Slashdot reader schwit1 shares this report from an automotive blog called The Truth About Cars: A group of German automakers, chemical concerns, and battery producers have announced the joint development of a "battery passport" designed to help government regulators trace the history of the cells. The consortium is funded by the German government and is supposed to work in tandem with new battery regulations that are being prepared by the European Union.

According to the German economic ministry, officially the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the overarching plan is for the EU to mandate traceable hardware be installed in all batteries used in the continent by 2026. Those intended for use in electric vehicles are up first, with the passport scheme also serving to chronicle everything from the vehicle's repair history to where the power cell's raw materials were sourced.
Reuters reports that batteries "could carry a QR code linking to an online database where EV owners, businesses or regulators could access information on the battery's composition." This digital tool should also make it easier to recycle raw materials inside batteries, the government statement said, which would cut dependence on foreign suppliers which control the vast majority of resources, like lithium and nickel, essential for battery production.

India has once again called upon Elon Musk to manufacture Tesla cars locally instead of selling China-made electric vehicles in the world's fourth-largest autos market as demand for clean transport surges. From a report: "If Elon Musk is ready to manufacture Tesla in India, then there is no problem," Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said at an event Tuesday. But manufacturing cars in China and selling them in India is not a "good proposition."

Discussions between Tesla and the Indian government have come to a standstill over import taxes and a local factory. The U.S. automaker is seeking lower levies in India so it can test the market by selling cheaper imported EVs before committing to a manufacturing base of its own. India will consider Tesla's demand for a reduction in taxes only if it promises to buy $500 million of auto parts from local suppliers and ramp up domestic sourcing by around 10% to 15% each year, people familiar with the matter said in February.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Magazine: European wind-energy companies have reportedly been targeted by hackers -- or been affected by cyberattacks on their suppliers -- since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. The Wall Street Journal reports that Nordex SE and Deutsche Windtechnik AG have both reported cyber incidents over the last few months. A third German company, Enercon GmbH, told the Journal it was "collateral damage" when Viasat was hacked at the start of the invasion.

The severity of the hacks varies. Nordex SE had to shut down its IT systems; Deutsche Windtechnik AG couldn't remotely control about 2,000 turbines for at least a day; and Enercon GmbH lost remote access to some 5,800 turbines because of the Viasat hack. The notorious Conti ransomware gang has reportedly claimed responsibility for the March hack of Nordex SE; the Journal says that security experts are currently investigating the possibility that it was involved with the April hack of Deutsche Windtechnik AG as well.

Russia is adapting to a world where it no longer has access to many technologies abroad with the development of a new supercomputer platform that can use foreign x86 processors such as Intel's in combination with the country's homegrown Elbrus processors. The Register reports: The new supercomputer reference system, dubbed "RSK Tornado," was developed on behalf of the Russian government by HPC system integrator RSC Group, according to an English translation of a Russian-language press release published March 30. RSC said it created RSK Tornado as a "unified interoperable" platform to "accelerate the pace of important substitution" for HPC systems, data processing centers and data storage systems in Russia. In other words, the HPC system architecture is meant to help Russia quickly adjust to the fact that major chip companies such as Intel, AMD and TSMC -- plus several other technology vendors, like Dell and Lenovo -- have suspended product shipments to the country as a result of sanctions by the US and other countries in reaction to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

RSK Tornado supports up to 104 servers in a rack, with the idea being to support foreign x86 processors (should they come available) as well as Russia's Elbrus processors, which debuted in 2015. The hope appears to be the ability for Russian developers to port HPC, AI and big data applications from x86 architectures to the Elbrus architecture, which, in theory, will make it easier for Russia to rely on its own supply chain and better cope with continued sanctions from abroad. RSK Tornado systems software is RSC proprietary and is currently used to orchestrate supercomputer resources at the Interdepartmental Supercomputer Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St Petersburg Polytechnic University and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. RSC claims to have also developed its own liquid-cooling system for supercomputers and data storage systems, the latter of which can use Elbrus CPUs too.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: Britain plans to build eight new nuclear reactors and expand production of wind energy as it seeks to reduce dependence on oil and natural gas from Russia and other foreign suppliers following the invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the plans Thursday as part of a new energy security strategy that will also accelerate development of solar power and hydrogen projects. The government said it wants to almost triple nuclear power generation capacity to 24 gigawatts by 2050.

"We're setting out bold plans to scale up and accelerate affordable, clean and secure energy made in Britain, for Britain, from new nuclear to offshore wind, in the decade ahead,'' Johnson said. "This will reduce our dependence on power sources exposed to volatile international prices we cannot control." The strategy comes after oil and natural gas prices soared following the invasion of Ukraine amid concerns that energy supplies from Russia could be curtailed. High energy prices are fueling a cost-of-living crisis in Britain, where household gas and electricity prices jumped 54% this month.

juul_advocate shares a report from iTWire: Apple's output of the iPhone SE will drop by a fifth in the coming quarter, indicating that the Russia-Ukraine conflict and fears of inflation have affected demand for the device, a report claims. The Nikkei Asia website reported that the company had been telling a number of suppliers that production orders for the next three months would be lower by about two or three million units. Orders for AirPods earphones were also down, by about 10 million units for the whole year, the website said, citing four unnamed individuals as sources. Apple announced the third-generation iPhone SE earlier this month at its "Peek Performance" event. It features the A15 Bionic chip, improved battery life, 5G connectivity, and a new camera system, among other things, for a starting price of $429.

Nvidia, one of the largest buyers of outsourced chip production, said it will explore using Intel as a possible manufacturer of its products, but said Intel's journey to becoming a foundry will be difficult. From a report: Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said he wants to diversify his company's suppliers as much as possible and will consider working with Intel. Nvidia currently uses Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung Electronics to build its products. "We're very open-minded to considering Intel," Huang said Wednesday in an online company event. "Foundry discussions take a long time. It's not just about desire. We're not buying milk here."

The New York Times reports that "After more than three weeks without being able to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, 64 workers were able to be rotated out, the plant said on Sunday." Staff at the plant, which includes more than 200 technical personnel and guards, had not been able to rotate shifts since February 23, a day before Russian forces took control of the site, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which serves as a nuclear watchdog for the United Nations. In a Facebook post, the plant said that to rotate the 64 workers, 46 volunteers were sent to the site to make sure operations at the plant could continue.

It was unclear whether the remaining workers would also have an opportunity to be rotated.

For weeks, the International Atomic Energy Agency, known as the I.A.E.A., has expressed concern for the workers at the Chernobyl site, calling for the staff to be rotated for their safety and security. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the I.A.E.A., said last week that he remained "gravely concerned about the extremely difficult circumstances for the Ukrainian staff there." The I.A.E.A. said on March 13 that workers were no longer doing repairs and maintenance, partly because of "physical and psychological fatigue...."

Workers at the site have faced a number of issues recently, including a power outage and limited communication. Ukrainian government officials said on March 9 that damage by Russian forces had "disconnected" the plant from outside electricity, leaving the site dependent on power from diesel generators and backup supplies. Power was restored a few days later, and the plant resumed normal operating conditions.
Earlier this month a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (from 1998 to 2007) argued in the Wall Street Journal that "An unappreciated motive for Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that Kyiv was positioning itself to break from its longtime Russian nuclear suppliers, as the U.S. was encroaching on Russia's largest nuclear export market...."

"The project was intended to allow Ukraine to store this fuel safely without shipping it back to Russia for reprocessing. The processing and storage facility was completed in 2020, and Holtec and SSE Chernobyl were loading the canisters to be stored when the war began on February 24..." By taking over Chernobyl, Russia gives itself control of the disposal of its spent fuel, which it can store in canisters at the site or ship to a reprocessing facility in Russia. Either way, this represents hundreds of millions of dollars for Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear enterprise....

The timing is telling. In November 2021, Ukraine's leaders signed a deal with Westinghouse to start construction on what they hoped would be at least five nuclear units — the first tranche of a program that could more than double the number of plants in the country, with a potential total value approaching $100 billion. Ukraine clearly intended that Russia receive none of that business.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Time: Pfizer said it would no longer start new clinical trials in Russia and that it would donate all profits from its subsidiary in the country to Ukraine relief causes. At the same time, the drugmaker said in a statement that it will continue to supply medicines to Russia, out of fear that vulnerable patients such as children and elderly people who rely on its therapies could be harmed by any halt. The company "concluded that a voluntary pause in the flow of our medicines to Russia would be in direct violation of our foundational principle of putting patients first," according to the statement. Pfizer said it doesn't own or operate any manufacturing sites in Russia and plans to cease planned investments with local suppliers. Pfizer said it would work with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other regulators to move current clinical trials to alternative locations outside of Russia. Patients already enrolled in studies will continue to receive medications, the company said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Foxconn, the biggest assembler of Apple iPhones, is in talks with Saudi Arabia about jointly building a $9 billion multipurpose facility (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) that could make microchips, electric-vehicle components and other electronics like displays, according to people familiar with the matter. The Saudi government is reviewing an offer from the company, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., to build a dual-line foundry for surface-mount technology and wafer fabrication in Neom, a tech-focused city-state the kingdom is developing in the desert, the people said. Discussions over the project started last year, they said. The Saudis are conducting due diligence and benchmarking the offer against others that Foxconn has made for similar projects globally, one of the people said. Besides Saudi Arabia, Foxconn is also talking with the United Arab Emirates about potentially siting the project there, one of the people said.

The Taiwan-based company has looked to diversify its manufacturing sites amid rising tensions between China and the U.S. that put it in a potentially vulnerable spot. Riyadh wants the company to guarantee that it would direct at least two-thirds of the foundry's production into Foxconn's existing supply chain, one of the people said, to ensure there are buyers for its products and the project is ultimately profitable. Foxconn is seeking large incentives including financing, tax holidays and subsidies for power and water in exchange for helping set up a high-tech manufacturing sector in the kingdom, the people said, as Saudi Arabia seeks to diversify its economy away from oil. The Saudis could offer direct equity co-investment, industrial development loans, low-interest debt from local banks and export credits to compete with other jurisdictions that Foxconn might consider, said another person familiar with the talks.

Ukraine's two leading suppliers of neon, which produce about half the world's supply of the key ingredient for making chips, have halted their operations as Moscow has sharpened its attack on the country, threatening to raise prices and aggravate the semiconductor shortage. CNN Business reports: Some 45%-54% of the world's semiconductor grade neon, critical for the lasers used to make chips, comes from two Ukrainian companies, Ingas and Cryoin, according to Reuters calculations based on figures from the companies and market research firm Techcet. Global neon consumption for chip production reached about 540 metric tons last year, Techcet estimates. Both firms have shuttered their operations, according to company representatives contacted by Reuters, as Russian troops have escalated their attacks on cities throughout Ukraine, killing civilians and destroying key infrastructure. The stoppage casts a cloud over the worldwide output of chips, already in short supply after the coronavirus pandemic drove up demand for cell phones, laptops and later cars, forcing some firms to scale back production.

Amazon has continued to work with companies in China accused of using forced labor despite public warnings about their work practices, according to a report published Monday by a nonprofit watchdog group. NBC News reports: The report from the Tech Transparency Project, a research group that is run by the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability and is often critical of large tech companies, found that Amazon's public list of suppliers includes five companies previously linked by journalists and think tank researchers to "labor transfer" programs in China. The suppliers help produce Amazon-branded devices and products sold under house labels like Amazon Basics. The report also warned that some of Amazon's third-party sellers may be offering products made using labor from the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, such as cotton imports that are already the subject of U.S. sanctions.

The Tech Transparency Project identified three Amazon suppliers that have been linked to forced labor in China directly: Luxshare Precision Industry, AcBel Polytech and Lens Technology. It's not clear what specific Amazon items they may be responsible for producing. According to its public supplier list, Amazon works with two subsidiaries of Luxshare: Dongguan Luxshare Precision Industry and Shenzhen Luxshare Electro Acoustic Technology. Chinese government documents reported by The Information in May showed Luxshare Precision Industry, an electronics manufacturer, had allegedly accepted "as many as hundreds of Xinjiang laborers" between 2017 and 2020. Lens Technology, a company known for producing glass screens for laptops and smartphones, has accepted thousands of Uyghur workers in recent years, according to Chinese government documents first reported by The Washington Post. After receiving negative attention about its labor practices, the company reportedly began phasing out Uyghur workers from its factories. [...] The Tech Transparency Project identified two additional Amazon suppliers -- GoerTek and Hefei BOE Optoelectronics -- that were themselves accused of working with companies that have allegedly used forced labor. Neither supplier responded to requests for comment.

The Tech Transparency Project researchers also found that Amazon continued listing two subsidiaries of the textiles manufacturer Esquel on its supplier list over a year after another subsidiary was sanctioned by the Department of Commerce for allegedly using forced labor. The U.S. government placed sanctions on Changji Esquel Textile in July 2020. But the other subsidiaries remained on Amazon's website until as recently as December 2021, according to the Tech Transparency Project. [...] The Tech Transparency Project also found evidence of Xinjiang labor on Amazon's third-party marketplace. The Tech Transparency Project said the findings raise "questions about Amazon's monitoring of such sellers."

In mid-February, hackers gained access to computers belonging to current and former employees at nearly two dozen major natural gas suppliers and exporters, including Chevron, Cheniere Energy and Kinder Morgan, according to research shared exclusively with Bloomberg News. From the report: The attacks targeted companies involved with the production of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and they were the first stage in an effort to infiltrate an increasingly critical sector of the energy industry, according to Gene Yoo, chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based Resecurity, which discovered the operation. They occurred on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when energy markets were already roiled by tight supplies.

Resecurity's investigation began last month when the firm's researchers spotted a small number of hackers, including one linked to a wave of attacks in 2018 against European organizations that Microsoft attributed to Strontium, the company's nickname for a hacking group associated with Russia's GRU military intelligence service. The hackers were looking to pay top dollar on the dark web for access to personal computers belonging to workers at large natural gas companies in the U.S., which were used as a back door into company networks, Yoo said. The researchers located the hackers' servers and found a vulnerability in the software, which allowed them to obtain files from the machines and see what the attackers had already done, Yoo said.

It is the dominant American maker of smartphones, a household name to billions and for many makers of high-tech parts their most important customer ever. Just don't ask who it is. WSJ: In Asia, it's surreptitiously referred to as "the fruit company" or sometimes "Fuji," referring to the variety of the specific fruit in question that's cultivated in Japan. Other descriptors include "the three-trillion-dollar company" -- which slightly overstates its market value -- "the honored North American customer" and simply "the big A." In a January securities filing, O-Film Group, a Chinese maker of smartphone camera modules said it estimated a loss of up to $426 million in 2021. One reason was lost business with "a certain customer beyond these borders." Which customer? An O-Film spokesperson didn't respond to the question.

In contrast to Lord Voldemort of the Harry Potter series, the Client Who Must Not Be Named doesn't cast deadly spells or converse with serpents. Its powers, nonetheless, are fearsome. It can award -- or take away -- contracts for electronic parts and services worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That is why suppliers' public presentations and even private conversations hardly ever include the name of the company they're discussing, for fear of offending someone or accidentally revealing competitive information. The reluctance to spell out the remaining four letters beyond "A" is more than just custom. A 2014 court filing related to a former supplier's bankruptcy gave details about its confidentiality agreement with the customer. The supplier, GT Advanced Technologies, promised to pay $50 million for each breach of secrecy, according to the filing. The agreement defined breaches to include not just the usual trade secrets but also the very existence of the relationship.

At an earnings call in June 2020 by chip maker Broadcom, an analyst mentioned, without naming names, that "growth in Q3 from a seasonal perspective" might be lacking. He asked for "some more color around how we should think about the wireless expected recovery into Q4." Broadcom Chief Executive Hock E. Tan immediately knew what was up. He said he understood what the analyst was implying: Broadcom was indeed designing chips for "those big flagship phones" made by "our large North American OEM phone maker." He confirmed the delay in the OEM's products.

Washington is expected to lean on major Chinese companies from Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp to Lenovo to join U.S.-led sanctions against Russia, aiming to cripple the country's ability to buy key technologies and components. From a report: China is Russia's biggest supplier of electronics, accounting for a third of its semiconductor imports and more than half of its computers and smartphones. Beijing has opposed the increasingly severe measures that the U.S. has taken to restrict Russia's trade and economy in response to its invasion of Ukraine, however U.S. officials expect tech suppliers such as SMIC to uphold the new rules and curtail trade of sensitive technology with American origin, especially as it relates to Russia's defense sector. Any items produced with certain U.S. inputs, including American software and designs, are subject to the ban, even if they are made overseas, a U.S. official told Bloomberg News on Monday. Companies that attempt to evade these new controls would face the prospect of themselves being cut off from U.S.-origin technology and corporate executives risk going to jail for violations.

The U.S. is far behind its global rivals in the race for energy supremacy in a low-carbon world. To catch up, it is pinning its hopes on companies such as Ion Storage Systems, a next-generation battery company started in a University of Maryland chemistry lab with a $574,275 federal grant. WSJ: At a new factory outside of Washington, D.C., Ion Storage will be among the first companies in the U.S. to produce a new kind of faster-charging, longer-lasting battery. The company's batteries also don't catch fire; combustibility is a problem that has bedeviled the industry's batteries for years. The U.S. government and private investors have poured cash into battery startups hoping to catch up to the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean companies that dominate battery manufacturing. The goal is to leapfrog their rivals with better technology.

There is an urgency for U.S. battery makers to get products to market because big customers such as auto makers are lining up long-term suppliers. If there are no U.S. options, the buyers will go abroad. "This is our last chance to get it right" in the U.S., said Ricky Hanna, Ion Storage's chief executive and the former executive director of battery operations at Apple. [...] The company is one of several startups focusing on solid-state lithium-ion batteries. These batteries differ from most lithium-ion batteries today because the electrolyte that conducts a charge between cathode and anode is solid, rather than a flammable liquid. That allows faster charging, less risk of fire and longer battery life. Ion Storage scientists demonstrate their batteries' durability by cutting them open with scissors or putting them before an open flame.

schwit1 shares a report from Politico: Starship is threatening NASA's moon contractors, which are watching its progress with a mix of awe and horror. "They are shitting the bed," said a top Washington space lobbyist who works for SpaceX's competitors and asked for anonymity to avoid upsetting his clients. NASA and its major industry partners are simultaneously scrambling to complete their own moon vehicles: the Space Launch System mega-rocket and companion Orion capsule. But the program is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule -- and, many would argue, generations behind SpaceX in innovation.

The space agency's first three Artemis moon missions over the next three years -- including a human landing planned for 2025 -- are all set to travel aboard the SLS rocket and Orion capsule, which are being built by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne and numerous other suppliers and engineering services firms. But with the SLS' first flight this year further delayed at least until late spring, concerns are growing that even if it succeeds, the system, at an estimated $2 billion per launch, could prove too costly for the multiple journeys to the moon that NASA will need to build a permanent human presence on the lunar surface.

That makes Starship, which conducted a successful flight to the edge of space last year, especially threatening to the contractors and their allies in Congress. As Starship progresses, it will further eclipse the argument for sticking with SLS, according to Rand Simberg, an aerospace engineer and space consultant. "Once the new system's reliability is demonstrated with a large number of flights, which could happen in a matter of months, it will obsolesce all existing launch systems," he said. "If SLS is not going to fly more than once every couple of years, it's just not going to be a significant player in the future in space, particularly when Starship is flown," he added.

104-year-old Panasonic got its highest-emitting Chinese factory, which makes lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride batteries, to "virtually net zero" carbon dioxide. The effort took six years, and as the WSJ reports, it shows just how difficult it can be for companies to reduce their environmental footprints to deal with climate change. From the report: The Japanese electronics giant has pledged to eliminate or offset all of the greenhouse-gas emissions generated by its operations by 2030. But even tackling that one factory, which produces batteries in the city of Wuxi, near Shanghai, was tough, company officials say. Panasonic incrementally trimmed its energy consumption through measures such as replacing workers with robots and fluorescent lights with LEDs. When that wasn't enough, it bought carbon credits and renewable energy, finally letting it declare it had neutralized the plant's emissions last year.

[...] Panasonic, one of the biggest corporate carbon emitters in the world according to estimates by the company and outside experts, is just getting started. It has to repeat its Wuxi feat 37 times over to neutralize the roughly 2.2 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions associated with the company's operations. And those emissions are just 2% of the 110 million metric tons Panasonic estimates it is responsible for, when its suppliers and the use of its products are included. While the company has a 2030 goal for emissions from its direct operations, it has given itself until 2050 to deal with its entire carbon footprint -- an amount five times the size of Apple's, and roughly equivalent to half of Spain's annual emissions.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Seattle Times: Amazon is shutting down its "Sold by Amazon" program after an investigation from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson found it was anticompetitive and violated antitrust laws. The company engaged in unlawful price fixing and unreasonably restrained competition in order to maximize its own profits, according to the lawsuit and consent decree filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court. As a result of the investigation, Amazon will shut down the program nationwide and pay $2.25 million to the attorney general's office, as well as provide annual updates on its compliance with antitrust laws. The funds will go toward antitrust enforcement.

The program ran from 2018 to 2020, when Amazon suspended it for reasons unrelated to the investigation, according to a spokesperson for the company. It was a small program offering another tool to businesses, the spokesperson said, and did not include all of the third-party sellers on the e-commerce platform. Through the program, third-party sellers entered into an agreement with Amazon that set a minimum payment rate for products sold on the platform, according to the lawsuit. If the sales exceeded the agreed upon minimum, Amazon would take a cut of the additional revenue. A spokesperson for Amazon said the company believes the program was legal and good for consumers. Amazon acted as the retailer and purchased products from suppliers to fill a customer order, ensuring low prices for consumers. But, Ferguson's investigation concluded, the program boosted Amazon's sales and ensured it didn't have to compete with third-party sellers. "Consumers lose when corporate giants like Amazon fix prices to increase their profits," Ferguson said Wednesday. "Today's action promotes product innovation and consumer choice, and makes the market more competitive for sellers in Washington state and across the country."

Boom Supersonic, which is developing ultra-fast airplanes it believes will lead to the return of commercial supersonic flights, has picked Greensboro, N.C., to build and test those planes. CNBC reports: The Greensboro-based plant, which is expected to employ 1,250 workers by the end of the decade, is the latest example of a new aviation manufacturing facility being built in the region. In the last 11 years, Boeing and Airbus have established new final assembly plants in North Charleston, S.C., and Mobile, Ala., respectively. "This is the right choice for us and we couldn't be more excited," Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic told CNBC. "Greensboro brings a significant, local skilled labor population and there are more than two hundred aerospace suppliers in the state. Many will be key suppliers for The Overture."

The Overture is Boom's first commercial supersonic plane. The company plans to start building the plane in 2024, with the first one rolling off the line in 2025 and the initial test flight set for 2026. If all goes as planned, Boom's inaugural supersonic jet would enter commercial service by 2029. While Boom is based in Denver and will continue designing aircraft at its headquarters, it chose Greensboro, in part, because of its short distance from the Atlantic coast. "The proximity to the ocean is an important factor," Scholl said. "The vast majority of our flight tests will be over the water, where the plane can speed up so there is not a sonic boom over populated areas." Boom says the Overture will fly at a top speed of Mach 1.7, or about 1,300 mph, allowing it to shave hours off of some of the longest international flights.