Good morning, dear readers,
The death toll reported from Turkey and Syria rose almost hourly last night. According to the current status, more than 4,200 people died in one of the worst earthquake disasters in recent decades. Hundreds are missing under rubble.
According to previous information, more than 15,000 people were injured in southern Turkey and northern Syria. According to aid organizations, the earthquake has made thousands of people homeless – and that at temperatures around freezing point.
Turkey has received offers of help from more than 45 countries. Germany will also help in northern Syria through aid organizations such as Malteser International, the Federal Foreign Office said.
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck no longer expects fundamental changes to the controversial US subsidy package. However, there is still the possibility of mitigating the disadvantages for European companies during implementation, said Habeck on Monday in Washington.
Habeck and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire will hold talks with the US government on Tuesday in Washington, including meetings with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
The planned US incentives to buy e-cars are particularly controversial. $7,500 per vehicle is only available if the models and components are mostly made in the USA. Just a few days ago, US President Joe Biden made it clear that there would be no turnaround here. The President told union leaders in Virginia: “I’m being criticized internationally for perhaps being too focused on America. To hell with that!”
Biden is in campaign mode as he prepares to announce his candidacy for a second term. Today he will deliver his annual State of the Union address. Anything that looks like giving in to the Europeans doesn’t fit into the program.
Sometimes green technology works without subsidies. For a few years, more and more large-scale solar parks have been emerging on German fields and meadows. According to the Federal Association of the German Solar Industry, these ground-mounted systems recorded growth of a whopping 70 percent last year compared to the previous year.
Remarkable: More and more of these projects are being created without state funding via the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). Instead, the providers conclude direct power purchase agreements with companies. These projects currently account for a market share of eleven percent.
At the same time, the systems are getting bigger and bigger. Example: The Austrian energy company Verbund AG has “so far secured areas of 900 hectares for photovoltaic projects” in the state of Brandenburg alone, CEO Michael Strugl told the Handelsblatt. “But we see potential that goes beyond that.” With a target area of around 1400 hectares, “we can clearly exceed the limit of one gigawatt of installed capacity”.
One gigawatt roughly corresponds to the output of a nuclear power plant. However, the electricity yield of a nuclear power plant, which usually supplies electricity for almost all 8760 hours of a year, is many times higher than the output of a photovoltaic system. In this country, it usually does not exceed 1000 full-load hours.
Google wants to present several applications in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to a broad public. This was announced by the head of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, in a blog entry. With his AI offensive, he is reacting to the success of the start-up OpenAI, which has attracted attention in recent weeks with its text robot ChatGPT.
According to Pichai, Google’s AI initiative consists of three parts: a chatbot called Bard, new AI functions in Google search, and programming interfaces (APIs) that can be used to develop AI applications.
Commerzbank is likely to move up to the Dax for the industrial gases group Linde on February 27th. On Monday, a spokesman for Deutsche Boerse confirmed to the Handelsblatt that Commerzbank met the last remaining criterion – two consecutive years of operating profit. The armaments group Rheinmetall, which was also traded as a candidate for promotion for a long time, is at a disadvantage.
That means: Linde only wants to be listed on Wall Street in the future. The Dax loses its most valuable member.
In the elections next Sunday, Berlin’s governing mayor Franziska Giffey has to worry about her job after just over a year on the job: The polls are not good for the SPD. However, no one can take a record from Giffey: She will go down in North German annals as the longest reigning Oldenburg kale queen of all time.
Because the traditional event had to be canceled due to the corona pandemic in 2021 and 2022, Giffey’s reign has lasted almost three years. Traditionally, the scepter is actually passed on after a year – yesterday it was so far: Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner is now the new kale king. The change was celebrated in the representation of the state of Lower Saxony in Berlin, accompanied by 270 guests and around 200 kilograms of organic kale, 240 kilograms of Pinkel (for non-Lower Saxony: a North German sausage specialty), plus Kassler, boiled sausage and bacon.
As is well known, great monarchies only survive by carefully adapting to the passage of time: For the first time this year, there was also a vegan and gluten-free kale dish to top it all off.
I wish you a day that doesn’t weigh too heavily on your stomach.
Best regards
Your Christian Rickens
Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt
PS: A real hype has arisen around the chatbot ChatGPT. Have you already had texts created by the program? What are your experiences? Do you see more of an opportunity in artificially intelligent software like ChatGPT, a risk or is it just a gimmick? Which sectors do you think will see the biggest changes? Write us your opinion in five sentences [email protected] . We will publish selected articles with attribution on Thursday in print and online.
