Latest news with #TimBuckley
BBC News
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
CATL: World's biggest EV battery maker sees shares jump on debut
The world's largest electric vehicle (EV) battery maker has made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in the biggest initial public offering (IPO) so far this year. China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Limited (CATL) produces more than a third of all EV batteries sold worldwide and supplies major carmakers including Tesla, Volkswagen and company raised almost HK$35.7bn ( $4.55bn, £3.4bn) from the listing. Its shares jumped by more than 10% at the market open. In January, the US Department of Defense added the battery maker to a list of businesses it says works with China's military. CATL denies this, claiming its inclusion on the list was a "mistake". The company is already listed on China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange, where it has a valuation of more than 1tn yuan ($138.7bn, £104.3bn). Founded in 2011 in the eastern Chinese city of Ningde, it enjoyed rapid growth thanks to the boom in the country's EV industry. The battery giant employs over 100,000 people and has 13 production plants around the world. CATL is currently building its second European factory in Hungary, after opening a plant in Germany in early 2023. In December, the firm announced a tie-up with Chrysler-owner Stellantis to build a $4.3bn (£3.2bn) EV battery plant in Spain. The facility is set to be in operation by the end of next firm invests heavily in new technology, with six research and development centres around the world. "The innovations that we're seeing from CATL are unbelievable, particularly in the fast charging area", said Tim Buckley founder of the independent Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance. Last month, the company unveiled a new battery that it said can be charged for 323 miles (520km) in just five minutes. CATL is a major supplier to Elon Musk's Tesla, providing lithium iron phosphate batteries for the EV makers Shanghai factory. But US lawmakers have expressed concerns about potential national security risks surrounding the Chinese company. In April, the chair of the House Select Committee on China wrote letters to the chief executives of JPMorgan and Bank of America, asking them to withdraw from working on CATL's Hong Kong listing. Despite scepticism about Chinese firms from Washington, Mr Buckley says the US should be looking to work with Beijing on the advancement of renewable energy."They're rejecting by far the best technology players in the world when it comes to clean tech", he told the BBC.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
East Texas onion season looking good as harvest begins
MT. SELMAN, Texas (KETK) – After a late start to planting due to a cold wet winter, Noonday onions are ready for picking and the season is looking up. Buckley Farms brings attention to East Texas with sought after onions 'Had a few hard rains on them, but they are actually doing real good this year, looks like it's probably going to be a bumper crop,' Buckley Farms owner, Tim Buckley said. Last year, Buckley Farms in Mt. Selman and The Farmer's Garden in Winona saw a plentiful crop, but the onions were on the small side. 'I think we're going to do a little better this year. Last year we had a lot of the smaller ones, and I think we'll have more big ones this year,' The Farmer's Garden owner Bethany Reynolds said. The good weather this spring got everything back on track. 'We had one cold spell on them after we set them out, and it kind of set them back a little bit, but other than that, we've the weather has really cooperated with us,' Buckley said. A little sunshine wouldn't hurt their crops now though. 'Actually, going to need it to be a little bit hot and dry for a few days so we can get them harvested. What we do is we go through and pull them and just lay them on the ground to finish drying in the sun, so we'll need some hot, dry days coming up very soon,' Reynolds said. Lake Striker Boat Race returns to Reklaw this weekend After years of ups and downs due to weather, Buckley Farms said a good crop is a blessing. 'You hate to tie up a bunch of money, people don't realize how much money you put in a crop, and you expect to get something out of it. You know? And when you have a failure, you've lost, and it looks like this is going to be a pretty good crop this year,' Buckley said. Both farmers are looking forward to beginning harvest in the next few weeks. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Reuters
25-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
NCAA reaches deal with sportsbooks for data, logos
April 25 - The NCAA is set to forge a partnership with sportsbooks after an agreement was reached to supply data from its championship events through Genius Sports, multiple outlets reported Friday. Because the NCAA is not in charge of the College Football Playoff, the biggest impact from the new deal will come with information supplied through the men's and women's basketball tournaments. The agreement, which runs through 2032, does not include regular-season games. In addition, the agreement allows sportsbooks to access official NCAA-affiliated logos. While the NCAA has tried to keep its distance from the growing sports betting industry, the partnership with Genius Sports puts it more in line with professional sports leagues that have working relationships with the industry. With online harassment of student athletes on the rise, NCAA president Charlie Baker spoke at a Senate hearing about the impact of sports betting and college athletics in December. The NCAA's chief concern is with betting options tied to an individual player. Genius Sports will now supply sportsbooks with official game data, through an authorized gaming license, while "limiting risky bet types," and "safeguarding student-athletes," are listed as primary goals of the London-based company. "NCAA data will only be available to sportsbooks if they remove risky bets from their platforms and agree to fully cooperate with NCAA investigations and provide key information including geolocation data and device records," NCAA senior vice president of external affairs Tim Buckley said in a statement, according to ESPN. "The NCAA retains the right to terminate any sportsbook data license if integrity protections are violated -- ensuring real accountability." NCAA member schools will continue to get live game statistics for free through NCAA LiveStats, ESPN reported. --Field Level Media
New York Times
25-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
NCAA pushes for college player prop bet bans with new Genius Sports data licensing agreement
As part of its ongoing push to ban player-based prop bets in college sports, the NCAA announced Friday the renewal of an agreement with Genius Sports that will require bookmakers to drop wagering on individual performances if they want access to real-time statistics from March Madness and other championship events. Advertisement Genius Sports is a company that sells data to sportsbooks. The deal extends through the 2031-32 NCAA championships. The NCAA's current agreement with Genius covers the development and support of live stats by the company and licensing the data to third parties, but prohibits licensing to sportsbooks. The new deal lifts that prohibition. Financial terms of the new deal with Genius were not disclosed, but by allowing the data to be sold to sportsbooks, the agreement could increase revenue to the NCAA. The NCAA and Genius would share fees paid by sportsbooks for the data. Sportsbooks can still access publicly available data and statistics from NCAA events without buying them from Genius, but using licensed data — as is often the case with professional sports leagues — is considered preferable for accuracy, in-game, online betting, and integrity monitoring. NCAA President Charlie Baker has been lobbying federal and state lawmakers for more than a year to ban prop bets — short for proposition — based on individual player performance in college sports. Gambling watchdogs warn prop bets can be more easily manipulated than team-based game results. Four states — Ohio, Vermont, Louisiana and Maryland — have agreed to remove college prop bets from their sportsbooks since the NCAA's push. 'NCAA data will only be available to sportsbooks if they remove risky bets from their platforms and agree to fully cooperate with NCAA investigations and provide key information, including geolocation data and device records,' Tim Buckley, the NCAA's senior vice president for external affairs, said about the agreement with Genius. 'The NCAA retains the right to terminate any sportsbook data license if integrity protections are violated — ensuring real accountability.' The NCAA says having sportsbooks use licensed data will not only improve integrity monitoring but also surveillance for online harassment of athletes by bettors. Genius has similar partnerships with the NFL, WNBA, English Premier League and Major League Baseball. Advertisement The NCAA has carefully tried to navigate the boom in sports betting since a Supreme Court ruling in 2018 cleared the way for states to make it legal. Thirty-eight states currently permit gambling on sporting events. The NCAA still prohibits athletes and individuals who are affiliated with athletic departments from sports wagering, though it has dialed back some potential penalties for those caught betting on events outside of their sports or their schools. Athletes and others who bet on events they are involved in or are found to have impacted the integrity of competition still face permanent loss of eligibility or bans from working in college sports. In the most recent high-profile case of game-fixing, former NBA player Jontay Porter pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy after federal investigators found he made a deal with gamblers to guarantee he would not reach the points, rebounds and assist thresholds set for him by a casino in certain games by faking injuries. The FBI investigations have so far led to charges for six people — four of them have already pleaded guilty — and have extended into college basketball. The Athletic previously reported that five small, mid-major Division I schools are being investigated by the federal government for possible ties to the scheme that snagged Porter. Alarms were raised when unnatural betting action moved the line on a Temple-UAB conference tournament game in March 2024; federal law enforcement is looking at whether the same group of bettors can be tied to unusual line movement on other college basketball teams this season as well. The NCAA has not publicly commented on its inquiries into potential integrity issues related to the federal investigation, but Temple acknowledged last year it is cooperating with the association. Advertisement NCAA officials have said there has been a sharp increase in investigations related to potential gambling infractions as legalized, app-based gambling has become more prevalent. Most cases involve college athletes and those who work in athletic departments placing bets and not potential game-fixing. The NCAA also prohibits advertising and sponsorship deals associated with betting. The NCAA says increased revenue generated by the deal with Genius will fund educational programs directed at young people about the potential harms of sports betting and its efforts to monitor and mitigate harassment of athletes, coaches and officials. The NCAA says online harassment of athletes has soared since the legalization of gambling. A study published last year found a third of college athletes received abusive messages from someone with a betting interest; 80% of the abuse was directed at March Madness men's and women's basketball players, with women's basketball student-athletes receiving approximately three times more threats than their male counterparts. — Mike Vorkunov contributed to this report.
Perth Now
22-04-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Nuclear power could take the shine off Aussie aluminium
Australia's position as the world's sixth-largest aluminium producer could be put at risk by a shift to nuclear power due to higher energy prices and lower generation. Three out of Australia's four aluminium smelters would be "at severe risk of closure" under the change in energy policy which could affect thousands of jobs, a study warns. A group of more than 70 organisations under the banner of Renew Australia for All released the report on Tuesday, analysing modelling conducted by Frontier Economics for the coalition. The federal opposition has pledged to develop seven nuclear power plants in five states if it wins government, which its modelling indicated could cost 44 per cent less than Labor's renewable energy plan. But an examination of that modelling, conducted by Springmount Advisory, found it assumed industrial energy use would drop by 15 per cent in 2028 and 50 per cent by 2035, leaving little energy to power aluminium smelters. Australia produces aluminium at facilities in Tomago in NSW, Gladstone in Queensland, Portland in Victoria, and Bell Bay in Tasmania. While the Tasmanian plant relies on hydro-electricity, the other three smelters use electricity from coal-fired power stations, with the Queensland plant's agreement due to expire in 2029 and the NSW plant's contract ending in 2028. The gap between these contracts and the arrival of nuclear energy could be many years, the study found. Findings from the CSIRO's GenCost report indicated nuclear energy could cost significantly more than aluminium producers could absorb. The four aluminium smelters employed 7594 people directly, the report found, in addition to another 5886 people indirectly. The loss of on-shore aluminium production and jobs could hit the local economy hard at a time of global uncertainty, Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O'Neil said. "This new analysis has confirmed the real price of this policy - that nuclear power is not just expensive, but it puts at risk a critical industry and the well-paid jobs of thousands of Australians," she said. "It is reckless and dangerous to put such a critical industry at risk to pursue an expensive nuclear pipe dream." Climate Energy Finance founder Tim Buckley said adopting nuclear power would also force Australian industries to rely on coal-powered electricity and gas for longer and could undermine existing investments in renewable energy projects. "This will further erode our manufacturing sector's competitiveness," he said. The coalition policy has claimed small nuclear power plants could be operating by 2035, and Australia's first large reactor could be working by 2037. The policy has faced strong opposition in recent days, with Christian and Muslim leaders protesting against nuclear policies in Brisbane on Tuesday, and an open letter against nuclear power issued on Sunday by a group of 60 economists. Coalition campaign spokesman James Paterson said claims about its nuclear policy, including cost estimates exceeding $600 billion, were "dishonest" and misleading. "We think our nuclear plan is a better plan, but there's no question Labor is running a scare campaign on that," he said.
