July 9, 2018

Speeding in These States Will Cost You a Fortune

Delaware and Colorado take the hardest line on reckless driving.

Reckless driving is, well, reckless. But Americans keep speeding, willing to risk the financial consequences, which vary wildly from state to state. So where is it costliest to floor it?

Delaware and Colorado are the toughest states on speeding and reckless driving, charging hefty fines and penalties, according to a new report from WalletHub that analyzed data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Arizona, New Mexico and California followed close behind. If you’ve got a lead foot, Texas was ranked the most lenient state.

Oregon issues the priciest tickets in the country for reckless driving, topping out at $6,250, the report found. Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico and Ohio issue the cheapest tickets at $100. The average maximum ticket costs a driver $845, up 14 percent from 2015.


Strictest and Most Lenient States on Speeding and Reckless Driving Source: WalletHub

Fines aren’t the only financial consequences. The increase in insurance rates after a moving violation can be even more costly than the ticket itself. Alaska issues the highest additional cost for car insurance after one speeding ticket, raising rates by more than 65 percent.

More: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-06/speeding-in-these-states-will-cost-you-a-fortune

July 9, 2018

Scott Pruitt gave "super polluting" trucks a gift on his last day at the EPA

Pruitt secured a loophole for dirty glider trucks after he announced his resignation.

Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt managed to fire a Parthian shot on his final day in office when he cemented a massive loophole for some of the dirtiest, most polluting trucks on the road, allowing manufacturers to build even more them.

It was Pruitt’s final knock to clean air after President Trump asked him resign Thursday as months of mounting scandals came to a head. “Pruitt didn’t want to leave his post and was described as being devastated that he had to resign ... ,” according to Jennifer Dlouhy and Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg. Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for industries including coal, will take over EPA as acting director on Monday.

Pruitt’s last policy decision benefits a small slice of truck manufacturers, including one that hosted a campaign event for Donald Trump.

The loophole, which the Obama administration took steps to close, involves glider kits. These are brand new trucks, but without an engine or transmission (hence why they “glide”). This category of truck was created so manufacturers could salvage parts from older trucks, or parts from those damaged in accidents.

However, older engines adhere to older pollution standards. They often don’t use technologies like selective catalytic reduction, a method to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions that cause smog and acid rain. These pollution control systems mandated on new trucks add cost, complexity, and can hamper fuel economy. So some truck buyers aren’t fans.

A cottage industry quickly sprang up to take advantage of this loophole and to pitch the virtues of gliders to buyers. “This process creates a reliable, more fuel efficient truck that requires less maintenance, yields less downtime and has the safety features and amenities owners have come to expect in trucks on the road today,” according to Fitzgerald Glider Kits, that largest glider truck manufacturer in the United States.


Much more (Includes video): https://www.vox.com/2018/7/8/17544380/scott-pruitt-epa-truck-pollution-glider-kit-loophole



Not a “green” machine Fitzgerald Glider Kits

July 9, 2018

A heat wave made this bridge too swole to function

Climate change can pose some unexpected challenges to infrastructure.

It was so hot last week, even steel bridges were sweating. The DuSable Bridge in Chicago overheated enough to stop working. While it wasn’t dangerous for drivers, the bridge couldn’t open for boats, and had to be closed for a half hour while firefighters hosed it down with cold water.

The 98-year-old double-decker bridge shuttles two levels of traffic back and forth over the Chicago River, and opens its decks to the heavens to let sailboats pass through. Baking under the sun for days on end, the joints of the steel bridge swelled, and were stuck in place. Luis Benitez, chief bridge engineer for the Chicago Department of Transportation, says the surface temperature of the bridge had climbed above 100°F that week. The steel finger joints—long, finger-like parts that accommodate expansion as cars travel over the bridge—interlock leaving a bit of space between each part, but the heat caused them to expand enough to rub together. You can think of it like a bridge with arthritis; the joints had become too inflamed to move properly.

“The temperature was getting too hot, and the bridge isn’t just expanding longitudinally, it was expanding sideways,” says Benitez. “Those two pieces of metal started rubbing together causing friction. Everything is so finely tuned, if you tried to force them apart, those joints can come loose or the expansion could get damaged.”

For the finger joints to touch, Benitez says the steel would have had to expand around an eighth of an inch. That doesn’t seem like much, but in the world of sweaty steel, it’s enough to temporarily shut down a bridge.

Although heat waves like the one that suffocated most of the eastern U.S. recently won’t cause a bridge to suddenly collapse, spells of hot, humid weather can cause a lot of problems for infrastructure. Materials like steel, cement, and asphalt—basically the building blocks of every city—are eager to absorb heat, and can reach surface temperatures of 140 degrees on a scorching day.


Much more: https://www.popsci.com/heat-wave-bridge-infrastructure


Chicago Firefighters Hose Down Steel Bridge During Heat Wave



Firefighters had to hose down the DuSable Bridge in Chicago after the steel surface spiked to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

July 9, 2018

Bill Maher: Live From Oklahoma (7/7/18)

Looks like the whole performance, though it's not official from HBO, so I'm not sure how long this will last...

July 6, 2018

The 1,600 Olive Trees Holding Up a $5.2 Billion Pipeline

What was once a lonely fight over local farms has become a populist protest against globalization.

On a recent visit to a construction site near an olive grove along the coast of southern Italy, a reporter’s phone buzzed with an ominous text message: “We know you’re there.”

The text came from one of the people fighting to stop the final construction of a 4.5 billion-euro ($5.2 billion) natural gas pipeline that’s designed to run right beneath the olive trees, an area farmed for centuries and now surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. They have been working in shifts, monitoring progress of a project meant to carry gas from the Caspian Sea and provide the cornerstone of a European Union plan to wean itself off Russian gas.

Now their yearslong fight to block the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, known as TAP, has been given a boost. The ministers in Italy’s new government have threatened to put the project under review, aligning more with the protesters than the companies working on the pipeline, including British oil giant BP Plc and Italy’s state-owned gas company, Snam SpA. The threats have thrown into question whether the final stretch will be ready by the planned 2020 deadline—or completed at all.

The companies that invested in TAP and the larger pipeline it connects with could face billions in losses if the project is delayed, said Elchin Mammadov, a utilities analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “There is a 90% probability that it will not be ready,” he said.


More: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-07-05/the-1-600-olive-trees-holding-up-a-5-2-billion-pipeline

July 4, 2018

Trump tariffs could add $5,000 to price of new vehicle in US

Prices of new cars and trucks could jump by several thousand dollars in the U.S. if President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to raise tariffs on imports.

The same likely would hold true even if a particular car is made in the U.S. because analysts believe automakers would spread the cost of tariffs among many different vehicles to avoid putting at a disadvantage any of their models made in foreign markets.

Automakers, including U.S. companies, are trembling at the prospect of increased tariffs on imported vehicles, which could range up to 25 percent based on the president's threats.

"If you put that kind of a tariff on a vehicle or an industry, prices are definitely going to go up on average," said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive, which tracks vehicle manufacturing. "There’s no way around that."

With current new-vehicle prices averaging about $32,000 after discounts are factored in, a 25 percent tariff likely would increase prices by about $4,000 to $5,000 per vehicle, Schuster said.

That estimate assumes automakers pass about half of the cost along to customers and absorb the rest.


Much more: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/03/trump-tariffs-could-add-5000-to-price-of-new-cars-and-trucks-in-us.html

July 4, 2018

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Replacing Anthony Kennedy

July 3, 2018

Early-1900s EVs were marketed to women because gas cars were too complicated

The notion of masculine and feminine is never far from the business of selling cars. Minivans have long been marketed to soccer moms, and off-road trucks geared toward men, even if they never venture off the pavement. But in the early 1900s, when electric vehicles (EVs) were comfortably outselling gasoline cars, the idealized driver was female. Why that is has everything to do with how we think about gender.

EVs were invented in the early 1830s. By the 1890s, American entrepreneurs were building fleets of them to replace horse-drawn carriages in major US cities. New York’s first electric cab arrived in 1897, and the following year Ferdinand Porsche built one of the world’s first hybrid electric vehicles, the P1, with a generator and electric motors in the wheel hubs.

Though a transformative time, the emergence of the personal vehicle was also chaotic. In the late 19th century, at least 1,500 manufacturers were building models that used electricity, gasoline, or even steam for propulsion, according to The Birth of Big Business in the United States, 1860-1914. No single technology dominated the market for years. An 1899 US Census recorded that total automobile production that year included 1,575 electric vehicles, 1,681 steam-powered, and 936 burning gasoline.

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Indeed, some of most successful EVs of the time were marketed as “a sitting room on wheels,” according to the Edison Tech Center. Dealerships were appointed as tea rooms, showcasing “the silent-running machines, with little clumps of foliage here and there, like oases in a desert, sheltering dainty tea tables, where the ladies—and their husbands, if they care to come along—will be taken care of while they are being told about the polished cars flitting about on the floor,” write Curtis and Judy Anderson in Electric and Hybrid Cars: A History. Even the founders of gasoline carmakers bought EVs for their wives. Ford’s wife Clara received a Detroit Electric in 1908, a few months before her husband’s Model T went on sale. For the next six years, a new battery-powered car was delivered to the Fords’ driveway every other year.


More: https://qz.com/1316554/early-1900s-evs-were-marketed-to-women-because-gas-cars-were-too-complicated/



Early 1900s Riker electric car (Smithsonian)

July 3, 2018

Trump's method for punishing Iran threatens to inflict pain at the US gas pump ahead of elections

President Donald Trump is blaming OPEC for rising oil prices, but analysts say his sanctions on Iran are largely fueling a rally in the crude market.

Just days after OPEC agreed to increase output to tamp down prices, the State Department sent crude costs soaring by announcing a policy to wipe out much of Iran's exports by November.

The policy threatens to leave the world short of oil and rob Americans of the gasoline price relief they usually get in the fall, just as they're preparing to vote in midterm elections.

The Trump administration's effort to punish Iran by swiftly curtailing that nation's energy exports is undermining its goal of preventing oil prices from rising ahead of midterm elections.

That policy now threatens to leave the world with a shortage of crude and rob Americans of the gasoline price relief they usually get in the autumn. It may even leave drivers paying more at filling stations in the fall, just as they're preparing to cast their votes in elections that could hand Democrats control of the House.

Americans are already seeing their gas bills rise after enjoying years of low costs thanks to an historic downturn in oil prices. U.S. gasoline futures are up about 17.5 percent this year, and have risen nearly 38 percent since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump appeared to get his way just over a week ago when two dozen oil producers agreed to pump more crude to tame rising oil prices. Worried that Trump's sanctions on Iranian oil exports would cause Americans pain at the gas pump, his administration reportedly lobbied Saudi Arabia for the hike.

But just days after OPEC announced its decision, the State Department sent oil prices soaring by announcing a policy that threatens to wipe out much of Iran's crude exports in the coming months. By Saturday, Trump was tweeting that he'd asked Saudi Arabia's king to raise output by up to 2 million barrels per day (bpd) — double what the Saudis and their allies agreed to the previous week.


More: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/01/trumps-iran-policy-may-cause-pain-at-the-gas-pump-ahead-of-elections.html

July 3, 2018

The Daily Show: Mike Pence's Ice-Cold Immigration Speech & Spain's CPR Dog

Vice President Mike Pence delivers a hard-line immigration message in Brazil, and a police dog in Spain goes viral for its ability to mimic CPR.