NewzIntel.com

Category: Renewable Energy

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Welsh Secretary sees plans for a new clean energy hub

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    The Secretary of State for Wales has visited Associated British Ports and Dow in Barry as part of the UK Government’s mission to deliver economic growth.

    Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens at ABP Barry.

    The Secretary of State for Wales has visited two major employers in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan as part of the UK Government’s mission to deliver economic growth. 

    Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens was given a tour of the Port of Barry and heard about Associated British Ports (ABP) and px Group’s plan for a Clean Growth Hub which aims to establish a cutting-edge facility where businesses can attract direct investment and create jobs.

    The plan aims to transform a large area of the operational port into an area of green, high-growth infrastructure investment. It is designed to attract companies involved in innovative industries such as battery materials, rare earth metal processing and green energy manufacturing.

    Earlier the same day the Welsh Secretary also visited Dow, a material sciences company, based on Cardiff Road, Barry. The site manufactures silicones for use in automotive, aerospace, energy infrastructure, construction and other industries across the UK and Europe. It employs more than 600 people with the majority living in the Vale of Glamorgan, as well as partnering with hundreds of suppliers – many based in and around Barry and South Wales.

    The Welsh Secretary heard about how Dow contributes to the growth of the regional economy and about the company’s plans for the future.

    Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens said:

    My number one mission is to deliver investment and jobs to Wales so it was fantastic to hear about the Port of Barry’s exciting plans for the Clean Energy Hub which will attract business and investors while helping achieve our mission of making Britain a clean energy superpower.

    We want to work in partnership with business to drive growth, opportunity and prosperity, so it was also great to spend time at Dow and see the work that they do to realise these ambitions in South Wales.

    Ralph Windeatt, ABP Group Head of Business Development, said:

    I was delighted to welcome the Secretary of State for Wales to our Port of Barry to discuss our plans for a Clean Growth Hub. 

    Associated British Ports’ five ports in South Wales are already becoming hubs at the heart of the green energy transition. With our partners px Group, we want to transform the Port of Barry to expand low-carbon, high-growth infrastructure investment. These plans will build on the low-carbon infrastructure we already have in place, including solar and wind power and green hydrogen production with our partners at EDF Hynamics and ESB International. 

    Our plans for a Clean Growth Hub will create jobs, mobilise inward investment and boost local prosperity and opportunity.

    Andrew Laney, Senior Site Manufacturing Director at Dow, Barry said:

    Dow is a business that plays a key role in South Wales, both socially and economically. The silicones we manufacture for so many industrial sectors across Wales, UK and Europe are proudly ‘Made in Barry’. 

    We were pleased to show the Secretary of State the operations on site and discuss how South Wales manufacturing can be well-recognised in the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy consultation.

    ENDS

    Updates to this page

    Published 29 October 2024

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NREL’s Commercial Electric Vehicle Cost-of-Ownership Tool Is Best in Class—And Free

    Source: US National Renewable Energy Laboratory

    Researchers from NREL have released a new version of the Transportation Technology Total Cost of Ownership tool, known as T3CO—the most sophisticated open-source commercial vehicle TCO tool available today. Photo from Toyota Motor North America

    Commercial vehicle owners stand to gain a lot from the transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). With lower maintenance and energy costs and the potential for generous tax credits and rebates, ZEVs can save businesses money over the long run.

    Unfortunately, the math behind a transition to ZEVs gets complicated quickly. Unlike diesel vehicles, which have long provided a “one size fits most” solution for commercial fleets, ZEVs are much less standardized. Their total cost of ownership (TCO) can change based on a wide array of variables, from the size of their battery to the price of electricity and the time it takes to recharge their batteries. Fleets and manufacturers can be left wondering which vehicle is the right fit for their operations—and how much it really costs.

    Now, researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have released a new version of the Transportation Technology Total Cost of Ownership tool, known as T3CO—the most sophisticated open-source commercial vehicle TCO tool available today.

    T3CO enables fast analyses that can provide comprehensive insights into the life-cycle costs of decarbonized vehicles, from upfront investments and operating costs to the opportunity costs that can be presented by zero-emissions commercial vehicles. As fleets worldwide accelerate their transitions to electric vehicles, T3CO is ready to guide cost-effective purchasing decisions.

    “I believe in realism,” said Alicia Birky, an NREL commercial vehicles researcher who led the tool’s most recent developments. “When researchers, manufacturers, and fleet owners are making decisions about what vehicles to invest in, they need a total cost of ownership analysis with a level of detail that hasn’t been possible in the past.”

    T3CO, Birky said, “is our way of giving researchers and other decision makers the best possible tools for understanding how to meet a fleet’s needs with new vehicle powertrains and what trade-offs they might see with different technologies.”

    T3CO Is Fast, Accessible, and Free

    While T3CO has been in use at NREL for more than 15 years, a rebuilt, user-friendly version is now available to the public as a free, open-source tool. The full model documentation is available online, and a new quick-start guide can help users rapidly begin generating results.

    T3CO has been in use at NREL for more than five years. Now, a rebuilt, user-friendly version is widely available to the public. Image by NREL

    “Anyone with Python knowledge can install T3CO and begin to create their own analyses,” said NREL’s Harish Panneer Selvam, a commercial vehicle technologies researcher who designed the tool’s new technical features. “We’ve restructured the whole tool to make it as useable and accessible as possible.”

    T3CO has always provided powerful cost capabilities tailored to a vehicle’s specifications, thanks to its integration with NREL’s Future Automotive Systems Technology Simulator (FASTSim), a rapid powertrain simulation model. Now, it has a host of new features.

    Among them is a batch mode capability, which allows T3CO to run tens of thousands of vehicle simulations in a short period—without requiring the use of a supercomputer. In addition, a built-in optimization module allows users to size vehicle components to meet performance and operational requirements at minimum cost.

    “T3CO’s optimization toolbox trades off the value of different energy saving approaches, like aerodynamics and lightweighting, against the cost of larger motors and batteries,” Panneer Selvam said. “It’s able to consider thousands of vehicle specifications to find the least expensive combination that meets the user’s needs.”

    This means users can simultaneously assess a vehicle’s performance and analyze its life-cycle costs to find a custom solution. T3CO’s flexible framework allows users to define a “scenario” of their choosing, including the vehicle model, operational conditions, and financial circumstances.

    Most importantly, T3CO’s ability to estimate opportunity costs has been significantly refined.

    The tool includes three categories of costs:

    • Capital costs, or upfront expenses such as purchasing a vehicle and paying taxes
    • Operating costs, or ongoing expenses such as maintaining, insuring, and recharging or refueling a decarbonized vehicle
    • Opportunity costs, or the less obvious, “soft” expenses of operating a decarbonized vehicle—such as lost productivity when vehicles are charging or fueling, and the possibility of reduced payload capacity due to the weight of an advanced vehicle.

    It is the last category—opportunity costs—that makes T3CO unique. NREL’s pioneering approach to estimating the costs of operating a decarbonized vehicle is novel compared to other TCO tools.

    “It’s easy to figure out how much it costs to repair a vehicle and how much it costs for fuel, and then add it up and provide a TCO. That’s not what T3CO does,” Panneer Selvam said. “We estimate a customized TCO for a specific vehicle, in a specific location, and for its specific operations.”

    T3CO can help determine the most cost-effective path to fleet decarbonization. Photo from Getty Images

    Those operations, Birky and Panneer Selvam emphasized, include not just a vehicle’s typical use, but also its use on unusually high-intensity days. In other words, T3CO can capture the full variety of operations a vehicle might need to perform over a life cycle and calculate its cost accordingly.

    To accomplish this, the model leverages NREL’s Fleet Research, Energy Data, and Insights (FleetREDI) platform and flagship Fleet DNA database, which serves as the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) largest body of real-world, in-use, high-resolution vehicle operational data. Being able to account for unusual operating days can completely change the TCO calculations, Birky said, and can help identify the right decarbonized vehicle for a specific application.

    While the calculations can quickly get complex, according to Panneer Selvam, “For us, ‘complex’ is not a bad word.”

    In fact, these complex challenges are perfect for national laboratories like NREL. Providing easy-to-use tools that can address highly complex problems is one way the laboratory continues to accelerate the transition to sustainable technologies.

    T3CO Is Ready for Action

    Decarbonizing entire commercial fleets takes time—but it can be accomplished faster when the most cost-effective strategy possible is applied, because every dollar stretches further. T3CO is primed to guide manufacturers, fleet operators, and researchers through the process.

    T3CO can:

    • Provide insights into the relative merits of ZEV technologies for a particular use case. For example, it can help users determine whether a hybrid, battery-electric, or hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle is the best fit for certain operations, identify the right ZEV battery size, and even find the ideal cost for individual ZEV components in order to reach cost parity with conventional vehicles.
    • Identify how a vehicle’s operations affect its TCO. Rather than using “representative” data to approximate how a vehicle is driven, T3CO can use real-world data on vehicle duty cycles. These insights into a ZEV’s actual range of operations can allow users to fine-tune their understanding of a ZEV’s TCO.
    • Determine how new technologies might affect vehicle TCO. As new charging technologies like dynamic wireless charging pick up speed, T3CO can help users understand the cost implications. For instance, users with access to in-road charging may be able to purchase a less expensive ZEV equipped with a smaller battery.
    • Chart out a phased approach for vehicle decarbonization. T3CO can pinpoint the vehicles in a fleet or specific routes that can be easily replaced with today’s ZEVs. On the other hand, using technology progress projections, it can also help users determine whether they should hold off on electrifying other vehicles until new technologies hit the market.

    This information can prove valuable for commercial fleets making long-term investments into new fleets, as well as researchers focused on finding the best pathways to widespread ZEV adoption.

    After all, while the math is complex, the conclusion is simple: Making the best insights available to the widest user base possible will only help accelerate the clean vehicle transition.

    Learn more about NREL’s sustainable transportation and mobility research and its specific focus on commercial vehicle decarbonization. And sign up for NREL’s quarterly transportation and mobility research newsletter, Sustainable Mobility Matters, to stay current on the latest news.

    Interested in providing feedback on T3CO or ideas for future collaborations? Direct your input to T3CO@nrel.gov. Bug reports and feature requests are welcome through GitHub.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Casey Secures $48.4 Million to Develop Hydrogen-Powered Trains in Erie

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Pennsylvania Bob Casey

    Funding will support Wabtec Corporation, which will remanufacture trains to run on hydrogen fuel

    Grant made possible thanks to Casey-backed infrastructure law

    Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) announced $48,412,512 to help Wabtec Corporation develop hydrogen-powered trains in Erie. Hydrogen fuel is a low-emission fuel that increases train efficiency and ultimately reduces fuel costs. The funding comes from the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program, made possible by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which Casey fought to pass.

    “Pennsylvanians have a long history of being on the cutting edge of building our Nation’s railroads, and it is critical that as America’s transportation sector begins using the technology of the future, our Commonwealth continues to lead the way,” said Senator Casey. “Thanks to the infrastructure law, we are investing in the development of trains that run on hydrogen, which will protect our environment and boost our economy. I will always fight to modernize our Commonwealth’s transportation infrastructure and ensure that Pennsylvania remains a leader the technology that powers the Nation.”

    The Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program is a federal grant program that provides funding for projects that improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of intercity passenger and freight rail.

    The $48,412,512 will help Pittsburgh-based Wabtec Corporation remanufacture trains at its facility in Erie to use hydrogen as a fuel source. This research and development project will entrail control system and engine upgrades to accommodate the hydrogen fuel.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Polis, Federal Delegation Celebrates $66.4 Million from U.S. Department of Transportation to Improve Safety and Expand Colorado Rail

    Source: US State of Colorado

    Total Funding of $94.3 million will help improve safety of freight operations today in Colorado by adding Positive Train Control and crossing improvements to the Front Range Rail Corridor preparing Colorado for fast, convenient, and safe passenger rail service

    WESTMINSTER – Today, Governor Polis, Senator Michael Bennet, Congressman Joe Neguse, Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen, Colorado Department of Transportation Executive Director Lew, Longmont Mayor Joan Peck, Erik Davidson, RTD Board Chair and local officials celebrated funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation, to improve rail transportation and safety infrastructure in Colorado. Colorado received $66.4M in grant funding from the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), with the state matching almost $28 million from the State’s IIJA match fund to improve safety on the BNSF line north of Denver and helping to proactively prepare the state for fast, convenient, and safe passenger rail service.

    “Today’s grant will make freight rail traffic in some of our busiest growing communities safer quickly while providing critical building blocks for Passenger Rail.  This major funding will help achieve important priorities like complying with longstanding federal standards and improving the safety of rail crossings, which can be the sites of dangerous incidents. With more than $66 million in federal support from the Biden-Harris administration, the future of Colorado’s rail network is a clear priority for the federal government, as it should be. We thank Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet, Congressman Neguse and Congresswoman Pettersen, the BNSF Railway, and our communities for their support of this important project,” said Governor Jared Polis.

    “A unified statewide effort with the Polis Administration has made this important milestone possible.  We appreciate the unwavering support of our Congressional delegation, along with that of local partners in communities across the state. The Biden-Harris Administration has consistently recognized the state’s seriousness about freight safety and passenger rail, recognizing the Front Range Passenger Rail corridor for the National Corridor ID program, and now by providing this grant to improve the safety of freight operations while also opening doors for future passenger rail. We appreciate their efforts and the time that their leadership has consistently dedicated to our efforts,” said CDOT Executive Director Shoshana Lew.

    “This is a major step forward for Colorado and the future of safe freight and passenger rail in our state. We are thankful to our federal partners, BNSF Railway, members of Congress and local leaders for their relentless efforts to secure this major funding from the Biden-Harris Administration,” said John Putnam, Senior Advisor, Colorado Department of Transportation.

    This grant to improve the BNSF Front Range Subdivision is one of four Colorado projects to receive CRISI awards announced today. Colorado State University – Pueblo was awarded almost $12 million to enhance the ability to test hydrogen and compressed natural gas advanced technology trains at the FRA Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo.  San Luis Central Railway and Omnitrax were awarded funds to replace ties to increase safety and reduce maintenance costs for short lines in rural Colorado.  

    “The Colorado Department of Transportation’s Modernizing Rail on the Front Range project will improve existing rail operations along the Front Range by delivering improvements to several highway grade crossings, constructing a new passing siding, and deploying the safety overlay of positive train control across a portion of the corridor,” said Jim Tylick, Assistant Vice President Passenger Operations at BNSF. “We appreciate the early collaboration with the Front Range Passenger Rail District, CDOT, and the FRA as intercity passenger rail is considered along the Front Range in Colorado. We know the projects identified in this grant will benefit the rail corridor today while also providing benefit in the future as passenger rail is explored.”  

    In April, Governor Polis joined U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to visit the Floyd Hill Project, a seven-mile stretch of I-70 from exit 248 northwest of Evergreen to exit 241 in eastern Idaho Springs that works to eliminate a bottleneck on one of the most congested stretches of the I-70 Mountain Corridor. This project was announced in October of 2022, and made possible by state and federal investments including a $100 million grant from the Biden administration.

    In December 2023, Front Range Passenger Rail was included in the Federal Rail Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development program, which brought additional federal support for Colorado ahead of today’s grant award. Since the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Colorado has won more than $400 million in competitive grant awards to support key infrastructure projects across the state.

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI China: China fully advances manned lunar landing program

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    JIUQUAN, Oct. 29 — China is pressing ahead with its mission to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030, moving quickly with development and construction to turn this goal into reality, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced at a press conference on Tuesday.

    The production and ground tests of prototypes of the Long March-10 carrier rocket, the manned spacecraft Mengzhou, the lunar lander Lanyue, the space suit and the manned lunar rover are underway as planned, said Lin Xiqiang, spokesperson for the CMSA.

    A series of major tests have been completed, including the integrated airdrop test for the spacecraft, the separation test for the two modules of the lander, the test firing of the three-engine power system for the rocket’s first stage, and the high-altitude simulation test for the hydrogen-oxygen engine.

    Ground systems including the launch site, telemetry and control communications, and the landing site are being developed and constructed, he added.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI USA News: FACT SHEET: President Joe  Biden Announces $3 Billion to Strengthen Port Infrastructure, Create Good-Paying and Union Jobs, Bring Cleaner Air to  Communities

    Source: The White House

    President Biden will travel to the Port of Baltimore to announce $147 million in awards, which will support up to 2,000 good-paying and union jobs at the Port

    Today, President Biden will travel to the Port of Baltimore to announce a $3 billion investment from his Inflation Reduction Act to improve and electrify port infrastructure, support an estimated 40,000 good-paying and union jobs, reduce pollution, and combat the climate crisis.  The announcement includes $147 million in awards for the Maryland Port Administration, which will support over 2,000 good-paying and union jobs by enabling the purchase and installation of zero-emission port equipment, charging infrastructure, and power improvements. During the visit, President Biden will highlight how his Investing in America agenda is making an historic impact on communities and workers in Baltimore and across the country.

    $3 Billion Investment to Strengthen Port Infrastructure

    Today, President Biden is announcing $3 billion in Environmental Protection Agency Clean Ports grants, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, to 55 selectees across 27 states and territories, including $147 million in implementation and planning grants for the Maryland Port Administration. The nation’s ports are the lynchpin of our nation’s supply chains and employ over 100,000 union workers across the United States.

    This funding will protect and create good-paying and union jobs and better working conditions by upgrading port operations and infrastructure to cleaner equipment, while ensuring cleaner air for port workers and nearby communities. The Clean Ports program will support an estimated 40,000 jobs across the economy, including over 6,500 manufacturing jobs, and is expected to increase demand for American manufactured electric cargo handling equipment at least six-fold over the life of the program.

    While a major economic driver, our nation’s ports are a major source of pollution for workers and surrounding communities. Communities living near ports and other transportation corridors are exposed to toxic pollution which can cause respiratory and cardiovascular harm, especially in children. The Clean Ports program will improve air quality at ports across the country by installing clean, zero-emission freight and ferry technologies along with associated infrastructure, eliminating more than 3 million metric tons of carbon pollution over the first ten years of implementation, equivalent to 391,220 homes’ energy use for one year. The funds announced today will support the purchase of battery-electric and hydrogen-powered human-operated and human-maintained equipment, including over 1,500 units of cargo handling equipment, 1,000 drayage trucks, 10 locomotives, and 20 vessels, as well as shore power systems for ocean-going vessels, battery-electric and hydrogen vehicle charging and fueling infrastructure, and solar power generation. The Clean Ports program advances the President’s Justice40 Initiative and aligns with the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal for a zero-emission freight sector.

    Investing in the Port of Baltimore

    President Biden will announce the funding at the Port of Baltimore in Maryland. The Port of Baltimore is one of the busiest ports on the East Coast and is a major hub for the import and export of vehicles. More than 20,000 workers support daily Port operations, including unionized longshoreman and truckers. Each day the Port’s economic impact represents $192 million or more than $70 billion a year, representing 13% of Maryland’s gross domestic product.

    The Maryland Port Administration’s Equipment Electrification and Terminal Decarbonization project has been selected to receive over $145 million to purchase zero-emission cargo handling equipment and drayage trucks and facilitate the transition of the port to a zero-emission facility, as well as a nearly $2 million planning grant to help the port chart a path to greater emissions reductions in the future, delivering cleaner air for the port and neighboring communities. The port is a major economic engine for the region, providing thousands of jobs and contributing billions of dollars to the local economy—and this new investment will support over 2,000 jobs, including more than 350 manufacturing jobs.

    Creating Good Paying, Union Jobs in Baltimore and Across the Country

    President Biden is the most pro-union president in history. He’s the first and only president to walk a picket line, and under his Administration, unions have secured historic labor wins. Last month, President Biden signed an Executive Order that calls on agencies to promote strong labor standards such as family-sustaining wages, workplace safety, and the free and fair choice to join a union, and encourages agencies to implement these standards through their Investing in America programs. This builds on a record of pro-worker accomplishments throughout the Biden-Harris Administration. For example:

    • Workers are filing for union representation at twice the rate they were at the start of the Biden-Harris Administration—the first Administration in five decades to have an increase in union petitions. In Maryland, union petitions increased by 55% percent. The National Labor Relations Board has met this historic moment by reducing unnecessary delays in union representation elections and by expanding remedies available to workers when their employers engage in unionbusting.
    • The vast majority of Investing in America programs require grantees to pay Davis-Bacon prevailing wages for workers. The Administration also published the first update to Davis-Bacon prevailing wages in nearly 40 years, which will increase pay for one million construction workers over time.
    • The Department of the Treasury finalized a rule implementing prevailing wage and apprenticeship bonus credits for certain clean energy projects funded by the President’s Inflation Reduction Act to ensure clean energy workers are paid good wages and that these projects create equitable pipelines to these good jobs.

    Building on Historic Investments in Maryland’s Infrastructure and Economy

    Today’s announcement builds on a historic investment in the state of Maryland under the Biden-Harris Administration. To date, the Investing in America agenda has delivered over $13 billion for over 970 projects in Maryland, spurring over $3 billion in private sector investments.

    This includes a number of projects in Baltimore, for example:

    • $4.7 billion for Amtrak’s Frederick Douglass Tunnel—which will replace the 150-year-old Baltimore and Potomac tunnel that is currently one of the largest rail bottlenecks on the Northeast Corridor;
    • $213 million to replace the Maryland Transit Administration’s entire fleet of 52 aging light rail vehicles with new, modern rail cars;
    • $80 million for interchange improvements at the I-895 Baltimore Harbor Tunnel;
    • $68 million for upgrades at Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall airport;
    • $43 million to identify and replace toxic lead pipes across Maryland;
    • $31 million to rehabilitate a section of the Dundalk Marine Terminal at the Port; and
    • $9 million to Baltimore City Public Schools for clean school buses.

    Baltimore was also named an Investing in America Workforce Hub, where the Administration is bringing together industry, government, educators, non-profits and unions to help workers in Maryland access good jobs created by private and public sector investments in the state. In November 2023, Hub partners announced new efforts to train and hire local residents to support major infrastructure projects. These commitments include one from the State of Maryland to incorporate a Project Labor Agreement in the bidding process for nine projects covering $9 billion in investment and 11,000 jobs—including 7,000 construction jobs. One of these commitments includes Amtrak promising to invest at least $5 million in funding received through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to create recruitment and training programs for new jobs for Baltimore residents as part of the Frederick Douglass Tunnel Program.

    The Department of Commerce also awarded the Maryland Department of Labor $23 million through the Economic Development Administration’s Good Jobs Challenge to create a new apprenticeship model for the growing offshore wind industry in Maryland, working with leading employers and local unions to develop a training model focused on underserved populations. The Maritime Administration is further supporting the Maryland offshore wind industry through a $47 million grant to Sparrows Point Steel to retool, a former Bethlehem Steel mill in Baltimore, to establish an offshore wind logistics and manufacturing hub in partnership with the United Steelworkers.

    The Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda has also unleashed $3 billion in private sector manufacturing and clean energy investments in Maryland, including:

    • A $350 million investment by United Safety Technology in Baltimore to produce critical medical supplies, including personal protective equipment.
    • A $300 million investment by AstraZeneca in a state-of-the-art facility in Rockville to launch life-saving cell therapy platforms for cancer trials.
    • A $230 million investment by Catalent to expand its advanced gene therapy manufacturing campus in Harmans.

    The Administration’s Investing in America agenda continues to make critical investments that will improve the lives and futures of all Marylanders.

    The Biden-Harris Administration’s Ongoing Support for Baltimore

    President Biden was last in Baltimore in the immediate aftermath of the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge, which claimed the lives of six construction workers and closed ship traffic in and out of the Port of Baltimore. There, he said his Administration would move heaven and earth to reopen the Port of Baltimore as quickly as possible to support Maryland’s workers and economy. A Unified Command led by the United States Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers cleared 50,000 tons of wreckage from the channel, allowing the Port to fully reopen 78 days after the bridge collapse. The Department of Labor and Small Business Administration mobilized quickly to support workers and small businesses impacted by the port closure, including thousands of Longshoremen and Teamsters who rely on the port for their livelihood. And the Department of Transportation and the Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force worked to limit supply chain disruptions, keep costs down, and ensure cargo quickly returned to the Port once it reopened. Today, port workers are back on the job, once again moving more than 100,000 tons of cargo per day.

    The President also committed to rebuilding the bridge as quickly as possible. Thanks to close collaboration with the Department of Transportation, Maryland is on the fast track to rebuild the bridge. In July, the Federal Highway Administration issued a Categorical Exclusion, allowing the project to clear a critical permitting milestone. And in August, Maryland selected a contractor to design and build the new bridge.  Immediately following the bridge collapse, President Biden called on Congress to fully fund the replacement bridge and his Administration reiterated this request in July.

    The Biden-Harris Administration also committed to holding the owners of the DALI cargo ship accountable for the disaster. Just last week, the Department of Justice announced a settlement of over $100 million with the owners of the DALI to cover federal government costs incurred in responding to the collapse. While the State of Maryland continues to pursue a separate lawsuit for damages incurred to the local economy, community, and families impacted by the collapse, the Biden-Harris Administration remains committed to working with Baltimore and the State of Maryland to ensure the city’s long-term recovery and success.

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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Navy Announces Latest Shore Energy Achievements During Energy Action Month

    Source: United States Navy

    National Clean Energy Action Month provides a valuable opportunity for the DON to spotlight the importance of energy as a strategic asset and catalyst for mission success. Amongst this year’s successes are advancements in enhanced energy security and shore and operational energy issues, Enhanced Use Leases (EULs) and Marine Energy Development (MED), the Energy & Water Analysis Tool (EWAT), the development of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Serial titled “Shore Energy Goals,” and youth education and outreach.

    Underlying all of these efforts is a DON strategy focused on three Cs – Climate, Communities, and Critical Infrastructure that emphasize execution of core strategies via the 3 Pillars of Energy Security – Reliability, Resiliency, and Efficiency.

    “Energy security is mission success,” said Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment Meredith Berger. “As we celebrate Energy Action Month, we reflect on the ambitious energy goals we’ve set and the great progress we’ve made throughout the year that ensure we continue to build a climate-ready force. Our Sailors and Marines rely on and respond to energy issues in their daily operations, and the DON’s persistent focus on energy security coupled with our strategic partnerships with the community enable mission success for our Naval force.”

    Increased energy security was at the forefront in October with the release of an industry request for information (RFI) to explore concepts for the development of nuclear power facilities to support increased energy security at seven Navy and Marine Corps installations in the United States. The responses are expected to enable the Department to further consider alternative carbon-free shore energy opportunities and build upon the DON’s commitment to enhance energy security as a responsible community partner.

    New focus has also been given to the intersection of shore and operational energy issues, to bridge the gap between installations and the warfighters they serve. Amongst the installation efforts being explored are pier-power assessments at naval bases to ensure ships and submarines receive resilient and quality power. Other efforts focused on the warfighter include a renewed opportunity for a Masters of Operational Energy degree at the Naval Postgraduate School that will equip graduates with the essential skills required to enhance their effectives in the modern battlespace whether on a ship, submarine, aircraft, or on land.

    Energy partnerships with States and industry benefit both the Navy and the communities we live in. Enhanced Use Leases (EULs) are one way that the DON works with our neighbors to ensure energy resilience. The Navy recently entered into two EULs that, upon completion, will provide more than 250-megawatts of renewable energy to the local utility, Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO), and full-base resilience for the DON in the event of a grid outage. As part of the EULs, the Kūpono Solar site provides clean, renewable energy and battery storage to approximately 10,000 homes on O‘ahu while offsetting 50,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually. The Pu`uloa Energy site, currently in development, will provide additional renewable energy generation and battery storage, improving island-wide power reliability and contributing to the State of Hawai’i’s goal of achieving 100% renewable energy by 2045.

    In pursuit of innovative renewable energy technologies, the DON’s Marine Energy Development (MED) program explores ways to ensure marine energy – a consistent, clean, and renewable power source – remains a reliable and sustainable energy source for naval facilities and remote applications. As part of the program, the DON’s Wave Energy Test Site (WETS), situated at Marine Corps Base Hawaii on O’ahu, Hawai’i, is the United States’ first and only grid-connected wave energy test site playing a vital role in advancing cutting edge wave energy technology by providing a dynamic real-world environment and supporting wave energy converter

    (WEC) developers. Another Department of Energy project, Ocean Energy, is also scheduled to be grid-connected at WETS within the year.

    In April 2024, the DON launched the Energy & Water Analysis Tool (EWAT) online dashboard that provides timely, accurate installation energy operational data, for agile and responsive energy resilience investments and operational decisions. The next phase of EWAT will include an increased cadence of data reporting, the inclusion of project pipeline impacts on future usage, and the addition of enhancements to track progress against energy and water conservation, carbon-pollution free electricity, and renewable energy goals. Together, they will improve resilience and readiness by ensuring that the Navy and Marine Corps are maximizing the resources they rely on for quality of life, training, logistics, and combat support: energy and water.

    Aligned with the Department of Navy’s Climate Action 2030 strategy and the objectives of Executive Order 14057, the Navy continues its commitment to drive energy innovation and prioritize environmental responsibility. As part of this, the DON released the fifth CSO Serial titled “Shore Energy Goals”, which builds on the DON’s commitment to enhance energy security and targets that commitment with sustainability practices and concrete actions that fortify the reliable, resilient, renewable energy Navy installations and communities need.

    A renewed focus on youth education was brought to the forefront when Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment Meredith Berger spoke with Sea Cadets and Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets at a climate and energy technology demonstration in September where she discussed the importance of climate and energy. Berger also joined DON researchers and engineers at the U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square during Climate Week NYC where they showcased technologies, such as hydrogen-powered fuel cells, small unit power systems, water-conserving firefighting nozzles, atmospheric water generation, and green concrete, to educate students on the DON’s commitment to climate action and inspire them to explore careers in climate and energy focused roles.

    “Having these young Sea Cadets and NJROTC cadets – the future of our nation – learn about our climate and energy technologies was a fantastic way to kick off Climate Week in NYC,” said Berger. “They clearly understand how climate change is impacting our world and how climate readiness is mission readiness for the Navy.”

    The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment serves the Department of the Navy and the nation by enhancing combat capabilities for the warfighter through a focus on communities, critical infrastructure, and climate action. Specifically, the portfolio focuses on renewable, reliable, resilient energy sources, sustainability and construction, maintenance and sustainment of infrastructure, protecting the safety and occupational health of military and civilian personnel; environmental protection in support of mission readiness, planning and restoration ashore and afloat; and conservation of natural and cultural resources.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Minister Vandal announces partnership with NFI Group and Manitoba to create the world-leading “All-Canadian Build” facility in Winnipeg

    Source: Government of Canada News

    $15 million from the Government of Canada enables start-to-finish manufacturing of electric and hydrogen fuel-cell transit buses in Canada, creating green jobs and expanding the Green Prairie Economy

    October 25, 2024 – Winnipeg, Manitoba – PrairiesCan

    Creating more clean mass transit options gets Canadians around their communities quicker and helps in our fight against climate change.

    Today, the Honourable Dan Vandal, Minister for PrairiesCan, announced a federal investment of $15 million for NFI Group to expand operations and fully manufacture New Flyer transit buses in Winnipeg, Manitoba. This investment will enable NFI Group to competitively respond to growing demand for Canadian-made zero-emission transit buses, adding hundreds of skilled jobs to the company’s Canadian operations with more opportunities for local suppliers, and growing Manitoba’s role in the green Prairie economy.

    Canadians want greener options, and municipal governments are responding. By increasing bus manufacturing capacity in NFI Group’s Winnipeg-based facilities, Canadian public transit authorities will be able to purchase more Canadian-made zero-emission buses to address their fleet renewal needs. The funding will ensure NFI Group can meet Canadian standards and will support the development of workforce training specific to zero-emission vehicle manufacturing including a proposed “Zero-Emission Pre-Apprenticeship Program.”

    In 2023, Minister Vandal dedicated $100 million of existing PrairiesCan funding over three years to support projects aligned with priorities of the Framework to Build a Green Prairie Economy, which include growing our manufacturing sector and capitalizing on clean electricity to seize new opportunities in the net-zero future. The Framework and funding are intended to encourage greater collaboration among governments and industry, leverage additional funding, and attract new investments across the Prairies.

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Joint Statement: 7th India-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations (IGC)

    Source: Government of India

    Posted On: 25 OCT 2024 8:25PM by PIB Delhi

    Growing Together with Innovation, Mobility and Sustainability

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz co-chaired the seventh round of India-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations (7th IGC) on 25 October 2024 in New Delhi. The Delegation included Ministers of Defence, External Affairs, Commerce & Industries, Labour & Employment, Science & Technology (MoS) and Skill Development (MoS) from the Indian side and Ministers of Economic Affairs & Climate Action, Foreign Affairs, Labour & Social Affairs and Education & Research from the German side along with Parliamentary State Secretaries for Finance; Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection; and Economic Cooperation and Development from the German side, as well as senior officials from both sides.

    2. Prime Minister Narendra Modi warmly welcomed Chancellor Olaf Scholz on his third visit to India as Chancellor. Both leaders sincerely appreciated the renewed momentum in bilateral engagement across government, industry, civil society and academia that has played an instrumental role in advancing and deepening the Strategic Partnership between India and Germany.

    3. Both leaders emphasised the importance of the Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business (APK), which takes place in New Delhi in parallel to the 7th IGC, in strengthening economic ties and strategic partnerships between Germany, India and the Indo-Pacific region as a whole. The decision to host the 2024 conference in India underscores India’s political weight in the Indo-Pacific and globally.

    4. Under the motto “Growing Together with Innovation, Mobility and Sustainability”, the 7th IGC placed particular emphasis on technology and innovation, labour and talent, migration and mobility, climate action, green and sustainable development as well as economic, defence and strategic cooperation. Both sides agree that the aforementioned domains will be the key drivers of our ever more multi-faceted partnership that spans trade, investment, defence, science, technology, innovation, sustainability, renewable energy, emerging technologies, development cooperation, culture, education, sustainable mobility, sustainable resource management, biodiversity, climate resilience and people-to-people ties.

    5. The year 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Inter – Governmental Agreement on Cooperation in Scientific Research and Technological Development which institutionalized the framework of Indo-German cooperation in Science & Technology, research and innovation. In this context, the 7th IGC presented an opportunity to renew the close relationship between India and Germany in this regard and to prioritize the advancement of technology and innovation as a key pillar of cooperation.

    6. During the 6th IGC, both governments had announced the Green and Sustainable Development Partnership (GSDP), which serves as an umbrella for bilateral formats and joint initiatives in this field. Subsequently, both sides signed the Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement (MMPA) in December 2022 and launched the “India-Germany Vision to Enhance Cooperation in Innovation and Technology” in February 2023. Recalling the outcomes of the 6th IGC and various agreements concluded by the two sides thereafter, both governments launched the “India-Germany Innovation and Technology Partnership Roadmap” and introduced the “Indo-German Green Hydrogen Roadmap”, whose aim is to promote the market ramp-up of Green Hydrogen.Growing Together for Peace, Security and Stability

    7. The two leaders noted the Pact for the Future and reaffirmed their commitment to upholding shared values and principles including democracy, freedom, international peace and security and a rules-based international order in line with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. Both governments also underscored their commitment to strengthen and reform the multilateral system including expansion of both permanent and non-permanent categories of membership of the UN Security Council to reflect contemporary realities, address current and future challenges and to support and preserve peace and stability across the world. The two leaders called for text-based negotiations at the IGN within a fixed timeframe.

    8. India and Germany agreed that the difficulties of the UN Security Council to effectively address regional and global crises offer a compelling reminder of the urgent need for reform. As members of the “Group of Four (G4)”, India and Germany reiterated their call for a Security Council that is efficient, effective, transparent and reflective of 21st century realities.

    9. The leaders expressed their deepest concern over the war raging in Ukraine including its terrible and tragic humanitarian consequences. They reiterated the need for a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in line with international law, consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. They also noted the negative impacts of the war in Ukraine with regard to global food and energy security, especially for developing and least developed countries. In the context of this war, they shared the view that the use, or threat of use, of nuclear weapons is unacceptable. They underscored the importance of upholding international law, and in line with the UN Charter, reiterated that all states must refrain from the threat of or use of force against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state.

    10. The leaders expressed their shared interest in achieving peace and stability in the Middle East. They unequivocally condemned the Hamas’ terror attacks on October 7, 2023 and expressed concern over the large-scale loss of civilian lives and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. They called for the immediate release of all hostages taken by Hamas and an immediate ceasefire as well as the urgent improvement of access and sustained distribution of humanitarian assistance at scale throughout Gaza. The leaders underscored the need to prevent the conflict from escalating and spilling over in the region. In this regard, they called on all regional players to act responsibly and with restraint. Both sides also emphasized the urgent need to protect the lives of civilians and facilitate safe, timely and sustained humanitarian relief to civilians, and in this regard urged all parties to comply with international law. The leaders were also deeply concerned about the rapidly deteriorating situation in Lebanon, called for an urgent cessation of hostilities and agreed that a solution to the conflict in Gaza and in Lebanon can only be reached by diplomatic means. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 outlines the path towards a diplomatic solution along the Blue Line. The leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a negotiated two-state solution, leading to the establishment of a sovereign, viable and independent State of Palestine, living within secure and mutually recognized borders, side by side in dignity and peace with Israel, taking into account Israel’s legitimate security concerns.

    11. The leaders underscored that as the world’s two largest democracies, India and the EU have a common interest in ensuring security, prosperity and sustainable development in a multi – polar world. They emphasized the importance of deepening the India-EU Strategic Partnership which would not only benefit both sides but also have a far-reaching positive impact globally. The leaders also expressed their strong support to the India-EU Trade and Technology Council that would serve as an innovative platform towards closer engagement in the critical areas of trade, trusted technologies and security. They agreed to coordinate efforts, both bilaterally and at the EU level, to take forward key connectivity initiatives including India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor in which India, Germany and EU are members as well as the EU Initiative Global Gateway.

    12. Both leaders underscored the crucial importance of a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, Investment Protection Agreement and an Agreement on Geographical Indications between the European Union and India, while calling for an early conclusion of the negotiations.

    13. Both leaders unequivocally condemned terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including the use of terrorist proxies and cross-border terrorism. Both sides agreed that terrorism remains a serious threat to international peace and stability. They further called for concerted action against all terrorist groups, including groups proscribed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1267 Sanctions Committee. Both sides also called upon all countries to continue to work towards eliminating terrorist safe havens and infrastructure as well as to disrupt terrorist networks and financing in accordance with international law.

    14. Both leaders noted with concern the emerging threats from the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes such as unmanned aircraft systems, use of virtual assets by terrorists and terrorist entities and the misuse of information and communication technologies for radicalization. In this regard they welcomed the adoption of Delhi Declaration on Countering the use of New and Emerging Technologies for Terrorism Purposes adopted during the conduct of UNCTC meetings in India in 2022.

    15. Recognizing a shared commitment to combat terrorism and strengthen the framework for global cooperation in this regard, both leaders emphasized the importance of upholding international standards on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism by all countries, including in FATF. Both sides called for bringing the perpetrators of terrorist acts to justice. Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to hold regular consultations of the Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism to strengthen channels for real time sharing of intelligence and coordination of counter-terrorism efforts. Both sides also committed to continued exchange of information about sanctions and designations against terror groups and individuals, countering radicalism, and terrorists’ use of the internet and cross-border movement of terrorists.

    16. With a view to ensuring closer collaboration to prevent, suppress, investigate and prosecute criminals, including crime related to terrorism, India and Germany concluded the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty in Criminal Matters (MLAT). Both leaders agreed that the India-Germany MLAT is an important milestone in strengthening security cooperation between the two countries that will enable sharing of information and evidence, mutual capacity building and sharing of best practices between the two countries.

    17. As strategic partners with a shared interest in deepening security cooperation, both sides concluded the Agreement on the Exchange and Mutual Protection of Classified Information thereby creating a legal framework for cooperation and collaboration between Indian and German entities and providing guidance on how classified information should be handled, protected and transmitted.

    18. With a view to better appreciating foreign policy perspectives in key regions across the world, both governments decided to establish an India-Germany Dialogue on West Asia and North Africa (WANA) between the respective Foreign Ministries, which would be in addition to long-standing dialogue mechanisms on Africa and East Asia. Both governments also expressed satisfaction with regular consultations on key thematic issues of mutual concern including policy planning, cyber-security, cyber issues and United Nations.

    19. Recognizing the need for a deeper understanding of each other’s perspectives, including amongst think tanks and foreign and security policy experts, both governments underscored the usefulness of India-Germany Track 1.5 dialogue between Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and MEA from the Indian side and German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and the German Federal Foreign Office. The next meeting of this dialogue format is planned for November 2024. Both governments also appreciated the launch of a Track 1.5 Dialogue on East Asia and agreed that these exchanges help both sides better align and coordinate their outreach. With a view to sustaining this momentum, both sides agreed to convene the next edition of the Track 1.5 Dialogue Mechanisms at the earliest opportunity.

    20. Both sides are committed to promoting a free, open, inclusive, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific built on international law, mutual respect for sovereignty, and peaceful resolution of disputes, and underpinned by effective regional institutions. Both sides reaffirmed their unwavering support for ASEAN’s unity and centrality. The Government of India welcomed Germany’s leadership in the capacity-building pillar of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI) and its commitment of up to 20 Million EUR via a competitive call for ideas under its International Climate Initiative in 2022 to strengthen the resilience of Pacific Island States against climate-related loss and damage.

    21. Germany congratulated India on its successful G20 Presidency which brought the development agenda to centre stage in G20. Both Leaders acknowledged that from initiating a platform on Compact with Africa (CwA) during the German G20 Presidency to inclusion of the African Union as a permanent member of the G20 during India’s Presidency, the G20 has come a long way to ensure that the voice of the Global South is amplified. India and Germany expressed their support to the priorities set by the Brazilian G20 Presidency, especially Global Governance Reforms.Strengthening Defence and Strategic Cooperation

    22. Recognizing the shared goal of intensifying defence ties between the two countries, the Government of India welcomed the efforts of the German Federal Government to facilitate faster export clearances, including through favourable regulatory decisions such as the General Authorisation/General Licences (AGG) regime. Both sides committed to supporting strategic exports to India and encouraged co-development, co-production and joint research between the respective defence industries. Both governments appreciated the defence roundtable held in New Delhi on 24 October, to strengthen the defense industrial partnership between India and Germany.

    23. In addition to regular visits and increasing interactions between the armed forces, both sides look forward to the next High Defence Committee (HDC) meeting to be held in India next year with a view to developing defence cooperation as a key pillar of the Strategic Partnership between India and Germany. India and Germany also agreed to finalize cooperation in peacekeeping related training between the Centre for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK), New Delhi and its counterpart in Germany, the Bundeswehr United Nations Training Centre in Hammelburg (GAFUNTC) and looked forward to the Peacekeeping Ministerial Meeting in Berlin in 2025.

    24. Both sides stressed the importance of the Indo-Pacific for prosperity and security as well as for addressing global challenges. Germany will enhance its engagement with the region in line with the Federal Government’s policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific. Both sides also highlighted the importance of freedom of navigation and of unimpeded maritime routes in accordance with International Law, as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982, in all maritime domains including in the Indo-Pacific. In this context, both governments declared their joint intent to conclude a Memorandum of Arrangement regarding mutual logistics support and exchange between the armed forces of India and Germany to further intensify defence and security ties and to establish a basis for provision of mutual logistics support including in the Indo-Pacific theatre. With a view to deepening cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, Germany will permanently deploy a Liaison Officer in the Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) at Gurugram to monitor the marine traffic in IOR, further augmenting close cooperation in this region.

    25. Both sides welcomed Germany’s growing engagement in the Indo-Pacific region in the field of security and defence cooperation and appreciated the successful cooperation of the Indian and German air forces during exercise TARANG SHAKTI in August 2024 as well as the port call in Goa and joint naval exercises between the German Naval Frigate “Baden-Württemberg” along with the Combat Support Ship “Frankfurt Am Main” and the Indian Navy. Germany also welcomed the port call of Indian naval ship INS TABAR to Hamburg in July 2024.

    26. Both governments agreed to intensify bilateral exchanges on security and defence issues also through enhancing research, co-development and co-production activities bilaterally, under EU mechanisms and with other partners. In this regard, both sides will support enhanced industry level cooperation in the defence sector with a specific focus on technology collaboration, manufacturing/co-production and co-development of defence platforms and equipment. Germany also welcomes India’s application for observer status in the Eurodrone Programme of OCCAR (Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation).Partnering for Critical and Emerging Technologies, Science and Innovation

    27. Both leaders expressed their appreciation on the successful 50 years of long standing collaboration in science and technology between the two countries and reaffirmed their support to expand it further through launching the ‘India-Germany Innovation and Technology Partnership Roadmap’ which will serve as a guideline to the public and private sectors and research institutions of the two countries to take forward our cooperation in the areas of renewable energy, start-ups, semiconductors, AI and quantum technologies, climate risk and sustainable resource management, climate change adaptation as well as agroecology Both leaders further identified space and space technologies as an important and promising area for future prosperity, development, and possible cooperation.

    28. The two leaders expressed their satisfaction at the growing exchanges between the two countries in the field of research & education and growing number of Indian students studying in Germany. Both leaders also acknowledged the flagship role of the Indo-German Science and Technology Centre (IGSTC) in promoting bilateral industry-academia strategic research and development partnerships. Both leaders welcomed the recent initiatives of IGSTC and signing of Joint Declaration of Intent to support 2+2 projects in the field of advanced materials. Understanding the importance of IGSTC, both leaders expressed their desire to expand and forge new partnerships anchored in shared values and driven by innovation led technology development and manufacturing.

    29. Both Leaders acknowledged the launching of the first ever basic research consortia model between the two countries namely, International Research Training Group (IRTG), jointly by Department of Science and Technology (DST) & German Research Foundation (DFG) with the involvement of first group of researchers from IISER Thiruvananthapuram and Würzburg University on Photoluminescence in Supramolecular Matrices. Underpinning science and innovation landscape, they expressed their desire to initiate an Indo-German Innovation and Incubation Exchange Programme to leverage collective expertise and capacity for fostering scientific innovation and incubation ecosystems of academic & research institutions.

    30. Both Leaders also expressed their appreciation and satisfaction over the high level of engagement as exemplified by India’s participation in mega-science facilities at Facility for Anti-Proton and Ion Research (FAIR) and Deutsche Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) in Germany. They extended their commitment including financials to ensure timely execution of the FAIR facility. The two leaders also acknowledge the continuation of the cooperation at the synchrotron radiation facility PETRA-III and the free-electron laser facility FLASH at DESY.

    31. Both governments welcomed the steadily increasing partnerships in Higher Education which facilitate dual and joint degrees and intensify collaborative research and academic and institutional exchanges between Universities and Institutions of Higher Education. In particular, both sides expressed their appreciation and full support for the first ever Indo-German joint Masters degree programme in “Water Security & Global Change”, a joint initiative of TU Dresden, RWTH-Aachen and IIT-Madras (IITM) funded by DAAD as well as a new initiative of TU Dresden and IITM to conclude an agreement establishing a “transCampus” to deepen bilateral cooperation in teaching, research, innovation and entrepreneurship. Both governments also welcomed the signing of the MoU between IIT Kharagpur and the DAAD, which will enable joint funding for Indo-German university cooperation projects. Both sides expressed their strong support for the dedicated call of the “German Indian Academic Network for Tomorrow” (GIANT) under SPARC (Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration) highlighting cooperation between Indian and German universities.

    32. With a view to further strengthening digital and technology partnerships between India and Germany, both governments agreed to share experience and expertise in digital public infrastructure (DPI), e.g. to explore ways in which Germany can leverage India’s expertise in DPI and the strengths of the Indian IT industry to drive innovation and digital transformation in both countries. As an important forum for exchanges on digital topics such as internet governance, tech regulations, digital transformation of economy, and emerging digital technologies, both sides welcomed the finalization of the Work Plan for 2023-24 formulated by the Indo-German Digital Dialogue (IGDD).

    33. Both sides will endeavour to leverage AI to advance the SDG, recognizing the need for an innovation-friendly, balanced, inclusive, human-centric and risk-based approach to the governance of AI. Digital solutions such as image detection and AI are playing an important role in revolutionising agriculture by assisting farmers and enhancing agricultural productivity, climate resilience, carbon sinks and sustainability. Both countries are running national programmes to facilitate the growth of digital agriculture and have agreed to intensify their Cooperation in Digital Agriculture, AI and IoT to foster ongoing cooperation, innovation and exchanges for modernising agriculture.

    34. Both governments underlined the strategic importance of collaboration in the field of critical and emerging technologies, innovation and skill development. Reaffirming the priorities for bilateral cooperation, as laid down in the Innovation and Technology Partnership Roadmap, both governments agreed to focus on collaboration in innovation, skill development and critical and emerging technologies. Forging closer linkages between the industry and academia of the two countries in key technology areas would be prioritized, in recognition of a shared commitment to ensuring an open, inclusive and secure technology architecture, built on mutual trust and respect, and reflecting shared values and democratic principles. Based on that, the two countries would achieve outcome oriented and mutually beneficial technology collaboration in identified sectors.

    35. In furthering cooperation in the field of research in disaster mitigation, tsunami warnings, coastal hazards, early warning systems, disaster risk reduction and oceanography, polar sciences, biology and biogeochemistry, geophysics and geology, both Governments welcomed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam – Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum, and between National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) and AlfredWegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (AWI).

    36. Both Governments also welcomed the bilateral agreement in the biological, physical and mathematical sciences between National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), both centres of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), India and Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG), Germany. This agreement will facilitate the exchange of scientists, including students and research staff, between the various Max Planck Institutes with ICTS and NCBS.

    37. Both Leaders noted with appreciation the collaboration between M/s New Space India Ltd and M/s GAF AG for upgrading the international ground station at Neustrelitz, Germany for the reception and processing of data from OceanSat – 3 and RISAT – 1A satellites. Partnership for a Green and Sustainable Future

    38. Both sides acknowledged the need for green, sustainable, climate resilient and inclusive development to achieve net zero emissions. Both governments aim to substantially enhance bilateral, trilateral and multilateral cooperation in climate action and sustainable development. Both sides acknowledged the progress achieved thus far under the Indo-German Green and Sustainable Development Partnership (GSDP). This partnership, guided by shared commitments, seeks to accelerate the implementation of the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement and the SDGs. In this context, both sides stressed the need to work jointly for an ambitious outcome of the upcoming UNFCCC COP29, in particular on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Both sides will respond positively to the outcomes of COP28, including the first Global Stocktake, in light of national circumstances.

    39. Both sides appreciated the stocktaking of progress during the Ministerial meeting on the GSDP objectives. To contribute to the implementation of the GSDP, both sides are committed to regular dialogue within the existing working groups and other bilateral formats and initiatives. The next meeting of the Ministerial Mechanism shall take place at the latest within the framework of the next India-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations, to conduct a stocktaking of the progress on GSDP objectives to achieve the Paris Agreement goals and SDGs. Both sides reaffirmed their intention to closely cooperate on combatting climate change and therefore expressed their intention to hold a meeting of the Indo-German Climate Working Group in the near future.

    40. Under the umbrella of the GSDP, both sides inter alia:

    a. Launched the Indo-German Green Hydrogen Roadmap. The Leaders agreed that the Roadmap will help support India’s ambition for production, usage and export of Green Hydrogen while also contributing to a swifter adoption of Green Hydrogen as a sustainable source of energy in both countries

    b. Launched the GSDP Dashboard, a publicly accessible online tool, which showcases the intensive cooperation between Germany and India under the GSDP. It gives an overview of key innovations and the broad range of experience covered by India-Germany cooperation. It facilitates stocktaking of the joint progress towards achieving GSDP objectives, and provides key information to relevant stakeholders on innovative solutions for global challenges.

    c. Signed a Joint Declaration of Intent to renew and further elevate the partnership in accordance with a shared vision to promoting in India sustainable urban mobility for all, recognizing the importance of green and sustainable urbanization for inclusive social and economic development and the strong results of the Green Urban Mobility Partnership since its establishment in 2019.

    d. Highly appreciated the achievements and vision for the future of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and agreed to intensify our cooperation within ISA.

    e. Appreciated the cooperation in the area of halting deforestation and degradation and reversing the trend by restoring forest landscapes in support of the implementation of the Rio Conventions and the SDGs.

    41. The leaders acknowledged that the Indo-German Energy Forum (IGEF), through its various activities, has played a pivotal role in strengthening the general bilateral economic relations between Germany and India, promoting economic growth, and addressing global climate change challenges.

    42. Both sides underscored the role of the 4th Global RE-INVEST Renewable Energy Investors Meet & Expo, held in September 2024 in Gandhinagar with Germany as a partner country, in bringing together key stakeholders in the renewable energy sector. Both governments recalled the ‘India-Germany Platform for Investments in Renewable Energy Worldwide’ which was launched during RE-INVEST as a key initiative to fast-track renewable energy investments, foster business collaborations and expand global supply chains. The platform will accelerate the expansion of renewable energy in India and worldwide through exchanges on green financing, technology and business opportunities.

    43. Both governments expressed their wish to continue to strengthen the cooperation through the Joint Working Group on Biodiversity and acknowledged that CBD COP 16 marks a crucial moment in the global effort to implement the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework.

    44. Recalling the deliberations and outcomes of the Joint Working Group on Waste management and Circular Economy which has created opportunities by intensifying exchanges on experiences and technologies between the two countries, both sides agreed to explore the possibility of deepening cooperation within these structures, for instance, focusing future work on inter alia Solar Waste recycling. They appreciated the Indo-German environment cooperation on the effective and efficient implementation of ambitious objectives and policies in order to prevent waste, especially plastics, from entering the marine environment. India and Germany agreed to closely cooperate towards establishing a global legally binding agreement on plastic pollution.

    45. Both leaders acknowledged the progress made under the Triangular Development Cooperation (TDC), which pools mutual strengths and experiences to offer sustainable, viable and inclusive projects in third countries as per their priorities to support the achievement of SDGs and climate targets in Africa, Asia and beyond. Both sides welcomed the encouraging results of the pilot projects in Cameroon, Ghana and Malawi, and the progress made in the ongoing initiatives with Benin and Peru. In view of the successful implementation of the aforementioned initiatives, both governments have agreed to commence upscaling of the pilot projects with Cameroon (agriculture), Malawi (women entrepreneurship) and Ghana (horticulture) in 2024 and beyond. Furthermore, both sides welcomed the start of the three millet related pilot projects: two with Ethiopia and one with Madagascar. Additionally, both sides have launched the institutional mechanism to reach out to the partners, select and implement their joint initiatives on a full scale and to this end, both governments established a Joint Steering Committee and a Joint Implementation Group.

    46. The leaders reaffirmed that Gender Equality is of fundamental importance and investing in the empowerment of women and girls has a multiplier effect in implementing the 2030 Agenda. They reiterated their commitment to encourage women-led development and enhancing womens’ full, equal, effective and meaningful participation as decision-makers for addressing global challenges inclusively while noting Germany’s Feminist Foreign and Development Policies in this regard. Both sides reaffirmed their desire to strengthen Indo-German cooperation on promoting the critical role of women in green and sustainable development.

    47. In addition, both sides welcomed the milestones already achieved with respect to the existing initiatives and new commitments for financial and technical cooperation under the framework of the GSDP, as follows:

    a.New commitments in all core areas of the GSDP of more than 1 billion EUR as agreed during the negotiations on development cooperation between the Government of India and the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany in September 2024, adding up to accumulated commitments of around 3.2 billion EUR since beginning of the GSDP in 2022;

    b.Under the Indo-German Renewable Energy Partnership, the cooperation focused on innovative solar energy, green hydrogen, other renewables, grid integration, storage and investments in the renewable energy sector to facilitate an energy transition and to address the need for a reliable, round the clock renewable power supply.

    c.The “Agroecology and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources” cooperation benefits the vulnerable rural population and small-scale farmers in India by fostering income, food security, climate resilience, soil health, biodiversity, forest ecosystems and water security.

    d.Both sides reiterated their intention to continue their successful collaboration on sustainable urban development.

    Building resilience through Trade and Economic collaboration

    48. Both leaders hailed the consistent high performance in terms of bilateral trade between the two countries in the recent years and encouraged stakeholders in India and Germany to further strengthen trade and investment flows. The leaders also noted the strong two-way investments between India and Germany and the positive impacts of such investments in diversifying the global supply chains. In this context, the leaders expressed confidence that the APK 2024, the bi-annual flagship forum of German Business with participation of top-level business executives from Germany, is a crucial platform to showcase the immense opportunities available in India for German businesses.

    49. Both sides underlined the long-standing presence of German businesses in India and Indian businesses in Germany and agreed to work towards deepening economic and trade linkages between the two countries. In this context, both sides welcomed the holding of the meeting of the India-Germany CEO Forum which serves as a high-level platform to engage business and industry leaders from India and Germany. They also underlined the achievements of the Indo-German Fast Track Mechanism to resolve trade and investment related issues, and are ready to continue its operation.

    50. In recognition of the importance of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)/Mittelstand in economic growth and job creation, both sides acknowledged the growth in bilateral investment and the success of the ‘Make in India Mittelstand’ Programme, which supports German Mittelstand enterprises seeking to invest and do business in India. In a similar vein, both governments also recognised the key role played by start-ups in fostering innovation, and commended the German Accelerator (GA) for successfully facilitating start-ups to address the Indian market, and welcomed plans to establish its presence in India. Both sides noted that a corresponding programme to assist Indian start-ups in gaining market access in Germany could further enhance economic cooperation between the two countries.

    Strengthening Labour Markets, Mobility and People-to-People Ties

    51. As bilateral cooperation on skilled migration expands across multiple fronts, involving collaboration between federal and state governments, as well as private sector stakeholders, both sides committed to full implementation of the provisions of the Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement (MMPA). In line with the commitments outlined in the MMPA both sides remain dedicated to promoting fair and legal labor migration. This approach is guided by international standards that ensure migrant workers are treated with dignity and respect, including fair recruitment practices, transparent visa processes, and the protection of workers’ rights. By focusing on these principles, both countries aim to facilitate the mobility of skilled workers in a manner that benefits all parties while safeguarding against exploitation and ensuring compliance with international labor standards.

    52. Building on the MMPA, the two sides concluded a JDI in the field of Employment and Labour, to enhance bilateral cooperation and exchange in areas of mutual interest between the respective ministries. The German side informed that it will support a feasibility study on international reference classification, a G20 commitment undertaken by the Indian G20 presidency in 2023. Both leaders look forward to the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in the field of occupational diseases, rehabilitation and vocational training of workers with disabilities between the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), the Directorate General of Employment (DGE) and the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV).

    53. Both leaders noted that Indian professionals comprise over 1/4th of all blue card holders in Germany and that Indian students now represent the largest cohort of international students in Germany. Regarding this, they recognized the complementarities that exist between the requirements of skills and talents in Germany and the vast reservoir of young, educated and skilled persons in India, who can be an asset to the German labour market. The Federal Employment Agency will deepen the existing exchange with the National Skill Development Council, India (NSDC) and other similar Government agencies at national and state levels. Both sides welcomed the launch of the new national strategy of the German Federal government to promote skilled migration from India.

    54. Both leaders also expressed satisfaction on the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Skill Development and Vocational Education and Training which would leverage the strengths of India and Germany towards creating a pool of skilled workforce in India and strengthening the participation of women, especially in the areas of green skills. Both sides agreed to include elements of facilitating international mobility of labour.

    55. Both sides remain committed to the goal of expanding the teaching of the German language in India, including in secondary schools, universities and vocational education centers. They encouraged Indian and German States, culture centers and educational institutions to further promote the teaching of each other’s languages in India and Germany, including the training of language teachers. Both sides welcomed the joint efforts of the DAAD and the Goethe Institute to develop a format for the formalized training and further education of German teachers leading to a university certificate recognized in India.

    56. Both sides reaffirmed the contribution of highly skilled professionals for economic growth, noted with satisfaction the results achieved under the programme “Partnering in Business with Germany”, and renewed the JDI on advanced training of corporate executives and junior executives from India.

    57. With the Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement (MMPA), both sides also agreed to address irregular migration. For this purpose, both sides established a cooperation in the field of return since the entry into force of the MMPA. Both sides welcomed the progress achieved so far and underline the importance of further developing and streamlining cooperation through appropriate procedural arrangements.

    58. The leaders welcomed the growing ties between the two sides and their respective nationals. They acknowledged the wide range of Consular issues stemming from these growing ties and the need for dialogue on all matters related to Consular issues. They agreed to work towards early establishment of an appropriate format for a bilateral dialogue on various Consular, Visa and other issues affecting nationals of the other side residing in their respective territories.

    59. Both sides acknowledged the role of their youth as cultural ambassadors and catalysts for innovation and promoting people – people linkages between the two countries. In this context, both leaders stressed on the importance of youth cooperation and noted the proposal for establishing forum for youth exchanges and delegations between both sides. Both sides also agree to facilitate student exchanges on a mutual basis.

    60. Both sides noted with satisfaction the substantial work being done in the field of culture and welcomed efforts towards expanding scope of the Memorandum of Understanding on Museum Cooperation between Indian and German national museums such as the Prussian Heritage Foundation and the National Gallery of Modern Art, India.

    61. In line with the G20 New Delhi Leader’s Declaration (2023), both leaders underscored the intention to cooperate closely with regards to the restitution and protection of cultural goods and the fight against illicit trafficking of cultural property at national, regional and state levels to enable its return and restitution to the country and community of origin as relevant, and called for sustained dialogue and action in that endeavour.

    62. Both Governments also appreciated substantial cultural and academic exchanges made possible via initiatives such as the establishment of Indian academic chairs at universities in Germany.

    63. Both leaders expressed satisfaction at the deliberations held at the 7th IGC and reaffirmed their commitment to further expand and deepen the Indo-German Strategic Partnership. Chancellor Scholz thanked Prime Minister Modi for his warm hospitality and conveyed that Germany looks forward to hosting the next IGC.

     

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  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: India and Germany Sign Joint Declaration to Boost R&D in Advanced Materials

    Source: Government of India (2)

    India and Germany Sign Joint Declaration to Boost R&D in Advanced Materials

    Exchange MoUs in presence of PM Shri Narendra Modi and Chancellor Sholz: Intent of research in advance materials:

    Dr. Jitendra Singh Leads Bilateral Talks with German counterpart Bettina Stark-Watzinger: Commitment to seek mutual dividends

    Posted On: 25 OCT 2024 6:59PM by PIB Delhi

    In a significant step to advance Indo-German cooperation in science and technology, Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh and German Federal Minister Ms. Bettina Stark-Watzinger exchanged a Joint Declaration of Intent for cooperation in research and development on advanced materials with commitment to seek mutual dividends.

    The exchange, held in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, underscores both nations’ commitment to fostering cutting-edge research that will drive innovation and address global challenges.

     

     

    The bilateral talks between Dr. Jitendra Singh and Ms. Stark-Watzinger, which took place prior to the Plenary between two Heads of State, were a pivotal part of the Golden Jubilee celebration of Indo-German science and technology collaboration.

    During the meeting, Dr. Jitendra Singh expressed gratitude to Ms. Stark-Watzinger for her consistent support in strengthening the Indo-German partnership. He highlighted recent collaborative successes, such as the launch of 2+2 joint projects in areas like “Waste to Wealth” and sustainable packaging, as well as a new call for proposals in AI for Sustainability.

    These initiatives, along with the Joint Declaration of Intent, will be presented as key outcomes at the upcoming Indo-German Inter-Governmental Consultations led by the Prime Minister of India and the German Chancellor, said the Minister.

    Dr. Jitendra Singh also lauded the Indo-German Science and Technology Centre (IGSTC) for its instrumental role in promoting joint research, having supported over 50 projects and connected young researchers from both nations. Discussions included the recent establishment of the International Research Training Group (IRTG) between IISER Trivandrum and Würzburg University, focusing on photoluminescence in supramolecular matrices, a testament to the advanced, collaborative research being fostered between the two countries.

    Additionally, Dr. Jitendra Singh reaffirmed India’s commitment to long-term international projects such as the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt, where Indian scientists play a key role in advanced materials and particle physics research.

    The bilateral discussions also highlighted national initiatives such as India’s Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) and the National Quantum Mission, both aimed at scaling up R&D across priority areas including electric mobility, sustainable agriculture, and advanced materials.

     

     

    The two Ministers also discussed potential collaboration in hydrogen energy, with Dr. Jitendra Singh noting that India’s National Hydrogen Mission could offer promising joint opportunities in R&D, production, and sustainable energy storage.

    As the meeting concluded, Dr. Jitendra Singh and Ms. Stark-Watzinger affirmed their commitment to aligning innovation and research efforts across areas such as biotechnology, environmental technology, and healthcare. Both leaders emphasized the importance of fostering academic exchange and talent development, ensuring that the Indo-German partnership continues to drive innovative solutions for a sustainable and resilient global future.

     

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  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: NTPC and Indian Army Join Hands for Round-the-Clock Power Supply using Green Hydrogen

    Source: Government of India (2)

    Posted On: 25 OCT 2024 4:59PM by PIB Delhi

    NTPC has partnered with the Indian Army to establish a Solar Hydrogen-based Microgrid at Chushul, Ladakh. This significant step will provide a stable power supply using Green Hydrogen in off-grid Army locations. Today, Hon’ble Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh laid the foundation stone of this unique project through video conferencing in the presence of Chief of India defence services, CMD, NTPC and other senior officials from Ministry of Defence, Indian Army and NTPC.

    NTPC has designed this innovative Solar Hydrogen-based microgrid system to operate independently, using hydrogen as an energy storage medium to supply 200kW of power round-the-clock throughout the year. This system will replace existing diesel gensets at off-grid Army locations, providing a sustainable power supply despite harsh winter conditions, where temperatures drop to -30°C at an altitude of 4,400 meters. NTPC will maintain the project for 25 years, aiming to support Indian soldiers stationed in these strategically significant tough terrains and challenging climate.

    The Solar-Hydrogen microgrid is set to replace existing diesel generators currently in use at off-grid Army locations. These systems offer numerous advantages, including the integration of renewable energy sources, a stable power supply under adverse conditions, reduced carbon emissions, and the promotion of a cleaner and sustainable energy ecosystem as they are highly scalable and suitable for various applications. Moreover, these systems combine the reliability of battery storage with the extended energy storage capability of hydrogen, ensuring a consistent power supply.

    Given Ladakh’s high solar irradiance and low temperatures, this project will facilitate the production and utilization of green energy, eliminating reliance on fuel logistics and enhancing self-sufficiency in remote areas affected by road connectivity disruptions. Once operational, it would usher in a new era of decarbonisation of the defence sector far off the Himalayas.

    Additionally, NTPC started a trial run of a hydrogen bus in Leh recently towards achieving its renewable energy targets and carbon neutrality in Ladakh. The company is further setting up a hydrogen fuelling station and solar plant along with five fuel cell buses for operation on intracity routes in Leh.

    NTPC is committed to achieving 60GW of renewable energy capacity by 2032 and becoming a major player in green hydrogen technology and energy storage domain. The company is pursuing several initiatives toward decarbonisation, including hydrogen blending, carbon capture, electric buses, and smart NTPC townships.

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  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: List of Outcomes: Visit of Chancellor of Germany to India for the 7th Intergovernmental Consultations

    Source: Government of India (2)

    Posted On: 25 OCT 2024 4:50PM by PIB Delhi

    Sr. No. Name of Treaties/MoUs/Documents/Declarations Exchanged from the German side by Exchanged from the Indian side by
    Treaties
    1. Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) in Criminal Matters Ms. Annalena Baerbock, Foreign Minister Shri Raj Nath Singh, Minister of Defence
    Agreements
    2. Agreement on the Exchange and Mutual Protection of Classified Information Ms. Annalena Baerbock, Foreign Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister
    Documents
    3. Indo-German Green Hydrogen Road Map Dr. Robert Habeck, Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Action Shri Piyush Goyal, Commerce & Industry Minister
    4. Road Map on Innovation and Technology Ms. Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Minister of Education and Research (BMBF) Shri Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology
    Declarations
    5. Joint Declaration of Intent in the field of Employment and Labour Mr. Hubertus Heil, Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of Labour & Employment
    6. Joint Declaration of Intent for Joint Cooperation in Research and Development on Advanced Materials Ms. Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Minister of Education and Research (BMBF) Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (I/C) of Science and Technology
    7 Joint Declaration of Intent on the Indo-German Green Urban Mobility Partnership for All Dr. Barbel Kofler, Parliamentary State Secretary, BMZ Shri Vikram Misri, Foreign Secretary
    MoUs
    8. Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in the field of Skill Development and Vocational Education and Training Ms. Bettina Stark-Watzinger, Minister of Education and Research (BMBF) Shri Jayant Chaudhary, Minister of State (I/C) of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

     

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  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: English Translation of Press Statement by Prime Minister at the Joint Press Conference with Chancellor of Germany

    Source: Government of India

    Posted On: 25 OCT 2024 4:33PM by PIB Delhi

    Your Excellency, Chancellor Scholz,
    Delegates of both countries,
    Friends from the media,

    Namaskar!

    Guten Tag!

    First of all, I would like to extend a warm welcome to Chancellor Scholz and his delegation to India. I am happy that we have had the opportunity to welcome you to India for the third time in the last two years.

    You can gauge the extent of the strategic partnership between India and Germany from the activities over the last two-three days. This morning, we had the opportunity to address the Asia Pacific Conference for German Business.

    The first IGC of my third term concluded a short while ago. Right now, we have just come from the CEO Forum meeting. At the same time, German naval ships are making port calls in Goa. And the sports world is not far behind—friendly matches are also being played between our hockey teams.

    Friends,

    Our partnership under the leadership of Chancellor Scholz has gained new momentum and direction. I congratulate Chancellor Scholz for Germany’s “Focus on India” strategy, which provides a blueprint to modernize and elevate the partnership between two large democracies in the world in a comprehensive manner.

    Today, our innovation and technology roadmap has been launched. A whole-of-government approach to Critical and Emerging Technologies, Skill Development, and Innovation has also been agreed upon. This will strengthen cooperation in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Semiconductors, and Clean Energy. It will also help in building secure, trusted, and resilient global supply value chains.

    Friends,

    Growing cooperation in the defense and security sectors reflects our deep mutual trust. The agreement on the exchange of classified information is a new step in this direction. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty signed today will further bolster our joint efforts to combat terrorism and separatist elements.

    Both countries are constantly working on their shared commitment to green and sustainable growth. Today, taking our Green and Sustainable Development Partnership forward, we have agreed on the second phase of the Green Urban Mobility Partnership. Additionally, the Green Hydrogen Roadmap has also been launched.

    Friends,

    The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia are a matter of concern for both countries. India has always maintained that war cannot solve any problem at all, and stands ready to make every possible contribution towards the restoration of peace.

    We both agree on ensuring freedom of navigation and adherence to the rule of law in accordance with international laws in the Indo-Pacific region.

    We also agree that the Global Forums created in the twentieth century are not capable of addressing challenges of the twenty-first century. There is a need for reforms in various multilateral institutions, including the UN Security Council.

    India and Germany will continue to actively cooperate in this direction.

    Friends,

    People-to-people connections are an important pillar of our relationship. Today, we have decided to work together in skills development and vocational education. An agreement has also been signed between IIT Chennai and Dresden University, which will allow our students to take advantage of a Dual Degree program.

    India’s young talent is contributing to the progress and prosperity of Germany. We welcome the “Skilled Labour Strategy” released by Germany for India. I am confident that our young talent pool will get better opportunities to contribute to Germany’s development. I congratulate Chancellor Scholz for his faith in the capacity and capability of Indian talent.

    Excellency,

    Your visit to India has given new momentum, energy, and enthusiasm to our partnership. I can confidently say that our partnership has clarity, and the future is bright.

    In German, Alles klar, Alles gut!

    Thank you very much.
    Danke schön.

    DISCLAIMER -This is the approximate translation of Prime Minister’s remarks. Original remarks were delivered

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: English Translation of Opening Remarks by the Prime Minister at the 7th India-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations

    Source: Government of India (2)

    Posted On: 25 OCT 2024 4:03PM by PIB Delhi

    Excellency,

    A warm welcome to you and your delegation on the occasion for the 7th India-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations.

    Excellency,

    This is your third trip to India. Fortunately, this is also the first IGC meeting of my third term. In a way, this is a triple celebration of our friendship.

    Excellency,

    In 2022, during the last Inter-Governmental Consultation held in Berlin, we made important decisions for bilateral cooperation.

    In the last two years, there has been encouraging progress in various areas of our strategic partnership. Increasing cooperation in areas such as defence, technology, energy, and green and sustainable development has become a symbol of mutual trust.

    Excellency,

    The world is going through a period of tension, conflict, and uncertainty. There are also serious concerns about the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region. In such times, the strategic partnership between India and Germany has emerged as a strong anchor.

    This is not a transactional relationship; this is a transformational partnership between two capable and strong democracies—a partnership that is contributing to building a stable, secure, and sustainable future for the global community and humanity.

    In this regard, the “Focus on India” strategy you released last week is most welcome.

    Excellency,

    I am pleased that we are taking many new and important initiatives to expand and elevate our partnership. We are moving from a whole-of-government approach to a whole-of-nation approach.

    Industries from both countries are connecting innovators and young talent. Democratizing technology is our shared commitment. Today, the Roadmap on Innovation and Technology is being released, which will further strengthen our cooperation in important areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Semiconductors, and Clean Energy.

    We have just participated in the Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business, and shortly, we will also participate in the CEOs Forum. This will strengthen our cooperation even further. Our efforts to diversify and de-risk our economies will gain momentum, helping to create secure, reliable, and trusted supply value chains.

    In line with our commitment to climate action, we have created a platform for global investment in renewable energy. Today, the Green Hydrogen Roadmap has also been released.

    We are pleased that education, skill development, and mobility are advancing between India and Germany. We welcome the Skilled Labour Mobility Strategy released by Germany. I believe today’s meeting will elevate our partnership to new heights.

    I’d now like to hear your thoughts.

    After that, my colleagues will brief us on the steps being taken to foster mutual cooperation in various areas.

    Once again, a very warm welcome to you and your delegation in India.

    DISCLAIMER -This is the approximate translation of Prime Minister’s remarks. Original remarks were delivered

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: California’s “infrastructure decade” continues: $5 billion invested this week alone

    Source: US State of California 2

    Oct 25, 2024

    What you need to know: Over the course of just the last week, California has invested more than $5 billion in local and state infrastructure projects – improving the daily lives of millions of Californians.

    SACRAMENTO – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom announced more than $1.3 billion in infrastructure investments being made throughout the state to improve rail and transit projects, bridges and highways, and walking and biking pathways. This builds on nearly $4 billion in federal and state funding that was just announced by the California Transportation Commission (CTC).

    Together, the more than $5 billion in investments in just the last week are part of Governor Newsom’s build more, faster infrastructure agenda. Find projects building your community at build.ca.gov.

    From making people’s commutes easier and safer to strengthening our state’s critical infrastructure to better withstand extreme weather, we’re investing in projects that better the lives of millions of Californians. Thanks to the historic funding from the Biden-Harris Administration, ‘infrastructure decade’ in California is a reality.

    Governor Gavin Newsom

    Why this matters

    Today’s funding announcement is part of a multiyear, multibillion dollar investment to modernize and expand the state’s public transit and rail network and prioritizes safety, equity, climate action and economic prosperity in the transportation decisions California makes. 

    “Under Governor Newsom’s leadership, California is furthering its commitment to fund transit projects that boost the state’s zero-emissions goals,” said California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin. “This critical investment is yet another major step towards growing a more sustainable and equitable transit system for those who work, live and play in California.”

    More than $1.3 billion from the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP)

    This funding will support 27 new public transportation projects intended to improve rail and transit throughout the state. These projects will give Californians real alternatives to driving and help to keep California on track to meet the state’s ambitious climate goals. Over $4.8 billion has been invested since 2023 in transit and passenger rail projects from competitive TIRCP grants.

    Learn more about the projects here.

    Nearly $4 billion from the California Transportation Commission 

    Last week, the CTC allocated more than $3.8 billion for projects that will improve coastal rail lines, freight corridors, bridges, highway interchanges and system enhancements aimed to increase accessibility for multi-modal users. 

    The projects approved include improvements for locations along the coastal LOSSAN (Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo) rail corridor, four hydrogen fueling stations in San Bernardino, a freeway connector in Bakersfield, a bikeway in Redding and a pedestrian overcrossing in Berkeley. Learn more about the projects here.

    Find projects that are building California’s climate-friendly future at Build.ca.gov.

    Press Releases, Recent News

    Recent news

    Oct 24, 2024

    News SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the following appointments:Sarah Soto-Taylor, of Sacramento, has been appointed Undersecretary of the Government Operations Agency, where she has been Deputy Secretary for Business Transformation and Strategic…

    Oct 23, 2024

    News What you need to know: State and federal partners today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to boost cooperation on multi-benefit water projects in the Sacramento River Basin.  SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom today highlighted a new agreement between…

    Oct 23, 2024

    News What you need to know: California Highway Patrol officers conducted blitz operations this weekend, targeting sideshows that led to 22 arrests and the seizure of 36 vehicles. These actions are part of the state’s ongoing enforcement surge in the region, in…

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Rep. Barragán Secured $36.5 Million for Zero-Emission Rail In California

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Nanette Diaz Barragán (CA-44)

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                     

    October 25, 2024

    Contact: Kevin McGuire, 202-538-2386 (mobile)

    Kevin.McGuire@mail.house.gov

    Washington D.C. –  Today, Congresswoman Nanette Barragán (CA-44) announced the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been awarded a $36.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to replace 10 diesel locomotives with nine zero-emission, battery-electric locomotives and one hydrogen fuel cell locomotive. Congresswoman Barragán urged Federal Rail Administrator Amit Bose to fund this project through the Department’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program earlier this year in a letter to the administrator.

    “We all know rail has a critical role in moving goods through our ports and limit the number of drayage trucks on our highways.  However, it is also a major source of the air and noise pollution that causes significant harm to frontline communities like Wilmington and Long Beach,” said Rep. Barragán. “I applaud CARB, as well as PHL and the other industry partners for their leadership as early investors in this zero-emission locomotive technology.  They have responded to the calls of frontline residents and Members of Congress to reduce their pollution and expedite the transition of a rail zero-emission future. The health of our communities is worth every dollar of this investment.”

    Five of the new locomotives will be operated by Pacific Harbor Line (PHL) and used in and near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.  This will build on PHL’s successful pilot demonstration of a battery-electric switcher locomotive in the San Pedro Bay Ports Complex.

    This federal investment will significantly benefit the health and quality of lie of frontline communities that have been disproportionately harmed by railroad pollution for decades.  In total, the project is estimated to eliminate 28.5 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxide and 590 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

    # # #

    Congressmember Nanette Barragán represents California’s 44th District.  She sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and works on environmental justice and healthcare issues.  She is also Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI China: 1st reusable satellite payloads delivered

    Source: China State Council Information Office 2

    Bian Zhigang, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), speaks at the payloads handover ceremony held by CNSA in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 24, 2024. [CNSA/Handout via Xinhua]
    The scientific payloads for space breeding and other sci-tech experiments carried by China’s first reusable and returnable satellite, Shijian-19, were delivered to Chinese and foreign users on Thursday.
    At the payloads handover ceremony held by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) in Beijing on Thursday, the CNSA and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation signed payload delivery certificates with domestic and international users, including those from Thailand and Pakistan.
    Bian Zhigang, deputy head of CNSA, said the Shijian-19 mission fully leverages the advantages of the new generation retrievable space experiment platform, conducting space breeding experiments of about 1,000 species of germplasm resources, providing crucial support for the innovation of germplasm resources in China. The mission has also offered a valuable in-orbit validation opportunity for domestically produced components and raw materials.
    According to Meng Lingjie, director of the Earth Observation System and Data Center under the CNSA, the Shijian-19 mission has made a breakthrough in its recovery module. The satellite platform can be reused more than 10 times, significantly reducing manufacturing costs and improving operational efficiency.
    The satellite serves as a space testing platform that enables convenient transportation of payloads between Earth and space, offering high-quality experimental services, said Meng, adding that it has wide-ranging applications in space sci-tech experiments such as space breeding as well as space pharmaceutical and material manufacturing.

    China successfully retrieved its first reusable and returnable test satellite, Shijian-19, at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 10:39 a.m. (Beijing Time), Oct. 11, 2024, said the China National Space Administration (CNSA). [Photo/Xinhua]
    The satellite carried 500 kg of experiment payloads back to Earth, greatly enhancing the capability for payload recovery, according to Meng. It can also provide a high-quality microgravity environment for experiments.
    When the satellite was in orbit, seven new technology experiments were carried out, including microgravity hydrogen production, low-frequency magnetic communications, inflatable sealed cabin and wireless power transmission.
    The satellite also carried nine space science payloads to conduct research in fields such as carbon nanomaterials and devices, solid catalyst materials, and oral and dental science materials.
    According to Liu Luxiang, executive director general of the Institute of Crop Sciences under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Shijian-19 mission carried seeds of about 1,800 plant materials and more than 1,000 species of microorganisms, encompassing nearly all major kinds of agricultural products.
    The mission not only provides solid support to China’s space breeding, but also creates a collaboration platform for international counterparts, said Liu, who is also the chief scientist of China’s space breeding project. The satellite carried rice seeds from Thailand, seeds of wheat, rice, corn and beans from Pakistan, as well as crop seeds from other countries.
    “In face of the challenge of global food security, it is necessary to continuously enhance food production, develop new genetic resources that promote nutrition and health, and cultivate new grain varieties that are more resilient to climate change with improved stress tolerance,” Liu said.
    Over the past 30 years, China has developed over 300 crop varieties through its space breeding technologies. These varieties cover an annual cultivation area of about 2 million hectares, with remarkable social and economic benefits, according to Liu.
    The Shijian-19 satellite was sent into orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sept. 27. It returned to Earth on Oct. 11.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Green action plan for BREP members

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    Energy ministers from across the world spoke highly of China’s role in promoting global energy transition and helping developing countries access more affordable clean energies at the Third Belt and Road Energy Ministerial Conference which concluded on Thursday in Qingdao, Shandong province.

    “Creative cooperation with China and initiatives like the Belt and Road Energy Partnership will help us boost our drive toward energy transition across the world,” said Phiona Nyamutoro, minister of state for mineral development in Uganda. “We hope that we get to tap into many opportunities from China, like technological transfer, research and also green financing.”

    BREP was initiated by China’s National Energy Administration and currently has 34 members. It supports countries in formulating more ambitious green energy development plans based on their own energy endowments and development needs, to continuously enhance the reliability and resilience of green energy supplies.

    Iran became a new member this year and in an interview with China Daily, Iranian Minister of Energy Abbas Aliabadi expressed expectations for BREP to have a positive impact on global energy cooperation and promote global development through innovative approaches.

    “Such a collaborative platform to promote cooperation among different countries is beneficial to all parties. I am very pleased with initiatives like those from China, where different countries can raise their issues on this platform and work together to address them,” he said. “China serves as a great example in energy transition, with significant developments in renewable energy that have made substantial contributions to global carbon reduction efforts.”

    Keo Rottanak, Cambodia’s minister of mines and energy, said “Cambodia and China have forged a very strong bilateral relationship, especially through the Belt and Road Initiative which has given benefits to countries around the world, especially developing countries.”

    The Belt and Road Green Energy Cooperation Action Plan (2024-29), released on Wednesday at the conference, advocated that BREP members will carry out no less than five joint research and development projects and no less than five collaborations in areas such as hydrogen energy, new types of energy storage, advanced nuclear power, carbon capture, utilization and storage.

    In the next five years, BREP members will carry out no less than 25 capacity-building projects in the energy sector, and explore the establishment of an international cooperative research platform for clean energy, the action plan noted.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: NSU scientists have received the first pilot batch of synthetic fuel from non-recyclable plastic

    Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –

    A catalytic unit for processing liquid products of polymer waste pyrolysis into synthetic fuel has been installed in the laboratory of the Department of Physical Chemistry of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Novosibirsk State University. During the first three weeks of its operation, scientists obtained the first three liters of kerosene. At present, optimal operating modes of the capillary reactor are being determined, important catalyst regeneration cycles are being worked out, optimal parameters of the catalytic process are being selected, a catalyst is being selected, the most important performance indicators of the unit are being monitored, and the resulting product is being analyzed.

    The equipment was provided to NSU scientists by specialists from Onium Plus LLC (Yaroslavl). They were also involved in the installation of the equipment. Publication about the joint work of scientists from the Department of Physical Chemistry Faculty of Natural Sciences of NSU, the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and representatives of this company to create a technology for converting non-recyclable plastic into synthetic fuel was published on the NSU website in December 2023. You can read it by link.

    The jointly developed technology consists of several stages. First, non-recyclable plastic undergoes pyrolysis – thermal destruction without oxygen at temperatures from 400 to 600 ° C. The output is pyrolysis oil – a heterogeneous liquid mixture of hydrocarbons containing a large number of undesirable impurities, dark yellow in color with a strong unpleasant odor. Then the multicomponent mixture is divided into fractions based on boiling point. Pyrolysis oil and its fractions are not yet suitable for use as fuel – due to the high content of unsaturated hydrocarbons, this substance can damage internal combustion engines. It can be converted into usable fuel through the use of catalytic technology. Representatives of Onium Plus LLC asked NSU researchers to develop it, who conducted preliminary experiments with nickel-molybdenum catalysts on an aluminum oxide support. The first positive results were obtained using them in tubular reactors – a transparent, colorless liquid with a faint odor of kerosene was synthesized. However, before using it for internal combustion engines, it is necessary not only to develop a new composition and method of catalyst synthesis, but also to modify the hydrogenation plant, select the optimal parameters of the catalytic process, and work out all cycles of automatic catalyst regeneration. For this purpose, the company’s specialists created two more catalytic installations – a pilot and a laboratory. The pilot one is working at the enterprise, and the laboratory one was made available to NSU researchers at the end of May. Parallel trials of the catalytic process are currently underway. NSU scientists select catalyst compositions, process conditions, temperature conditions, pressure, flow rates, and company specialists conduct life tests on an enlarged scale. An important condition of the experiment is that both installations must operate around the clock in a continuous mode.

    — The liquid product of plastic waste pyrolysis, which mainly consists of medium and heavy fractions with a large amount of unsaturated hydrocarbons, is fed from the feedstock tank using a high-pressure liquid pump to the mixer, where it is mixed with hydrogen under a pressure of 40 atmospheres. Then the mixture is fed in portions to the reactor, inside which a catalytic reaction occurs under conditions of high pressure and high temperature. Depending on the composition of the catalyst, hydrogenation, hydrocracking or hydroisomerization occurs. At the moment, this is hydrocracking at a pressure of 40 atmospheres and a temperature of 360 – 400 degrees Celsius, which is considered the norm for this process. These parameters are selected depending on what product needs to be obtained. In this case, the task is to obtain kerosene, — said Anton Lysikov, a researcher at the Department of Physical Chemistry of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Novosibirsk State University, about the device of the installation.

    From the reactor, the product mixture enters the separator via a coil, where it cools down and separates into gas and liquid. The gas goes up, and the liquid gradually condenses in the accumulator. When the liquid weight reaches a specified value, it is discharged using the lock method: the first valve of the discharge line is turned on, and the liquid product is poured into the buffer tank. After the weight decrease is recorded, this valve closes and the second one opens, the liquid enters the receiver, and the product yield is assessed in accordance with the scale readings. Then the second valve is also closed until the next sampling. This design with automatic overflow allows to avoid a significant pressure drop when removing products from the process and to accumulate them stably during long-term experiments.

    — Our first attempts to process the liquid product of polymer waste pyrolysis resulted in obtaining a substance similar to what we are synthesizing now, only its freezing temperature was about zero degrees Celsius. This figure is much higher than what we intended to achieve. Therefore, we had to select a catalyst composition that would initiate a cracking and isomerization reaction, leading to a strong decrease in the freezing temperature. And now it is already -20 degrees. In three weeks of continuous round-the-clock work, we extracted about 3 liters of high-quality non-freezing kerosene from the pyrolysis product, which can be used as a fuel additive. The production rate is 6 ml per hour, — said Ekaterina Parkhomchuk, Associate Professor of the Department of Physical Chemistry of the NSU Natural Sciences Department.

    The finished product undergoes a thorough analysis: researchers study its fractional, group, component and elemental composition. They measure the sulfur and chlorine indicators at the outlet, flash point and turbidity. These parameters are very important for the further use of the final product, they determine its practical purpose.

    The first experiments were suggested by NSU scientists to start with widespread and well-known systems: nickel-molybdenum catalysts on an aluminum oxide carrier. They managed to obtain the first positive results.

    — We have gained the first experience — we have determined the activity of this catalyst, observed the process, acquired the skill of working with unusual raw materials, and identified the main problem. It is that pyrolysis oil is very different from traditional oil. Most often, such raw materials contain long-chain hydrocarbons and are characterized by a high content of C17 hydrocarbons, which have high freezing and boiling points. They accumulate in the cold zones of the reactor, forming “wax” plugs, due to which pressure drops can occur. Having encountered this problem, we began to select hydrocracking and hydroisomerization catalysts to break long-chain hydrocarbons into smaller molecules, making them branched. This allowed us to solve the problem of reactor waxing, as well as reduce the freezing and turbidity temperatures of the product, and at the output we received higher quality and flammable hydrocarbons, — explained Ekaterina Vorobyova, a postgraduate student of the Department of Physical Chemistry of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of NSU.

    First, a hydrogenation catalyst was obtained, then a hydroisomerization and hydrocracking catalyst, on which the first positive results were obtained: the cloud point began to decrease significantly, hydrocarbons began to burn differently. Now scientists are working on a catalyst with increased activity in hydrocracking and hydroisomerization, while obtaining a product with a cloud point below -20. It is important to note that this is its stable operation for several hundred hours. But the most important thing is that products were obtained that flash and burn as needed, hydrogenation and hydrocracking processes are underway, the products contain a large number of isomers, which is required to obtain synthetic motor fuels and oils.

    The installation with the new catalyst has been operating continuously for almost four weeks, and the catalyst activity has not been lost, no pressure drops have been observed, and no coking has occurred.

    — The main thing is that while developing this technology, we continue to improve our skills in working with this special raw material, which is so different from oil. For us, this is a very interesting task, since plastic waste is really growing. And not all of it is recyclable. Burying it in landfills is not a solution to the problem. For me, from a scientific point of view, it is interesting to identify the features of processing this raw material, as well as the requirements for the properties of the catalyst, which will allow us to stably and for a long time obtain high-quality motor fuels and oils from non-recyclable waste into valuable fuel, — said Ekaterina Vorobyova.

    Scientists assess the results of their work as encouraging, and the production of fuel from pyrolysis products as profitable, because only 5% of the original substance turns into gas, the rest of the mass turns into high-quality synthetic fuel. At the moment, this technology can be considered almost ready for implementation, which will be determined only by the speed of construction of catalytic units. The main difference between production samples and a laboratory unit is the number of reactors. In a laboratory unit, there is one reactor, and in industrial ones, it is theoretically possible to install hundreds and even thousands. Then the productivity will increase many times over.

    — Each type of catalyst or new parameters, before being implemented, requires thousands of running hours. The more parallel tests, the faster the process optimization and confirmation of the success of certain solutions. By the end of the year, we will put into operation two additional laboratory units for hydrogenation, increasing the number of simultaneously running processes. But the most interesting task, in our area of responsibility, which we are currently implementing, is the creation of a pilot unit with dozens of micro reactors simultaneously. This module will allow the process to be carried out with a capacity of liters per hour. All systems will be integrated in it, as in a “large” plant. It is equipped with its own hydrogen source, its own hydrogen purification and recompression unit and an automatic regeneration system. In addition to confirming the readiness of the catalytic system for industrial use, this device will also confirm the economic aspects of fuel production. The cost of the process will be very accurately determined, which is necessary for further industrial implementation, — explained Alexander Klimov, a representative of the company OOO Onium Plus.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: OEUK news New skills passport tool being delivered to support an integrated skills landscape 17 October 2024

    Source: Offshore Energy UK

    Headline: OEUK news

    New skills passport tool being delivered to support an integrated skills landscape

    17 October 2024

    Joint RenewableUK and OEUK media release – Thursday 17th October 2024

    A new scheme to help workers across the UK’s energy mix, including oil and gas, to find new roles in offshore wind will be launched in January by RenewableUK and Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), supported by the UK and Scottish Governments.

    The Energy Skills Passport enables workers and employers to easily identify which qualifications and training standards, such as health and safety, are needed for specific roles in offshore wind. As part of the Energy Skills Passport, an interactive tool will provide clarity on which qualifications are mutually recognised across the sector to avoid any duplication of training courses, as well as mapping out potential career pathways. It will be managed jointly by OEUK and RenewableUK and will be available to a limited number of testers later this year before it is rolled out in full in the new year. The initial version focuses on the transition to offshore wind and future versions will include other parts of the energy sector.

    The UK’s oil and gas sector supports over 200,000 jobs and the UK’s offshore wind industry already employs 32,000 people – that number is expected to rise to over 100,000 by 2030. Research commissioned by OEUK shows that 90% per cent of oil and gas industry workers have skills which can be transferred to future offshore jobs in renewable energy. Roles which may be suitable for workers to transfer into in offshore wind include maintenance technician, commissioning technician, high-voltage senior authorised person and troubleshooting technician.

    RenewableUK’s Executive Director of Offshore Wind Jane Cooper said:

    “The upsurge in offshore wind jobs over the course of this decade and beyond creates excellent opportunities for highly-skilled oil and gas workers to bring their valuable experience to the clean energy sector. We’re working closely with our colleagues at Offshore Energies UK, and the UK and Scottish Governments, to make that transition as smooth as possible across all parts of the energy industry. The Energy Skills Passport is a great example of what we can achieve together and we’ll continue to look for other potential areas of work that can further support the transition of workers between sectors.”

    Offshore Energies UK’s Director of Supply Chain & People, Katy Heidenreich said:

    “Collaboration is key to unlocking the full potential of the UK’s offshore energy sector so we are proud to be driving this initiative with RenewableUK. This industry and its people have proven excellence and a broad range of transferable skills from engineering and construction to legal and commercial expertise. This passport can help them succeed right across our diverse energy mix. This is one way the UK can back its workforce to build a homegrown energy transition that leaves no-one behind. It’s part of the toolkit this industry is assembling to partner with government to solve the challenges and seize the opportunities of our energy future.”

    The Co-Chair of the Offshore Wind Industry Council Richard Sandford said:

    “The Energy Skills Passport is a crucial step forward for workers to embrace opportunities in the offshore wind industry. It simplifies movement between essential offshore energy sectors, enabling workers to apply their knowledge to the energy transition. The milestone highlights effective collaboration between OEUK and RenewableUK, supported by the UK and Scottish Governments.”

    (ends)

    Notes

    For further information, contact

    1. RenewableUK’s members are building our future energy system, powered by clean electricity. We bring them together to deliver that future faster; a future which is better for industry, billpayers, and the environment. We support over 490 member companies to ensure increasing amounts of renewable electricity are deployed across the UK and to access export markets all over the world. Our members are business leaders, technology innovators, and expert thinkers from right across industry. RenewableUK’s events programme is available here.
    2. Offshore Energies UK is the leading trade body for the UK’s offshore energies industry. Its membership includes over 400 organisations with an interest in offshore oil, gas, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and offshore wind. Working together with its members, it is a driving force supporting the UK in ensuring security of energy supply while helping to meet its net zero ambitions.

    Share this article

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Australia and the United Kingdom to power up cooperation on climate and energy

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and The Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, met today on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Apia, Samoa.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and The Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, met today on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Apia, Samoa.

    This was the first meeting between the two leaders since the election of the Starmer Government.

    The Prime Ministers discussed Australia’s and the United Kingdom’s modern and dynamic relationship, underpinned by close personal ties and strong security, trade and investment links.

    The two leaders considered how the two countries could step-up their work together to meet common challenges and to realise new opportunities.

    Australia and the UK agree that the transition to net zero represents economic opportunity. The Albanese and Starmer Governments believe private capital and the power of government can be leveraged to shape a clean energy future in the interests of working people. The transition paves the way for new industries, new technologies, new job opportunities and a revitalisation of each nation’s industrial base.

    To this end, the Prime Ministers agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation on climate change and energy by negotiating a dynamic new partnership. The Australia–UK Climate and Energy Partnership will focus on the development and accelerated deployment of renewable energy technologies, such as green hydrogen and offshore wind, to support the economic resilience and decarbonisation goals of both countries. 

    The partnership will also build upon the two countries’ long-standing cooperation on international climate action, including on renewable energy and climate finance.

    The Prime Ministers agreed the Minister for Climate Change and Energy of Australia and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero of the United Kingdom will take this important work forward.

    The two leaders also announced grant recipients under the Australia-UK Renewable Hydrogen Innovation Partnership Program. Under this program, the two Governments will support six cutting-edge projects focused on industrial decarbonisation. 

    On trade and investment, Prime Ministers discussed gains under the ambitious Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement. The United Kingdom’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership later this year will also present new opportunities for the region. 

    Discussions on defence and strategic cooperation focused on working together to ensure the AUKUS partnership delivers for the security and stability of the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to negotiating a bilateral treaty, as announced by Defence Ministers in September 2024, to develop the SSN-AUKUS submarine for both nations.  

    The Prime Ministers also reaffirmed their commitment to an approach that sets the highest non-proliferation standards and to sustaining peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, respectful of sovereignty and rules.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said:

    Australia and the UK are longstanding partners, with common values and aligned strategic interests. It was great to congratulate Prime Minister Starmer in person after his election win in July. 

    We had a productive discussion, including agreeing to negotiate a new climate and energy partnership. This partnership will ensure we maximise the economic potential of the net zero transition, and build on our long-standing cooperation on international climate action and shared commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

    We share a vision for a modern and transformed Australia-United Kingdom relationship, which delivers tangible benefits and prosperity to both our nations and the Indo-Pacific.

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:

    The UK and Australia share many things in common, including our governments’ determination to improve the lives of working people, drive economic growth and ensure cleaner, more affordable energy. 

    This partnership underscores our commitment to powering up the UK with clean energy projects that will benefit communities across the country.

    Together, we’re delivering better futures for our two countries, whether that’s through protecting our national security with projects like AUKUS or delivering on our net zero commitments.

    Updates to this page

    Published 25 October 2024

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Press release: Australia and the United Kingdom to power up cooperation on climate and energy

    Source: United Kingdom – Prime Minister’s Office 10 Downing Street

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and The Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, met today on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Apia, Samoa.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and The Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, met today on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Apia, Samoa.

    This was the first meeting between the two leaders since the election of the Starmer Government.

    The Prime Ministers discussed Australia’s and the United Kingdom’s modern and dynamic relationship, underpinned by close personal ties and strong security, trade and investment links.

    The two leaders considered how the two countries could step-up their work together to meet common challenges and to realise new opportunities.

    Australia and the UK agree that the transition to net zero represents economic opportunity. The Albanese and Starmer Governments believe private capital and the power of government can be leveraged to shape a clean energy future in the interests of working people. The transition paves the way for new industries, new technologies, new job opportunities and a revitalisation of each nation’s industrial base.

    To this end, the Prime Ministers agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation on climate change and energy by negotiating a dynamic new partnership. The Australia–UK Climate and Energy Partnership will focus on the development and accelerated deployment of renewable energy technologies, such as green hydrogen and offshore wind, to support the economic resilience and decarbonisation goals of both countries. 

    The partnership will also build upon the two countries’ long-standing cooperation on international climate action, including on renewable energy and climate finance.

    The Prime Ministers agreed the Minister for Climate Change and Energy of Australia and the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero of the United Kingdom will take this important work forward.

    The two leaders also announced grant recipients under the Australia-UK Renewable Hydrogen Innovation Partnership Program. Under this program, the two Governments will support six cutting-edge projects focused on industrial decarbonisation. 

    On trade and investment, Prime Ministers discussed gains under the ambitious Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement. The United Kingdom’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership later this year will also present new opportunities for the region. 

    Discussions on defence and strategic cooperation focused on working together to ensure the AUKUS partnership delivers for the security and stability of the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to negotiating a bilateral treaty, as announced by Defence Ministers in September 2024, to develop the SSN-AUKUS submarine for both nations.  

    The Prime Ministers also reaffirmed their commitment to an approach that sets the highest non-proliferation standards and to sustaining peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, respectful of sovereignty and rules.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said:

    Australia and the UK are longstanding partners, with common values and aligned strategic interests. It was great to congratulate Prime Minister Starmer in person after his election win in July. 

    We had a productive discussion, including agreeing to negotiate a new climate and energy partnership. This partnership will ensure we maximise the economic potential of the net zero transition, and build on our long-standing cooperation on international climate action and shared commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

    We share a vision for a modern and transformed Australia-United Kingdom relationship, which delivers tangible benefits and prosperity to both our nations and the Indo-Pacific.

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:

    The UK and Australia share many things in common, including our governments’ determination to improve the lives of working people, drive economic growth and ensure cleaner, more affordable energy. 

    This partnership underscores our commitment to powering up the UK with clean energy projects that will benefit communities across the country.

    Together, we’re delivering better futures for our two countries, whether that’s through protecting our national security with projects like AUKUS or delivering on our net zero commitments.

    Updates to this page

    Published 25 October 2024

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: English Translation of Keynote Address by Prime Minister at the 18th Asia-Pacific Conference of German Businesses (APK 2024)

    Source: Government of India (2)

    Posted On: 25 OCT 2024 2:55PM by PIB Delhi

    Excellency Chancellor Scholz,

    Vice Chancellor Dr. Robert Habeck,

    Ministers of the Indian Government,

    Dr. Busch, Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business,

    Industry leaders from India, Germany, and Indo-Pacific countries,

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    Namaskar!

    Guten Tag!

    Friends,

    Today is a very special day.

    My friend, Chancellor Scholz, has come to India for the fourth time.

    His first visit was as a Mayor, and the next three have been during his terms as the Chancellor, which highlights his focus on India-Germany relations.

    The Asia-Pacific Conference of German Business is being held in India after a gap of 12 years.

    On one hand, a CEO forum meeting is taking place, and on the other, our navies are exercising together. German naval ships are currently on a port call in Goa. Additionally, the seventh Inter-Governmental Consultations between India and Germany will be held shortly.

    Clearly, the friendship between India and Germany is deepening at every step, on every front.

    Friends,

    This year marks the 25th anniversary of the India-Germany Strategic Partnership.

    The next 25 years will see this partnership reach new heights.

    We have created a roadmap for India’s development over the coming 25 years.

    I am happy that at such a critical time, the German Cabinet has released the “Focus on India” document.

    The world’s two strongest democracies,

    Two of the world’s leading economies, together, we can become a force for global good, and the Focus on India document provides a blueprint for this. In this, Germany’s holistic approach and commitment to pursuing the strategic partnership are clearly evident. Especially noteworthy is the trust that Germany has expressed in the skilled workforce of India.

    Germany has decided to increase the number of visas for skilled Indians from 20,000 to 90,000 per year.

    I am confident that this will further boost Germany’s economic growth.

    Friends,

    Our bilateral trade has surpassed 30 billion dollars.

    Today, while hundreds of German companies operate in India, Indian companies are also rapidly expanding in Germany.

    India is becoming a prime center of diversification and de-risking and is emerging as a hub of global trade and manufacturing. Given this scenario, now is the most opportune time for you to make in India, and make for the world.

    Friends,

    The Asia-Pacific Conference has played an essential role in strengthening relations between the EU and the Asia-Pacific region. But I don’t see this platform as limited to trade and investment alone.

    I see it as a partnership for the Indo-Pacific region and a better future for the world. The world needs stability and sustainability, trust and transparency. These values must be emphasized on every front, whether in society or supply chains. Without them, no country or region can envision a brighter future.

    The Indo-Pacific region is very important for the future of the world. Whether it is in terms of global growth, population, or skills, the contribution and potential of this region are immense.

    This conference, therefore, holds even greater significance.

    Friends,

    The people of India value a stable polity and a predictable policy ecosystem.

    This is why, after 60 years, a government has been elected for a third consecutive term. This trust in India has been strengthened over the last decade through reform, performance, and transformative governance.

    When the common citizen of India feels this way, where else would be better for businesses and investors like you?

    Friends,

    India stands on four strong pillars: Democracy, Demography, Demand, and Data. Talent, technology, innovation, and infrastructure are the tools for India’s growth. Today, an additional great force drives all of these: the strength of Aspirational India.

    That is, the combined power of AI — Artificial Intelligence and Aspirational India — is with us. Our youth are driving Aspirational India.

    In the last century, natural resources accelerated development. In this century, human resources and innovations will propel growth. This is why India is committed to democratizing skills and technology for its youth.

    Friends,

    India is working today for the needs of the future world.

    Whether it is Mission AI,

    Our Semiconductor Mission,

    the Quantum Mission,

    Mission Green Hydrogen,

    Missions related to space technology,

    or the Digital India Mission, all of them aim to provide the best and most reliable solutions for the world. These areas offer numerous investment and collaboration opportunities for all of you.

    Friends,

    India is committed to providing every innovation with a strong platform and the best infrastructure. Our digital public infrastructure is creating endless opportunities for new startups and Industry 4.0. India is also transforming its physical infrastructure with record investments in rail, roads, airports, and ports. There are extensive opportunities here for companies from Germany and the Indo-Pacific region.

    I am pleased that India and Germany are working together on renewable energy.

    Last month, the fourth Global Renewable Energy Investors Meet was organized in Gujarat in collaboration with Germany.

    An India-Germany platform has also been launched for investing in renewable energy at the global level. I hope you will take advantage of the green hydrogen ecosystem that India is developing.

    Friends,

    This is the right time to join India’s growth story.

    When India’s dynamism meets Germany’s precision,

    When Germany’s engineering meets India’s innovation,

    When Germany’s technology combines with India’s talent, a brighter future is envisioned for the Indo-Pacific region and the world.

    Friends,

    You belong to the business world.

    Your mantra is “When we meet, we mean business.”

    But coming to India is not only about business; if you miss India’s culture, cuisine, and shopping, you will miss a lot.

    I assure you: You will be happy, and your family back home will be even happier.

    Thank you very much, and may this conference and your stay in India be both fruitful and memorable.

    Thank you.

    DISCLAIMER -This is the approximate translation of Prime Minister’s remarks. Original remarks were delivered

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI China: Industrial coordination of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region bears fruit in 10 years

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    TIANJIN, Oct. 25 — Industrial coordination of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has yielded rich results with the rise of a number of world-class manufacturing clusters, 10 years after China designated it as a national strategy to foster the regional coordinated development.

    This is underlined in a report on the region’s coordinated development released on Friday at the 2024 Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Industrial Chain and Supply Chain Conference held in north China’s Tianjin Municipality.

    The industrial added value of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region increased from 1.7 trillion yuan (about 238 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013 to 2.43 trillion yuan in 2023, with a cumulative growth of 43 percent, according to the report.

    The industrial coordination has become a key support for the collaborative development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, said Yang Dongmei, deputy director of the Tianjin Industrial and Information Technology Bureau.

    In the first half of this year, the total profit of major industrial enterprises in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region reached a record high of 231 billion yuan, up 10.2 percent year on year.

    The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, with a number of first-rate colleges and universities and abundant high-end research talent, has a solid foundation for developing China’s strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits, cybersecurity, biomedicine, power equipment, and emergency response equipment.

    According to the report, the output value of two manufacturing clusters in the region — life and health, and power and new energy high-end equipment — have accounted for more than 20 percent of the national total in the respective sectors. The industrial scale of the new generation of information technology application innovation and network security in the region has exceeded half of the national total.

    To further optimize regional industrial division and productivity distribution, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has laid out six key industrial chains, namely hydrogen energy, new energy and intelligent connected vehicles, biomedicine, cybersecurity and industrial Internet, robots and high-end industrial mother-machines, which refer to machine tools for manufacturing machines.

    “The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region boasts strong international influence, which gives it an advantage to be more closely integrated into the global economic network,” said Yin Jihui, director of the Tianjin Industrial and Information Technology Bureau.

    The gross domestic product of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, one of the country’s most economically vibrant regions, reached 10.4 trillion yuan in 2023, almost doubling that of 2013, with an average annual growth rate of 5.8 percent.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Draft budget hopes to tackle council’s financial challenges head on

    Source: City of Canterbury

    Home  »  Latest News   »   Draft budget hopes to tackle council’s financial challenges head on

    Coping with ever-rocketing external costs and increasing demands for council services are at the heart of Canterbury City Council’s budget proposals for 2025/2026.

    If nothing else changed, rising prices alone would account for an increase in spending of just over £1m.

    To counter this, the draft budget says it has identified £701,000 in efficiency savings and can shave a further £393,000 because of proposed changes to some service levels.

    Cllr Mike Sole, Canterbury City Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance, said: “It is no secret that councils across the country of all political persuasions are facing a really difficult financial situation. We are no different.

    “And drafting this budget is a touch more challenging than it usually is as we’re waiting to find out how much money the new Chancellor will be able to find for councils which are facing a plethora of challenges.

    “Some of our assumptions could well change for the better.

    “As an administration that is determined to be prudent and careful with council taxpayers’ money, we know we are not able to significantly expand the services that are important to us right now.

    “But we are determined to use advances in technology to help us to work smarter, achieve more and generate extra cash especially when it comes to our property portfolio.

    “Finally, the draft budget promises we will put aside the extra money needed to ensure we cement and build on the legacy of the Levelling Up Fund projects.”

    The draft budget also proposes:

    • the introduction of a cultural grant pot of £30,000 per year to support more events and festivals
    • freezing parking charges for more than 4,000 parking spaces in council-owned car parks including Park and Ride, reducing the cost of parking at the Riverside complex by 37% and reversing last year’s increase in School Lane, Herne
    • the introduction of an annual Park and Ride permit for £50 per month or £600 per year saving motorists money
    • the introduction of a Park and Ride corporate account allowing businesses to encourage their staff to park for just £2.50 per day including free parking at the weekend
    • to convert 20 of Canenco’s larger diesel refuse collection vehicles to run on hydrogenated vegetable oil to help cut emissions and help the environment, at a cost of approximately £20,000 a year
    • a 3% increase in council tax meaning people living in an average Band D property will pay an extra 14p per week
    • saving £58,000 by reducing the number of times the grass is cut in amenity sites, such as parks and playing fields, from 18 times a year to 10 times a year

    If accepted, the draft budget suggests most of the council’s fees and charges should only go up by 3%. The exceptions are:

    • a 20% increase for developers seeking what is known as pre-app advice before putting in a press release
    • a 5% increase for beach hut owners except for those at East Cliff which will be reduced by 14%
    • a 5% increase for people using the council’s slipways for launching jet skis etc

    Leader of the Council, Cllr Alan Baldock, said: “Finding more than £1 million in cost savings after years and years of finding ways to be more efficient is no mean feat and is a real testament to officers and we are incredibly grateful for their hard work.

    “We’re determined to do all we can to spot opportunities to invest in improvements to our services so that we can save money in the future and spend it on the key priorities we were elected to deliver.

    “This really is a listening exercise and we want to hear the views of everyone that lives, works and studies in the district.

    “People have become jaded when it comes to consultations around key but difficult issues.

    “I hope our proposed changes to tariffs in School Lane in Herne show we are more than prepared to listen.”

    The Cabinet will decide whether to give permission to consult on the draft budget at its meeting on Monday 4 November at 7pm in the Guildhall, St Peter’s Place, Canterbury.

    If approved, the consultation will run from Monday 11 November 2024 to Monday 6 January 2025.

    Published: 25 October 2024

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Astronomers just found complex carbon molecules in space – a step closer to deciphering the origins of life

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Cunningham, Honorary Senior Lecturer, School of Physics, UNSW Sydney

    Part of the Taurus molecular cloud. ESA, CC BY-SA

    A team led by researchers at MIT in the United States has discovered large molecules containing carbon in a distant interstellar cloud of gas and dust.

    This is exciting for those of us who keep lists of known interstellar molecules in the hope that we might work out how life arose in the universe.

    But it’s more than just another molecule for the collection. The result, reported today in the journal Science, shows that complex organic molecules (with carbon and hydrogen) likely existed in the cold, dark gas cloud that gave rise to our Solar System.

    Furthermore, the molecules held together until after the formation of Earth. This is important for our understanding of the early origins of life on our planet.

    Difficult to destroy, hard to detect

    The molecule in question is called pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon or PAH for short. The complicated-sounding name tells us these molecules are made of rings of carbon atoms.

    Carbon chemistry is the backbone of life on Earth. PAHs have long been known to be abundant in the interstellar medium, so they feature prominently in theories of how carbon-based life on Earth came to be.

    A pyrene molecule, consisting of carbon atoms (black) and hydrogen atoms (white).
    Jynto/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

    We know there are many large PAHs in space because astrophysicists have detected signs of them in visible and infrared light. But we didn’t know which PAHs they might be in particular.

    Pyrene is now the largest PAH detected in space, although it’s what is known as a “small” or simple PAH, with 26 atoms. It was long thought such molecules could not survive the harsh environment of star formation when everything is bathed in radiation from the newborn suns, destroying complex molecules.

    In fact, it was once thought molecules of more than two atoms could not exist in space for this reason, until they were actually found.
    Also, chemical models show pyrene is very difficult to destroy once formed.

    Last year, scientists reported they found large amounts of pyrene in samples from the asteroid Ryugu in our own Solar System. They argued at least some of it must have come from the cold interstellar cloud that predated our Solar System.

    So why not look at another cold interstellar cloud to find some? The problem for astrophysicists is that we don’t have the tools to detect pyrene directly – it’s invisible to radio telescopes.

    Using a tracer

    The molecule the team has detected is called 1-cyanopyrene, what we call a “tracer” for pyrene. It is formed from pyrene interacting with cyanide, which is common in interstellar space.

    The researchers used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to look at the Taurus molecular cloud or TMC-1, in the Taurus constellation. Unlike pyrene itself, 1-cyanopyrene can be detected by radio telescopes. This is because 1-cyanopyrene molecules act as small radio-wave emitters – tiny versions of earthly radio stations.

    As scientists know the proportions of 1-cyanopyrene compared to pyrene, they can then estimate the amount of pyrene in the interstellar cloud.

    The amount of pyrene they found was significant. Importantly, this discovery in the Taurus molecular cloud suggests a lot of pyrene exists in the cold, dark molecular clouds that go on to form stars and solar systems.

    A wide-field view of part of the Taurus molecular cloud ~450 light-years from Earth. Its relative closeness makes it an ideal place to study the formation of stars. Many dark clouds of obscuring dust are clearly visible against the background stars.
    ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin.

    The complex birth of life

    We are gradually building a picture of how life on Earth evolved. This picture tells us that life came from space – well, at least the complex organic, pre-biological molecules needed to form life did.

    That pyrene survives the harsh conditions associated with the birth of stars, as shown by the findings from Ryugu, is an important part of this story.

    Simple life – consisting of a single cell – appeared in Earth’s fossil record almost immediately (in geological and astronomical terms) after the planet’s surface had cooled enough to not vaporise complex molecules. This happened more than 3.7 billion years ago in Earth’s approximately 4.5 billion history.

    For simple organisms to then appear so quickly in the fossil record, there’s just not enough time for chemistry to start with mere simple molecules of two or three atoms.

    The new discovery of 1-cyanopyrene in the Taurus molecular cloud shows complex molecules could indeed survive the harsh conditions of our Solar System’s formation. As a result, pyrene was available to form the backbone of carbon-based life when it emerged on the early Earth some 3.7 billion years ago.

    This discovery also links to another important finding of the last decade – the first chiral molecule in the interstellar medium, propylene oxide. We need chiral molecules to make the evolution of simple lifeforms work on the surface of the early Earth.

    So far, our theories that molecules for early life on Earth came from space are looking good.

    Maria Cunningham has received funding from The Australian Research Council. In the past she has collaborated with Anthony Remijan, one of the co-authors on the Science paper discussed in this publication. Their last co-authored paper was in 2015.

    – ref. Astronomers just found complex carbon molecules in space – a step closer to deciphering the origins of life – https://theconversation.com/astronomers-just-found-complex-carbon-molecules-in-space-a-step-closer-to-deciphering-the-origins-of-life-241889

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Secretary of State for Northern Ireland speech at the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Speech by Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

    Location:
    Dublin, Republic of Ireland
    Delivered on:
    (Speaker’s notes, may differ from delivered version)

    Good afternoon. It’s a great pleasure to be with you all today.

    Go raibh míle maith agaibh.

    I would like to extend my thanks to John McGrane and Paul Lynam for your very kind invitation and sharing my congratulations to Marie Doyle on her recent appointment as President of this wonderful organisation.

    Now, many people in Britain might assume that the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce has a long and distinguished history. It is certainly distinguished but it’s not very long, having been founded only in 2011. But it feels to me and I’m sure to you much older, such is the strength of the ties that bind our two countries together.

    Two countries that share so much… in terms of history, culture, ideas, politics and friendships.

    And it is a story that runs like a thread through these islands and through the lives of so many of our families, including my own: on my side, it was an Ulster Scot from Fermanagh who took that journey that millions made across the Atlantic to Ohio from where my mother came and, on my wife’s side, Irish Catholics from  Mayo and Kilkenny and Cork, her grandfather was born in Monkstown.

    And talking of families, you may be aware that I come from a family best known for politics. What you may be less aware of is that two of my great grandfathers were Victorian entrepreneurs.

    One – Peter Eadie – designed and made ring travellers for the textile industry working out of the upstairs of a terraced house in Galashiels, in Scotland.

    The other – John Benn – was very good at drawing and decided to found a furniture trade magazine which, with great prescience – given the posts that his son, grandson and great grandson – that’s me – all went on to hold, he decided to call it “ The Cabinet Maker.“ You couldn’t make it up.

    Both of those grandfathers entered politics as elected councillors as they put their business minds, industriousness and civic virtues at the service of the public.

    So, if I may say so, it is in that spirit of innovation and constructive endeavour that I address you today.

    Now the history of these islands has not always been benign. Over the centuries there have been terrible wrongs, great violence, revolution, bitterness but in recent years – reconciliation and progress in ways that would have seemed impossible in the past.

    It was a great pleasure last night to see the play Agreement at the Gate Theatre, which so powerfully depicts the events leading up to that miraculous Good Friday in 1998. That agreement eventually resulted in something – I must be frank – I never thought I would see in my lifetime. I grew up watching reporting of the Troubles on the television, reading about it in the papers, and to witness a unionist and a nationalist sitting side by side in government together – that truly was the impossible made possible. And today Northern Ireland is a very different place. 

    Why? 

    Because of the courageous political leadership shown in the play last night and many others showed.

    We must never lose sight of how far we have come across these shared islands since then. I want to say very clearly and directly: The Government’s commitment to the Good Friday Agreement – in letter and in spirit – is absolute. And that our support for the European Convention on Human Rights, which underpins the Agreement, and to the rule of law is unwavering.

    My priority as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – above all else – is to support political stability and economic growth. 

    And critical to that stability and critical to that growth in Northern Ireland is a healthy and constructive relationship between the Irish and UK governments.

    And from day one, this new Government has been absolutely determined to seize the opportunity to restore trust, friendship and collaboration between our two countries. And as Paul just set out, the Prime Minister and the Taoiseach have made their joint commitment to this reset,  which will be underpinned by annual summits, in addition to the existing Strand 3 institutions.

    You’ve heard about the visits the British ministers have made and colleagues from here over to Westminster, and all of those are practical expressions of that commitment to a new and better relationship. 

    And talking of new relationships, the restoration of the Executive and Assembly in February was a hugely important moment for Northern Ireland – after too many years in which devolved government was not functioning. And it is vital that we now do all we can to ensure that this stability endures.

    Stable and devolved government and political representation at Stormont matters above all for the people of Northern Ireland  – they need a government and an Assembly that work for them.

    But it also matters enormously for businesses right across Ireland, the United Kingdom and beyond. What do businesses and potential investors say they want? Stability. Political stability. 

    I am really impressed by the partnership that Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly have forged and the Executive now has a Programme for Government and a Fiscal Sustainability Plan.

    And Northern Ireland has a great opportunity to make the most of its unique access to both the British and the European markets to help the economy to grow and to create jobs.

    And that is what you do as the British Irish Chamber in promoting trade, prosperity and progress across these islands.

    Now we are still having to manage the consequences of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, in a way that does not unnecessarily inhibit trade and commerce across the Irish Sea. That is why this Government is absolutely committed to fully implementing the Windsor Framework, pragmatically and in good faith.

    It is not without its challenges – I think that is probably the understatement of the year – but it is necessary. And there is a much bigger prize in sight.

    The Government is committed to improving the UK’s trading relationship with the EU, including through the negotiation of a sanitary and phyto-sanitary agreement which would have the potential to dramatically smooth the movement of food, animals and plants across the Irish Sea.

    One of the joys of my job is that everywhere I go in Northern Ireland I see talent, ingenuity and enterprise.

    I see world class businesses operating in the life sciences, high-tech engineering, making composite aircraft wings and building the buses of the future – electric and hydrogen – services and film and television, education.

    I am really struck that all these firms have seen something in Northern Ireland and its people.

    And my message to investors is simply this.

    Come, look, see, believe, invest in Northern Ireland.

    Just look at the opportunities for the UK and Irish Governments to work collaboratively on areas and projects to help improve growth in Northern Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland including in its border regions.

    Areas which are summed up by the four pillars which will form the basis of the annual leaders’ summits.

    We need this collaboration not only because it is in our mutual economic interest, but because in these very uncertain times, we face shared challenges which our shared values and our shared commitment to democracy and the rule of law, will help us to face up to.

    What do we need to do?

    We need to ensure stability in an unstable world.

    We need to build economic growth.

    We need to make sure we have the infrastructure to enable that growth and attract that investment.

    We have got to invest in skills. 

    We’ve got to make the transition to net zero – what a fantastic opportunity for businesses if you just think about changing the way we heat our homes. There are a lot of heat pumps that will have to be built and installed, and we together on these islands should be making them.

    Building new energy infrastructure which will be required to power those heat pumps and the electric buses, cooperating on energy resilience – not least given the huge potential across these islands for more wind power – and the investment in Northern Ireland from GB Energy, the UK’s new publicly owned, clean energy company, which in turn will support the Shared Electricity Market.

    At the same time, we only have to look around us to see the risks from conflict, climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity is not a like-to-have, it is the very stuff on which human existence is based.  

    If you pause for a moment and look around you, every single thing we see is a gift from what is on the surface of the earth and beneath it. The genius of the human mind is that we have taken those gifts and look at what we have built. Look at what we have created, look at what we have fashioned.  

    And given the increasingly uncertain geopolitics of the world, it also makes sense for the UK and Ireland to collaborate on confronting the threats we face, whether in relation to cyber security, terrorism, organised crime or the threat from Russia and other states.

    And in doing all of this, the sense I get from the vast majority of people is they would like us to move forward and to try and build a better future that we can jointly embrace.

    So let us be bold, let us get on with it and let us take inspiration from those who 26 years ago truly made the impossible possible. 

    Finally, why do the relationships that I have spoken about matter so much?

    They are clearly important economically, but they are also about something else – it’s about building alliances so we can deal with the risks and take advantage of the opportunities.

    All of these are powerful reasons why we should work together closely.

    Ireland and the United Kingdom.

    Two proud nations with everything to gain from a close partnership, for as the great W B Yeats reminded us:

    “There are no strangers here. Only friends you haven’t yet met.”

     Thank you.

    Updates to this page

    Published 24 October 2024

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI China: 1st reusable satellite payloads returned

    Source: China State Council Information Office 2

    Bian Zhigang, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), speaks at the payloads handover ceremony held by CNSA in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 24, 2024. [CNSA/Handout via Xinhua]
    The scientific payloads for space breeding and other sci-tech experiments carried by China’s first reusable and returnable satellite, Shijian-19, were delivered to Chinese and foreign users on Thursday.
    At the payloads handover ceremony held by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) in Beijing on Thursday, the CNSA and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation signed payload delivery certificates with domestic and international users, including those from Thailand and Pakistan.
    Bian Zhigang, deputy head of CNSA, said the Shijian-19 mission fully leverages the advantages of the new generation retrievable space experiment platform, conducting space breeding experiments of about 1,000 species of germplasm resources, providing crucial support for the innovation of germplasm resources in China. The mission has also offered a valuable in-orbit validation opportunity for domestically produced components and raw materials.
    According to Meng Lingjie, director of the Earth Observation System and Data Center under the CNSA, the Shijian-19 mission has made a breakthrough in its recovery module. The satellite platform can be reused more than 10 times, significantly reducing manufacturing costs and improving operational efficiency.
    The satellite serves as a space testing platform that enables convenient transportation of payloads between Earth and space, offering high-quality experimental services, said Meng, adding that it has wide-ranging applications in space sci-tech experiments such as space breeding as well as space pharmaceutical and material manufacturing.

    China successfully retrieved its first reusable and returnable test satellite, Shijian-19, at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 10:39 a.m. (Beijing Time), Oct. 11, 2024, said the China National Space Administration (CNSA). [Photo/Xinhua]
    The satellite carried 500 kg of experiment payloads back to Earth, greatly enhancing the capability for payload recovery, according to Meng. It can also provide a high-quality microgravity environment for experiments.
    When the satellite was in orbit, seven new technology experiments were carried out, including microgravity hydrogen production, low-frequency magnetic communications, inflatable sealed cabin and wireless power transmission.
    The satellite also carried nine space science payloads to conduct research in fields such as carbon nanomaterials and devices, solid catalyst materials, and oral and dental science materials.
    According to Liu Luxiang, executive director general of the Institute of Crop Sciences under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Shijian-19 mission carried seeds of about 1,800 plant materials and more than 1,000 species of microorganisms, encompassing nearly all major kinds of agricultural products.
    The mission not only provides solid support to China’s space breeding, but also creates a collaboration platform for international counterparts, said Liu, who is also the chief scientist of China’s space breeding project. The satellite carried rice seeds from Thailand, seeds of wheat, rice, corn and beans from Pakistan, as well as crop seeds from other countries.
    “In face of the challenge of global food security, it is necessary to continuously enhance food production, develop new genetic resources that promote nutrition and health, and cultivate new grain varieties that are more resilient to climate change with improved stress tolerance,” Liu said.
    Over the past 30 years, China has developed over 300 crop varieties through its space breeding technologies. These varieties cover an annual cultivation area of about 2 million hectares, with remarkable social and economic benefits, according to Liu.
    The Shijian-19 satellite was sent into orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Sept. 27. It returned to Earth on Oct. 11.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Siemens and Microsoft scale industrial AI

    Source: Microsoft

    Headline: Siemens and Microsoft scale industrial AI

    • Siemens and Microsoft have taken the Siemens Industrial Copilot to the next level, to handle demanding environments at scale
    • Over 100 customers in Europe and the US are using the Siemens Industrial Copilot to improve efficiency, cut downtime, and address labor shortages
    • thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering is planning a global rollout of Copilot beginning 2025
    • More than 120,000 engineers can now leverage the Copilot, upskilling experts and workers in programming with Gen AI

    BERLIN — Oct. 24, 2024 — Siemens is revolutionizing industrial automation with Microsoft. Through their collaboration, they have taken the Siemens Industrial Copilot to the next level, enabling it to handle the most demanding environments at scale. Combining Siemens’ unique domain know-how across industries with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, the Copilot further improves handling of rigorous requirements in manufacturing and automation.

    Over 100 companies, including Schaeffler and thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering, are currently using the Siemens Industrial Copilot to streamline processes, address labor shortages, and drive innovation. With 120,000 users already leveraging the Siemens engineering software, they now have the opportunity to enhance their work with the Gen AI-powered assistant.

    Co-creation partner thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering is now the first to plan to use the Copilot globally. Beginning in early 2025, their machines will be engineered with the assistant, fully unleashing its potential across their entire product range. The rollout will take place globally. Siemens is pioneering the offering of Gen AI for automation engineering in the industry and has made this capability easily accessible on the Siemens Xcelerator open digital business platform.

    “The collaboration between Siemens and Microsoft marks a pivotal moment in the industrial sector; one where AI Transformation becomes a cornerstone for innovation and operational efficiency,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft. “By integrating Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service into Siemens’ industrial solutions, we are equipping companies with cloud-based AI tools to simplify complex challenges, drive productivity, and help them stay competitive in an increasingly dynamic environment.”

    “Together with Microsoft we scale industrial AI, empowering our customers throughout the industry to become more resilient, competitive and sustainable. thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering shows how customers can use Siemens Industrial Copilot even in highly demanding environments as a major efficiency boost,” said Cedrik Neike, Member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries.

    Since the product’s availability in July 2024, customers across various sectors have started using Siemens Industrial Copilot for Engineering to boost efficiency. Engineers can now create panel visualizations in 30 seconds and generate code that requires only 20% adaptation.

    This streamlines workflows, reducing manual effort and addressing the skilled labor shortage. The chat function also provides instant, precise answers, eliminating the need for lengthy searches. By leveraging the Copilot, companies are driving productivity and innovation.

    Transforming battery quality assurance with Siemens Industrial Copilot

    thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering exemplifies the Siemens Industrial Copilot’s transformative potential at scale, particularly in complex control, such as development of automated systems for the production of battery and hydrogen assembly lines. One of their machines helps ensure quality of batteries for electric cars, a crucial factor in the sustainable energy transition and the industry’s reliance on 100% reliable batteries. Sensors, cameras, and measurement systems are integrated to monitor battery cell quality across multiple stages, conducting complex evaluations to detect discharges beyond set thresholds.

    The Siemens Industrial Copilot supercharges the development and operation of this battery machine by automating repetitive tasks like data management, sensor configuration, and the crucial reporting of each step necessary to meet strict battery inspection requirements. Generally, the Copilot supports engineering by handling both routine and essential documentation tasks. This allows the engineers to focus on complex, value-added work, while its real-time problem-solving capabilities minimize downtime and ensure smooth production.

    “Siemens Industrial Copilot will prospectively ease our workload and address the pressing challenges of labor shortages and increasing complexity in battery testing. This AI-powered solution will be a game-changer for our industry, and we will actively roll it out across our machines,” said Dr. Volkmar Dinstuhl, Member of the Executive Board of thyssenkrupp AG and CEO of thyssenkrupp Automotive Technology.

    Siemens will share more details on Siemens Industrial Copilot at the SPS expo in Nuremberg, Germany, in November 2024.

    This press release along with press photos and other materials can be found at:

    https://sie.ag/2s6zEA

    Contacts for journalists 

    Siemens AG

    Jil Huber

    Phone: +49 162 3474144; email: [email protected]

    Microsoft 

    WE Communications for Microsoft

    Phone: (425) 638-7777; email: [email protected]

    thyssenkrupp AG 

    Sarah Grassmann

    Phone: +49 152 28277427; email: [email protected]

    Follow us at www.x.com/siemens_press

    For further information: www.siemens.com/industrial-copilot and siemens.com/sps-fair

    Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a leading technology company focused on industry, infrastructure, mobility, and healthcare. The company’s purpose is to create technology to transform the everyday, for everyone. By combining the real and the digital worlds, Siemens empowers customers to accelerate their digital and sustainability transformations, making factories more efficient, cities more livable, and transportation more sustainable. Siemens also owns a majority stake in the publicly listed company, Siemens Healthineers, a leading global medical technology provider shaping the future of healthcare.

    In fiscal 2023, which ended on September 30, 2023, the Siemens Group generated revenue of €74.9 billion and net income of €8.5 billion. As of September 30, 2023, the company employed around 305,000 people worldwide on the basis of continuing operations. Further information is available on the Internet at www.siemens.com.

    About Microsoft

    Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

    About thyssenkrupp Automotive Technology   

    thyssenkrupp Automotive Technology is a leading supplier and development partner to the international automotive industry. Its range of products and services includes high-tech components and systems as well as automation solutions for vehicle production. The product range includes chassis technologies such as steering and damping systems and the assembly of axle systems as well as drive train components for conventional and alternative drives. thyssenkrupp Automotive Technology also develops assembly lines for body-in-white construction and produces lightweight body parts in series. The business area generated sales of 7.9 billion euros in fiscal year 2022/23. We also specialize in the production of springs and stabilizers for various vehicle types, as well as components and systems for tracked vehicles. Automotive Technology has a global production network with more than 90 locations in Europe, Asia, and North and South America.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Our nuclear childhood’: the sisters who witnessed H-bomb tests over their Pacific island, and are still coming to terms with the fallout

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Christopher Hill, Associate Professor (Research and Development), Faculty of Business and Creative Industries, University of South Wales

    Nuclear detonations were the backdrop to Teeua and Teraabo’s childhood. By the time the sisters were eight and four, the Pacific island on which they grew up, Kiritimati, had hosted 30 atomic and thermonuclear explosions – six during Operation Grapple, a British series between 1957 and 1958, and 24 during Operation Dominic, led by the US in 1962.

    The UK’s secretary of state for the colonies, Alan Lennox-Boyd, had claimed the Grapple series would put Britain “far ahead of the Americans, and probably the Russians too, in super-bomb development”. Grapple, the country’s largest tri-service operation since D-Day, also involved troops from Fiji and New Zealand. It sought to secure the awesome power of the hydrogen bomb: a thermonuclear device far more destructive than the atomic bomb.

    Britain’s seat at the top table of “super-bomb development” was emphatically announced in April 1958 with Grapple Y: an “H-bomb” 200 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. This remains Britain’s largest nuclear detonation – one of more than 100 conducted by the UK, US and Soviet Union in 1958 alone.

    More than six decades later, the health effects on former servicemen based on Kiritimati, as well as at test locations in South and Western Australia, remain unresolved. Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, has called the treatment of UK nuclear test veterans “the longest-standing and, arguably, the worst” of all the British public scandals in recent history.



    Read more:
    Nobel peace prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group for its efforts to free the world of nuclear weapons

    Unlike the Post Office, infected blood and Grenfell Tower inquiries in 2024, there has been no UK inquiry into British nuclear weapon tests in Australia and the Pacific. Yet veterans and their descendants maintain these tests caused hereditary ill-health effects and premature deaths among participants. The British government has been accused of hiding records of these health impacts for decades behind claims of national security.

    Over the past year, the life stories of British nuclear test veterans have been collected by researchers, including myself, for an oral history project in partnership with the British Library. Whether from a vantage point of air, land or sea, the veterans all recall witnessing nuclear explosions with startling clarity, as if the moment was seared on to their memories. According to Doug Herne, a ship’s cook with the Royal Navy:

    When the flash hit you, you could see the X-rays of your hands through your closed eyes. Then the heat hit you, and it was as if someone my size had caught fire and walked through me. To say it was frightening is an understatement. I think it shocked us into silence.

    British servicemen describe their nuclear test experiences. Video: Wester van Gaal/Motherboard.

    But what of the experiences of local people on Kiritimati? I have recently interviewed two sisters who are among the few surviving islanders who witnessed the nuclear tests. This is their story.

    ‘A mushroom cloud igniting the sky’

    At the start of Operation Grapple in May 1957, around 250 islanders lived on Kiritimati – the world’s largest coral reef atoll, slap bang in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, around 1,250 miles (2,000km) due south of Hawaii. The island’s name is derived from the English word “Christmas”, the atoll having been “discovered” by the British explorer James Cook on Christmas Eve 1777.

    In May 2023, I visited Kiritimati for a research project on “British nuclear imperialism”, which investigated how post-war Britain used its dwindling imperial assets and resources as a springboard for nuclear development. I sought to interview islanders who had remained on the atoll since the tests, including Teeua Tekonau, then aged 68. In 2024, I visited her younger sister, Teraabo Pollard, who lives more than 8,000 miles away in the contrasting surroundings of Burnley, north-west England.

    Far from descriptions of fear and terror, both Teeua and Teraabo looked back on the tests with striking enthusiasm. Teraabo recalled witnessing them from the local maneaba (open-air meeting place) or tennis court as a “pleasurable” experience full of “excitement”.

    She described having her ears plugged with cotton wool before being covered with a blanket. As if by magic, the blanket was then lifted to reveal a mushroom cloud igniting the night sky – a sight accompanied by sweetened bread handed out by American soldiers. So vivid was the light that Teraabo, then aged four, described “being excited about it being daytime again”.

    An Operation Grapple thermonuclear test near Kiritimati, 1957-58. Video: Imperial War Museums.

    In view of the violence of the tests, I was struck that Teeua and Teraabo volunteered these positive memories. Their enthusiasm seemed in marked contrast to growing concerns about the radioactive fallout – including those voiced by surviving test veterans and their descendants. As children, the tests seem to have offered the sisters a spectacle of fantasy and escapism – glazed with the saccharine of American treats and Disney films on British evacuation ships.

    Yet they have also lived through the premature deaths of family members and, in Teraabo’s case, a malignant tumour dating from the time of the tests. And there have been similar stories from other families who lived in the shadow of these very risky, loosely controlled experiments. Teraabo told me about a friend who had peeked out from her blanket as a young girl – and who suffered from eye and health problems ever since.

    ‘Only a very slight health hazard’

    Kiritimati forms part of the impossibly large Republic of Kiribati – a nation of 33 islands spread over 3.5 million square kilometres; the only one to have territory in all four hemispheres and, until 1995, on either side of the international date line. Before independence from Britain in 1979, Kiribati belonged to the Gilbert and Ellice Island Colony, which in effect made Kiritimati a “nuclear colony” for the purpose of British and American testing.

    In 1955, Teeua and Teraabo’s parents, Taraem and Tekonau Tetoa, left their home island of Tabiteuea, a small atoll belonging to the Gilbert group of islands in the western Pacific. They boarded a British merchant vessel bound for Christmas Island nearly 2,000 miles away. Setting sail with new-born Teeua in their arms, the family looked forward to a future cutting copra on Kiritimati’s British coconut plantation.

    The scale of this journey, with four young children, was immense. Just how the hundred or so Gilbertese passengers “managed to live [during the voyage] was better not asked”, according to one royal engineer who described a similar voyage a few years later. “There were piles of coconuts everywhere – perhaps they were for both food and drink.”


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    Within two years of their arrival, the family faced more upheaval as mother Taraem and her children were packed aboard another ship ahead of the first three sets of British nuclear tests in the Pacific. Known as Grapple 1, 2 and 3, they were to be detonated over Malden Island, an atoll some 240 miles to the south of Kiritimati – but still too close for the comfort of local residents.

    According to Teeua, the evacuation was prompted by disillusioned labourers brought to Kiritimati without their families, who went on strike after learning how much the British troops were being paid. But the islanders’ perspectives do not feature much in the colonial records, which give precedence to British disputes about logistical costs and safety calculations.

    The Grapple task force resolved that the safe limit set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection should be reduced, to limit the cost of evacuations. A meeting in November 1956 noted that “only a very slight health hazard to people would arise from this reduction – and that only to primitive peoples”.

    Shocking as this remark sounds, it is typical of the disregard that nuclear planners appear to have had, both for Indigenous communities and the mostly working-class soldiers. These lives did not seem to matter much in the context of Britain’s quest for nuclear supremacy. William Penney, Britain’s chief nuclear scientist, had bemoaned how critics during tests in Australia were “intent on thwarting the whole future of the British Empire for the sake of a few Aboriginals”.

    Tekonau, Teeua’s father, was one of the 30 or so I-Kiribati people to stay behind on Kiritimati during the Malden tests in May and June 1957. As one of the only labourers to speak English, he had gained the trust of the district commissioner, Percy Roberts, who invited Tekonau to accompany him during inspections of villagers’ houses in Port London, then the island’s only village. On one occasion, Teeua said, the islanders did not recognise her father as he had been given a “flat top” haircut like the Fijian soldiers. “This means he had a nice relationship with the soldiers,” she told me. “Thank God for giving me such a good and clever dad.”

    Since the initial tests did not produce a thermonuclear explosion, the task force embarked on further trials between November 1957 and September 1958, known as Grapple X, Y and Z. In view of expense and time, these were conducted on Kiritimati rather than Malden Island – and this time, the residents were not evacuated to other islands. Rather, families were brought aboard ships in the island’s harbour and shown films below deck.

    After these tests, the islanders returned to find the large X and Y detonations had cracked the walls of their homes and smashed their doors and furniture. One islander found their pet frigate bird, like so many of the wild birds on Kiritimati, had been blinded by the flash of Grapple Y. No compensation was ever paid to the islanders, although the Ministry of Supply did reimburse the colony for deterioration of “plantation assets”, including £4 for every damaged coconut tree (equivalent to £120 today).

    A month before Grapple Y, Teraabo was born. Her earliest and most vivid childhood memories are of the US-led Operation Dominic four years later, by which time evacuation procedures had been abandoned altogether.

    This series of tests was sanctioned by Britain in exchange for a nuclear-powered submarine and access to the Nevada Proving Grounds in the US – regarded as pivotal to the future of British weapons technology ahead of the signing of the Test Ban Treaty in October 1963, which would prohibit atmospheric testing.

    Dominic’s 24 detonations on Kiritimati – which usually took place after sunset around 6pm, between April and November 1962 – were “awesome”, according to Teraabo. Recalling the suspense as the “tannoy announced the countdown”, she described “coming out of cover [and] witnessing the bomb [as] an amazing experience … When the bomb set off, the brilliance of the light was tremendous.”

    Each explosion’s slow expiration would re-illuminate the Pacific sky. One, Starfish Prime, became known as a “rainbow bomb” because of the multi-coloured aurora it produced over the Pacific, having been launched into space where it exploded.

    So spectacular were these descriptions that I almost felt I had to suspend disbelief as I listened. At one point in my interview with Teraabo, she leaned in to reassure me that she had no interest in exaggerating these events: “I’m a very proud person,” she whispered, “I would never lie.”

    ‘In our blood’

    More than six decades on from the Grapple tests, I was sitting in Teeua’s kitchen in the village of Tabwakea (meaning “turtle”), near the northern tip of Kiritimati. I had driven here in a Subaru Forester, clapped-out from the many potholes on the island’s main road, itself built by royal engineers over 60 years ago.

    Teeua Tekonau in her kitchen during the author’s visit to Kiritimati in 2023.
    Christopher R. Hill., CC BY

    Teeua’s home, nestled down a sand track, had a wooden veranda at the front where she would teach children to read and write under shelter from the hot equatorial sun. Handcrafted mats lined the sand and coral floor, fanning out from the veranda to the kitchen at the back.

    The house felt full of the sounds of the local community, from the chatter of neighbours to the laughter of children outdoors. No one could feel lonely here, despite the vastness of the ocean that surrounds Kiritimati.

    As Teeua cooked rice and prepared coffee, we discussed the main reason for my visit: to understand the impacts of the nuclear tests on the islanders, their descendents, and the sensitive ecosystem in which they live. Teeua is chair of Kiritimati’s Association of Atomic Cancer Patients, and one of only three survivors of the tests still living on Kiritimati. She pulled up a seat and looked at me:

    Many, many died of cancer … And many women had babies that died within three months … I remember the coconut trees … when you drank [from the coconuts], you [were] poisoned.

    Both Teeua’s parents and four of her eight siblings had died of cancer or unexplained conditions, she said. Her younger brother, Takieta, died of leukaemia at the age of two in November 1963 – less than a year after Operation Dominic ended. Her sister Teraabo, who discovered a tumour in her stomach shortly after the trials, was only able to have her stomach treated once she moved to the UK in 1981, by which time the tumour had turned malignant.

    Teeua’s testimony pointed to the gendered impacts of the nuclear tests. She referred to the prevalence of menstrual problems and stillbirths, evidence of which can be inferred from the testimony of another nuclear survivor, Sui Kiritome, a fellow I-Kiribati who had arrived on Kiritimati in 1957 with her teacher husband. Sui has described how their second child, Rakieti, had “blood coming out of all the cavities of her body” at birth.

    A rare military hospital record from 1958 – stored in the UK’s National Archives at Kew in London – also refers to the treatment of a civilian woman for ante-partum haemorrhage and stillbirth, though it is unclear whether this was a local woman or one of the soldier’s wives on the passenger ship HMT Dunera, which visited briefly to “boost morale” after Grapple X.

    Members of the Kiritimati Association of Atomic Cancer Patients.
    Courtesy: Teeua Taukaro., CC BY-ND

    Having re-established the Association of Atomic Cancer Patients in 2009, Teeua has continued much of the work that Ken McGinley, first chair of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association, did after its establishment in 1983. She has documented the names of all I-Kiribati people present during the tests, along with their spouses, children and other relatives. And she has listed the cancers and illnesses from which they have suffered.

    In the absence of medical records at the island hospital, these handwritten notes are the closest thing on the atoll to epidemiological data about the tests. But according to Teeua, concerns about the health effects of the tests date back much longer, to 1965 when a labourer named Bwebwe spoke out about poisonous clouds. “Everyone thought he was crazy,” Teeua recalled.

    But Bwebwe’s speculations were lent credibility by Sui Kiritome’s testimony, and by the facial scars she bore that were visible for all to see. In an interview with her daughter, Sui explained how she was only 24 when she started to lose her hair, and “burns developed on my face, scalp and parts of my shoulder”.

    In a similar manner to claims made by British nuclear test veterans, Sui attributed her health problems to being rained on during Grapple Y – which may have been detonated closer to the atoll’s surface than the task force was prepared to admit.

    When I asked Teeua why her campaigning association was only reformed in 2009, she explained it had been prompted by a visit from British nuclear test veterans who “told us that everyone [involved in the tests] has cancer – blood cancer”. They had been told this in the past but, she said, “we did not believe it. But after years … after our children [also] died of cancer, then we remembered what they told us.”

    After some visiting researchers explained to Teeua and the community that the effects of the tests were “not good”, she concluded that “our kids died of cancer because of the tests … That’s why we start to combine together … the nuclear survivors, to talk about what they did to our kids”.

    I found Teeua’s testimony deeply troubling: not only because of the suffering she and other families have been through, but in the way that veterans had returned to Kiritimati as civilians, raising concerns among locals that may have lain dormant or been forgotten. The suggestion that radiation was “in her blood” must have been deeply disturbing for Teeua and her community.

    But I reminded myself that the veterans who came looking for answers in 2009 were also victims. They made the long journey seeking clues about their health problems, or a silver bullet to prove their government’s deception over the nuclear fallout.

    As young men, they were unwittingly burdened with a lifetime of uncertainty – compounded by endless legal disputes with the Ministry of Defence or inconclusive health studies that jarred with their personal medical histories. And, like the islanders, some of these servicemen died young after experiencing agonising illnesses.

    The scramble for the Pacific

    My research on British nuclear imperialism also sheds light on how imperial and settler colonial perceptions of “nature” shaped how these nuclear tests were planned and operationalised.

    British sites were selected on the basis of in-depth environmental research. When searching the site for Britain’s first atomic bomb (the Montebello Islands off the west coast of Australia), surveyors discovered 20 new species of insect, six new plants, and a species of legless lizard.

    Monitoring of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests fed into the rise of ecosystem ecologies as an academic discipline. In the words of one environmental specialist on the US tests, it seemed that “destruction was the enabling condition for understanding life as interconnected”.

    Since H-bombs would exceed the explosive yield deemed acceptable by Australia, Winston Churchill’s government in the mid-1950s had been forced to look for a new test site beyond Western and South Australia. British planners drew on a wealth of imperial knowledge and networks – but their proposal to use the Kermadec Islands, an archipelago 600 miles north-east of Auckland, was rejected by New Zealand on environmental grounds.

    So, when Teeua and her family landed on Kiritimati in 1955, their journey was part of “the scramble for the Pacific”: a race between Britain and the US to lay claim to the sovereignty of Pacific atolls in light of their strategic significance for air and naval power.

    The British government archives include some notable environmental “what ifs?” Had the US refused the UK’s selection of Kiritimati because of its own sovereignty claim, then it would have been probable, as Lennox-Boyd, Britain’s colonial secretary, admitted, that “the Antarctic region south of Australia might have to be used” for its rapidly expanding nuclear programme.

    Instead, this extraordinary period in global history recently took me to a Victorian mansion in the Lancashire town of Burnley, where I interviewed Teeua’s younger sister, Teraabo, about her memories of the Kiritimati tests.

    ‘No longer angry’

    Teraabo’s home felt like the antithesis of Teeua’s island abode 8,300 miles away: ordered instead of haphazard, private instead of communal, spacious instead of crowded. And our interview had a more detached, philosophical tone.

    Teraabo Pollard with her father’s nuclear test veteran medal.
    Christopher R. Hill., CC BY-ND

    Like her sister, Teraabo has worked to raise awareness about the legacy of the nuclear tests, including with the Christmas Island Appeal, an offshoot of the British Nuclear Test Veterans Association that sought to publicise the extent of the waste left on Kiritimati from the nuclear test period.

    The appeal succeeded in persuading Tony Blair’s UK government to tackle the remaining waste in Kiritimati – most of which was non-radiological, according to a 1998 environmental assessment. The island was “cleaned up” and remediated between 2004 and 2008, at a cost of around £5 million to the Ministry of Defence. Much of the waste was flown or shipped back to the UK, where 388 tonnes of low-grade radioactive material were deposited in a former salt mine at Port Clarence, near Middlesbrough.

    Yet Teraabo’s views have evolved. She told me she is “no longer angry” about the tests, a stark contrast to her position 20 years ago, when she told British journalist Alan Rimmer how islanders had “led a simple life with disease virtually unknown. But after the tests, everything changed. I now realise the whole island was poisoned.”

    Whereas the Teraabo of 2003 blamed “the British government for all this misery”, she has since become more reflective. In the context of the cold war and the nuclear arms race, she even told me she could understand the British rationale for selecting Kiritimati as a test site. This seemed a remarkable statement from a survivor who had lost so much.

    Over the course of the interview, it became clear Teraabo had grown tired of being angry – and that she had felt “trapped” by the tragic figure she was meant to represent in the campaigns of veterans and disarmers. Each time Teraabo rehearsed the doom-laden script of radiation exposure, she admitted she was also suppressing the joy of her childhood memories.

    A turning point for Teraabo seems to have come in 2007, when she last visited Kiritimati and met her sister Teeua. By this time, the atoll’s population was 4,000 – quite a leap from the 300 residents she grew up with. “It is no longer the island I remember,” she said.

    The Kiritimati of Teraabo’s memory was neat and well-structured. The one she described encountering in 2007 was chaotic and unkempt. She had come to the realisation that the Kiritimati she had been campaigning for – the pristine, untouched atoll of her parents – had long since moved on, so she should move on with it. The sorrow caused by the test operations would not define her.

    Radioactive colonialism

    Not long after I left Kiritimati in June 2023, the global nuclear disarmament organisation Ican began researching the atoll ahead of a major global summit to discuss the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Descendants of Kiritimati’s nuclear test survivors were asked a series of questions, with those who provided the “right” answers being selected for a sponsored trip to UN headquarters in New York.

    The chosen representatives included Teeua’s daughter, Taraem. I wondered if the survivors of Kiritimati are doomed to forever rehearse the stories of their nuclear past – a burden that Teeua and Teraabo have had to carry ever since they stood in awe of atomic and thermonuclear detonations more than 60 years ago.

    They have had to deal with “radioactive colonialism” all their adult lives – the outside world demanding to see the imprint of radioactivity on their health and memories. But the sisters’ fondness for British order, despite all they have been through, prevails.

    Their positive memories of Britain may in part reflect the elevated role of their father, Tekonau Tetoa – a posthumous recipient of the test veteran medal – within the British colonial system. During my visit, I happened upon an old photo of Tekonau, looking immaculate as he hangs off the side of a plantation truck in a crisp white shirt. Knowing Teeua did not possess a photo of her parents, I took a scan and raced to her house down the road.

    “Do you recognise this man?” I asked, holding up my phone.

    She flickered with recognition. “Is that my father?”

    I nodded, and she shed a tear of joy.

    Tekonau Tetoa, father of Teeua and Teraabo, hangs off the door of a coconut plantation truck in Kiritimati.
    Courtesy: John Bryden., CC BY-ND

    Memories of Teeua and Teraabo’s father are preserved in the island landscape of their youth: pristine, regimented by the ostensible tidiness of colonial and military order.

    But such order masked contamination: an unknown quantity that would only become evident years later in ill-health and environmental damage. It was not only the nuclear tests: from 1957 to 1964, the atoll was sprayed four times a week with DDT, a carcinogenic insecticide, as part of attempts to reduce insect-borne disease. In the words of one of the pilots: “I had many a wave from the rather fat Gilbo ladies sitting on their loos as I passed overhead, and gave them some spray for good measure!” British tidiness concealed a special brand of poison.

    Today, the prospect of a meaningful response from the UK to the concerns raised by the islanders and servicemen alike seems slim. In October 2023, the UK and France followed North Korea and Russia in vetoing a Kiribati and Kazakhstan-proposed UN resolution on victim assistance and environmental remediation for people and places harmed by nuclear weapons use and testing.

    Over in Kiritimati, meanwhile, Teeua still tends to a small plot where Prince Philip planted a commemorative tree in April 1959, shortly after the British-led nuclear tests had ended. It is rumoured he did not drink from the atoll’s water while he was there.


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    Christopher Hill receives funding from the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, UK Cabinet Office. The research for this article was also supported by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), UKRI. The author wishes to thank the following for their support with this article: Fiona Bowler, Ian Brailsford, Joshua Bushen, John Bryden, Jon Hogg, Brian Jones, Rens van Munster, Wesley Perriman, Maere Tekanene, Michael Walsh, Rotee Walsh and Derek Woolf. Sincere thanks to Teeua Tekonau and Teraabo Pollard for sharing their family stories.

    – ref. ‘Our nuclear childhood’: the sisters who witnessed H-bomb tests over their Pacific island, and are still coming to terms with the fallout – https://theconversation.com/our-nuclear-childhood-the-sisters-who-witnessed-h-bomb-tests-over-their-pacific-island-and-are-still-coming-to-terms-with-the-fallout-239780

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –