🇺🇸🌊 The ocean hides a 200-year-old treasure: America has found it, and we are going to extract it

The abundance of energy in the ocean makes it a logical choice to develop to extract clean electricity, and the United States has started investing in the technology. There are three kinds of renewable ocean energy: tidal, wave, and ocean thermal energy conversion, and it’s the third type that America is focusing on.

The commercialization of ocean energy is still in the early stages. When it comes to the different forms, wave energy is the most expensive kind, so it remains relatively underdeveloped for now. Under the tidal kind, there’s tidal range energy harvesting, which relies on a strong tidal system, such as in Sihwa in South Korea and La Rance in France). Tidal stream energy farming has only been demonstrated at a pilot project scale up until now.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a distinct process of using the temperature differences, called thermal gradients, between warmer upper ocean water and colder water closer to the ocean floor to create energy, which is then converted into electricity.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion works best in tropical regions where the surface water heated by solar energy is significantly warmer than at deeper levels. The difference in temperature can be exploited to generate electricity and desalinate seawater. A difference of at least 36°F (or 20°C) is required to power an electricity turbine, which is how renewable electricity is generated and added to the grid.

Warm water from the surface is pumped through an evaporator with a working fluid, which is usually the seawater itself. A turbine is powered by the vaporized fluid, which is then converted back into liquid form in a condenser using cold water from deeper in the ocean. Systems that use seawater can also produce desalinated water.

Wave energy uses the motion of wave swells to create electricity. There are a number of technologies being developed to extract energy in different ways, and several trial projects are underway worldwide.

There’s also tidal energy, which has two kinds:

Tidal range systems harvest the potential energy produced by the difference in height between low and high tides. Dams, also called barrages, are built to maximize the potential of the different ranges.

Tidal stream technology, also called tidal current technology, harvests the kinetic energy of currents in tidal areas such as seashores. Tidal stream devices are set up in arrays that look similar to wind turbines.

🔗 https://www.eldiario24.com/en/ocean-energy-extract-power-electricity/2393/

🇩🇪🇪🇺 POLITICO criticises German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for turning against the EU for his own country's benefit

POLITICO is in shock after Germany took the side of "serial rebels like Hungary and Slovakia" and voted against tariffs on Chinese vehicles. Even if the vote on tariffs ultimately failed, Scholz's decision eventually put Germany on China's friends list of countries where Chinese EV makers can open up new factories in the future as China banned its car companies from ever building new factories in the EU countries who supported the tariffs.

The newspaper also criticises Germany's opposition to a new EU law which requires European companies to audit their supply chains and root out the supplies who may be breaking local, EU or international law as well as Germany's decision to suspend the Schengen Area and bring back border controls.

POLITICO notes that this newfound "German independence" and breakoff from the EU, shows the internal divisions of the EU that threaten to tear apart the union. It comes at a time when Italy defied the EU's Migration Pact by signing a deportation deal with Albania and coerced the European Commission to make the deal official policy of the EU. Poland and Finland coerced the EU to change its asylum rules recently finally forcing Brussels to admit that asylum rights can be denied thanks to the migrants bussed by Russia and Belarus to their borders. Netherlands too wants a full opt-out of the EU Migration Pact and decide its own rules for asylum seekers.

The EU has traveled far since its optimistic, federalist era of old. Each country is now fighting for scraps and pursuing its own agenda, compounding the many challenges facing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as she begins her second term and is increasingly at odds with national governments.

As the author adds, former ECB director and ex-Italian PM, Mario Draghi, who was tasked by von der Leyen to write a plan that would pull the EU out of its economic downturn, noted in his report that the EU needs more unity and cooperation between its member states but as POLITICO observes, the union and the continent as a whole, is more fractured than ever and there is little unity to be found left.

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-europe-olaf-scholz-economy-continent-financial-crisis-exports/

@CIG_telegram

☕️🇺🇸🇨🇳 China’s largest coffee chain, Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡), is planning to enter the US market and undercut rivals including Starbucks with its low-priced drinks, marking a comeback for the company after a fraud scandal that resulted in its Nasdaq delisting and a US$180M fine in 2020.

Luckin will have to adapt its cashless business model to the US market. Customers in its China stores have to order through an app, which offers discounts for group purchases and collects a wealth of data on consumer behavior.

The US coffee market is fiercely competitive. Besides Starbucks’ nearly 17,000 US stores, coffee-and-doughnuts chain Dunkin’ has more than 9,500 locations. New York-listed Dutch Bros has about 900 drive-through coffee outlets after expanding by a fifth in the past year. Meanwhile, coffee is sold everywhere from McDonald’s to convenience stores. “Luckin faces a new challenge in the US, which is very saturated. Whereas in China it is opening up new markets with its coffee, bringing new consumers to the drink, in the US, the consumers already know what coffee is and have expectations.”

https://fxtwitter.com/Byron_Wan/status/1851475917182517341

🇯🇵🇬🇧🇺🇸📞🇺🇳 — Japan, United Kingdom and United States called for the dissolution of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) today at UN Security Council.

🇺🇸🇮🇱 Members of Congress have taken hundreds of AIPAC-funded trips to Israel in the past decade

The nonprofit arm of “America’s pro-Israel lobby” is spending big to shape US lawmakers’ views of Israel’s conservative government.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/30/israel-aipac-funded-congress-travel-00185167

https://archive.ph/UubGd

🇩🇪Germany: A tiny German village of 600 residents will receive 500 immigrants despite voting against it

The local residents are outraged, alienated, and feel helpless: “We were totally betrayed”

Over night this village will see their population nearly doubled despite democratically voting against it.

📎 Klaus Arminius