Archive for March, 2009

Ethanol Makers Vs. California Law Makers – A volatile mix in the making

March 21, 2009 at 12:23 pm
(Source:  CNN’s SciTechBlog)
Some ethanol producers are unhappy with California’s proposed low carbon fuel standards.
California wants to take a big-picture look at decreasing carbon emissions from transportation, and in doing so, it has managed to step on some toes, mainly some ethanol producers. Since California is often a trend-setter on these type of things, this case could be a good example of what the rest of us might see in our own states down the road.

Biofuels play a big role in this, but it’s the way they’re doing it that has some people riled up. I’m a biofuel fan myself and have two vehicles (both 25-year-old-plus diesels, one of which was featured on CNN.com’s American Road Tripsspecial) that I run on biodiesel, so I find this all quite interesting.

California’s proposing a “Low Carbon-Fuel Standard” aimed at decreasing carbon, not only from tailpipe emissions but also from the overall production of fuels and their use. As part of this, it has proposed a rule limiting the use of ethanol in the strategy, mainly because it says ethanol from corn (because of its land use and impact on food crops) can have a higher impact than regular gasoline produced in the state (according to the Los Angeles Times).

Supporters of the proposal claim they aren’t trying to ban ethanol or anything; in fact, according to the fact sheet I linked to above, they’re advocating going from an ethanol blend fuel called E5 (5 percent ethanol, 95 percent gasoline) to E10 (10 percent ethanol, 90 percent gasoline) and E85 (85 percent ethanol) for flex fuel vehicles.

Click here to read the entire post. 

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How much will you pay for parking if you car is half the size of a regular car? Smart fortwo owners get half-price parking in 350 NYC parking garages

March 20, 2009 at 7:35 pm

(Source:  Autobloggreen)

Click above for a high-res gallery of the smart fortwo
Question: Should you only pay half the price for a parking spot if your car only takes up half as much room as other vehicles? According to Central Parking System, Inc., which owns more than 350 parking garages in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and New Jersey, the answer is yes. CPS has partnered up with smart USA to offer drivers of the fortwo half-price parking in all of its garages.
Click here to read more. 
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Starbucks coffee – $1.75; Cost of not having a cup while on duty – a Nuclear catastrophe! Two U.S. Navy vessels collide in Strait of Hormuz

March 20, 2009 at 7:13 pm

Source: Los Angeles Times;  Photo Via : U.S. Navy handout / EPA)

USS New Orleans and USS Hartford collide in Strait of Hormuz

 Pics: Photos released by the U.S. Navy show the New Orleans, left, participating in a training exercise in the Pacific Ocean November 2008 and the Hartford moored off the U.S. Naval Academy in Chesapeake Bay March 1999.
The nuclear-powered submarine Hartford and the amphibious transport dock New Orleans were heading into the Persian Gulf at the time. Fifteen sailors are slightly injured.

A nuclear-powered Navy submarine collided with another U.S. warship in the narrow Strait of Hormuz early today in what officials are calling the first incident of its kind in the Persian Gulf.
At least 15 sailors aboard the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered submarine Hartford were slightly injured when it collided with the amphibious transport dock New Orleans, the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet announced.  The Navy said the Hartford’s nuclear propulsion plant was undamaged. But the collision ruptured the New Orleans’ fuel tank and caused the spillage of 25,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
Defense officials in Washington said there appeared to be serious damage to the upper part of the sub, called the sail. Initial assessments indicated it could be repaired. The extent of damage to the other vessel was less clear.

Click here to read the entire article.

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Mars Institute to drive HUMMER-based rover through Northwest Passage

March 20, 2009 at 6:56 pm

(Source: Autobloggreen; Scientific American)

It might seem a bit paradoxical to drive a HUMMER for 1,200 miles across the thin ice of the Northwest Passage with the goal of investigating climate change in the arctic circle, but that’s exactly what a crew from the Mars Institute is planning to do. The team will be charting the thickness of the ice as it moves at about 12 miles per hour over the surface, but the information gathered during the trek will really just be a bonus. The team’s first priority will be to see how the HUMMER-based rover fares in these harsh conditions. At some point, the Mars Institute hopes that this data will prove useful in helping NASA design human-toting vehicles that will be able to traverse the surface of Mars.
The Scientific American reports :  The trip using a modified armored Humvee vehicle will provide comprehensive data about the thickness of winter ice in the waterway through Canada’s high Arctic, said Pascal Lee, chairman of Mars Institute and leader of the expedition.  (Above Image on Right:  An ice-free Northwest Passage seen in this handout satellite photo from NASA taken in Sept. 2007. Photograph courtesy: Vancouver Sun via Terra Satellite/NASA, Reuters)

The scientists also hope to learn more about what happens to the microbes left behind by humans as they explore remote areas, amid concerns from some scientists about the detrimental impact of such journeys in space.

Click here to read the entire Autoblog article.

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Too lazy to press a button at the crosswalk? Say hello to Crosswalk 2.0!!!

March 20, 2009 at 5:51 pm

(Source: Tree Hugger & Streetfilms)

You Don’t Even Have to Press a Button…
You’d think that cosswalk technology would be pretty static. How can you improve a crosswalk? Sure you can put blinking lights and signs on each side of the road, but there’s so much visual pollution in cities that these wouldn’t change much. Well, there’s a way! This crosswalk in Seattle takes crosswalks to the next level. Crosswalk 2.0, if you want. Check out the video above by our friends at Streetfilms.  

How does it work:  The folks at Streetflilms explained it in their post:   “As you enter the crosswalk make sure you touch the yellow rectangle on the sidewalk. This activates the lights that line the crosswalk. Drivers stop and it should be safe to begin your adventure: you’ll feel a bit like an airplane coming in for a landing. Frankly, it’s very empowering and a lot of fun! ”  Here is the video of the crosswalk, courtesy of our friends @ Streetfilms.

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Booking your air tickets? Now, TSA wants to know your birth date and gender!

March 20, 2009 at 4:43 pm

(Source: Yahoo Travel;  Photo Coutesy: TSA)

 TSA Adds a New Twist to Passenger Screening

Just when you thought you had the Transportation Security Administration rules all figured out, here comes a new procedure. Starting sometime in the next few months, you’ll have to provide your birth date and gender whenever you buy an airplane ticket. The TSA is giving the airlines some time to change their websites and retrain their phone-reservations agents to be able to implement the agency’s new Secure Flight program. Expect the changes on domestic flights by this summer.

The change is supposed to help reduce the number of Americans who are misidentified as individuals on the agency’s no-fly and “selectee-for-further-inspection” watch lists. Up until now, airlines have done the work of vetting their passenger manifests for suspect names, but under the new program, the TSA assumes the job of monitoring watch lists full-time and implements “a uniform, efficient matching process.”

In a related move, the TSA is bringing back “gate checks,” the practice of pulling aside passengers for searches while they wait at airport gates to board planes even after they have already passed through security checkpoints!

Click here to read the entire article. 

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Airline fare wars treat fliers to ‘ridiculously low’ prices

March 20, 2009 at 3:17 pm

(Source: USA Today)

Air travelers stand to be the beneficiaries of “ridiculously low” airfares as fare wars break out among U.S. airlines desperate to fill seats amid sagging demand. Even those hoping to travel during the peak-period summer months stand to benefit, according to the Los Angeles Times. The paper writes that “fares for summer trips are often among the highest of the year and start rising in the spring, but not this year. With business travel plummeting, airlines are pulling back and offering some of the lowest-priced plane tickets in recent memory.”

Those fare wars got a boost yesterday with the latest salvo fired by Southwest, which announced a new nationwide fare sale that covers travel for almost all of the busy summer travel period. “This is a whopper of an airfare sale,” Tom Parsons, CEO of air travel website Bestfares.com, tells the Times. “They are doing everything they can to make you fly.” The sale caps fares on most days at $99 each way and unusually broad — “a very good deal,” according to fare-tracking site AirFareWatchdog.

The Boston Globe writes “the move nearly immediately rippled through the industry on competing routes.” Indeed, the Times notes “major airlines including American, United and Delta matched the fares on most of the routes flown by Southwest.” As for the latest round of fare sales, the Airline Biz blog at The Dallas Morning News calls the current discounts “pretty meaty.” Airline Biz author Eric Torbenson adds that “one thing is abundantly clear: Demand is dropping a lot more than airlines guessed when they built their schedules last year because despite taking 10% to 15% of their capacity out of the system, bookings are pretty awful.”

Click here to read the entire article.

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Are women good at driving? Not according to this video..

March 20, 2009 at 3:07 pm

To kick start the weekend in a nice way, here is a crazy, funny & very biased (depending on who is looking at this) compilation of some shocking videos that involve our women drivers.   Is this the reason why women are not allowed to drive in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?  Can someone tell me how these women drivers on the video managed to survive on the roads and lived to make such a great contribution for the making of this video?  Also, I am now looking for a similar version featuring male drivers for comparision purposes.  Any insights into finding such a priceless gem will be really appreciated. 

 

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U.S.Transportation Secretary’s Latest Blog — High-speed rail: an engine of growth

March 20, 2009 at 2:07 pm

(Source: Fast Lane, The offical blog of the U.S. Sec. of Transportation)

March 19, 2009

I’ve been focused this week on talking about livable cities, but I don’t want anyone to think we’re ignoring inter-city travel.

If you read any news at all about transportation in the past 6 weeks, you know about the $8 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act investment we’re making in high-speed rail (HSR). I’ve been hearing from many enthusiastic rail advocates, and news outlets across the country have been writing editorials championing HSR. More importantly, there is a growing list of states and cities that want to get working on this right away.

Let me remind anyone who doesn’t already know it that I’m from Peoria, Illinois. So, when I consider rail, my first thoughts are of the old Rock Island Rocket that ran to Chicago in my youth. That train, with its GM Electro-Motive engine and its legendary speed, dominated the imaginations of me and my friends.

People rode the Rocket because of the convenience and efficiency it offered. And, with the ARRA high-speed rail investment, President Obama and I want to develop a 21st century equivalent of that efficiency and convenience.

Click here to read the entire post.

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President Obama Announces $2.4 Billion in Funding to Support Next Generation Electric Vehicles

March 20, 2009 at 1:40 pm

(Source: U.S. Department of Energy; Photo Courtesy: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty via Autoblog)

DOE Support for Advanced Battery Manufacturing and Electric Vehicle Deployment to Create Tens of Thousands of U.S. Jobs

On March 19th, President Barack Obama announced the availability of $2.4 billion in funding to put American ingenuity and America’s manufacturers to work producing next generation Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles and the advanced battery components that will make these vehicles run. The initiative will create tens of thousands of U.S. jobs and help us end our addiction to foreign oil. Americans who decide to purchase these Plug-in Hybrid vehicles can claim a tax credit of up to $7,500.

“This investment will not only reduce our dependence on foreign oil, it will put Americans back to work,” President Obama said. “It positions American manufacturers on the cutting edge of innovation and solving our energy challenges.”

While visiting Southern California Edison’s Electric Vehicle Center, the President announced the following:

  • The Department of Energy is offering up to $1.5 billion in grants to U.S. based manufacturers to produce these highly efficient batteries and their components.
  • The Department of Energy is offering up to $500 million in grants to U.S. based manufacturers to produce other components needed for electric vehicles, such as electric motors and other components.
  • The Department of Energy is offering up to $400 million to demonstrate and evaluate Plug-In Hybrids and other electric infrastructure concepts — like truck stop charging station, electric rail, and training for technicians to build and repair electric vehicles.

 

Click here to read the entire DOE press release. Or, Click here to read the President’s remarks.  Shown below is Part I of the video from the event, courstey of  You Tube (Part I & Part II).

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