Since 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions have been conducted by at least eight nations. August 29 marks the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The day, declared by the United Nations in 2009, aims to raise awareness of the effects of nuclear weapons testing and achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world. On July 16, 1945, during World War II, the United States detonated the world’s first nuclear weapon, codenamed Trinity, over the New Mexico desert. Less than a month later, the US dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 100,000 people instantly. Thousands more died from their injuries, radiation sickness and cancer in the years that followed, bringing the toll closer to 200,000, according to the US Department of Energy’s history of the Manhattan Project. Nuclear warheads per country
Nine countries possessed roughly 12,700 warheads as of early 2022, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Approximately 90 percent are owned by Russia (5,977 warheads) and the US (5,428 warheads). At its peak in 1986, the two rivals had nearly 65,000 nuclear warheads between them, making the nuclear arms race one of the most threatening events of the Cold War. While Russia and the US have dismantled thousands of warheads, several countries are thought to be increasing their stockpiles, notably China. The only country to voluntarily relinquish nuclear weapons is South Africa. In 1989, the government halted its nuclear weapons programme and in 1990 began dismantling its six nuclear weapons. In 1991, South Africa joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear country.
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2022 FORMULA 1 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CONSTRUCTOR STANDINGS
2022 Formula 1 World Championship Drivers' Standings
The Dutch government announced it will allocate € 60 million ($ 65.4 million), to support the formation of an ecosystem around cellular agriculture. It represents the largest public funding into the cellular agriculture field ever, globally. The funding is awarded under conditions by the National Growth Fund, which aims to create structural economic growth by investing in the public domain to support innovative economic sectors.
We are proud to be part of the consortium that submitted the cellular agriculture growth plan, Cellular Agriculture Netherlands. Together with this group of Dutch entrepreneurs, scientists, academics and food pioneers we are developing a more sustainable food system that makes sure people can eat the food they love, without harming people, the planet or animals. This financial impulse represents a first step towards funding a larger growth plan proposing to invest € 252 – € 382 mln in cellular agriculture, specifically stimulating cellular agriculture education, academic research, publicly accessible scale-up facilities, societal integration (including farmers and consumers) and innovation. The broader growth plan is projected to generate an incremental €10 – €14 billion in Dutch GDP growth per year by 2050, with significant global climate, environmental and health benefits. For example avoiding ~12 Mton CO2-eq. emissions and 100-130 kton ammonia per year in 2050. “We are very excited for the visionary leadership the Dutch government is demonstrating today again,” said Ira van Eelen, on behalf of the Dutch Cellular Agriculture Foundation. “The Netherlands is the ideal place for cellular agriculture to flourish. It has a rich history in laying the global foundations of cellular agriculture. It is a global powerhouse in alternative protein and food innovation. It has a global frontrunner position in biotechnology and agriculture. It is the 2nd biggest exporter of traditional agricultural products in the world. And let’s not forget, it was the first country to publicly fund cultivated meat research and present the first proof of concept hamburger to the world. This is a great way to grow sustainably whilst our growth is currently under pressure.” The Netherlands has a strong history of innovating food production. This public investment in cellular agriculture is a demonstration of the Dutch government’s commitment to building an agricultural ecosystem that is healthy and sustainable. In combination with reforms to traditional farming, cellular agriculture can be an additional tool to satisfy the world’s growing appetite for protein. While individual cellular agriculture companies have been successful in attracting private funding, the Growth Fund financing is explicitly aiming to support the public part of the ecosystem. The expectation is that this impulse will attract more companies, more funding, and more collaboration across the cellular agriculture field in and with The Netherlands over the next few years. This announcement is not changing the process individual companies have to follow to obtain regulatory approval to sell their products, which is the European Novel Foods procedure. “Cultured meat is a fast-growing industry and it’s important to invest and support education and research across all areas from universities to research labs as well as informing the wider population about this dynamic industry. This is an exciting next step in the development of the cellular agriculture ecosystem, supporting this innovative new industry like so many other emerging industries before it, and one that will be beneficial to us all,” concludes Daan Luining CTO & co-founder of Meatable.
FORMULA 1 ROLEX BELGIAN GRAND PRIX 2022 - Race Results
FORMULA 1 ROLEX BELGIAN GRAND PRIX 2022 - Top 10 Qualifying Results
¹ Grid penalty
The political fiction that humans cause most or all climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’, has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’ signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals. There is no climate emergency, say the authors, who are drawn from across the world and led by the Norwegian physics Nobel Prize laureate Professor Ivar Giaever. Climate science is said to have degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. (A full list of the signatories is available here.) Another lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.
Rimac, the Croatian electric hypercar manufacturer, has delivered its first production Nevera to a customer – none other than German-Finnish former Formula 1 driver Nico Rosberg. In a video uploaded to Mr Rosberg’s YouTube channel, we can see this Nevera is blacked-out apart from the shiny aluminium wheels, and is referred to as ‘#001’. Technically there is an earlier Nevera production model referred to a ‘#000’ that’s finished in a Callisto Green exterior paint and will remain in the possession of Bugatti Rimac as demonstrator and marketing car. As previously detailed, Rimac only intends to produce 150 examples of the Nevera in total and they’re already sold out. Each example will be tested and signed off by company founder Mate Rimac before final delivery. When there were still examples of the Rimac Nevera available to purchase, prices started from €2 million ($A2.94 million). At this stage, Rimac has indicated it will ramp up production of the hand-built Nevera to up to 50 units per year. Powered by a quad-electric motor setup, the Rimac Nevera produces an other-worldly 1427kW of power and 2360Nm of torque. This is mated to a 120kWh lithium-manganese-nickel battery, designed in-house by Rimac, that’s positioned along the car’s centre tunnel. The Croatian hypercar manufacturer claims the Nevera can do the 0-100km/h sprint in an insane 1.85 seconds and has a top speed of 412km/h. It also claims the Nevera has a range of 547km according to WLTP testing. During the YouTube video, Mr Rimac said that there are 14 cameras around the Nevera so it can record footage itself without the need for mounting GoPros. The footage can apparently be viewed and downloaded from a companion phone app. In addition, Mr Rimac said the company is still working on an autonomous track driving feature that will come in a future software update. Mr Rimac said the feature is currently still in development, but is now just as fast around as the company’s test drivers. The Bugatti Rimac CEO also repeated some previously-reported statements about the next Bugatti hypercar, saying it will have a “very interesting internal-combustion engine” and be “heavily electrified”. Mr Rimac also said the Chiron successor is going to be the “opposite of what you expect”, and Mr Rosberg alluded to it being similar to the Mercedes-AMG One in a short, off-the-cuff remark. In addition to developing and now producing the Nevera, Rimac Group, which encompasses the Bugatti Rimac joint venture and the Rimac Technology electric vehicle (EV) division, is currently in the process of constructing its new €200 million ($A293.95 million) headquarters in Zagreb, Croatia.
Dubbed the Rimac Campus, it’ll serve as the company’s international research and development (R&D) and production base for all future Rimac products, including the current Nevera and its key components. The company has broken ground and the headquarters should be completed in 2023. The decision to remove Tesla from the S&P 500 ESG Index earlier this year seems out of tune with the thinking of many. The world’s largest maker of electric cars is a crucial enabler of a shift away from fossil fuels, yet S&P Dow Jones Indices excluded Tesla from the benchmark index over, among other factors, the company’s labour rights record and lack of a low carbon strategy.
Tesla board member Hiromichi Mizuno, a Japanese champion of sustainable investment, said that current ESG ratings give too much weight to negative impacts and not enough to positive. There may be some truth here, but it is also clear that a single, data-driven ESG index cannot be everything at once. At a minimum, there should be two distinct ratings: one to reflect a company’s positive impacts and another its negative externalities. Attempting to capture both in one score dilutes the informational value of the final rating: the positives and negatives inevitably cancel each other out, resulting in a rating that fails to represent either and can’t be relied upon to guide capital allocation decisions. One option is to focus the ESG (environmental, social and governance) rating on the negative externalities while using the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDG) framework to assess which business activities are critical to addressing challenges like climate change. Tesla, for example, would have a high SDG score because its revenue comes from selling electric vehicles and other green tech products, which are important in the push to reach net zero carbon emissions. If an investor’s goal is to allocate capital for climate solutions, then the SDG rating should be the driver. If the goal is to invest in companies that behave in an environmentally and socially responsible manner, then the ESG rating should dominate. In practice, the two could be used together. There are technical reasons current ESG ratings don’t fully capture a company’s level of sustainability. One reason is that ratings providers often combine varying environmental, social and governance scores into a headline rating. This approach works better the closer it gets to either end of ESG spectrum. For example, a very high ESG rating usually indicates that a company is performing well across all three pillars. For most companies that fall in the middle, however, the headline ESG rating could be misleading. A company with poor environmental practices could still be included if its environmental score is sufficiently smoothed out by an above-average performance in social and governance terms. This explains why fossil fuel companies with little interest in the energy transition may have an unexpectedly high ESG score, even as a company like Tesla falls down the rankings – and why investors need to pay close attention to ESG fund holdings. It also matters whether companies are scored on a relative or absolute basis. In this scenario, a company that performs poorly on ESG on an absolute basis could get a top rating because its peers are doing even worse. At a portfolio level, such an approach can be meaningless. A portfolio of best-in-class coal mining companies, for example, could appear to be doing better on ESG than one of average finance companies. Renewables are projected to increase from its current 12% of the global energy supply to 90% in 2050. Yet the widespread use of renewables is challenged by the intermittency of solar and wind, and we’re not yet at a place where we can store enough energy to avoid these problems. As renewable energy supply increases around the world, so to is the demand for grid-scale energy storage. It has been projected that the combined global stationary and transportation annual energy storage market will increase from today’s baseline of around 600 GWh by a factor of four by 2030 to more than 2,500 GWh. Today, global energy storage capacity is dominated by gravity-based pumped hydro (90%), followed by lithium, lead and zinc batteries (5%), with the remaining capacity alloted to thermal and flow batteries, compressed air, flywheels, and other gravity-based mechanical systems.
Gravity energy storage Two ASN articles in 2019 about some exciting new developments in storing renewable energy as gravitational potential energy by lifting and lowering heavy objects (Gigawatt Electricity Storage Using Water and Rocks and Climate Change Will Require Heavy Lifting). At the time, a Swiss private company founded in 2017 that caught my attention was Energy Vault. In a demonstration project built and showcased in Switzerland, they showed the first use of cranes to lift and lower heavy composite blocks into massive architectures to respectively store and release significant amounts of renewable electricity. Importantly, the composite blocks enable the use of alternative materials to replace environmentally-unfriendly substances like concrete, which accounts for 7-8% of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the technology can accommodate the recycling of various pre-existing waste materials, which in return helps large utility and industrial companies transform financial and environmental liabilities into infrastructure assets to support their transition to a fully circular economic approach.
During lifting, electricity is stored as gravitational potential energy in the blocks, and on lowering, the stored potential energy drives a motor generator to regenerate electricity with as little loss as possible to maximize the efficiency of the process. The technological performance and commercial potential of this gravity-based system relative to other new entrants into the energy storage space was not apparent at the time, especially the levelized cost of electricity in $/MWh compared to lithium-ion batteries. Somehow, extremely tall cranes that lift and lower massive blocks in huge construction sites did not seem to be a practical global solution to grid-scale renewable energy storage. Fast forward to today and I have changed my mind. As of April 2022, Energy Vault became listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and with the breathtaking news of its latest gravitational energy storage system, it is one of the most exciting companies to watch. In just three years it has established an impressive global reach with its advanced gravity storage system on five continents, with more than US$32B earmarked projects over the next five years.
What has changed to elevate Energy Vault to such great heights? It’s simple: They have simplified their gravity storage system by integrating the lifting-and-lowering of heavy weights into a familiar “elevator” style building design that is compatible with all international building codes. Plus, they have perfected the manufacturing process of their eco-friendly and fully recyclable composite materials. The Energy Vault system literally can be built anywhere a building can be built. It is scalable on demand with no topological and geographical constraints, having flexible modular construction with the capacity to deliver GWs of power over short and long enough durations to handle solar and wind intermittency shortfalls. The energy storage system can also withstand harsh and changeable weather conditions, it is resilient to storage capacity degradation over time, not reliant on carbon intensive mining and refining of rare and toxic metals, and is devoid of chemical and fire safety risks. The round-trip efficiency or the proportion of stored to retrieved electricity is currently 83-85%, rather close to that of comparable power rating lithium-ion batteries, which hold 87-89%. Most importantly, it is purported to offer a lower levelized cost of electricity than any competing technology, particularly 60% of of today’s lithium-ion batteries — by 2025 this is projected to drop to 51%. This is one of the most promising sustainable solutions to global grid-scale renewable energy storage. It almost certainly will prove to be an indispensable piece of the circular economy puzzle, having a positive ripple effect on creating new clean technology industries and jobs, avoiding environmental liability, ameliorating climate change, and mitigating global warming. Now that’s what I call heavy lifting! We'll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgement of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again A change, it had to come We knew it all along We were liberated from the fold, that's all And the world looks just the same And history ain't changed 'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again, no, no I'll move myself and my family aside If we happen to be left half-alive I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky For I know that the hypnotized never lie Do you? Yeah There's nothing in the street Looks any different to me And the slogans are effaced, by-the-bye And the parting on the left Is now parting on the right And the beards have all grown longer overnight I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again Don't get fooled again, no, no Yeah Meet the new boss Same as the old boss © The Who
Music artists and liquor brands seem to go hand-in-hand. Moguls like Diddy and Jay-Z helped pioneer the trend for hip-hop artists securing spots in the liquor realm, and now it’s becoming even more common for recording artists to own liquor companies. From Bruno Mars to Sammy Hagar, we’ve put together a roster of recording artists who have their own alcohol brands, some of which you may already be familiar with, and others that you might now know. Below, find a list of musician-backed spirits and lagers, plus a non-alcoholic option and a beverage collab. For more boozy content, read our roundup of musician-owned wines.
Fender has reportedly made over 300 employees at its California operation redundant, with the layoffs including everyone from production line workers to senior management positions. According to YouTuber Dylan Mckerchie – AKA Dylan Talks Tone – a source stated that the workers making up the “entire afternoon shift” of Fender’s Corona, California factory were laid off, amounting to around 300 people – including the plant manager and assistant manager, and a number of the quality control team. This, Dylan states, reduces Fender’s production capacity by between 200-250 instruments a day.
Mckerchie states that the employees “Did not get some fluffy email or severance package” – for the most part receiving just a few days extra pay. The layoffs don’t seem to be limited to the factory floor, either, with Mckerchie the vice president of design for EVH and Charvel has been let go, alongside Brian Swerdfeger. Swerdfeger was Fender’s vice president of research and design, and the spearheaded the design of the Acoustasonic range.Additionally, several other former employees, with roles ranging from graphic designers, recruiters and communications managers, have taken to LinkedIn in recent days to share the news of their terminations. “There are days that you always fear will come,” wrote one employee, “and today was mine. This morning I was laid off from my dream company, losing a team of remarkable people and a community I was honoured to be a part of.” On the Fender website’s careers page, there are currently 19 operations jobs with roles open, 18 of which are in the Corona factory. In May, there were only seven. The newly-recruiting jobs include robotics engineers, quality assurance inspectors, production planners, maintenance mechanics and safety directors. Michael Saylor is down about a billion dollars on his bitcoin (BTC) bet and just stepped down as CEO at MicroStrategy (MSTR), the software company he founded in the 1980s. Being in a tight spot is familiar territory for the 57-year-old Saylor. After the dot-com bubble burst in March 2000, Jim Cramer, the CNBC host, pointed to the collapse of MicroStrategy as a catalyst. The stock had tumbled 62% in a single day after MicroStrategy announced accounting mistakes, erasing $6 billion from Saylor’s wealth and marking a prominent end to the high-flying days of the early Internet. Later that year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought, and then settled, accounting charges against MicroStrategy, Saylor and other company executives. Saylor and MicroStrategy then spent two decades mostly under Wall Street’s radar. Not that he was suffering. MicroStrategy kept plugging away, developing software for businesses. Saylor lived in a Miami Beach, Fla., mansion that looks like a Spanish colonial palace. A recent visit by a CoinDesk reporter revealed painted cherubs on the foyer ceiling, gold paneling and crimson-red wall paper in the dining room, a stage beyond the office library stocked with guitars, drums and whatever else a band might need, and a portrait of Saylor styled like an old English sailor – with laser eyes. A yacht was floating out back, where a crew lived full-time so Saylor could travel whenever he wanted.
What brought Saylor back to center stage was bitcoin. His fear of inflation drove him in 2020 to start investing MicroStrategy’s cash in the original cryptocurrency. The company’s cash flows started getting routed to bitcoin. He lined Wall Street bankers’ pockets by selling debt to raise money to buy bitcoin. In the process, he audaciously turned his sleepy software company into a bitcoin vault. In all, MicroStrategy has spent about $4 billion on digital assets. MicroStrategy’s stock became a proxy for holding bitcoin. The stock price moves up and down in lockstep with bitcoin’s movements.He became something like a bitcoin preacher spouting religiously fervent praise. His grandiose predictions included one that bitcoin will eventually be worth $100 trillion, roughly what all stocks in the world are collectively worth now. “After scientifically studying everything on Earth, I’ve concluded bitcoin is the best inflation hedge,” he told CoinDesk during a November interview at the Miami Beach mansion. “We buy bitcoin as fast as we can with whatever money we find lying around.” His advice as bitcoin was near its record high? “If you have bitcoin, don’t sell it. If you don’t have bitcoin, buy it. And if your bitcoin is moving around, wait.” Fast forward to today. MicroStrategy’s stock has lost about two-thirds of its value since peaking last year, dragged down by the current bitcoin bear market. This week, Saylor handed the CEO title to Phong Le, who had been MicroStrategy’s president, and shifted into an executive chairman role, pledging to put all his focus on bitcoin investing. Le now runs the legacy software business. Saylor wasn't immediately available for an interview for this story. So who is Michael Saylor? Born in Lincoln, Neb., into a military family, Saylor grew up around bases. That included Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on an Air Force scholarship and became an Air Force second lieutenant. He launched MicroStrategy in his early 20s after convincing his employer, DuPont (DD), to give him $100,000 and free office space and computer equipment, Saylor told Charlie Rose during an interview in February 2000. Saylor’s quirkiness was visible back then, offering a glimpse of what was to come with bitcoin. “I think you're going to see over the next decade that people are going to use software to route traffic on every major highway,” he told Rose 22 years ago. “We're going to use it to determine what hospital we go to or what drug we take. We're going to use it to arbitrage out all the spreads in the interest rates in the finance market and get us a better deal from our bank and probably a better trade in the stock market.” But he immediately noted the serious potential downsides of technology, too, about a month before his stock plunged. “If the software crashes, the civilization comes to a grinding halt in the same way that if you shut down air traffic control at a major airport, traffic will come to a grinding halt,” Saylor told Rose, adding, “And that’s what’s exciting about technology.” |
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