unhappycamper
unhappycamper's JournalSolar Roadways passes $1.4 million in crowdfunding: Just short of the $56 trillion required, but not
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/183130-solar-roadways-passes-1-4-million-in-crowdfunding-just-short-of-the-56-trillion-required-but-not-bad-for-a-crazy-idea
Solar Roadways passes $1.4 million in crowdfunding: Just short of the $56 trillion required, but not bad for a crazy idea
By Sebastian Anthony on May 27, 2014 at 1:45 pm
Over the weekend, the Solar Roadways project on Indiegogo reached its target of $1 million. At the time of publishing, that figure is now north of $1.4 million, with five days left to go. The concept is verging on utopian: By replacing the USA’s concrete and asphalt roads with solar panels, we could produce three times more electricity than we consume, instantly solving just about every energy problem we have (geopolitical stuff, reliance on fossil fuels, CO2 production, etc.) It’s not hard to see why Solar Roadways has attracted so much attention and money: On paper, it really does sound like one of the greatest inventions ever. In reality, though, where, you know, real-world factors come into play, it will probably never make the jump from drawing board to large-scale deployment.
Solar Roadways, the brainchild of Julie and Scott Brusaw of Idaho, have been in development since at least the mid-2000s. The concept, as described by dozens of videos and blog posts over the years, is pretty simple: We replace roads with hard-wearing solar cells. By adding other electronics, such as LEDs and touch sensors, additional functionality has also been mooted: Illuminated road markings (and animals crossing the road), roads that melt snow and ice, and so on. Electrified/networked roads could also be a key step towards self-driving cars and wide-scale EV adoption.
To be fair to the Brusaws, they’re not exactly scammers — Scott is an electrical engineer, and most of the science checks out — but so far, despite $850,000 in grants from the Department of Transport, the couple have only built a small prototype parking lot. The Indiegogo page doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, either. Right at the bottom of the page, there’s a single line describing what the $1 million (and counting) will be spent on: “We asked for $1 million to hire an initial team of engineers to help us make a few needed tweaks in our product and streamline our process so that we could go from prototype to production.”
These engineers will be tasked with the rather difficult task of turning Solar Roadways from a utopian concept into a real-world product. I do not envy them. While no one is arguing that it would be great to turn our road system into a massive solar farm, there are simply way too many obstacles that need to be traversed — much like fusion power, cold fusion, or heck, building a frickin’ star-encompassing Dyson sphere. Chief among these obstacles is cost. While exact figures are hard to come by, there’s roughly 29,000 square miles (75,000 sq km) of paved road in the lower 48 US states. As you can probably imagine, asphalt is pretty cheap (on the order of a few dollars per square foot) — and Solar Roadways, which are essentially solar cells wedged between thick slabs of ultra-tough glass, are not cheap. Back in 2010, Scott Brusaw estimated a cost of $10,000 for a 12-foot-by-12-foot segment of Solar Roadway, or around $70 per square foot; asphalt, on the other hand, is somewhere around $3 to $15, depending on the quality and strength of the road. According to some maths done by Aaron Saenz, the total cost to redo America’s roadways with Solar Roadways would be $56 trillion — or about four times the country’s national debt.
The top piece of tempered glass on a Solar Roadways panel
Poverty? Really?
Let's use this graph for discussion:
We all know that the military eats up 57% of all discretionary funding. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, Veterans Benefits, Labor, Education, Science all come from the same pot of money.
The US Navy's shipbuilding program is out of control.
Example 1: $5+ billion dollars for a destroyer? Really? That's more than Nimitz-class aircraft carriers usta cost.
Example 2: Our newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, is currently being built will cost somewhere between $16 ~ $40 billion dollars. ka-fucking-ching
Example 3: Cheap ships (think Littoral Ccombat Ships) defined in the Navy's Bluewater Project were supposed to cost $200 million a pop. The first two LCS came in at over $1.2 billion. Our Congress, in it's infinite wisdom, ordered 52 more to bring the cost down. I hear they are planning to replace the 57mm popgun these things come with. 
As you will read below, the Navy isn't the only service with very expensive hardware.
We really need to rethink that 57%.
==============================
http://isnblog.ethz.ch/government/aircraft-stories-the-f-35-joint-strike-fighter-part-i
Aircraft Stories: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (Part I)
By Srdjan Vucetic
28 May 2014
How big is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter? By one set of measures, it is three times bigger than the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, ten times bigger than either the Apollo Project or the International Space Station or Hurricane Katrina, or one hundred times bigger than the Panama Canal. These comparisons are only moderately outlandish. US$1.45 trillion is the Pentagon’s own December 2010 estimate of lifetime operating and supporting costs for the 2,443 copies of the F-35 currently on order by the United States government, which we can then compare to the known price tags, in 2007 dollars, of these five projects.[1] Costs—also variously prefaced as procurement, actual, sunk, fly-away, upgrade, true and so on—and their contestations are central to a discourse of accountancy that surrounds all projects that require large-scale mobilization of public power. But enormous as they are, these numbers still cannot capture the size of this particular weapons program. To understand just how big the F-35 is, I wish to suggest in this two-part post, we ought to conceive it as a proper assemblage—a heterogeneous association of human and nonhuman elements that is at once split, processual, emergent, and, most importantly, constitutive of the modern international.
To explore this proposition, I follow the tenets of early actor–network theory (ANT), and in particular the work of one of its founding fathers, John Law.[2] It was through a series of case studies of the TSR-2, early Cold War-era nuclear-capable multi-role aircraft commissioned and eventually cancelled by the United Kingdom government that Law advanced an argument that human actors hold no a priori primacy over things in constituting the social or, if you prefer, the socio-technical.[3] Here is one revealing passage:
An aircraft, yes, is an object. But it also reveals multiplicity—for instance in wing shape, speed, military roles, and political attributes. I am saying, then, that an object such as an aircraft—an “individual” and “specific” aircraft—comes in different versions. It has no single center. It is multiple. And yet these various versions also interfere with one another and shuffle themselves together to make a single aircraft.
So instead of thinking about aircraft as objects with concrete essences and purposes, Law is inviting us to see them as “decentered” and “fractionally coherent”—as assemblages or networks that become objects only in interactions with other assemblages. He is further suggesting that assemblages are made up of both material and social elements that come together in contingent ways. And what is more, Law accepts that objects are also actors that can exert force—hence the term actor-network. In this ontology, aircraft are at once networks of multiple components, organic and inorganic, that have become connected in a particular way and heterogeneous actors capable of producing, inter alia, salaries and sound pollution, fear and loathing as well as theories and policies.
--
Some Aussies are having second thoughts:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/latest/a/23905774/mp-blasts-f-35-jet-deal/
MP blasts F-35 jet deal
Nick Butterly Canberra The West Australian May 28, 2014, 5:24 am
WA Liberal backbencher Dennis Jensen has suggested senior Defence Department officials backed the Joint Strike Fighter program after receiving "largesse" from military contractors.
And Dr Jensen has blasted the coalition's Budget cuts to the CSIRO, while questioning the merits of Prime Minister Tony Abbott's $20 billion medical research fund. In an extraordinary speech to Parliament last night, Dr Jensen said he was aware of "influence peddling" by defence contractors with both Defence personnel and some journalists.
Dr Jensen, a long-time critic of the F-35 program, said senior military officers who provided advice to the Government on big defence contracts should be forced to publish a personal interests register.
--
Even the Canuks are being pressured by Lockheed Martin:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-urged-to-bypass-competition-for-fighter-jet-program/article18851234/
Ottawa urged to bypass competition for purchase of fighter jets
Daniel Leblanc
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, May. 26 2014, 3:29 PM EDT
Last updated Monday, May. 26 2014, 3:33 PM EDT
The Canadian companies that are participating in the F-35 fighter jet program are urging the federal government to bypass a competition and return to its original plan to sole-source the purchase of the U.S.-based Lockheed-Martin aircraft.
“Using a competition to simply delay making a decision is costly, unnecessary and not in the interests of Canadian taxpayers or Canadian industry. That is bad management, bad policy and bad for business,” the industry group made up of 35 Canadian firms said in an open letter.
But other voices are rising, arguing that the best way to find the aircraft that suits Canada’s needs is to launch a competition that would pit the single-engine F-35 against its rivals, including the twin-engine Boeing SuperHornet.
The debate is at the heart of the choice facing the Conservative government as its seeks a replacement for its aging fleet of CF-18s. Armed with detailed technological information on four fighter jets, the cabinet will have to decide in the coming weeks whether to launch a competition, or to proceed with the untendered purchase of F-35s.
--
From the we'll-take-care-of-it deparment:
http://digital.vpr.net/post/no-specifics-yet-vermont-guard-promises-mitigate-f-35-noise
No Specifics Yet, But Vermont Guard Promises To Mitigate F-35 Noise
By Mitch Wertlieb & Melody Bodette
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014 | Posted by WorldTribune.com
After much debate from opponents who fear an increase in noise pollution along with other concerns, and supporters who argued jobs were at stake, the Air Force recently announced that the Vermont Air National Guard would be awarded F-35 fighter jets in 2020.
But a mitigation and management plan for the site says the arrival of the jets will increase the area impacted by jet noise, a circumstance that had jet opponents concerned that their objections were warranted, and ignored by the Guard.
VPR’s Mitch Wertlieb spoke with Colonel Thomas Jackman, Commander of the Vermont Guard's 158th Fighter Wing and Adam Wright, environmental manager of the 158th Fighter Wing.
Wertlieb: Let’s start out with a question that has been asked before but bears asking again, how loud will these F-35s be, and how will the noise affect houses surrounding the airport?
--
Just in case Lockheed wasn't getting enough business, the DoD kicks in another $102 million into Lockheed's coffers :
http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/05/27/israel-years-refusals-gets-concessions-obama-f-35-modifications/
Israeli F-35 green-lighted: Obama administration ends lengthy delay
Tuesday, May 27th, 2014 | Posted by WorldTribune.com
WASHINGTON — Israel has received U.S. approval for its planned Joint Strike Fighter fleet.
The Defense Department has awarded a $101.9 million contract for JSF logistics for Israel. Under the contract, Lockheed Martin would provide engineering and software development for Israel’s order of 19 F-35A fighter-jets.
~snip~
“This modification provides for non-recurring engineering and sustainment tasks for mission systems software and autonomic logistics development of the F-35A Conventional Take Off and Landing Air System for the government of Israel under the Foreign Military Sales Program,” the Pentagon said.
In a statement on May 13, the Pentagon said the latest contract would also procure autonomic logistics hardware to support Israel pilot training. No details were given.
5 things to know about salmonella in chicken
http://gazette.com/5-things-to-know-about-salmonella-in-chicken/article/feed/123065
5 things to know about salmonella in chicken
Associated Press Updated: May 29, 2014 at 2:45 am
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds — maybe thousands — of antibiotic-resistant salmonella illnesses are linked to a California chicken producer. The outbreak has been going on for over a year, and none of the company's products have been recalled.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there were 50 new reported illnesses linked to Foster Farms of Livingston, California, in the past two months, bringing the total number of cases to 574. Most of the illnesses were in California.
~snip~
A HISTORY OF OUTBREAKS
Dealing with outbreaks is nothing new for Foster Farms. The company was linked to salmonella illnesses in 2004 and then again in 2012, before the current outbreak, which started in 2013.
In a letter from the USDA to Foster Farms last October, the department said inspectors had documented "fecal material on carcasses" along with "poor sanitary dressing practices, insanitary food contact surfaces, insanitary nonfood contact surfaces and direct product contamination."
Officials: Army hospital chief relieved of command
http://gazette.com/officials-army-hospital-chief-relieved-of-command/article/1520641Officials: Army hospital chief relieved of command
Associated Press • Published: May 28, 2014
WASHINGTON — The chief of an Army medical center has been relieved of his command because of problems with patient care, and the Pentagon has ordered a review of its health care system, defense officials said.
The commander was replaced Tuesday at Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and three deputies were suspended, the Army said in a statement.
The shake-up comes after two deaths this month of patients in their 20s and problems with infection control at the facility that were pointed out in March by a hospital accreditation group, according to two defense officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Also, the Pentagon announced late Tuesday that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had ordered a 90-day review of the entire military health care system. He was spurred by the investigation into allegations of treatment delays at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The review will assess the quality of the health care at military treatment facilities and care the department buys from civilian providers, press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said.
IG: Phoenix VA hospital missed care for 1,700 vets
http://gazette.com/ig-phoenix-va-hospital-missed-care-for-1700-vets/article/feed/122838IG: Phoenix VA hospital missed care for 1,700 vets
Associated Press Updated: May 28, 2014 at 11:32 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — About 1,700 veterans in need of care were "at risk of being lost or forgotten" after being kept off the official waiting list at the troubled Phoenix veterans hospital, the Veterans Affairs watchdog said Wednesday in a scathing report that increases pressure on Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign.
The investigation, initially focused on the Phoenix hospital, found systemic problems in the VA's sprawling nationwide system, which provides medical care to about 6.5 million veterans each year. The interim report confirmed allegations of excessive waiting time for care in Phoenix, with an average 115-day wait for a first appointment for those on the waiting list — 91 days longer than the 24-day average the hospital had reported.
"While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility," Richard J. Griffin, the department's acting inspector general, wrote in the 35-page report. It found that "inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic throughout" the VA's 1,700 health facilities nationwide, including 150 hospitals and 820 clinics.
Griffin said 42 centers are under investigation, up from 26.
--
If you're looking for someone to fire, I'd suggest your look at Republicans first. Let's start with the Lawnmower Guy:
http://www.veterans.senate.gov/about/ranking
Wells Fargo must face L.A. discriminatory lending claims
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-fargo-lawsuit-20140528-story.html#navtype=outfitWells Fargo must face L.A. discriminatory lending claims
By Bloomberg News
May 28,2014
Wells Fargo & Co. lost a bid to dismiss a lawsuit by the city of Los Angeles accusing the bank of targeting minority borrowers with "predatory" mortgages that caused a disproportionate number of foreclosures.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles said the city's allegations were legally sufficient to proceed with the case.
The city sued Wells Fargo, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. last year, saying the three mortgage lenders engaged in discriminatory practices since at least 2004, placing minority borrowers in loans they couldn't afford and driving up the number of foreclosures in their neighborhoods.
~snip~
The city seeks to hold the banks liable for lost tax revenue and increased municipal services stemming from the foreclosures. The ruling Wednesday only relates to the lawsuit against Wells Fargo, the largest home lender in the U.S.
Ukraine military helicopter shot down; general among 14 killed
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-ukraine-helicopter-down-20140529-story.html#navtype=outfitUkraine military helicopter shot down; general among 14 killed
May 29, 2014
Rebels in eastern Ukraine shot down a government military helicopter Thursday amid heavy fighting around the eastern city of Slovyansk, killing 14 soldiers including a general, Ukraine's leader said.
Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov told the parliament in Kiev that rebels used a portable air defense missile Thursday to down the helicopter and said Gen. Volodymyr Kulchitsky was among the dead.
Slovyansk has become the epicenter of fighting between pro-Russia insurgents and government forces in recent weeks. Located 100 miles from the Russian border, it has seen constant clashes and its residential areas have regularly come under mortar shelling from government forces, causing civilian casualties and prompting some residents to flee.
An Associated Press reporter saw the helicopter go down and the trail of black smoke it left before crashing. Gunshots were heard around Slovyansk near the crash site and a Ukrainian air force jet was seen circling above. It was too dangerous to visit the site itself.
Utility puts Carlsbad power plant on fast track
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/may/27/rushing-carlsbad-power-plant/
An NRG Energy spokeswoman said last week that the company is talking with potential buyers of electricity to be produced at a plant that would replace the aging Encina Power Station.
Utility puts Carlsbad power plant on fast track
By Morgan Lee
3:13 p.m.May 27, 2014
San Diego Gas & Electric is forging ahead with plans to underwrite the construction of a major new natural gas power plant in Carlsbad in response to the early retirement of the San Onofre nuclear plant.
SDG&E notified state regulators May 1 that it has been in direct negotiations with the developer of the Carlsbad Energy Center.
If a contract is signed, and approved by regulators, the gas-fired facility would sit adjacent to the existing Encina Power Station and eventually replace the 60-year-old, oceanfront power plant, known for its landmark 400-foot smokestack. Encina has been targeted for retirement by state regulators because of its age and ecologically harmful ocean cooling system.
The California Public Utilities Commission released last week SDG&E's plan for bolstering local power supplies at the insistence of the Sierra Club and the California Environmental Justice Alliance. The Sierra Club said it would urge the commission to reject the plan, asserting that SDG&E has a legal obligation to explore contracts for cleaner sources of power and conservation before contracting a gas-fired power plant.
(AK) Native corporations join forces to oppose oil tax referendum
http://www.adn.com/2014/05/28/3491089/native-corporations-join-forces.html?sp=/99/171/
David Marquez, Chief Operating Officer of NANA Development Corp., speaks at the announcement that six regional Native corporations plan to spend $500,000 to defeat the referendum in August that would repeal the Senate Bill 21 oil tax cuts. The announcement was made at a news conference at Arctic Slope Regional Corp.'s fabrication shop in South Anchorage.
Native corporations join forces to oppose oil tax referendum
By RICHARD MAUER
May 28, 2014 Updated 4 hours ago
Six regional Native corporations, some with substantial oil-field business, announced Wednesday they have formed a coalition to oppose the oil-tax cut referendum in August with at least $500,000 in campaign spending.
The new group, "No One on One," joins two other business-backed organizations in opposing the referendum, including one in which Alaska's three big oil producers have already provided millions of dollars.
Supporters of the referendum say they expect to be outspent many times over but believe voters will still vote to repeal Senate Bill 21, passed by the Legislature in 2013.
The Native corporation coalition announcement was staged in the cavernous South Anchorage fabrication shop owned by a subsidiary of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., one of the coalition members. Workers in white hard hats stood as a backdrop to the podium, and dozens more supporters, including House Speaker Mike Chenault, were in the audience.
(AK) Judge has issues with Army Corps plan to allow road, bridge to NPR-A
http://www.adn.com/2014/05/28/3491021/judge-has-issues-with-army-corps.html?sp=/99/171/Judge has issues with Army Corps plan to allow road, bridge to NPR-A
By YERETH ROSEN
May 28, 2014
A hotly contested permit allowing ConocoPhillips to build a road and bridge to a new oil field is now in doubt after a federal judge ruled that regulators approved it without fully considering environmental impacts.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason, in a ruling issued Tuesday, said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers erred in the way it issued a wetlands-fill permit that ConocoPhillips needed to build a gravel road and a road-and-bridge link for its CD-5 oil field on the western North Slope.
Construction is already partly done, with the 6-mile access road and pad installed and some bridge work finished over the winter, ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman said.
However, the permit allowing that work is flawed, Gleason found, because the Corps -- which approved the permit in 2011 after previously rejecting ConocoPhillips' permit application -- failed to justify its decision to skip a supplemental environmental impact statement. The Corps should have considered further study to weigh modifications to ConocoPhillips' plan and potential impacts to a North Slope environment already being altered by climate change, Gleason said in her ruling.
Profile Information
Member since: Wed Mar 16, 2005, 11:12 AMNumber of posts: 60,364
