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China has cheap labour and huge market so still EV companies will invest in China.


BEIJING, Jan 1 (Reuters) — China will cut subsidies on new energy vehicles (NEVs), such as electric cars, by 30% in 2022 and withdraw them altogether at the end of the year, the Finance Ministry said on its website on Friday.

The ministry had said in April 2020 that NEV subsidies would be cut from 2020 to 2022 by 10%, 20% and 30%, respectively.

For NEVs for public transport, subsidies would be cut by 10% in 2021 and by 20% in 2022.

Capable of shipping 99,000 cubic meters of liquefied gas across the Pacific Ocean, the world’s first very large ethane carrier (VLEC), “Pacific Ineos Belstaff,” was named and delivered by Chinese shipbuilder Jiangnan Shipyard Group in Shanghai on Tuesday.

As the largest carrier for ethane in the world by far, the vessel features the Type-B cargo quartet containment system “BrilliancE” developed by Jiangnan Shipyard. B stands for Type-B and E stands for ethane and ethylene.

It is also equipped with dual-fuel technology that can use ethane as fuel through a shaft generator that helps it meet the most stringent emission requirements.

After a successful launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Dec. 25, and completion of two mid-course correction maneuvers, the Webb team has analyzed its initial trajectory and determined the observatory should have enough propellant to allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime. (The minimum baseline for the mission is five years.)

In a tenth of a second.

We’ve just taken another step toward comprehending enormous magnetar explosions.

For the first time, a group of international researchers was able to measure oscillations in the brightness of a magnetar during its most violent moments.

This was a brutal moment in time indeed, as in less than a tenth of a second, the magnetar expelled energy equivalent to that created by the sun in 100,000 years!

Why you should know about magnetars (and why they’re scary) A magnetar is a rare form of neutron star distinguished by an extremely powerful magnetic field. Its field is about 1,000 times stronger than that of a regular neutron star — a trillion times greater than that of the Earth! We only know about 30 of these objects, since detecting them is a difficult task for our current technologies. While they are known to suffer violent eruptions, we know relatively little due to their unexpected nature and their short duration time of barely tenths of a second.

Thanks to Ariane 5 rocket launching Webb on the right path.

After nearly 30 years of planning and thorough work, NASA finally got to launch its $10 billion next-generation space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), on Christmas day. JWST is now headed on a long six-month trip until it can begin its science mission and start to conduct routine science operations.

Now, it turns out that JWST might be traveling and collecting data for much longer than initially expected. JWST was forecast to be operational for 5 to 10 years, but NASA’s latest analysis revealed that the observatory should have enough fuel to “allow support of science operations in orbit for significantly more than a 10-year science lifetime.”

The observatory should now have enough propellant to support science operations well past its 10-year science lifetime. The space agency said the precision of the Arianespace Ariane 5 launch resulted in less propellant being used than anticipated. A smooth mid-course correction maneuver after launch, which added approximately 45 mph to the craft’s speed, also helped conserve fuel.

A second correction burn occurred on December 27, speeding up Webb by 6.3 mph.

NASA said that from this point on, all scheduled deployments on Webb will be controlled by humans. This means their deployment, or even their order, could change. Webb at this point is a little over a day into a six-day process to unfold its sunshield.

German company Schaeffler has just revealed an innovative new drive system for electric bicycles that eschews traditional bike chains and belts for an entirely electrical-driven system. The new system is known as the Schaeffler Free Drive and marks the entry of one of the most divergent electric bicycle drivetrains we’ve seen in years.

The Free Drive, which was co-developed with electric bicycle drivetrain specialists Heinzmann, is based upon a generator installed at the bike’s bottom bracket.

The rider’s pedaling action powers the generator and converts the energy from mechanical to electrical energy.