Economics of Technology – Page 9

Hybrids Appeal to Consumers with Short-Term E.V. “Range Anxiety”

(p. A19) . . . there’s a good argument to be made that the government, and automakers, are leaning too hard into all-electric and neglecting the virtues of hybrid technology. When I first heard this counterintuitive argument from Toyota, I dismissed it as heel-dragging by a company that lags in electrics, but I’ve come around to the idea that hybrids — at least for now — do have a lot of advantages over all-electric vehicles.

. . .

(p. A6) “Toyota’s claim is accurate. We’ve crunched the numbers on this,” Ashley Nunes told me. He is a senior research associate at Harvard Law School and the director for federal policy, climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, a think tank. He testified on the topic in April [2023] before the House Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing and Critical Materials.

. . . electric vehicles consume huge quantities of lithium and other materials because they have huge batteries. And they have huge batteries because customers suffer from “range anxiety” and won’t buy an E.V. unless it can go for hundreds of miles without charging — even though the vast majority of trips are short.

. . .

Some people will keep driving old ICE-mobiles (cars with internal combustion engines) because they can’t afford an E.V. And those ICE-mobiles will continue to be major emitters of greenhouse gases.

The production of electric vehicles produces more greenhouse gases than the production of cars with combustion engines. So E.V.s have to travel between 28,000 and 68,000 miles before they have an emissions advantage over similarly sized and equipped ICE-mobiles, according to Nunes. That may take 10 years or more if the E.V. isn’t driven much.

For the full commentary, see:

Peter Coy. “We May Not Be Ready for an All-E.V. World.” The New York Times (Monday, July 17, 2023): A19.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 14, 2023, and has the title “A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles.”)

“Engineering Is Achieving Function While Avoiding Failure”

(p. A21) Dr. Petroski, a longtime professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University, adapted the architectural axiom “form follows function” into one of his own — “form follows failure” — and addressed the subject extensively in books, lectures, scholarly journals, The New York Times and magazines like Forbes and American Scientist.

“Failure is central to engineering,” he said when The Times profiled him in 2006. “Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.”

. . .

“Even though I had three degrees in engineering, and had been teaching engineering and was registered as a professional engineer,” he told The Times in 2014, “if some neighbor asked me, ‘What is engineering?,’ I said, ‘Duh.’ I couldn’t put together a coherent definition of it.” His best effort, he said, was, that “engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.”

Pencils proved a prosaic object for Dr. Petroski’s failure analysis.

. . .

“By asking why and how a pencil point breaks in the way it does,” he concluded, “we are not only led to a better understanding of the tools of stress analysis and their limitations, but we are also led to a fuller appreciation of the wonders of technology when we analyze the aptness of such a manufactured product as the common pencil.”

Two years later, he expanded on the journal article with “The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance,” a 448-page tour through its invention and evolution — with brands like Faber-Castell, Dixon Ticonderoga and Koh-I-Noor among them — that included a chapter about the pencil-making business of Henry David Thoreau’s family in Concord, Mass.

Thoreau, best known for writing about his experience living simply in the woods in “Walden,” was a self-taught pencil engineer who learned about the graphite and clay mixture that made European pencils superior, and who helped adapt them to his family’s pencil manufacturing.

For the full obituary, see:

Richard Sandomir. “Henry Petroski, Whose Books Decoded Engineering, Is Dead at 81.” The New York Times (Friday, June 23, 2023): A21.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date June 22, 2023, and has the title “Henry Petroski, Whose Books Decoded Engineering, Dies at 81.”)

Petroski’s best-known book is:

Petroski, Henry. The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance. New York: Knopf, 1989.

Less Fire on World’s Land Since Early 2000s

(p. A15) One of the most common tropes in our increasingly alarmist climate debate is that global warming has set the world on fire. But it hasn’t. For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward.

In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area. Yet you’ll struggle to find that reported anywhere.

. . .

This summer, the focus has been on Canada’s wildfires, the smoke from which covered large parts of the Northeastern U.S. Both the Canadian prime minister and the White House have blamed climate change.

. . .

In the case of American fires, most of the problem is bad land management. A century of fire suppression has left more fuel for stronger fires. Even so, last year U.S. fires burned less than one-fifth of the average burn in the 1930s and likely only one-tenth of what caught fire in the early 20th century.

When reading headlines about fires, remember the other climate scare tactics that proved duds. Polar bears were once the poster cubs for climate action, yet are now estimated to be more populous than at any time in the past half-century. We were told climate change would produce more hurricanes, yet satellite data shows that the number of hurricanes globally since 1980 has trended slightly downward.

. . .

Surveys repeatedly show that most voters are unwilling to support the very expensive climate policies activists and green politicians have proposed. Overheated headlines about climate Armageddon are an attempt to scare us into supporting them anyway, at the cost of sensible discussion and debate.

For the full commentary, see:

Bjorn Lomborg “Climate Change Hasn’t Set the World on Fire.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023): A15.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 31, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Latest High-Efficiency Air Conditioners Focus on Cutting Humidity

(p. B4) Air conditioners make people cooler and the world hotter. A slew of startups are launching new products to break that cycle.

. . .

Companies such as Blue Frontier, Transaera and Montana Technologies are raising money from investors including industry giant Carrier Global and Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures to develop more efficient technologies. Many of those efforts focus on the humidity rather than the heat, using new materials like liquid salt to dry out the air.

. . .

Blue Frontier aims to separate humidity and temperature control using a liquid salt solution that was developed with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The solution also stores energy, reducing consumption at peak times, when electricity grids are strained on hot days.

The salt solution is an industrial version of the little packets that absorb moisture to keep products dry during shipping. The solution is heated up, releasing water and boosting the concentration of salt, making it more absorbent. This can be done when electricity demand is low and effectively stores energy until cooling is needed.

When air conditioning is needed, the solution is brought in contact with air, absorbing water and removing humidity. The air is cooled within a component called a heat exchanger using a high-efficiency method to lower air temperature by exposing it to water. The dry air absorbs the water, lowering its temperature and the temperature of the heat exchanger. That air that absorbs the water becomes warm and humid and is moved outside. At the same time, air that moves through the chilled heat exchanger flows into the room that is being cooled.

After raising $20 million from investors including Breakthrough last year, Blue Frontier is trialing ACs for businesses. “Air conditioning could be a solution to the problem rather than being the problem,” Betts said.

. . .

“The climate problem is only going to get worse if we continue to add the same types of air conditioners to meet that demand,” said Sorin Grama, CEO of Transaera, which is developing a new AC using highly absorbent materials that remove humidity. The company raised $4.5 million from investors including Carrier last year and is currently making prototypes.

Grama co-founded Transaera with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor after working in India for a refrigeration company and seeing that air conditioners were too expensive for many consumers in the country.

For the full story, see:

Amrith Ramkumar. “Companies Race To Build a Better Air Conditioner.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, June 29, 2023): B4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated June 28, 2023, and has the title “The Race to Build a Better Air Conditioner.”)

United Airlines CEO Gave Up on Flying United Airlines

United Airlines had major flight cancellations on Sun., June 25, 2023, on the day we were to fly United through O’Hare airport on our way to a European trip. Stress, exhaustion, chaos. United Airlines chaos continued for days. My brain has not yet totally processed the story quoted below. My gut, on the other hand, wants the CEO of United Airlines to be fired.

(p. B11) United Airlines Chief Executive Scott Kirby apologized for taking a private jet from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to Denver this week as his airline grappled with widespread weather disruptions.

“Taking a private jet was the wrong decision because it was insensitive to our customers who were waiting to get home,” Kirby said in a statement Friday. “I sincerely apologize to our customers and our team members who have been working around-the-clock for several days—often through severe weather—to take care of our customers.”

A United spokeswoman said Kirby took the flight Wednesday because he was unable to secure a seat on a commercial flight. The company didn’t pay for the private flight, she said.

Wednesday was a hectic day for United: The carrier canceled over 750 mainline flights, according to FlightAware, over a quarter of what it had scheduled. The night before, a long stretch of bad storms in New York led to logjams at the area’s airports, including United’s Newark hub.

Some travelers over the past week have been stranded for days while waiting for space on flights home, in some cases sleeping in the airport. Travelers said they spent hours waiting in line for assistance or to be reunited with checked bags.

For the full story, see:

Alison Sider. “United CEO Apologizes for Flying on Private Jet Amid Airline’s Cancellations.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, July 1, 2023): B11.

(Note: the online version of the story was updated June 30, 2023, and has the title “United Airlines CEO Apologizes for Taking Private Jet During Flight Disruptions.”)

Unsound Trucking Firm “Blew Through” $700 Million of Federal Covid “Bailout” Loan

(p. A4) The Treasury Department erred in giving a loan to a troubled trucking company as part of a 2020 Covid-19 rescue package and should refrain from similar sector-specific loan programs in the future, according to a new congressional report.

Yellow, a trucking company, received a $700 million loan from the Treasury Department as part of an aid program for private industries included in bipartisan legislation known as the Cares Act enacted early in the pandemic.

But Treasury had to skirt the program’s rules to make the loan, the report said. The agency designated Yellow—then known as YRC Worldwide—as critical to national security even though the company didn’t meet the standard for that designation, the report said.

. . .

In exchange for the loan, Treasury received a roughly 30% stake in the company.

. . .

At the time of the loan the company was rated noninvestment grade by Moody’s Investors Service and was at risk of bankruptcy, according to the report.

. . .

In recent months, Yellow has again suffered from the broader freight slowdown.

. . .

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said the union is abiding by the terms of its contract with the company.

“After decades of gross mismanagement, Yellow blew through a $700 million bailout from the federal government, and now it wants workers to foot the bill,” O’Brien said in a statement.

For the full story, see:

David Harrison. “Treasury Faulted for Loan to Troubled Trucking Firm.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, June 28, 2023): A4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated June 27, 2023, and has the title “Treasury Shouldn’t Have Given Pandemic Aid to Trucking Company, Report Finds.”)

New 98% Reflective White Paint Can End Global Warming

(p. A1) In 2020, Dr. Ruan and his team unveiled their creation: a type of white paint that can act as a reflector, bouncing 95 percent of the sun’s rays away from the Earth’s surface, up through the atmosphere and into deep space. A few months later, they announced an even more potent formulation that increased sunlight reflection to 98 percent.

The paint’s properties are almost superheroic. It can make surfaces as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than ambient air temperatures at midday, and up to 19 degrees cooler at night, reducing temperatures inside build-(p. A12)ings and decreasing air-conditioning needs by as much as 40 percent. It is cool to the touch, even under a blazing sun, Dr. Ruan said. Unlike air-conditioners, the paint doesn’t need any energy to work, and it doesn’t warm the outside air.

. . .

. . ., scientists have been urgently working to develop reflective materials, including different types of coatings and films, that could passively cool the Earth. The materials rely on principles of physics that allow thermal energy to travel from Earth along specific wavelengths through what’s known as the transparency or sky window in the atmosphere, and out into deep space.

Jeremy Munday, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Davis, who researches clean technology, said this redirection would barely affect space. The sun already emits more than a billion times more heat than the Earth, he said, and this method merely reflects heat already generated by the sun. “It’d be like pouring a cup of regular water into the ocean,” Dr. Munday said.

He calculated that if materials such as Purdue’s ultra-white paint were to coat between 1 percent and 2 percent of the Earth’s surface, slightly more than half the size of the Sahara, the planet would no longer absorb more heat than it was emitting, and global temperatures would stop rising.

. . .

While humans in such hot and picturesque places as Santorini and the aptly named Casablanca have long used white paint to cool dwellings, and municipalities are increasingly looking to paint rooftops white, Dr. Ruan said commercial white paints generally reflect 80 percent to 90 percent of sunlight. This means they still absorb 10 percent to 20 percent of the heat, which in turn warms surfaces and the ambient air. The Purdue paint, by comparison, absorbs so much less solar heat and radiates so much more heat into deep space that it cools surfaces to below-ambient temperatures.

For the full story, see:

Cara Buckley. “A Coat of Paint May Hold a Key To a Cool Planet.” The New York Times (Thursday, July 13, 2023): A1 & A12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 12, 2023, and has the title “To Help Cool a Hot Planet, the Whitest of White Coats.”)

Elderly Benefit Most from Air-Conditioning

(p. A18) The aging process makes older bodies generally less capable of withstanding extreme heat, doctors say.

“They’re at extremely high risk of heat stroke and death,” James H. Diaz, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at Louisiana State University’s School of Public Health, said of older people. “When we look at what happens with these heat waves, most of the deaths occur in the homebound elderly.”

In many communities, including in New Orleans and Houston, officials have opened cooling centers and shelters in recent weeks, with air-conditioned shuttle buses meandering through neighborhoods, picking people up. Programs are also in place to provide or repair air-conditioners or help people struggling to afford their electricity bills.

. . .

In . . . Orlando, Veronica King, 67, said she keeps her air-conditioner running even if she can’t afford to. “I have to figure out how to cover that bill,” she said, adding that she relies on machines that help her breathe. “When it’s hot, I can’t breathe.”

In Houston, where the heat index could reach 107 degrees on Sunday, Ms. Lowry and her husband, Jasper, 72, have come up with a compromise. They have two cars, neither with working air-conditioning. But they figured they could at least spare the money to repair it in one of them.

For the full story, see:

Shannon Sims and Rick Rojas. “Rising Temperatures Could Bring More Than Misery for Seniors.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, July 9, 2023): 18.

(note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated July 12, 2023, and has the title “Rising Temperatures Threaten More Than Misery for Oldest Americans.”)

With No New Transmission Lines, 80 Percent of Planned Biden Emissions Reduction May Not Happen

(p. A12) . . ., compare today’s renewable energy and transmission system to one estimate of what it would take to reach the Biden administration’s goal of 100 percent clean electricity generation by 2035. Transmission capacity would need to more than double in just over a decade.

There are enormous challenges to building that much transmission, including convoluted permitting processes and potential opposition from local communities.

. . .

The climate stakes are high. Last year, Congress approved hundreds of billions of dollars for solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and other technologies to tackle global warming. But if the United States can’t build new transmission at a faster pace, roughly 80 percent of the emissions reductions expected from that bill might not happen, researchers at the Princeton-led REPEAT Project found.

Already, a lack of transmission capacity means that thousands of proposed wind and solar projects are facing multiyear delays and rising costs to connect to the grid. In many parts of the country, existing power lines are often so clogged that they can’t deliver electricity from wind and solar projects to where it is needed most and demand is often met by more expensive fossil fuel plants closer to homes and businesses. This problem, known as congestion, costs the country billions of dollars per year and has been getting worse.

. . .

Utilities are sometimes wary of long-distance transmission lines that might undercut their local monopolies.

For the full story, see:

Nadja Popovich and Brad Plumer. “Why America Is Not Ready for the Energy Transition.” The New York Times (Friday, June 16, 2023): A12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 12, 2023, and has the title “Why the U.S. Electric Grid Isn’t Ready for the Energy Transition.”)

“Range Anxiety” Leads Chinese to Prefer Hybrids Over EVs

(p. B12) Don’t write off hybrid electric vehicles.

After Tesla, the most highly valued U.S.-listed EV company isn’t homegrown Rivian or Lucid but Li Auto, a Chinese manufacturer that went public in 2020 by listing American depositary receipts.

. . .

What is surprising is that Li has overtaken NIO to lead the new generation of Chinese startups. Li doesn’t make the purely electric vehicles that were popularized by Tesla and that have become the technological focus of other startups and most old-school car manufacturers. Instead, it specializes in extended-range EVs, which use a generator to power up the battery with gasoline if it runs out of juice.

. . .

The popularity of what is essentially a plug-in hybrid, albeit a cutting-edge one, is notable in the Chinese market, which has in many ways led the transition to EVs.

. . .

But Chinese charging infrastructure is patchy, leading to range anxiety. Brokerage Bernstein expects 65% growth in plug-in hybrid sales in China this year, versus 25% growth for pure EVs.

For the full commentary, see:

Stephen Wilmot. “Move Over EVs, Hybrids Are Hot in China.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023): B12.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary was updated February 27, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

In “Hashing Things Out” to Save Lives Bateman “Could Be a Pit Bull”

(p. 20) Don Bateman, an engineer who invented a cockpit device that warns airplane pilots with colorful screen displays and dire audible alerts like “Caution Terrain!” and “Pull Up!” when they are in danger of crashing into mountains, buildings or water — an innovation that has likely saved thousands of lives — died on May 21 [2023] at his home in Bellevue, Wash.

. . .

Bob Champion, a former scientist at Honeywell who worked with Mr. Bateman, said in a telephone interview: “Don had a true passion for saving lives. He was a peach, but behind closed doors, when we were hashing things out, he could be a pit bull.”

. . .

“He never lost his childlike wonder about flying,” Ms. McCaslin said by phone. “He did a lot of his great work from his 40s on.”

. . .

Mr. Bateman told the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation in 2011 that in the late 1960s there were fatal accidents nearly every month, during which a pilot would “fly into something, like a mountain, or go in short on the runway.”

. . .

Determined to do something, Mr. Bateman developed — and in 1974 patented — his first ground proximity warning system: a small box that integrated data from within the aircraft, including the radar altimeter and airspeed indicator, and gave the pilot a 15-second warning of an approaching hazardous condition.

. . .

In the 1990s, the system improved exponentially. Engineers working with Mr. Bateman added GPS and critical terrain data, including topographical maps of Eastern Europe and China that had been charted by the Soviet Union as far back as the 1920s; they had been acquired in Russia at Mr. Bateman’s request.

“We knew, as engineers, that if we could get the terrain data, we could do an awful lot,” he told The Seattle Times.