlier this month, the U.S. auto safety regulator opened an investigation after
22 reports of its robotaxis exhibiting driving behavior that potentially
violated traffic safety laws, or demonstrating other "unexpected
behavior," including 17 collisions.
In a letter to Waymo released Friday, NHTSA said it
has learned of 9 additional similar incidents.
The agency said several incidents under
investigation "involved collisions with clearly visible objects that a
competent driver would be expected to avoid."
NHTSA
said "reports include collisions with stationary and semi-stationary
objects such as gates and chains, collisions with parked vehicles, and
instances in which the (automated driving system) appeared to disobey traffic
safety control devices or rules."
The agency asked Waymo to answer a series of
questions by June 11 about the incidents and provide video for all of the
incidents.
Waymo, which did not immediately comment Friday,
earlier this month did not address specific safety incidents cited by NHTSA but
said it was "proud of our performance and safety record over tens of
millions of autonomous miles driven."
NHTSA said it is concerned that Waymo self-driving
vehicles "exhibiting such unexpected driving behaviors may increase the
risk of crash, property damage, and injury" and added that a number of
incidents occurred "in the proximity of other road users, including
pedestrians."
The
investigation is the first stage before the agency could demand a recall if it
believes the vehicles pose an unreasonable risk to safety.
More
US
safety probe into Waymo self-driving vehicles finds more incidents | Reuters
Global
Inflation/Stagflation/Recession Watch.
Given our Magic Money
Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians, inflation/recession now needs an entire
section of its own.
Is
electricity price rationing our future thanks to Generative AI?
Electricity grids creak as AI demands soar
21
May 2024
There’s a big problem with
generative AI, says Sasha Luccioni at Hugging Face, a machine-learning company.
Generative AI is an energy hog.
“Every time you query the model,
the whole thing gets activated, so it’s wildly inefficient from a computational
perspective,” she says.
Take the Large Language Models
(LLMs) at the heart of many Generative AI systems. They have been trained on
vast stores of written information, which helps them to churn out text in
response to practically any query.
“When you use Generative AI…
it’s generating content from scratch, it’s essentially making up answers,” Dr
Luccioni explains. That means the computer has to work pretty hard.
A Generative AI
system might use around 33 times more energy than machines running
task-specific software, according to a recent study, external by Dr Luccioni and colleagues. The work
has been peer-reviewed but is yet to be published in a journal.
It’s not your personal
computer that uses all this energy, though. Or your smartphone. The
computations we increasingly rely on happen in giant data centres that are, for
most people, out of sight and out of mind.
“The cloud,” says Dr Luccioni.
“You don’t think about these huge boxes of metal that heat up and use so much
energy.”
The world’s
data centres are using ever more electricity, external. In 2022, they gobbled up 460 terawatt hours
of electricity, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects, external this to double in just four years. Data
centres could be using a total of 1,000 terawatts hours annually by 2026. “This
demand is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan,” says the
IEA. Japan has a population of 125 million people.
At data centres, huge volumes
of information are stored for retrieval anywhere in the world – everything from
your emails to Hollywood movies. The computers in those faceless buildings also
power AI and cryptocurrency. They underpin life as we know it.
But some
countries know all too well how energy hungry these facilities are. There is
currently a moratorium preventing the construction of new data centres, external in Dublin. Nearly a fifth of Ireland’s
electricity is used up by data centres, and this figure is expected to grow
significantly in the next few years – meanwhile Irish households are reducing their consumption, external.
The boss of
National Grid said in a speech in March that data centre electricity demand in
the UK will rise six-fold in just 10 years, fuelled largely by the rise of AI. National
Grid expects that the energy required for electrifying transport and heat will
be much larger in total, however.
Utilities firms in the US are
beginning to feel the pressure, says Chris Seiple at Wood Mackenzie, a
consultancy.
“They’re
getting hit with data centre demands at the exact same time as we have a
renaissance taking place – thanks to government policy – in domestic
manufacturing,” he explains. Lawmakers in some states are now rethinking tax
breaks offered to data centre developers because of the sheer strain these
facilities are putting on local energy infrastructure, according to reports in the US, external.
Mr Seiple says there is a
“land grab” going on for data centre locations near to power stations or
renewable energy hubs: “Iowa is a hotbed of data centre development, there’s a
lot of wind generation there.”
More, much more.
Electricity grids creak as AI demands soar - BBC News
Covid-19
Corner
This section will
continue until it becomes unneeded.
This holiday weekend, something different.
MAY 20, 2024
Four Important Questions About Bird Flu, Answered
The
virus has killed tens of millions of birds and infected hundreds of species of
animals, including dairy cattle in the United States. Here’s what you should
know about it
Over the past few years, avian influenza has
touched almost every corner of the planet. Since 2021, outbreaks have impacted
at least 320 species from 21 different orders, most of which are water
birds. Tens of millions of poultry in dozens of countries around the world have died
either from the disease itself or from preventative culling. The viral
infection has also been spreading to mammals—and was detected in dairy cows in the U.S. for the first
time in late March.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has
determined that milk and other dairy products from cows are safe to consume, since the pasteurization process seems to inactivate the
virus. But genomic data suggests that bird flu has been spreading in cows for
months, multiple outlets reported at the end of April. The finding suggests
that infections are more widespread in the animals than previously known.
Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says
that the current
health risk to the general public remains low. But with so many
headlines about bird flu recently, we reached out to avian influenza experts
and scoured the news to provide you with up-to-date answers on four key
questions.
Researchers have been tracking bird flu since
the late 19th century. The first recorded outbreak in U.S. poultry occurred in
the 1920s, and outbreaks have periodically cropped up in the decades
since. A million birds died in a 1968 pandemic. The H5N1 strain, which has spread widely in animals in
recent years and was recently detected in cows, was first identified in 1996 in domestic waterfowl in southern China.
Over the last several years, the virus’ footprint
has expanded. “Prior to 2020, this virus was largely restricted to Europe, Asia
and Africa,” Michelle Wille, who studies avian influenza in wild birds at the
University of Melbourne in Australia, writes via email. Since then, the virus
has entered North America at least three different times and spread to South
America, the sub-Antarctic and the Antarctic, she says.
More, much, much more.
Four Important
Questions About Bird Flu, Answered | Smithsonian (smithsonianmag.com)
Technology Update.
With events happening
fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section.
This
weekend something different. Improving global shipping emissions and getting cost
savings in addition.
Ridiculously
simple idea cuts cargo ship emissions by 17.3% in first trials
Loz Blain May 22, 2024
That's
without any modification to the ships themselves, too. The ambitious 'Blue
Visby Solution' proposes enormous fuel and emissions savings for cargo ships
worldwide, simply by being smarter about speed and timing and eliminating
inefficiencies.
Shipping is an extremely
efficient way to move bulk goods around the planet, but it's responsible for
around 3% of global man-made carbon emissions, and the unique energy
requirements of long-haul cargo ships make them extremely difficult to
decarbonize.
There are
all manner of technological solutions in the pipeline: hydrogen, green ammonia and methanol powerplants, flettner rotors, heaving oscillators... There's even been a return to giant sail-wings, as well as giant autonomous kites designed to pull ships along and save fuel.
But that's what makes the Blue Visby Solution so
fascinating; you don't have to alter the ships at all. You just pilot them differently.
Currently, according to the Blue Visby team, most
cargo ships follow an operational practice known as "sail fast, then
wait" (SFTW). That is, they go as quickly as they can from port A to port
B, regardless of what the schedule's looking like at their destination. When
they get there, they sit still and wait at idle, continuing to burn fuel, until
it's time for them to dock and load/unload their cargo.
The Blue Visby Solution requires considerable
connectivity, co-ordination and participation, from lots of different
stakeholders, on a global scale – but where the rubber meets the road, it's
incredibly simple. It simply tells the ships to slow down, so they arrive at
port right on time.
Pushing all that bulk through the water at a slower
speed cuts down hugely on hydrodynamic drag, so the engines burn considerably
less fuel, with a corresponding drop in emissions. And the cargo delivery speed
is totally unaffected; the ships still load and unload at exactly the same
times.
How much of
an efficiency gain are we talking here? The Blue Visby team studied the
movements of 3,651 Panamax vessels taking 20,580 trips in 2022, and estimated
these timing tweaks could cut emissions by a median rate of 23.2% without
affecting customer outcomes.
----Now, the first sea trials are complete. Two bulk
carriers, the M/V Gerdt Oldendorff and the M/V Begonia, deployed "all
components of the Blue Visby Solution" including software, technical and
operational systems, on voyages to Australia. The former recorded an estimated
CO2 reduction of 28.2% against its standard SFTW speeds. The latter managed
12.9%, for an average of 17.3%.
That's a considerably larger
affect than you'd get out of some of these huge sail systems, without modifying
the ship at all. And from a scheduling tweak!
These initial results are
incredibly promising, but eliminating SFTW thinking from the global shipping
trade is no small task; according to Marine Log it's a practice that dates back to the age of sail. It's
embedded in hard-fought, long-term contracts between shipping companies,
customers, ports, dockworkers and all the many dependent services that plug
into global logistics, sometimes with incentives.
More
Ridiculously simple idea cuts cargo ship emissions by
17.3% in first trials (newatlas.com)
Next, our
latest new section, the world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World
Debt Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
This
weekend’s music diversion. Vivaldi season in major keys. Vivaldi at his best. Approx.
14 minutes.
VIVALDI
| Suonata à Violino, Oboè, et Organo obligati | RV 779 in C major | 1708 manuscript
This
weekend’s chess update. Approx. 13 minutes.
100
Year Old Trick!
This
weekend’s final two YouTube EV diversions.
Both approx. 8 minutes.
EV
Market LAYOFFS Are Here! Thousands LOSING Their Job!
EV Market LAYOFFS Are Here! Thousands LOSING Their
Job! - YouTube
Chinese
EV Problems With Safety Are So HUGE That They Can't Be CENSORED Anymore!
Chinese EV Problems With Safety Are So HUGE That They
Can't Be CENSORED Anymore! (youtube.com)
A visiting constituent parked their car in London outside Parliament.
"You
can't park here, sir" said a Policeman Policeperson. "This is
where our politicians work."
"Don't
worry, I've locked it.” The smart constituent replied.
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