Zuck's Big Easy, critiquing minerals, gassing up New York, and the Kalash mystery
Issue 2 of the Sunday Revue
Dear reader,
Welcome to the second edition of the Sunday Revue of the FIELDS NOTES newsletter.
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NUMBERS GAME
68 – the percentage of overseas generation capacity China funded between 2022 and 2023 that was made up by renewables, a dramatic shift from past years of financing coal infrastructure. Boston University
$70 million – the total amount of money raised in U.S. dollars by The Nuclear Company, the startup that has distinguished itself not by designing yet another reactor but by promising to build out a fleet of large-scale reactors based on an existing design. TechCrunch
622,500 – the number of tons of electrochemically produced cement Microsoft just agreed to buy from the green cement startup Sublime over the next decade, enough to build roughly 31 American football stadiums. Bloomberg
2.5 – the number of times more electricity than the entire city of New Orleans that the Facebook owner Meta’s secretive data center in Louisiana will use. Latitude Media
155 – the percentage by which U.S. exports of crude petroleum increased over the past year to South Africa. The Observatory of Economic Complexity
$4,651 – the cost per year of insuring a $300,000 home in Oklahoma, a figure that is more than double the national average but in line with the state’s tornado alley neighbors. KGOU
15 – the share by which the European nuclear fuel enricher Urenco plans to increase its production capacity in the U.S. over the next two years. LinkedIn
LINES OF ARGUMENT
On the “childish, narcissistic fantasy” of Western pro-Palestine activists who “see themselves playing a revolutionary role of world-historical proportions,” Joshua Leifer in Haaretz:
“A failure to repudiate terrorism will mean the ultimate failure of the movement writ large, a perhaps unrecoverable setback for the movement for Palestinian rights. This will ultimately be a failure for the people in Gaza, the very people whom the movement seeks to help. It will also mean the acceptance of a fundamentally antisemitic logic, in which ordinary people leaving a Jewish community event become legitimate targets held responsible for the decisions of Israel's government.”
On how the Trump administration justifies slashing tax credits for industries the administration ostensibly supports, Vice President JD Vance to The New York Times’ Ross Douthat:
“We're talking about no tax on overtime, no tax on tips. These are things that give domestic consumers more money. And if you combine giving domestic consumers more money with making it easier and cheaper to produce in America and more expensive to produce overseas, then that is, in our view, at least a form of industrial policy. There are other things that we're doing. Number two, massive, massive changes to the regulatory regime. Our biggest belief –or at least mine, I don't want to speak for the President because I haven't talked to him on this issue, but I think his policies, consistent with his perspective – is we actually have an industrial policy in this country. The biggest industrial policy that we have is a regulatory regime that is incredibly rewarding to software, to the world of bits, as Peter Thiel and Tyler Cowen might say, and is incredibly punitive in the world of atoms. We would like to reverse that, or at least equalize it. If you look at what we're trying to do on the regulatory regime, we're trying to make it so much easier to produce things in the real world, not just to write code. As important as that can be, that is a form of industrial policy. To that point, I think our energy policy is a form of industrial policy, because that's the most important cost input, especially for high value added manufacturing.”
On the need to keep from diluting the meaning of “critical” minerals, Peter Cook and Seaver Wang of The Breakthrough Institute:
“Coherent U.S. critical minerals strategy must decide upon concrete goals for each priority mineral then allocate targeted policy efforts towards achieving these goals. To succeed in this, policymakers must understand that their ultimate objective is a shrinking, ever-smaller critical minerals list, not an ever-growing one.”
GRAPHIC DETAIL
NEWS BITES
Greenland is considering striking a rare earths deal with the European Union in spite of the Trump administration. Politico Europe
The Environmental Protection Agency is considering eliminating greenhouse gas limits for power plants altogether. The New York Times
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, vetoes climate justice studies for the state. Inside Climate News
Sweden approved state subsidies for the country’s new nuclear energy projects. NucNet
Ammonia wafting off the droppings of 60,000 penguins contributed to forming clouds that might be insulating Antarctica from warming. Grist
Rio Tinto ousted its chief executive Jakob Stausholm last week as the British-Australian mining giant sought a leader with more operational experience. The Financial Times
New York will work with the Trump administration to increase access to natural gas, after years of rejecting infrastructure to funnel the fossil fuel into the state. The Wall Street Journal
WATCHING
This 2003 documentary from Australia’s ABC News on Pakistan’s Kalash people, a polytheistic minority that claims descent from Alexander the Great’s troops. A study published Saturday in the journal Scientific Reports examined the tiny ethnic group’s mysterious genetic origins.
This video from political scientist James Ker-Lindsay explains why President Trump’s claims about a white genocide in South Africa make no sense.
This Bloomberg TV interview with Roberto Cingolani, chief executive of Italian defense company Leonardo, outlines the hopes for European confederation and rearmament.
LISTENING
“000 BABY” by the Hong Kong-based DJ Mr. Ho
“Start Movin” by the the Miami-based house DJ Chronosonder
“X Marks” by the Seattle indie band MØAA
“Who You Foolin” by Atlanta rapper Gunna
Signing off from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn’s sunny dawn, where a judge used rock and roll lyrics the other day to make a point about legal ethics, continuing the neighborhood’s commitment for fusing guitar music with politics.