Tag Archives: highway

When it comes to efficiency, U.S. military soldiers on

Saving private ryan’s energy usage

When it comes to efficiency, U.S. military soldiers on

By on 22 Jan 2015commentsShare

It may come as no surprise to you that the Department of Defense is the biggest energy consumer in the United States: In 2013, its energy bill hit $18.9 billion. That’s a big part of why the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy are tackling energy efficiency. (As Grist’s David Roberts has reported, the military has tactical as well as financial reasons for reassessing its consumption of fossil fuels.)

More surprising is how the military is doing it: not just switching to greener, more efficient technologies, but also by trying to shift the habits, routines, and practices of individual service members. Often, it’s the little things — say, leaving vehicles idling, or using more propellers and engines than are needed — that add up to staggering costs for both the military and the climate.

As the Washington Post’s Chris Mooney reports, tapping into psychology and the behavioral sciences is one of the “hottest trends in academic energy research.” And the changes the military is working on have big implications for civilians, too:

Pentagon-sized energy gains could be reaped just by tweaking little behaviors. For instance, here are some published estimates of possible energy savings from behavioral changes. These shouldn’t be taken as exact, but rather as ballpark figures:

A roughly 1 percent overall U.S. household energy savings could be gained if people switched their washing machines from “hot wash, warm rinse” to “warm wash, cold rinse.”
2.8 percent gain could come from setting the thermostat at 68 degrees during the day and 65 degrees overnight.
Another 2 percent could be gained by driving cars at 60 miles per hour, rather than 70, on the highway.

Indeed, one 2009 study suggested that American households — which account for around 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions — could achieve a 20 percent emissions reduction by changing which household appliances and objects they use, and how they use them. That’s greater than the total emissions of the country of France.

Of course, this is not a new idea — that if we just changed our behavior, we could slash our emissions — and yet, as David Roberts has pointed out time and again, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

But now, there’s a lot more research out there emphasizing the idea that basic financial arguments around energy efficiency don’t take into account the basic psychological ones. Among the hardest to shake, for both organizations and individuals: the sheer, inexorable power of habit.

Kudos to the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy for at least looking into this stuff. It’d just be oh so great if we could also see a few more attempts toward behavioral and psychological changes in other government-sponsored entities … *cough* climate deniers in the GOP Senate *coughcough*.

Source:
The next energy revolution won’t be in wind or solar. It will be in our brains.

, Washington Post.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

View original – 

When it comes to efficiency, U.S. military soldiers on

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, Landmark, LG, ONA, solar, Thermos, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on When it comes to efficiency, U.S. military soldiers on

Could the GOP-controlled Congress actually raise the gas tax?

Could the GOP-controlled Congress actually raise the gas tax?

By on 6 Jan 2015commentsShare

Thanks to low gasoline prices, the average American family is expected to spend at least $550 less on gasoline this year than in 2014. Meanwhile, our country’s transportation infrastructure is crumbling after years of underfunding. Why not use some of Americans’ savings on gas to make repairs to the roads they’re using that cheap gas to drive on?

That’s the idea behind raising the federal gas tax, a concept being cautiously floated by a few politicians of both parties and a number of advocacy groups on the left and right. America hasn’t raised it since 1993, when it was set at 18.4 cents a gallon and not pegged to inflation. The tax is supposed to fund the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, but it isn’t bringing in enough money, so general treasury funds have been used to partially plug the hole while tens of billions of dollars of needed maintenance work has gone undone. Right now, infrastructure is funded through a short-term fix, implemented last summer, which expires in May.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) is proposing to increase the tax by 12 cents a gallon over two years, and then index it to inflation. The tax hike would be offset by a decrease in income taxes, or some other means to make the change “revenue-neutral.” Sen. Jim Thune (R-S.D.) told Fox News Sunday that he’s open to at least considering the idea: “I don’t favor increasing any tax. But I think we have to look at all options. … It is important that we fund infrastructure.”

Many business-friendly groups, like the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce, favor a gas-tax increase to pay for infrastructure. The Chamber’s Janet Kavinoky told The New York Times that many in Congress are closeted supporters of the tax, but fear retribution if they come out and support the policy publicly.

As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it last month, raising the gas tax would be “a hard political choice” but “a win for the climate, our country and our kids.” There’s increasing talk about raising gas taxes at the state level too.

The president isn’t anxious to raise the federal gas tax, though, as USA Today reports:

The White House is declining to endorse calls for gas tax hikes to pay for new road and bridge construction, but will look at anything Congress approves.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the administration wants to stick with its original plan to finance new infrastructure spending with revenue to be gained by closing tax loopholes that favor the wealthy.

And some politicians on the right continue to vehemently oppose a gas-tax hike, whether it’s offset or not. They say it would be fine to let the Highway Trust Fund go bankrupt, arguing that infrastructure maintenance should be left up to state and local governments, not the feds.

So a gas-tax increase might be more likely now than it was a few months ago, but not a lot more likely.

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.

Get stories like this in your inbox

AdvertisementAdvertisement

Read more: 

Could the GOP-controlled Congress actually raise the gas tax?

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Could the GOP-controlled Congress actually raise the gas tax?

Car Emissions vs. Car Crashes: Which One Is Deadlier?

Mother Jones

This story originally appeared in CityLab and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The ever-thought-provoking David Levinson posed a question at his Transportationist blog earlier this week that’s worth a longer look: Are you more likely to die from being in a car crash or from breathing in car emissions? If your gut reaction is like mine, then you’ve already answered in favor of crashes. But when you really crunch the numbers, the question not only becomes tougher to answer, it raises important new questions of its own.

First, let’s look at US traffic fatalities at the national level. For consistency with the pollution statistics (more on that in a moment), we’ll focus on 2005. That year, there were 43,510 traffic crash fatalities in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That’s a fatality rate of roughly 14.7 per 100,000 Americans.

Now we turn to deaths attributable to air pollution—more specifically, to particulate matter produced by cars. A research team led by Fabio Caiazzo of MIT, who appears from his university profile to be an actual rocket scientist, recently quantified the impact of air pollution and premature death in the United States for the year 2005. They reported that about 52,800 deaths were attributable to particulate matter from road transportation alone. (Road pollution had the largest share of any individual pollution sector, at around a quarter of all emissions-related deaths.) That’s a mortality rate of roughly 17.9 per 100,000 Americans.

Straight fatality figures make a strong case that car emissions are deadlier than car crashes.

By that estimate, road-related particulate matter was responsible for about 19 percent more deaths, nationwide, than car crashes were in 2005. And keep in mind that particulate matter isn’t the only air pollutant produced by cars (though it is the most significant type). Caiazzo and company attribute another 5,250 annual deaths to road-related ozone concentrations, for instance. In other words, the true health impact of auto emissions may be much greater.

At the city level, this broad conclusion remains the same. Here are the mortality totals and rates attributable to road-related particulate matter in five major metro areas tracked by Caiazzo and colleagues: New York (3,615 / 28.5), Los Angeles (2,092 / 23.3), Chicago (1,379 / 28.4), Dallas (374 / 23.2), Washington, D.C. (533 / 28.6). The rates are well over 20 per 100,000 people in all five places.

Now here are the fatality totals and rates from car crashes in the same five metros, via the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Granted, these figures are from 2009 instead of 2005, but even taking that inconsistency into account, the difference is striking: New York (986 / 5.1), Los Angeles (848 / 6.6), Chicago (565 / 5.9), Dallas (611 / 9.8), Washington, D.C. (408 / 7.5). In no case does the fatality rate even reach double digits.

These straight fatality figures make a strong case that car emissions are deadlier than car crashes at both the national and major metro levels. But death is only one measure of these health impacts. Age of death matters, too, especially since younger people tend to be involved in fatal car crashes. In 2012, for instance, about 55 percent of the people who suffered motor fatalities were under age 45. Caiazzo et al. report that emissions tend to cut lives short about 12 years, whereas crashes cut them short about 35 years.

Levinson tries to adjust for age through the Global Burden of Disease database, which includes a measure called Years of Life Lost. In 2010, there were 1,641,050 years of life lost attributable to particulate matter, against 1,873,160 years of life lost to road injuries.

That might seem like a near wash, but in fact the gap is much wider, because the these data reflect all air pollution, not just road-related air pollution. If we figure (based on Caiazzo*) that 25 percent of all deaths attributable to air pollution come via car emissions, then road injuries account for more than four times as many years of life lost as particulate matter from cars—1,873,160 to 410,288.

The absence of a clear single answer is a revelation in itself, suggesting that the problems are more on par than we typically treat them.

Circling back to the original question, whether car crashes or auto emissions is deadlier, we find any answer requires additional parameters. Strictly speaking, Americans appear more likely to die from auto emissions. In terms of wasted life potential, crashes seem the bigger danger. If anything, the absence of a clear single answer is a revelation in itself, suggesting that the problems are more on par than we typically treat them.

So why don’t elected leaders pay as much attention to emissions-attributable deaths as they do to car fatalities? The answer no doubt has a lot to do with something Levinson’s University of Minnesota colleague, Julian Marshall, said during their discussion of the topic: “no death certificate says ‘air pollution’ as cause of death.” Rather, emissions are yet another risk factor and invisible killer in a world full of risk factors and invisible killers. As such they’re convenient (and perhaps even comforting) to ignore. A road death, meanwhile, is stark and tragic and undeniable—in political terms, a much stronger platform.

But what should cities do about it? Well, they can start by drawing more attention to the problem. A true Vision Zero campaign, for instance, would acknowledge that even a New York without road fatalities wouldn’t be a New York without car-related deaths and illnesses. (That’s not to criticize this initiative; just to make a point.) As a stronger step, cities can follow the likes of London, which recently announced an additional tax on emissions-heavy cars, and start charging these drivers the true cost of their social impact (or something closer to it). A few drivers can pay now, or general public health can pay later, but everyone pays eventually.

* It’s worth pointing out that the Caiazzo study and the GBD reach vastly different conclusions about how deaths are attributable to total emissions in a given year: roughly 200,000 for the former to roughly 103,000 to the latter.

Link:  

Car Emissions vs. Car Crashes: Which One Is Deadlier?

Posted in alo, Anchor, Bunn, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Car Emissions vs. Car Crashes: Which One Is Deadlier?

Pandemonium Broke Out in Ferguson Last Night

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The peaceful protests in Ferguson, Missouri, descended into pandemonium on Sunday night just hours before the start of a curfew imposed by Gov. Jay Nixon. This morning, it remains unclear what stoked the chaos. Captain Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol accused protesters of deliberately provoking the police with gunfire and Molotov cocktails. Protesters deny that anyone attacked the police.

What is clear is that Sunday night saw the greatest show of force since the start of the protests. The Missouri Highway Patrol, which replaced local police forces after those officers drew criticism for their aggressive stance toward demonstrators and journalists, fired rubber bullets into the crowd and marched in formation against protesters.

Photos and shaky video from the scene show tear gas and smoke streaming through disoriented crowds and police in riot gear lining up against citizens. Police ordered television news crews to turn off their lights, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and responded to a fire at a local store that appeared to have been set by looters. There are reports that violence broke out between civilians and that some civilians shot at police. Antonio French, a St. Louis alderman who has helped lead the protests, addressed those reports on Twitter:

The clash began at about 9 p.m. on West Florissant Avenue, a short walk from the spot where Michael Brown was slain by a police officer. Hours later, news broke that a preliminary autopsy of Brown revealed that the unarmed 18-year-old had been shot six times. Brown’s death, on August 9, inspired the protests after police withheld details about the shooting. The Department of Justice plans its own autopsy.

Demonstrators flee tear gas fired by police in Ferguson J.B. Forbes/AP

By about midnight last night, Ferguson’s streets were empty of protesters. Time‘s Alex Altman watched demonstrators return to the scene of the chaos just after dawn this morning and clean up broken bottles and empty shell casings. French posted a photo of the clean-up this morning:

Nixon announced early Monday morning that he would deploy the state’s National Guard to take control of the town. Civil rights groups, including the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union, have called on the governor to roll back the curfew. The groups say the curfew “suspends the constitutional right to assemble by punishing the misdeeds of the few through the theft of constitutionally protected rights of the many.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted video of last night’s confrontation:

Many photos show McDonald’s workers washing a protester’s eyes out with milk after the woman, Cassandra Roberts, was tear-gassed by police. “I just came down here to support my people,” Roberts told reporters. “What the hell is going on in this world?”

Police continued their aggression toward journalists on the scene. Chris Hayes, the MSNBC host, tweeted:

Robert Klemko, a journalist for Sports Illustrated, reported that he was told by Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson to “walk away or be arrested.” Klemko walked away—and was arrested:

Video posted on YouTube reportedly shows police yelling at a member of Argus Radio, a volunteer-run music station that has been live streaming the protests, to “get the fuck out of here and keep that light off or you’re getting shelled with this.”

Read more: 

Pandemonium Broke Out in Ferguson Last Night

Posted in Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Pandemonium Broke Out in Ferguson Last Night

Obama Unveils Smart New Transportation Plan, But Not How to Pay For It

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story originally appeared in Grist and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The problems all started with Newt Gingrich. For decades, federal transportation funding had been a bastion of bipartisanship: The gasoline tax served as a user fee for our roads, 20 percent of the revenue went to mass transit and the rest to highways, and everyone kept the system running so their districts could get what they needed. Then, in 1994, Gingrich led the right-wing Republican insurgency that took over the House of Representatives. They did not want to raise the gas tax, even to keep pace with inflation. They actually tried to repeal the previous gas-tax increase, from 1993. Hatred of the gas tax, like hatred of all taxes, soon calcified into Republican orthodoxy. Rather than increase the gas tax, President George W. Bush presided over a growing gap between our transportation needs and the revenue the tax generated.

And the problem has not been fixed under Obama. With Republicans currently controlling the House, Congress cannot pass a reauthorization of the surface transportation law that would address our nation’s growing transportation investment needs. Instead, they have retained the status quo through a series of short-term extensions and then, in 2012, a two-year authorization (normally the law is extended for six years) that maintained current funding levels by using general revenues to patch a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund, which is supposed to be fully supported by the gas tax. That authorization expires this year, so some kind of transportation deal will have to be worked out in the coming months.

On Wednesday, Obama went ahead and laid out a progressive vision for a four-year transportation bill, despite the fact that Republicans will never go for it. It would boost transportation spending to a total of $302 billion over four years and reorient that spending in smart ways.

Historically, transportation funding has been doled out by the Department of Transportation to states according to formulas. But under the 2009 Recovery Act, the Obama administration pioneered the use of competitive grant-making with a program called TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery). Like Obama’s famous Race to the Top education initiative, which incentivizes states to make education policy reforms, TIGER incentivizes local governments to make more efficient investments in transportation, such as building a transit hub near an affordable housing development.

Obama’s new transportation bill would invest $600 million over four years in the TIGER program, and more broadly prioritize spending on projects with the most potential to improve environmental efficiency, create jobs, or link transportation to housing. Similarly, road spending would be doled out on a “fix-it-first” basis, focusing on repairing existing roads rather than building new ones. Obama would also spend a combined $91 billion over the four years on mass transit and inter-city passenger rail. That’s a roughly 30 percent share. Environmentalists and smart-growth advocates are praising the proposal.

And yet Obama has neglected to offer a solution to the single biggest transportation policy problem of all: how to pay for it.

In his speech Wednesday, the president said he will augment the Highway Trust Fund, which is once again suffering a significant shortfall, with $150 billion over the four years by closing tax loopholes. But he has not even identified which loopholes he would close, and still House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) declared the proposal dead on arrival in his chamber.

Obama and the congressional Democrats, never ones to capitalize on an opportunity when they could just blow it instead, failed to pass a reauthorization of the overdue transportation bill when they controlled Congress in 2009 and 2010. They spent some money on transportation infrastructure via the Recovery Act, but not enough, and they tossed around great ideas for how to spend a lot more money on a surface transportation reauthorization. But they were so scared of the public’s aversion to paying more at the pump that they did not suggest any gas-tax increases, or specific alternatives, to pay for it. And Obama’s new plan doesn’t either.

Even if Obama could get another temporary cash infusion for the Highway Trust Fund, it would be inadequate. Our transportation system has big problems, and to fix them we need a reliable revenue stream. Here are three growing transportation problems, in descending order of long-term importance, and ascending order of short-term urgency:

1. After decades of spending much more on roads than mass transit, we have a transportation infrastructure that’s totally at odds with what we actually need. It encourages driving and thus increases auto emissions, which worsen local air quality and climate change. It’s out of sync with trends in demographics and public preferences, which are leaning toward walkable urbanism and transit use, especially with an aging population. It’s also predicated on the availability of cheap oil, and thus is increasingly unaffordable as surging global demand boosts gasoline prices.

2. We have crumbling infrastructure. Many of our highways built in the middle of the 20th century are nearing the end of their natural lifespans, and our transit systems are dilapidated too. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives D grades to our highways and transit, and a C+ to our rail infrastructure. It notes, “Deficient and deteriorating transit systems cost the US economy $90 billion in 2010, as many transit agencies are struggling to maintain aging and obsolete fleets and facilities amid an economic downturn that has reduced their funding, forcing service cuts and fare increases.” And regarding highways, it says that while “federal, state, and local capital investments increased in 2013 to $91 billion annually, that level of investment is insufficient and still projected to result in a decline in conditions and performance in the long term. Currently, the Federal Highway Administration estimates that $170 billion in capital investment would be needed on an annual basis to significantly improve conditions and performance.”

3. We have a big Highway Trust Fund shortfall. We haven’t raised the gasoline tax from its 18.4-cents-per-gallon rate since 1993, so in inflation-adjusted dollars, it has fallen by 40 percent since then. And as Americans drive less and their cars become more efficient, they consume less gasoline. The current surface transportation law calls for spending more money than the Highway Trust Fund is actually bringing in, because it is based on outdated estimates of gas consumption. This year there is a more than $16 billion gap between authorized spending and gas-tax revenues. That means the fund will be dry in August. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) warned on Wednesday that without an infusion of cash, “obligations for new projects in 2015 would need to be reduced to zero.”

Even Boehner recognizes there is a problem. “We’ve got to find a funding mechanism to fund our infrastructure needs,” he told reporters Wednesday morning. “I wish I could report to you that we’ve found it, but we haven’t.”

We have! It’s called raising the gas tax.

Gasoline taxes are higher in every other developed country than they are in the US Obama complained in his speech on Wednesday that our international competitors spend more on transportation infrastructure than we do. These two phenomena are clearly connected, even though Obama refuses to draw that connection for the public. Why shouldn’t drivers be required to pay their fair share to maintain roads? Transit users pay fares to ride the buses and subways, in order to help cover the costs of building, maintaining, and operating those systems. Amtrak tickets, at least on the Northeast corridor, are obscenely expensive.

There are alternatives to raising the gas tax, of course. We could tax a related negative externality — like, say, carbon pollution — to pay for our infrastructure needs. But in order to do that, you need to accept the science of global warming and the necessity of taxation, and Republicans don’t accept either. When Boehner says they haven’t found a funding mechanism, what he means is that he hasn’t found a funding mechanism that he can corral his recalcitrant caucus to support.

If Republicans are going to reflexively block whatever Obama puts forward anyway, he should go ahead and propose an intelligent funding mechanism — a higher gas tax, a carbon tax, what have you — that will provide enough income over the long term to build the kind of modern transportation system the country needs. If you can’t pass good legislation, at least promote good ideas.

Link – 

Obama Unveils Smart New Transportation Plan, But Not How to Pay For It

Posted in Anchor, Bragg, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama Unveils Smart New Transportation Plan, But Not How to Pay For It

Obama has a good transportation plan. Now we just need to raise the gas tax to pay for it.

If you can’t pass good legislation, at least promote good ideas. Manfred Steinbach/Thinkstock The problems all started with Newt Gingrich. For decades, federal transportation funding had been a bastion of bipartisanship: The gasoline tax served as a user fee for our roads, 20 percent of the revenue went to mass transit and the rest to highways, and everyone kept the system running so their districts could get what they needed. Then, in 1994, Gingrich led the right-wing Republican insurgency that took over the House of Representatives. They did not want to raise the gas tax, even to keep pace with inflation. They actually tried to repeal the previous gas-tax increase, from 1993. Hatred of the gas tax, like hatred of all taxes, soon calcified into Republican orthodoxy. Rather than increase the gas tax, President George W. Bush presided over a growing gap between our transportation needs and the revenue the tax generated. And the problem has not been fixed under Obama. With Republicans currently controlling the House, Congress cannot pass a reauthorization of the surface transportation law that would address our nation’s growing transportation investment needs. Instead, they have retained the status quo through a series of short-term extensions and then, in 2012, a two-year authorization (normally the law is extended for six years) that maintained current funding levels by using general revenues to patch a shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund, which is supposed to be fully supported by the gas tax. That authorization expires this year, so some kind of transportation deal will have to be worked out in the coming months. To read the rest of this article, head to Grist. Original article:   Obama has a good transportation plan. Now we just need to raise the gas tax to pay for it. ; ;Related ArticlesIs the Arctic Really Drunk, or Does It Just Act Like This Sometimes?Climate Change “Very Evident,” So Let’s Deal With It, World Panel SaysYou Can’t Beat Climate Change With Weather Guns ;

Source:  

Obama has a good transportation plan. Now we just need to raise the gas tax to pay for it.

Posted in alo, Citadel, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, Mop, ONA, OXO, solar, solar power, Sprout, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama has a good transportation plan. Now we just need to raise the gas tax to pay for it.

Tesla Model S rocks safety tests, gets highest possible score

Tesla Model S rocks safety tests, gets highest possible score

The Tesla Model S.

First the Tesla Model S got the highest score of any car Consumer Reports had ever reviewed, blowing testers away with its “innovation,” “world-class performance,” and “impressive attention to detail.” Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has awarded the car its highest rating possible, a five out of five in every category. (Note to luxury sports-car enthusiasts: Grist does not condone reckless driving no matter how high a car’s safety rating or how low its emissions.)

According to Tesla, “approximately one percent of all cars tested by the federal government achieve 5 stars across the board.” More from the company’s press release:

Of all vehicles tested, including every major make and model approved for sale in the United States, the Model S set a new record for the lowest likelihood of injury to occupants. While the Model S is a sedan, it also exceeded the safety score of all SUVs and minivans. This score takes into account the probability of injury from front, side, rear and rollover accidents.

The Model S achieved such a high score in large part because it’s an electric vehicle. The front of the car has only trunk space where a gasoline engine block would normally be, so it has a much longer “crumple zone” — the part of the car that absorbs impact in a head-on collision. And the battery pack’s location beneath the floor gives the car a low center of gravity that substantially lowers its rollover risk.

Then, of course, there’s the fact that the Model S doesn’t have a combustion engine (which carries the risk of, you know, combusting). Tesla says that none of its lithium-ion batteries have caught fire so far (though it admits that’s “statistically unlikely to remain the case long term”).

Aside from its out-of-reach price tag, the Model S is starting to sound like the best car on the market. Matt Yglesias points out that Tesla has more incentive than your typical car company to make that the case:

Because Tesla makes electric cars, anything that happens to the Model S isn’t just a car story. It’s a business story, it’s a politics story, it’s an energy story, it’s an innovation story, it’s an interesting story. …

Any failure they have will be a much bigger deal than a failure at a comparably sized car company would be. But conversely, any time they manage to excel at anything they can guarantee that it’ll get noticed. … “Our sedan is the safest car in the world” sounds boring. But when your sedan is also an all-electric vehicle that’s scored off-the-charts rave reviews in other respects, now you’ve got a nice feather in your cap.

Now, if they ever make a more basic version of the Model S that somehow drops into an accessible price range, I may suddenly find myself interested in car ownership.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

,

Living

Excerpt from – 

Tesla Model S rocks safety tests, gets highest possible score

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, Dolphin, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, ONA, Safer, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tesla Model S rocks safety tests, gets highest possible score

Tesla offers incomplete, misdirected response to New York Times critique

Tesla offers incomplete, misdirected response to New York Times critique

Here’s the latest installment in the great war between Tesla Motors and The New York Times, launched after a Times reporter chronicled a troubled test drive of Tesla’s all-electric sedan. For background, see here; for additional commentary, just turn on your computer. There have been dozens of posts on the subject, from the Times’ public editor, GigaOm, Gawker, MIT Technology Review, Jalopnik. But the place to start is where our previous piece left off: with a post on the Tesla blog responding to the Times’ claims, written by chair Elon Musk.

You may have heard recently about an article written by John Broder from The New York Times that makes numerous claims about the performance of the Model S. We are upset by this article because it does not factually represent Tesla technology, which is designed and tested to operate well in both hot and cold climates. …

When Tesla first approached The New York Times about doing this story, it was supposed to be focused on future advancements in our Supercharger technology. There was no need to write a story about existing Superchargers on the East Coast, as that had already been done by Consumer Reports with no problems! We assumed that the reporter would be fair and impartial, as has been our experience with The New York Times, an organization that prides itself on journalistic integrity. As a result, we did not think to read his past articles and were unaware of his outright disdain for electric cars. We were played for a fool and as a result, let down the cause of electric vehicles. For that, I am deeply sorry.

It is not clear for whom Musk feels sorry, but it is quite clear whose feelings have been hurt: his own. It’s clear in the emotion behind his post, emotion that he bolsters with nine bullet-pointed counterarguments, five graphs of data from the car, two Google maps, and one annotated graphic from the Times article.

The Tesla Model S, in a sunnier climate.

Those reading Broder’s review were given the impression of a vehicle not ready for the rigors of highway travel — if not of a vehicle that had a flawed power-management system. Both Broder and Musk suggest that the cold weather during Broder’s journey from D.C. to the Boston area reduced its range, but Broder suggests that the car failed to give him accurate information about that reduction.

Oddly, this central premise is only a small part of Musk’s response — a response that, as the above-linked Gawker article notes, has been seen by many as definitive, a data-based refutation of Broder’s claims. After all, look at this chart:

Broder’s article claims he set his cruise control at 54; it was actually at 60. He said he was driving 45 on the highway; it was more like 53. At one point he exceeded 80 miles an hour! The impression you’re meant to get here is that Broder misled his readers into thinking he took extreme measures to avoid draining the car’s battery and still it failed. Nope, says Musk, pointing at the chart. His numbers were off!

What’s missed, though, is the implication of that data for an objective reader. Broder did set his cruise control at about 60 mph for about 100 miles. He spent another 50 driving at just over 50 mph. Almost all of Broder’s driving was on highways, as was intended in the test drive. Is it actually a win for Musk to show that Broder drove at 50-60 mph on the interstate instead of 45-54?

Musk’s post uses a common rhetorical tactic: overwhelming the audience with small refutations of unimportant points to give an impression of overall victory. The Atlantic Wire has a graph-by-graph breakdown of how strong and important each point is to Musk’s case; on the whole, they aren’t that important.

One commonly cited point from Musk’s post suggests that Broder drove in circles at a rest-stop charging station. “When the Model S valiantly refused to die,” Musk writes, Broder “eventually plugged it in.” Musk offers a graph that shows no circling, no distance, just faster and slower driving. Broder has already responded to this claim: He was circling the rest stop trying to find the charging station. The graph loses.

Elon Musk is a smart man. He understands the damage the Times review did to his company’s reputation. He’d hoped, as noted above, that the paper would report “on future advancements in our Supercharger technology,” those free charging stations that Broder tried to reach — not do a trial that Consumer Reports had already completed to his satisfaction. When Broder and the Times didn’t comply, Musk responded forcefully and, if the online sentiment is any gauge, successfully.

Even by the standards of Musk’s data, the problem lies with Broder’s experience, not his reporting. It’s not a driver’s job to make sure the car works perfectly; it’s Musk’s job, Tesla’s. The problem isn’t whether Broder spent 47 minutes charging the car instead of 58, as Musk ridiculously suggests; it’s that electric vehicles are competing with perceptions and infrastructure determined by traditional cars.

Broder is expected to release a response to Musk’s criticisms this afternoon. It will once and for all clearly settle who the winner is in this fight: gasoline.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Read more:

Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Source: 

Tesla offers incomplete, misdirected response to New York Times critique

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tesla offers incomplete, misdirected response to New York Times critique

San Francisco plans expensive ‘managed retreat’ from rising seas

San Francisco plans expensive ‘managed retreat’ from rising seas

When you live on a coastline, looking down the barrel of imminent and unstoppable rising sea levels, sometimes “managed retreat” is your only option. What if we rerouted the highways before they ever flooded?

Apricot Cafe

That’s the thinking behind San Francisco’s Master Plan for the city’s western shoreline. This retreat is not just managed, but proactive. KQED reports on the “test case” that other coastal cities will be watching: a more than $350 million plan to move the Great Highway and allow the surf to reclaim its turf.

“A lot of the things we’re recommending at Ocean Beach are very expensive,” says Benjamin Grant, who manages the Ocean Beach Master Plan for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR). “But you have to set them against the costs of the band-aid measures already taking place.”

SPUR is acting as a facilitator for the project, bringing together the myriad city, state, and federal organizations involved.

“We can’t close our eyes to what’s coming and it’s definitely going to get worse and not better,” Grant says. “If we can find a way to work with those processes to achieve the kinds of outcomes and build the kinds of places we want to have in our city, then we’ll be ahead of the game.”

Planning students noodling with designs for this retreat say the reroute “makes it possible to re-imagine the southern end of Ocean Beach as a more socially and ecologically beneficial landscape.” San Francisco is rare in its comprehensive climate change planning, maybe because it’s also rare in being a city surrounded by water on three sides.

But will the city really be able to pave the way for preemptive urban planning for rising seas nationwide, or will we have to suffer a few more Super Sandys before we start really retreating?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

.

Read more:

Cities

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

See the original post:  

San Francisco plans expensive ‘managed retreat’ from rising seas

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on San Francisco plans expensive ‘managed retreat’ from rising seas

Cash for Clunkers program drove right into a brick wall of waste

Cash for Clunkers program drove right into a brick wall of waste

Hey, remember back in 2009 when President Obama was saving the American car industry by whatever means necessary, including offering cash incentives for trading in old cars for newer, more efficient ones? And remember how a lot of people used that incentive to buy cars that were only marginally more efficient than their junked clunkers?

cynthia_leigh

Billed as stimulus both for automakers and the environment, the Car Allowance Rebates System, better known as Cash for Clunkers, turned out to be clunker itself. Besides fueling more unsustainable new-car-buying consumerism, the program also destroyed thousands of older, functional vehicles — vehicles that, according to the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), were almost 100 percent recyclable. Through Cash for Clunkers, about 690,000 vehicles had their engines destroyed and many were sent to junkyards, bypassing recycling companies altogether.

E Magazine reports:

The ARA issued a report when the CARS program was announced saying that a much more efficient program would have been to encourage recycled parts usage. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration explained at the time that the engines must be destroyed to prevent the vehicles from being resold and taking the road again. For any dealer that did not follow that law, there was a hefty $15,000 fine per infraction against them.

CARS claims to have had a positive environmental impact by taking these old vehicles off the road, yet it required destroying the traded-in vehicle’s drive train and engine. The engines were destroyed with a sodium silicate solution, also known as liquid glass. The silicate causes the engine’s parts to freeze and ensures it never runs again … Many of the clunkers ended up at auctions where parts dealers bid on them. By the time all reusable parts are salvaged, the material left is the car’s frame. CARS mandated that the clunkers be crushed or shredded within 180 days, regardless of whether all the usable parts were salvaged or not. …

The Department of Transportation reported that Cash for Clunkers was an environmental success. The clunkers averaged 15.8 mpg, compared with the 25.4 mph for new vehicles being purchased, for an average fuel-economy increase of 61%. In general, drivers traded in inefficient SUVs and trucks for more efficient passenger cars. However, it’s quite easy to negate this small difference in gas mileage purely by the fact that people will be more likely to drive a vehicle that takes less money to fill up with gas. It’s an efficiency paradox: as we get more efficient at using energy, the overall cost of energy goes down, but we respond by using more of it.

So, H&M, about that clothes recycling program …

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

.

Read more:

Climate & Energy

,

Politics

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

View article:  

Cash for Clunkers program drove right into a brick wall of waste

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Cash for Clunkers program drove right into a brick wall of waste