News

China confirmed its leadership in new transport technology with an announcement 13 March 2006 that it will build the world’s 2^nd commercial maglev between Shanghai and Hangzhou, 175 km apart. The round trip will take less than 1 hour, fitting the journey into the human daily travel time budget and assuring massive traffic, as we explain in our papers Toward Green Mobility and The Evolution of Transport.

Superb stories on the Census of Marine Life appeared 13 February in the leading German weekly, Der Spiegel, and 22 February in the leading Brazilian weekly, Veja.

On 14 March Jesse will particiapte in a seminar organized by the New York Times about climate change.

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Claire Williams’ book Landscapes, Genomics, and Transgenic Conifers to which we contributed “Foresters and DNA” is now available from Amazon where the site features our opening sentence: “The decoding of DNA messages produces magnificent structures, perhaps none more magnificent than a tree…”

Always alert for surprising ways that technology may spare environment, we are delighted by papers showing that Viagra could spare threatened species in general and in particular ones exploited in traditional Chinese medicine. Better Viagra than Tiger Bone or Rhino Horn, as Richard Ellis has written.

Robert Preston, a portfolio manager at Merrill Lynch, has started an energy investment fund based on the macro trend of de-carbonization, as explained in the 2nd paragraph of the fund description. PHE does not endorse or invest in the fund and reminds visitors that many factors beside good technology determine profits of firms and lucrative investments. Recall “Rat Race Dynamics and Crazy Companies”.

Journalist Fred Pearce interviewed Jesse for New Scientist magazine. The version published in the 28 January 2006 issue of the magazine omits about 500 words of the version we post here. Fred is a good interviewer!

Our work on Industrial Ecology of Wood Products and Restoring Forests convinced us years ago that wood demand would continue weak for many decades. On 27 December 2005 the Wall Street Journal reported that demand for paper in offices and businesses in North America fell from 14.3 million metrics tons in 1999 to 13 million tons in 2004, more than 1.7% per year, and dropped 4% through the first 10 months of 2005. To experience what might weaken paper demand for a broad range of consumers, visit the Open Library previewing e-books developed by the wonderfully creative Brewster Kahle.

To lift enthusiasts of distributed generation to heaven, our 1996 paper Elektron on pp. 157-158 proposed a “splicer”, a multi-purpose household energy alliance of 5 kW, to produce electricity, heat, or whatever you like. Honda and Plug Power report progress toward a kind of splicer with their “Home Energy Station.”

Torrance, CA-based Honda R&D Americas, Inc., together with its partner Plug Power, Inc. Latham, NY has launched Home Energy Station III providing electricity for the home and hydrogen for future fuel cell-powered vehicles (H&FCL July 05). This third-generation system which operates on natural gas as primary fuel, is roughly 30 % smaller than its predecessor and produces about 25% more power. It’s rated at up 5 kW. Honda says it’s more energy efficient, hydrogen storage and production capacity is up about 50% via a new improved natural gas reformer, and start-up time has been cut to about one minute. The system will be tested at Honda R&D Americas.

The New York Times reported 8 December that USA corn yields have risen 31% since 1995. Despite the drought in Illinois in the summer of 2005, that State produced a bumper crop. While for more than 30 years, many experts have forecast a leveling of yields, farmers keeping lifting yields and creating the chance to spare Nature. Alternatively, the success of corn farmers feeds the rise in meat consumption by the Chinese and others. Cesare Marchetti shows that increases in Chinese meat consumption in kilocalories per day fits well a double logistic that will saturate in a few years (not far from European meat eating but below USA). The early deviations from the second logistic also show the havoc that politics can create. Mao was an enemy of meat.