Baltic Dry Index. 1995 -114 Brent Crude 73.00
Spot Gold 3296 US 2 Year Yield 3.94 +0.08
US Federal Debt. 37.171 trillion
US GDP 30.170 trillion.
Creditors have better memories than debtors.
Benjamin Franklin
It is the last day of July, Trump tariff madness starts tomorrow for much of the rest of the world. Already Trump Tariff Madness has slowed the US and global economy. But we haven’t seen anything yet.
Just wait until rising unemployment turns much of the world anti-American.
Just wait until the global economy starts contracting.
Just wait until the global stock casinos start crashing back to earth from the exosphere.
Look away from that US Federal Debt to US GDP ratio now.
Asia-Pacific markets trade mixed as investors
assess BOJ rate decision and fresh tariffs on India, South Korea
Updated Thu, Jul 31 2025 11:14 PM EDT
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Thursday
as investors assessed the Bank of Japan’s decision to stand pat on short-term
interest rates at 0.5% for the fourth consecutive time, in line with
expectations.
Investors are also evaluating the U.S.′
blanket 15% tariffs on imports from South Korea and 25%
duties on imports from India, along with an unspecified “penalty.”
South Korean auto stocks fall after Trump
slashes duties to 15%
South Korean auto stocks plunged Thursday
after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed
a blanket 15% tariff on imports from the country including autos,
which he had threatened with a 25% tariff earlier.
The Asian country’s Kia Corp was trading
5.25% lower, while Hyundai Motor fell 3.48% as of 10.53 a.m. local time (9.53
p.m. ET Wednesday).
— Amala Balakrishner
Chinese and Hong Kong stocks fall in early
trade
Chinese and Hong Kong stocks started the
day lower Thursday, following mixed trading in the other key Asia-Pacific
markets.
As of 9.39 a.m. local time (9.39 p.m. ET
Wednesday), the Hang Seng
Index fell 0.91%, while mainland’s CSI 300 was flat.
— Amala Balakrishner
Asia
stock markets today: live updates
S&P 500 futures rise after Meta and Microsoft
post quarterly beats: Live updates
Updated Thu, Jul 31 2025 12:30 AM EDT
S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures
rose on Thursday morning following solid earnings reports from tech giants
Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
S&P 500 futures jumped
0.94%, and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed
1.34%. Futures tied to the
Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 132 points, or 0.3%.
“Magnificent Seven” titans Microsoft and Meta respectively rose about
8% and 11% in extended trading on the back of better-than-expected quarterly earnings.
Software giant Microsoft said that annual revenue from its cloud computing
service Azure exceeded $75 billion. Meta issued an upbeat third-quarter sales
outlook, surpassing the Street’s estimates.
On Wednesday evening, President Donald
Trump also announced that the U.S. had reached
a trade deal with South Korea, setting tariffs at 15%. That’s lower
than the 25% rate Trump had threatened
in a letter to Seoul earlier this month. The announcement arrives just
ahead of Friday’s
big tariff deadline.
In regular trading Wednesday, the S&P 500 closed lower
after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the U.S. central bank
is still not ready to cut interest rates. The broad market index shed 0.12%,
while the Dow Jones Industrial
Average lost 171.71 points, or 0.38%. The Nasdaq Composite, on the other
hand, notched a 0.15% gain.
While the Federal Reserve left
its benchmark overnight policy rate steady at its July meeting, not
all members agreed with the decision. Fed governors Michelle Bowman and
Christopher Waller dissented with
the call to keep the key interest rate at a range of 4.25% to 4.50%. When asked
about a potential policy change in September, Powell said that the Fed has
“made no decisions.”
Ross Mayfield, investment analyst at
Baird, said that Wednesday’s losses made sense given the market’s currently
“stretched” valuations. The S&P 500′s decline marked its second day of
losses following a streak of six record closes in a row.
“There’s a lot of good news priced in, so
I think little things on the margin can have a bigger impact when you’ve had
such a run, like slightly hawkish comments in the FOMC presser,” Mayfield said
to CNBC. “Sentiment has shifted back to a pretty bullish tenor, and I think the
market needs to consolidate and take a breather, and it’ll grab on to whatever
it needs to as an excuse.”
On Thursday, traders will watch out for
June’s personal consumption expenditures price index reading, the Fed’s
preferred inflation gauge. Economists polled by Dow Jones see headline PCE
rising 2.5% on a 12-month basis and 0.3% from the prior month. Weekly jobless
claims are also due.
Comcast, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cigna, CVS Health, Shake Shack, AbbVie and Mastercard are among the
companies set to report earnings before Thursday’s opening bell. Results
from Apple and Amazon are on deck for the
afternoon.
Stock
market today: Live updates
U.S. and China Buy More Time With Another 90-Day
Tariff Truce Extension
By Zeng Jia Published: Jul. 30, 2025 1:37
p.m. GMT+8
The U.S. and China have agreed to extend a
truce in their long-running trade conflict for another 90 days following
high-level talks in Stockholm, Sweden this week.
The agreement, reached during two days of
negotiations that concluded Tuesday, provides temporary stability in the
fraught economic relationship between the world’s two largest economies. For
businesses and global markets, the deal signals that both Washington and
Beijing are, for now, prioritizing dialogue over the immediate re-escalation of
a trade war that has disrupted supply chains and roiled markets since it began
during President Donald Trump’s first term.
More, subscription required.
U.S.
and China Buy More Time With Another 90-Day Tariff Truce Extension
Trump slaps 25 per cent tariffs on India over ties
with Russia
Updated: Wednesday 30
July 2025 2:19 pm
President Donald Trump has vowed to slap
India with 25 per cent tariffs on imports from India, with an extra unspecified
“penalty” to be introduced, in an attack on its trade with Russia and
“obnoxious” rules and standards.
Ahead of a Friday deadline for
“reciprocal” tariffs, Trump revealed Indian exports would be subjected
to higher taxes.
In a post on Truth Social, the US
president said: “Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years,
done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too
high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and
obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country.
“Also, they have always bought a vast
majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest
buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP
THE KILLING IN UKRAINE — ALL THINGS NOT GOOD! INDIA WILL THEREFORE BE PAYING A
TARIFF OF 25%, PLUS A PENALTY FOR THE ABOVE, STARTING ON AUGUST FIRST.”
Several countries including Canada and
South Africa are set to face varying levels of higher tariffs from this
Friday.
Brazil is set to face the highest tariffs
at 50 per cent while other countries have dodged a heightened trade war by
securing deals.
The UK was the first country to agree to
lower tariffs but an agreement on steel is yet to be made.
The European Union agreed to facing 15 per cent tariffs
while China saw its tariff rate drop from 145 per cent to 30 per cent, while
imposing 10 per cent tariffs of its own on US imports.
Trump has insisted he would not extend the
deadline on the introduction of reciprocal tariffs again, with his latest
attack on India setting the scene for a tense week of hard negotiations and
wrangling over tariff rates.
Trump’s tariff effects
The IMF upgraded its global growth forecast in reaction to
recent trade deals struck by the US president and major economies.
A global risk survey by Oxford Economics
suggested businesses saw geopolitical tensions as a greater threat to the world
economy than a trade war.
“Business uncertainty about global growth
prospects appears relatively contained, in contrast with the substantial rise
in uncertainty seen in the pandemic and in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine,” economists at the consultancy said.
Trump
to slap 25 per cent tariffs on India
US First-Half Growth Comes in Slower Than 2024
July 30, 2025 at 10:27 PM GMT+1
US economic growth slowed through the
first half of the year as consumers reduced spending and companies sought to
inoculate themselves from the Trump administration’s frequent and unpredictable
shifts in trade policy.
Inflation-adjusted gross domestic
product, which measures the value of goods and services produced in the US,
increased an annualized 3% in the second quarter, according to the US
government. But as solid as the pace was, economic growth averaged 1.25% in the
first half, a
full percentage point below the pace for 2024.
Because swings in trade and
inventories have
distorted overall GDP this year, economists are paying closer attention
to final sales to private domestic purchasers, a narrower metric of
demand. This measure rose at a 1.2% pace in the second quarter, the
slowest since the end of 2022.
“The trend of cooling demand is very clear
over the past two quarters, and growth now appears to be slipping below its
longer-term potential pace,” Scott Anderson, chief US economist at BMO
Capital Markets, said in a note. “We believe this will soon give the
[Federal Open Market Committee] the room to start cutting interest rates again
before too long.” —David
E. Rovella
Maybe not too long, but definitely not
today.
Despite months of public pressure, threats and all-caps social media attacks
from Donald Trump, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said interest
rates are in the right place to manage continued uncertainty around tariffs and
inflation as
the central bank kept rates steady.
“There are many, many uncertainties left
to resolve,” Powell said Wednesday following the central bank’s decision to
keep rates unchanged. “It doesn’t feel like we are very close to the end of
that process.”
The FOMC voted 9-2 to hold its
benchmark federal funds rate in a range of 4.25%-4.5%, as they have at each of
their meetings this year. Governors Christopher
Waller and Michelle Bowman—both Trump appointees—voted against the
decision in favor of a quarter-point cut.
The slowing economy was a big reason
for the continued caution. Meanwhile the US president’s desire for rate
cuts and his public musings about firing Powell, likely an illegal move that
would trigger litigation, has already unmoored
global confidence in the future independence of the Fed.
Trump is making new threats in his trade
war (and
backing off some, too). He now promises a 25% tariff on India’s
exports to the US starting Aug. 1 while threatening an additional
penalty over the country’s energy purchases from Russia.
Trump, 79, claimed Tuesday in a social
media post that India has tariffs that are “among the highest” in the world.
The Republican however has repeatedly threatened tariffs and then backed down,
ostensibly as party of a negotiating strategy. Plus the
overall legality of Trump’s global trade war is the subject of
litigation before the US Court of Appeals in Washington.
For its part, India had been among the
first to engage Washington in talks, following Narendra
Modi’s high-profile White House visit in February. India and the US
had already finalized terms
of reference for a bilateral trade accord in April, with both sides
committing to a fall deadline. Before Trump’s latest statement, officials in
New Delhi had said they would continue negotiating
with the US on the earlier framework. Now
that may be up in the air.
Copper prices collapsed Wednesday by more than
19% in just minutes after Trump retreated from his broad-based threat to impose
tariffs on copper. He instead sought to exclude the most widely imported
form of the metal from his threatened levies.
US copper futures on Comex plunged after
the announcement in the
largest intraday fall on record. Until Wednesday afternoon, US copper
prices had been trading around 28% above benchmark copper futures on the London
Metal Exchange, as traders anticipated the tariff would be applied to all
refined metal imports.
The decision is the latest surprise from
Trump to upend the copper market. When he first flagged the likelihood of
tariffs early this year, he triggered a surge in US copper prices relative to
the rest of the world and set off a race to ship copper to the US to beat any
tariffs. That delivered
substantial profits to some of the world’s biggest metals traders.
US
First-Half Growth Comes in a Point Lower Than 2024: Evening Briefing -
Bloomberg
HSBC announces $3 billion share buyback after
second-quarter profit misses estimates
Published Wed, Jul 30 2025 12:10 AM EDT
Europe’s largest lender HSBC on Wednesday
missed second-quarter profit expectations, mostly on account of impairment
charges related to a Chinese bank and loss of income from businesses it
disposed in the first half of 2024.
HSBC, which reported profit before tax for
the three months ended June of $6.3 billion — down 29% from a year ago —
announced a share buyback of $3 billion.
Here are HSBC’s second-quarter 2025
results compared with consensus estimates compiled
by the bank.
- Profit
before tax: $6.3
billion vs. $6.99 billion
- Revenue: $16.5
billion vs. $16.67 billion
Operating expenses rose by 10% compared to
the same period a year ago, and were largely owed to restructuring and other
related costs as well as from increased spending and investment in technology,
the bank said.
Hong Kong-listed shares of HSBC declined
2.71%.
HSBC Group CEO Georges Elhedery flagged
“structural challenges” to the global economy that have caused uncertainty and
market volatility, citing “broad-based tariffs” and “fiscal vulnerabilities.”
“This is complicating the inflation and
interest rate outlook creating greater uncertainty. Even before tariffs take
effect, trade disruptions are reshaping the economic landscape,” Elhedery said.
The bank said it was “well-positioned” to
manage the uncertainty, including tariffs, although its return on tangible
equity — a measure of generating profits — could be hit.
“While we would expect the direct impact
from tariffs to have a relatively modest impact on our revenue, the broader
macroeconomic deterioration may see RoTE excluding notable items fall outside
of our mid-teens targeted range in future years,” the bank’s statement read.
HSBC warned that demand for lending would
remain muted for the rest of the year, while forecasting further growth in its
wealth division.
“We continue to expect double-digit
percentage average annual growth in fee and other income in Wealth over the
medium term,” the bank said.
HSBC is planning to terminate several
employees in its equities team in its Germany office, as part of a
broader effort to scale back its investment banking operations outside of Asia
and the Middle East, Bloomberg reported last week.
More
HSBC announces $3
billion share buyback after second-quarter profit plunges 29%
In other news.
European economy sees growth of only 0.1% as
scramble to get ahead of US tariffs goes into reverse
30 July 2025
Europe's economy barely grew in the
April-June quarter as frantic earlier efforts to ship goods ahead of new U.S.
tariffs went into reverse and output fell for the continent's biggest economy,
Germany.
Gross domestic product grew an anemic 0.1%
compared to the previous quarter in the 20 countries that use the euro
currency, the EU statistics agency Eurostat reported
Wednesday. Growth was 1.4% over the same quarter a year ago.
And prospects are mediocre for the coming
months, given the 15% tariff, or import tax, imposed on European goods in the
U.S. under the EU-U.S. trade deal announced Sunday. The higher tariff will
burden European exports with higher costs to either be passed on to U.S.
consumers or swallowed in the form of lower profits.
The economy sagged after stronger than
expected 0.6% growth in the first quarter, a figure inflated by companies
trying to move product ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's additional
tariff onslaught that was announced April 2, two days after the first quarter
ended.
Output fell 0.1% in Germany and Italy,
while growth of 0.3% in France was boosted
by a rise in auto and aircraft inventories while domestic demand was otherwise
stagnant. That left Spain as the only strong performer among the four largest
eurozone economies at 0.7%
“With the 15% U.S. universal tariff likely
to subtract around 0.2% from the region’s GDP, growth is likely to remain weak
in the rest of this year,” said Franziska Palmas, senior Europe economist at
Capital Economics.
Germany's economy remains roughly the same
size as it was before the pandemic six years ago, as its export-dominated
business sector struggles with multiple issues including stronger competition
from China, a lack of skilled workers, higher energy prices, lagging
infrastructure investment, and burdensome regulation and bureaucracy.
Economist Palmas said that Germany
"is likely to be hit harder than other major economies by tariffs and
continue to struggle this year" before increased government spending from
the new government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, aimed at making
up the infrastructure gap, starts to boost the economy in 2026.
European economy
sees growth of only 0.1% as scramble to get ahead of US tariffs goes into
reverse
Adidas slumps 7% as sportswear giant warns tariffs
to drive up U.S. prices
Published Wed, Jul 30 2025 3:13 AM EDT
Shares of Adidas fell Wednesday after the
German sportswear giant flagged a double-digit million euro hit from U.S.
tariffs in the second quarter and warned that current import levies will push
up the cost of its U.S. goods.
The world’s second-largest sports retailer
said that added costs associated with tariffs could total 200 million euros
($231 million) in the second half of this year.
---- The company also flagged potential risks
to consumer demand should U.S. tariffs set off a surge in inflation.
“We do also not know what the indirect
impact on consumer demand will be should all these tariffs cause major
inflation,” CEO Bjørn Gulden said.
The company nevertheless maintained its
full-year guidance, but noted this could change as it cited “elevated
uncertainty due to U.S. tariffs and macroeconomic risks.”
It currently expects full-year
currency-neutral sales to increase at the high-single digit rate and operating
profit to rise to between 1.7 billion euros and 1.8 billion euros.
It comes as the sports retailer posted an
uptick in second-quarter sales, with the U.S. seeing the softest sales growth.
Revenues rose 2% year-on-year in the three
months to June 30 to 5.95 billion euros, the company said flagging a negative
currency impact of 300 million euros. LSEG analysts had forecast sales of 6.23
billion euros.
Operating profit rose 58% annually in the
quarter 546 million euros versus the 518 million euros forecast.
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.
The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt.
Benjamin Franklin
Companies
from Stanley Black & Decker to Conagra are saying tariffs will cost them
hundreds of millions
Published
Wed, Jul 30 2025 6:51 AM EDT
Companies
behind some of America’s best-known brands are warning that tariffs will raise
costs by hundreds of millions of dollars as Friday’s key deadline nears.
Firms
are gearing up for the long-awaited Friday deadline, when the White House says
it will start imposing higher
import taxes on
foreign countries. Now businesses in a range of industries are saying this
shakeup in global trading practices will cost them.
Tool
maker Stanley Black
& Decker said
Tuesday it expects an $800 million annualized hit from policy changes tied to
tariffs. That doesn’t include costs in connection with steps the company is
taking to mitigate the effects of the levies, according to finance chief
Patrick Hallinan.
For
Marie Callender’s and Slim Jim parent Conagra Brands, higher tariffs
are expected to raise its costs of goods sold by 3%, equivalent to an annual
increase of more than $200 million, CEO Sean Connolly said earlier this month.
Most
of the Chicago-based company’s production is in the U.S., but management says
it still has to contend with steel and aluminum
tariffs that
will raise the cost of packaging.
Tesla, led by President
Trump’s erstwhile ally Elon Musk, said that costs tied to tariffs have
increased by about $300 million. Roughly two-thirds of that is tied to the
electric vehicle maker’s auto business, while the rest is from the energy arm.
“While
we are doing our best to manage these impacts, we are in an unpredictable
environment on the tariff front,” finance chief Vaibhav Taneja told analysts
and investors on Tesla’s earnings call last week.
Those
pressures extend throughout the auto industry. General Motors said
earnings before interest and taxes in the latest quarter suffered a $1.1
billion hit that the Detroit-based automaker chalked up to the net effect of
tariffs.
Air
conditioner maker Carrier Global said Tuesday
that it now expects to spend about $200 million to offset the impact of
tariffs. The same day, appliance maker Whirlpool said North
American sales and earnings were hurt in the second quarter as Asian
competitors rushed to export goods to the U.S. in advance of higher tariffs.
Inflation
focus
U.S.
consumers haven’t yet experienced meaningful bumps to inflation as a result
of higher tariffs. That can be attributed to domestic companies currently
absorbing cost
hikes, but some economists warn that business may soon start passing the
increases on to shoppers after this week’s deadline passes.
As
a result, the “core” version of the consumer price index, which excludes
volatile food and energy prices, should rise at an annual rate of 3.2% in the
third quarter, up from 2.1% in the second quarter, according to Nancy Lazar,
Piper Sandler’s chief global economist.
More
Stanley Black
& Decker, Conagra say tariffs will cost hundreds of millions
Reeves's
tax hikes leave 50,000 firms on the brink as stagflation fears grip Britain
29
July 2025
The
High Street has suffered a tenth consecutive month of decline as higher prices
hit shoppers – fuelling fears Britain is facing a painful period of
stagflation.
In
a bleak update, the CBI said its gauge of how retail sales compared with a year
earlier stood at minus 34 this month as customers baulked at rising living
costs.
Although
that was better than minus 46 seen in June, it was the tenth month of decline
in a row, stretching back to October last year, according to the lobby group’s
figures.
The
slump came as firms battered by the Chancellor’s £25billion National Insurance
tax raid and an increase in the minimum wage pushed up prices – hitting
customers in the pocket.
The
High Street is also grappling with higher business rates following Labour’s
failure to reform the hated levy on shops and other business properties.
The
CBI report sparked fresh concerns over the state of the economy as corporate
restructuring specialist Begbies Traynor warned a record number of companies
are in ‘critical financial distress’.
Its
‘Red Flag Alert’ found there are 49,309 firms on the brink – up 21.4 per cent
on a year ago.
Begbies
said ‘consumer-facing industries continued to experience some of the most
extreme rises in critical financial distress’ and highlighted a 41.7 per
cent rise among bars and restaurants and a 17.8 per cent increase in
general retail.
A
host of household names have been hit, with River Island battling for survival
following the collapse of maternity brand Seraphine and fashion chain Quiz.
It
is feared Rachel Reeves will hammer households and private business again with
another round of tax hikes in the Budget this autumn to pay for Labour’s lavish
spending on the public sector.
The
rising costs faced by business have already pushed up inflation to
3.6 per cent – well above the 2 per cent target – while the economy
has also contracted for two months in a row.
That
has raised the spectre of stagflation – a period of economic stagnation and
inflation that hits living standards and costs jobs.
It
has also cast doubt over how far and fast the Bank of England can cut interest
rates this
year.
The
CBI urged ministers to ‘seek to build shorter-term confidence’ in the
Government’s economic plans and deliver an autumn
Budget ‘that
acknowledges the burden firms are facing’.
Cautioning
over the impact of the new workers’ rights Bill, Martin Sartorius, principal
economist at the CBI, said: ‘Firms reported that elevated price pressures –
driven by rising labour costs – and economic uncertainty continue to weigh on
household demand.’
Reeves's tax hikes
leave 50,000 firms on the brink as stagflation fears grip Britain
Covid-19
Corner
This
section will continue only occasionally when something of interest occurs.
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.
Rust-based battery connects to an electricity grid for the first
time
An iron-air battery in the Netherlands, which can store energy for
100 hours or more to make renewable power sources more consistent, has become
the world’s first “rust” battery to connect with an electricity grid
By Jeremy Hsu 30 July 2025
An iron-air battery that stores and releases energy through a
reversible rusting process has become the first of its kind to connect with a
public electricity grid. On 30 July, the startup Ore Energy announced its
batteries had connected to the grid at The Delft University of Technology in
the Netherlands.
Batteries can help deliver a consistent supply of electricity by
storing renewable energy from solar or wind farms – ensuring that a sudden
change in sunlight or wind doesn’t mean an immediate drop in available
electricity.
“You need to be able to store that excess energy when the wind is
blowing and the sun is shining, to be able to deploy it when you need to during
critical demand periods during the day,” says John-Joseph Marie at
The Faraday Institution, a battery research institute in the UK. “Essentially,
batteries can help to smooth out that power output to make it usable on the
grid.”
Most grid-connected batteries are lithium iron phosphate batteries
manufactured in China. But they typically hold power for just 4 to 6 hours, and
they are prohibitively expensive, says Marie. In contrast, the iron-air
batteries, developed by Netherlands-based Ore Energy, can store power for 100
hours or longer, and they are made from cheap and widely available materials.
“Iron is the most mined metal in the world, it’s incredibly
cheap,” says Marie. “And when you combine that with air, which is literally all
around us and basically free, those are almost the two cheapest components that
you could find.”
The battery system charges and stores energy by using electricity
to convert iron oxides – a form of rust – into metallic iron. The iron can then
discharge or release its stored energy by chemically reacting with oxygen from
the air to form rust again.
“When the battery is discharging, we are actually taking the iron
and turning it into a special type of rust,” says Aytac Yilmaz, CEO
of Ore Energy. “And when we are charging the battery, we are taking the rust
back into iron, and we do this over and over again [while] the battery is
breathing in and out the oxygen from atmospheric air.”
The batteries are stored in standard 12-metre shipping containers
and can hold multiple megawatt-hours of energy storage – with one megawatt-hour
being enough to supply more than a month of electricity to a typical
US home.
Separately, the Massachusetts-based company Form Energy has
several US iron-air battery projects in the works. They are slated for
installation in New England and the Midwest.
In addition to iron and air, such batteries incorporate
water-based electrolytes that are also cheap and abundant – not to mention
greatly reducing the risk of battery fires. “I wouldn’t want to be the one to
say never, but you can’t set fire to water,” says Marie.
But the main goal of the battery technology is to help renewable
power sources replace fossil fuels in electricity grids.
“Energy companies still rely a lot on gas-fired [power]
generation to provide the flexibility needed when wind and solar are not
sufficient,” says Bas Kil, business development
manager at Ore Energy. “But in the long term we will need a different type of
flexibility, and that is where our battery really excels – to provide this
multi-day flexibility.”
Rust-based battery
connects to an electricity grid for the first time | New Scientist
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt
Clocks (usdebtclock.org)
If you
would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
Benjamin
Franklin
