Transpo future gets a new face; X Prize could define it

What's the future of the passenger car?

That's an open question, and it's getting opener.

(Image: A green compressed air car, competing for the Progressive Automotive X Prize. Credit: the X Prize folks.)

Perhaps an electric vehicle with entirely new charging and management scheme, like the one proposed by Better Place, with a private company managing the battery packs while you own the car.

Maybe an electric or hybrid vehicle on the internal combustion model—you own the car, drive to a fill-up station, but simply plug in rather than pumping gas.

But both of those can use cars on the existing vehicular platform. You can't tell them from gas and diesel cars.

Sure, maybe the future looks just like the past.

But then there's the X Prize. The Progressive Automotive X Prize is offering a $10 million prize for the best car capable of going 100 miles on a single gallon of gas or the equivalent (like the amount of electricity equivalent to a gallon of gas—or diesel, or something else), while still being able to carry four individuals and being a vehicle folks would actually use.

We've been covering the X Prize in this website (check out our last post on the topic at http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-cars-sexy-efficient.html.)

Recently, when we asked for an update, the organization's Carrie Fox wrote: “We’ve recently opened the Registration Period, and now have 22 Registered Contenders, out of the 120+ that signed Letters of Intent to compete. Registration remains open until February 2009 and we expect that many more teams will join this first 22 in the Registered Contender status.”

There's a fair chance that this competition will show us a new face of electric vehicles.

The spider-looking Aptera producer (www.aptera.com) is among the initial contenders. So is Zap (www.zapworld.com), which makes all sorts of electric vehicles, including scooters and bikes, and has a sexy-looking three-wheeler in mind, with the single wheel in back. TTW Italia (www.ttwvehicles.com) has a futuristic three-wheeler with the single wheel in front.

Avion (www.100mpgplus.com) is entering a pure diesel that it figures can beat 100 miles to the gallon. The Physics Lab of Lake Havasu (www.physicslablh.com) is entering its Green Giant, an electric drive train in a full size SUV “exploiting hydraulics, PV, heat-steam, diesel/natural gas, and hydrogen.”

MDI/SPM from France (www.zeropollutionmotors.com) is entering with its compressed air car.

And there are plenty of other innovative ideas.

To look at some of them, check out the X Prize site, http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/.

Many of them are traditional-looking sedans in which dreamers and engineers are sticking really hot technology, but some are, well, pretty different looking.

And maybe that's the future.

© 2008 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Oceans acidifying 10 times faster than thought

Our island state and the world are even more severely threatened by the acidification of the ocean than previously known.

(Image: Washington State waters, where researchers measured dramatic increases in acidification.)


Scientists are already measuring declines in populations of creatures as a result of acidification—and notably the replacement of certain shellfish by acid-tolerant seaweeds.

Ocean acidification is perhaps the most under-reported feature of the steady advance of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“For a potential environmental problem that is receiving increasing attention, there is surprisingly little published data in the scientific literature on how pH in the ocean is actually changing over time, and none that we know of outside of the tropics,” said Tim Wootton, of the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago.

Some of the seminal research on sea acidification was performed in Hawaiian waters just within the past couple of years. But new research is adding breadth and depth to that data—and it is finding that the oceans are growing acid alarmingly faster than anyone thought.

Wootton's team, including colleagues Catherine Pfister and James Forester, conducted a multi-year study of ocean acidity off Washington State. One of their findings was that there is considerable variability in the pH level of the ocean, based largely in changes in ocean biology. But the other finding was that acidity is rising very fast.

Their paper, “Dynamic patterns and ecological impacts of declining ocean pH in a high-resolution multi-year dataset,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The fundamental process is this: As carbon dioxide increases in the air, it mixes with the water, forming carbonic acid. The result is that the pH of the ocean—the measure of water acidity or alkalinity—is decreasing. That means the ocean is growing more acid.

“An alarming surprise is how rapidly pH has declined over the study period at our site--about 10 times faster than expected,” Wootton said in an email to RaisingIslands.

He said his studies showed that acidity of the oceans varies with changes in biological activity in the ocean, but that the overall direction is toward greater acidity.

Some of the creatures that most obviously are affected by the pH changes are ones that develop shells made of calcium carbonate or have skeletons that are weakened in a less alkaline environment.

“Although we have some idea about the chemical processes affecting pH in seawater, know that pH affects integrity of the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons that many marine animals have, and can demonstrate that plants and animals respond to reduced pH in the lab, we also know that we cannot easily extrapolate laboratory studies to ecosystem in nature,” Wootton said.

His team's work out in the real world shows that the laboratory results do reflect what happens in nature, but not necessarily entirely accurately.

“Our analyses reveal generally reduced performance of calcifying organisms, as expected, but this does not uniformly hold true. Because of the extensive experimental studies we have carried out at our site, we know that these exceptions are readily explained by the web of interactions among species,” he said.

Among those species most significantly affected, according to the study, were large calcifying mussels and goose barnacles. Since these animals are in the food chain for other species, it suggests a larger impact that is not yet readily apparent.

In the paper, the authors write about the challenge:

“The results of our analysis of ecological dynamics follow the general prediction that declining pH will negatively affect calcareous species, but the web of species interactions complicates the response,”
For instance, while the mussels and gooseneck barnacles did more poorly, acorn barnacles and certain fleshy seaweeds actually did better.

The essence: things are changing, changing fast, and we don't know exactly where they'll end up.

This blog has covered acidification aggressively in several previous posts:
http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2008/07/ocean-acidification-requires-action.html.
http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2008/01/ocean-acidification-carbon-dioxide.html.
http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/10/ocean-acidity-rising-faster-than-feared.html.
http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/09/ocean-acidity-from-co2-could-violate.html.
http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/2007/09/ocean-acidity-next-big-climate-thing_01.html.

© 2007 Jan W. TenBruggencate

Slimy snails, slippery slugs--more here than you ever thought

Something nipping at your seedlings and chewing at your leaves?

Could be a snail or a slug, and it could be because there are more of them here than anyone guessed.

(Image: Giant African snails, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture website, http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/ga_snail/giant_snail.shtml.)

A new survey found 38 non-native snails and slugs in nurseries in Hawai'i, five of them entirely new. They found two more species, but those were the native ones.

The surprising finding lands on top of the rejection of a Christmas tree shipments this year due to slug infestations. And it points to another way for alien pests to enter the Hawaiian environment. They can ride the winds and waves, hitchhike on planes and ships, but a lot of them arrive on plants.

If they arrive on aircraft, then they have a convenience denied to many human passengers these days: inflight meals.

The new study was published in the international Journal of Pest Management under the title, “The horticultural industry as a vector of alien snails and slugs: widespread invasions in Hawaii.” The authors are Robert H. Cowie, Kenneth A. Hayes, Chuong T. Tran and Wallace M. Meyer III, are from the University of Hawai'i's Center for Conservation Research and Training.

The infestation of nursery stock is a problem for various reasons. It can cost the nursery companies money when their shipments are rejected at the port. And they cause problems with production within the nurseries as they feed. Furthermore, they can cause problems outside the nurseries.

“When they are transported to and become established in new areas they may cause agricultural, horticultural and environmental problems,” the authors wrote.

The tiny coqui frog is an example. Unlike the snails and slugs, this denizen of nursery products makes its presence heard with a piercing evening call by its males.

The slug and snail study looked at 40 nurseries on six islands. Every nursery on every island was infested with multiple species.

“The rate of introduction of new species of snails and slugs shows no sign of declining,” the authors wrote.

They urge awareness on the part of nursery operators and quarantine officials. Nurseries, both to protect their own investments and to protect the gardens of their customers, are encouraged to maintain hygienic facilities.

In part, the issues is that with many of the smaller and hard-to-find species, it's not yet clear what their impacts will be on the local environment. Do they carry disease, do they eat some garden species in preference to others, do they compete with and push out native species?

“While some ... consequences, notably of the larger, more obvious species, are clear and dramatic, little is known about the impacts of the smaller and less noticeable species, yet these may also be important,” the authors wrote.

©2008 Jan TenBruggencate

Beach plastic is forever

Canadian resarcher Patricia Corcoran said she was studying the mineral components of Hawaiian beaches when she and a colleague noted large amounts of plastic debris on the shore, during a survey of Lydgate Beach on Kaua'i.

(Image: Plastic marine debris on a Kaua'i beach.)

“We wondered if the plastics on Lydgate Beach were derived from land-based or ocean-based sources. We also wondered how long the plastics would remain on the beach,” she said in an email to RaisingIslands. Corcoran is with the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario, Canada.

She launched a study, using plastics from various Kaua'i beaches, treating the plastic particles in the same way she would have treated mineral sand particles. One finding: the stuff gets smaller and smaller, but it never goes away.

Her study, “Plastics and beaches: A degrading relationship,” with University of Western Ontario co-authors Mark Biesinger and Meriem Grifi, was published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin.

They found that while most of the plastic debris and particles on beaches is originally from the land, most used the ocean as the method of transport for getting onto beaches.

Also, there is more plastic on East Kaua'i beaches than on other shores. That may be a function of current patterns that drive marine debris onto shorelines from the east.

One technique for studying them was inspecting them using a Scanning Electron Microscope.

“I was able to recognize distinct textures related to chemical and mechanical weathering. Combining the textural images with compositional results determined from Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), enabled us to recognize how both chemical and mechanical weathering contributed toward the degradation of plastic particles,” Corcoran said.

Some of the shapes were rounded, some angular, and some mere flakes. They showed evidence of both chemical and mechanical erosion, from exposure to ultraviolet radiation and from having been rubbed against sand grains during wind or wave action.

And the two kinds of degradation seem to support each other. Mechanical erosion from collisions with sand particles create fractures that are favorable spots for chemical weathering. And ultraviolet radiation increases brittleness, which makes mechanical breakdown easier.

“It...made me realize that beach environments are possibly the best natural settings in which plastics can be broken down, although they may remain in the environment in microscopic form indefinitely,” she said.

That's the bad news. The plastic gets smaller and smaller, until you don't see it, but it's always still there.

“We will be returning to Kauai in the coming year to conduct a more rigorous sampling approach of the plastic debris in order to determine which plastic types are most common (provides clues concerning sources), and which polymers degrade most rapidly under weathering conditions,” Corcoran said.


©2008 Jan TenBruggencate

The greening of Lehua Island

No one alive knows what the environment on Lehua Island was like before the rats and rabbits arrived.

These critters began eating virtually every seed and seedling, leaving it an eroded crescent of earth, rock and cinder.

But there is enough evidence to make educated guesses about what the island was like before human interference, and restoration teams will now try to recreate the prehistoric Lehua.

(Image: Lehua from the air. Credit: NASA image via Google Earth.)

A supplemental environmental assessment for the restoration project has been completed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Forestry and Wildlife. It updates a 2005 environmental assessment, changing the timing of rodent control efforts to reduce threats to birds, and building on information developed during a similar program at an islet off Molokai.

Lehua is a gorgeous speck of land, even without restoration. An ancient tuff cone, it sits just north of Ni'ihau, visible on a good day from west Kaua'i, 20 miles distant.

Sixteen species of seabirds use its 310 acres. Seals haul out on its rocky shelves.

It is surrounded by deep, clear waters favored by dive tourists. One arm of its curved shape has a deep vertical crack that extends down into the sea. Some folks call it the Keyhole. Multicolored corals and reef fishes cruise the steep-bottomed and sheltered arc of its bay.

But the land is mostly shades of volcanic brown. Little vegetation survives on the island.

As the environmental assessment says, it's been clear at least in the scientific literature since 1931 that rats and rabbits were the main problem. It's taken more than 70 years to move from that recognition to doing something about it.

There have been past efforts to control the rats and rabbits—reportedly left by European sailors to provide familiar sustenance for shipwrecked sailors. The rabbits were eradicated by hunting during the past three years, and government now proposes to remove the rats as well.

Says the press release announcing the completion of the environmental assessment:

“The project will protect and restore native populations of seabirds, plants, and other wildlife on Lehua by eradicating rats, an invasive species damaging the island’s ecosystem.

“Rats are known to have eliminated many seabird species from islands around the world by eating bird eggs and preying on live birds. They also feed on native plants and insects, suppressing or eliminating populations of these species as well.

“Once the rats are removed, a plant restoration project will follow increasing habitat for native birds and insects.”

The proposal is to use rat baits, both in types and in ways that are unlikely to impact nesting and roosting bird populations—including doing the project in winter, when the fewest nesting seabirds are present.

The rodenticide of choice is diphacinone, which was recently used to remove rats from Mōkapu Island off north Molokai. It is highly toxic to rats, less toxic to birds and at Mōkapu, tests after use did not find traces of the chemical in marine resources next to the island.

Researchers will keep an eye on the island to see what native plants may begin growing in the absence of the rats and rabbits, but also to see whether weeds begin pushing in. They also propose to plant natives that are known from Lehua and similar offshore islets, but which are not not present.

Copies of the environmental assessment are available at the Fish and Wildlife Service website at http://www.fws.gov/pacificislands/, or you can call the Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office at 808-792-9400.

©2008 Jan TenBruggencate