Thursday newspaper round-up: Fertiliser shortages, speed limits, Elon Musk

(Sharecast News) - Fertiliser shortages caused by the Iran war have driven up costs for UK farmers by up to 70% and will have a "dramatic" impact on food prices globally next year, according to one of Britain's most powerful property and farming companies. Mark Preston, executive trustee of the 349-year-old Grosvenor Group, controlled by the Duke of Westminster, said fertiliser "was already quite expensive" before the 50% to 70% surge in prices since the start of the Iran war in late February. - Guardian

Britain should lower speed limits for drivers as part of a package of measures to reduce the impact of the Iran war on consumers, a thinktank has said. Capping legal speeds at 20mph in towns and cities and 60mph on motorways would help reduce fuel demand and combat soaring oil prices triggered by conflict, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). - Guardian

Elon Musk's SpaceX is poised to spend $120bn (£88bn) building what he claims will be the world's largest AI chip factory. The rocket company has filed notice to begin construction of a semiconductor and advanced computing facility in Texas, putting the billionaire in direct competition with established chipmakers in Asia. - Telegraph

Norway has confirmed plans to revive three gas fields containing enough supplies to heat millions of homes. The reactivation project will lead to mothballed North Sea fields being reopened for the first time in three decades, as Norway races to meet growing demand from Germany and the UK. The new supplies will increase exports to the UK at a time when its own oil and gas output is plummeting by about 15pc a year. - Telegraph

Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, thinks the first one-person $1 billion company will be built by the end of the year as entrepreneurs use artificial intelligence tools to automate functions from marketing to data analysis. The artificial intelligence start-up co-founder said that AI tools meant there was "an enormous ability for one person or a tiny set of people to do a set of things that are incredible", whereas previously it would take years to build up the resources required to develop a business idea. - The Times