Arvind's Newsletter

1. Yesterday's newsletter had The Economist's Energy expert discussing the promise of Hydrogen as a clean fuel for transportation and industrial uses. It also mentioned that India is providing incentives to develop an export oriented green hydrogen industry. Today, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the ₹19,744-crore National Green Hydrogen Mission with an objective to become a major exporter in the field and make India a global hub for the production, utilisation, and export of Green Hydrogen and its derivatives.The development will help India, one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters, achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. Lets watch this space. Several Companies including Reliance Industries, Indian Oil, NTPC, Adani Enterprises, JSW Energy, ReNew Power and Acme Solar have huge plans on green hydrogen.

2. In one of their deadliest attacks yet on Russian forces, Ukrainians used American-made rockets to kill dozens — and perhaps hundreds — of Moscow’s troops in a New Year’s Day strike behind the lines, prompting outraged Russian war hawks to accuse their military of lethal incompetence.The strike by the HIMARS rockets killed 89 Russian soldiers in a building housing them in the occupied city of Makiivka, in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday — an unusual admission for a military that has often refused to acknowledge serious losses. A report in Wall Street Journal blamed the use of banned mobile phones by soldiers for the strike by Ukrainian forces. The regiment's deputy commander was killed in the attack. The of cellphones allowed opposing forces to pinpoint the location of the Russian forces. The Institute for the study of War points to "systemic failures" from Russian military stemming from lack of training and poor discipline. Digital technology has changed the way how wars are fought.

3. Microsoft will use ChatGPT to power a new version of its search engine Bing, The Information , a technology-industry focussed business magazine reported. The artificial intelligence tool can answer questions in natural English, which Microsoft hopes will give users smarter, more useful answers to their queries than a list of links. The software maker, whose Bing service is far smaller than Alphabet Inc.’s dominant Google search engine, has been trying out ChatGPT for several months. The company, which in 2019 invested $1 billion in the OpenAI platform that developed ChatGPT, wants to challenge Google’s dominance of the search market. And Google takes the threat seriously: In December, its parent company issued an internal “code red” that AI chatbots could replace search engines as people’s primary gateway to the internet, according to The New York Times.

4.Even as weather in North America has seen heavy snow and freezing rain, Temperatures for January have reached an all-time high in a number of nations across Europe. National records have fallen in eight countries - and regional records in another three.In Switzerland, temperatures hit 20C, and the warm weather has affected ski resorts across the Alps which have seen a snow shortage. In Spain, New Year's Day temperatures in Bilbao were equivalent to the average in July, and parts of Catalonia including Barcelona are subject to restrictions on water use. It's not all warm in Europe, though - colder temperatures and snow are forecast in Northern Europe where parts of Scandinavia and Moscow is expected to drop to -20C by the weekend

5.The new energy map. Russia is expanding its gas pipeline to China, and the United States received its first Venezuelan oil exports in four years. Meanwhile, a hastily built terminal in Germany accepted its first shipment of U.S. gas. The Ukraine war has reshaped the global energy map, forcing Moscow to look east as Europe increasingly refuses its exports, and Washington to revive troubled relations with Caracas. Still, this energy diplomacy may have a short shelf life. Given China’s rapid investment in renewable energy, and the years-long build time of new gas pipelines, it may be that Moscow’s investment doesn’t pay off for long.