Uber and Lyft Are Convenient, Competitive and Highly Carbon Intensive

A new study finds the ride-hailing companies emit nearly 70 percent more carbon thanks largely to a practice known as “deadheading.”

BY PHIL MCKENNA for Inside Climate News

About 42 percent of the miles driven by ride-hailing vehicles like Uber and Lyft are done between rides. This portion, called “deadheading”, is behind the increased emissions and congestion caused by these vehicles, a new study shows. Credit: Justin Sulli
About 42 percent of the miles driven by ride-hailing vehicles like Uber and Lyft are done between rides. This portion, called “deadheading”, is behind the increased emissions and congestion caused by these vehicles, a new study shows. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft are transforming urban transportation and eclipsing competitors with convenient, on-demand service. But that convenience carries a distinct climate cost as ride-hailing vehicles emit nearly 70 percent more carbon dioxide on average than the other forms of transportation they displace, according to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The report, released Tuesday, zeroes in on a little-known aspect of ride-

hailing known as “deadheading”—the miles a vehicle travels without a passenger between hired rides—that is responsible for much of the emissions and increased congestion. It also highlights policies that could significantly reduce emissions from the rides.

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“While ride-hailing trips today are higher emitting than other types of trips, we were encouraged by the fact that they can be significantly lower polluting with efforts to electrify and pool rides,” said Don Anair, research director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Clean Transportation Program and an author of the report. “The outlook could be positive with some concrete steps by the companies to move forward, as well as policymakers to support that.”

The report, an analysis of previously released data from ride-hailing companies and a synthesis of prior academic studies, first compared the average emissions per trip-mile of private passenger vehicles to those of ride-sharing vehicles across seven major U.S. cities. While ride-hailing vehicles were typically newer and more efficient than the average private vehicle, they had significantly higher associated emissions due to deadheading. Approximately 42 percent of the miles driven by ride-hailing vehicles were miles traveled between hired rides with only the driver in the vehicle.

When ride-hailing trips are pooled, simultaneously transporting two or more unrelated passengers headed in the same direction, emissions from ride-sharing were roughly equivalent to private vehicles. Electric ride-hailing vehicles had significantly lower emissions than the average private vehicle, emissions that dropped even further when rides were shared.

The report also compared ride sharing to other lower-carbon modes of transportation, including public transit, walking and biking. A prior survey of ride-hailing users across California asked what mode of transportation they would have used had they not used ride-hailing. Approximately 30 percent said they would have used mass transit, walked, biked or not taken the trip at all.

When compared to the average emissions of all other modes of transportation, including private cars, mass transit, human-powered transit or simply staying put, emissions from the typical ride-hailing trip were an estimated 69 percent higher.

Ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft are transforming urban transportation and eclipsing competitors with convenient, on-demand service. But that convenience carries a distinct climate cost as ride-hailing vehicles emit nearly 70 percent more carbon dioxide on average than the other forms of transportation they displace, according to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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Senate prepares to vote his week on big energy bill

BY STEVEN MUFSON AND DINO GRANDONI with Paulina Firozi in the Washington Post

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) stops in the hall to greet Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) before a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee meeting in 2015. (Andrew Harnik for The Washington Post)
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) stops in the hall to greet Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) before a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee meeting in 2015. (Andrew Harnik for The Washington Post)

By Steven Mufson and Dino Grandoni 

In a divided Congress that has trouble passing anything, can energy policy be an exception? 

The Senate is preparing to vote this week on a major piece of legislation designed to move the country toward using cleaner sources of energy. The sprawling bill binds together about 50 energy-related proposals and would touch nearly every part of the nation’s energy sector.

But critics are already calling the package a hodgepodge of modest steps at a time when the planet is careening toward dangerous levels of warming and more ambitious legislation is needed to wean the world’s biggest economy off polluting fossil fuels.

Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, introduced the 555-page measure Thursday with the hope of winning over the support of both Republicans and Democrats. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), eager to bring it to the floor, signaled a vote could happen as early as this week. 

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The bill, dubbed the American Energy Innovation Act, isn’t specifically about climate change. The word “climate” appears only once in a two-page summary of the bill. But it does support some ways of slowing down the release of heat-trapping emissions.

Manchin said the legislation would “make a down payment on emissions-reducing technologies, reassert the United States’ leadership role in global markets, enhance our grid security, and protect consumers.”

Murkowski said in a statement that the bill was “our best chance to modernize our nation’s energy policies in more than 12 years.” She said that “we can promote a range of emerging technologies that will help keep energy affordable even as it becomes cleaner and cleaner.”

The measure comes as congressional Republicans have started to gingerly reposition themselves on the issue of climate change, with many of them acknowledging that it is real and exacerbated by mankind. But most GOP lawmakers and President Trump, who has called global warming a “hoax,” are still shying away from addressing climate change head on. 

The Murkowski-Manchin bill would tackle greenhouse gas emissions from different angles. 

It would mandate greater energy efficiency in federal buildings, offer rebates for consumers who buy more efficient motors for home appliances, extend for 15 years incentives for hydroelectric power, and put money toward research for wind, solar and geothermal energy, as well as advanced batteries.

With regard to nuclear energy, which produces half the nation’s carbon-free power, the legislation would accommodate licensing light-water reactors and provide money for new nuclear technologies. 

And the package also establishes a study for technology using coal and natural gas, and funds techniques for capturing carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, and using it in industrial processes.

The bill has the backing of the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s global energy institute, which urged the Senate to pass the bill “without delay.” Yet it was met with mixed reaction from environmentalists, complicating how Democrats will ultimately vote on the measure.

The Environmental Defense Fund praised the package for taking “useful steps” to tackle climate change. “At a time of increasing polarization in Washington, bipartisan leadership on climate is all the more crucial,” said Elizabeth Gore, the group’s senior vice president for political affairs.

But Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the bill does too little to slash the use of fossil fuels when U.N. scientists say the world needs to drastically slash emissions over the next decade to forestall dangerous warming. “This gargantuan bill does little to address the climate crisis,” she said.

Another controversial part of the bill concerns mining. 

The bill would require the federal government to designate a list of critical minerals and encourage it to “complete federal permits efficiently.” 

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Trump’s Nevada play leaves the nation’s nuclear waste in limbo

The president wants to win the state he narrowly lost in 2016, but he may be jumping into an energy issue.

Yucca Mountain
People leave the south portal of the proposed radioactive waste dump of Yucca Mountain in July 2018 during a congressional tour near Mercury, Nev. | John Locher, File/AP Photo

By ERIC WOLFF and ANTHONY ADRAGNA in Politico

President Donald Trump is seeking to woo Nevada voters by abandoning the GOP’s decades of support for storing the nation’s nuclear waste under a mountain northwest of Las Vegas — a move that could drag the White House into an unsolvable political stalemate.

Trump, who is targeting a state that he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016, announced the turnabout in a tweet this month, writing: “Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!”

He also pledged to find “innovative approaches” to find a new place to store the 90,000 metric tons of nuclear plant leftovers stranded at 120 temporary storage sites — an impasse that is on course to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

The statement surprised people involved in the debate because developing a permanent nuclear repository at Yucca has long been a priority of Republicans, and even Trump’s own budget proposals in previous years had sought money to keep it alive. Taxpayers spent $15 billion developing the nuclear site after Congress selected the location during the Reagan era, only to see the Obama administration freeze the plan amid opposition from the state’s political leaders.

Trump’s Yucca reversal echoed his previous efforts to untangle a political food fight involving the federal ethanol mandate, an attempt that left both gasoline refiners and Iowa’s corn growers furious. Once again, Trump could face political risks by intervening in a politically charged, no-win energy quagmire.

Some lawmakers also fear that Trump is undermining their efforts to work out a compromise in which some states agree to host a small number of interim waste storage sites while the search for a long-term solution continues.

“Not working on a permanent repository is going to make it harder to do consent-based interim storage, ’cause all of a sudden those communities are going to be going, ‘s—, we’re going to become permanent storage,’” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a senior House appropriator who has long-championed the Yucca project, told

“It’s a no-win situation for anybody, that doesn’t seem to change,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is neutral on Yucca but supports building a repository somewhere.

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Air Force puts $13.5M into PFAS cleanup near former Air Force base in Michigan

Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News

Washington — The U.S. Air Force says it is allocating $13.5 million toward cleaning up drinking-water contaminants around the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda.  

The funding is part of the $60 million that Congress provided last year to the U.S. Department of Defense to address contamination by certain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS at decommissioned military bases, lawmakers said. 

Former Wurtsmith Air Force Base grounds in Oscoda Township, Michigan.
Former Wurtsmith Air Force Base grounds in Oscoda Township, Michigan. (Photo: Garret Ellison, AP)

In a letter this week to U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said the funding would expedite the remediation investigation at Wurtsmith by a year.

That investigation is meant to determine the extent and nature of the contamination, conduct interim remedial actions, and expand or construct treatment systems if needed, Barrett wrote. 

Michigan lawmakers had written to the Air Force last month urging officials to prioritize Wurtsmith and the former K.I. Sawyer Air Force in Marquette County.

“Wurtsmith has been waiting for additional resources for far too long,” said Peters, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee and who took the assistant secretary of the Air Force last year to visit Wurtsmith. 

“This has been a multi-year process with what seems to be ongoing delays and additional resources need to be applied. I’m certainly appreciative out of the $60 million in additional funding around the country, Wurtsmith got $13.5 million. That’s a pretty big chunk of it.”

Sawyer in Marquette was not given any additional money, as there is only one contaminated well on that base, Barrett said, compared with “multiple exposure pathways” at Wurtsmith. 

Pails of firefighting foam containing PFAS sit in a Lansing Fire Department garage on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. Michigan has launched a statewide initiative to collect and dispose of the foam.
Pails of firefighting foam containing PFAS sit in a Lansing Fire Department garage on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. Michigan has launched a statewide initiative to collect and dispose of the foam. (Photo: Craig Mauger / The Detroit News)

Wurtsmith is in the district of U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, who said still more aid is needed to protect residents from PFAS leaching into their drinking water supply. 

“Oscoda residents and families have been waiting far too long for the Air Force to act more urgently,” Kildee said in a statement. 

PFOS and PFOA have been used in firefighting foam, deployed for emergency response and training at military and civilian airfields.
Bipartisan members of Michigan’s delegation have been pressing the Air Force for swifter clean up of chemical contamination at Wurtsmith, Sawyer and other military installations.

“We need to keep the inertia behind the Department of Defense initiative, knowing the Department of Defense is not the EPA,” which plans to regulate the chemicals, said Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet. 

“But it’s a collaborative effort by all concerned to continue to test for and mitigate PFAS.”

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I Prepared for Everything, but Not Coronavirus on a Cruise Ship

Last year, I published a thriller set on a cruise. A few weeks ago, I found myself quarantined on the Diamond Princess.

Gay Courter, a novelist, writes in The Atlantic
** We erroneously reported earlier that this appeared in the Washington Post**

Gay Courter in federal quarantine
Gay Courter in federal quarantine COURTESY OF PHILIP COURTER

Some bad outcomes, you half expect: This time the mammogram will detect an abnormality; this time the cop will notice you were 10 miles over the speed limit; this time the IRS is serious about a total audit. But you don’t expect that your luxury cruise from Japan will harbor a killer virus, resulting in your being returned to the U.S. in a cargo plane that lands at a remote Air Force base where you are ordered into federal quarantine for a minimum of two weeks, leaving you without rights, without agency, and on the wrong side of a heavily guarded fence.

At least, I didn’t expect any of this, even though I wrote a thriller set on a cruise ship—or perhaps in part because I wrote a thriller set on a cruise ship, and figured my imagination was more fevered than reality. I had imagined a murder mystery with medical clues, but I had not imagined this. I had prepared for everything, but I had not prepared for this.

My husband, Phil, and I had planned the trip meticulously for more than a year as an indulgence, an escape. My sister brags about traveling with only carry-on luggage, but my approach is to pack everything I might ever need—and then some. Phil grumbles about the lugging, but he knows me: It’s against my principles to travel light. Our plan was to spend a week in Tokyo, visiting trendy art installations and sampling the best of Japanese cuisine, from ramen and tofu treats to Wagyu beef and haute sushi.

In mid-December, a worrywart friend, who knew that our itinerary included a stop in Hong Kong, started sending me stories about a SARS-like coronavirus disease. “Might you postpone?” he asked.

“Not going to China, let alone Wuhan,” I replied.

“Hong Kong is China,” he reminded me.

“Only going to be there one day!”

I watched as the numbers in Wuhan began to rise and as the Chinese government imposed draconian measures to keep residents within the city’s borders—but without a frisson of concern, I finished packing city gear for metros, walking, rain, and moderate winter temperatures, plus layers for cold and snow for our winter excursion after the cruise. I added dressy pantsuits for three formal nights on the ship and showy but inexpensive necklaces to match. The stops in Vietnam and Okinawa called for a few summery outfits. I had stuffed everything into one large suitcase, along with two folding bags for the inevitable treasures we would find.

We took our long-anticipated first-class flight, wore the airline’s designer PJs, slept in the cushy bed, and dined on foie gras, abalone, and other delicacies, accompanied by glasses of champagne. Once we arrived, we were wowed by the Prince Gallery hotel’s soaring views of Tokyo, cutting-edge electronics, and plumbing wizardry, and we were impressed by how one of the most populous cities in the world manages to be so clean and easy to navigate. We enjoyed learning to make washi paper from slurry and visiting a whole building dedicated to origami.

Then we traveled to Yokohama, boarded the Diamond Princess, and looked forward to spending the lunar new year in Hong Kong and visiting Vietnam, Taiwan, and then several other Japanese ports.

By the time we arrived in Hong Kong, on January 25, the combined concerns over the political protesters and the virus had caused the city to cancel all the new-year festivities. Still, we went into town for a dim sum lunch, tram ride to Victoria Peak, market shopping spree, and Peking-duck feast. It was the vacation of a lifetime.

On the last night of the cruise, the captain’s voice came over the speaker in our room, announcing that a passenger who had not returned to the ship in Hong Kong had tested positive for the novel coronavirus—so novel it had not yet been named—and that Japanese authorities would not let us off the ship until everyone on board filled out a questionnaire, ominously delivered by the quarantine division, and had our temperatures checked. We slept fitfully, awaiting the knock on the door.

That was three weeks ago. It soon became clear that we would be confined to our rooms for at least 14 days. Unlike some others staying in windowless rooms, we had a small suite with a balcony. Meals for the 2,666 people on board were delivered three times a day. There was no butter, no salt, as this post-cruise fare was meant to satisfy only hunger, not the palate. Our decadent vacation was very much over. Out came a mini-salt shaker that I keep with my toothpaste in case I need a saltwater gargle for a sore throat. I dug into my stockpile of Earl Grey and the mountain oolong I had purchased in Taipei. After talking with several doctor friends, we decided to take Tamiflu prophylactically. I always pack it during flu season. I opened my cold-prevention packet of high doses of vitamin C, zinc, and echinacea to boost our immune systems. A friend needed something for a feminine itch, and was surprised I had both the cream and suppository versions of the medication she needed, to her great relief.

I mention these details knowing they’re wildly out of keeping with the situation. What’s unsalted food when you’re stuck on a boat and more than 600 of your fellow passengers have tested positive for a deadly virus, and some of them have died? But the fact that I had a solution for the tasteless food kept me sane; it kept me feeling somewhat in control when I utterly lacked control.

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The atrium of 50 Jericho Quadrangle, where J.S. Held is headquartered.

Brennan Environmental acquired by consulting firm J.S. Held

The atrium of 50 Jericho Quadrangle, where J.S. Held is headquartered.

Consulting firm J.S. Held, based in Jericho, NY, has acquired Brennan Environmental Inc. (BEI), an environmental consulting firm headquartered in Summit, NJ.

BEI provides due diligence, remediation design and oversight, regulatory compliance, health, and environmental services for the public and private sectors, as well as clients in the insurance, legal, real estate, and utility sectors.

“The addition of the BEI team furthers our efforts to support clients on complex environmental and regulatory matters, especially in the Northeastern United States,” said Tracey Dodd, EVP and J.S. Held’s environmental, health & safety practice leader.

BEI’s clients will have access to J.S. Held’s suite of specialized services, including construction consulting, property damage assessments, water, and fire restoration consulting, surety services, project and program management, equipment consulting, forensic architecture and engineering, and forensic accounting services.

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