GRID Bill Passed to Expedite Dispatchable Generation

The American House of Representatives has passed a bill which could accelerate the progress of dispatchable power generation. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Troy Balderson, lamented "shovel-ready projects" were being delayed "while demand continues to climb". 

In the US, a bill must go through both both "chambers" (House and Senate, which together form the US Congress) and then be signed into law by the President who has the right to veto the bill as well.

The GRID Power Act gives FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) a total of 60 days to review proposals from RTOs and ISOs for projects to be pushed to the front of interconnection queues. 

The projects need to show how they would boost the reliability and resilience of the grid.

Interconnection queues are lists maintained by grid operators that track requests from power developers to connect new generation projects like wind turbines, solar farms, battery storage or dispatchable plants to the electricity grid. Projects in the interconnection queues may be withdrawn due to financing issues or delays in gaining regulatory approval.

For example, we may have a BESS project (Battery Energy Storage System) in Howard County Texas that wants to connect into the ERCOT system, with a capacity range of 200MW-300MW. Another example can be a small gas project that wants to connect into AESO (Alberta Electric System Operator) - Alberta is a province in Western Canada - supplying, say, 0-10 MW.

Monitoring the queues can give an indicator of future capacity. CAISO (California ISO, or California Independent System Operator, to give it its full title) queue reports can be found here. 

EPSA (the Electric Power Supply Association) has published an article explaining the GRID Act and how it contributes to reliability in a growing power system.

Mark Carney "Disappointed" With New Trump Tariff

Donald Trump has raised trade tariffs on Canada from 25% to 35% - Mark Carney has expressed disappointment. Pakistan's tariffs have shrunk to 19% following Pakistan's nomination of Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. India faces 25% tariffs.

Data Platform Builder Elementl Total Funding Hits Nearly $50m Post Series B

Georgian has led a $33m Series B funding round for Elementl that is building a data platform on Dagster. Georgian's tagline is "We are investors who build software to help our companies scale faster". Toronto, Canada-based Justin Lafayette co-founded Georgian in 2008 and has previously invested in range of firms including 41st Parameter (fraud detection software acquired by Experian in 2013) and Shopify (that allows businesses to create and manage online stores). He was previously Vice President of Strategy at IBM Software.

Existing investors Sequoia, Index, Amplify, Hanover and Slow also participated in the Series B bringing Elementl's total investment to $48.8m. 

Ex Facebook Pete Hunt, who is now the company's CEO, remarked on Elementl's wide addressable market: "Once you get to a certain size, every company is a data company, and every company has a data platform". The extension to this premise is that every company has to manage data pipelines.

Apache Airflow is a popular tool for data pipelines and Dagster's major competitor.

Dagster founder Nick Schrock and co-founder and CTO of Elementl stated that his motivation to create a new model for data orchestration was to invent a more modern system aligned to the realities of Cloud and DevOps.

The Cobalt Rush

Mining companies (such as Canadian FirstCobalt)  are looking at sites in Idaho, Montana and Alaska in search of cobalt, a key component of lithium ion batteries used in electronic devices and electric cars (consumption of which is expected to rise 8%-10% per year). 

The DRC (capital city Kinshasa) is currently the largest producer of cobalt. Australia is the other big producer.

Having new sources of the mineral will diversify cobalt consumers' geopolitical risk. There is currently research (e.g. at UCB) into batteries that do not require large amounts of cobalt (Materials Science and Engineering). 

The Cobalt Institute exists to promote sustainable and responsible use of cobalt.

Japan's GPIF, world's largest pension fund, falls 3.8 per cent in the year

Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), worth $1.3 trillion, lost 5.3 trillion yen ($51bn) in the year ended March 31st, its worse annual result since the financial crisis.

The loss included a 10.8% loss on domestic equities and 9.6% on global equities. Japanese bonds, which the fund was cutting since October 2014, when it moved allocations more to equities, posted a 4.1% gain, following the Bank of Japan's move to negative interest rates.

The fund has 80% of its holdings in passive investments.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), a retirement savings plan financed by employers and employees in Canada except Quebec, was created in 1966 and is sized at $278 billion as of March 31, 2016, fared better with a 3.4% return with gains in real estate and emerging-market equity private investments.