August 27 2024

1 The Rising Threat of Biological Warfare
2 Nuclear Renaissance: Michigan’s Palisades Plant to Power Up Again
3 Libyan Political Turmoil, Global Oil Prices Shrug
4 Election Roundup: Trump’s Stance on Abortion, Gabbard's Trump Endorsement, and Zuckerberg’s About Face
5 China's Export Controls on Semiconductors Raw Materials Cause Price Surge
8/27/1883 Volcano Krakatoa explodes

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1 The Rising Threat of Biological Warfare

At the end of the last decade and the beginning of this one, human society itself was subject to a kind of penetration test: COVID-19. The virus, an unthinking adversary, probed the world’s ability to defend against new pathogens. And by the end of the test, it was clear that humanity had failed. COVID-19 went everywhere, from remote Antarctic research stations to isolated Amazonian tribes. It raged through nursing homes and aircraft carriers. As it spread, it leveled the vulnerable and the powerful—frontline workers and heads of state alike. The draconian lockdowns imposed by autocracies and the miraculous vaccines developed by democracies slowed, but did not halt, the virus’s spread. By the end of 2022, three of every four Americans had been infected at least once. In the six weeks after China ended its “zero COVID” restrictions in December, over one billion of the country’s people were infected. The primary reason for the pandemic’s relatively modest death toll was not that society had controlled the disease. It was the fact that viral infection proved to be only modestly lethal. In the end, COVID-19 mostly burned itself out. Humanity’s failure against COVID-19 is sobering, because the world is facing a growing number of biological threats. Some of them, such as avian flu, come from nature. But plenty come from scientific advances. Over the past 60 years, researchers have developed sophisticated understandings of both molecular and human biology, allowing for the development of remarkably deadly and effective pathogens. They have figured out how to create viruses that can evade immunity. They have learned how to evolve existing viruses to spread more easily through the air, and how to engineer viruses to make them more deadly. It remains unclear whether COVID-19 arose from such activities or entered the human population via interaction with wildlife. Either way, it is clear that biological technology, now boosted by artificial intelligence, has made it simpler than ever to produce diseases. Should a human-made or human-improved pathogen escape or be released from a lab, the consequences could be catastrophic. Some synthetic pathogens might be capable of killing many more people and causing much more economic devastation than the novel coronavirus did. In a worst-case scenario, the worldwide death toll might exceed that of the Black Death, which killed one of every three people in Europe. Averting such a disaster must be a priority for world leaders. It is a problem that is at least as complex as other grand challenges of the early Anthropocene, including mitigating and managing the threat of nuclear weapons and the planetary consequences of climate change. To handle this danger, states will need to start hardening their societies to protect against human-made pathogens.

Article Source: Foreign Affairs

2 Nuclear Renaissance: Michigan’s Palisades Plant to Power Up Again

When Michigan mothballed the Palisades nuclear power plant in 2022, the facility looked like a perfect relic of nuclear power’s 1970s heyday. Walls were painted salmon pink and pale green. Control panels had analog dials, manual switches and hundreds of lights that flash green or red to indicate on or off. The valves, levers and ductwork in the turbine room gave off a steampunk vibe.  Just two years later, the 53-year-old plant’s owners are implementing a historic decision to give it another go. The federal government and the state of Michigan are spending nearly $2 billion to restart the reactor on the shores of Lake Michigan. When it reopens, Palisades will become the first decommissioned nuclear plant anywhere to be put back to work.  Driving the rethink: soaring demand for electricity from AI server farms, and billions on offer in state and federal loans and tax subsidies for nuclear energy in infrastructure and green power investment programs. Data centers alone are projected to account for 8% of U.S. electricity demand by 2030, up from around 3% in 2022, according to an April report by Goldman Sachs.  For years, it’s been cheaper to generate electricity with natural gas, and big sections of the public have been uncomfortable with nuclear power, after devastating accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan.  That feeling has shifted, with a revived understanding of nuclear energy as green power that could add to renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydropower. Nuclear-produced electricity is also seen as more consistent than wind or solar.  Stricter state and federal emissions laws have added costs to fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal, and the financial support from Washington and states has helped shift the balance toward nuclear.  Last year, the state of Georgia fired up two brand new reactors at its Vogtle complex, aided in part by up to $12 billion in federal loan guarantees. Earlier this year, Bill Gates, the former head of Microsoft, broke ground on a next-generation nuclear plant in Wyoming.   Utilities have asked regulators to extend the licenses of 14 aging reactors in the past year. Nearly all of the nation’s 94 operating reactors have already had their licenses extended once, to 60 years, and two have been extended to 80 years—twice as long as the original licenses.

Article Source: WSJ

3 Libyan Political Turmoil, Global Oil Prices Shrug

Oil prices jumped to the highest in almost two weeks on Monday following reports that Libyan production had been shut down over political wrangling between its two governments. Brent crude futures settled 3 per cent higher on Monday, at $81.43 a barrel  

Ed note: During the 2023 Middle East conflict, global oil prices have risen by 3% to 13%. These increases are modest compared to historical conflicts in the region. For instance, the 1973 Yom Kippur War saw oil prices soar by 458% (adjusted to 2023 values), and the 1979 Iranian Revolution led to a 354% increase. This more restrained reaction reflects a more resilient global oil market, though it remains sensitive to geopolitical tensions. The rise of U.S. shale production has fundamentally altered the global energy market. The U.S. has become a significant oil producer, reducing the world's reliance on Middle Eastern oil and giving the global market a more stable supply base. This increased supply, largely immune to geopolitical shocks in other regions, has helped to cushion global oil prices against the volatility typically associated with conflicts in major oil-producing regions.

Article Source: FT

4 Election Roundup: Trump’s Stance on Abortion, Gabbard's Trump Endorsement, and Zuckerberg’s About Face

Abortion  

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance said he expects Donald Trump would veto a federal abortion ban as president should one land on his desk.  Trump’s position on abortion has disappointed anti-abortion advocates at times. On Friday, Trump posted on Truth Social: “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” a remark that drew criticism from some activists who viewed it as not particularly helpful to their cause. Democrats, on the other hand, have continued to paint Trump as a threat not only to legal abortion but also the use of contraception and other matters they regard as entirely private.  

POLITICO  

Gabbard

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) formally endorsed former President Donald Trump on Monday, touting the Republican nominee’s experience as commander-in-chief. The former congresswoman unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 before formally leaving the party in 2022. 

NY Post  

Facebook  

Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said it was improper for the Biden administration to have pressured Facebook to censor content in 2021 related to the coronavirus pandemic, vowing that the social-media giant would reject any such future efforts. Zuckerberg also said he didn’t plan to repeat efforts to fund nonprofits to assist in state election efforts, a Covid-era push that had drawn Republican criticism and sparked many Republican-leaning states to ban the practice. 

WSJ

Article Source: Politico, NY Post, WSJ

5 China's Export Controls on Semiconductors Raw Materials Cause Price Surge

Chinese export controls on crucial semiconductor materials are hitting supply chains and stoking fears of shortfalls in western production of advanced chips and military optical hardware. Beijing’s curbs on shipments of germanium and gallium, which are used for semiconductor applications and military and communications equipment components, have led to an almost twofold increase in the minerals’ prices in Europe over the past year. China introduced the restrictions, which it says safeguard its “national security and interests”, last year in response to US-led controls on sales of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment.  The curbs and subsequent export controls have highlighted Beijing’s dominance of global supply of dozens of crucial resources. The country produces 98 per cent of the world’s supply of gallium and 60 per cent of germanium, according to the US Geological Survey.  

Article Source: FT

8/27/1883 Volcano Krakatoa explodes

One of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history occurs on Krakatoa (also called Krakatau), a small, uninhabited volcanic island east of Sumatra and west of Java, on August 27, 1883. Heard 3,000 miles away—and believed to have produced the loudest sounds in human history—the explosions threw five cubic miles of earth 50 miles into the air, created 120-foot tsunamis and killed 36,000 people. Four more eruptions beginning at 5:30 a.m. the following day proved cataclysmic. The explosions could be heard as far as 3,000 miles away, and ash was propelled to a height of 50 miles. Fine dust from the explosion drifted around the earth, causing spectacular sunsets and forming an atmospheric veil that lowered temperatures worldwide by several degrees.  The eruption caused “volcanic winter” conditions, with global temperatures dropping by about 2.2°F on average for several years. This led to spectacular sunsets and unusual weather patterns around the world.  Of the estimated 36,000 deaths resulting from the eruption, at least 31,000 were caused by the tsunamis created when much of the island fell into the water. The greatest of these waves measured 120 feet high, and washed over nearby islands, stripping away vegetation and carrying people out to sea.

Sources

1. https://reader.foreignaffairs.com/2024/08/20/the-new-bioweapons-2/content.html

2. https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/biden-nuclear-power-plant-loan-michigan-eee64904?mod=wknd_pos1

3. https://www.ft.com/content/332bf068-e62d-4d84-9880-feff38ebc005

4. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/25/vance-trump-abortion-ban-veto-00176281; https://nypost.com/2024/08/26/us-news/ex-dem-rep-tulsi-gabbard-endorses-trump-in-surprise-appearance-at-michigan-event/; https://www.wsj.com/tech/mark-zuckerberg-neutral-politics-letter-election-2024-02b86372?mod=hp_lead_pos6

5. https://www.ft.com/content/9cd56880-4360-4e11-8c22-e810d3787e88