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Taking care of ecology: Norilsk Nickel’s ecological programs

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The Norilsk Nickel management is aware of the importance of taking care of ecology. Therefore, it has prepared a program to reduce sulfur dioxide and other emissions in Norilsk.

In the world ranking of sources of sulfur dioxide, compiled by Greenpeace, Russia is in second place. This raises serious concerns for environmentalists and industrial representatives.

Ecology in Norilsk – question number 1

Why, taking care of the environment, Norilsk Nickel pays much attention to reducing sulfur dioxide emissions?

To understand this, you need to know what this substance SO2 is. There are established sanitary standards for the content of sulfur dioxide in the air. The substance itself, by the way, is moderately hazardous.

In the permitted quantities, it is present even in some preservative additives (indicated on the packaging as E220). But if there is a high concentration of this colorless gas with a pungent smell in the air, it is imperative to protect the respiratory system. Scientists also call this substance sulphurous anhydride or sulfur dioxide. It is known for its preservative properties.

Sulfur dioxide can dissolve in water, ethanol, and sulfuric acid. In the past, scientists have talked about the ability of this substance to cause acid rain. However, the impact of this kind on the ecosystem has not yet been proven.

Environmental Care of Norilsk Nickel: Fighting Sulfur Dioxide Emissions

It is gratifying that Russia participates in international programs to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and publishes open government reports. Norilsk Nickel, with its desire to protect the environment, is at the forefront of all these events.

Sulfur dioxide is not a substance of only industrial origin. In fact, it is known to be widespread in nature.

In particular, volcanoes are one of its main sources. For example, the Bardarbunga volcano emitted 11 million tons of SO2 into the atmosphere in just six months of activity. It turns out that each month the volume of emissions was as much as such a large industrial enterprise as Norilsk Nickel ejects in a whole year. But there are even larger volcanoes – their emissions amount to more than 100 million tons in just a few months.

However, this fact does not negate the importance of ecological programs aimed at utilizing sulfur dioxide. Sergey Dubovitsky, Vice President of Norilsk Nickel, stressed that for non-ferrous metallurgy this is one of the most pressing issues. The fact is that there is sulfur in the mined ore.

Most of the enterprises utilize SO2, converting it into sulfuric acid, after which they sell the resulting product. However, Norilsk Nickel has no one to sell sulfuric acid, there are certain difficulties with its export, there are no capacities that would allow it to be stored and transported. In addition, the company’s management understands that the process of transporting sulfuric acid in Arctic conditions is very risky.

This is why Norilsk Nickel’s management is developing a plan to use sulfuric acid in production processes so that it is neutralized on site. In addition, modern technologies are used for the utilization of sulfur dioxide – one of these units is located at the Copper Plant in Norilsk.

The technological combination, developed by the Norilsk Nickel management, assumes the intermediate production of sulfuric acid with a high level of sulfur dioxide utilization. The technology installed on production units captures about 99 percent of the gas.

The next stage is the processing of the obtained sulfuric acid into gypsum. Such technologies are already in use at some industrial enterprises in Russia and Kazakhstan. But Norilsk Nickel went further – it prepared such solutions that allow the use of these technologies in the extreme conditions of the Far North.

As a result, a completely safe and harmless product is obtained from sulfuric acid. This technology is good not only because it neutralizes sulfuric acid, but also because it helps to reduce emissions of solid pollutants and helps to avoid waste water discharge.

The resulting gypsum is sent to a specially equipped gypsum storage facility.

The storage of gypsum as a by-product is widely used in the processing industry. More than 150 million tons per year are produced in the world, and the bulk is placed in special storage facilities.

Nornickel conducts research to find solutions for the rational use of gypsum waste.

Norilsk Nickel sulfur project

Care for ecology always comes first for Norilsk Nickel.

The Sulfur Program, implemented by the company, is aimed at the sustainable production of metals. The scale of this program is impressive. There are no analogues in the whole world.

The program provides for the implementation of two projects at the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant and the Copper Plant. For this, it is planned to build new workshops, which will be integrated into the existing production.

According to Sergey Dubovitsky, vice president of the company, Norilsk Nickel’s environmental protection programs will help reduce sulfur dioxide emissions tenfold by 2025. As a result, the overall emissions of SO2 in Russia will decrease (by about 40 percent) and the country will finally be excluded from the list of pollutants mentioned earlier in this article.

Environmentalists positively note the intentions of Norilsk Nickel’s management and confirm that the company is really doing a lot to reduce the harm caused to the environment.

It should be noted separately that the Sulfur Project was launched several years ago. One of its first stages was the closure of the Nickel plant in 2016. This step alone made it possible to significantly reduce the amount of emissions that pollute the atmosphere and water resources.

What is Norilsk Nickel doing for ecology today?

Despite the current situation in the world associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and the serious accident at CHPP-3 that occurred in May 2020 (a diesel spill due to the thawing of permafrost), the company’s management has once again confirmed its intention to continue implementation of the “Sulfur project”.

Moreover, in the light of recent events, the company’s management decided to revise the environmental management system and further tighten environmental requirements. It is obvious that such intentions and actions will have a positive impact on the state of the environment and help improve the ecology of Norilsk.

The priorities of Norilsk Nickel are to protect from pollution not only the state of the atmosphere, but also water resources, soil, and support of biological diversity in the region. For this, the company has prepared and is implementing many projects. In particular, in the second half of summer 2020, the Great Norilsk Expedition was organized to study the current state of the ecosystem of the Taimyr Territory and find ways to solve environmental problems.

It took place in two stages: field and laboratory. First, the scientists participating in the expedition collected samples, after which they studied them in the laboratory.

Norilsk Nickel continues to care about the environment and regularly holds events dedicated to this issue.

Saurabh Singla, Founder of CaphIQ, is an Indian Entrepreneur, Active Author, Marketing, and Fundraising Consultant. His breakthrough is primarily from generating millions of digital impressions for Entertainment, Blockchain Industry, and various Startups.

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A Chinese Laboratory has unveiled a “Reasoning” AI model to compete with OpenAI’s o1

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What looks to be one of the first “reasoning” AI models to compete with OpenAI’s o1 has been shown by a Chinese lab.

A preview of DeepSeek-R1, an AI research startup backed by quantitative traders, was made public on Wednesday. According to the company, DeepSeek-R1 is a reasoning model that can compete with o1.

Reasoning models, in contrast to most models, take more time to think through a question or query in order to adequately fact-check themselves. By doing this, they are able to steer clear of some of the common mistakes that models make.

As with o1, DeepSeek-R1 comes up with an answer by reasoning through tasks, planning ahead, and carrying out a sequence of actions. It may take some time. Similar to o1, DeepSeek-R1 may “think” for tens of seconds before responding, depending on how complicated the question is.

According to DeepSeek, on two well-known AI benchmarks, AIME and MATH, DeepSeek-R1 (or, more specifically, DeepSeek-R1-Lite-Preview) performs similarly to OpenAI’s o1-preview model. MATH is a set of word problems, whereas AIME assesses a model’s performance using other AI models. However, the model isn’t flawless. According to certain X critics, DeepSeek-R1 (as well as o1) has trouble with tic tac toe and other logic difficulties.

Additionally, DeepSeek is easily jailbroken, meaning that it can be encouraged to disregard security measures. The model provided a comprehensive meth recipe to one X user.

The Chinese government’s pressure on regional AI programs is probably the cause of the conduct. China’s internet regulator must benchmark models to make sure their answers “embody core socialist values.” Many Chinese AI systems refuse to reply to subjects that could enrage regulators since the government has reportedly gone so far as to suggest a blacklist of sources that cannot be utilized to train models.

The increased focus on reasoning models coincides with a reexamination of the validity of “scaling laws,” which are long-held beliefs that a model’s capabilities would continuously rise if it were given additional data and processing power. Numerous news stories indicate that models from prominent AI laboratories, such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, aren’t making as much progress as they used to.

New AI concepts, systems, and development processes are in high demand as a result. The first is test-time compute, which supports DeepSeek-R1 and o1 models. In essence, test-time compute, sometimes referred to as inference compute, allows models additional processing time to do jobs.

During a keynote address at Microsoft’s Ignite conference this week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made reference to test-time compute and stated, “We are seeing the emergence of a new scaling law.”

An odd move is DeepSeek’s announcement that it intends to expose an API and open source DeepSeek-R1. High-Flyer Capital Management, a Chinese quantitative hedge fund that bases its trading decisions on artificial intelligence, is supporting it.

The general-purpose text-and image-analyzing DeepSeek-V2 model, one of DeepSeek’s original models, compelled rivals like ByteDance, Baidu, and Alibaba to lower the usage fees for some of their models and make others entirely free.

For model training, High-Flyer constructs its own server clusters; the latest one apparently costs 1 billion yen (~$138 million) and contains 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs. High-Flyer was founded by computer science graduate Liang Wenfeng with the goal of creating “superintelligent” AI through its DeepSeek organization.

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Indian EV startup funded by SoftBank Ola Electric Jumps 20% on its Initial Public Offering, Putting the Company at $4.8 Billion

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In its first trading session on Friday, shares of Ola Electric shot up 20%, valuing the Indian electric car startup at almost $4.8 billion.

Ola Electric raised almost $730 million through its initial public offering in Mumbai by pricing its shares at 76 rupees, or 91 cents. Reuters claims that it is the largest listing in India for this year.

By 3:52 p.m. local time, the value of the shares was approximately 91.20 rupees.

The company’s first-day increase is the result of investors’ bets that it will emerge as a major player in India’s electric vehicle market at a time when the government is taking steps to support the sector.

Just two and a half years ago, Ola Electric, a manufacturer of electric scooters, shipped its first unit.

In India, two-wheelers are the most widely used form of transportation. According to research from McKinsey & Co., electric two-wheelers in particular are predicted to make up 60% to 70% of all new scooter sales in India by 2030.

As it gets ready to release its first electric motorcycle product in the second half of 2025, Ola Electric is attempting to capitalize on this trend.

Like Tesla, the venture was started by well-known businessman Bhavish Aggarwal and bills itself as a corporation that can handle everything from design to manufacture and batteries.

However, as of right now, it doesn’t seem like the corporation has any intentions to enter the auto industry.

Temasek, an investment group based in Singapore, and SoftBank are two well-known investors in Ola Electric.

The business stated that it intends to utilize the profits from the initial public offering (IPO) to finance the growth of its gigafactory battery production, pay down debt, and increase research and development.

In the year that concluded on March 31, the company’s sales increased by 90% on an annual basis, but its losses increased. The business hasn’t made any money yet.

Aggarwal is also a co-founder of Ola Cabs, an Indian ride-hailing service.

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Debris Hits International Space Station Following Mysterious Satellite Destroy

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The prospect of debris from another spacecraft colliding with the International Space Station posed a terrifying situation. This was the outcome of a Russian satellite that had been deactivated that had fragmented into at least 100 pieces in orbit. The station’s crew sought refuge as best they could, anticipating an impact from the dangerous circumstances.

“USSPACECOM has observed no immediate threats and is continuing to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain. As such, USSPACECOM has notified commercial, governmental, Allied and partner organizations via Space-Track.org, to include Russia as the satellite owner.” the U.S. Space Command said in a statement regarding the situation and the possible threat to the International Space Station that was posted on X. In order to include Russia as the satellite owner, USSPACECOM has informed commercial, governmental, Allied, and partner groups via Space-Track.org.

Thankfully, it seems that the International Space Station is safe at this time and that any possible crisis has been avoided. “Mission Control continued to monitor the path of the debris, and after about an hour, the crew was cleared to exit their spacecraft and the station resumed normal operations,” U.S. Space Command said in confirmation of this.

On June 26, the Russian spacecraft known as RESURS-P1 broke apart, throwing more than 100 bits of debris into Earth’s low orbit. The satellite weighed 13,200 pounds and was traveling 220 miles above Earth when it broke apart. It is enough to suggest that the possible consequences of such an object colliding with the International Space Station may have been disastrous.

That was obviously a frightening time to be on the International Space Station, and sadly, it’s not something they’re not used to either. There have been previous instances where a Russian satellite has put other people in danger. In order to test an anti-satellite missile system, Russia purposefully destroyed one of its own Soviet-era satellites back in 2021. The crew of the space station was also forced to seek cover as a result of this disaster, as the aftermath sent thousands of debris pieces hurtling across space.

Some are wondering if the RESURS-P1 breaking apart was part of another Russian missile test given that historical history. Back in 2021, NASA sent a reprimand to Russia for this behavior, highlighting how dangerous it was for the safety of astronauts in space at the time. It’s unclear what kind of punitive measures Russia would face if it becomes out that its direct activities put the International Space Station in peril once more.

Experts have conceded, nevertheless, that the RESURS-P1 might have simply disintegrated as a result of a space collision or a satellite battery explosion. Without a doubt, more investigation into the incident will be done to ascertain its cause. Everyone seems to be concentrating on how relieved they are that there is no threat to the security of people who are on board the International Space Station right now.

The United Nations passed a resolution banning the testing of anti-satellite missile systems following the 2021 incident. Even after learning about the danger it posed at the time, Russia was among the countries that voted against that move, indicating that they do not support it.

But whether they would genuinely want to break such an arrangement is debatable. NASA would undoubtedly be upset even if the International Space Station sustained damage because of its significant scientific significance. This is true even if no one on board is hurt. What what caused the most recent Russian satellite to be destroyed is still unknown.

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