Susan Buchanan: New Orleans Considers Tearing Down Claiborne Expressway

(This article was published in "The Louisiana Weekly" in the Feb. 25, 2013 edition.)

New Orleans officials hope to move residents toward a consensus this spring about whether to remove or keep the 1960s-era Claiborne expressway that destroyed African American neighborhoods in Treme, the Seventh Ward and vicinity.

Last week, Peter Park, a Denver-based city planner who oversaw the tear-down of Milwaukee's freeway, advised New Orleanians to "get involved in the Claiborne corridor study and own the plan. This isn't a government project, it's a people project." Park, a Harvard University 2012 Loeb fellow, spoke to a packed room at the Sojourner Truth Neighborhood Center in New Orleans on Feb. 20. He was joined by John Norquist, president of the Congress for the New Urbanism in San Francisco and a former Milwaukee mayor.

The New Orleans study, funded with $2 million in planning grants from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and the Dept of Transportation and more from local nonprofits and the city, is mulling what to do with the overpass.

Flozell Daniels, Jr., president of the Foundation for Louisiana and chair of the Livable Claiborne Communities project, spoke last Wednesday about the city's study--which he noted will make recommendations on land use and transportation for the stretch of Claiborne between Napoleon Ave. and Elysian Fields.

Late last year, over 400 residents attended workshops held across town by Mayor Mitch Landrieu's
Office of Place Based Planning. Locals grouped by tables pored over maps and identified issues they want the Claiborne project to address. Daniels said items topping that collective list so far are blight reduction, affordable housing, jobs, opportunities for small businesses, access to fresh food and preservation of local culture. He said ways to redevelop Claiborne are still being assessed and urged residents to attend the city's next workshops in mid-March.

According to the city, the Claiborne study will help communities improve transit; connect housing to jobs, schools and healthcare; promote livability through economic development; and manage water and soil.

Views from residents in public meetings from last fall to March 2013 will be compiled this spring for a presentation by the city in June. After that, scenarios for Claiborne will be evaluated under the more than 40-year-old National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA, approved by Congress. "A preferred alternative" for Claiborne will be identified this summer, according to the city.

Meanwhile, a trend to remove urban highways has been under way for awhile. Park said to connect neighborhoods, Milwaukee tore down its Park East Freeway in 2002 and replaced it with public stairways, pedestrian bridges and parks, mixed-income housing, and commercial and retail spaces.

Norquist pointed to recent success in Seoul, South Korea, where the mayor demolished a freeway in 2011 and developed parks in a move so popular that he was then elected the nation's president. San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, New York City and Buffalo, along with Paris, France and other cities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, have all removed freeways.

So what's wrong with urban highways? Built forty to fifty years ago, U.S. expressways are decaying now and need to be replaced or removed, Park said. "They're not Roman aqueducts," he said. "At some point, they'll come down." Park said urban freeways do more harm than good. Fifty years ago, the idea was to use them to connect cities. "They were going to be built to the outskirts of town, and from there traffic would be funneled into a network of urban streets," he explained. Instead, many were constructed across town, disrupting neighborhoods.

Park said freeways work best at off-peak times. During rush hour, they siphon traffic along an artery and become clogged. Commuters get backed up after an accident and can be stranded for an hour or so. A more effective approach is a sturdy street network, on which drives to work may take a bit longer but little time is wasted in big traffic jams.

He said many city residents falsely believe that an urban freeway gives them greater mobility. Based on that thinking, taxpayer money has been spent on adding lanes to freeways that don't ease congestion in the long run.

Park also noted that urban freeways have reduced adjacent property values, and he questioned whether tax dollars should be spent on projects that hurt home and business owners.

As for businesses, their support in removing a freeway can be instrumental to a tear-down, Norquist said. When the city of Milwaukee wanted to remove the Park East Freeway, Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson wasn't keen on the idea but changed his mind after Harley-Davidson, based in Milwaukee, said if the highway were gone, the company would build a museum in the revitalized area.

Also speaking at the Sojourner Center on Feb. 20 was Ellen Lee, senior vice president at the Greater New Orleans Foundation. She grew up in Treme near the expressway, and her mother still lives there. Lee said the Claiborne project is expected to address income levels in the area, and noted "President Obama says working families shouldn't be living in poverty." She's optimistic that the adjacent BioDistrict of New Orleans, where two hospitals are under construction now, will create good jobs.

As of last summer, 27 percent of the city's residents lived in poverty, well above the national average of 15 percent, according to the New Orleans Community Data Center.

On the technical side, Park said studies and urban plans are two different animals. "Studies are done to analyze while plans are a statement of what we want something to be," he said. And he cited a city planner's credo, saying "to plan is human, to implement is divine." If that sounds familiar, it's a variation on a biblical teaching that humans are implements of a divine plan.

As for New Orleans, Park said the city impressed the world with its resilience after Katrina and can be a role model for other urban areas if it revives the Claiborne corridor.

The Feb. 20 event was organized by the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Claiborne Corridor Improvement Coalition, with support from the Greater New Orleans Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Livable Claiborne Communities will hold workshops on March 16 at Joseph A. Craig Elementary School on St. Philip St. in New Orleans and on March 18 at Ashe Cultural Arts Center on O.C. Haley Blvd. To learn more, visit www.LivableClaiborne.com on the web. end

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-buchanan/new-orleans-considers-tea_b_2778998.html

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Trekkies Vote 'Vulcan' Into the Solar System

New submitter jollyrgr3 writes "If William Shatner gets his wish, one of Pluto's two new moons will be named Vulcan. The two small moons were discovered recently, and the SETI Institute launched an online poll to let people choose names. Captain Kirk himself suggested the names Vulcan and Romulus. Vulcan was accepted as a candidate, and Shatner exhorted his Twitter followers to vote. Vulcan ended up winning by a landslide, taking 174,000 of the 450,000 total responses. The next highest was Cerberus at just shy of 100,000. The names still have to be approved by the International Astronomical Union, as they have the final say. Leonard Nimoy approves."

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/bRCgdItORLc/story01.htm

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Qualcomm announces Gobi chipset with LTE Advanced and Carrier Aggregation

Qualcomm, well known for both its radio chipsets and processors, is announcing today that its latest Gobi chipsets -- the MDM9225 and MDM9625 -- are capable of LTE Advanced and Carrier Aggregation for higher data speeds. Carrier Aggregation (which isn't what you'd think) is a technology that allows the LTE radio in a device to pull down data across multiple bands of spectrum. This means that a device could simultaneously receive data over two (or more) different frequencies, combining it to give data speeds similar to what it would be over a larger chunk of a single frequency. For example, if a carrier has deployed 10MHz of spectrum in one frequency and 10MHz in another, the chip could combine those two and give users the same experience as if the carrier had deployed 20MHz of continuous spectrum in one band.

This is some nerdy radio stuff, but the end result is very important. There's a lot of spectrum out there, but it's not always allocated to each operator in the most efficient way. As networks transition between older 3G technologies and LTE, the spectrum may not be allocated in complete 20MHz blocks for use by a single network. These new Qualcomm chips let devices connect to these disjointed bands simultaneously.

These new MDM9x25 chips are manufactured using a 28nm (nanometer) process, and offer LTE Advanced with downlink speeds up to 150mbps on top of extensive 2G and 3G (including DC-HSPA+) support all in one chip. The process has already been shown off inside of a Sierra Wireless mobile hotspot, and Qualcomm says that OEM partners began sampling the chips in November of last year to make it into consumer products in late 2013.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/ihQa2SHRIYo/story01.htm

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Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop dies at age 96 (CNN)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/287360091?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Ronda Rousey was more worried about her sports bra staying on than being submitted

During their main event bout at UFC 157, Liz Carmouche took Ronda Rousey's back and had her in a neck crank. The crank was so deep that Rousey inadvertently bit Carmouche's arm. But Rousey told the Fuel TV aftershow that she was never worried about submitting to Carmouche. Instead, she was concerned about a wardrobe malfunction.

?On the ground I feel so comfortable in every position, so I never feel in danger and I take a lot of risks. I felt fine with her on my back. I was more concerned with my sports bra staying on while she was choking me because I felt safe and in control," Rousey said.

Rousey won a bronze medal in the 2008 Olympics in judo, so submissions have been part of her life for a long time. In fact, Rousey has spoken often about how her mother taught her judo by waking her up with an armbar. While the neck crank was uncomfortable, it wasn't new.

What is new is having to worry about a sports bra not doing its job. Come on, sports bra. You had one job. Thankfully, it did stay in place, and Rousey went on to submit Carmouche seconds before the end of the first round.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ronda-rousey-more-worried-her-sports-bra-staying-204248185--mma.html

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Rethinking wind power

Public release date: 25-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Perry
cperry@seas.harvard.edu
617-496-1351
Harvard University

Harvard research suggests real-world generating capacity of wind farms at large scales has been overestimated

Cambridge, Mass. February 25, 2013 "People have often thought there's no upper bound for wind powerthat it's one of the most scalable power sources," says Harvard applied physicist David Keith. After all, gusts and breezes don't seem likely to "run out" on a global scale in the way oil wells might run dry.

Yet the latest research in mesoscale atmospheric modeling, published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms has been overestimated.

Each wind turbine creates behind it a "wind shadow" in which the air has been slowed down by drag on the turbine's blades. The ideal wind farm strikes a balance, packing as many turbines onto the land as possible, while also spacing them enough to reduce the impact of these wind shadows. But as wind farms grow larger, they start to interact, and the regional-scale wind patterns matter more.

Keith's research has shown that the generating capacity of very large wind power installations (larger than 100 square kilometers) may peak at between 0.5 and 1 watts per square meter. Previous estimates, which ignored the turbines' slowing effect on the wind, had put that figure at between 2 and 7 watts per square meter.

In short, we may not have access to as much wind power as scientists thought.

An internationally renowned expert on climate science and technology policy, Keith holds appointments as Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and as Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Coauthor Amanda S. Adams was formerly a postdoctoral fellow with Keith and is now assistant professor of geography and Earth sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

"One of the inherent challenges of wind energy is that as soon as you start to develop wind farms and harvest the resource, you change the resource, making it difficult to assess what's really available," says Adams.

But having a truly accurate estimate matters, of course, in the pursuit of carbon-neutral energy sources. Solar, wind, and hydro power, for example, could all play roles in fulfilling energy needs that are currently met by coal or oil.

"If wind power's going to make a contribution to global energy requirements that's serious, 10 or 20 percent or more, then it really has to contribute on the scale of terawatts in the next half-century or less," says Keith.

If we were to cover the entire Earth with wind farms, he notes, "the system could potentially generate enormous amounts of power, well in excess of 100 terawatts, but at that point my guess, based on our climate modeling, is that the effect of that on global winds, and therefore on climate, would be severeperhaps bigger than the impact of doubling CO2."

"Our findings don't mean that we shouldn't pursue wind powerwind is much better for the environment than conventional coalbut these geophysical limits may be meaningful if we really want to scale wind power up to supply a third, let's say, of our primary energy," Keith adds.

And the climatic effect of turbine drag is not the only constraint; geography and economics matter too.

"It's clear the theoretical upper limit to wind power is huge, if you don't care about the impacts of covering the whole world with wind turbines," says Keith. "What's not clearand this is a topic for future researchis what the practical limit to wind power would be if you consider all of the real-world constraints. You'd have to assume that wind turbines need to be located relatively close to where people actually live and where there's a fairly constant wind supply, and that they have to deal with environmental constraints. You can't just put them everywhere."

"The real punch line," he adds, "is that if you can't get much more than half a watt out, and you accept that you can't put them everywhere, then you may start to reach a limit that matters."

In order to stabilize the Earth's climate, Keith estimates, the world will need to identify sources for several tens of terawatts of carbon-free power within a human lifetime. In the meantime, policymakers must also decide how to allocate resources to develop new technologies to harness that energy.

In doing so, Keith says, "It's worth asking about the scalability of each potential energy sourcewhether it can supply, say, 3 terawatts, which would be 10 percent of our global energy need, or whether it's more like 0.3 terawatts and 1 percent."

"Wind power is in a middle ground," he says. "It is still one of the most scalable renewables, but our research suggests that we will need to pay attention to its limits and climatic impacts if we try to scale it beyond a few terawatts."

###

The research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 25-Feb-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Caroline Perry
cperry@seas.harvard.edu
617-496-1351
Harvard University

Harvard research suggests real-world generating capacity of wind farms at large scales has been overestimated

Cambridge, Mass. February 25, 2013 "People have often thought there's no upper bound for wind powerthat it's one of the most scalable power sources," says Harvard applied physicist David Keith. After all, gusts and breezes don't seem likely to "run out" on a global scale in the way oil wells might run dry.

Yet the latest research in mesoscale atmospheric modeling, published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms has been overestimated.

Each wind turbine creates behind it a "wind shadow" in which the air has been slowed down by drag on the turbine's blades. The ideal wind farm strikes a balance, packing as many turbines onto the land as possible, while also spacing them enough to reduce the impact of these wind shadows. But as wind farms grow larger, they start to interact, and the regional-scale wind patterns matter more.

Keith's research has shown that the generating capacity of very large wind power installations (larger than 100 square kilometers) may peak at between 0.5 and 1 watts per square meter. Previous estimates, which ignored the turbines' slowing effect on the wind, had put that figure at between 2 and 7 watts per square meter.

In short, we may not have access to as much wind power as scientists thought.

An internationally renowned expert on climate science and technology policy, Keith holds appointments as Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and as Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Coauthor Amanda S. Adams was formerly a postdoctoral fellow with Keith and is now assistant professor of geography and Earth sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

"One of the inherent challenges of wind energy is that as soon as you start to develop wind farms and harvest the resource, you change the resource, making it difficult to assess what's really available," says Adams.

But having a truly accurate estimate matters, of course, in the pursuit of carbon-neutral energy sources. Solar, wind, and hydro power, for example, could all play roles in fulfilling energy needs that are currently met by coal or oil.

"If wind power's going to make a contribution to global energy requirements that's serious, 10 or 20 percent or more, then it really has to contribute on the scale of terawatts in the next half-century or less," says Keith.

If we were to cover the entire Earth with wind farms, he notes, "the system could potentially generate enormous amounts of power, well in excess of 100 terawatts, but at that point my guess, based on our climate modeling, is that the effect of that on global winds, and therefore on climate, would be severeperhaps bigger than the impact of doubling CO2."

"Our findings don't mean that we shouldn't pursue wind powerwind is much better for the environment than conventional coalbut these geophysical limits may be meaningful if we really want to scale wind power up to supply a third, let's say, of our primary energy," Keith adds.

And the climatic effect of turbine drag is not the only constraint; geography and economics matter too.

"It's clear the theoretical upper limit to wind power is huge, if you don't care about the impacts of covering the whole world with wind turbines," says Keith. "What's not clearand this is a topic for future researchis what the practical limit to wind power would be if you consider all of the real-world constraints. You'd have to assume that wind turbines need to be located relatively close to where people actually live and where there's a fairly constant wind supply, and that they have to deal with environmental constraints. You can't just put them everywhere."

"The real punch line," he adds, "is that if you can't get much more than half a watt out, and you accept that you can't put them everywhere, then you may start to reach a limit that matters."

In order to stabilize the Earth's climate, Keith estimates, the world will need to identify sources for several tens of terawatts of carbon-free power within a human lifetime. In the meantime, policymakers must also decide how to allocate resources to develop new technologies to harness that energy.

In doing so, Keith says, "It's worth asking about the scalability of each potential energy sourcewhether it can supply, say, 3 terawatts, which would be 10 percent of our global energy need, or whether it's more like 0.3 terawatts and 1 percent."

"Wind power is in a middle ground," he says. "It is still one of the most scalable renewables, but our research suggests that we will need to pay attention to its limits and climatic impacts if we try to scale it beyond a few terawatts."

###

The research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/hu-rwp022513.php

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Animal Guts And Thin Air Could Soon Fuel Your Car

Technology developed for World War I is nearly a century old. You'd think the latest-and-greatest developments from 1914 had no purpose in today's world. On the contrary, they're actually en vogue.

Researchers at Cal-Berkeley have created a new fuel derived from a process the British used to manufacture explosives during WWI. Fermenting sugars and transforming them into acetone, butanol and ethanol, they've created a biodiesel that could replace gasoline and drastically reduce greenhouse gases.

"It's a much more efficient ... than many of the other products being considered," Harvey Blanch, a Cal-Berkeley professor of chemical engineering, tells The San Francisco Chronicle. "This product is one that may be closest to commercialization."

In recent years, volatile gasoline prices and worries about long-term supply have sent consumers and entrepreneurs alike searching for alternate fuels and alternate energy sources to power their cars.

Here's a look at some wacky, yet plausible, fuel alternatives that are in the process of development right now that could eventually find their way into your car's gas tank:

Chicken guts and pork lard

Mazda is pioneering the use of a synthetic diesel fuel made from leftover animal fats, like chicken guts and pork lard, that are left over from Tyson Foods' slaughtering process. The fuel is going to be tested during an upcoming race at Daytona.

"We're not taking food off the table or feedstock away from animals," James O'Sullivan, president and chief executive of Mazda North American Operations, tells Forbes.com. "This would end up in a landfill."

Think it's far fetched? Alamo and National Rental Car shuttle buses are already using the fuel, as is the U.S. Navy. Yes, animal guts have a role in our national defense.

Perhaps most optimistically, synthetic diesel can be blended with regular diesel and is often drop-in ready for regular diesel pumps at gas stations. And there's more infrastructure in place. Dynamic Fuels opened a $150 million refinery in October 2010 that's capable of processing 1.5 million pounds of "meat remnants" every day, according to Forbes, which can produce 75 million gallons of synthetic diesel every year.

Thin air

This is the stuff of science fiction. A small British company is making fuel out of thin air, developing a process that uses air and electricity to manufacture a synthetic fuel that has already powered a Lotus in test drivers.

This one is still a ways away. The company behind the technology, Air Fuel Synthesis, wants to build a full-scale refinery, but that could take 15 years. Still, don't bet against it. Britain's deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, recently visited AFG's testing facility and came away saying, "I feel I've glimpsed the future."

Weeds

As the largest consumer of energy in the government, the Department of Defense has run all sorts of experiments using biofuels in ships, cars and, perhaps most intriguingly, airplanes. The Air Force has powered F-16s with a 50-50 blend of biodiesel derived from camelina plants and regular JP-8 jet fuel.

There has been almost no noticeable difference in jet performance, according to reports, and by 2016, the Air Force is aiming to have its entire domestic fuel use consist of a a 50-50 blend of biofuel and conventional fuel.

Wasted spaces

Critics of biofuel development say that production of these fuels use valuable resources like farmland and crops that otherwise would be food. This increases the price of groceries and livestock feed.

Fine, one researcher said. Instead of using farmland, he'll plant biofuel crops in unusual places, like the side of the highway, abandoned assembly plants and fields adjacent to airport runways. Places where farming can't be sustained.

Dennis Pennington, a researcher at Michigan State University, says it would take roughly 200,000 acres to supply enough crops for a processing plant that makes 50 million gallons of biodiesel per year.

In Michigan, he estimates there are 4.5 million acres of "marginal land" that's unable to be farmed. That could translate into 1.125 billion gallons of biodiesel, roughly the same amount the currently flows through the U.S. each year.

If just a fraction of that potential could be tapped, it would "create infrastructure to handle it, crush it and get it into a plant to refine it into a fuel," Pennington tells a public-radio project. "That's job creation and economic development."

Garbage

There's that classic scene toward the end of Back To The Future where Marty McFly and Emmett "Doc" Brown power their DeLorean time machine with the Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor, which runs on garbage like the banana peel and a Miller beer can found in the McFly family trash can.

Fusion technology hasn't been perfected since the movie opened in 1985. Garbage as fuel? That's another story.

Coskata, Inc., a company that received investment from General Motors, said it has pioneered a technique that can turn anything from wood chips to municipal trash into ethanol. It already has an ethanol plant running in Madison, Pa.

Pete Bigelow is an associate editor at AOL Autos. He can be reached via email at peter.bigelow@teamaol.com and followed on Twitter @PeterCBigelow.

Source: http://cars2.knoxnews.com/2013/01/19/1016/Animal_Guts_And_Thin_Air_Could_Soon_Fuel_Your_Car.html

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