- Ozzie Newsome on Lamar Jackson: We’ll use a lot of energy to get a deal done and use tag if we can’t NBC Sports
- Ravens say talks with Lamar Jackson to go up to tag deadline ESPN
- Ravens expected to franchise tag Lamar Jackson, Raiders front-runners for Jimmy G | NFL | THE HERD The Herd with Colin Cowherd
- Lamar Jackson update: Ravens’ Ozzie Newsome says franchise tag to be used on QB Tuesday if no deal gets done CBS Sports
- Ravens Executive VP Says ‘A Lot of Energy’ Going Into Getting Lamar Jackson Deal Done Before Tag Deadline Sports Illustrated
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Energy
Illinois’ Matthew Mayer says he had ‘caffeine poisoning’ after drinking six Monster energy drinks – CBS Sports
- Illinois’ Matthew Mayer says he had ‘caffeine poisoning’ after drinking six Monster energy drinks CBS Sports
- Illinois F Matthew Mayer cites ‘caffeine poisoning’ from video game binge for missed practice: ‘I like a caffeine-induced euphoria’ Yahoo Sports
- Illinois’ Matthew Mayer Back at Practice After ‘Caffeine Poisoning’ Sports Illustrated
- Illinois’ Matthew Mayer returns to practice after ‘caffeine poisoning’ FOX Sports
- Illinois’ Matthew Mayer got ‘caffeine poisoning’ from energy drink-fueled gaming session New York Post
- View Full Coverage on Google News
US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin – CNN
- US Energy Department assesses Covid-19 likely resulted from lab leak, furthering US intel divide over virus origin CNN
- Republicans erupt after Energy Dept reportedly says COVID-19 likely came from Chinese lab: ‘We need answers’ Fox News
- Report: COVID-19 likely leaked from lab in Wuhan, China CBS New York
- WSJ News Exclusive | Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says The Wall Street Journal
- US needs to hold China accountable for Wuhan lab leak, says 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Firstpost
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Honda to start producing new hydrogen fuel cell system co-developed with GM
TOKYO, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Japan’s Honda Motor Co (7267.T) said it will start producing a new hydrogen fuel cell system jointly developed with General Motors Co (GM.N) this year and gradually step up sales this decade, in a bid to expand its hydrogen business.
Honda will target annual sales of around 2,000 units of the new system in the middle of this decade, the company said on Thursday, aiming to boost that to 60,000 units per year in 2030.
The Japanese carmaker is seeking to expand the use of its new system not only for its own fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), but also commercial vehicles such as heavy trucks, as stationary power stations and in construction machinery.
Honda will start production of the hydrogen fuel cell system through its joint venture with GM this year, Honda senior managing executive director Shinji Aoyama told reporters during a company event in Tokyo.
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
With the “next-generation” system, the company aims to more than double durability compared with its older fuel cell system and to bring costs down by two-thirds.
“While commercial vehicles are in use all over the world, they’ll likely see electrification just as with passenger cars,” said Tetsuya Hasebe, general manager of Honda’s hydrogen business development division.
That would likely lead to a divergence in trucks using batteries and those running on fuel cells, he added.
Reporting by Daniel Leussink; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Jamie Freed
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
More than 170,000 Austin Energy customers are without power as a winter storm hits Central Texas
Lee esta historia en español
More than 30% of Austin Energy customers don’t have power Wednesday afternoon as a winter storm continues to roll through Central Texas, causing ice to accumulate on power lines, utility poles and tree limbs.
The electric utility says crews are working to fix the outages — which have grown throughout the day — but icy roadways and frozen equipment are slowing things down.
“It is not possible to provide estimated restoration times,” Austin Energy said in a tweet at 11:30 a.m. “It’s possible some customers may be without power for 12-24 hours.”
The utility company advised customers to make emergency plans and prepare to relocate, if needed, before 5 p.m.
The outages, which have affected more than 170,000 residential and commercial electricity users, are being caused by local issues; they’re not the result of a statewide electric grid problem. Williamson and Hays counties are also seeing outages.
Austin Energy customers can report a power outage by calling 512-322-9100 or texting “OUT” to 287846. They can also report and check on the status of outages on Austin Energy’s outage map.
Downed power lines have also caused problems for drivers. Just before 3 p.m., Interstate 35 in North Austin was shut down in both directions from Wells Branch to Grand Avenue Parkway because of fallen lines, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office tweeted. The southbound frontage road at Grand Avenue was also closed. The Texas Department of Transportation said all lanes had reopened around 4 p.m.
TxDOT continues to urge people to stay off the roads if they can. Here’s what to know if you do need to drive. The power outages are also affecting Austin traffic signals. If you come across a traffic light that is not working or is flashing red, treat it as a four-way stop.
Residents in Travis County District 10, around West Lake Hills, have been asked to conserve water because of a power outage at the McConnel Pump Station. The county said Austin Energy is working to restore service.
The power went out for Northwest Austin resident India Gail this morning around 9. A couple hours into the outage, she started walking in the cold with her twin daughters and their dog to get to a friend’s house that had power to wait out the outage.
“They want to watch TV,” Gail said, referring to her 5-year-old daughters. “If it was just me, I might stick it out longer.”
She wasn’t sure when they would get it back on, so she and her family packed some food and crafts — and put their dog Mango into a sweater — and set out.
“We’re going to go hang over there and keep warm and store our food,” she said, carrying a bag of yogurt, lunch meat and cheese.
Closures and cancellations
Many Central Texas school districts and businesses remained closed Wednesday. The National Weather Service is expecting freezing rain to continue through Thursday morning, so more closures are ahead.
Austin ISD, Del Valle ISD, Pflugerville ISD and Round Rock ISD have announced closures for Thursday. (Visit your local school district’s website for the latest information.) UT Austin will also remain closed Thursday.
Capital Metro services were suspended Wednesday. The agency said it plans to resume bus service Thursday, but it won’t be on a normal schedule: Buses won’t get on the road until 10 a.m. and they’ll be on a reduced schedule. MetroRail will not run Thursday.
Most local government offices and facilities are closed — including in the cities of Austin, San Marcos and Georgetown, as well as Travis, Hays and Williamson counties.
Some Austin-area H-E-B stores are currently closed, and others have adjusted hours. Many will close at 6 p.m. Wednesday. See a full list here.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport’s runways and roads are open, said Sam Haynes, an airport spokesperson.
“The airport is really quiet right now. We haven’t had to de-ice anything on the airfield but the north side of the property with the roadways and parking structures have had some ice pop up,” Haynes said. “Some walkways and stairwells are closed but all roadways are open.”
The airport has had more than 300 canceled flights in the last 24 hours, according to Flight Aware.
Where to stay warm
People who need a warm place to stay in Austin can head to one of these warming centers, which will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday:
- Little Walnut Creek Branch Library, 835 W. Rundberg Ln
- Terrazas Branch Library, 1105 E. Cesar Chavez St.
- Turner-Roberts Recreation Center, 7201 Colony Loop Dr.
- Austin Recreation Center, 1301 Shoal Creek
Those who need transportation to a warming center should call 311.
Cold weather shelters will be available Wednesday night. Anyone who needs a warm place to stay can head to One Texas Center at 505 Barton Springs Road to register between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. You will then be taken to a shelter. You can call 512-305-4233 for more information on shelters.
Follow along for updates from the National Weather Service:
window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({
appId : '480442339585794',
xfbml : true, version : 'v2.9' }); };
(function(d, s, id){
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js";
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));
Read original article here
Does coffee really give you an ‘energy boost’?
Many of us want (or should I say need?) our morning coffee to give us our “get up and go.” Altogether, the people of the world drink more than two billion cups of coffee each day (opens in new tab).
You might think coffee gives you the energy to get through the morning or the day — but coffee might not be giving you as much as you think.
The main stimulant in coffee is the caffeine. And the main way caffeine works is by changing the way the cells in our brain interact with a compound called adenosine (opens in new tab).
Getting busy, getting tired
Adenosine is part of the system (opens in new tab) that regulates our sleep and wake cycle and part of why high levels of activity lead to tiredness. As we go about our days and do things, levels of adenosine rise (opens in new tab) because it is released as a by-product as energy is used in our cells.
Eventually adenosine binds to its receptor (opens in new tab) (parts of cells that receive signals) which tells the cells to slow down, making us feel drowsy and sleepy. This is why you feel tired after a big day of activity. While we are sleeping, energy use drops (opens in new tab) lowering adenosine levels as it gets shuffled back into other forms. You wake up in the morning feeling refreshed. Well, if you get enough sleep that is.
If you are still feeling drowsy when you wake up caffeine can help, for a while. It works by binding to the adenosine receptor (opens in new tab), which it can do because it is a similar shape. But it is not so similar that it triggers the drowsy slow-down signal like adenosine does. Instead it just fills the spots and stops the adenosine from binding there. This is what staves off the drowsy feeling.
Laurits Regner Tuxen.Danish Artist, 18531927.Serving morning coffee, 1906. pic.twitter.com/PwftbbSyaQJanuary 22, 2023
No free ride
But there is a catch. While it feels energising, this little caffeine intervention is more a loan of the awake feeling, rather than a creation of any new energy.
This is because the caffeine won’t bind forever (opens in new tab), and the adenosine that it blocks doesn’t go away. So eventually the caffeine breaks down, lets go of the receptors and all that adenosine that has been waiting and building up latches on and the drowsy feeling comes back — sometimes all at once.
So, the debt you owe the caffeine always eventually needs to be repaid, and the only real way to repay it is to sleep.
Timing is everthing
How much free adenosine is in your system, that hasn’t attached to receptors yet, and how drowsy you are as a consequence will impact how much the caffeine you drink wakes you up. So, the coffee you drink later in the day (opens in new tab), when you have more drowsy signals your system may feel more powerful.
If it’s too late in the day, caffeine can make it hard to fall asleep at bedtime. The “half life” of caffeine (how long it takes to break down half of it) is about five hours (opens in new tab). That said, we all metabolise caffeine (opens in new tab) differently, so for some of us the effects wear off more quickly. Regular coffee drinkers might feel less of a caffeine “punch,” with tolerance (opens in new tab) to the stimulant building up over time.
Caffeine can also raise levels of cortisol (opens in new tab), a stress hormone that can make you feel more alert. This might mean caffeine feels more effective later in the morning, because you already have a natural rise in cortisol when you wake up. The impact of a coffee right out of bed might not seem as powerful for this reason.
If your caffeinated beverage of choice is also a sugary one, this can exacerbate the peak and crash feeling. Because while sugar does create actual energy in the body, the free sugars in your drink can cause a spike in blood sugar, which can then make you feel tired when the dip comes afterwards (opens in new tab).
While there is no proven harm of drinking coffee on an empty stomach, coffee with or after a meal (opens in new tab) might hit you more slowly. This is because the food might slow down the rate at which the caffeine is absorbed.
Read more: Does coffee burn more fat during exercise? What the evidence tells us (opens in new tab)
What about a strong tea or fizzy cola?
Coffee, of course, isn’t the only caffeinated beverage that can loan you some energy.
The caffeine in tea, energy drinks and other beverages still impacts the body in the same way. But, since the ingredients mostly come from plants, each caffeinated beverage has its own profile of additional compounds which can have their own stimulant effect (opens in new tab), or can interact with caffeine to change its impacts.
Caffeine can be useful, but it isn’t magic. To create energy and re-energise our bodies we need enough food, water and sleep.
This article is republished from The Conversation (opens in new tab) under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article (opens in new tab).
White House blasts Exxon over historical $56 bln annual profit
WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) – The White House on Tuesday expressed outrage on Tuesday at Exxon Mobil Corp’s record net profit in 2022 of $56 billion, a historical high not just for the company but for the entire Western oil industry.
Oil majors are expected to break their own annual records due to high prices and soaring demand, pushing their combined take to near $200 billion. The scale has brought renewed criticism of the oil industry and sparked calls for more countries to levy windfall profit taxes on the companies.
A White House statement said Exxon’s (XOM.N) profit margin was particularly galling as Americans paid record high prices at the pump. It criticized attempts by Republicans in the House of Representatives to push policies aimed at supporting the oil industry.
“The latest earnings reports make clear that oil companies have everything they need, including record profits and thousands of unused but approved permits, to increase production, but they’re instead choosing to plow those profits into padding the pockets of executives and shareholders while House Republicans manufacture excuse after excuse to shield them from any accountability,” the White House said.
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
President Joe Biden has blasted oil companies and refiners for much of the last year for enjoying surging profits as gasoline prices soared. In June, he Biden wrote to executives of major oil refiners and complained they had cut back on production to pad profits, according to a copy of a letter seen by Reuters.
Exxon’s CFO Kathryn Mikells responded to growing criticism over the industry’s windfall profits and suggested the answer is not increased taxes.
“We look at the EU tax on the energy sector, and you know, it’s just unlawful and bad policy trying to tax something, when what you actually need is for it to increase,” Mikells said. “It has the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve.”
Reporting By Trevor Hunnicut and Steve Holland; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Sabrina Valle; Editing by Franklin Paul and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
India hikes spending, shuns ‘outright populism’ in last pre-election budget
NEW DELHI, Feb 1 (Reuters) – India announced on Wednesday one of its biggest ever increases in capital spending for the next fiscal year to create jobs but targeted a narrower fiscal deficit in its last full budget ahead of a parliamentary election due in 2024.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party has been under pressure to create jobs in the populous country where many have struggled to find employment, although the economy is now one of the world’s fastest-growing.
“After a subdued period of the pandemic, private investments are growing again,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said as she presented the 2023/24 budget in parliament.
“The budget makes the need once again to ramp up the virtuous cycle of investment and job creation. Capital investment is being increased steeply for the third year in a row by 33% to 10 trillion rupees.”
The capital spending increase to about $122.3 billion, which would amount to 3.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), will be the biggest such jump after an increase of more than 37% between 2020/21 and 2021/22.
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
Total spending will rise 7.5% to 45.03 trillion rupees ($549.51 billion) in the next fiscal year starting on April 1.
Sitharaman said the government would target a fiscal deficit of 5.9% of GDP for 2023/24 compared with 6.4% for the current fiscal year and slightly lower than a Reuters poll of 6%. The aim is to lower the deficit to 4.5% by 2025/26.
STEADY ‘MACRO BOAT’
Brokerage Nomura said the budget “prudently pushes for growth, without rocking the macro boat”.
“In the event, the government has presented a good budget. It has pushed for growth via public capex and continued on the path towards fiscal consolidation, without offering much in terms of outright populism.”
Capital Economics said the “absence of a fiscal blowout”, a recent drop in inflation and signs of moderating growth could convince India’s central bank to slow the pace of rate hikes next week.
It said there was still a chance of fiscal slippage as campaigning kicks off for the election, in which Modi is widely projected to win a third straight term.
The finance ministry’s annual Economic Survey, released on Tuesday, forecast the economy could grow 6% to 6.8% next fiscal year, down from 7% projected for the current year, while warning about the impact of cooling global demand on exports.
Sitharaman said India’s economy was “on the right track, and despite a time of challenges, heading towards a bright future”.
Her deficit plan will be aided by a 28% cut in subsidies on food, fertiliser and petroleum for the next fiscal year at 3.75 trillion rupees. The government cut spending on a key rural jobs guarantee programme to 600 billion rupees – the smallest in more than five years – from 894 billion rupees for this fiscal year.
The government’s gross market borrowing is estimated to rise about 9% to 15.43 trillion rupees next fiscal year.
CONSTRAINTS
Moody’s Investors Service said the narrower fiscal deficit projection pointed to the government’s commitment to longer-term fiscal sustainability, but that a “high debt burden and weak debt affordability remain key constraints that offset India’s fundamental strengths”.
Among other moves to stimulate consumption, the surcharge on annual income above 50 million rupees was cut to 25% from 37%.
Indian shares reversed earlier gains to close lower on Wednesday, led by a fall in insurance companies after the budget proposed to limit tax exemptions for insurance proceeds, while Adani Group shares tumbled again as it struggles to repel concerns raised by a U.S. short seller.
Since taking office in 2014, Modi has ramped up capital spending including on roads and energy, while wooing investors through lower tax rates and labour reforms, and offering subsidies to poor households to clinch their political support.
A lack of jobs for young people, and meagre wages for those who do find work, has been one of the main criticisms of Modi.
Sitharaman also said the government was allocating 350 billion rupees for energy transition, as Modi focuses on green hydrogen and other cleaner fuels to meet India’s climate goals.
($1 = 81.7725 Indian rupees)
Reporting by Shubham Batra, Nikunj Ohri, Shivangi Acharya, Sarita Singh, Nigam Prusty, Manoj Kumar, Rupam Jain and Indian bureaux; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Kim Coghill, Jacqueline Wong and Gareth Jones
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Adani loses Asia’s richest crown as stock rout deepens to $84 billion
BENGALURU, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Shares in Indian tycoon Gautam Adani’s conglomerate plunged again on Wednesday as a rout in his companies deepened to $84 billion in the wake of a U.S. short-seller report, with the billionaire also losing his title as Asia’s richest person.
Wednesday’s stock losses saw Adani slip to 15th on Forbes rich list with an estimated net worth of $76.8 billion, below rival Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd (RELI.NS) who ranks ninth with a net worth of $83.6 billion.
Before the critical report by U.S. short-seller Hindenburg, Adani had ranked third.
The losses mark a dramatic setback for Adani, the school-dropout-turned-billionaire whose business interests stretch from ports and airports to mining and cement. Now, the tycoon is fighting to stabilise his businesses and defend his reputation.
It comes just a day after the group managed to muster support from investors for a $2.5 billion share sale for flagship firm Adani Enterprises on Tuesday, in what some saw as a stamp of investor confidence.
Latest Updates
View 2 more stories
The report by Hindenburg Research last week alleged improper use by the Adani Group of offshore tax havens and stock manipulation. It also raised concerns about high debt and the valuations of seven listed Adani companies.
The group has denied the allegations, saying the short-seller’s narrative of stock manipulation has “no basis” and stems from an ignorance of Indian law. It has always made the necessary regulatory disclosures, it added.
Shares in Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS), often described as the incubator of Adani businesses, plunged 30% on Wednesday. Adani Power (ADAN.NS) fell 5%, while Adani Total Gas (ADAG.NS) slumped 10%, down by its daily price limit.
Adani Transmission (ADAI.NS) was down 6% and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSE.NS) dropped 20%.
Adani Total Gas, a joint venture with France’s Total (TTEF.PA), has been the biggest casualty of the short seller report, losing about $27 billion.
“There was a slight bounce yesterday after the share sale went through, after seeming improbable at a point, but now the weak market sentiment has become visible again after the bombshell Hindenburg report,” said Ambareesh Baliga, a Mumbai-based independent market analyst.
“With the stocks down despite Adani’s rebuttal, it clearly shows some damage on investor sentiment. It will take a while to stabilise,” Baliga added.
SCRUTINY
Underscoring the nervousness in some quarters, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) had stopped accepting bonds of Adani group companies as collateral for margin loans to its private banking clients.
Deven Choksey, managing director of KRChoksey Shares and Securities, said this was a big factor in Wednesday’s share slides.
Credit Suisse had no immediate comment.
Scrutiny of the conglomerate is stepping up, with an Australian regulator saying on Wednesday it would review Hindenburg’s allegations to see if further enquiries were warranted.
Data also showed that foreign investors sold a net $1.5 billion worth of Indian equities after the Hindenburg report – the biggest outflow over four consecutive days since Sept. 30.
Headaches for the Adani Group are expected to continue for some time.
India’s markets regulator, which has been looking into deals by the conglomerate, has said it will add Hindenburg’s report to its own preliminary investigation.
State-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) (LIFI.NS)said on Monday it would seek clarifications from Adani’s management on the short seller report. The insurance giant was, however, a key investor in the Adani Enterprises share sale.
Hindenburg said in its report it had shorted U.S.-bonds and non-India traded derivatives of the Adani Group.
Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru and Aditi Shah in New Delhi; Additional reporting by Bharath Rajeshwaran and Aditya Kalra; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Coal in the U.S. Is Pointlessly Expensive
Nearly all of the coal plants operating in the U.S. are now more expensive to keep online than it would be to build entirely new renewable energy facilities in their stead, according to a new analysis by Energy Innovation, an energy and policy firm. The analysis found that 99% of U.S. coal plants supply energy that would be cheaper if those plants were shut down and replaced with wind farms or solar fields.
“Coal is unequivocally more expensive than wind and solar resources, it’s just no longer cost competitive with renewables,” Michelle Solomon, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation, told the Guardian. “This report certainly challenges the narrative that coal is here to stay.”
In 2020, the country reached a point that the report refers to as the “cost crossover,” when renewables overtook coal on the U.S. grid. Energy Innovation has been running analyses since that year, looking at the cost of these coal plants compared to new renewable energy. The 2020 analysis found that 62% of the coal fleet was pricier to run than it would be to replace it with renewables; in 2021, that number had risen to 71%.
There’s a big new factor at play in this year’s analysis: the Inflation Reduction Act, which both provides significant tax credits for building new renewables as well as loan guarantees to replace fossil fuel infrastructure. Thanks in part to these incentives, the Energy Innovation analysis found that, out of the 210 coal plants still operating in the country, only one—a plant in Wyoming—produces energy at a cost that is competitive compared to the price of either local wind, solar, or both. And a lot of these potential renewable plants would be a lot cheaper; new wind or solar facilities would be around 30% cheaper than some three-quarters of the existing coal plants.
Coal use in the U.S., the leading source of carbon emissions worldwide, peaked in 2007; since then, its use has been on a downward trajectory, falling some 55% in output as of 2021. While right-wing narratives have blamed climate concerns, especially the Obama administration’s policies, for dragging down coal, the explanation is actually much easier: free market competition from other energy sources. During the fracking boom of the 2010s, natural gas suddenly became a lot less expensive than coal, while simultaneously, the cost of renewables like wind and solar were plummeting. Even President Donald Trump, who entered office vowing to put miners back to work producing “beautiful clean coal”—and who gave the industry a lot of freebies and second chances while in office—wasn’t able to reverse the hand of the market.
G/O Media may get a commission
“We can’t just snap our fingers and retire all coal plants but we need to accelerate the buildout of wind and solar so that when the time comes we can wean ourselves off coal,” Solomon told the Guardian.