Argentina is an interesting microcosm of the more widespread war that every other currency is waging against the dollar - in this case, the yuan is taking on the dollar in gladiatorial combat.
The Argentinian economy, like many, is fully permeated by the American dollar, but it has its own official currency, the Argentinian peso. This may not be for long: one of the major contenders for the Argentinian presidency has proposed replacing the national currency of Argentina with the dollar, which would therefore mean that an even more substantial part of the economy would be decided, with no input from Argentina, thousands of miles away. This is not unprecedented - Ecuador already does this, as does Zimbabwe, Timor-Leste, Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. The motivation for doing so may also be convincing to Argentinian voters, as the country has faced hyperinflation, ever-increasing benchmark interest rates, and chronic shortages of dollar reserves.
However, the yuan has entered the scene, particularly over the last couple months. The Economy Minister met with Chinese officials in early June to sign a co-operation plan to promote the Belt and Road Initiative. Commercial banks can now open deposit accounts in yuan, and securities can now be issued in the yuan. The Western media, as one might expect, emphasizes how utterly desperate Argentina must be to go to the yuan - the yuan! - to sort out its economic crisis.
Whirlpool Corp, a major American appliances company, has said that it is considering paying with the yuan to import parts for a new factory in Argentina. Over 500 Argentine companies making a plethora of products have requested to pay for imports in yuan.
The share of yuan transactions in Argentina's foreign currency market hit a daily record of 28% in late June, compared to a high of 5% in May.
And last week, Argentina opted to use the yuan to settle part of its debt with the IMF for the first time, and it will be interesting to see if other countries follow their example.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
The first update this week is here in the comments.
The second update this week is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the warzone.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist (but still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Another big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia's army.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
The push for hydrogen is a scam by the fossil fuel industry, specifically the ones involved in natural gas (which is mostly methane). Most hydrogen is actually made using a process called methane steam reforming. You create very high-temperate steam - often using methane-fueled boilers because the overall process involves transporting methane anyway - to crack methane into carbon and hydrogen atoms. The process also cracks a lot of the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then you collect the hydrogen and sell it.
The problem is that the leftover carbon and oxygen atoms like to get together and party and create carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. "Grey hydrogen" is an industry term that means the leftover CO and CO2 are just vented directly into the atmosphere (this is almost all of it). "Blue hydrogen" is when the producers claim to try to store it before it can be vented. But there's nothing remotely like industry or legislative standards for this. Only stored away half the leftovers? Well that's "blue" hydrogen according to the fossil fuel propaganda.
The hydrogen economy is about keeping the world dependent on fossil fuels. The electrolysis (so-called "green hydrogen") tech-demos are just greenwashing to say to the public "hey, hydrogen is clean! go buy a hydrogen car and book a ticket on a hydrogen train!"
Ironically one of the greenest fuels is synthetic methane using the Sabatier process. You take CO2 that's already in the atmosphere and water, add electricity and a catalyst, and you get oxygen and methane. The process does lose energy overall of course. No getting around the laws of physics. But methane is much easier and safer to transport and store than hydrogen for use in places where powerlines aren't practical or where you need a backup power supply. And it comes with the bonus of higher energy density.
Does this also apply to methanol or are there downsides to methanol synthesis? I know some shipping companies are experimenting with methanol as a green fuel. I've also heard ammonia being touted as another alternative green fuel, are you familiar with that at all? These seem like much more realistic alternatives to hydrogen, curious if you had any thoughts.
I'm not a chemist, just an ex-oil-and-gas-industry guy which is why I know about the greenwashing of hydrogen from natural gas by fossil fuel companies. But I would think that any synthetic fuel that derives as many inputs from the atmosphere as possible (especially carbon), can be stored long-term without leaking, doesn't lose too much energy in the production process, and has a reasonable energy density would be a fine alternative to fossil fuels.
One of methane's biggest advantages as a synthetic fuel is that there's already massive worker experience and infrastructure in much of the world to transport, store, and use mostly-methane liquified and gaseous natural gas.