David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Energy

    Norway Is Seen Leading the Way in Post-Covid Interest Rate Hikes

    This article by Ott Ummelas for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Norway has never cut rates below zero or experimented with quantitative easing, in part because most of its stimulus has been fiscal.

    The krone, meanwhile, will end 2020 as the worst performing of the world’s 10 most-traded currencies, in part due to the economy’s reliance on oil. That exchange-rate weakness has helped push inflation above the central bank’s 2% target, with underlying annual consumer prices hitting 2.9% in November.

    The central bank signaled that significant uncertainty remains, as the pandemic tightens its grip across Europe.

    “The sharp economic downturn and considerable uncertainty surrounding the outlook suggest keeping the policy rate on hold until there are clear signs that economic conditions are normalizing,” Governor Oystein Olsen said in a statement.

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    Chinese EV Makers Trade at High Valuations, Helped by Tesla and National EV Targets

    This note from Dow Jones may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    NIO, BYD and Xpeng are examples of Chinese electric-vehicle makers that have surged in value, buttressed by national targets regarding electric vehicles on the road and investors' search for the next EV titans. The American depositary receipts in these companies have surged this year and the meteoric rises put their valuations in line with large traditional car makers, such as General Motors and Ford Motor. To help cut carbon emissions, China aims for EVs to make up 20% of car sales by 2025, and 50% by 2035. Tesla's success this year has also fueled investor appetite for the technology. Investors should be aware though that most Chinese upstarts are unprofitable, The Wall Street Journal reported, and they are also selling far fewer vehicles than major automobile groups.

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    Biden Plots Cuba Reset in Rebuke of Trump's Sanctions

    This article by Ben Bartenstein for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    That strategy includes reducing restrictions on travel, investment and remittances for the island nation that are perceived to disproportionately hurt Americans and ordinary Cubans, said the people, who requested anonymity because the new administration is still coming together. Other measures that target Cuba for human rights abuses would remain in place, the people said.

    The prospect of a détente between Washington and Havana rekindles memories of the thaw that Biden helped champion during the Obama administration, when the two nations restored diplomatic ties that had been broken for decades following Fidel Castro’s rise to power.

    But the president-elect is returning to an even messier scene: the Cuban economy is suffering its worst crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union amid fallout from Covid-19 and U.S. sanctions. At the same time, Cuban intelligence officers have helped prop up Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, allowing his regime to consolidate its grip on power in defiance of demands for free and fair elections.

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    Uranium Stocks Rise on U.S. Defense Bill

    This note from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Uranium stocks outperformed as House and Senate lawmakers revealed a compromise version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Meanwhile, industrial metals continued their rally with the global equity markets.

    S&P Global reported that the bill effectively provides for the military to continue a policy under President-elect Joe Biden that classifies the domestic supplies of certain minerals such as uranium, graphite and lithium as vital to national security

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    Email of the day - on the politicisation of monetary policy

    I hope life for you in California is more fun than it is here in England. But let's hope we really are past the low point as far as the virus is concerned. I had thought that would be true for economies too, but this latest move by President Trump (summarised in the article by Ambrose Evans Pritchard) does raise questions. With this move, which asset classes do you think will benefit and which will lose on a 3-6 month timescale?

    Best wishes to you and family. 

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    A New UN Push Aims to Feed the World's Rabid Hunger for Carbon Credits

    This article by Eric Roston for Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    It’s a tricky proposition, though. Offset programs are notoriously difficult to execute with confidence. REDD+, launched in 2007 to much fanfare among developing nations and UN climate negotiators, but has rarely lived up to its original excitement as developed nations failed to install carbon-pricing policies that succeed in guaranteeing demand. 

    Global demand for offsets may outstrip supply by 2025, according to a September analysis by Fitch Ratings. Many companies, including Microsoft Corp, The Walt Disney Co, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, have already begun either buying or planning to buy offsets. Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos this week announced $791 million in funding for 16 environmental groups, including $100 million each to organizations with strong forestry or offsets programs—EDF, World Resources Institute, and World Wildlife Fund.

    Navigating the challenges to come may require groups like Emergent to continue to act as market-making entities. Or, if markets get the boost they need from the Green Gigaton Challenge and other initiatives, “we'd be thrilled to turn off the lights, close the door,” Bloomgarden said. “Impact achieved.”

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    Panasonic Is the Latest Company Betting on Electric Vehicles, Powering Past Its Tesla Partnership to Explore a Venture in Norway

    This article by Jack Denton for Barrons may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Europe is one of the fastest-moving spaces in the race to dominate an expected boom in electric vehicles, with at least 12 countries planning a ban on internal combustion engine vehicles in coming years. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Wednesday a ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars, to come into effect by 2030.

    Tesla is building a gigafactory in Germany and is reportedly planning one in the U.K., while one of its key rivals, Northvolt, is building a gigafactory in Sweden. Established European car makers like Daimler, Volkswagen, and BMW are racing to build electric vehicles on their own or through partnerships, and Panasonic has previously supplied batteries to Volkswagen and Peugeot.

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    Batteries of the Future Are Weightless and Invisible

    This article by Daniel Oberhaus for Wired.com may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Unlike the carbon-fiber and lithium-ion sheets being developed by Asp and Greenhalgh, Kotov and his students created a zinc-air structural battery for their automatons. This cell chemistry is able to store much more energy than conventional Li-ion cells. It consists of a zinc anode, a carbon cloth cathode, and a semi-rigid electrolyte made from polymer-based nanofibers that is nanoengineered to mimic cartilage. The energy carriers in this type of battery are hydroxide ions that are produced when oxygen from the air interacts with the zinc.

    While structural batteries for vehicles are highly rigid, the cell developed by Kotov’s team is meant to be pliable to cope with the movements of the robots. They’re also incredibly energy-dense. As Kotov and his team detailed in a paper published earlier this year, their structural batteries have 72 times the energy capacity of a conventional lithium-ion cell of the same volume. For now, their batteries are being used to power robotic toys and small drones as a proof of concept. But Kotov says he expects they’ll be used in midsize robots as well as larger hobby drones in the not-so-distant future. “Drones and medium-size robots need to have new solutions for energy storage,” Kotov says. “I can guarantee you that structural batteries will be a part of that.”

    The battery has always been an addendum, a limiting factor, and a parasite. Today it’s vanishing before our eyes, melting into the fabric of our electrified world. In the future, everything will be a battery, and stand-alone energy storage will seem as quaint as landline telephones and portable CD players. It’s a disappearing act worthy of a great magician: Now you see it—and soon you won’t.

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    World Energy Outlook 2020

    This summary report from the IEA may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:

    Renewables grow rapidly in all our scenarios, with solar at the centre of this new constellation of electricity generation technologies. Supportive policies and maturing technologies are enabling very cheap access to capital in leading markets. With sharp cost reductions over the past decade, solar PV is consistently cheaper than new coal- or gasfired power plants in most countries, and solar projects now offer some of the lowest cost electricity ever seen. In the STEPS, renewables meet 80% of the growth in global electricity demand to 2030. Hydropower remains the largest renewable source of electricity, but solar is the main driver of growth as it sets new records for deployment each year after 2022, followed by onshore and offshore wind. The advance of renewable sources of generation, and of solar in particular, as well as the contribution of nuclear power, is much stronger in the SDS and NZE2050. The pace of change in the electricity sector puts an additional premium on robust grids and other sources of flexibility, as well as reliable supplies of the critical minerals and metals that are vital to its secure transformation. Storage plays an increasingly vital role in ensuring the flexible operation of power systems, with India becoming the largest market for utility-scale battery storage.

    …but the downturn creates risks for the backbone of today’s power systems
    Electricity grids could prove to be the weak link in the transformation of the power sector, with implications for the reliability and security of electricity supply. The projected requirement for new transmission and distribution lines worldwide in the STEPS is 80% greater over the next decade than the expansion seen over the last ten years. The importance of electricity networks rises even more in faster energy transitions. However, the financial health of many utilities, especially in developing economies, has worsened as a result of the crisis. There is a disparity in many countries between the spending required for smart, digital and flexible electricity networks and the revenues available to grid operators, creating a risk to the adequacy of investment under today’s regulatory structures.

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