Real-time monitoring of nuclear reactors, UK-Kyrgyz RE partnership, Zambia Copper JV
In top stories from Telborg today:
Climate change intensifies European supercell thunderstorms
UK partners with Kyrgyz Republic on renewable investment model
Mercuria forms Zambia copper JV, joins AEW 2025
Firm ownership concentration drives pollution internalization
MIT develops real-time 3D imaging for reactor materials
Climate change intensifies European supercell thunderstorms
(August 27, 2025)
Researchers from the University of Bern and ETH Zurich have shown that climate change (at +3°C global warming) will intensify and increase the frequency of supercell thunderstorms in Europe, especially in the Alpine region.
Main finding and simulation details: The study projects up to 52% more supercell storms north of the Alps and 36% more on the southern slopes at +3°C, with an overall 11% increase across Europe; the simulation reports about 38 supercell thunderstorms per season north of the Alps and 61 on the southern slopes, uses a 2.2 km model resolution, and is based on an 11-year simulation compared with real storm data from 2016–2021.
Background, project and model limits: The work was conducted within the scClim project (funded by SNSF) involving ETH Zurich, University of Bern, Agroscope and MeteoSwiss; the model captures storms larger than 2.2 km and lasting longer than one hour, omitting smaller/shorter events, and finds regional declines (e.g., Iberian Peninsula and southwest France).
UK partners with Kyrgyz Republic on renewable investment model
(August 27, 2025)
The UK and the Kyrgyz Republic have launched a partnership to develop a flexible financial model to support risk-informed sovereign guarantees for renewable energy projects.
Project scope and timeline: The UK (via FCDO-funded GCIEP and its Centre of Expertise) will support the Kyrgyz Government to develop a flexible financial model that projects future payment obligations and estimates the potential scale of sovereign guarantees under multiple renewable growth scenarios; the project runs July to December 2025 and includes training for government officials to ensure effective use and ownership of the model.
Background and partners: The action addresses Kyrgyz electricity challenges—ageing hydropower, winter deficits, and >20% electricity imports in 2024—supporting the Government target to reach at least 10% renewable electricity by 2027; implementation and advisory support is provided through the FCDO GCIEP and a PwC-led Alliance (PwC, Mott MacDonald, Adam Smith International, Engineers Against Poverty, MDY Legal); the project will also consider export opportunities via CASA-1000 and explore alternative de-risking mechanisms to attract private investment.
Mercuria forms Zambia copper JV, joins AEW 2025
(August 28, 2025)
Mercuria Energy Group announced a 50:50 joint venture with Zambia’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to form Industrial Resources, a copper concentrate trading JV, and has joined African Energy Week (AEW): Invest in African Energies 2025 as a Bronze Partner.
50:50 joint venture: The JV, named Industrial Resources, will focus on copper concentrate trading, enabling direct state participation in copper marketing for the first time; concentrate volumes are secured and the first shipment is underway, amid strong demand from smelters in China and treatment and refining charges hit record lows.
Background and additional deals: Mercuria secured a $200 million pre-payment agreement for copper from Mopani Mine and signed a marketing deal with Gécamines; the firm is pursuing minority and majority positions across the metals supply chain and announced a strategic alliance with S2G Investments to finance energy modernization, climate risk mitigation and biodiversity initiatives including Silvania.
Firm ownership concentration drives pollution internalization
(August 26, 2025)
The CEPR Discussion Paper by Kwok, T; D Spiro; and A van Benthem (2025) presents a theoretical microfoundation for how shareholder ownership distribution affects how much pollution a firm internalizes.
Main result and predictions: The paper derives three explicit predictions: (1) small shareholders systematically vote for a greener corporate profile; (2) firms with a smaller weighted median shareholder will pollute less; (3) countries with concentrated corporate wealth and/or more individualized firm ownership tend to pollute more. It also states that a shareholder with share 1/N (N = population) has preferences aligning with a social planner.
Background and implications: The document is a CEPR Discussion Paper (No. 20595, CEPR Press, Paris & London, 2025). The authors argue this result implies that standard environmental and macroeconomic models using a representative agent are internally inconsistent or underspecified, and they provide a theoretical microfoundation rather than empirical estimates.
Telborg | Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
MIT develops real-time 3D imaging for reactor materials
(August 27, 2025)
The MIT News Office has announced that MIT researchers developed a technique enabling real-time, 3D monitoring of corrosion, cracking, and material failure inside nuclear-reactor-like environments using high-intensity synchrotron X-rays.
Main announcement: MIT researchers (led by Ericmoore Jossou, senior author; lead author David Simonne) demonstrate that adding a silicon dioxide buffer layer between nickel crystals and a silicon substrate and keeping the sample longer under a focused high-intensity X-ray beam causes strain to relax, enabling real-time phase-retrieval 3D imaging of material failure under reactor-like irradiation conditions. The study was published in Scripta Materiala and involved collaborators at European Synchrotron and Synchrotron SOLEIL.
Background and details: Experiments used solid state dewetting to prepare nickel single crystals and required specialized synchrotron X-rays available at a handful of facilities; only silicon-dioxide-buffered silicon wafers showed the strain-relaxation effect (other substrates like niobium-doped strontium titanate did not). Work was partially funded by the MIT Faculty Startup Fund and the U.S. Department of Energy, and sample prep occurred in part at MIT.nano.
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Water Consumption of African Data Centres, EU Banks reduced holdings in Battery Mineral miners
In top stories from Telborg today:
Water Consumption of African Data Centers from AI
EU ESG Banking Rules Reduce Banks' Holdings in Battery Mineral Miners
UK requires offshore wind developers to fund local skills
New Jersey proposes Garden State Energy Storage Program
Gulf sovereign wealth funds drive investment diplomacy