Sunday, September 23rd, 2018
JOE ROMM, - Think Progress
Stephan: This is good news for the world, and bad news for the United States. Good news in that it represents a major step forward in the trend to move past carbon energy by changing the dynamics of the battery industry. Bad news because it is yet another story of the U.S. being outplayed and relegated to the second tier.
Batteries of an electric car in China.
Credit: Zhang Peng /Lightrocket/Getty
Plummeting battery costs have made electric vehicles (EVs) a truly disruptive technology.
In fact, EVs now use more lithium ion batteries than consumer electronics. But Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) projects EV-battery demand will rise another 25-fold by 2030 — and EVs will represent more than half of all new car sales by 2040.
This means that millions of used EV batteries will eventually be flooding the market — batteries that may have as much as 70 percent of their original power capacity, even though it can no longer meet the strict requirements for powering its car.
No wonder every major car company in the world is exploring how much value their EV battery has in its “second life.” After all, BNEF projects that over the next three decades, companies will spend some $550 billion “in home, industrial and grid-scale battery storage.”
This potential second life for EV batteries is a clean energy game changer for two reasons.
Firstly, these used EV batteries can deliver much cheaper electricity storage […]
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Sunday, September 23rd, 2018
Richard Florida, Editor at Large - City Lab
Stephan: Yet more good news for the world, and bad news for the United States, this story being about mass transportation. Once again it is about a trend that is going forward in the rest of the developed world, while greed and stupidity on the part of the Trump administration and the Republican Congress, as well as incompetence and spinelessness on the part of the Democratic Party, is resulting in American becoming a second tier nation technologically.
Probably because 64 percent of Americans have never been outside of U.S. borders, most people seem to have no idea that their healthcare sucks, their internet is third rate, their mobile phone service is third rate, and we don't really have mass transport as that is understood and emerging in the rest of the developed world.
People wait at subway station Alexanderplatz during stormy weather in Berlin, Germany,
Credit: Reuters /Hannibal Hanschke
The world is building mass transit networks faster than ever before, and ridership is increasing to match. But the United States continues to lag behind both Asia and Europe in mass transit. New York is the only North American city to rank among the global top-ten busiest transit systems.
That’s according to a new report published by UITP, the International Association of Public Transport, which takes a close look at mass transit systems in 182 cities across the world. It defines transit systems or “metro networks” as “high-capacity urban rail systems, running on an exclusive right-of-way” that hold at least 100 passengers per train.
Urban mass transit systems have exploded in recent decades as the world’s population has rapidly urbanized. The graph below, from the report, charts the growth in the number of transit systems since the earliest systems, created in the late 19th century. There was a surge in the opening of new transit systems in the 1970s, ‘80s, and […]
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Sunday, September 23rd, 2018
Kyle Mantyla, - Right Wing Watch
Stephan: I've never met Mark Taylor, so I can't tell whether he is just a moron or your basic christofascist grifter. And it really oughten to matter. But he has a nationwide following, and that does matter because it is a datapoint on a truly alarming trend, the growing ignorance that defines the christofascist community. I have been looking for well-done research on IQ levels by political affiliation because I see so many stories like this one that I have begun to think that sheer dumbness is a major factor in today's American politics.
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor, the so-called “firefighter prophet” and radical conspiracy theorist about whom Liberty University is making a movie, appeared on “The Sharpening Report” last week, where he declared that the late Sen. John McCain had not died of brain cancer but had actually been executed by a military tribunal. Taylor also claimed that the “deep state” opposes Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court because they know that he will support President Trump’s use of military tribunals against the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“We both know that John McCain was executed under military tribunals,” Taylor told the host. “Which is another reason why Judge Kavanaugh, they’re screaming so loud. They’re trying to disguise it that it’s abortion that they’re worried about; that’s not what they’re worried about. They want a solid 5-4 vote for military tribunals … It’s the military tribunals [they’re worried about] because they know it’s going to cost them lives and they’re going to be executed.”
Taylor went on to cite a recent clip of Ohio Gov. John Kasich […]
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Saturday, September 22nd, 2018
David Grossman, - Popular Mechanics
Stephan: Here is more good news for the planet, and further evidence of how incompetently and badly the Republican Congress and the Trump administration are governing. Hydrogen powered trains; there are so many new technologies coming out, although sadly few are American in origin.
German hydrogen-powered train
Credit: René Frampe
The world’s two first hydrogen-powered trains have begun service in Germany. The trains, which operate in between northern German towns, are a step away from traditional diesel power.
According to a press release from Alstom, the trains’ French parent company, they are are “equipped with fuel cells which convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity, thus eliminating pollutant emissions related to propulsion.” The trains, which promise a low-noise trip, can hit speeds up to 140 km/hr, or 86.9 MPH. They’ll run on 100 kilometers (62 miles) of track.
The gaseous hydrogen that will power the trains will be pumped in from a 40-foot-high steel container near the tracks at Bremervörde station. Already the endpoint of the German Ferry Road, the small town now plays a role in transitioning away from diesel. In one way or another, diesel engines have been powering trains for over a century.
Although the Coradia iLint trains, as they’re known, are running on a short track, they […]
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Saturday, September 22nd, 2018
Stephan: While the other developed nations of the world are moving as quickly as they can to get out of carbon energy, here in the U.S. the government is pledging its allegiance to the carbon industry.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Credit: Gage Skidmore/flickr
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke let the mask slip this week, turning the subtext of his term in office backing fossil fuels into the headline as he spoke to a friendly audience.
On Tuesday, Zinke gave the keynote address at the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association’s fall meeting in Lafayette, Louisiana. He told the conference over lunch “our government should work for you,” according to organizers:
You can debate what Zinke meant by “work for you,” but many heard it as a pledge of allegiance to the industry.
And according to the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, the industry members in the room were thrilled with the pledge, giving Zinke a standing ovation. (An organizer told me none of the speeches at the event were recorded.)
However, environmental activists and some lawmakers were appalled by the statement.
