Heavy duty electric trucks in port service

Some serious battery powered EVs are going to be prowling the Port of Los Angeles in the near future:

Los Angeles’ green technology sector takes a heavy-duty roll this week with the grand opening of a manufacturing facility in Harbor City that will begin producing fleets of clean, all-electric, heavy-duty trucks capable of hauling 30-ton shipping containers in and around the San Pedro Bay port complex.

…Designed specifically for short-haul or “drayage” operations, this heavy-duty truck can pull a 60,000-pound cargo container at a top speed of 40 mph, and has a range between 30 to 60 miles per battery charge….

An overall calculation of net emissions reductions still needs to be performed to take into account the emissions created in the generation of electric power used to charge the truck’s batteries. However, based on the average emissions generated by the existing fleet of drayage trucks that serve the San Pedro Bay ports, Port of Los Angeles staff estimated the average pollution discharge generated by the estimated 1.2 million truck trips that occurred in 2006 between the ports and a local near-dock railyard (the Intermodal Container Transfer Facility or ICTF). If those 1.2 million truck trips were to be made with zero emission electric trucks, an estimated 35,605.6 tons of tailpipe emissions would be eliminated, including: 21.8 tons per year of Diesel Particulate Matter (DPM), 427.7 tons per year of localized Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) emissions, 168.5 tons per year of Carbon (CO), and 34,987.6 tons per year of Carbon Dioxide (CO2).

California drought update

Looks like the recent rains helped some, but 22% above historic lows doesn’t sound too promising…. From the US Drought Montior site:

The 2008-2009 water year, which began in October, got off to a dry start, but the past 4 weeks brought a series of wet storms through this region that dropped in aggregate over 20 inches of precipitation on parts of the southern Cascades and northern Sierra Nevada, and at least a few inches on the rest of the region. Two large reservoirs, Shasta (near Redding) and Oroville (near Chico), were approaching historically low storage levels in late January, but since then, the quantity of water stored in both reservoirs has increased by more than 22 percent.

New budget has oil and gas paying more

It will be interesting to see if anything comes of this, but there are some interesting items in the budget related to oil and gas production in the US:

The plans, outlined as part of a fiscal 2010 budget proposal, revive long-standing Democratic efforts to turn to the oil and gas industry as a source of funding for other priorities. Among other things, the Obama budget plan calls for about $13 billion over 10 years in new charges on oil and gas companies from the repeal of a tax deduction for domestic production.

The Obama administration also proposed a new excise tax on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, saying it would raise about $5 billion over the next 10 years. The White House said that the new tax, along with plans to charge user fees to oil companies for processing oil and gas drilling permits on federal lands, would “ensure that federal taxpayers receive their fair share” and “close loopholes that have given oil companies excessive royalty relief.” The tax “will begin in 2011, after the economy has had time to recover,” the White House said.

China drought

Lots of China is experiencing drought.  This will most likely affect the size of the winter wheat crop this year.  As many of the aquifers in the country are pulled down at alarming levels, this is a troubling development.  It also comes on the heels of the economic downturn meaning many workers that would be going off to the cities to work will be staying home to try and get by on rural land.  Story here.

The current drought, considered the worst in Northern China in at least half a century, is crippling not only the country’s best wheat farmland, but also the wells that provide clean water to industry and to millions of people.

Raise the gas tax

At both the state and federal level, raising the gas tax is the new third rail in politics.

California jettisoned it from the budget, even though a 12 cent increase was estimated to bring in over $2 billion.

Now this panel recommends it (ten cent increase in the federal tax), but it will never see the light of day.  So some more convoluted plan to install GPS and clock units IN EVERY CAR to track vehicle miles is proposed.  And different types of roads will result in different charges, time of day will factor into it, etc…  And to assuage privacy concerns, the only thing the unit will spit out is what the latest charge is.  Sooooooo, no way for the driver to see how the amount was arrived at, or challenge it.

Sounds like a very straightforward plan, with no chance for fruad or failure of course.  Typical government.  The apparatus for collecting the gas tax is ALREADY IN PLACE, but that can’t be increased because it is politically unpopular.  So lets rely on unproven technology to take the money so people can’t blame us.

C’mon – how stupid are we?  (Perhaps I don’t want an answer to that question.)  A tax is a tax.  If the roads cost that much to maintain, either some must be closed, or we all pay more.  I think since road damage/wear is directly influenced by vehicle weight, that a “maintenance” tax should be charged at sale based on gross weight.  Also a type of “gas guzzler” tax.  I love how the idea that we are addicted to oil is popular, but anything that might cause any type of “pain” to change that is met with angry voices.

Yucca is dead

I am surprised by this.  I guess Chu was not a fan of Yucca.  I will be interested to see what sort of alternatives are developed.  I am not sure that this was the best plan, but it seemed pretty good to me, and quite a lot of work went into it.  I wonder how much pull Reid has with the new administration.

President Barack Obama won’t let nuclear waste be stored at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, rejecting the project after 20 years of planning at a cost of at least $9 billion.

Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu “have been emphatic that nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option, period,” said department spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller.

Robot visual recognition of places

This is also very interesting.  Reading about things like this make you realize how much power of the brain we take for granted.

Giving mobile robots the ability to remember sites they have previously visited is crucial if they are to build accurate maps. Now robots built in the UK are using a human-like trick to build maps of journeys up to 1000 kilometres long – the largest robot maps yet produced.

Quark stars?

Sounds pretty interesting.  Hope the Xray satellites make it up better than the CO2 monitor.

When supernovae explode, they leave behind either a black hole or a dense remnant called a neutron star. However, recent calculations suggest a third possibility: a quark star, which forms when the pressure falls just short of creating a black hole.

UAV base in Pakistan shown in Goole Earth

For a little while at least.  Google earth recently provided a picture of a drone base for Predator style UAVs – IN Pakistan.  Until it was taken down.

The picture, taken from directly overhead, shows an airfield in Pakistan. It looks like a video frame from one of the American killer drones that have been hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters there. But that can’t be: The drones are right there in the frame, sitting on the ground. So who took the picture?

A plain old commercial satellite, apparently. The image was freely available on Google Earth until Wednesday, when the News of Pakistan published a story about it. At that point, it vanished, as other sensitive military pictures have done. Today, you can still view it on the Web site of the Times of London. If you’re a Pakistani citizen, it confirms that the United States has been launching its killer drones from inside your country, contrary to your government’s pretense of opposition. And if you’re a Taliban or al-Qaida fighter, it’s your chance to look down on the drones the way they’ve been looking down on you.

The offical denial that there are US military personnel there implies that it is the CIA that is running the show.  The location is assumed to be so the flying time to any desired target is reduced.  That trade from the politically more palatable Afghan side of the border probably reduces flying time by over an hour or so.

Drought updates

While  California has had some decent rains recently, there is still a very good chance that most of the state will see water rationing this summer.  Recently, the federal Bureau of Reclamation told their agricultural customers that they should expect a zero allocation this year, which has never previously occurred.  In 1977 and 1992, March rains allowed the allocation of 25% of normal amounts, after announcements of zero allocation.  Water for municipal and ecological uses is expected to be made available at 50-75% of contracted levels.  This will end up hurting most of the farmland in the Central Valley.  Almond orchards are in serious trouble, as the trees need water to survive, even if they are not harvested.  Hopefully some water intensive crops that are grown in the valley, like rice and cotton, will be preferentially reduced.

Australia is still suffering through a severe drought (in parts of the country, other parts were flooded badly recently).  Argentina is also suffering this summer:

Cows are dying by the thousands in the baking sun, and crops are being lost before their seeds even break the soil.

Argentina’s worst drought in more than 50 years is magnifying the country’s chances of suffering another economic crisis, and the lost farming revenue will complicate the government’s efforts to meet more than $18 billion in debt obligations this year, economists said.