Authorities in Mississippi were bracing Sunday for the possibility of catastrophic flooding in and around the state capital of Jackson as water levels rise precipitously in a river swollen by days of torrential rain.
A freight train rolls over the swollen Pearl River towards Jackson, Miss., Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020.
The Associated Press Feb 17, 2020 Updated 1 hr ago
Days and days of heavy rain have created a dilemma for authorities managing dams along swollen rivers in Mississippi and Tennessee.
The water has to be released eventually, worsening the flooding for people living downstream.
Blaine Henderson, right, reaches to tag a mailbox as Pearl River as he and his friend Jonah Valdez, both 12, play in the floodwaters of this northeast Jackson, Miss., neighborhood, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)
Mississippi faces a “precarious situation that can turn at any moment,” Gov. Tate Reeves said Sunday in Jackson, where the Pearl River was expected to peak Monday after flooding the state capital and its surroundings.
With more rain on the way this week, it could be days before the floodwaters begin to recede, he warned.
Sono Motors reckons that extra bit of solar energy will make a difference. Analysts are skeptical.
A rendering shows the location of the PV panels on the Sion’s exterior. (Credit: Sono Motors)
Jason Deign reports for gtm
A German startup aims to sell a self-charging electric car covered in solar panels from 2022 after raising nearly $60 million in a recent 50-day crowdfunding campaign.
Munich-based Sono Motors expects its €25,500 ($27,600) electric car, the Sion, to benefit from a range extension of as much as 20 miles per day in Germany, depending on the season and weather, thanks to a solar charging system integrated into the body of the car.
More than 13,000 customers have already preordered the vehicle, the company said. It expects the first cars to roll off the assembly line of a former Saab factory in Trollhättan, Sweden in September 2021, with volume production at the start of 2022.
Sono’s €53.3 million community fundraising campaign should allow the company to build its first prototypes and tool up its production and testing facilities, said Ann-Kathrin Schroeder, marketing director.
Sono Motors reckons that extra bit of solar energy will make a difference. Analysts are skeptical.
The company is looking to raise a further €205 million before starting production, she said. Of this, around €70 million will be in the form of debt capital from banks, subsidy providers and private lenders.
The Sion will be powered by a 35-kilowatt-hour battery containing 192 prismatic lithium-ion cells with a nickel, manganese and cobalt ratio of 6:2:2.
Sono says the car will have a range of 255 kilometers (159 miles) on a single charge, and the battery should take 30 minutes to recharge up to 80 percent at a rapid charging station.
The Sion will include bidirectional charging technology so it can be used as a mobile energy storage device, and will also feature a novel moss-based dashboard air purifying system. But the most innovative feature is the presence of 248 solar cells spread across the outside of the car.
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As in many things e-commerce, Amazon has been one of the driving forces in changes to packaging, namely less of it and with sustainable materials. The company announced in September 2018 its “Frustration-Free Packaging Vendor Incentive Program” intended to drive sellers to use smaller, lighter and more sustainable packaging options. Amazon started implementing fines on Aug. 1, 2019, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sellers who don’t meet the standard can be fined $1.99 per order.
The rule, along with a corporate drive toward lower costs, less waste and improved sustainability, has spurred innovation in the packaging industry, including a proliferation of new packaging options, particularly in flexible plastic. The plastic packaging market overall was valued at $345.91 billion in 2019, according to Mordor Intelligence, and is expected to reach $426.47 billion by 2025.
“If you look at our business just in the last five years, we went from selling what goes into the packaging, like cushioning and bubble wrap, and moved toward parceling solutions,” Jeff Potts, executive director of business development for fulfillment automation at Sealed Air, told Supply Chain Dive in an interview.
Plastic packaging reduces transportation costs but also raises the thorny issue of how these plastics can and cannot be recycled. It’s not just about tossing a cardboard box on the curb anymore, especially when cardboard boxes aren’t the standard shipping option anymore.
New packaging saves on shipping costs, pushes automation
The movement toward smaller packaging is, in part, a way to save money: smaller packages cost less to ship, and it makes them easier to pack, whether by human or machine.
Creston Electronics, which makes conference room equipment, switched in 2018 from using cardboard materials for shipping to a mix of a corrugated cardboard frame with a recyclable flexible film to hold the product in place and showcase it at the same time. As a result, it reduced transportation spend by 20%.
“When you fill up a van for delivery, you can fit more packages and parcels in the van if they’re in a more efficient shape and size,” Brendan Connell-French, research associate in films and flexible packaging at Wood Mackenzie, told Supply Chain Dive in an interview. Companies can “fit more of them in a small space than they could if they were small cardboard boxes.”
High winds also cause damage as storm’s impact lingers into a third straight day
Floodwater surrounds abandoned cars in Tenbury Wells, in western England, after the River Teme burst its banks on Sunday. (Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images)
Andrew Freedman reports for The Washington Post
Storm Dennis, the second-strongest nontropical storm on record in the North Atlantic Ocean, caused widespread flooding across parts of the United Kingdom on Sunday, along with winds exceeding hurricane force.
The storm, which is producing waves up to 80 feet tall west of the United Kingdom, dumped more than five inches of rain in South Wales, almost an inch more than the area typically receives for the entire month of February. The resulting flooding has prompted numerous evacuations and even cut off some communities.
The U.K. Met Office, which named the storm, issued its first “red” warning for heavy rainfall since 2015, its highest warning category. The country’s Environment Agency issued a record number of flood warnings, 594, for a single day, according to John Curtin, executive director of flood and coastal risk management at the Environment Agency.
While the rainfall totals were noteworthy, they were not unprecedented. However, coming just one week after another severe bomb cyclone, known in the United Kingdom as Storm Ciara, the ground was already saturated when this one arrived. This caused many rivers, creeks and streams to overflow their banks and even triggered landslides.
Video showed a landslide moving down a mountain in Tylorstown, South Wales, on Sunday morning. Several severe flood warnings were issued, meaning the conditions posed life-threatening danger. Gwent County police said residents of Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, were advised to evacuate because of the flooding.
The Environment Agency has predicted the River Ouse in York could rival record levels seen in 2000.
Forecasts call for more high winds and showers Monday as the storm center slowly spins to the northeast of the region. Water levels in many rivers are not expected to crest until Monday or Tuesday, which will prolong the flood risks.
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Nathan Phillips, who just ended a 14-day hunger strike, said he was compelled to action by dissatisfaction with academia’s passivity and the fervor of his students.
During his hunger strike, Nathan Phillips was challenged on treading the line between scientist and activist. Some colleagues questioned his ethics, which may have compromised Phillips’ ability to collaborate with fellow researchers. Credit: Phil McKenna/InsideClimate News
Phil McKenna reports for Inside Climate News
BOSTON—A broken solar panel that once hung in the window of Nathan Phillips’ Boston University office now serves as a message board, propped against the wall next to the professor’s desk. Taped to the panel are faded yellow pages from The Daily Free Press, the university’s student newspaper—articles from the spring of 1986, when BU student Yosef Abramowitz staged a 14-day hunger strike demanding that the university divest from companies operating under South African apartheid.
Phillips, an environmental scientist, thinks about Abramowitz a lot these days, ever since he began his own hunger strike two weeks ago, to protest what he says are public health and safety violations related to the construction of a large natural gas compressor station on top of a toxic landfill in Weymouth, outside Boston.
“He showed me that you can force issues into the spotlight, that hunger strikes can do that,” Phillips said of Abramowitz. “He lost the battle, but they won the war.”
The hunger strike—which he ended at about 3 p.m. Wednesday afternoon—carried physical risks. Lanky to begin with, the 53-year-old Korean American professor has lost 22 pounds since he stopped eating on Jan. 29, and has been subsisting on unsweetened tea, sea salt and vitamin supplements.
The protest also carried professional risks. He has been challenged by colleagues and his increasing activism—Phillips has been arrested for non-violent protests against fossil fuel projects three times since October—may lead other scientists, including some potential research collaborators, to question his methods and objectivity.
Phillips says they are risks he has to take.
“There’s really no other recourse that me or others fighting this battle have because the state and federal regulatory and executive agencies have failed the community,” he said. “They have washed their hands of this.”
An Increasing Sense of Obligation
Over the last decade, Phillips has undergone a radical shift from a scientist careful to maintain an apolitical stance to a researcher who disrupts pipeline construction projects, places his body in front of moving coal trains and occupies the offices of state regulators. It’s a change that began gradually, he said, fueled in part by growing disillusionment with aspects of academia, and propelled forward by the students he teaches.
Like other scientists around the country, he’s endured the seeming disdain for science shown by the Trump administration, in particular for climate science, something the president has repeatedly called a “hoax.”
Phillips is not the only scientist to respond by moving toward advocacy, as researchers with a front-row seat to the extent and impact of climate change feel an increasing obligation to take on a more active role.
Thousands of scientists now participate in the March for Science, an annual demonstration that began soon after Trump’s inauguration in 2017. More than 1,500 scientists recently signed a petition in support of Extinction Rebellion, an environmental organization that leads non-violent protests over climate change. And last fall, 11,000 scientists warned of a looming climate emergency in the journal BioScience.
But for scientists, activism comes with a cost. In the academy, there is an understanding, nearly as old as the scientific method itself, that there is a clear divide between what can be proved scientifically and moral judgment. When scientists engage in advocacy, at some point they cross a line that calls into question their ability to conduct objective research. Where exactly that line falls—signing a petition, taking part in a march, refusing to eat—is debatable. But the potential impacts, including the denial of tenure, ostracism from peers, or being overlooked for grants or awards, can destroy a career.
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Legislation aligns with state policies to steer new developments to areas with existing infrastructure
Critics of a measure that would allow municipalities to require developers to pay for mass transit improvements say it could stifle development where growth is most needed and negatively affect affordable housing costs.
Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
Should developers pay for mass transit improvements near projects where they build?
They already are asked sometimes to pay for upgrades to wastewater treatment plants, roads, and storm drainage facilities under current law.
Under a bill (S-368) that cleared the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee yesterday, municipalities would be allowed to require developers to foot the cost of transit improvements needed for a development.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Cryan (D-Union), is aligned with state policies that aim to steer new developments to areas where infrastructure already is in place to accommodate growth. In the past, that has been generally recognized as urban areas, which typically are where mass transit stations for rail and bus are most prominently located.
“This legislation is important because it will make sure developers pay their fair share of mass transit costs associated with new developments,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Developers should be required to help offset the burden that their developments put on mass transit.’’
But lobbyists for developers opposed the bill, saying the legislation could stifle development in areas where the state most wants to see growth and could impede putting affordable housing where it might be most appropriate.
“This does impact affordability,’’ said Jeff Kolakowski, chief operating officer of the New Jersey Builders Association. “It is putting an extra fee on where we should build.’’
Impact on affordable housing costs
Sen. Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) agreed, saying he worried the bill would increase the cost of housing, affecting affordable housing throughout the state.
Commercial real estate interests also urged the committee to hold the bill, saying they would like to see a more comprehensive approach to fixing NJ Transit. Anthony Pizzutillo, representing NAIOP (National Association of Industrial and Office Properties), noted the organization would like to see the state agency using capital funds to pay for operation and maintenance expenses.
Sen. Troy Singleton (D-Burlington), chairman of the committee, defended the bill as permissive — only allowing communities to adopt fees that would require developers to pay for mass transit upgrades.
But Kolakowski argued otherwise, calling it a mandate by giving municipalities the option of adopting a new fee structure to increase costs to builders. He also argued there are many unanswered questions on how the fee would be calculated.
