Two Largest Coal Consumers Not Going Green

China and India’s growing economies will continue to fuel demand for coal even as they set ambitious renewable energy targets, according to experts.

While China is the world’s largest energy consumer, India is ranked third globally, and both countries are the top consumers of coal as they strive to fuel economic growth.


China’s share of global electricity consumption, 60% of which is generated by coal, is set to jump to one-third by 2025, compared with a quarter in 2015, according to projections by energy watchdog International Energy Agency.         READ MORE...

World Demand of Crude Oil

The International Energy Agency predicted that peak oil demand would be reached by 2030 and hailed the decline of crude as a “welcome sight.”

OPEC leaders reacted harshly, accusing the agency of fear-mongering and risking the destabilization of the world economy.
Oil producers have been accused of dialing back their climate pledges in recent months following record annual profits.


It’s been a war of words and numbers between two major players in the energy industry – the International Energy Agency and OPEC – as they spar over the future of something crucial to crude producers’ survival: peak oil demand.


Peak oil demand refers to the point in time when the highest level of global crude demand is reached, which will be immediately followed by a permanent decline. This would theoretically decrease the need for investments in crude oil projects and make them less economical as other energy sources take over.

For oil producing countries and companies, it’s existential.

That’s why when the chief of the IEA, an intergovernmental organization that advocates for oil-consuming countries, predicted that peak oil demand would be reached by 2030 and hailed the decline of crude as a “welcome sight,” OPEC was furious.

“Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly,” OPEC Secretary-General Haitham al-Ghais said in a Sept. 14 statement. “It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world.” He accused the agency of fearmongering and risking the destabilization of the global economy.

More broadly, the spat reflects the ongoing clash between climate change concerns and the need for energy security. That juxtaposition was on full display at ADIPEC – the annual gathering whose name stood for Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition Conference until this year, when it was quietly changed to Abu Dhabi International Progressive Energy Conference.  READ MORE...

Heading For A Recession

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Monday warned that a “very, very serious” mix of headwinds was likely to tip both the U.S. and global economy into recession by the middle of next year.

Dimon, chief executive of the largest bank in the U.S., said the U.S. economy was “actually still doing well” at present and consumers were likely to be in better shape compared with the 2008 global financial crisis.

“But you can’t talk about the economy without talking about stuff in the future — and this is serious stuff,” Dimon told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum on Monday at the JPM Techstars conference in London.

Among the indicators ringing alarm bells, Dimon cited the impact of runaway inflation, interest rates going up more than expected, the unknown effects of quantitative easing and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“These are very, very serious things which I think are likely to push the U.S. and the world — I mean, Europe is already in recession — and they’re likely to put the U.S. in some kind of recession six to nine months from now,” Dimon said.  READ MORE...

Preparing For More COVID

Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci testifies during a hearing before the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies of House Appropriations Committee at Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill May 11, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong | Getty Images



Dr. Anthony Fauci has a sober warning for Americans: Don’t be surprised if a new, more dangerous Covid variant emerges this upcoming winter.

“We should anticipate that we very well may get another variant that would emerge, that would elude the immune response that we’ve gotten from infection and/or from vaccination,” Fauci said at an event with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism this week.

Statistically, pandemic trends like hospitalizations and deaths are currently down nationwide: The seven-day moving average of new Covid deaths in the U.S. is 323 as of Wednesday, for example. 

That’s far lower than the country’s 1,000 to 2,500 in February and March, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

READ MORE...

One Vitamin Keeps Brain Healthy

As a nutritional psychiatrist, I always make it a point to maintain a well-balanced diet. Much of that has to do with making sure I get all the right vitamins, especially because it’s essential to preventing cognitive decline.


And given that the risk of neurological diseases increases as we get older, one question I often get from my patients is: “What is the best vitamin for protecting our aging brains?”


Each of our microbiomes is like a thumbprint, so a truly effective eating plan is personalized to the unique needs of an individual. But the vitamin group I prioritize the most to keep my brain young and healthy are B vitamins.

The brain benefits of B vitamins
Depression, dementia and mental impairment are often associated with a deficiency of B vitamins, a study from the Wayne State University School of Medicine found.

“A B12 vitamin deficiency as a cause of cognitive issues is more common than we think, especially among the elderly who live alone and don’t eat properly,” says Rajaprabhakaran Rajarethinam, a psychiatrist and the lead author of the study.

There are eight different B vitamins, each with its own primary health benefits:

1. Increasing your energy.
Vitamin B1, or thiamin, is crucial for the basic function of our cells and the metabolism of nutrients for energy.


The brain is one of the most metabolically active organs in your body, which means it needs the support of thiamin to prevent the deficiencies that can lead to neurological problems down the line. READ MORE...

Robots Take Jobs

PhonlamaiPhoto | Getty Images


Robots could take over 20 million manufacturing jobs around the world by 2030, economists claimed Wednesday.

According to a new study from Oxford Economics, within the next 11 years there could be 14 million robots put to work in China alone.

Economists analyzed long-term trends around the uptake of automation in the workplace, noting that the number of robots in use worldwide increased threefold over the past two decades to 2.25 million.

While researchers predicted the rise of robots will bring about benefits in terms of productivity and economic growth, they also acknowledged the drawbacks that were expected to arise simultaneously.

“As a result of robotization, tens of millions of jobs will be lost, especially in poorer local economies that rely on lower-skilled workers. This will therefore translate to an increase in income inequality,” the study’s authors said.

However, if robot installations were boosted to 30% more than the baseline forecast by 2030, researchers estimated it would lead to a 5.3% boost in global GDP that year.

“This equates to adding an extra $4.9 trillion per year to the global economy by 2030 (in today’s prices) — equivalent to an economy greater than the projected size of Germany’s,” the report said.

Regional vulnerabilities
According to the report, the number of robots installed in workplaces in the past four years is the same as the number put to work over the eight years previous.

Approximately every third robot in industry is now installed in China, researchers found, with the world’s second-largest economy accounting for around one-in-five of the global stock of robots.

It was predicted that by 2030, more than 1.5 million jobs would have been lost to robots in the United States. In China, that number was expected to exceed 11 million. Across EU member states, almost 2 million people would lose out on employment because of automation, the report said.

When it came to job losses, the most vulnerable states in the U.S. included Texas, Louisiana and Indiana, with Oregon named the most susceptible to the negative effects of automation.

The regions of Chemnitz, Thuringen and Oberfranken were most vulnerable in Germany, while the Midlands and North West of England were Britain’s most vulnerable regions.  READ MORE...




https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/robots-could-take-over-20-million-jobs-by-2030-study-claims.html

US Nuclear Waste Dump

The federal government has more than $44 billion collected from energy customers since the 1980s specifically to be spent on a permanent nuclear waste disposal in the United States.

Currently, nuclear waste is mostly stored in dry casks on the locations of current and former nuclear power plants around the country.

On Nov. 30, the Office of Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy took a preliminary step towards establishing an interim repository for nuclear waste. Some see this as a reason for optimism, others as kicking the can down the road.

This undated image obtained 22 February, 2004 shows the entrance to the Yucca Mountain 

nuclear waste repository located in Nye County, Nevada, about 100 miles northwest of 

Las Vegas.AFP | AFP | Getty Images

The federal government has a fund of $44.3 billion earmarked for spending on a permanent nuclear waste disposal facility in the United States.

It began collecting money from energy customers for the fund in the 1980s, and the money is now earning about $1.4 billion in interest each year.

But plans to build a site in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, were scuttled by state and federal politics, and there’s been a lack of political will to find other solutions. The result is that the U.S. does not have the infrastructure to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste in a deep geologic repository, where it can slowly lose its radioactivity over the course of thousands of years without causing harm.

However, with the effects of climate change becoming more obvious, investors and some political activists are renewing interest in nuclear as a source of energy that does not emit climate-warming carbon dioxide. That is forcing proponents to confront the thorny problem of waste again.

How Nevada became the nexus of the waste story
Congress established the Nuclear Waste Fund in 1982, requiring anyone who was getting some of their electricity from nuclear energy to pay a small amount of money to deal with the waste.

From 1982 through 1987, the Department of Energy explored nine sites for permanent waste disposal, and eventually whittled that list down to three. Yucca Mountain in Nevada was the first choice, with sites in Washington and Texas rounding out the top of the list. Some members of Congress were concerned that analyzing multiple sites would cost too much, and so in 1987, Congress amended its 1982 law to focus all of its attention on Yucca Mountain.  READ MORE...

How to Drink Coffee

Coffee is a constant, almost sacred part of many morning routines, whether you brew a pot of coffee at home or look forward to your daily walk to the neighborhood coffee shop for a latte.

In some ways, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has deepened our relationships (and dependency) on coffee and caffeine. In September, Cinch Home Services spoke to more than 1,000 coffee drinkers in the United States. 34% of respondents reported drinking more caffeinated beverages during the pandemic than ever before, with coffee ranking as their go-to choice.

Remote employees drink more coffee than their in-office colleagues, the report found, consuming an average of 3.1 cups vs. 2.5 cups every day. Starbucks and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf ranked as the most popular brands among coffee aficionados. But some Americans aren’t reaching for their second or third cup for the bitter taste or caffeine jolt — in the report, 28% of respondents said coffee makes them more productive at work.

There are steps you can take to maximize your coffee habit and be more productive while working from home. CNBC Make It spoke with a coffee educator and productivity expert to learn how to get the most out of your morning cup.

Don’t drink coffee as soon as you wake up
The thought of a fresh cup of coffee might be your only motivation to get out of bed some mornings, but drinking coffee right after you wake up can blunt your body’s natural energy levels.

Management and behavioral science expert Daniel Pink has examined the science of timing and how it can affect our productivity. In his book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing,” Pink notes, based on research from several studies, that the best time to have your first cup of coffee is about 60-90 minutes after you wake up. That’s because caffeine interferes with the production of cortisol, the hormone that signals your body to be awake and responsive. According to this research, cortisol levels usually peak around 8:30 a.m.  TO READ MORE ABOUT HOW TO DRINK COFFEE, CLICK HERE...