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Beware the hype around plug-in hybrids

An article in Business Week Online tells us that experimental hybrid cars get up to 250 mpg (a very similar article appeared in the New York Times business section a couple of months earlier). I enjoy reading between the lines of lay press science and technology articles. There was a great discussion in Grist on this subject not too long ago.

Gremban ...spent... $3,000 tinkering with his car... [I]n the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries... [T]he extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity.

In other words, for his $3000 he will get 80 miles per gallon for 20 miles before his carriage turns back into a pumpkin. For the rest of the day he will carry a hundred pounds of bricks around in his now-useless trunk, which by the way will degrade his gas mileage. For the first 20 miles he drives each day he will save 0.25 gallons, thus recouping his $3000 in about twenty years, assuming his batteries last that long. The more miles he drives after the batteries go dead, the worse things get because of the extra weight of the dead batteries in his trunk. Which leads me to ask: If his commute is only ten miles each way, why not just ride a bike, get a little exercise, and save $3000? You can also get 80 mpg out of a 40-mpg car by carpooling with one passenger, or get 120 mpg with two passengers, or 160-mpg with three passengers.

LA Story

When it rains, it pours: Yet another story on LA's urban density. This time courtesy of High Country News.

Rumors of a shortage of dump space were greatly exaggerated

I'm not a regular reader of the New York Times' business page, but on Friday this almost-worthy-of-Grist headline caught my eye: Waste Yes, Want Not.

Some of you might remember the saga of the Mobro 4000, the trash barge from New York that traveled the Eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico in 1987 searching out a final resting place for its cargo. I was a middle schooler in Corpus Christi, Texas when it came through our portion of the Intercoastal Waterway. I don't recall that it tried to stop in our port, but it was the talk of the town as it passed by. We weren't alone. The Mobro's odyssey was news across the country and brought about much hand wringing about the shortage of space to dump the nation's trash.

Turns out -- in the words of the subheadline -- Rumors of a Shortage of Dump Space Were Greatly Exaggerated.

Eco-wonderlands

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels ambivalent about this sort of thing. On one hand, it would be nice if people for once would just stay the hell out of an "eco-wonderland." On the other hand, these places do instill a kind of reverence for nature that carries over to other parts of a traveler's life.

What do you think?

(via Divester)

LA builds big for residents

The Washington Post article that Ana and I both pointed to yesterday crowned Los Angeles as the most densely populated metropolitan area in the country.

The heart of that metropolitan area, downtown LA, is feeling the effects, according to the LA Times. The last high rise built in the downtown area was completed in 1992, but a wave of skyscrapers is slated for the city. Five have been approved, and a total of 20 buildings over 20 stories tall are proposed.

Marking a departure from historical usage of the buildings, most of the new towers are primarily for residential use, not office space. This leaves some, like historian and author D.J. Waldie, wondering: "They're putting in even taller high-rises ... but down on the ground, where are the resources to make that into a place to live?"

The article also mentions the proposed 2000-foot Fordham Spire in Chicago. Pictures.

Dreams of growing your own food don’t look so hot in reality

My youngest daughter wants to be a farmer. She is heading off to the local fair grounds tomorrow to help get the barn cleaned up in preparation for the big 4-H show where she will give a presentation on fur mites. Although her rabbit is extremely cute, it usually comes in last place, because cuteness doesn't count. We indulge her farm fantasies because she is learning a great deal about life and having a wonderful childhood while she's at it. Childhood only comes around once, at least until you have kids and can partially participate a second or third time.

Junk-food makers seek to make junk food healthier

Not strictly environmental news, but on the closely-related topics of human health and consumer habits:

The City of New York has asked local restaurants to voluntarily hold the fat by switching from extremely heart-unhealthy transfats -- found in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil -- to healthier fats like sunflower and olive oils in their dishes.

Our famous black-and-white cookies are apparently impossible to make without transfats, but not all local treats will suffer. After all these years of considering butter and beef fat the anti-Christ, the data on transfats renders (heh) foods prepared in or prepared with animal fats less evil than their hydrogenated counterparts:

Not all of New York's beloved foods will suffer. Balthazar's French fries rely on healthier peanut oil, which is to frying oils what Manolo Blahnik is to shoes. Magnolia Bakery uses butter in its cupcakes. On the rare occasion that the Magnolia bakers make a pie, they use a new version of Crisco without trans fat, said Allysa Torey, the owner.

Even without a lot of cash, food-loving New Yorkers can find ways to avoid trans fats. At Katz's Deli on the Lower East Side, the thick-cut French fries that go so well with a pastrami sandwich are fried, as they always have been, in beef tallow.

Denmark's had a law severely limiting the percentage of trans fats in a food item's total fats since 2003, and Canada's considering a similar rule.

My initial response is to wonder if such measures can catch on in America, where the freedom to choose from various modes of self-destruction is practically a national religion. But ... what if we didn't have to choose? What if there were ways to have our junk food guilt-free?

Wired profiles companies striving for zero waste

Here in Gristmill, we like to present companies and their eco-friendly practices to see if they should be praised for their efforts. Today I give you: Subaru, Cascade Engineering, HP, Xerox, Toyota, Fetzer Vineyards, and Collins & Aikman Floorcoverings.

What do these companies have in common, you might be asking? One, they are all mentioned in the Wired article that I'm writing about. Two, and more importantly, they are all actively reducing waste in some fashion.

For example, a Subaru factory in Lafayette, Indiana produces less waste than you and me. In fact, the article claims the amount is zero:

The factory is the first auto assembly plant in North America to become completely waste-free: Last year, 100 percent of the waste steel, plastic and other materials coming out of the plant were reused or recycled. Paint sludge that used to be thrown away, for example, is now dried to a powder and shipped to a plastics manufacturer, ending up eventually as parking lot bumpers and guardrails. What can't be reused -- about 3 percent of the plant's trash -- is shipped off to Indianapolis and incinerated to generate electricity.

So, way to go Subaru! Next step: start producing hybrid vehicles built in a solar-powered manufacturing plant where the employee cafeteria serves nothing but locally produced organic food.

regarding the dispensation of pork

1. Republicans control all three branches of government.
2. Thus, pork goes disproportionately to Republican congressional districts.
3. Republican congressional districts tend to be either rural or exurban.
4. Rural pork is composed primarily of agricultural subsidies and exurban pork is generally car-friendly.
5. Agricultural subsidies and car-friendly infrastructure development are environmentally destructive.

Whatever to do?

Update [2005-8-12 14:25:26 by Dave Roberts]: Oops. In reference to the above, I meant to point to this Nathan Newman post.

Newly discovered lemur species too cute for words

Scientists discovered two new lemur species, named Microcebus lehilahytsara (shown here) and Mirza zaza, in one of the most studied rain forests of Madagascar. New primate species are rare finds, though the animals' small size -- about the size of a mouse and a grey squirrel, respectively -- help explain why they were never spotted before.