Recently purchased this 98 savana 2500 for camping and road trips as it is in the photos. It needs some work to the motor so i got it pretty cheap. Questions I have are 1. Suggestions on how to make it less creeper van. 2. Ways to add windows on the side doors? 3. My wife agreed to gp camping if I can provide a toilet that is low matinence suggestions? 4. What are the essentials i should have in the van? There are tons of online articles from people who donnt know so i thought to ask people who have owned a camper van.

I have absolutely no idea how to begin or word this, but the title serves as a decent summary: I just wish I was a girl so God damn much. I fucking despise being a boy with every fiber of my being. Being male is literally Hell on Earth and I wouldn't even mind being dead at this point. Every second of this is painful and that's hardly hyperbolic.
Being a girl literally seems sublime; if I woke up one day as a cute girl, I'd be so ecstatic that I would collapse into uncontrollable tears of joy for about a month. Girls get to wear cute, soft clothes that I, as a man, would be ostracized for wearing. They literally get to wear amazing clothing and if I wore it, I'd be bullied until the end of fucking time. They get to be affectionate and actually share their emotions; they get outstanding bodies with a vagina and breasts; while I know that this is false, it honestly feels like they have everything.
Tonight, I've been unable to think of anything aside from what it would be like to be a girl. I can't stop imagining myself as a cute girl wearing leggings, skinny jeans, skirts, overalls, makeup, jewelry, Vans, Converse shoes, tank tops, and other clothing that I so desperately want to wear. I can't stop imagining myself with long, flowing hair, a vagina, big breasts, and other desirable features of the female body. I can't stop imagining myself spending time with girls, making friends with them, going to and sleeping over at their homes, etc. It all seems so perfect, and I could have had all of it if I just didn't have a FUCKING Y CHROMOSOME.
Over the course of the past two or so days, I've literally cried every single night wishing I could be a girl. It's fucking Hell and it's a curse being a MALE!

https://youtu.be/4_4xnNdgDgY

I'm going to the baptism of a friend's child and we'll have a party in his garden afterward. They asked to wear pastel colors but light colors suits don't really work with my skin tone. I opted for these beige.
Which combo would work? Consider that most likely I'm losing the jacket after church.
I'l have a brown belt.
Bonus advice on the shoes. I love the known look of converse but with everyday summer clothes the vans fit best.
Edit:re-uploaded post blurring face in the frame.

Following on from my 'In Vision' commentary notes, I had a request from freddythefuckingfish to recap 'Louis and the Nazis'. Here it is, along with some additional notes from Louis' follow-up visit to Lamb and Lynx for his 'Call of the Weird' book.
​
​
\"I thought it was time to leave.\"
​
Opening Scene

• The episode opens with tape being put on a kitchen floor by April, while she is being watched by her aspiring pop-duo daughters, Lamb and Lynx
• They all laugh when April starts to use the tape to draw a swastika, because she's a Nazi
• Note: the twins go by 'Prussian Blue', which is a reference to how the walls of gas chambers could be stained blue by the Nazi's usage of Zyklon B, which contained Prussic acid
• Louis asks if April cares about "people's feelings", which quickly descends into April going on a rant about "The Jews" and how she just thinks the swastika is "neat"
• Personal Note: there's something about April's agitated head and mouth movements that reminds me of a Muppet
• April refers to Louis as a "brainwashed lemming"
• Lamb and Lynx dance a merry jig to the sound of bagpipes, before we go to the opening credits

​
Meeting Tom Metzger

• Louis is driving to meet "one of America's most notorious" racists, Tom Metzger (who died in 2020)
• Tom has a garden ornament with a motion sensor that makes a noise when you approach his house, then has what looks like another motion sensor to the right of his front door, with a security camera on the left
• Tom says he's "more serious than most of the Nazis [he's] met"
• There appears to be a sign that says "No Snivelling" on one of the doors in Tom's office (I couldn't find any significance to that)
• Tom shows Louis a racist cartoon from his newsletter, claims that he is better looking than Denzel Washington, and then (in my opinion) tries to get a reaction out of Louis by using The N-Word, but Louis remains stone-faced
• Tom says that he would not use that word in public if Louis asked him to, but that he would not stop using it in private (even as a favour to Louis)
• Louis: "It makes me think slightly less of you."
• Tom: "Well, that's okay, I'm not here to adopt you."
• Louis takes a look at Tom's music collection, and Tom's wife flatly says "It's part of history" when Louis asks her if it's shocking to have the image of a black man being lynched on an album cover
• Tom, again, seems to be intentionally saying extreme things to get a reaction out of Louis, but, when Louis doesn't bite, he does then tone things down a bit
• Tom's youngest daughter arrives, and doesn't consider herself to be a racist (mentioning how people judge her solely for her last name)
• Abrupt cut to a different room, with a tired-sounding Louis now lounging in a chair with a drink in his hand, and what look like papers in his lap, telling Tom that "it bespeaks kind of a hatred"
• Personal Note: Uh... what just happened? How much time has passed since the interview with Tom's daughter? Is that a copy of Tom's newsletter in Louis' lap? Is that the "it" he's referring to?
• Tom, with a beer in his hand, sounds upset as he tries to justify his hatred for "blacks" with, "they kill my friends, they imprisoned them for life"
• Louis, almost sounding drunk, uncharacteristically replies with, "That's such bull. That is such bull."
• Tom yells at Louis about black people committing crimes in England, then starts to make a phone call to end this very awkward and out-of-place scene
• Personal Note: What was going on there?! Both men acted completely differently towards each other, while Tom's wife and daughter appeared to be nervously stood in the doorway. Just a really weird scene that felt like something directed by David Lynch.
• Over at the karaoke bar ("Lets Party Right Here!"), we see someone who looks like Danny Trejo serenading a table of middle-aged women
• Louis says it has been a "long and, in some ways, depressing day [...] I was even more confused when the karaoke bar [Tom] took me to turned out to be largely non-white"
• Louis: "I could only assume that, for Tom, karaoke sometimes took precedent over racism."
• We hear a (mercifully short) clip of Tom "singing" 'Bad to the Bone' (he sounds like the love-child of Elmer Fudd and Les Claypool)
• Note: None of what was said between Louis and the Metzger's while they were at the bar is in the episode, and we only hear Louis speak in voice-over.

​
Meeting John Malpezzi

• Louis is being driven by Tom to meet his new "manager", a man named John Malpezzi, who was "supposedly a show business veteran"
• When John gets in the car, Louis tries to get him to talk about the racist things Tom says and publishes, but John seems like he was expecting that line of questioning and is having none of it
• John gives the, oddly specific, example of how he has known people in the past who would "throw you out of the air plane, over the jungle" for trying to catch him out like that
• Louis had been keeping his powder dry during the car trip, as he knew that there were rumours of John having a "colourful career" and that he "had spent time in prison"
• Louis is more direct once they arrive at their destination and John, after initially trying to shut down the conversation about his past, admits that he had legally represented the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar
• John had also been looking at "85 years" in prison for cocaine trafficking, but only served "3-and-a-half" years (here's an archived LA Times article from 1987 that covers what happened)
• Louis says that who John was, and whether what he was saying was actually true, was "vague to me, and possibly to him, too"

​
Meeting Skip

• Louis visits Skip and his family, some of Tom's "skinhead supporters" who were hosting a rally that Tom would be speaking at
• Skip had followed Tom since 1983 and thought he had "done a lot of good *awkward pause\* he's a good patriot"
• Skip's brother says that telling someone "you're on the fence" is considered to be an insult by skinheads
• The second Louis suggests that he might be Jewish, Skip immediately starts eyeing him up and becomes less friendly towards him
• Louis spent the afternoon with the family before Skip really started to become agitated
• Skip: "You're a Jew, that's why you got so much animosity. [...] You're a Jew. ...You're part Jewish."
• Skip points at the sound guy and says, "He's not Jewish, I'll tell ya that, right now."
• Personal Note: the camera pans over to the sound guy and he reminded me of Seth Rogen, who is Jewish
• According to 'Call of the Weird', Louis' Director was Jewish
• I think you can just barely hear a member of the crew start to interject when it's clear that Skip isn't going to let go of the issue, however I can't make out what they're saying
• Louis, after Skip and his family have all left: "I thought it was time to leave."

​
The Gathering of the Gods

• Tom: "Yo, yo, yo, are you ready to go, to the Hate-ananny? Huh?!"
• Tom is wearing a t-shirt that says "Some People Are Alive Simply Because It's Illegal To Kill Them"
• Louis heads to a major event ("by skinhead standards") with Tom, which is being held at "Skip's place" (or at least in a field near "Skip's place")
• According to 'Call of the Weird', Louis had "security experts" who refused to accompany him into the festival (they would have been required to give up their weapons), so Louis was told to "stay alert at all times" and that the crew should run to the exits as quickly as possible, if things went bad (the armed "security experts" remained parked outside in their van)
• Tom only attended "one or two" events per year, and Louis suspects that he felt embarrassed by Louis being part of his "entourage"
• According to 'Call of the Weird', the scene where a group of skinheads ignore Louis was not an exaggeration, as not a single skinhead at the event would let Louis interview them
• Louis: "I felt like the schoolkid nobody wanted to be friends with."
• Lamb and Lynx take to the stage, and the appreciative crowd of shirtless male skinheads salute them at the end of their song (a few look like they are wiping tears from their eyes)
• According to 'Call of the Weird', Louis did not know of Lamb and Lynx before the festival, and only spoke to April by chance, because her lack of tattoos made her look approachable
• Personal Note: I don't mean to imply that Louis is lying here, but I can't imagine that they planned for the episode to be an hour of Tom and some random skinheads, so what were the 20 minutes dedicated to April's family originally going to be about?
• Tom takes to the stage, where he yells a lot and is a racist
• The sign for the event reads "The Gathering of the Gods, An Ian Stuart Memorial, The Flame That Never Dies, American Front"
• [Ian Stuart was an English nationalist, white supremacist, and the lead singer of the punk band 'Skrewdriver'. Stuart died in 1993 and this episode is from 2003, so the "memorial" might be for the 10-year anniversary of his death.]
• The day after The Gathering, Tom tells Louis how he likes skinheads because they're "not hypocritical" and are "strong racists"
• Note: Tom is slightly out-of-focus during this short interview, with the camera more focused on the greenery behind his head

​
Meeting April, Lamb, and Lynx

• According to 'Call of the Weird', the only hint that April's house contained Nazis was a "battered" car bumper sticker that read "My Boss is an Austrian Painter"
• Louis arrives at April's house, where a bored-looking Lamb and Lynx sing about "Marxist black dictators" in Africa
• According to 'Call of the Weird', April had been making the twins sing "white power" songs for other Nazis since they were at least 8
• Louis: "They don't seem old enough to really know what that's about."
• April: "Well, I've explained it."
• The girls demonstrate that they are not, in fact, old enough to know what that's about
• According to 'Call of the Weird', there exist white nationalist children's books that (and this is meant to be taken seriously) contain "E is for Eugenics" and have illustrations made by prisoners who were found guilty of hate crimes
• April is looking ahead to when Lamb and Lynx are 16-year-old girls, because any "young... man" or "red-blooded American boy" would find them "very appealing" (well, that isn't creepy at all...)
• April's fiancee refused to appear on camera, as he felt it could lose him his job (he was a public school teacher, though she cautiously only says "an educator")
• April wouldn't let her 11-year-old children play "Nintendo" games, but a violent, first-person shooter named "Ethnic Cleansing" was perfectly fine
• Personal Note: I did play 'Ethnic Cleansing', just for a laugh, many years ago, and it's not even "funny bad", it's just rubbish
• April drives them all to a horse ranch, and Louis looks lost for words when the family start rocking out to skinhead music (one of the twins seems to find it funny how visibly uncomfortable he is)
• April asks the crew to only tell people that they are making a documentary on the girls' music, as she doesn't want anyone "hurting my horses because of my politics"
• April essentially says that she is so racist that she struggles to hide it
• Louis: "I've noticed."
• According to 'Call of the Weird', April would bring up race, or "The Jews", in almost every conversation Louis had with her, no matter what the original topic was
• April talks about how she "wouldn't want to have anything to do with" her daughters if they went against her beliefs
• [What ended up happening when Lamb and Lynx grew up and renounced their racist beliefs (albeit with just a little bit of holocaust denial left in there) is that April... wait for it... waaait for it... blamed "The Jews".]

​
A Trip to Bill's Ranch

• They drive to meet April's father, Bill, who owns a cattle ranch where his cows are branded with a swastika
• Bill, who lives on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, says that Louis can't "see what's going on" with the white race
• There's a rare production snafu when the camera man is forced to rush over to everyone else when Bill starts talking
• Personal Note: based on how this is the last scene shown at the ranch and they are all gathered by their cars, my best guess is that this was originally meant to be a long shot of everyone getting in their cars to leave, but Bill had other ideas
• Bill, like Tom, is the kind of racist who pauses for effect and looks for a reaction after saying The N-Word
• Louis takes so long to answer the straightforward, "Do you usually date white women?" that I suspect he's trying to get April and Bill more worked-up (not that they need encouraging)
• After Louis asks if a Jewish woman would be considered "white", Bill imitates a "Jewish Princess" by squawking "Louis! Louis! I want a new ring, Louis!", like he's one of the Monty Python cast in drag
• As April drives them home, she says that she considers her racist indoctrination by a Nazi to be a "gift"
• Note: Bill's wife is not shown here, but she was featured in another documentary, Nazi Pop Twins (2007), and did not share his extreme views

​
Tom's "Ambassadorial" Trip

• Louis is back with Tom and John, who were considering an "ambassadorial trip" to Mexico
• John refers to Tom as an "international politician"
• Louis refers to Tom as a "racist politician"
• John acts like Tom being a "racist politician" is a good thing, because then he'll be popular "in a racist country" like Mexico
• Tom and John act like they're making a sequel to 'Grumpy Old Men' as Louis drives them into Mexico
• John meets a lady friend (or "whore", as Tom calls her) at a bar, before they put on sombreros, and start to get sloshed on booze
• Louis: "The ambassadorial visit was degenerating into a pub crawl."
• After making two American tourists uncomfortable with his shameless racism, a drunken Tom loudly asks the staff in a souvenir shop if they have any rings with swastikas on them (I think someone says "You're lucky there's no black people about, man" in the background)
• Tom disappears, returns even more drunk, and accuses John of "neglecting his security duties"
• Tom and John drunkenly argue about, of all things, how racist John actually is
• Louis notes that this was Tom at his most "unguarded", and Louis was struck by Tom's "fantasies of his own importance"
• During the drive home, Tom Metzger, "one of the most dangerous racists in America", drunkenly mumbles about Mexico being a "vurry inturressting playst too vizzit"
• Two elderly, boozed-up racists babble on about nothing

​
Goodbye to Tom and John

• Tom's day job was a 'TV Repairman', and a Peruvian client Tom is very friendly with says that they get on great, just don't talk about "politics"
• Louis tries to get Tom to address the inconsistency of Tom being friends with someone who appears to be non-white
• Tom never really answers the question, instead nit-picking the definition of a "friend" and just saying that Louis doesn't understand
• After arguing with Tom in the car, Louis says that he found it "hard to take Tom totally seriously" and sums him up with "there was a touch of karaoke about this supposed international politician"
• Louis visits John to try and challenge him on the racism that Tom publishes
• John (again, probably expecting to have to deal with this) refuses to play along, and only gives vague, non-committal answers to everything Louis throws at him
• The scene ends with a prolonged silence, after John lights up a cigarette and tries to look cool

​
Goodbye to April, Lamb, and Lynx

• Louis plays guitar with Lamb and Lynx in a recording studio, where they are working on their debut album
• According to 'Call of the Weird', April was careful to ensure that the album could be sold in Germany, so the song titles did not explicitly reference Nazism (apparently, "Aryan" was okay), and any images of the girls saluting would be removed for the European release
• Louis asks the 11-year-old girls if they want to date skinheads *awkward pause\* when they get older
• April would approve of the girls dating any skinhead that was a "hard worker" who didn't "booze it up" and "cause trouble"
• When alone with the girls in the car, they tell Louis that they are being home-schooled because of "money problems", and "also that" April disagreed with what was being taught
• Lamb and Lynx's friends did not know about the family's racism
• One of the twins endearingly calls Louis "Shaggy" when she says goodbye to him
• Louis has a final conversation with April, where he tries to confront her about the disadvantages Lamb and Lynx will face in life, because of how they have been indoctrinated by her
• April basically blames everyone else for the problems her children will face, then goes on a disturbingly childish rant where she says things like "I find other races annoying. They bother me. [...] They're just not pretty."
• Louis: "I feel like I'm pretty well-connected to reality."
• One of the only times April does not have a comeback is when Louis says she is "out-voted" when it comes to "civilised thought"
• Louis: "My journey through the world of Nazis had reached a frustrating conclusion, with an argument, in a kitchen, with a mother of two."

​
End Credits

• A scene with Louis and John (seemingly recorded after John lit up his cigarette) plays by the credits, where Louis asks John about Tom saying that he was better looking than Denzel Washington
• John confidently asserts that Tom is better looking (?)
• John says that they want to trademark Tom's "beautiful" head to make mugs shaped like it (??)
• Cut to Louis holding a large head-shot photo of Tom, wondering where you would drink from if Tom's head was a mug (???)
• Some random old woman (John's mother?), who I don't think we ever see in the episode, turns up to say that "people like mugs, and his head would make a good mug" (????)
• Louis looks like he legitimately has no idea if he should take anything that they're saying seriously (and neither do I)

​
\"People like mugs, and his head would make a good mug.\"
​
'Call of the Weird' Follow-up Visit

• Note: There is more than this in the book, but it's mainly just "I asked April about ____, and she responded by being an obstinate bigot, then said something racist". Louis also spoke to people working at a white supremacist record label, which wasn't anything worth mentioning.
• April was not happy with the documentary after she saw all the negative comments about her online, so rebuffed Louis' attempts to stay in contact
• Louis eventually got her to agree to meet up again around a year later, by offering to take the girls to a theme park
• Louis would also be meeting a new member of the family, baby Dresden (named after a German city that had been fire-bombed during World War 2)
• Coincidentally (cough-cough), Louis had been allowed to meet the twins again just in time for them to be promoting their new CD
• Certain images made to promote the CD were quite "provocative", prompting a member of a white nationalist message board to comment "Do you think Hitler would have allowed his little girl out, dressed like that?!"
• They all went to a Halloween-themed amusement park and Louis tried to talk to the twins about whether their views on race had changed
• The twins would still parrot the usual stuff from April, but they seemed disinterested, and preferred to focus on music
• Lamb and Lynx had already started to write more "commercial" music, and were considering the possibility of having a separate group where they wouldn't perform any "white power" songs
• The twins would finally be attending a regular school, because April claimed to be satisfied with one she had found that was "70% white"

​
And that's the end of the recap. Louis did have a Skype call with the twins for his 'Life on the Edge' series during the lockdowns of 2020, where it seemed like they had managed to grow up without any trace of April's hatred and prejudices, so I guess you could say this does have a happy ending (unless you're a Nazi).

JUNE 6, 2023~Hydrogen industry ramp-up in Germany faces raw material supply challenge~ by Benjamin Wehrmann

Hydrogen industry ramp-up in Germany faces raw material supply challenge – agency Clean Energy Wire
SCANDIUM & TITANIUM
The lack of mineral resources could become a challenge for the planned ramp-up of hydrogen industry in Germany, Europe and worldwide, news agency dpa writes in an article published by magazine Der Stern. Minerals like iridium or scandium are often used in electrolysers which split water into hydrogen and oxygen. A report by the German Mineral Resources Agency (DERA) had found that global demand for scandium could be about 24 tonnes by 2040, 150 percent more than was produced in 2018, while demand for iridium could rise five-fold to 34 tonnes. Iridium, which is mainly mined in South Africa and Russia, is currently considered irreplaceable, DERA geologist Viktoriya Tremareva said. “A significant increase in iridium production is unlikely,” the agency said, adding that production outages, which last occurred in 2021, pose the risk of price hikes. Scandium is mostly mined in China and Russia, but Canada and the Philippines also hold sizeable resources, the agency said. However, setting up extraction capacities for these resources takes years and is contingent on secure long-term demand, which will depend on the prospects of a functioning international hydrogen industry, geologist Christoph Hilgers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) said. “Germany might be a large industrialised country. But you don’t open new mines for a single country,” Hilgers argued. Alternative electrolysis procedures rely on nickel, of which Russia and China are the main suppliers. Other hydrogen production procedures, such as pyrolysis, are being developed, but could only replace a small fraction of electrolysis-based production in a large-scale green hydrogen production industry, says the article.
Raw material supply for the construction of renewable power installations and other clean energy infrastructure is seen as a potential bottleneck for the energy transition, especially since climate action plans in many countries are set to cause a parallel increase in demand for key resources. Apart from developing alternative construction procedures that reduce reliance on certain materials and suppliers, recycling and greater efficiency are regarded as key levers for reducing the risk of supply bottlenecks.
SEE REPORT LINK:

Booklet (deutsche-rohstoffagentur.de)

https://preview.redd.it/zzfv58npaz4b1.png?width=798&format=png&auto=webp&s=b3e8fbd385caeceb2cadaa7b2245bf524d84bd4b
https://preview.redd.it/y9d5sirraz4b1.png?width=836&format=png&auto=webp&s=4452f3b7f852f89635a3912d14c120fd3c996ed5
https://preview.redd.it/f5omnynuaz4b1.png?width=861&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb5f7a8955e28a401dc502f07ae1ab4290fb8d25
https://preview.redd.it/na9ubl1xaz4b1.png?width=813&format=png&auto=webp&s=b74f93894a2e7a8fc3a7d25b7fc0055def0f423e

JUNE 6, 2023~Example of hydrogen: scarce raw materials are slowing down the energy transition~

Example of hydrogen: scarce raw materials are slowing down the energy transition - Breaking Latest News
Hopes of the energy transition rest on hydrogen, which is produced with electricity from renewable energies. But important raw materials that are required for the process are scarce.
Most people have probably never heard of iridium and SCANDIUM. But both elements are important for the production of hydrogen. However, they are only available to a limited extent.
The example shows how the lack of raw materials endangers the energy transition. Or the other way around: that the farewell to fossil fuels makes other raw materials all the more important.
This is also politically significant, because many of these scarce raw materials have so far come primarily from Russia and China. This also includes iridium and scandium.
https://preview.redd.it/01kgu8vyaz4b1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=643f5d53f617eb8b7dc04c699b67cfaf4917f61c
The energy transition is about saying goodbye to fossil fuels. Energy should be won so that less or none climate-damaging gases like CO₂ are released. But the faster the conversion of the energy supply picks up, the clearer it becomes that the use of wind, sun or hydrogen many, often scarce, raw materials are needed. The farewell to fossil energy makes other raw materials more important. This has economic and political consequences. The example of the elements iridium and scandium for the production of hydrogen makes it clear why this is so.
Because with the desired significant expansion of hydrogen production, there is a risk of a shortage of raw materials, rising prices and new dependencies on a few export countries – above all Russia and China. According to experts, to counteract this, in addition to a lot of research and development, more recycling and mining are necessary – which, however, is not neutral for the environment.
Hydrogen is to gradually replace fossil fuels such as natural gas in Germany. Hydrogen can be produced by breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen. The process is called electrolysis. This requires electricity. If this electricity is generated with renewable energies, we are talking about green hydrogen.
Hydrogen can be a climate-friendly energy source if the electricity required for production is generated in an environmentally friendly manner.Graphic: F. Bökelmann, editor: M. Lorenz
There are different forms of electrolysis. Some work with chemical elements such as scandium and iridium, which are in short supply. According to Study by the German Raw Materials Agency (Dera) the demand for scandium could be around 24 tons in 2040 – that would be more than two and a half times as much as the amount produced in 2018. In the case of iridium, the forecast even assumes that the demand will then be five times the current production at 34 tons.

New dependence on Russia and China

Iridium is currently considered irreplaceable, says Viktoriya Tremareva from Dera. The precious metal is mainly mined in South Africa and Russia as a by-product of platinum and palladium. “A significant increase in iridium production is unlikely,” says Dera. “In the event of production downtime, there can be dramatic price increases – as in 2021.”

Scandium, on the other hand, comes mainly from China. Also followed by Russia, which has ceased to be a trading partner for the West since the attack on Ukraine. Here, however, Dera sees more alternative mining options, for example in Canada and the Philippines.

However, it takes several years to prepare a deposit for production and to make the raw materials available, says Christoph Hilgers from the Institute for Applied Geosciences at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). However, companies only invest when demand is long-term. So they looked at how serious the hydrogen intentions are, says Hilgers. It’s not just about the energy transition in Germany, but about global trends. “Germany is a large industrial country. But new deposits are not only opened for one country.”
Although no rare metals are required for alkaline electrolysis, says Maike Schmidt from the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research in Baden-Württemberg. However, nickel is needed in this process, from which Germany and Europe as a whole obtained around 35 to 50 percent of their imports from Russia before the start of the war in Ukraine. Although there are alternatives, “nickel processing is heavily concentrated in China. “New geopolitical dependencies can arise from this, which do not represent an acute bottleneck, but must be monitored.”
The scarcity threatens rising prices for raw materials and, as a result, rising costs for the production of hydrogen. “It is currently not possible to foresee the extent to which these increases will take place,” says Schmidt. It is important to use research and development to reduce the use of critical raw materials.

JUNE 9, 2023~Sunak and Biden reach for critical minerals deal in show of unity~

Sunak and Biden reach for critical minerals deal in show of unity – POLITICO

The US and UK will start negotiating a deal immediately to mitigate the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act.

https://preview.redd.it/yfmzz7d8dz4b1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf5d89a8a793340b485abbd9f12bc782109eb573
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden have committed to a cooperation deal on defense and critical minerals as the U.K. prime minister moves away from a post-Brexit vision of unfettered free trade in favor of mutual protection.
The Atlantic Declaration, announced as the two men met in the White House, includes pledges to ease certain trade barriers, strengthen defense industry ties and strike a data protection deal in the face of China’s growing influence.
"The economic relationship between our two countries has never been stronger," Sunak said at a joint White House press conference Thursday. "The relationship is strong — it’s booming — but our agreement today focuses on the particular challenges and opportunities of the moment we’re in."
The two nations have vowed to immediately start negotiating an agreement to mitigate the impact of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which prevents nations without a U.S. trade deal from accessing the law’s tax credits and subsidies.
Sunak hailed “a new standard for economic cooperation” after abandoning the full-fat free trade agreement promised in the wake of Brexit, with U.K. officials lauding the new approach as a better response to the challenges posed by Beijing and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden has pledged to allow the U.K. access to critical minerals in a similar agreement to that struck by the U.S. with Japan, easing barriers which affected electric vehicle batteries.
The U.S. president signed the IRA into law last August in a bid to reduce the reliance of electric vehicle supply chains on China. The move sparked fears of a withdrawal of investment from car manufacturers in nations without a free trade agreement with the U.S.
But under the terms of the deal, which is yet to be finalized, U.K. electric car makers will be able to get half the $7,500 tax credits available to U.S. companies under the IRA.
“A fundamental change is taking place in terms of international trade," Biden said. "We found out during the pandemic that the reason why we couldn’t build automobiles was that the outfit that we got our semiconductors from in southeast Asia had shut down because of the pandemic. I decided that no longer would we rely on one center of support for any of the things that are needed for economic growth.
“I made it clear to our NATO allies and our partners as well that although we were going to generate, for example, semiconductor capacity here in the United States … that that was available to all of our allies, all of our friends."
Biden has committed to ask Congress to approve the U.K. as a “domestic source” under U.S. defense procurement laws, allowing for greater American investment in British firms.
Work will be carried out to improve the resilience of supply chains and efforts will be stepped up to shut Vladimir Putin’s Russia out of the global civil nuclear market.
The agreement will also include a push for mutual recognition of qualifications for engineers, although this could require state-by-state approval in the U.S.
A deal on data protection will ease burdens for small firms doing transatlantic trade, potentially saving £92 million.
The two nations will also collaborate on key industries — artificial intelligence, 5G and 6G telecoms, quantum computing, semiconductors and engineering biology.
The U.S. confirmed its support for British ambitions to act as a broker on international efforts to ensure the safe development of AI, starting with a summit to be hosted in the U.K. later this year.
​
BLOOM ENERGY, CUMMINGS & OTHER U.S, Manufacturers are ramping up domestic productions of END Products.

APRIL 2023 ~ Cummins welcomes Biden, touts $1B investment in US facilities as President Biden Visits Future Electrolyzer Manufacturing Facility on Investing in America Tour

Cummins welcomes Biden, touts $1B investment in US facilities Manufacturing Dive
Biden’s visit to the Cummins Power Generation plant in Fridley, Minnesota was part of the White House’s Investing in America tour.
The president noted in his remarks that the new facility allows Cummins to manufacture its hydrogen electrolyzers on U.S. soil. Cummins operates existing hydrogen electrolyzer manufacturing sites in China, Spain and Canada.
“These are the machines that make clean hydrogen, a renewable energy used to power our economy, from clean cars to trucks to steel to cement manufacturing,” Biden said. “But now, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act with the tax credits for renewable energy, Cummins is going to manufacture these electrolyzers here in America for the first time.”
Like other auto parts manufacturers, Cummins is utilizing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act to expand its manufacturing operations, Cummins President and CEO Jennifer Rumsey said in the release.
“The historic investments included in those pieces of legislation played a key role in our decision to manufacture products here in the U.S., creating more clean-tech jobs and positively impacting our communities,” Rumsey said in a statement.
In addition to the 100 jobs Cummins is hiring for at the renovated plant, the company will retrain the facility’s current 600 workers to produce the hydrogen electrolyzers, Biden said in his remarks.
The company also announced plans on Monday to invest $452 million toward upgrading its engine plant in Jamestown, New York, to produce fuel-agnostic, low-carbon internal combustion engine platforms for heavy-duty trucks. Cummins introduced the new engine platform in February 2022.

FORM YOUR OWN OPINIONS & CONCLUSIONS ABOVE!

(Please Scroll down to see earlier Reddit POSTS ON GREEN HYDROGEN & BLOOM ENERGY & ALL RELEVANT NIOCORP POSTS)
AS BLOOM ENERGY, CUMMINGS & OTHER U.S, Manufacturers are ramping up domestic productions of END Products. Bodes well for NIOCORPS CRIITICAL MINERALS IMHO!
GO TEAM NIOCORP!
https://preview.redd.it/crfr4qhqcz4b1.png?width=480&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea94d7cb3ee9db693ba18e2ba7241467e4162967
​
Waiting with many!
CHICO