Category Archives: Web Article Review

Volvo

According to Fast Company, Volvo is planning a move to 100% hybrid and electric cars.

Between 2019 and 2021, Volvo will launch five 100% electric cars–three Volvo models and two under Polestar, its premium brand. The rest of its new models will be either hybrid plug-ins or hybrids that generate power from braking.

The company is moving towards electrification more quickly than it initially thought was possible. In 2015, when Volvo first announced a plan for electrification, the company’s senior vice president of research and development said that the Volvo would focus on hybrids and that it would take time for fully electric cars to be viable.

But battery costs have plunged, falling almost 80% between 2010 and 2016, and are likely to fall further. Charging infrastructure is spreading. New regulations, like an EU law that limits CO2 emissions for cars, and France’s newly announced phase-out of internal combustion engines by 2040, mean that traditional technology has to change. And customer demand is increasing.

Electric cars don’t solve all the problems cars cause of course, such as urban sprawl, pedestrian deaths, obesity, and wasted time. But they solve the air pollution problem (locally, at least, and regionally if there is also a shift to cleaner power plants) and the problem of producing, refining, transporting and storing large quantities of toxic and carcinogenic gasoline and diesel fuel.

who is left behind by automobile-dependent urban design?

I like this list from Todd Litman on Planetizen of the groups of people who are left behind (quite literally, left at home or waiting for buses and taxis or friends or relatives that might never come) by car-dependent urban form.

Non-Automobile Travel Demands

  • Youths 10-20 (10-30% of population).
  • Seniors who do not or should not drive (5-15%).
  • Adults unable to drive due to disability (3-5%).
  • Lower income households burdened by vehicle expenses (15-30%).
  • Law-abiding drinkers.
  • Community visitors who lack a vehicle or driver’s license.
  • People who want to walk or bike for enjoyment and health.
  • Drivers who want to avoid chauffeuring burdens.
  • Residents who want to reduce traffic and parking congestion, accidents and pollution emissions.

I like this list because it is crystal clear that there is not any one political orientation, ethnic group, or income level disproportionately burdened. It is a large swath of the population cutting across all these groups. Reducing all the hidden subsidies and incentives to remain car dependent would not be a reduction of freedom for the population, as some self-styled “conservatives” would have us believe. It would be an increase in the options and lifestyle choices available to all of us.

The only thing I would change on this list is to start youths at age 0. Plenty of young families where I live (a very-walkable, somewhat-bikable-for-the-brave community with dirty-slow-but-reliable-public-transportation) put children in daycare by age 1, and almost all put them in preschool by age 3 or 4 because there is no public preschool provided. Then, starting at age 5, many people choose not to send their children to the public school within walking distance of their home because they believe a public, charter, or private school farther from home will provide a better education and give them advantages in life.

One more overlooked factor is that state law provides no flexibility on car seats and booster seats for children when using taxis or ride hailing services, or when driving on low speed urban streets vs. highways, or flexibility on helmet laws when safe protected bike infrastructure is available. (Mostly) well-intentioned politicians from car-dependent areas of the state pass these laws without considering the non-car-dependent portion of the population they serve.

printed solar panels and batteries

According to Inhabitat, a company in Australia is working on thin, flexible, cheap “printed” batteries and solar panels, which could be attached to each other.

Solar energy appeals to a lot of people concerned about the environment and reducing electricity costs, but the cost of installing the energy-generating panels remains prohibitively high for a lot of people – even though prices are gradually falling. Printed Energy has proposed a solution. The Australian company is on a mission to print out ultra-thin, flexible screen-printed batteries, which can then be applied on top of super-thin flexible screen-printed solar panels, considerably cutting installation costs.

Earlier this week, the company signed a deal with UNSW and the University of Queensland — and received backing from the federal government —  to produce the printed batteries and offer them on the market. The $12 million project also received a $2 million grant from the Cooperate Research Centres Projects scheme. Having obtained funding, Printed Energy now seeks to produce “solid state” batteries that are thin and can be printed in a “roll-to-roll” process — similar to a newspaper. The printed batteries will also be adaptable to any shape.

The idea isn’t to pair the printed batteries with existing solar technology but to match it with printed solar panels, and other devices the batteries could power. According to Rodger Whitby, CEO of Printed Energy and of the St Baker Energy Innovation Fund, the printed battery technology is ideal for powering sensors, devices for the internet, disposable healthcare devices and, of course, renewable energy. While the invention could revolutionize the renewable energy industry, the company’s main priority is developing the batteries for “disposable devices.” Battery storage for solar will follow. Said Whitby, “We are really thinking of this type of battery in a different paradigm. We have also got IP for printed PV – so the idea is to have a sub-strata plastic sheet, and print solar on one side and battery on the other.”

 

cancer and immunotherapy

The Washington Post has an article about a new cancer treatment.

When a patient is treated under the Novartis process, T cells are extracted from a patient’s blood, frozen and sent to the company’s plant in Morris Plains, N.J. There, the cells are genetically modified to attack the cancer, expanded in number, refrozen and shipped back to the patient for infusion.

Once inside the body, the cells multiply exponentially and go hunting for the CD19 protein, which appears on a kind of white blood cell that can give rise to diseases, such as leukemia and lymphoma. The turnaround time for manufacturing the therapy, called “vein-to-vein” time, will be an estimated 22 days, Novartis officials told the committee Wednesday.

From the start of Wednesday’s meeting, committee members made clear that they were not concerned about the treatment’s efficacy, which has been well established — 83 percent of patients went into remission in the pivotal Novartis trial.

 

food security in Asia and the Pacific

This 2013 report from the Asian Development Bank has some eye-popping statistics.

Trends in population, economic growth, industrialization, urbanization, and changing dietary patterns have largely encumbered already scarce natural resources. Total arable land per person in East and South Asia has been shrinking, falling from almost one-quarter hectare per person 50 years ago to an estimated one-tenth hectare by 2050. Water resources are also strained. Across Asia, between 60% and 90% of water is used for agriculture. However, share of household and industrial water consumption almost doubled during 1992–2002. The region would need an additional 2.4 billion cubic meters of water each day to provide each consumer with 1,800 calories per day by 2050. The growth in yields has been declining in Asia. And the projected impact of climate change will significantly affect soil and water resources in many subregions.

Expanding cultivated lands is no longer an option for food production growth in nearly all countries in Asia and the Pacifi c. Although most arable land is accounted for, there remains considerable room to increase crop yields even with currently available resources and existing technologies—provided appropriate market incentives and public support mechanisms are in place. Agricultural output and productivity can be raised in two broad ways: (i) through improved productivity at the farm level, and (ii) through better postharvest productivity. In South and Southeast Asia, about one-third of food production is lost as it travels through the supply chain.

During my brief time living in Asia and working on urban development and water resources projects, I started to have a sense that the sheer scale of human activity in Asia is such that it will determine our civilization’s future. What we do here in the United States or the western hemisphere more generally is less consequential, simply because we don’t have the scale of population, agricultural and industrial production, consumption, and more importantly, exponential growth of all these things that Asia is experiencing.

I am not an expert on agriculture, so it is easy for me to sit here and opine on organic farming and sustainable agriculture. Feeding people by the billions is a serious business where any missteps have unacceptable consequences, and so far a combination of irrigation, fossil-fuel derived fertilizer, massive surface water diversion and groundwater mining has largely managed to do that, although the poor sometimes get left behind. In the short term I don’t think we want to disrupt this system. But we better give some serious thought to whether it is sustainable (in the dictionary sense) in the face of exponential population and consumption growth. If not, the scale of human misery that will result could be truly awful.

So I would look for incremental improvements to farming practices that increase sustainability and reduce long-term risk without decreasing output. Soil and water conservation seem like a good place to start to me. If your farming practices are building the amount and fertility of the soil from year to year without causing water scarcity or pollution, that is a good clue that you may be doing something sustainable.

climate change and shareholder revolts for big oil

According to Bloomberg, the board at Exxon just lost a fairly key shareholder vote on revealing business risks due to climate change. Part of the story is that large institutional shareholders like venture capital funds are concerned about these risks. These aren’t good guys acting out of purely ethical concerns of course – they are concerned about risks to the profits they are expecting.

Growth in support was driven by unprecedented majority votes for shareholder proposals asking Exxon Mobil Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and electric utility PPL Corp. to report on the long-term business impacts of climate change. This proxy season marked the first time that kind of proposal has passed over board opposition. It also marked the first time BlackRock Inc. and likely more of the companies’ largest shareholders voted in its favor.

“When a company as prominent as Exxon Mobil loses a vote,” the board or corporate governance team may change its negotiating stance in the future so that it doesn’t happen again, James Copland, a senior fellow and director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute, told Bloomberg BNA…

Even though the proposals aren’t binding, boards that fail to respond to climate concerns could be held accountable come director election time. That’s already happened at Exxon Mobil, where BlackRock voted against the re-election of two directors after repeated requests to meet with the board to better understand its oversight of climate risk and other issues were rebuffed.

We are starting to see amoral, conservative actors in the finance and insurance industries demand action to mitigate climate risk. The good news is markets will respond and action will be taken. The bad news is amoral investors and markets tend to react to big and short term risks, and by the time the risks are big and short term, the best chances to take meaningful mitigation action may have passed.

Richard Florida: The New Urban Crisis

Richard Florida has a new(ish) book out called The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It. You can also get the general idea from this article he wrote in City Lab. He offers five policy prescriptions, which I summarize below.

  • land value tax – Tax the value of land rather than the value of the developed property on it, so that land owners have a disincentive to sit on property and an incentive to develop it to the most economically valuable use a particular neighborhood will support. (My take – I like this idea. I wouldn’t get rid of zoning and building codes, but these can focus on the “look and feel” of the neighborhood rather than restricting height or density, requiring or prohibiting a certain amount of parking, etc. There also needs to be a strategy to preserve a certain amount of public open space under a system like this, whether it is public or held by some sort of land trust.)
  • invest heavily in public transportation – This decreases commute times, allowing people to live in more affordable locations and work in higher wage ones. (My take: makes sense, although we should rethink whether the same old 20th or even 19th-century ideas of public transportation and transportation agencies are going to serve us well in the 21st. I think we need flexible routes, flexible vehicles, and flexible modes that can adapt to changes in the economy, landscape and technology as they come.)
  • end the mortgage interest deduction so single-family homes are not unfairly subsidized relative to multi-family rental housing. (My take: makes perfect economic sense, but this would need to be phased in over a long period of time to not be a slap in the face to today’s middle class and working class homeowners who have made their decisions under the current system.)
  • Set minimum wage at 50% of median wage on a city-by-city basis – his argument is that this is essentially how the high-wage manufacturing jobs of the U.S. postwar period were created. He brings up Henry Ford and the idea that even if prices go up somewhat, a newly broadened middle class is able to afford them. (My take – I’ve always been a little skeptical of minimum wage as a policy prescription because it only redivides the pie rather than growing the pie, at least in the short term.)
  • Better fund public education, including early childhood development programs. What is there really left to say about this, except it is shameful we haven’t been doing it all along?
  • Guaranteed minimum income, or negative income tax. The idea is to replace the hodgepodge of housing, food and other assistance programs we have now with cash outlays to the poor, which they can then decide how to spend on market price goods. (My take – it could be done in a revenue neutral way, and should appeal to rational, logical parties of all political stripes. Of course, politics and human nature are not particularly rational or logical, especially lately.)

Swale

Swale is a public food forest on a barge in New York City. Here’s what they’re growing:

Swale’s plant community is made up of perennial native fruit trees and shrubs, leafy self-seeding annuals and salt loving grasses. Our model for landscape design is inspired by edible forestry,  permaculture, and salt-tolerant estuary ecosystems. Our plants have come from many generous donations from Greenbelt Native Plant Center, the New York City Parks Department and Visitors onboard! Our plant list is always expanding. Want to bring a plant onboard Swale? Let us know!

Here’s what’s currently onboard:

Canopy
Beach Plum, Black Chokeberry, Black Tupelo, Black willow, ‘Enterprise’ Apple, ‘Goldrush’ Apple, Fuyu Persimmon, Goji Berry, Hawthorn, Italian Alder, Newtown Pippin Apple (native to Queens NY!), Liberty Apple, ‘Northern Spy’ Apple, Northline Serviceberry, Pitch pine, Red Chokeberry, Sweetbay Magnolia

Shrub
American Red Raspberry, Arkansas Blackberry, Blue Ridge Blueberry, Dogbane, Eastern Juniper, False Indigo, Flame Willow, Golden Curls Willow, Gooseberry, Missouri River Willow, Northern Highbush Blueberry, Pennsylvania Blackberry, Red Stem Dogwood, Rosemary, Sassafras, Triple Crown Blackberry, Winterberry

Herbaceous
Asparagus, American, Blackgrass, Black eyed Susan, Buck’s Horn Plantain, Bugleweed, Anise Hyssop, Aster (New England), Bee Balm, Black Eyed Susan, Borage, Comfrey, Dandelion, Daylily, Echinacea, Evening primrose, French Sorrel, Garlic Chives, Goldenrod, Ground Cherry, Hopi Red Dye Amaranth, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Lettuce, Lovage, Meadowsweet, Milkweed, Miners Lettuce, Oregano, Peppermint, Perpetual Swiss Chard, Red Mustard, Red Russian Kale, Roman Chamomile, Rosemallow, Scallion, Saltgrass, Saltmeadow rush, Sea pea, Shore little bluestem, Spotted Joe Pye Weed, Stinging Nettle, Swamp Goldenrod, Sylvetta Arugula, Tansy, Virginia mountain mint, White Avens, Wild leek, Whorled mountain mint, Yarrow

Ground Cover
Creeping Thyme, Creeping raspberry, Golden oregano, Purslane, Strawberries, White Clover, Wild Low bush blueberry

Rhizosphere
Adam’s yucca, Groundnut, Jerusalem Artichoke, Walking Onion, Wild Yam

Vertical Layer
Clematis, Grapes, Hardy Kiwi, Hops, Scarlet runner beans

iris scans

Border counties in Texas are using mandatory iris scans to build a database of illegal immigrants. I imagine it will spread to big city police departments, and then to everywhere else. I imagine at some point it will become a form of identification people can use as an alternative to carrying a wallet and passport. I don’t know that the technology is concerning in and of itself – it’s essentially just a modern and accurate form of identification. What’s concerning is what some immoral governments, amoral corporations, and criminal elements might be able to do with large databases of this type of information.

the urban cool island

Here’s an article on quantifying the urban cool island. Which, as you might expect, is the opposite of the urban heat island.

Quantifying the cool island effects of urban green spaces using remote sensing Data

Urban Heat Island (UHI) leads to increased energy consumption, aggravated pollution and threatened health of citizens. Urban green spaces mitigate UHI effects, however, it is still unclear how the green space characteristics and its surrounding environment affects the green space cool island (GCI). In this study, land surface temperature (LST) and land cover types within the outmost ring road of Shanghai, China were obtained from Landsat 8 data and high-resolution Google Earth data. The GCI effects were defined in three aspects: GCI range (GR), amplitude of temperature drop (TA) and temperature gradient (TG). Pearson correlation analysis was processed to get the relationship between the aspects and impact factors. The results indicated that the GCI principle could be explained by the thermal conduct theory. The efficient methods to decrease LST of green spaces include increasing green space area while staying below the threshold, adding complexity of green space shape, decreasing impervious surfaces and enlarging the area of water bodies. For the surrounding environment of the green spaces, increasing vegetation and water body fractions or decreasing impervious surfaces will help to strengthen GCI effects. The findings can help urban planners to understand GCI formation and design cool green spaces to mitigate UHI effects.

This is a subject where I’m out of my depth in terms of formal training, but certainly interested. There are at least two ways you can try to combat the urban heat island effect, which occurs when pavement and other man-made surfaces absorb heat during the day and release it slowly at night (and during the day). The first is to use light-colored materials to reflect sunlight back into space. Using white roof materials whenever practical seems like a no-brainer. Maybe we don’t want snow white paving materials everywhere at the ground level, because that could be displeasing and even painful to the eye, but certainly we could dispense with the asphalt. Even if asphalt didn’t absorb heat, it would still be a hideous, toxic, short-lived material. It’s better to use concrete or brick or stone or almost anything else – it may cost more up front but it will last longer and just generally make our urban areas better. Materials that are permeable to rain water are also available so let’s consider those where they make sense.

The other way is to maximize the use of soil and vegetated surfaces. Soil and vegetated surfaces also absorb heat, I think, but then dissipate much of it again through evaporation and transpiration. Then there is the simple process of tree canopy create shade at ground level (which I imagine satellite studies like the one above may have trouble picking up on). In very dry climates, this may not be practical because to state the obvious, you need water to have evaporation. In very, very wet climates, it might make sense to store rainwater and intentionally spray it on your paved surfaces to cool them down. This is assuming you want to get rid of the heat and water – if you are in a place where water is scarce and precious, you might not want to do that, and you might even want to think twice about having a lot of vegetated surface. Or maybe that is not the right place for large numbers of people to live. Unless you can create more or less a closed-loop water system, in which case it might be a good place, thinking in terms of ecological footprint and preparing for humanity’s possible future in space.