Day: September 7, 2008

Japan’s Green Car Industry

Honda’s new FCX clarity feels like a perfectly ordinary car—which may well be the most shocking thing about it. It looks and drives like a run-of-the-mill four-seat sedan. Slip behind the wheel and press the pedal with your foot, and the car accelerates with satisfying punch. But after a few minutes of cruising, you’ll notice that something is missing. The only audible engine noise is a faint whir, so faint that you can actually hear the tires swishing along the asphalt.

That’s because the Clarity is a hydrogen-fuel-cell car, one of the most advanced in the world. The once bulky fuel-cell stack that supplies energy to the engine has been reduced in size by half over the past decade while increasing the power output by 50 percent. It’s the first to be certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the first to be delivered to retail customers (albeit on a leasing basis). As for CO2 emissions, the only exhaust it produces is a trickle of water. And perhaps most important of all is what stands behind it: A state-of-the-art factory that’s ready to produce thousands of the vehicles once the market’s ready. Most of Honda’s competitors, by contrast, are still bringing concept cars to the auto shows.

In large part, Japan’s lead in green-car technology is an outgrowth of its old austerity. Japan was obsessed with energy efficiency long before global warming made it a worldwide obsession. For decades Japanese companies have struggled to cope with their oil-poor country’s sky-high energy costs by placing a premium on energy-saving technologies, and it has paid off. Even old Japanese industries are cutting-edge in cutting energy costs. Japan continued to make batteries long after U.S. rivals quit, and now makes the most efficient batteries in the world. Japanese steelmakers have ceded ground to cheaper emerging-market rivals but are still unsurpassed in the fine niche art of making superlight steel for car bodies. The hidden strength of Japanese smokestack industries helped create its green cars, and now the success of those cars is pushing more and more Japanese industries—electronic-motor and control-unit producers, all sorts of material companies—to innovate faster.

The focus on green cars reveals the kind of industrial vision that Japan is often criticized for having lost decades ago. Toyota launched the G21 Project, which ultimately produced the Prius, back in the 1990s, when oil prices were low and America’s love of SUVs was still growing. The idea was to create a model car for the 21st century, and counter Toyota’s reputation for “boring” vehicles. Toyota simply saw the long view before others, assuming that the petroleum-based economy was becoming unviable for a variety of environmental and economic reasons, according to Noriyuki Matsushima, analyst at Nikko Citigroup in Tokyo.

As reported in Newsweek.

Neglect Threathens US Infrastructure

The United States has increased security to protect its levees, dams and power grids from terrorists, but neglect of ordinary upkeep exposes such critical infrastructure to dangerous decay, the U.S. homeland security chief said on Friday.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff accused political leaders of playing a game of “musical chairs” by ignoring maintenance and needed upgrades and hoping facilities can avoid disaster until after they leave office.

“It’s kind of like playing Russian roulette with our citizens’ safety,” Chertoff said in a speech at the Brookings Institution think tank. Private companies have shown a similar short-term attitude over infrastructure maintenance, he said.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in terms of these common goods, publicly owned and privately owned, when it comes to protecting them against terrorist attacks,” Chertoff said.

A 2005 study by the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated it would cost $1.6 trillion over five years to bring U.S. physical infrastructure to acceptable levels. Other studies have also recommended spending more on maintenance.

But in a sign of the times, the Bush administration asked Congress on Friday for an immediate $8 billion to reimburse states for highway projects funded with federal gasoline taxes, which have slumped as American motorists drive less.

Chertoff encouraged states to follow the example of the federal anti-terrorism program and inventory infrastructure projects vulnerable to natural disasters. Strategies could then be drawn up for maintaining, reinforcing and protecting them.

Long-term maintenance costs must also be considered in evaluating projects that might be to expensive to maintain.

Practice Makes Perfect

Muslims and Catholics have been enraged by explicit sex-education lessons in Western Australia schools, where girls as young as 14 are being made to roll condoms on to plastic penises.

Perth, August 25 : Muslims and Catholics have been enraged by explicit sex-education lessons in Western Australia schools, where girls as young as 14 are being made to roll condoms on to plastic penises.

Prominent WA Muslim imam Abdul Jalil Ahmad branded the lessons “pornography in the classroom”.

Peter Rosengren, the Editor of the Catholic Church’s The Record newspaper, said that such a way of imparting sex education to school students was indicative of society’s over-sexualisation of children.

Parents are unhappy because they feel that before introducing any such initiative, their permission should have been taken.

“It’s outrageous. My concern is the ethical standards and moral values of an education system that believes it has the right, without my permission, to get my daughter to put condoms on plastic penises,” Perth Now quoted one Axel Cremer, father of a Year-10 student from Rossmoyne Senior High School, as saying.

Cremer said that the issue was not religious, but was about moral values.

He conceded that it was necessary to educate students about sexually transmittable diseases and unwanted pregnancies, but insisted that there were other ways to teach that.

Terming the lessons “completely evil”, Imam Ahmad said that the Government should band them.

“That’s pornography in the classroom,” he said.

California’s Better Plan?

California is poised to pass the first law in the nation linking greenhouse gas emissions to urban planning, a departure from the growth approach that spawned the state’s car culture and urban sprawl.

The measure, known as SB375, aims to give existing and new high-density centers where people live, work and shop top priority in receiving local, state and federal transportation funds. The idea is that such developments check sprawl and ease commutes, in turn cutting the car pollution wafting through the Golden State.

Authored by Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), the bill reflects California’s push to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Sponsors say the measure is part of a much-needed growth policy for a state whose population is expected to swell to 50 million from the current 38 million in two decades.

The state’s legislature recently green-lighted the measure, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who aims to make California a trendsetter in fighting global warming, is expected to sign it into law once the state balances its long-overdue budget.

If he does, the state’s Air Resources Board will set emission-reduction targets for 17 major metropolitan planning organizations responsible for housing and transportation projects. A separate bill, also expected to be signed by the governor, would designate financial resources to these organizations.

Exerpts of an article written by Ashley Surdin in the WaPo.