Recognition…Rory Doyle for the New York Times
The American economy is set to accelerate nearly twice as fast this year as expected, as President Biden’s expected passage of $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package coupled with a swift introduction of vaccines will trigger a strong rebound from the pandemic, said the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Tuesday with.
However, countries stumbling at the pace of their vaccination campaigns, especially those in Europe, are at risk of falling behind in global recovery as governments are not forced to push back the spread of the virus in order to return to normal lives, the said Organization.
In its half-year outlook, the organization said the United States would expand 6.5 percent this year, a sharp increase from the 3.2 percent forecast in December. The upswing in the world’s largest economy will generate enough momentum to increase global production by 5.6 percent from 3.4 percent in 2020.
China, which contained the virus earlier than other countries, remains a big global winner with forecast growth of 7.8 percent.
Although a global recovery is in sight, government spending to boost their economies will have limited impact unless authorities accelerate national vaccine rollouts and ease virus containment measures, the report added. When vaccination programs aren’t fast enough to reduce infection rates, or when new varieties become more prevalent and vaccine changes are required, consumer spending and business confidence will be hurt.
“Vaccine-free stimuli are not as effective because consumers don’t do normal things,” said Laurence Boone, chief economist at the OECD, in an online press conference. “It’s the combination of health and financial policy that matters.”
This is particularly true in Europe, and particularly Germany and France, where a mix of poor public health management and slow vaccination programs is weighing on the recovery despite billions in government support. Such spending “will not be fully effective until the economy reopens,” said Ms. Boone.
The euro area economy is expected to grow 3.9 percent this year, slightly more than forecast in December, but more slowly than the US. In the UK, which accelerated a national vaccination rollout late last year, economic growth is expected to be 5.1 percent, compared with a forecast of 4.2 percent.
India’s economy is expected to grow 12.6 percent after falling 7.4 percent in 2020, the organization added.
Recognition…Winnie Au for the New York Times
Julie Creswell reports for The New York Times.
“The transit was one of those places that hasn’t changed in decades,” said Ellie Doty, Burger King’s North American marketing director. “But with Covid we are seeing the dramatic acceleration of the directions in which we have already gone.”
Applebee’s is testing its first drive through in Texarkana, Texas. Shake Shack is experimenting with a number of new designs and plans, including walk-in windows and curbside pickups.
More and more restaurants are trying to encourage customers to use ordering apps that improve the accuracy of orders. They are also trying to figure out how the drive-through or pick-up process can best expedite consumers.
Some restaurants, such as McDonald’s and Burger King, add multiple thoroughfares. Burger King is running three-lane tests in the US, Brazil and Spain. In the USA and Spain, the third lane is “Express” for pre-orders via the app. In Brazil, the lane brings the deliverers to a pick-up area with food cupboards or shelves.
Burger King would like to use an artificial intelligence system similar to Big Brother, Deep Flame, to advance its passages into the future.
Currently, roughly half of Burger King’s passages with digital menu boards use Deep Flame’s technology to suggest foods that are particularly popular in the area that day. External factors such as the weather are also used to highlight elements such as an iced coffee on a hot day.
Burger King is testing Bluetooth technology that can identify customers in the Burger King loyalty program and view their previous orders. If a customer ordered a small sprite and a whopper of cheese hold the pickles, the last three visits, Deep Flame calculates that the chances are high the customer will want the same order again.
Recognition…Gregor Schmatz for the New York Times
Much attention is being paid to carbon sequestration in order to meet the goals of the 2016 Paris Agreement. The idea sounds deceptively simple: divert pollutants before they can escape into the air and bury them deep in the ground where they cannot cause harm.
But the technology has proven enormously expensive and not catching on as quickly as some proponents had hoped, reports Stanley Reed for the New York Times.
Oil giant BP is running a project in England to collect emissions by pipeline from a group of chemical plants in northeast England and send them to a reservoir deep under the North Sea. BP hopes it can grow to a sufficient scale to build a profitable business.
BP and its partners are proposing to build a very large natural gas power plant near a closed steel mill at the mouth of the river. The facility would help replace the UK’s aging fossil fuel power plants and provide essential backup power when the country’s growing fleet of offshore wind farms is pacified. The equipment would remove the carbon dioxide from the power plant’s exhaust gases.
Pipes running through the area would pull together more carbon dioxide from a fertilizer plant and a factory to make hydrogen, which is becoming increasingly popular as a low-carbon fuel. BP also expects to connect other plants in the region. Pipes would bring the carbon dioxide out 90 miles below the North Sea, where it would be pumped into porous rocks beneath the ocean floor.
Four other oil giants – Royal Dutch Shell, Equinor from Norway, Total from France and Eni from Italy – are also investors in the plan, although final approval awaits a financial commitment from the UK government. The initial stage price could approach $ 5 billion.
