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Category: economics – Page 100

Indonesia Is Changing Its Capital Because of Jakarta’s Unsolvable Problems

“The main goal is to build a smart new city, a new city that is competitive at the global level, to build a new locomotive for the transformation… toward an Indonesia based on innovation and technology based on a green economy.”

Environmental groups not on board However, not all are on board with Widodo’s new plans. Environmental groups worry that the new city may disturb the orangutans, leopards, and other wildlife that already live there. There is also the fact that the new development would cost a whopping $34 billion, a price much too high to pay during an already costly pandemic.

Full Story:

Pretty soon it won’t just be Indonesia’s Navy submarine that will have disappeared. Its capital city Jakarta is also sinking quickly.

Indonesia is looking to replace its capital city because it is very polluted, congested, susceptible to earthquakes, and quickly sinking, according to the Associated Press. The country now aims to build a more sustainable, cleaner, and resilient capital city.

A smart new city

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Building global AI with local impact in an AI economy

The new foundation of the artificial intelligence (AI) economy is flexible, remote work. Thanks to advances in technology that enable remote work at an unimaginable scale, organizations developing AI can now collaborate with people from almost anywhere, including previously inaccessible areas. People across the globe can now contribute to building AI in meaningful ways, particularly through data preparation and annotation work. This has led to the emergence of a new and growing freelance category — focused on AI training data annotation and collection.

While many AI economy participants join searching for additional income, a good portion of data annotators join the AI economy because they are seeking challenging opportunities. Whatever their reason, contributors benefit positively from the new opportunities flexible work affords. Geography is no longer an impediment to skill development or participation in projects that they’re enthusiastic about.

Organizations building AI are embracing remote contracting arrangements in order to access the contributions of people around the world. These contributors may not necessarily live in technology hubs, nor have had the opportunity to participate in AI before the arrival of these remote options. In fact, professional options in their locale may be limited as a whole. Appen recently released their Impact Pulse survey of the crowd and found that 40% of contributors rely on the work from home model due to barriers of accessing traditional work. Thirty-two percent were living below the global poverty line before starting with Appen, and of those, 53% have been lifted above due to their work in the AI Economy.

The Hydrogen Stream: Underground hydrogen storage for 1 MW electrolyzer in France

Energy company Royal Dutch Shell has started operations at the power-to-hydrogen electrolyzer in Zhangjiakou, China, a joint venture between Shell (China) and Zhangjiakou City Transport Construction Investment Holding Group, the Anglo-Dutch company wrote on Friday. The electrolyzer will reportedly provide about half of the total green hydrogen supply for fuel cell vehicles at the Zhangjiakou competition zone during this year’s Winter Olympic Games, set to begin on February 4. Shell looks set to make further investments in China’s hydrogen sector. “We see opportunities across the hydrogen supply chain in China, including its production, storage and shipping. We want to be the trusted partner for our customers from different sectors as we help them decarbonise in China,” commented Wael Sawan, director of Shell’s Integrated Gas, Renewable and Energy Solutions unit. The companies, which took 13 months to complete the project, have plans to scale the power-to-hydrogen electrolyzer up to 60 MW in the next two years. Utilizing onshore wind power, the project will initially supply green hydrogen to fuel a fleet of more than 600 fuel cell vehicles at the Zhangjiakou competition zone during the Winter Olympic Games. After that, the hydrogen will be used for public and commercial transport in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Green Hydrogen Systems, a provider of pressurized alkaline electrolyzers used in on-site hydrogen production based on renewable electricity, has signed a supply agreement with Edinburgh-based Logan Energy to deliver electrolysis equipment for a project in England. The order includes the supply of two electrolyzers with a combined capacity of 0.9 MW for the production of green hydrogen from renewable energy. “Manufactured by Green Hydrogen Systems and operated by Logan Energy, the electrolysers will be deployed in a 40 ft container as a complete green hydrogen plant as part of plans to develop a regional hydrogen economy in Dorset, England,” Green Hydrogen Systems wrote on Tuesday. When fully operational during Q4 of 2022, the ordered electrolyzers will reportedly have the capacity to provide approximately 389 kg green hydrogen per day.

Transplantation of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes for Cardiac Regenerative Therapy

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide and bears an immense economic burden. Late-stage heart failure often requires total heart transplantation; however, due to donor shortages and lifelong immunosuppression, alternative cardiac regenerative therapies are in high demand. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells, have emerged as a viable source of human cardiomyocytes for transplantation. Recent developments in several mammalian models of cardiac injury have provided strong evidence of the therapeutic potential of hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CM), showing their ability to electromechanically integrate with host cardiac tissue and promote functional recovery. In this review, we will discuss recent developments in hPSC-CM differentiation and transplantation strategies for delivery to the heart. We will highlight the mechanisms through which hPSC-CMs contribute to heart repair, review major challenges in successful transplantation of hPSC-CMs, and present solutions that are being explored to address these limitations. We end with a discussion of the clinical use of hPSC-CMs, including hurdles to clinical translation, current clinical trials, and future perspectives on hPSC-CM transplantation.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide. In the United States alone, CVD is responsible for ~655,000 deaths and contributes to $200 billion in spending each year. CVD can lead to myocardial infarction (MI), also known as a “heart attack,” which results in restricted blood flow and extensive cell death within the infarct zone. Due to the limited regenerative capacity of the human heart, infarcted myocardium is replaced by fibrotic scar tissue with inferior contractile performance. Over time, pathological remodeling leads to ventricular wall thinning, which can progress to heart failure. There is currently no treatment available that can restore lost cardiomyocytes after MI, and conventional therapies typically only manage the symptoms (3, 4).

Facebook robot winds fiber-optic cable around power lines

A Facebook robot that wraps fiber-optic cable around existing power lines could help bridge the digital divide by bringing internet access to some of the billions of people who currently lack it.

Why it matters: The 60% of the world population with internet access has social, economic, financial, and educational advantages over the other 40%, most of whom live in developing nations or rural areas.

The cost of expanding internet networks is a major barrier to bringing internet access to those people — if the Facebook robot can cut that cost, it could help close this “digital divide” and make the world a more equitable place.

The Metaverse Is Money and Crypto Is King—Why You’ll Be on a Blockchain When You’re Virtual-World Hopping

Major brands are also getting into the NFT mix, including Dolce & Gabbana, Coca-Cola, Adidas, and Nike. In the future, when you buy a physical world item from a company, you might also gain ownership of a linked NFT in the metaverse.

For example, when you buy that coveted name-brand outfit to wear to the real-world dance club, you might also become the owner of the crypto version of the outfit that your avatar can wear to the virtual Ariana Grande concert. And just as you could sell the physical outfit secondhand, you could also sell the NFT version for someone else’s avatar to wear.

These are a few of the many ways that metaverse business models will likely overlap with the physical world. Such examples will get more complex as augmented reality technologies increasingly come into play, further merging aspects of the metaverse and physical world. Although the metaverse proper isn’t here yet, technological foundations like blockchain and crypto assets are steadily being developed, setting the stage for a seemingly ubiquitous virtual future that is coming soon to a ‘verse near you.

How emerging tech will influence freedom, industry, and money in the metaverse

It is clear to see that the variety of businesses, individuals, and entities that could potentially operate in the metaverse is vast. The widespread use and acceptance of decentralization through the growth of crypto, NFTs, and DeFi point to a fully-realized future operating outside of the parameters of today’s established markets.

Evidently, therefore, the metaverse is not a sci-fi fantasy conjured up in a dystopian novel, but a more tangible and natural progression for the current structuring of the internet. The founding principles of the metaverse have already been introduced in many ways. Now its development centers on blockchain technology and DeFi to propel it from the conceptual stage towards the implementation phase. This development will allow us to firmly realize the true extent that the metaverse will impact our lives.

The gaming industry is one such sector that stands to benefit greatly from developments arising in the metaverse. Gaming skins, which are in-game avatar outfits, are expected to trade at a level of $40 billion every year. Eighty-one percent of players aware of these skins want to trade them for real-world money, according to a report from DMarket. Currently, there is no method of transferring skins across gaming universes or trading them for currency. In the metaverse, however, as every separate gaming universe is connected through a decentralized economy, this would be possible. The use of metaverse-based banks would also enable transactions like these.

Battery manufacturing is coming to Europe

Over 70,000 jobs will be created through the rising battery manufacturing in Europe within the next years, new studies predict.

The energy supply in Germany and Europe has never been more in flux. As the success of renewable energies continues to mount, another technology is coming into focus. Energy storage technologies and battery storage systems in particular are becoming increasingly important with the advancement of the energy transition. This development also has significant implications for Germany as an economic center, since battery production is expected to create thousands of jobs here in the future.

Europe has not traditionally played a very significant role as a site for battery cell production, but technical advances, favorable political conditions and an especially promising sales market are making the continent increasingly attractive for battery production. A look at the key role that battery cell production plays in upstream value chains – throughout the renewable energy supply sector and especially in the manufacture of electric vehicles – makes its significance clear. Battery cells represent approximately 40 percent of the value added in the production of an electric vehicle. So it is no wonder that production capacities for lithium-ion batteries are growing faster in Europe than in any other region of the world. Current forecasts predict that the continent’s share in this global manufacturing business will increase from around 6 percent now to 16 to 25 percent by 2030.

Numerous battery cell manufacturing plants are currently being built in Europe. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Europe is expected to host manufacturing facilities capable of producing more than 300 gigawatt hours (GWh) of battery capacity by 2029. The meta-study “Batteries for electric cars: Fact check and need for action,” commissioned by VDMA and carried out by Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI, even suggests that production capacities of 300 to 400 GWh could be achieved by 2025. The website Battery-News.de anticipates that the German market alone will account for more than 170 GWh of production capacity. By way of comparison, Europe currently has around 30 GWh of production capacity.

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