Update (0950ET):

Both boosters have successfully landed. 

*  *  *

Update (0946ET):

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket’s side boosters have separated. 

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters separate: pic.twitter.com/QqDYgRiqja

— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) November 1, 2022

*  *  *

Update (0942ET):

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket has lifted off the launch pad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

The world’s most powerful rocket carries a classified payload for the Space Force. 

You can watch the Falcon Heavy launch live here:

*  *  *

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is expected at 0941 ET from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If all goes well, a classified payload for the US Space Force will be catapulted into low-Earth orbit. 

All systems and weather are looking good for Falcon Heavy’s launch of USSF-44; the 29-minute launch window opens at 9:41 a.m. ET → https://t.co/EDwAlAYGuI

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 1, 2022

“Falcon Heavy rolling up the ramp ahead of tomorrow’s targeted launch of the USSF-44 mission; weather is 90% favorable for liftoff,” SpaceX tweeted Monday evening. 

Falcon Heavy rolling up the ramp ahead of tomorrow’s targeted launch of the USSF-44 mission; weather is 90% favorable for liftoff pic.twitter.com/ZhLHUkSPKV

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 31, 2022

SpaceX then tweeted a video of the Falcon Heavy being lifted into a vertical position around midnight. 

Falcon Heavy going vertical at Launch Complex 39A pic.twitter.com/4rOUg5q2tY

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 1, 2022

Space Launch Delta 45, the official account of Patrick Space Force Base and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, warned of a “double sonic boom” during this morning’s launch. 

“Please be advised, tomorrow morning’s launch will be followed by a double sonic boom. This will occur shortly after launch, as the boosters land on landing zone 1 and landing zone 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station,” the space agency said. 

Please be advised, tomorrow morning’s launch will be followed by a double sonic boom.

This will occur shortly after launch, as the boosters land on landing zone 1 and landing zone 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. pic.twitter.com/2wAHkyyx3q

— Space Launch Delta 45 (@SLDelta45) October 31, 2022

USSF-44 will be just the fourth-ever Falcon Heavy mission and its first since June 2019. The world’s most powerful rocket in operation can lift a 140,000-pound payload to low-Earth orbit and beyond. There were no further details on the classified payload for the Space Force. 

The ranks of rebellious treasonous Democrats willing to meddle in the “independent” machinations of The Fed is growing as the countdown to the midterm meltdown continues to accelerate.

Who could have seen this coming?

In early September, we warned that The Fed’s actions mean millions of Americans are about to lose their jobs… and Democratic lawmakers will not just quietly sit by:

…due to the recency bias of Biden’s trillions in stimmies, and a world where workers – whether working form home or the office – have virtually all the leverage, few today can conceive of a world where inflation is zero or negative and is instead replaced with millions in unemployed workers, an outcome which one could (or rather should) say is even worse for the ruling democrats than roaring inflation. At least, with runaway prices, most people have a job and their wages are rising (at least nominally, if not in real terms).

However, the higher rates rise, the closer we get to that inevitable moment when the BLS – unable to kick the can any longer – admits what has been obvious to so many for months: the US is facing a labor crisis of epic proportions with millions and millions of mass layoffs.

In “Inflation and the Scariest Economics Paper of 2022“, Furman summarizes a paper written by Johns Hopkins macroeconomist Larry Ball with co-authors Daniel Leigh and Prachi Mishra of the International Monetary Fund released by the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, whose conclusion is as follows: “To bring price increases down to 2%, we may need to tolerate unemployment of 6.5% for two years.“

What does this mean in absolute numbers? 

Assuming a modest increase in the US labor force, a 6.5% unemployment rate in 2024 would translate into no less than 10.8 million unemployed workers, an 80% increase from the 6 million today!

Still think that politicians – and especially Democrats – will sit quietly and blindly ignore how high the Fed is hiking rates if it means that to normalize inflation back to 2% it means nearly doubling the number of unemployed Americans (and a crushing recession to boot). Spoiler alert: no, they won’t, and this may be one of the very rare occasions when Elizabeth Warren is actually right to worry about what the coming mass layoff wave means for Democrats… and the 2024 presidential election.

Well, surprise, surprise, here comes Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib and the rest of the progressive panderers to pressure The Fed to take its foot off the throat of the “strong as hell” economy.

Building on what Senate Baking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown recently warned last month:

“For working Americans who already feel the crush of inflation, job losses will make it much worse. We can’t risk the livelihoods of millions of Americans who can’t afford it. I ask that you don’t forget your responsibility to promote maximum employment and that the decisions you make at the next FOMC meeting reflect your commitment to the dual mandate.”

Warren et al. slam the implications of The Fed’s projected job losses from its official projections and its intention to continue raising interest rates at an “alarming pace”:

“You continue to double down on your commitment to ‘act aggressively’ with interest rate hikes and ‘keep at it until it’s done’…”

The lawmakers remind Powell that his tools are limp in the face of Putin’s price-hikes and corporate gouging…

Your “overarching focus” on “using [the Fed’s] tools to bring inflation back down to our 2 percent goal” no matter the cost is particularly troubling given the limits of interest rate hikes in addressing key drivers of today’s inflation, including lingering supply chain snarls, corporate price gouging, and the war in Ukraine.

Then they conclude with the same language that Brown used:

“These statements reflect an apparent disregard for the livelihoods of millions of working Americans, and we are deeply concerned that your interest rate hikes risk slowing the economy to a crawl while failing to slow rising prices”

They end with a series of questions that pointedly highlight the economic impact (and inequity) of The Fed’s actions, awkwardly bring up former Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida recent comments that “Until inflation comes down a lot, the Fed’s really a single-mandate central bank,” asking Powell “Do you agree with that assessment?”

“Failure is not an option for Jay Powell,” says Former Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida. “I think they’re going to 4% hell or high water. Until #inflation comes down a lot, the Fed is really a single mandate central bank.” pic.twitter.com/4hfLCVWZDP

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) September 9, 2022

Circling back to our initial thoughts, remember The Fed is apolitical and independent and anyone who tries to sway them is a treasonous traitor.

When President Trump publicly spoke about The Fed cutting rates, some former Fed officials were not happy:

“I am not pleased,” said Carl Tannenbaum, a former Chicago Fed official and chief economist at Northern Trust.

“The remarks certainly aren’t an immediate threat to Fed independence, but they break with the tradition of respectful distance.”

Randall Kroszner, a former Fed governor, said the central bank has withstood political pressure before and will continue to do so under Mr. Powell’s leadership.

“The Fed has often faced political pressures — from Congress, presidents, Treasury secretaries and innumerable outside groups,” said Mr. Kroszner, an economics professor at the University of Chicago.

“My experience at the Fed is consistent with what Jay Powell recently said — being non-political is deep in the Fed’s DNA — and I believe that Jay will keep it that way.”

But hey, it’s different this time… because “this economy is strong as hell”…

For now the market is reacting ‘with’ the politicians and shifting rate-trajectory expectations dovishly:

Read the full letter below:

At a moment the US says it is nearing its longtime goal of closing the Guantanamo Bay prison facility which once held hundreds of suspected terrorists during the so-called Global War on Terror, the White House is mulling to expand the Migrant Operations Center located at the same US Naval base off Cuba.

In particular, the administration is looking at housing fleeing Haitians at Guantanamo Bay amid spiraling unrest on the Caribbean island-nation – part of a broader plan the US has been pushing for UN military intervention to stabilize the country as its government faces collapse at the hands of armed gangs.

The migrant facility is separate from the notorious prison for terror suspects and has been in operation for over three decades. It typically houses migrants intercepted by the US Coast Guard in regional waters and off the southern US coast. 

But now it could serve as a crucial hub for US efforts to help stabilize the security situation in Haiti, as NBC describes: 

The White House National Security Council is asking the Department of Homeland Security what number of Haitian migrants would require the U.S. to designate a third country, known as a “lily pad,” to hold and process Haitian migrants who are intercepted at sea and what number would overwhelm a lily pad country and require Haitians to be taken to Guantánamo, according to the document.

A series of National Security Council meetings have reportedly been held to focus on the emerging crisis over the last several days, as a new flood of Haitian migrants and refugees are expected along the southern US border.

It was actually mostly Haitian migrants present among the large caravan of some 12,000 which camped under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas in September 2021. 

We previously reviewed the chaotic and unpredictable situation in Haiti as follows: 

Armed groups have sized control of several key trade and distribution hubs in Haiti, creating dire shortages in basic necessities, such as water, and even forcing a significant number of hospitals, businesses and other institutions to close their doors.

Haiti’s descent into chaos accelerated in July 2021 after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. In the weeks following his death, then-acting PM Claude Joseph briefly took over as president, but was soon forced from power under international pressure after a bloc of countries led by the United States declared their support for Henry. The new leader reportedly has close ties to a suspect in Moise’s assassination, and even continued contact with him after the murder.

NBC says the Biden administration is bracing for the moment there’s a mass exodus from the island as the chaos spreads and resources dwindle, and as people grow more desperate.

Haitians are protesting their government’s request to bring U.S. troops into Haiti.

Haiti has been subject to foreign intervention at least three times. The last intervention brought a UN peacekeeping mission, which has since faced multiple allegations of abuse. pic.twitter.com/KSRPhRLxm3

— AJ+ (@ajplus) October 21, 2022

“The Biden administration predicts that when the fuel is no longer blocked and migrants are able to buy gas to power boats, there could be a mass exodus of Haitians trying to make the dangerous journey to the U.S. by sea, the U.S. officials said,” according to NBC.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The UN has an interesting report on investments needed to address climate change. Let’s tune in…

Finance Flows from UN Report

Scaremongering Continues

The Guardian reports UN finds ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’

The UN environment report analysed the gap between the CO2 cuts pledged by countries and the cuts needed to limit any rise in global temperature to 1.5C, the internationally agreed target. Progress has been “woefully inadequate” it concluded.

Current pledges for action by 2030, if delivered in full, would mean a rise in global heating of about 2.5C and catastrophic extreme weather around the world. A rise of 1C to date has caused climate disasters in countries from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.

If the long-term pledges by countries to hit net zero emissions by 2050 were delivered, global temperature would rise by 1.8C. But the glacial pace of action means meeting even this temperature limit was not credible, the UN report said.

A study published this week found “large consensus” across all published research that new oil and gas fields are “incompatible” with the 1.5C target.

What Would It Cost?

Hooray! Only $4 trillion to 6 trillion per year.

“A global transformation from a heavily fossil fuel- and unsustainable land use-dependent economy to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investments of at least US$4–6 trillion a year,” stated the UN report (page 26 of 132).

Q: US$4–6 trillion a year for how many years?
A: Based on figure ES.6 (lead chart) least eight years.

Q: What Percent of GDP?
A: 4 to 9 percent for developing countries, and 2 to 4 percent for developed countries.

And developing countries will gladly fork over up to 9 percent of GDP every year for eight years.

Yeah, right. 

Meanwhile, the EU is burning more trees and coal. Burning trees is magically deemed environmentally neutral.

What a hoot.  

Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral

Please consider Exploring the Massive Clean Energy Boondoggle of Burning Trees as Carbon Neutral

To the shock of everyone with any semblance of common sense, we are clearcutting forests and burning the trees based on the idea the process is carbon neutral.

26 of France’s 56 Nuclear Reactors are Offline for Pipe Corrosion or Maintenance

Also note 26 of France’s 56 Nuclear Reactors are Offline for Pipe Corrosion or Maintenance

Gear up for a cold Winter in France. The protests have started already.

*  *  *

Like these reports? I hope so, and if you do, please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation may recall the episode where extra-dimensional dickhead “Q” is stripped of his powers for spreading chaos throughout the universe.

Well, Elon Musk just did that to Twitter’s content moderation thought police with just weeks to go before midterms – cutting the number of employees who can access censorship tools from hundreds to around 15 people last week, and reducing their ability to influence discussion on the platform.

According to Bloomberg, Musk and his ‘war cabinet‘ have frozen some employee access to internal tools used for content moderation and the enforcement of other policies, neutering staff’s abilities to ‘alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts and hate speech.’

They also won’t be able to banish highly credentialed doctors and researchers posting divergent Covid-19 narratives.

All but the most ‘high-impact violations set for manual review’ will remain on the platform, according to people familiar with the matter.

Twitter staff use dashboards, known as agent tools, to carry out actions like banning or suspending an account that is deemed to have breached policy. Detection of policy breaches can either be flagged by other Twitter users or detected automatically, but taking action on them requires human input and access to the dashboard tools. Those tools have been suspended since last week, the people said.

This restriction is part of a broader plan to freeze Twitter’s software code to keep employees from pushing changes to the app during the transition to new ownership. Typically this level of access is given to a group of people numbering in the hundreds, and that was initially reduced to about 15 people last week, according to two of the people, who asked not to be named discussing internal decisions. Musk completed his $44 billion deal to take the company private on Oct. 27. -Bloomberg

On Sunday,Twitter employees had limited access to the internal tools to police Brazil’s presidential election.

Meanwhile, the company is still using automated enforcement technology as well as third-party contractors.

The restricted ability to restrict free speech has given Twitter’s Trust and Safety Team the vapors – with employees worried that the company will be short-handed during the runup to the Nov. 8 midterm election. Recall the Trust and Safety Team was headed by now-fired Vijaya Gadde – who would have had a large role (perhaps even the final decision) to ban ZeroHedge in February, 2020 for suggesting that Covid-19 was the result of a lab leak (and that we ‘doxxed’ a Wuhan lab employee using publicly available data – aka not doxxing).

Internally, employees say, Musk has raised questions about a number of the policies, and has zeroed in on a few specific rules that he wants the team to review. The first is Twitter’s general misinformation policy, which penalizes posts that include falsehoods about topics like election outcomes and Covid-19. Musk wants the policy to be more specific, according to people familiar with the matter.

Musk has also asked the team to review Twitter’s hateful conduct policy, according to the people, specifically a section that says users can be penalized for “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” -Bloomberg

On Monday, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted on Monday that the company was addressing an increase in offensive posts.

“Since Saturday, we’ve been focused on addressing the surge in hateful conduct on Twitter. We’ve made measurable progress, removing more than 1500 accounts and reducing impressions on this content to nearly zero,” he wrote, adding “We’re primarily dealing with a focused, short-term trolling campaign.”

In short:

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The total cost to British taxpayers is now close to exceeding £2.5 billion a year and is likely only to increase as a processing backlog grows…

People thought to be migrants who undertook the crossing from France in small boats and were picked up in the Channel, arrive to be disembarked from a small transfer boat which ferried them from a larger British border force vessel that didn’t come into the port, in Dover, south east England, Friday, June 17, 2022. Britain’s response to the increase in migrants crossing the English Channel on small boats is poor and officials are clearly overwhelmed on some days, an independent inspection found in a report published Thursday, July 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

The British government is currently spending £6.8 million (€7.84 million) a day on housing prospective asylum seekers and Afghan nationals in hotels across the country, the Home Affairs Select Committee learned on Wednesday.

Hearing testimony from Home Office staff and border chiefs, U.K. lawmakers sitting on the parliamentary committee were briefed that over 38,000 prospective asylum seekers had landed in Britain via the English Channel in 936 small boats so far this year, while a further 28,000 crossing attempts had been thwarted by French authorities.

The majority of those who arrived have been placed in hotel accommodation due to makeshift processing centers already reaching full capacity.

Abi Tierney, the director general for customer services at the Home Office, revealed the total cost to the British taxpayer for the hotel accommodation being block-booked for months in advance by the U.K. government is £5.6 million per day for Channel migrants, while a further £1.2 million per day is being spent on accommodating Afghan nationals evacuated from the country following the Taliban’s return to power last year. That is a total figure of £2.48 billion (€2.87 billion) per year.

When the committee chair Dame Diana Johnson asked Ms. Tierney whether that figure was “likely to go up,” the Home Office staffer replied: “Yes.”

It is likely to increase because many of those residing in hotels have been doing so for at least a year, with Ms. Tierney revealing that of the thousands of asylum seekers who arrived via the Channel last year, 96 percent are still awaiting a decision to their asylum request. Furthermore, of the 4 percent that have been processed, 85 percent of the claims have been successful.

The Home Office typically prioritizes claims whereby applicants are deemed vulnerable, and the triage of claims is not necessarily based on how long an applicant has resided in temporary accommodation.

The hotel accommodation is not only a costly measure but has had a knock-on effect with a number of weddings and celebratory occasions booked months in advance having been canceled by hotels who have taken up commercial contracts with the Home Office to block-book rooms intended for asylum seekers.

With more and more arrivals, a huge backlog in processing and an ever-rising bill to the taxpayers, the crisis is only deepening.

Clandestine Channel Threat Commander Dan O’Mahoney revealed that of the 38,000 people who have arrived via small boats onto British shores this year, 12,000 are Albanian nationals of which 10,000 are single, adult males.

This figure shows an exponential rise in Albanian nationals arriving through irregular channels in Britain, O’Mahoney said.

“Two years ago, 50 Albanians arrived in the U.K. in small boats. Last year, it was 800,” he told the committee.

Overall, roughly 1-2 percent of the whole single male population of Albania has attempted to come to the U.K., O’Mahoney added.

The rise has been exponential, and we think that is in the main due to the fact that Albanian criminal gangs have gained a foothold in the north of France and have begun facilitating very large numbers of migrants.

Clandestine Channel Threat Commander Dan O’Mahoney

Despite reiterated pledges by Conservative politicians to take back control of the English Channel, the world’s busiest shipping lane which now plays a pivotal role in Britain’s migration crisis, the number of arrivals has continued to rise sharply throughout this parliament.

Home Secretary (at the time – and now freshly reinstalled) Suella Braverman told the Conservative party conference last month that it was “her dream” to see a plane full of asylum seekers be sent to deportation centers established by the Home Office in the African country of Rwanda, a keystone policy of Boris Johnson’s administration introduced by Braverman’s predecessor Priti Patel.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called last year’s processing figures for asylum seekers “shocking and irresponsible,” claiming it plays into the hands of criminal gangs and “leaves refugees without the support they need.”

It is so far unclear how Labour would handle the migration crisis on Britain’s southern shores in a more efficient manner, or how the party would tackle bogus claims, with its leader Sir Keir Starmer simply stating previously that a Labour government would implement an “immigration system based on compassion and dignity.”

Several developing countries are more than a little upset after newly minted UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided to snub the Cop27 climate talks, and to keep King Charles from attending, The Guardian reports.

“I can understand why the king was asked not to attend – keeping him out of the fray. However, as the principal UK policymaker and the Cop26 president, the PM should have led the summit,” said Belize’s ambassador to the UN, Carlos Fuller. “It seems as if they are washing their hands of leadership.”

Sunak’s reason for not going – to concentrate on the UK’s economic statement – was questioned. Mohamed Nasheed, speaker of the Maldives parliament and former president, said: “[It’s] very worrying that the UK thought there was anything more serious than climate change. You can count the pennies but might lose the pounds.”

Developed countries were also concerned. One senior government aide said: “It appears as if the new UK prime minister wants to wash his hands of the previously strong role the government played on international climate action. It’s another stab in the back for [Cop26 president Alok] Sharma.” -Guardian

Last year’s Cop26 talks held in Glasgow were notably headed by Boris Johnson, and ended with a global consensus that global temperatures need to rise no more than 1.5C. The conference was chaired by cabinet minister Alok Sharma – who will not be at Cop27.

Sunak will instead speak at a reception for businesses and environmental leaders at Buckingham Palace this Friday, just 48 hours before Cop27 starts.

“The prime minister is not expected to attend Cop27 and this is due to other pressing domestic commitments including preparations for the Autumn Budget. The UK will be fully represented by other senior ministers as well as the Cop president Alok Sharma,” said a #10 spokeswoman on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson may attend this year’s talks, following precedent set by former leaders including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

“For all Boris Johnson’s ills, no one can reasonably accuse him of ignoring or not prioritising climate action. The UK has benefited from the leadership of Alok Sharma and Lord Goldsmith,” one Commonwealth diplomat told The Guardian. “One hopes [Sunak’s stance] is not a backsliding of the positions the UK has taken in recent years on both areas.”

It is unusual for the head of state of an important Cop not to attend the handover. After convening the landmark Paris agreement of 2015, French president François Hollande was warmly received at the following UN climate Cop, in Marrakech.

The UK still holds the presidency of the UN negotiations, until the reins are handed over to the Egyptian government at the Cop27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh. This puts the British government in a key position in the long-running climate talks, and the prime minister would normally be expected to hold closed-door bilateral meetings with counterparts around the world, focusing on the climate but including other subjects, such as the Ukraine war and the global economic crisis.

Egypt is particularly miffed at Sunak’s decision for some reason, voicing “disappointment” according to the report.

Perhaps it’s time to send the Gretas. Or the bees. Or the Gretas with bees in their mouth so that when they bark they shoot bees at you.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

A potentially deadly new strain of COVID has been created in a University lab in London, according to a report.

The Daily Mail reports that researchers at Imperial College London have hybridised the original Wuhan strain of the disease with both the Omicron or Delta variants separately.

The College is yet to reveal how effective the strain they have created is, and has denied that the work constitutes gain of function, the process now widely believed to have been responsible for the original strain in Wuhan.

Molecular biology expert Dr. Richard Ebright warned that the new mutant strain, which was injected into hamsters in London, “is insanity, both in terms of the redundancy and waste,” and that it has zero “foreseeable practical applications.”

At least four labs on two continents now have constructed non-natural, lab-generated viruses that retain the high immune escape of Omicron and acquire higher severity than Omicron and that, as such, are reasonably expected to increase transmission or pathogenicity in humans. https://t.co/jKeDXXNY2G

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) October 28, 2022

“This should be a wake-up call,” the biologist urged, adding “If the world wishes to avoid new pandemic waves and pandemics caused by lab-generated enhanced potential pandemic pathogens, then it is urgently necessary to restrict senseless high-risk, low-benefit research that creates enhanced potential pandemic pathogens and to implement effective national oversight, with force of law, on such research.”

This should be a wake-up call.

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) October 28, 2022

Dr. Ebright further warned that the development is huge “especially, in terms of the risk of triggering a new pandemic wave upon accidental or deliberate release of the laboratory-generated viruses.”

If the world wishes to avoid new new pandemics caused by lab-generated pathogens, then it is urgently necessary to restrict high-risk, low-benefit research that creates enhanced potential pandemic pathogens and to implement effective national oversight with force of law.”

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) October 28, 2022

“[T]here is no justification for intentionally making potential pandemic viruses more transmissible. The consequences of an accident could be too horrific, and such engineered viruses are not needed for vaccines.”

A Plea for Making Virus Research Safer https://t.co/orioZLXQm8

— Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) October 30, 2022

The development comes after Boston University created a new strain with an 80 percent KILL RATE in a similar fashion.

NEW: After Boston University created a new COVID with an 80% kill rate, it’s now been revealed Imperial College London has done nearly the same thing, merging the deadly original virus with the highly contagious Omicron. Critics are calling it “insanity” and “playing with fire.”

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 29, 2022

A former director of the Israeli Government’s Institute for Biological Research, Professor Shmuel Shapira, described the research as “playing with fire.” 

This should be totally forbbiden, Its playing with fire.
Boston University CREATES new Covid strain that has an 80% kill rate https://t.co/4zSmwcsjmi

— Prof Shmuel C. Shapira MD MPH (@shmuelcshapira) October 17, 2022

Last week, a new interim report released by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions concluded that the origins of Covid-19 more likely than not came from a “research-related incident,” rather than “natural zoonotic spillover.”

“While precedent of previous outbreaks of human infections from contact with animals favors the hypothesis that a natural zoonotic spillover is responsible for the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 that resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic was most likely the result of a research-related incident,” the report states, while conceding that “This conclusion is not intended to be dispositive.”

*  *  *

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While many parts of Europe, from Germany and France to the UK, enjoy unseasonably warm weather, a new three-month forecast indicates the increasing possibility that ‘Old Man Winter’ is set to move in. 

Bloomberg reports UK’s Met Office’s three-month outlook shows a colder-than-normal winter is ahead. The forecast said there’s a 25% chance the season will be cold, a 60% chance of it being around average, and 15% of it being mild. 

“The likelihood of a colder three-month period overall is slightly greater than normal,” the forecasts said.

Warm weather has been an important factor in plunging natural gas prices across Europe. Dutch natural gas futures, Europe’s benchmark, have fallen more than 70% since late August to 92.50 euros per megawatt-hour. 

We wrote a note a little more than a week ago titled “Germany May Stave Off Worst Of Energy Crisis As Mild Temps Forecast Through Mid-November.”

However, abnormally warm weather is set to dissipate by mid-November across North West Europe and be more in line with 30-year averages. 

Colder weather is also ahead for Germany. 

And the UK. 

The good news is EU NatGas storage is 94% full despite reduced NatGas shipments from Russia. Shipments via Ukraine are one of the last remaining Russian supply lines to western Europe after the bombing of Nord Stream pipelines. The US is set to ramp up LNG shipments this winter. 

“The weather is quickly becoming a major factor as an unusually hot October kept gas demand in check across Europe and brought some relief for policymakers. The start of the heating season has been pushed back, allowing more gas to be injected into storage sites. The safety buffer could play a key role when the temperatures do drop, and consumption picks up again,” Bloomberg said. 

Even with NatGas storage levels above a 10-year average for this time of year, colder weather in the second half of November could start drawing on inventories — and at some point, NatGas prices will reverse. 

Via Remix News,

The construction of the nuclear plant will commence in 2026 on the Baltic Sea shore in northern Poland…

Poland has chosen the Westinghouse group from the U.S. to construct the country’s first nuclear plant, with a government resolution on the matter to be adopted on Nov. 2, announced Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Saturday.

Morawiecki said the project will be realized using the proven and safe technology offered by the U.S. Westinghouse Electric Company. He delivered the news following successful talks with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.

Very pleased to see Poland will select Westinghouse technology to help produce safe, clean, and reliable nuclear power and create thousands of good paying jobs for both our countries. The United States is proud to be Poland’s strong partner for energy and security. https://t.co/r3X2wrfKiH

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 28, 2022

The markets had expected Poland to choose the U.S. technology but the two other offers from French and Korean companies were also taken into consideration by the government. However, Poland and the United States feature the strongest cooperation dialogue in the nuclear sector going back many years.

In January 2022, the Westinghouse Electric Company signed a memorandum of cooperation with ten Polish companies regarding the potential construction of six AP1000 reactors as part of the Polish Nuclear Energy Program. The company specializes in producing devices utilizing nuclear energy and their flagship projects are the AP1000 reactors that are used in countries such as China.

Poland’s decision to choose the U.S. firm does not mean that the other offers submitted by French EDF group and Korean KHNP are not at play, as two nuclear plants are to be constructed in Poland. According to unofficial information reported on Monday, KHNP will sign a letter of intent with Polish Energy Group and ZE PAK concerning the construction of nuclear units in Pątnów in central Poland on land owned by ZE PAK group. On Tuesday, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin will be visiting Shin-Kori nuclear plant in South Korea.

The Polish nuclear program envisions the construction of six reactors, one every two years.

The construction of the first reactor is to begin in four years, and its launch is planned for 2033. It will be able to provide energy to 4 million households. The last reactor of the second power plant will start functioning in 2043.

If both investments are completed, Polish nuclear power could amount to between 8.8 and 11.8 gigawatts, with the government estimating the cost of their construction at around €39 billion (185 billion Polish zloty).

In December 2021, Polish Nuclear Plants (PEJ) reported that the seaside area of Lubiatowo-Kopalino was selected as the preferred location for the construction of the first nuclear plant in Poland. The second possible location is in nearby Żarnowiec, where a nuclear plant of the Soviet-era remains unfinished to this day.