BREST, France // Sailboats bob gently on the waves in this calm harbour in Brittany, sheltered from the Atlantic's rough waters by a lip of land.
Alternative energy:
Marine moves Britanny's innovations mirror effort in Abu Dhabi. Learn More
For centuries, Brest has exploited this location, blessed by a naturally protected port close to the high seas. Fishermen dock here. Tourists summer here. The navy's nuclear submarines are based here, and every year, crude oil, iron scrap and 180,000 tonnes of frozen chicken pass through.
Brest hopes to add a category to the port's list of activities - electricity production by underwater turbines, called hydroliennes by the French, driven by ocean currents.
The city aims in the next five years to complete a €150 million (Dh779.5m) extension to the port for factories, assembly sites and specialised barges that will cost US$500,000 (Dh1.8m) a day to rent. The only catch is that for now these improvements, as least as Brest imagines them, exist mostly on paper.
"It's as if you were a company entering aeronautics 20 years before the rest," says Jean-Jacques Lenormand, the deputy director of Brittany's ports. "It's an investment of the future."
An hydrolienne is like an underwater windmill - a turbine on the sea floor that harnesses the force of tidal currents to produce electricity. Marine turbines have been installed in the waters of Ireland, Canada and New York City, but so far their numbers and size have been small. Brittany plans to submerge the world's biggest array of hydroliennes by next year, with a maximum overall capacity of 8 megawatts, and the port extension is a bet that this form of renewable energy will become as popular as wind energy.
Mr Lenormand describes his port as locked in an idealistic struggle - not with the windmills but with other nations vying for hydrolienne supremacy.
"You have five countries who are fighting in this battle - US, Canada, the UK, Norway and France," says Mr Lenormand, who up until three weeks ago was a business developer at France's biggest hydrolienne maker, the naval contractor DCNS.
"The priority will go to the one who can first get the commercial aspects of the market … We have to build prototypes before arriving at a certain level of commercial rationality, to be ready to take parts of the market in 2020 or 2025."
The port is in talks with DCNS and three other producers of renewable-energy equipment - old-school wind turbines are also on Brest's wish list - to set up factories and research centres on the port extension.
Brest is promising renewable energy developers a 30 per cent discount on leases, although 13 of the 38 hectares of the extension are still available to more traditional industries.
It is also hawking the vessels that have been tailored to carry the heavy foundations for wind turbines and windmills, as well as the ready-made market of Brittany's planned offshore wind and underwater turbine farms.
The first of those installations began this month, when developers submerged an hydrolienne off the coast of northern Brittany. The span of its blades is 16 metres. Once all four turbines planned for installation are in place next year, the array should produce enough electricity for 4,000 homes, according to OpenHydro, the Irish company that designed the turbines.
State-owned DCNS has bought an 8 per cent stake in OpenHydro and makes the turbines, while the utility EDF Energies Nouvelles, also state-owned, will take the power into its grid.
The French investments are driven in part by a desire to add alternative energy sources in a nation that derives about 80 per cent of its power from nuclear plants, the highest ratio in the world.
The abundance of nuclear power, which is also relatively cheap, also makes it difficult for more expensive renewable technologies to compete, says Yann-Hervé De Roeck, a project manager at Ifremer - the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea.
Mr De Roeck's work includes applying for grants and other support from the government for the technologies Ifremer researches, including electricity production by forcing freshwater into saltwater, and wave turbines that work at the surface.
His work and that of an estimated 1,200 researchers in Brest, along with the planned port extension, are all part of Brittany's master plan to make renewable energy from the sea a mainstay of the economy. But Mr De Roeck acknowledges there could be opposition to overcome.
"There are people who own holiday homes who don't want to look for the green flash on the horizon and see a wind turbine," he says.
ayee@thenational.ae
SPECS
Engine: Two-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 235hp
Torque: 350Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Price: From Dh167,500 ($45,000)
On sale: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Disclaimer
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company%20Profile
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Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
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The specs: 2019 GMC Yukon Denali
Price, base: Dh306,500
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Power: 420hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque: 621Nm @ 4,100rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 12.9L / 100km
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Company%20Profile
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Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
ARGYLLE
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Friday's schedule at the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
GP3 qualifying, 10:15am
Formula 2, practice 11:30am
Formula 1, first practice, 1pm
GP3 qualifying session, 3.10pm
Formula 1 second practice, 5pm
Formula 2 qualifying, 7pm
Liz%20Truss
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From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
The specs
Engine: 2-litre 4-cylinder and 3.6-litre 6-cylinder
Power: 220 and 280 horsepower
Torque: 350 and 360Nm
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Price: from Dh136,521 VAT and Dh166,464 VAT
On sale: now
Zombieland: Double Tap
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Stars: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone
Four out of five stars
AIDA%20RETURNS
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SPECS
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SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
On sale: Now
Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
Honeymoonish
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FROM%20THE%20ASHES
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
The years Ramadan fell in May
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
If you go
The flights Etihad (www.etihad.com) and Spice Jet (www.spicejet.com) fly direct from Abu Dhabi and Dubai to Pune respectively from Dh1,000 return including taxes. Pune airport is 90 minutes away by road.
The hotels A stay at Atmantan Wellness Resort (www.atmantan.com) costs from Rs24,000 (Dh1,235) per night, including taxes, consultations, meals and a treatment package.
Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairy Tale
Starring: Nayanthara, Vignesh Shivan, Radhika Sarathkumar, Nagarjuna Akkineni
Director: Amith Krishnan
Rating: 3.5/5
RESULTS
Lightweight (female)
Sara El Bakkali bt Anisha Kadka
Bantamweight
Mohammed Adil Al Debi bt Moaz Abdelgawad
Welterweight
Amir Boureslan bt Mahmoud Zanouny
Featherweight
Mohammed Al Katheeri bt Abrorbek Madaminbekov
Super featherweight
Ibrahem Bilal bt Emad Arafa
Middleweight
Ahmed Abdolaziz bt Imad Essassi
Bantamweight (female)
Ilham Bourakkadi bt Milena Martinou
Welterweight
Mohamed Mardi bt Noureddine El Agouti
Middleweight
Nabil Ouach bt Ymad Atrous
Welterweight
Nouredine Samir bt Marlon Ribeiro
Super welterweight
Brad Stanton bt Mohamed El Boukhari
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
