http://www.theguardian.com/us
Alarming data from China was met with a soothing hint about monetary
policy. But treasuries cannot keep pumping cheap credit into a series of
asset bubbles
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Monday, August 31, 2015
Central banks can’t save the markets from a crash. They shouldn’t even try
Like
children clinging to their parents, stock market traders turned to
their central banks last week as they sought protection from the
frightening economic figures coming out of China. Surely, they asked,
the central banks would ward off the approaching bogeymen, as they had
so many times since the 2008 crash.
The US Federal Reserve came up with the goods. William Dudley, president of the bank’s New York branch, hinted that the interest rate rise many had expected next month was likely to be delayed.
A signal that borrowing costs would remain at rock bottom was all it took. After Black Monday and Wobbly Tuesday, the markets recovered to regain almost all their recent losses.
It was just as if they had said to themselves: who cares if China’s economy is slowing; the “Greenspan put”, which so famously propped up US stock markets during the 1990s and early 2000s with one interest rate cut after another, is still in operation.
The meeting of the world’s most important central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this weekend only confirmed the need for Britain, Japan, the eurozone and the US to keep monetary policy loose.
Yet the palliative offered by the Fed is akin to a parent soothing fears with another round of ice-creams despite expanding waistlines and warnings from the dentist and the doctor.
According to some City analysts, the stock markets are pumped with so much cheap credit that a crash is just around the corner. And they worry that when that crash comes, the central banks are all out of moves to prevent the aftershocks from causing a broader collapse.
Since 2008 the Fed has pumped around $4.5 trillion into the financial system. The Bank of England stopped at £375bn. The Bank of Japan is still adding to its post-crash stimulus with around $700bn a year and the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank will have matched its cousin in Tokyo by the end of the year.
In each case, the central bank has adopted quantitative easing, which involves buying government debt to drive up its price. A higher price lowers the returns and encourages investors to go elsewhere in search of gains. It has meant a big shift in the portfolios of fund managers in favour of shares. Apart from a few blips due to the Greek crisis, stock markets have boomed. This summer, the FTSE 100 soared past 2008 levels to top its 1999 peak.
But China, which has borrowed heavily to keep its economy moving, is running out of steam. Beijing has said it does not want to encourage another borrowing boom. But to prevent a crash, it is doing just that. In the last two weeks it has cut interest rates and loosened borrowing limits. It has even invested directly in the market, buying the shares of smaller companies.
So we face the shocking prospect of central bankers, in thrall to stock market gyrations, making the world a more unstable place with promises of yet more cheap credit.
There are a few alternative courses of action that Bank of England governor Mark Carney could still propose. He could tell politicians that the only sustainable way to get their economies moving is with hard cash from taxed wealth and incomes. If that is too unpalatable, governments should borrow directly to fund public infrastructure and productivity improvements.
And if the government is too embarrassed to admit to voters that it needs to borrow money, then the least central banks can do is sign deals with high street banks to lend, rather than hoping they will take QE funds and do something useful with them. Because the evidence is already there for all to see that investors would prefer to pump the money into the stock market and property, both of them inherently unstable and prone to violent crashes.
The US president argued that what has been presented as high-minded intervention by regulators is in fact a commercially driven bid to protect old-world technology companies from the Silicon Valley invaders.
Europe’s most powerful regulator, the Brussels competition policy chief Margrethe Vestager, has taken aim at Google Shopping, its price-comparison service. In April, she launched a legal process that could result in a big fine. On Thursday, the search giant filed a 150-page rebuttal.
First of all, Google says it has not choked off traffic to rival shopping price sites – the traffic it sends to these kinds of sites has increased by 227% over a decade (its own data shows). Sounds like a big number. Until you look at the growth in Google’s own traffic over that period. The number of searches worldwide now stands at somewhere near 1.2 trillion a year – an increase of 750% in a decade.
Google also wants its shopping service considered as part of a much larger group that includes actual retailers, like Amazon, and marketplaces, like eBay, where people also go to compare prices. Perhaps, but these are very different businesses. The capital needed to launch an online retailer, let alone one with a global presence and a one-day delivery guarantee, is much larger than the funding required for a price-comparison startup.
Google’s strongest point is that forcing a company to offer its services to rivals is a drastic measure normally reserved for monopoly utilities. Google is very useful, but it is not water or electricity. Google Shopping is a very niche service.
The argument about fair price comparison is a sideshow given the much bigger worries about privacy, security and tax that currently dog the digital world. But a victory for regulators here could lead to more assaults – on Google’s flight-comparison service and maps. Vestager has also launched an investigation into Android, the group’s market-leading phone software. Obama may be called on to cheer the home team again before this fight is over.
It is a indeed a credit to the chancellor that he has put pay on the agenda for Britain’s supermarkets, the country’s largest private employers, by announcing a national living wage in the budget last month. However, Sainsbury’s announcement is just one side of the coin: the other side is how it will finance the pay increase.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that the chancellor’s national living wage will lead to 60,000 job losses as companies fund the higher minimum pay by cutting jobs. Moody’s, the credit rating agency, has warned retailers could close stores, increase prices and employ more under-25s – who do not qualify for the national living wage. Perks for staff, such as in-store discounts, could also be at risk.
Sainsbury’s did not downgrade its profit forecasts at the same time as announcing the pay increase, so it must have found the money from somewhere – time will tell where.
Set aside the situation in China, where data released Tuesday showed
manufacturing activity dropped last month to a three-year low and
reached contractionary territory — the given reason for Tuesday’s market tumble.
Forget for a moment about the Federal Reserve, which seems committed to
raising interest rates this month for the first time since 2006. The
stock market itself is warning of big trouble.
Collectively representing the opinions of countless individual participants, it pays to pay attention to what is the greatest future discounting mechanism in human history.
Related: The Troubling Truth Revealed by the Stock Market’s Nosedive
The US Federal Reserve came up with the goods. William Dudley, president of the bank’s New York branch, hinted that the interest rate rise many had expected next month was likely to be delayed.
A signal that borrowing costs would remain at rock bottom was all it took. After Black Monday and Wobbly Tuesday, the markets recovered to regain almost all their recent losses.
It was just as if they had said to themselves: who cares if China’s economy is slowing; the “Greenspan put”, which so famously propped up US stock markets during the 1990s and early 2000s with one interest rate cut after another, is still in operation.
The meeting of the world’s most important central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this weekend only confirmed the need for Britain, Japan, the eurozone and the US to keep monetary policy loose.
Yet the palliative offered by the Fed is akin to a parent soothing fears with another round of ice-creams despite expanding waistlines and warnings from the dentist and the doctor.
According to some City analysts, the stock markets are pumped with so much cheap credit that a crash is just around the corner. And they worry that when that crash comes, the central banks are all out of moves to prevent the aftershocks from causing a broader collapse.
Since 2008 the Fed has pumped around $4.5 trillion into the financial system. The Bank of England stopped at £375bn. The Bank of Japan is still adding to its post-crash stimulus with around $700bn a year and the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank will have matched its cousin in Tokyo by the end of the year.
In each case, the central bank has adopted quantitative easing, which involves buying government debt to drive up its price. A higher price lowers the returns and encourages investors to go elsewhere in search of gains. It has meant a big shift in the portfolios of fund managers in favour of shares. Apart from a few blips due to the Greek crisis, stock markets have boomed. This summer, the FTSE 100 soared past 2008 levels to top its 1999 peak.
But China, which has borrowed heavily to keep its economy moving, is running out of steam. Beijing has said it does not want to encourage another borrowing boom. But to prevent a crash, it is doing just that. In the last two weeks it has cut interest rates and loosened borrowing limits. It has even invested directly in the market, buying the shares of smaller companies.
So we face the shocking prospect of central bankers, in thrall to stock market gyrations, making the world a more unstable place with promises of yet more cheap credit.
There are a few alternative courses of action that Bank of England governor Mark Carney could still propose. He could tell politicians that the only sustainable way to get their economies moving is with hard cash from taxed wealth and incomes. If that is too unpalatable, governments should borrow directly to fund public infrastructure and productivity improvements.
And if the government is too embarrassed to admit to voters that it needs to borrow money, then the least central banks can do is sign deals with high street banks to lend, rather than hoping they will take QE funds and do something useful with them. Because the evidence is already there for all to see that investors would prefer to pump the money into the stock market and property, both of them inherently unstable and prone to violent crashes.
Google feels the EU heat
‘We have owned the internet,” Barack Obama crowed in a video interview this February. “Our companies have created it, expanded it, perfected it.” But from tax to privacy and now a string of antitrust investigations, one of those companies, Google, is under attack on multiple fronts in Europe.The US president argued that what has been presented as high-minded intervention by regulators is in fact a commercially driven bid to protect old-world technology companies from the Silicon Valley invaders.
Europe’s most powerful regulator, the Brussels competition policy chief Margrethe Vestager, has taken aim at Google Shopping, its price-comparison service. In April, she launched a legal process that could result in a big fine. On Thursday, the search giant filed a 150-page rebuttal.
First of all, Google says it has not choked off traffic to rival shopping price sites – the traffic it sends to these kinds of sites has increased by 227% over a decade (its own data shows). Sounds like a big number. Until you look at the growth in Google’s own traffic over that period. The number of searches worldwide now stands at somewhere near 1.2 trillion a year – an increase of 750% in a decade.
Google also wants its shopping service considered as part of a much larger group that includes actual retailers, like Amazon, and marketplaces, like eBay, where people also go to compare prices. Perhaps, but these are very different businesses. The capital needed to launch an online retailer, let alone one with a global presence and a one-day delivery guarantee, is much larger than the funding required for a price-comparison startup.
Google’s strongest point is that forcing a company to offer its services to rivals is a drastic measure normally reserved for monopoly utilities. Google is very useful, but it is not water or electricity. Google Shopping is a very niche service.
The argument about fair price comparison is a sideshow given the much bigger worries about privacy, security and tax that currently dog the digital world. But a victory for regulators here could lead to more assaults – on Google’s flight-comparison service and maps. Vestager has also launched an investigation into Android, the group’s market-leading phone software. Obama may be called on to cheer the home team again before this fight is over.
Two sides to the national living wage?
George Osborne has already claimed credit for Sainsbury’s increasing the base pay of its shop floor staff by 4%. “Britain deserves a pay rise so great Sainsbury’s staff will be paid at least national living wage early with biggest increases in 10 years,” he tweeted last week.It is a indeed a credit to the chancellor that he has put pay on the agenda for Britain’s supermarkets, the country’s largest private employers, by announcing a national living wage in the budget last month. However, Sainsbury’s announcement is just one side of the coin: the other side is how it will finance the pay increase.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that the chancellor’s national living wage will lead to 60,000 job losses as companies fund the higher minimum pay by cutting jobs. Moody’s, the credit rating agency, has warned retailers could close stores, increase prices and employ more under-25s – who do not qualify for the national living wage. Perks for staff, such as in-store discounts, could also be at risk.
Sainsbury’s did not downgrade its profit forecasts at the same time as announcing the pay increase, so it must have found the money from somewhere – time will tell where.
Stocks Are Sending a Recession Warning
By Anthony Mirhaydari
2 hours ago
The bad omens are building in the stock market.
Collectively representing the opinions of countless individual participants, it pays to pay attention to what is the greatest future discounting mechanism in human history.
Related: The Troubling Truth Revealed by the Stock Market’s Nosedive
The technical damage to stock
prices has been severe. The S&P 500 has suffered its first "Death
Cross" — a plunge of the 50-day moving average below the 200-day moving
average, a sign of lost medium-term momentum — in four years. The
long-term trend is at risk, as the index closed Monday’s session below
its 12-month moving average, a strong predictor of bear markets.
Unless stocks mount a historic
charge higher here — ending September 6 percent higher — it could be
game over for the bull market. History isn't on their side.
August ended with more than a 5
percent loss on the S&P 500, the worst performance for the month in
17 years and down 7.5 percent from its July high. According to Jason
Goepfert at SentimenTrader, after August losses of this magnitude since
1928, September sported a positive return only 4 out of 13 times,
posting an average loss of 5.4 percent. When they rallied, stocks only
rose above August's close by an average of 1.4 percent. When they fell,
the drop averaged 8.3 percent.
In his words, that's the data reveals a "terrible risk/reward ratio" in stocks right now.
The kicker is that the decline
we've already seen in stocks is setting off alarm bells in the
macroeconomic models created by Wall Street trading desks. Bank of
America Merrill Lynch Economist Michael Hanson's model puts the
probability of recession at nearly 50 percent based on the 15 percent
annualized drop in stocks over the last six months.
Admittedly, the model flashed a
59 percent chance of recession during the 2011 market slide. But should
Goepfert's analysis come to fruition, the odds are likely to rise.
Related: What the U.S. Must Do to Avoid Another Financial Crisis
Moreover, the economy was saved
in 2011 by aggressive monetary policy efforts, including the start of
the Fed's "Operation Twist" maturity extension program, the expansion of
dollar liquidity swap lines to Europe that November and the European
Central Bank's three-year bank liquidity stimulus.
A repeat performance would be hard to pull off when, at this point,
market turmoil only appears set to forestall the start of policy
tightening. Citigroup rate strategist Jabaz Mathai admits a further 10
percent drop in stocks would mean the "Fed will most likely not hike, no
matter what the payrolls data is" for August when those numbers are
released on Sept. 4.
Goldman Sachs looks at it from a different angle, noting the recent rise in the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX),
known as Wall Street's "fear gauge." The current level is equal to the
median the VIX has been trading at over the last three recessions. VIX
levels this high for extended periods, in their analysis, "are rare
outside recessions."
Related: Why Oil’s Big Bounce Won’t Last
Deutsche Bank's chief strategist
Binky Chadha recently wrote to clients that equity market corrections
of 10 percent or more are "rare outside recessions," with only 13
occurrences in the last 65 years in the context of a falling
unemployment rate.
On the flip side, should the
warnings prove false and the bulls manage to push stocks higher in the
weeks to come, the bad omens turn very positive indeed: Recoveries from
non-recession corrections average 8 percent one month later, 10 percent
three months later and 19 percent six months later.
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
China plans to build a hybrid fusion fission reactor by 2030 but no real technical details
http://nextbigfuture.com/
August 03, 2015
The South China Morning Post and Chinese media are reporting that China will build a new hybrid reactor that can burn nuclear waste via a combined fusion-fission method by 2030.The papers seem to assume that the fusion system would some version of a Tokamak fusion reactor.
The proposed hybrid reactor will use nuclear fusion to burn u-238 and could in theory recycle the waste from traditional reactors into new fuel.
The project is being developed at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics in Sichuan, a top secret military research facility where China's nuclear weapons are developed.
The scheme was first reported by the Science and Technology Daily, a newspaper run by the official Ministry of Science and Technology.
At the core of the proposed hybrid plant is a fusion reactor which is powered by electric currents as strong as 60 trillion amps. The reactor will be blanketed by a fission shell stuffed with uranium-238.
Such a design has numerous advantages. The high-speed neutrons generated by fusion could split apart the u-238 atoms to generate fission, and the fission could generate lots of energy to help maintain the fusion, thus significantly reducing the amount of external energy input, and achieve the complete burning of nuclear fuel to avoid radioactive waste.
Professor Wang Hongwen, deputy director of the hybrid reactor project, said that the key components will be built and tested around 2020, with an experimental reactor due to be finished by 2030
There have been dozens if not hundreds of proposed fusion fission hybrid systems.
The Fusion system would generate neutrons which would help the fissioning of all of the uranium 238.
The concept dates to the 1950s, and was strongly advocated by Hans Bethe during the 1970s. At that time the first powerful fusion reactors were being built, but it would still be many years before they could be economically competitive. Hybrids were proposed as a way of greatly accelerating their market introduction, producing energy even before the fusion systems reached break-even. However, detailed studies of the economics of the systems suggested they could not compete with existing fission reactors. The idea was abandoned and lay dormant until the 2000s, when the continued delays in reaching break-even led to a brief revival around 2009, notably as the basis of the LIFE program.
LIFE, short for Laser Inertial Fusion Energy, was a fusion energy effort run at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) between 2008 and 2013. LIFE aimed to develop the technologies necessary to convert the laser-driven inertial confinement fusion (ICF) concept being developed in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) into a practical commercial power plant, a concept known generally as inertial fusion energy (IFE). LIFE used the same basic concepts as NIF, but aimed to lower costs using mass-produced fuel elements, simplified maintenance, and diode lasers with higher electrical efficiency. The failure of NIF to achieve ignition in 2012 led to the LIFE project being cancelled in 2013.
There was a molten salt variant of the LIFE hybrid system
Molten salt with dissolved uranium is being considered for the Laser Inertial Confinement Fusion Fission Energy (LIFE) fission blanket as a backup in case a solid-fuel version cannot meet the performance objectives, for example because of radiation damage of the solid materials. Molten salt is not damaged by radiation and therefore could likely achieve the desired high burnup (over 99%) of heavy atoms of 238U. A perceived disadvantage is the possibility that the circulating molten salt could lend itself to misuse (proliferation) by making separation of fissile material easier than for the solid-fuel case.
There was a 244 page review from a 2009 hybrid fusion fission conference.
Any fusion (laser, magnetic, dense plasma focus etc...) can be made into a hybrid
Without a lot of technical details we have no idea what China is planning to do
Neutron economy
Neutron economy
A key issue for the fusion-fission concept is the number and lifetime of the neutrons in the various processes, the so-called neutron economy.
In a pure fusion design, the neutrons are used for breeding tritium in a lithium blanket. Natural lithium consists of about 92% Li-7 and the rest is mostly Li-6. Li-7 requires neutron energies even higher than those released by fission, around 5 MeV, well within the range of energies provided by fusion. This reaction produces T, Helium-3, and another slow neutron. Li-6 can react with high or low energy neutrons, including those released by the Li-7 reaction. This means that a single fusion reaction can produce several tritiums, which is a requirement if the reactor is going to make up for natural decay and losses in the fusion processes.
When the lithium blanket is replaced, or supplanted, by fission fuel in the hybrid design, neutrons that do react with the fissile material are no longer available for tritium breeding. The new neutrons released from the fission reactions can be used for this purpose, but only in Li-6. One could process the lithium to increase the amount of Li-6 in the blanket, making up for these losses, but the downside to this process is that the Li-6 reaction only produces one tritium atom. Only the high-energy reaction between the fusion neutron and Li-7 can create more than one tritium, and this is essential for keeping the reactor running.
To address this issue, at least some of the fission neutrons must also be used for tritium breeding in Li-6. Every one that does is no longer available for fission, reducing the reactor output. This requires a very careful balance if one wants the reactor to be able to produce enough tritium to keep itself running, while also producing enough fission events to keep the fission side energy positive. If these cannot be accomplished simultaneously, there is no reason to build a hybrid. Even if this balance can be maintained, it might only occur at a level that is economically infeasible
China will start construction of a 600 MWe fourth generation nuclear reactor and it could be Terrapower traveling wave reactor
Construction of the Xipu fast neutron reactor nuclear power demonstrative project
in east China's Fujian province is designed to start at the end of
2017, China Business News quoted Xu Mi, an academician with Chinese
Academy of Engineering, as saying.
The demonstrative nuclear power project, designed with 600,000kw (600
MWe) installed capacity, will be a fourth generation reactor designs.
The Shanghai newspaper speculated that this newest facility, because of its planned full scale size,
will be the long anticipated joint commercial venture between China
National Nuclear Corp. and TerraPower, a firm based on Bellevue, WA.
Gates has been instrumental in funding the development of a type of fast
reactor called a “traveling wave reactor” through TerraPower, a company
he founded in 2008 and chairs. Gates has visited China at least three
times in recent years for possible cooperation on nuclear power.
On his last trip to Beijing, which took place last February of this
year, Gates met with Nur Bekri, a vice chair of China’s National
Development and Reform Commission, and with China National Nuclear Corp
chairman Sun Qin. China National Nuclear Corp is one of the country’s
largest nuclear power company and a major Chinese partner of TerraPower.
The two firms first announced an intent to cooperate on fast reactor
designs in 2012.
The Chinese newspaper did not cite a confirmation statement from Terrapower about the Fujian pilot project.
Fast neutron reactors
China's research and development on fast neutron reactors started in 1964.
A 65 MWt sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor – the Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) – at the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) near Beijing, started up in July 2010.1 It was built by Russia's OKBM Afrikantov in collaboration with OKB Gidropress, NIKIET and Kurchatov Institute. It was grid connected at 40% power (8 MWe net) in July 2011, and ramped up to full 20 MWe power in December, then passed 'official' checks in October 2012. It has negative temperature, power reactivity and sodium void coefficients. Its fuel cycle is designed to use electrometallurgical reprocessing. It is reported to have high-enriched (65%) UO2 fuel.
The CDFR-1000, a 1000 MWe Chinese prototype fast reactor based on the CEFR, was envisaged with construction start in 2017 and commissioning 2023 as the next step in CIAE's program. This would be a three-loop 2500 MWt pool-type, use MOX fuel with average 66 GWd/t burn-up, run at 544°C, have breeding ratio 1.2, with 316 core fuel assemblies and 255 blanket ones, and a 40-year life. This is CIAE's 'project one' Chinese Demonstration Fast Reactor (CDFR). It is to have active and passive shutdown systems and passive decay heat removal. The reactor would use MOX fuel with average 66 GWd/t burn-up, run at 544°C, have breeding ratio 1.2, with 316 core fuel assemblies and 255 blanket ones. This could form the basis of the Chinese Commercial Fast Reactor (CCFR) by 2030, using MOX + actinide or metal + actinide fuel. MOX is seen only as an interim fuel, the target arrangement is metal fuel in closed cycle.
However, in October 2009, an agreement was signed by CIAE and China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) with Russia's Atomstroyexport to start pre-project and design works for a commercial nuclear power plant with two BN-800 reactorsc (see section on Sanming in the information page on Nuclear Power in China). These reactors are referred to by CIAE as 'project 2' Chinese Demonstration Fast Reactors (CDFRs), with construction originally to start in 2013 and commissioning 2018-19. In contrast to the intention in Russia, these would use ceramic MOX fuel pellets. The project was expected to lead to bilateral cooperation of fuel cycles for fast reactors. However, according to the Beloyarsk plant Director late in 2014, “The main objective of the BN-800 is [to provide] operating experience and technological solutions that will be applied to the BN-1200," and no further Russian BN-800 units are planned. The project is reported to have been suspended indefinitely, though this is unconfirmed.
The CIAE's CDFR-1000 is expected to be followed by a 1200 MWe China Demonstration Fast Breeder Reactor (CDFBR) by about 2028, conforming to Generation IV criteria. This will have U-Pu-Zr fuel with 120 GWd/t burn-up and breeding ratio of 1.5 or more, with minor actinide and long-lived fission product recycle.
PWR capacity in China is expected to level off at 200 GWe about 2040, and fast reactors progressively increase from 2020 to at least 200 GWe by 2050 and 1400 GWe by 2100.
CGN and Xiamen University are reported to be cooperating on R and D for the travelling-wave reactor (TWR). The Ministry of Science and Technology, with CNNC and SNPTC, are skeptical of it. (This is a fast reactor design using natural or depleted uranium packed inside hundreds of hexagonal pillars. In a 'wave' that moves through the core at only one centimetre per year, the U-238 is bred progressively into Pu-239, which is the actual fuel. However, this design has now radically changed to become a standing wave reactor with the fuel shuffled in the core.) In January 2013 a prototype TWR-P was being discussed as a TerraPower-SNERDI joint project, and in December 2013 a US Federal Register notice said that the USA had negotiated an agreement with China “that would facilitate the joint development of TWR technology”, including standing wave versions of it.
Background
IAEA review of fast reactors in 2015
In Russia, the BN-600 sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) has shown an impressive operational performance by reaching an 86% load factor last year, while the Russian light water reactor (LWR) fleet reaches 82% on average. The multipurpose sodium-cooled fast neutron research reactor (MBIR), to be built in Dimitrovgrad, obtained the construction license from the Russian government. The BN-800 SFR will be commissioned at the beginning of 2016.
In India, commissioning of the prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam is expected to start by the end of September 2015. The China experimental fast reactor (CEFR), which was connected to the grid in 2011, reached 100% power in December 2014. In France, the conceptual design phase for the advanced sodium technological reactor for industrial demonstration (ASTRID) is planned to be completed by the end of 2015. In addition, other participating countries reported promising and progressing activities in FR development.
IAEA 2013 update of innovative nuclear reactors
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
China shows large amphibious hovercrafts and a new 50 ton seaplane will support South China Sea operations
http://nextbigfuture.com/
July 28, 2015
A new Chinese-built seaplane could help seal Beijing's control over its claims in the South China Sea (SCS), say military specialists on China.
The Jiaolong (Water Dragon) AG600, under construction by China Aviation Industry General Aircraft (CAIGA), will be China's largest operational seaplane.
The aircraft is powered by four turboprop WJ-6 engines and has a range of 5,500 kilometers, which would provide substantial movement within the SCS. In the Spratly Islands, China is currently constructing artificial islands on Hughes Reef, Johnson South Reef and Gaven Reef.
Despite the lack of direct mainland access to Beijing's strategic claims in the SCS, the aircraft are seen as a boon to solidifying control of the area by China's military and maritime enforcement agencies for island hopping within the crowded clusters of the 750 reefs, islets, atolls and islands in the Spratly Islands archipelago.
"Amphibious planes like the AG600 would be perfect for resupplying the new artificial islands that the Chinese are building in the SCS," said Richard Bitzinger, coordinator of the Military Transformations Program at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
The AG600's maiden flight should be in 2016.
The amphibious aircraft, developed for sea rescue and firefighting missions, can takeoff from land or water and has a maximum takeoff weight of over 50 tons. It is capable of rescuing 50 people at a time on sea rescue missions.
Russia and Japan are the only other countries in the world to have developed large-sized amphibious aircraft, though the AG600 is the largest of the three and has only taken six years to reach this stage since the project was initiated in 2009.
Other large-sized aircraft being developed by China include the C919 narrow-body twin-engine jet airliner and the Y-20 large military transport aircraft.
The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) featured one of its Zubr-class landing craft air cushion (LCAC aka hovercraft) for the first time in an amphibious landing exercise.
According to IHS Jane's Fighting Ships , the Zubr-class (Project 1232.2 class, 'Pomornik') LCAC is capable of embarking three MBTs or 10 armoured personnel carriers with 230 troops. The vessel, referred to in Chinese media as the 'Bison hovercraft', has a top speed of 60 kt and a range of 300 n miles at 55 kt.
The Jiaolong (Water Dragon) AG600, under construction by China Aviation Industry General Aircraft (CAIGA), will be China's largest operational seaplane.
The aircraft is powered by four turboprop WJ-6 engines and has a range of 5,500 kilometers, which would provide substantial movement within the SCS. In the Spratly Islands, China is currently constructing artificial islands on Hughes Reef, Johnson South Reef and Gaven Reef.
Despite the lack of direct mainland access to Beijing's strategic claims in the SCS, the aircraft are seen as a boon to solidifying control of the area by China's military and maritime enforcement agencies for island hopping within the crowded clusters of the 750 reefs, islets, atolls and islands in the Spratly Islands archipelago.
"Amphibious planes like the AG600 would be perfect for resupplying the new artificial islands that the Chinese are building in the SCS," said Richard Bitzinger, coordinator of the Military Transformations Program at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
The AG600's maiden flight should be in 2016.
The amphibious aircraft, developed for sea rescue and firefighting missions, can takeoff from land or water and has a maximum takeoff weight of over 50 tons. It is capable of rescuing 50 people at a time on sea rescue missions.
Russia and Japan are the only other countries in the world to have developed large-sized amphibious aircraft, though the AG600 is the largest of the three and has only taken six years to reach this stage since the project was initiated in 2009.
Other large-sized aircraft being developed by China include the C919 narrow-body twin-engine jet airliner and the Y-20 large military transport aircraft.
The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) featured one of its Zubr-class landing craft air cushion (LCAC aka hovercraft) for the first time in an amphibious landing exercise.
According to IHS Jane's Fighting Ships , the Zubr-class (Project 1232.2 class, 'Pomornik') LCAC is capable of embarking three MBTs or 10 armoured personnel carriers with 230 troops. The vessel, referred to in Chinese media as the 'Bison hovercraft', has a top speed of 60 kt and a range of 300 n miles at 55 kt.
IHS Jane's reported in 2009 that the PLAN was procuring four Zubr-class LCACs from Ukraine - two of which are being built in China - in a deal estimated to be worth USD315 million.
China’s military has doubled the size of its Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Division (AMID) from about 30,000 to 60,000 men for a potential conflict in the East and South China seas as well as with Taiwan.
Not everyone is convinced that the doubling of AMIDs will necessarily pose a bigger concern to Taiwan. Former Republic of China Marine Corps colonel, Yi-Jia Shiah, said AMIDs are fundamentally different to marines and that the threat is not as serious as publicized, though increased cooperation between the two units will have to be closely monitored.
Zubr-class LCAC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zubr class LCAC
|
|
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders: | Feodosia Shipbuilding Company, Crimea |
| Operators: | Russian Navy Ukrainian Navy Hellenic Navy People's Liberation Army Navy |
| In commission: | 1988-Present |
| Active: | 9 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Air-cushioned landing craft |
| Displacement: | 340 tons (light) 415 tons (normal) 555 tons (full load)[1] |
| Length: | 57 m (187 ft)[2] |
| Beam: | 25.6 m (84 ft)[3] |
| Draught: | 1.6 m (5.2 ft)[2] |
| Propulsion: | 5 Kuznetsov NK-12MV gas turbines;[2] 2 for lift, 3 for propulsion; 5 x 11,836 horsepower Propellers: 3 four-bladed variable-pitch propellers |
| Speed: | 63 knots[1] 55 knots if sustained [1] |
| Range: | 300 mi (480 km) at 55 knots |
| Complement: | 31 (4 officers, 27 enlisted)[1] |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
Ekran-1 navigational radar, Lazur radar (Pozitiv radar on MDK-51), R-782 Buran communications system |
| Electronic warfare and decoys: |
Electronic Countermeasures System: Decoys, MS-227 chaff launcher, MP-411 ESM radar system; intercept |
| Armament: | 4 x Strela-3 man-portable air defence missile system launchers, plus 32 anti-personnel missiles; or 2 x Strela 2 quad launchers, manual aiming, infrared homing to 6 km (3.7 mi) at Mach 1.5, maximum altitude of 2,500 m (8,200 ft) 2 x 30 mm AK-630 close in weapon systems with 6,000 rounds each, maximum range of 2 km (1.2 mi) 2 x 140 mm Ogon launchers, 22 rockets each with 132 rockets in total; or 2 x 122 mm retractable rocket launchers Mines (one set of removable equipment for laying from 20 to 80 mines, depending on their types) |
The Zubr-class (Project 1232.2, NATO reporting name "Pomornik") is a class of air-cushioned landing craft (LCAC). This class of military hovercraft is, as of 2012, the world’s largest, with a standard full load displacement of 555 tons.[1][4] The hovercraft is designed to sealift amphibious assault units (such as marines and tanks) from equipped/non-equipped vessels to non-equipped shores, as well as transport and plant naval mines.
There are currently seven Zubr-class hovercraft in active service worldwide with several pending delivery. There are two vessels in service with the Russian Navy, one in service with the Ukrainian Navy, and four with the Hellenic Navy.[3] In 2009, China placed an order for four vessels from Ukraine as part of a deal worth 315 million USD.[5] Two updated versions of the vessels will be built at Crimea's Feodosia Shipbuilding Company[5] followed by two advanced models of the surface warship.[6]
The purchase of Kefallinia (L-180) for the Hellenic Navy marked the first time a Soviet-designed naval craft had been built from new for a NATO member.[7][8][9][10]
Contents
Configuration
Mordovia, a Russian Navy Zubr-class, during Exercize Zapad-09
Personnel are protected against the effects of weapons of mass destruction by airtight sealing of combat stations, crew and troop compartments, augmented with individual gas masks and protection suits. The ship is also protected from magnetic influence mines with an active system to compensate for the magnetic fields generated by the ship and transported materials. The central command post and MS-227 device compartments are strengthened with alloy armor.
Capacity
The Zubr-class landing craft has a cargo area of 400 square metres (4,300 sq ft) and a fuel capacity of 56 tons.[2] It can carry three main battle tanks (up to 150 tonnes), or ten armoured vehicles with 140 troops (up to 131 tonnes), or 8 armoured personnel carriers of total mass up to 115 tonnes, or 8 amphibious tanks or up to 500 troops (with 360 troops in the cargo compartment).At full displacement the ship is capable of negotiating up to 5-degree gradients on non-equipped shores and 1.6m-high vertical walls. The Zubr remains seaworthy in conditions up to Sea State 4. The vessel has a cruising speed of 30-40 knots.
Operators
Russian Navy (2)- 770 Evgeny Kocheshkov (former MDK-118)
- 782 Mordovia (former MDK-94)
Ukrainian Navy (1)- Artemivsk (former MDK-93, U 424)
Hellenic Navy (4)- Kefallinia (L180)
- Ithaki (L181)
- Kerkyra (L182) (currently in 'long term inactivity')
- Zakynthos (L183) (currently in 'long term inactivity')
People's Liberation Army Navy (2 delivered from Ukraine, 2 build in China)[5]See also
Monday, June 8, 2015
Sino-Roman relations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The trade relations between Rome and the East, including China, according to the 1st century BC navigation guide Periplus of the Erythraean Sea
Only a few attempts at direct contact are known from records: In 97 BCE, the Chinese general Ban Chao unsuccessfully tried to send an envoy to Rome.[1][2] Several alleged Roman emissaries to China were recorded by ancient Chinese historians. The first one on record, supposedly from either the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius or the later emperor Marcus Aurelius, arrived in 166 CE.[3][4]
The indirect exchange of goods on the land (the so-called silk road) and sea routes included Chinese silk and Roman glassware and high-quality cloth.[5]
In classical sources, the problem of identifying references to ancient China is exacerbated by the interpretation of the Latin term "Seres," whose meaning fluctuated and could refer to a number of Asian people in a wide arc from India over Central Asia to China.[6] In Chinese records, the Roman Empire came to be known as "Da Qin", Great Qin, apparently thought to be a sort of counter-China at the other end of the world.[7] According to Edwin G. Pulleyblank, the "point that needs to be stressed is that the Chinese conception of Da Qin was confused from the outset with ancient mythological notions about the far west".[4]
Contents
Embassies and travels
Embassy to Augustus
The Roman historian Florus describes the visit of numerous envoys, including "Seres" (Chinese, or, more probably Central Asians), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BCE and 14 CE:Even the rest of the nations of the world which were not subject to the imperial sway were sensible of its grandeur, and looked with reverence to the Roman people, the great conqueror of nations. Thus even Scythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome. Nay, the Seres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sun, bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking all of less moment than the vastness of the journey which they had undertaken, and which they said had occupied four years. In truth it needed but to look at their complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours.[8]
Envoy Gan Ying
The Chinese impression of the Daqin people, from the Ming Dynasty encyclopedia Sancai Tuhui
Gan Ying is thought to have left an account of the Roman Empire (Daqin in Chinese) which relied on secondary sources — likely sailors in the ports which he visited. The Hou Hanshu locates it in Haixi (lit. "west of the sea" = Egypt, which was then under Roman control. The sea is the one known to the Greeks and Romans as the Erythraean Sea, which included the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and Red Sea):
Its territory extends for several thousands of li [a li during the Han equaled 415.8 metres],[10] They have established postal relays at intervals, which are all plastered and whitewashed. There are pines and cypresses, as well as trees and plants of all kinds. It has more than four hundred walled towns. There are several tens of smaller dependent kingdoms. The walls of the towns are made of stone.[11]The Hou Hanshu gives a positive, if somewhat fanciful, view of Roman governance:
Their kings are not permanent. They select and appoint the most worthy man. If there are unexpected calamities in the kingdom, such as frequent extraordinary winds or rains, he is unceremoniously rejected and replaced. The one who has been dismissed quietly accepts his demotion, and is not angry. The people of this country are honest. They resemble the Chinese, and that is why the country is called Da Qin (大秦, The "Great" Qin) ... The soil produced lots of gold, silver, and rare jewels, including the jewel which shines at night ... they sew embroidered tissues with gold threads to form tapestries and damask of many colours, and make a gold-painted cloth, and a "cloth washed-in-the-fire" (asbestos).The report described Rome correctly as the main economic power at the western end of Eurasia:
—Hou Hanshu, cited in Leslie and Gardiner
It is from this country that all the various marvellous and rare objects of foreign states come.The author of the Hou Hanshu, Fan Ye (historian), summed up:
—Hou Hanshu, cited in Leslie and Gardiner
In the ninth year [97 BC], Ban Chao sent his Senior Clerk Gan Ying, who probed as far as the Western Sea, and then returned. Former generations never reached these regions. The Shanjing gives no details on them. Undoubtedly he prepared a report on their customs and investigated their precious and unusual [products]. After this, distant kingdoms [such as] Mengqi and Doule [Talas] all came to submit, and sent envoys offering tribute.[12]
Eastern travels of Maes Titianus
Maes Titianus went as far as Tashkurgan, known as the "Stone Tower" in Antiquity, the doorstep to China (in blue).
First Roman embassy
The first group of people claiming to be an ambassadorial mission of Romans to China was recorded in 166 A.D. by the Hou Hanshu. The embassy came to Emperor Huan of Han China from "Andun" (Chinese: 安敦; Emperor Antoninus Pius), "king of Daqin" (Rome). As Antoninus Pius died in 161, leaving the empire to his adoptive son Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus), and the envoy arrived in 166, confusion remains about who sent the mission given that both Emperors were named 'Antoninus'. The Roman mission came from the south (therefore probably by sea), entering China by the frontier of Rinan or Tonkin (present-day Vietnam). It brought presents of rhinoceros horns, ivory, and tortoise shell, probably acquired in Southern Asia.[20] The text specifically states that it was the first time there had been direct contact between the two countries.[3]
A Renaissance reconstruction of Ptolemy's 11th Asian regional map with the Gulf of the Ganges to the left; the Golden Peninsula (Malaysia) in the center; and the Great Gulf (Gulf of Thailand) to the right. The land of the "Sinae" supposedly lay on its northern and eastern shores, although their port of Cattigara seems to have been no further north than the Mekong Delta.
Other Roman embassies
The Liangshu records the arrival in 226 A.D. of a merchant from the Roman Empire (Da Qin) at Jiaozhi (near modern Hanoi). The Prefect of Jiaozhi sent him to Sun Quan [the Wu (kingdom) emperor], who asked him for a report on his native country and its people. An expedition was mounted to return the merchant along with 10 female and 10 male "blackish coloured dwarfs" he had requested as a curiosity and a Chinese officer who, unfortunately, died en route.[21]An account appears about presents sent in the early 3rd century by the Roman Emperor to Cao Rui of the Kingdom of Wei (reigned 227–239) in Northern China. The presents consisted of articles of glass in a variety of colours. While several Roman Emperors ruled during this time, the embassy, if genuine, may have been sent by Severus Alexander; since his successors reigned briefly and were busy with civil wars.
Another embassy from Daqin is recorded in the year 284, as bringing presents to the Chinese empire. This embassy presumably was sent by the Emperor Carus (282–283), whose short reign was occupied by war with Persia.
Chinese annals record other contacts with merchants from 'Fu-lin,' the new name used to designate the Byzantine Empire, the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east, taking place in 643 during the reign of Constans II (641-668).[22] Other contacts are reported taking place in 667, 701, and perhaps 719, sometimes through Central Asian intermediaries.[23] Still other contacts are recorded by the Chinese in the 11th century.
Trade relations
Roman exports to China
Roman glass from the 2nd century CE
Asian silk in the Roman Empire
Much of what we know from the Roman side of the silk trade, and silk in general, comes from Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History:
The Seres are famous for the woolen substance obtained from their forests; after a soaking in water they comb off the white down of the leaves… So manifold is the labour employed, and so distant is the region of the globe drawn upon, to enable the Roman maiden to flaunt transparent clothing in public.Pliny the Elder wrote about the large value of the trade between Rome and Eastern countries:[29]
—Pliny the Elder, The Natural History VI, 54
"By the lowest reckoning, India, Seres and the Arabian peninsula take from our Empire 100 millions of sesterces every year: that is how much our luxuries and women cost us."[30]
—Pliny the Elder, Natural History 12.84.
Yet, later in the same work, he writes:
The larva [of the 'bombyx'] then becomes a caterpillar, after which it assumes the state in which it is known as 'bombylis', then that called 'necydalus', and after that, in six months, it becomes a silk-worm. These insects weave webs similar to those of the spider, the material of which is used for making the more costly and luxurious garments of females, known as 'bombycina'. Pamphile, a woman of Cos, the daughter of Platea, was the first person who discovered the art of unravelling these webs and spinning a tissue therefrom; indeed, she ought not to be deprived of the glory of having discovered the art of making vestments which, while they cover a woman, at the same moment reveal her naked charms.The Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: the importation of silk caused a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered to be decadent and immoral:
—Pliny the Elder, The Natural History XI, 26
I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes ... Wretched flocks of maids labour so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.[31]
—Seneca the Elder c. 3 BCE–65 CE, Excerpta Controversiae 2.7
The Roman historian Florus also describes the visit of numerous envoys, including Seres and "Indians" (who may have included Kushans), to the first Roman Emperor Augustus, who reigned between 27 BCE and 14 CE:
Now that all the races of the west and south were subjugated, and also the races of the north, (...) the Scythians and the Sarmatians sent ambassadors seeking friendship; the Seres too and the Indians, who live immediately beneath the sun, though they brought elephants amongst their gifts as well as precious stones and pearls, regarded their long journey, in the accomplishment of which they had spent four years, as the greatest tribute which they rendered, and indeed their complexion proved that they came from beneath another sky.A maritime route opened up with the Chinese-controlled Jiaozhi (centred in modern Vietnam) and the Khmer kingdom of Funan by the 2nd century, if not earlier.[32] Jiaozhi was proposed by Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877 to have been the port known to the geographer Ptolemy and the Romans as Kattigara or Cattigara, situated near modern Hanoi.[33] Richthofen's view was widely accepted until archaeology at Óc Eo in the Mekong Delta suggested that site may have been its location. At the formerly coastal site of Óc Eo in the Mekong Delta, Roman coins were among the vestiges of long-distance trade discovered by the French archaeologist Louis Malleret in the 1940s.[34] The trade connection extended, via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, all the way to Roman-controlled ports in Egypt and the Nabataean territories on the northeastern coast of the Red Sea.
—Florus, Epitomae II, 34
Hypothetical military contact
The Roman prisoners of the Battle of Carrhae were brought to Margiana by king Orodes. Their further fate is unknown.
After losing at the battle of Carrhae in 54 BCE, an estimated 10,000 Roman prisoners were displaced by the Parthians to Margiana to man the frontier. Some time later the nomadic Xiongnu chief Zhizhi established a state further east in the Talas valley, near modern day Taraz. Taking up these two strands, Dubs points to a Chinese account by Ban Gu of about "a hundred men" under the command of Zhizhi who fought in a so-called "fish-scale formation" to defend Zhizhi's wooden-palisade fortress against Han forces, in the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BCE. He claimed that this might have been the Roman testudo formation and that these men, who were captured by the Chinese, founded the village of Liqian (Li-chien, possibly from "legio") in Yongchang County.[36]
However, Dubs' synthesis of Roman and Chinese sources has not found acceptance among modern historians[who?] on the grounds of being highly speculative and reaching to too many conclusions.[37] Although DNA testing in 2005 confirmed a predominantly "Caucasian origin" of a few inhabitants of Liqian, this influx of Western genes could be explained just as well by transethnic marriages with other peoples along the silk road.[38][39][40] A much more comprehensive DNA analysis of more than two hundred male residents of the village in 2007 showed a close genetic relation to the Han Chinese populace and a great deviation from the Western Eurasian gene pool.[41] The researchers conclude that the people of Liqian are probably of Han Chinese origin.[41] Moreover, the area lacks clear archaeological evidence of a Roman presence.[38][39][40]
A new hypothesis (Greek Hoplites in an Ancient Chinese Siege, Journal of Asian History) from 2011 by Christopher Anthony Matthew from the Australian Catholic University[42] suggests that these strange warriors were no Roman legionaries with their testudo formation, but maybe Greek-Macedonian descendants of Alexander the Great’s army, that still fought as hoplites in phalanx formation.
See also
- Indo-Roman relations
- The Malay Chronicles: Bloodlines, a movie based on the Sino-Roman relations
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