習近平在毛澤東演說中宣揚替代西方資本主義的方案

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Xi Touts Alternative to Western Capitalism in Speech on Mao

Bloomberg News

Tue, December 26, 2023 at 7:14 p.m. PST

(Bloomberg) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping used a speech remembering Mao Zedong to push a framework the current leader rolled out recently to counter the West’s capitalist model.

The “central task” of the nation and its ruling Communist Party is “to build China into a stronger country and rejuvenate the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization,” Xi said in Beijing on Tuesday, as he marked 130 years since Mao’s birth.

Xi described “Chinese modernization” — a vague concept he has been promoting since 2021 — as “a cause passed down from veteran revolutionaries including Mao Zedong” that is now “the solemn historical responsibility of today’s Chinese Communists.”

The Chinese leader has promoted that idea at events including last year’s leadership congress, describing it as an alternative to systems used by the US and its allies. The flagship People’s Daily has described Chinese modernization as containing unique features, including benefiting a large population, achieving “common prosperity” and developing peacefully.

By linking his own project to Mao’s legacy, Xi creates room for state media to tout him as an extension of the man remembered as the founder of a new China. That version of events largely glosses over Mao’s role in the famine-inducing Great Leap Forward of the 1950s and the chaotic Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

Xi, whose government eliminated term limits in 2018, has spent his first decade-plus in office consolidating power to levels unseen since Mao. That campaign has left some investors worried his ambitions lack checks and balances, and his push to narrow the wealth gap may lead to sweeping income redistribution.

Some officials have in recent years called Xi lingxiu, or “leader,” a revered title of praise previously reserved for Mao. Xi has also moved to pack key positions with supporters, potentially making it harder for him to hear dissenting policy voices.

China’s propaganda machine has also stepped up efforts to draw parallels between Mao and Xi. A Communist Party research institute said in an article this month that Mao should be remembered for his “high achievements and strong morals.”

Then it added: “It is blessing for the party and the state, the people and the Chinese nation to have General Secretary Xi Jinping, another core of the party, leader of the people and commander-in-chief of the army who enjoys popular support.”

In his Tuesday speech, Xi also repeated the party’s lines on Taiwan, comments that come before the island that Beijing claims as its own chooses a new president next month.

“The motherland must and is bound to be reunified,” he said. China must “deepen cross-strait integration and development in all areas, and promote the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations.”

Translation

（彭博）—中國國家主席習近平發表紀念毛澤東的講話，推動現任領導人最近推出的框架，以對抗西方資本主義模式。

週二，習近平在北京發表演說紀念毛澤東同志出生130 週年之際中表示，國家和執政黨的「中心任務」是「把中華民族建設成為一個更加強大的國家，全面實現中華民族偉大復興，推進中國現代化」。

習近平將 “中國現代化” - 這是他自2021年以來一直在推動的一個模糊概念 - 描述為 “毛澤東等老革命家傳承下來的事業” ，現在它是 “當今中國共產黨人的莊嚴歷史責任” 。

這位中國領導人在包括去年的領導人代表大會在內的活動中推廣了這個想法，並將其描述為美國及其盟國使用的系統的替代方案。 旗艦刊物《人民日報》將中國的現代化描述為具有獨特的特徵，包括惠及廣大人民、實現「共同富裕」、和平發展。

透過將自己的計劃與毛澤東的遺產聯繫起來，習近平為官方媒體創造了空間，將他吹捧為新中國創始人的延伸。 這種版本的事件在很大程度上掩蓋了毛澤東在 1950 年代引發飢荒的大躍進以及 1960 年代和 1970 年代混亂的文化大革命中所扮演的角色。

習近平領導的政府於 2018 年取消了任期限制，他在執政的第一個十多年裡將權力鞏固到了自毛澤東以來從未見過的水平。 這場權力鞏固活動讓一些投資者擔心他的雄心壯志缺乏制衡，而他縮小貧富差距的努力可能會導致全面的收入再分配。

近年來，一些官員稱他為 “習領袖” ，或 “領袖” ，這是一個以前為毛澤東保留的受人尊敬的尊稱。 習近平也採取行動，把國家關鍵職位用他的支持者填滿了，這可能會讓他更難聽到不同的政策聲音。

中國的宣傳機器也加大力度將毛澤東和習近平相提並論。 一家共產黨研究機構本月在一篇文章中表示，毛澤東應該因其「崇高的成就和堅強的道德」而被人們銘記。

然後它補充說： “黨和國家，人民和中華民族都因有習近平總書記而有福氣，這是黨的另一個核心，享有民眾支持的人民領袖和軍隊總司令。

在周二的演講中，習近平還重申了共產黨在台灣問題上的立場，這些言論是在聲稱自己擁有的台灣的下個月選出新總統之前發表的。

他說： 「祖國必須而且一定要統一」。 中國必須「深化兩岸各領域融合發展，推動兩岸關係和平發展」。

              So, Xi Jinping is touting an alternative to western capitalism. Based on my observation on what China has done in the past two decades or so, my feeling is that the Chinese concept of modernization is in a way only copying things that western countries have already done, as least in two major respects: economics and military. Under the idea “to build China into a stronger country”, economically China depends on land revenue to fund local construction works and to fight poverty. It sets up a modern stock market, it earns profits through trading with the outside world in the name of Belt and Road projects (to invest and earn money, also to create soft power). On the military side, it builds its own space station, builds more modern aircraft carriers. At the foreign relation front, as a “big” country, China is claiming sovereignty in the south China sea and building military bases on some islands. This expansive idea has led to conflicts and disputes with its neighbors such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan (over the Senkaku Islands) and Taiwan (over sovereignty issues), and causing uneasiness in Indonesia and Malaysia. China’s militarization of some islands in the south China sea also angers the US.

I think what Xi is touting is merely an autocratic way to rule China by top down manage, and this political system needs to sacrifice individual freedom and citizen rights (e.g. the right to have general elections) for the greater good of the country and for administrative efficiency. This contrast with capitalistic countries that do things bottom up, and that rulers are picked by a universal voting system. Previously, China under Mao Zedong (1893-1976) had tried to rush into communism but failed, and many people suffered from political turmoil from the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) initiated by Mao as the absolute leader. When this Revolution was over, new communist leaders began to rethink their future. From the late 1970s, China changed course by becoming friends of Western countries, in particular the US, and eventually reached the 2^nd position in economic size globally. Now Xi believes that he has learned from the Mao’s failure, and probably also from the collapse of the communist USSR in 1991. He is trying to rejuvenate socialism in China (he humbly describes China’s political system as socialism, a stage before reaching communism). Meanwhile I note that capitalism in the west has come a long way since the US independent in 1776 and the French revolution in 1789, both events were people’s struggle for the establishment of a fair, open and democratic society. Currently, between China and the US, there is a competition to show which is the better system to run a country. Let’s see who will prevail, and the price we will pay for this competition.

Russia's LNG development project: Will Japan and other foreign companies stop participating?

Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

ロシアのLNG開発プロジェクト 日本など外国企業が参画停止か

2023年12月25日 23時13分

ロシアの有力紙は、日本企業も出資する、ロシアのLNG＝液化天然ガスの開発プロジェクトについて、日本など外国企業が参画の停止を表明したと伝えました。将来の日本へのLNGの供給にも影響が出る可能性があるとみられます。

ロシアの北極圏で進められているLNGの開発プロジェクト「アークティックLNG2」は、ロシアのほか、フランス、中国、そして日本からも大手商社の「三井物産」とJOGMEC＝エネルギー・金属鉱物資源機構が出資しています。

ロシアの有力紙「コメルサント」は25日、ロシア政府関係者の話として、「アークティックLNG2」の事業について日本など外国企業がプロジェクトの参画の停止を表明したと伝えました。

この事業については、ロシアによるウクライナへの軍事侵攻を受けて、アメリカ政府が11月に開発プロジェクトの事業会社を制裁の対象に加えていて、こうした制裁による影響で、事業の停止が「不可抗力」になったとしています。

「コメルサント」は、日本側などはアメリカ政府に対して制裁の対象外になる可能性について問い合わせてきたとしていますが、開発プロジェクトの先行きが不透明になれば、将来の日本へのLNGの供給にも影響が出る可能性があるとみられます。

Translation

A leading Russian newspaper reported that foreign companies, including Japan, had announced that they would suspend participation in Russia's LNG (liquefied natural gas) development project in which Japanese companies were also investing. It was thought that the future supply of LNG to Japan might also be affected.

Arctic LNG2, an LNG development project underway in the Russian Arctic, was being funded by Russia in addition to France, China, and Japan’s Mitsui & Co. which was a major trading company, and also JOGMEC, i.e. Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security.

On the 25th, Russia's leading newspaper Kommersant citing Russian government officials reported that  foreign companies, including Japan, had announced that they would suspend participation in the Arctic LNG 2 project.

In response to Russia's military invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. government in November imposed sanctions on the companies involved in this development project, and as a result of these sanctions, the suspension of the project would be considered a "force majeure" event.

Kommersant reported that the Japanese side had asked the US government about the possibility of being exempted from sanctions, but if the future of the development project became uncertain, it appeared that it might impact the future LNG supplies to Japan.

So, Japan may suspend participation in Russia's LNG development project in which Japanese companies are also investing. Probably global political contests arise from Russia's military invasion of Ukraine may affect the supply of Russian LNG to Japan in the future.

中國重燃打壓恐懼，騰訊帶領股價暴跌 800 億美元 (2/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Tencent Leads $80 Billion Rout as China Rekindles Crackdown Fear (2/2)

Zheping Huang, Jing Jin and Sarah Zheng

Fri, December 22, 2023 at 2:10 a.m. PST

(continue)

Even if Beijing’s focus remains squarely on gaming, the regulations could signal a sea change in the traditional “freemium” model, where users download titles free of charge but spend vast amounts within games to either gain an advantage or establish virtual identities. That approach has come under scrutiny in countries like Japan because of its addictive nature and tendency to incite younger players to spend.

“The impact in China will eventually be bigger than the market is pricing in and we believe that results could force other countries to similarly take measures against mobile gaming/social media addiction within a few years,” Lightstream Research analyst Mio Kato wrote. “This is the beginning of the end for the current mobile gaming business model.”

Tencent’s games vice president Zhang Wei said in a statement the regulatory moves won’t fundamentally change its business model or operations. And after the market closed, it announced a HK$1 billion ($128 million) buyback it undertook on Friday.

The latest rules stung all the more because Beijing had appeared to thaw on the sector.

Officials in past months had encouraged esports as an engine for the post-Covid economy. Xi himself attended the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, which featured professional gaming among the medals up for grabs for the first time.

In December 2022, Tencent secured a green-light for a clutch of major releases including Valorant and Pokémon Unite — a milestone that reinforced hopes China was easing its two-year crackdown on Big Tech. The WeChat operator is now locked in a fierce battle with NetEase as it rolls out casual title Dream Star in hopes of replenishing an aging gaming portfolio. Both companies have poured advertising and other promotional costs into the so-called party royale genre, at a level unseen in recent years.

China’s gaming market was set to grow almost 14% to 302.9 billion yuan ($42.4 billion) in 2023, reversing a 10% decline from the year before, according to data provider CNG.

“This makes investors remember the nightmare from a few years ago, when the government tried to regulate mobile games’ playing time,” said Steven Leung, an executive director at UOB Kay Hian. “With these new rules, investors may just leave the market totally, because the policy risk is too high.”

Smackdown: The Bloomberg Open, Europe Edition

Much of the issue stemmed from the vague wording. The regulations asked that game publishers operating abroad respect Chinese laws and culture and refrain from endangering national security, without elaborating. Tencent is the world’s largest gaming publisher, with investments in studios from Epic Games Inc. in the US to Supercell in Europe.

The agency will take feedback on the proposed rules for a month, without saying when they take effect. Some investors held out hope that regulators may eventually be convinced to backtrack on the more unpopular measures.

“Strict regulation will inevitably hinder the long-term development of the online gaming industry, raising doubts about whether the government is contemplating a new round of regulatory direction,” said Mike Leung, investment manager at Wocom Securities Ltd.

Translation

（繼續）

即使北京的重點仍然集中在遊戲上，這些規定也可能標誌著傳統「先免費後付增值費」模式的巨大變化，即用戶免費下載遊戲，但在遊戲中花費大量資金以獲得優勢或建立虛擬身份。 這種做法在日本等國家受到了密切關注，因為它具有令人上癮的性質，並且傾向於刺激年輕玩家去消費。

Lightstream Research 分析師 Mio Kato 寫道： “對中國的影響最終將比市場定價預期的更大，我們相信，結果可能會迫使其他國家在幾年內採取類似措施來應對手機遊戲/社交媒體成癮”; “這是當前手機遊戲商業模式終結的開始。”

騰訊遊戲副總裁 Zhang Wei 在聲明中表示，監管措施不會從根本上改變其商業模式或營運。 收盤後，該公司宣佈於週五進行 10 億港元（1.28 億美元）的回購。

最新的規定有更加的驚愕，因為北京方面對該行業的態度似乎有所緩和。

過去幾個月，官員鼓勵電子競技作為後疫情時代經濟的引擎。 習近平本人出席了在杭州舉行的第十九屆亞運會開幕式，本屆亞運會首次將職業競技項目納入獎牌爭奪之中。

2022 年 12 月，騰訊獲得了包括《Valorant》和《Pokémon Unite》在內的一系列重要的公開發行批准 - 這一里程碑增強了人們對中國放鬆兩年來對大型科技公司打壓的希望。 家微信業者目前正與網易展開激烈競爭，網易推出休閒遊戲《夢幻之星》，希望補充老化的遊戲產品組合。 兩家公司都在所謂的皇家派對類型中投入了廣告和其他促銷費用，其程度是近年來前所未見的。

數據供應商 CNG 的數據顯示，到 2023 年，中國遊戲市場預計將成長近 14%，達到 3,029 億元人民幣（424 億美元），扭轉了去年 10% 的下降趨勢。

UOB Kay Hian 執行董事 Steven Leung 表示： “這讓投資者回想起幾年前的噩夢，當時政府試圖監管手機遊戲的遊戲時間”; “有了這些新規則，投資者可能會完全離開市場，因為政策風險太高了。”

非常明確的拒絕：The Bloomberg Open，歐洲版

 大部分問題源自於模糊的措詞。 該規定要求境外遊戲發行商尊重中國法律和文化，不得危害國家安全，但沒有詳細說明。 騰訊是全球最大的遊戲發行商，投資在工作室包括美國的 Epic Games Inc. 和歐洲的 Supercell。

該機構將在一個月內收集有關擬議規則的反映，但未透露何時生效。 一些投資者希望監管機構最終可能會被說服放棄比較不受歡迎的措施。

Wocom Securities Ltd. 投資經理 Mike Leung 表示： “嚴格的監管將不可避免地阻礙網路遊戲產業的長期發展，讓人懷疑政府是否正在考慮新一輪的監管方向。”

              The Communist Party since 2020 has waged a campaign against the private sector, probably it may regard them are amassing too much power and expanding recklessly, threatening CCP’s control of the world’s No. 2 economy. Xi Jinping’s administration has long sought to combat gaming addiction, blaming online entertainment for the rise of myopia among youths. Critics have also linked that to various ills from unemployment to low birth rates. Currently China’s gaming regulator will take feedback on the proposed controlling rules for a month. Let’s see what will happen then.

Note:

Freemium is combination of the words "free" and "premium," freemium is a type of business model that offers basic features of a product or service to users at no cost and charges a premium for supplemental or advanced features. (https://www.investopedia.com/)

Bloomberg: The Open is a TV program. Host Jonathan Ferro presents a compilation of informative and insightful market analysis ahead of the opening bell on Wall Street to help investors choose the right stocks.

中國重燃打壓恐懼，騰訊帶領股價暴跌 800 億美元 (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Tencent Leads $80 Billion Rout as China Rekindles Crackdown Fear (1/2)

Zheping Huang, Jing Jin and Sarah Zheng

Fri, December 22, 2023 at 2:10 a.m. PST

(Bloomberg) -- Tencent Holdings Ltd. led an $80 billion selloff in some of China’s biggest online names, after the surprise imposition of new gaming curbs revived fears Beijing may again be targeting the country’s giant internet sector.

The top gaming regulator on Friday published draft rules broadly designed to clamp down on practices that encourage players to spend more money and time online. They encompassed caps on the amount each player can spend within a game, a ban on rewards for frequent log-ins and forced player-duels, even a prohibition on content that violates national security.

The sweeping restrictions, which caught industry players and investors off guard on the final trading day before Christmas, reminded many of the brutal tech-sector crackdown of 2021. That year, various agencies abruptly imposed curbs on sectors from e-commerce to entertainment, reining in Jack Ma-backed Ant Group Co. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. while decimating the online education industry by declaring profits illegal.

As with two years ago, Friday’s regulations emerged with little warning and were at once so vague and all-encompassing that investors couldn’t decipher the intent or potential fallout. Outraged and confused posts dominated a WeChat group of hundreds of developers and designers, many complaining in particular about the unspecified cap on player spending. Chinese games are known for shrewd designs and promos that encourage players to spend on decorating and burnishing their avatars — the main source of income for Tencent and its rivals.

Asia Gaming Stocks Sink on Surprise New China Curbs: Street Wrap

Tencent slid as much as 16% — its biggest intraday fall since 2008 — while smaller rival NetEase Inc. dived a record 28%. Bilibili Inc., a social media service popular with gamers, fell 14%. Combined, the three stocks lost as much as $80 billion in market value on Friday. Shares in Prosus NV and Naspers Ltd., Tencent’s major shareholders, sank in Europe.

“The government gaming curb measures will hurt gaming companies’ earnings,” said Yang Junxuan, a fund manager at Shanghai Junniu Private Fund Management Co. “But the more important concern is people are worrying that more measures targeting the sector will come, just like what Beijing did to the education sector in the past.”

The Communist Party since 2020 has waged a campaign against a private sector it regarded as amassing too much power and expanding recklessly, threatening its control of the world’s No. 2 economy.

“It caught people off guard, right before the holiday and hitting sentiment hard. It feels disheartening as well for this to happen after a year that is already so difficult for market,” said Willer Chen, senior analyst at Forsyth Barr Asia Ltd.

The crackdown on gaming actually pre-dated that movement, with the first suspensions of game approvals starting around 2018.

Xi Jinping’s administration has long sought to combat gaming addiction, blaming online entertainment for the rise of myopia among youths. Chinese users spend more time online on average than in many other markets, fueling the rise of services like Douyin and WeChat. Critics have also linked that to various ills from unemployment to low birth rates. At the height of the tech-sector crackdown, the government froze approvals for new titles and launched several investigations into content, forcing developers including Tencent to modify certain games.

On a separate WeChat feed, Tencent investors and employees called out the rules as irrational and out of touch. Cai Wensheng, a prominent Chinese venture capital investor who co-founded the photo touch-up app Meitu, said on WeChat: “A policy kills an industry.” He later deleted the post. Adding to the confusion, the same gaming regulator on Friday approved 40 new online gaming titles for distribution in China, earlier than anticipated.

(to be continued)

（彭博）— 在出人意料地實施新的遊戲限制措施及再次引發人們對北京方面可能再次針對中國龐大的互聯網行業的擔憂之後，騰訊控股有限公司帶領了一些中國最大的網絡公司帶領股價下跌達800 億美元。

週五，最高遊戲監管機構發布了規則草案，旨在打擊鼓勵玩家在網路上花費更多金錢和時間的行為。 其中包括每個玩家在遊戲中可以花費的金額上限、禁止頻繁登入獎勵和強迫玩家決鬥，甚至禁止違反國家安全的內容。

這些全面的限制措施, 令行業參與者和投資者在聖誕節前的最後一個交易日措手不及，這讓許多人想起了2021 年的科技行業殘酷鎮壓。那一年，各個政府機構突然對從電子商務到娛樂等產業實施了限制，遏制了馬雲支持的螞蟻集團和阿里巴巴集團控股有限公司，同時宣布線上教育產業利潤非法從而摧毀了它。

兩年前一樣，週五的監管規定幾乎沒有任何警告，而且內容非常模糊且包羅萬象，以至於投資者無法解讀其意圖或潛在後果。 數百名開發者和設計師組成的微信群組,充斥著憤怒和困惑的帖子，其中許多人特別抱怨玩家支出上限未明確。 中國遊戲以精明的設計和促銷而聞名，鼓勵玩家花錢裝飾和打磨自己的角色 - 這是騰訊及其競爭對手的主要收入來源。

中國出人意料的新限制措施導致亞洲遊戲股下跌：Street Wrap

騰訊股價下跌 16%，為 2008 年以來最大單日跌幅，而規模較小的競爭對手網易股價則下跌 28%，創歷史新高。 深受遊戲玩家歡迎的社群媒體服務 Bilibili Inc. 下跌 14%。 週五，這三隻股票的市值合計損失高達 800 億美元。 騰訊主要股東 Prosus NV 和 Naspers Ltd. 的股價在歐洲下跌。

上海 Junniu 私募基金管理有限公司基金經理 Yang Junxuan 表示：「政府的博彩遊戲限制措施將損害遊戲公司的獲利。但更重要的擔憂是，人們擔心會出現更多針對該行業的措施，就像北京過去對教育行業做了什麼」。

自2020年以來，共產黨對私營行業發起了一場運動，它認為私營行業積累了過多的權力並肆意擴張，威脅到其對世界第二大經濟體的控制。

Forsyth Barr Asia Ltd 高級分析師 Willer Chen 表示：「就在節日之前，這讓人們措手不及，嚴重打擊了人們的情緒。 在市場已經如此艱難的一年之後，出現這種情況也令人感到沮喪」。

開始對遊戲的打擊實際上早於這次運動，第一次暫停遊戲審批是從 2018 年左右開始的。

習近平政府長期以來致力於打擊遊戲成癮，並將青少年近視率上升歸咎於網路娛樂。 中國用戶平均上網時間比許多其他市場都多，這推動了抖音和微信等服務的崛起。 批評者也將其與失業和低出生率等各種弊病聯繫起來。 在科技業打壓最嚴重的時候，政府凍結了新遊戲的審批，並對內容發起了多項調查，迫使包括騰訊在內的開發商修改某些遊戲。

在另一封微信上，騰訊投資者和員工稱這些規則不合理且脫離實際。 中國著名風險投資人、美圖應用程式聯合創始人 Cai Wensheng 在微信上表示： 「政策殺死一個行業」。 他後來刪除了該帖子。 更令人困惑的是，該遊戲監管機構週五批准了 40 款新的線上遊戲在中國發行，時間上早於預期。

（待續）

這些熾熱的岩石可以發出比太陽更亮的光。 它們還可以幫助淘汰化石燃料 (2/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

These hot rocks can glow brighter than the sun. They could also help spell the end of fossil fuels (2/2)

Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent

Mon, December 18, 2023 at 7:54 a.m. PST

(continue)

Antora has managed to raise $80 million in seed money from investors that include Bill Gates, but their main competitor is another Bay Area startup called Rondo that uses abundant refractory brick, which is cheaper than carbon by weight but not as energy dense. Rondo has attracted even more funding than Antora and its first battery is producing commercial power for an ethanol plant in California.

“We had this breakthrough that lets us heat brick directly with infrared, invisible light from heating elements,” Rondo CEO John O’Donnell told CNN. “Right away we knew with third-party engineering reports that this stuff is going to last 100 years.”

Tesla recently predicted a carbon-free world will need an astonishing 240 terawatt-hours of energy storage – more than 340 times the amount of storage built with lithium-ion batteries in 2022. O’Donnell predicts more than half of all that new capacity will come in the form of heat batteries, simply because the raw ingredients are so readily available.

By plugging their factories into as many thermal batteries as they need, manufacturers won’t have to wait in a years-long line for grid connections and upgrades.

Given those financial considerations, the old phrase “dumb as a box of rocks” may have to be revised for this new industrial revolution.

“Exciting technologies are great if you’re a venture capitalist and death if you’re a banker,” O’Donnell said. “And it is the bankers and the infrastructure finance folks that like this whole class of technologies. It’s not particularly sexy, but that’s a really good thing.”

“Both companies do heat and power storage,” said Jesse Jenkins, a professor of engineering at Princeton University. “And I think like hydrogen, which similarly has a flexible role to play, it is this kind of long duration storage technology that I’m most optimistic about.”

Jenkins, who specializes in macro-scale energy systems, is also a consultant for Rondo and says the hot rocks model has a distinct advantage over chemical batteries that can store power, but not heat.

“If you can do both, you can ride the cost curves and scaling advantages in the larger industrial sectors, whereas some of the more pure-play electrochemical battery companies are in a make-or-break moment,” Jenkins told CNN.

Both the Antora and Rondo CEOs attended the COP28 climate summit in Dubai where the power of Middle East petrostates was enough to weaken the global commitment to end fossil fuels. But both men came back enthused by the interest in their ideas and the dozens of other breakthroughs in clean energy.

“If you’d asked me five or 10 years ago, I would have said, I’m not sure we have everything we need to decarbonize,” Ponec said strolling through the solar array that powers his battery while a gas-fired power plant sat quiet and idle nearby. “But today, we have the tools we need. We just need to deploy them. The transition is inevitable. It’s going to happen. And if you talk behind closed doors to most of the people in the fossil fuel industry, they’ll say the same thing.”

Translation

（繼續）

Antora 已成功從包括 Bill Gates 在內的投資者那裡籌集了8,000 萬美元的種子資金，但他們的主要競爭對手是另一家名為 Rondo 的灣區初創公司，該公司使用豐裕的耐火磚，按重量計算，耐火磚比碳磚便宜，但能量密度不高。 Rondo 比 Antora 吸引了更多的資金，其第一塊蓄能池正在為加州的一家乙醇工廠生產商業電力。

Rondo 執行長 John O’Donnell 告訴 CNN： “我們取得了這一突破，可讓我們可以直接由熱元件發出的紅外線、見不到的光來加熱磚塊”; “我們立即透過第三方工程報告得知，這些東西將持續 100 年。”

Tesla 最近預測，一個無碳世界將需要驚人的 240 太瓦時的能源儲存 - 這是2022 年建成的鋰離子電池儲存容量的 340 倍以上。O’Donnell預測，所有新增容量的一半以上將用於以熱能池的形式出現，僅僅是因為原材料太容易獲得。

透過在工廠安裝所需數量的熱能池，製造商將不必排長隊等待電網連接和升級。

考慮到這些財務上的考慮，「笨得像石頭一樣」這句老話可能需要針對這次新工業革命而進行修正。

O’Donnell 說: 「如果你是創投家，令人興奮的技術是偉大的；如果你是銀行家，是死亡」; 「銀行家和基礎設施金融人士喜歡這類的全套技術。 雖然不是特別引起很多興趣和興奮，但這確實是一件好事」。

普林斯頓大學工程學教授 Jesse Jenkins 說: 「兩家公司都從事熱能和電能儲存業務」; 「我認為，就像氫一樣，它同樣具有靈活的角色，我最看好的就是這種長期存儲技術」。

Jenkins 專門研究宏觀能源系統，也是 Rondo 的顧問，他表示熱岩模型比化學電池有明顯的優勢，化學電池可以儲存電能，但不是熱量。

Jenkins 告訴美國有線電視新聞網： “如果兩樣你都能做到，你就可以在更大的工業領域利用成本曲線和規模優勢，而一些单一業務的電化學電池公司正處於生死存亡的時刻。”

Antora 和 Rondo 的執行長都參加了在杜拜舉行的 COP28 氣候高峰會，中東石油國家的力量足以削弱全球終止化石燃料的承諾。 但兩人回來後都對他們自身的想法和清潔能源領域的其他數十項突破感到興奮。

Ponec 在為電池供電的太陽能電池陣列中漫步, 而在附近的燃氣發電廠靜靜地閑置着, 說道: 「如果你在五年或十年前問我，我會說，我不確定我們是否擁有脫碳所需的一切」; 「但今天，我們擁有了所需的工具。 我們只需要部署它們。 這種轉變是不可避免的。 這將會發生。 如果你與化石燃料行業的大多數人閉門交談，他們也會說同樣的話」。

So, according to experts we have the tools and technology needed to say good-bye to fossil fuel. Definitely, the new technologies are great if you’re a venture capitalist and death if you’re a banker. I look forward to seeing a transition in technology regarding energy storage in factories.

這些熾熱的岩石可以發出比太陽更亮的光。 它們還可以幫助淘汰化石燃料 (1/2)

Recently CNN.co.jp reported the following:

These hot rocks can glow brighter than the sun. They could also help spell the end of fossil fuels (1/2)

Bill Weir, CNN Chief Climate Correspondent

Mon, December 18, 2023 at 7:54 a.m. PST

At some point in the dawn of humanity, a smarter-than-average homo sapien moved a rock away from the fire for warmth and invented the thermal battery.

Over a million years later, as humanity struggles to evolve past fossil fuels in time to avoid climate collapse, that simple idea is making a modern comeback – and hot rocks are hotter than ever, literally and figuratively.

“(The rocks) in the box right now are about 1,600 degrees Celsius,” Andrew Ponec said, standing next to a thermal battery the size of a small building. That is nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, “Hotter than the melting point of steel,” he explained.

But what makes his box of white-hot rocks so significant is they were not heated by burning tons of coal or gas, but by catching sunlight with the thousands of photovoltaic solar panels that surround his prototype west of Fresno.

If successful, Ponec and his start-up Antora Energy could be part of a new, multi-trillion-dollar energy storage sector that simply uses sun or wind to make boxes of rocks hot enough to run the world’s biggest factories.

“People sometimes feel like they’re insulting us by saying, ‘Hey, that sounds really simple,” Ponec laughed. “And we say, ‘No, that’s exactly the point.’”

Ponec’s clean energy passions began when he was a curious public-school kid tinkering with photovoltaics in his parent’s garage and was lured to drop out of Stanford to build grid-scale solar plants.

When he went back to get his degree, he realized while sun and wind is great for topping off the batteries in cars and homes, there is an even more urgent demand to clean up the fuel sources of industrial heat needed to make everything from baby food to steel. And because a factory’s energy demand is often 24/7, heavy industry has yet to take advantage of the plunging price of renewables.

“Most days in the middle of the day in California, electricity on the wholesale market is free and sometimes even negative dollars, because there’s so much solar that’s now been installed,” Ponec said, “and we’re seeing the same thing in other states with wind. The problem is you can’t shut down your factory when the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind stops blowing, and that’s exactly the problem that we focused on.”

While the word “battery” most likely evokes the chemical kind found in cars and electronics in 2023, hot rocks currently store ten times as much energy as lithium ion around the world, thanks to an invention from the 1800s known as Cowper stoves. Often found in smelting plants, these massive towers of stacked bricks absorb the wasted heat of a blast furnace until it heats to nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and then provides over 100 megawatts of heat energy for about 20 minutes.

The process can be repeated 24 times a day for 30 years, and Antora is among the startups experimenting with different kinds of rocks in insulated boxes or molten salt in cylinders to find the most efficient combination.

“We were pretty intrigued by graphite for a number of reasons,” Ponec said. The cheap and abundant carbon found in pencils – which is also used to smelt aluminum and steel – can hold so much heat, it glows hotter than the sun, he said.

“The key thing that those furnaces didn’t have is a way to get the heat back out,” he said. “We’ve added some cavities, some gaps in the carbon that allow light from deep within the system to shine out and some insulated doors that can open and close that allow that light to shine out when you want it. In the future, we’ll be using that light not just to create steam, but to create much higher temperature heat for industries like cement and steel.”

(to be continued)

Translation

在人類誕生之初的某個時刻，一個比普通人更聰明的智人將一塊石頭從火上移開取暖，並發明了熱能的儲存。

超過一百萬年後，當人類努力及時擺脫化石燃料以避免氣候崩潰時，這個簡單的想法正在現代捲土重來 - 無論從字面上還是比喻上來說，熱岩石都比以往任何時候都更熱。

「（岩石）盒子裡的現在溫度約為 1,600 攝氏度，」Andrew Ponec 站在一個小型建築般大小的儲熱池旁邊說道。 那溫度接近華氏 3,000 度，他解釋道: 「比鋼的熔點還要熱」。

但他的白熱岩石盒子之所以如此重要，是因為它們並不是通過燃燒大量的煤炭或天然氣來加熱的，而是通過位於 Fresno 以西, 圍繞他的這個原型體的數千個光伏太陽能電池板捕捉陽光來加熱。

如果成功，Ponec 和他的新創公司 Antora 能源公司可能會成為價值數萬億美元的新能源儲存產業的一部分，該產業只需利用太陽能或風能來製造足夠熱的岩石箱去運行世界上最大的工廠。

Ponec 笑著說: 「人們有時會覺得, 當他們說 :『嘿，這聽起來很簡單』 是在侮辱我們」。 「我們說: 『不，這正是重點』」。

Ponec 對清潔能源的熱情始於他還是個好奇的公立學校孩子時，他在父母的車庫裡收理改動光能發電物件器，並被誘惑從史丹佛大學退學去建造電網規模的太陽能發電廠。

當他回去獲得學位時，他意識到，雖然陽光和風非常適合補充汽車和家庭的電池，但更迫切的需求是使令生產嬰兒食品到鋼鐵等各種產品所需的工業熱能燃料源变得清潔。 由於工廠的能源需求通常是 24/7，重工業尚在等待再生能源價格暴跌的機會來臨。

Ponec 說：「在加州中午的大部分時間裡，電力在批發市場上都是免費的，有時甚至是負美元，因為現在安裝了太多的太陽能，我們在其他有風的州也看到了同樣的情況。 問題是，當太陽落入雲層或風停止時，你無法停頓工廠，而這正是我們關注的問題」。

雖然「電池」這個詞很可能讓人想起2023 年汽車和電子產品中發現的化學物質，但因為於1800 年代發明的「考珀爐」，令目前全球熱岩石儲存的能量是鋰離子的十倍。 這些巨大的磚塔經常出現在冶煉廠中，它們吸收高爐的廢熱，直到加熱到近 3,000 華氏度，然後在大約 20 分鐘內提供超過 100 兆瓦的熱能。

這個過程可以每天重複 24 次並持續 30 年，Antora 是眾多新創公司之一，他們在隔熱盒中試驗不同種類的岩石，或在圓筒中試驗熔鹽，以找到最有效的組合。

Ponec 說: 「出於多種原因，我們對石墨非常感興趣」。 鉛筆中含有的碳是廉價且豐富，也可用於冶煉鋁和鋼，可以容納如此多的熱量，發出的光比太陽還要熱。

他說: 「關鍵是這些熔爐沒有的沒有辦法將熱量散發出去」; 「我們在碳上添加了一些空位和一些間隙，讓光線從系統深處射出，還添加了一些可以打開和關閉的隔熱門，讓光線在需要時射出。 未來，我們不僅會利用這種光來產生蒸汽，還會為水泥和鋼鐵等行業產生更高溫度的熱量」。

（待續）

Note:

Cowper stove is a kind of regenerative heat exchanger. A regenerative heat exchanger, or more commonly a regenerator, is a type of heat exchanger where heat from the hot fluid is intermittently stored in a thermal storage medium before it is transferred to the cold fluid. Regenerative heating was one of the most important technologies developed during the Industrial Revolution when it was used in the hot blast process on blast furnaces. It was later used in glass melting furnaces and steel making. The first regenerator was invented by Rev. Robert Stirling in 1816. Edward Alfred Cowper applied the regeneration principle to blast furnaces, in the form of the "Cowper stove", patented in 1857. This is almost invariably used with blast furnaces to this day. (Wikipedia)

East China Sea gas field: Ministry of Foreign Affairs protests after flames are confirmed in Chinese-built structures

Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

東シナ海ガス田 中国建設の構造物から炎確認 外務省が抗議

2023年12月18日 21時43分

東シナ海のガス田開発をめぐり、外務省は、中国が建設した構造物から新たに炎が上がっていることが確認されたとして、中国側に対し一方的な開発をやめるよう抗議しました。

東シナ海のガス田開発をめぐっては、2008年に日中両政府が共同開発することで合意しましたが、関係する条約の締結交渉は中断したままで、中国側が一方的な開発を進めています。

外務省によりますと、今月15日、中国が日中中間線の中国側の海域に設置した構造物1基で、天然ガスを生産する過程で発生したとみられる炎が上がっているのを海上自衛隊が確認したということです。

中国が設置した構造物はこれまでに18基あり、今回を含めると合わせて14基で炎が確認されたことになるということです。

これを受けて、外務省の鯰アジア大洋州局長は、中国大使館の楊宇 次席公使に対し、一方的な開発の継続は極めて遺憾だとして、開発をやめるよう電話で抗議しました。

そして、条約の締結交渉の再開に早期に応じるよう改めて強く求めました。

Translation

Regarding the development of gas fields in the East China Sea, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had protested to the Chinese side asking stopping unilateral development of this gas field, saying that new flames had been confirmed to be coming from structures built there by China.

Regarding the development of gas fields in the East China Sea, the governments of Japan and China agreed in 2008 to jointly develop the gas fields, but negotiations to conclude related treaties had remained suspended, and China was proceeding with development unilaterally.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the 15th of this month, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force confirmed that, on the Chinese side of the Japan-China halfway line, at a structure installed by China, a flame that seemed to have originated in the process of producing natural gas was observed.

China had installed 18 structures so far, and including this one, flames were confirmed in 14 of them.

In response to this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Director-General for Asia and Oceania, Namazu (鯰), protested by phone to Yang Yu (楊宇), Deputy Chief Minister of the Chinese Embassy to state that the continuation of unilateral development was extremely regrettable and asked to stop the development.

He reiterated his strong request for the prompt resumption of negotiations to conclude a treaty.

So, Japan protests to China regarding the continuation of unilateral development at the gas fields, and asks China to stop the development as the present dividing line has not been mutually agreed.  It is interesting to know that arguments over the boundary of the gas fields which have died down for quite a while now appears again.