Tag: truck

High Tech, High Voltage Cars

  • Mechanic Mike Beukema just opened his own shop, Enviro Auto Plus, after working as a Toyota mechanic for 18 years. He specializes in fixing hybrids. He says there's a pretty big learning curve, especially when it comes to dealing with the high voltage battery. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

These days, hybrid gas-electric vehicles make up just a tiny fraction of total car and truck sales. But that’s expected to change. With higher gas prices…
demand for hybrids is
going up. And car companies are stepping up their hybrid production. But there’s a shortage of people who know how to fix hybrids. Rebecca Williams reports some mechanics are getting a crash course in hybrids:

Transcript

These days, hybrid gas-electric vehicles make up just a tiny fraction
of total car and truck sales. But that’s expected to change.
With higher gas prices… demand for hybrids is going up.
And car companies are stepping up their hybrid production. But there’s
a shortage of people who know how to fix hybrids. Rebecca Williams
reports some mechanics are getting a crash course in hybrids:


Mike Beukema’s been a mechanic for more than 18 years. So he’s seen
cars change a lot. But opening the hood of a hybrid car… that pretty
much changed his life:


“This car just fascinates me altogether so that was the perfect fit.
When it came out, I says this is what I want to be all about!”


He loves the technology. He loves that every time you hit the brakes
you recharge the car’s battery. He loves all the little computers that
tell him exactly what needs fixing.


But there’s one thing that took some getting used to:


“The whole issue of safety was freaky at first because you almost
didn’t dare work on them because they were letting you know exactly how
dangerous it was.”


It’s dangerous because you can get zapped by the high voltage battery.


“These have circuit fuses in ’em at 15 amps – there’s plenty of power
there. Not something you want to mess with.”


You can actually get electrocuted.


Mike Beukema’s got experience with hybrids. He worked at Toyota when
the first generation Priuses came out.


Beukema says the high voltage batteries are pretty intimidating for the
professionals, let alone backyard mechanics. And to really know what’s
wrong with a hybrid system, there’s a big thick manual you have to
read. And c’mon, who wants to read the manual?


Beukema says all this means working on hybrids is a pretty big shift
for mechanics. He says at this point most people who know how to fix
hybrids work at dealerships. There aren’t a whole lot of independent
shops that can fix them. That could be a problem if you like to shop
around to save money on car repair. Or if you break down in the
middle of nowhere.


That’s why, here and there, hybrid classes for independent mechanics
are popping up.


Kurtis LaHaie teaches auto tech classes at Macomb Community College in
Michigan. He recently started hybrid classes here. Today, he’s got a
room full of high school auto tech teachers.


He’s holding their attention… even after lunch.


“Too many volts, too many amps, you’re being cooked, literally inside.”


Then he pulls out the face shield and the big orange gloves.


“Now, as a technician, we’re going to need some new tools. These are
lineman’s gloves – people up on telephone poles? That’s what they wear.
That’s what we’re going to wear, same thing.”


LaHaie says electricity can get through even a tiny pinhole in the
gloves… so you have to be careful.


There’s also a big shepherd’s hook you’re supposed to have on hand.
Just in case you have to save your buddy from being electrocuted by a
live battery.


Joe Hart had his eye on that shepherd’s hook. It’s not the kind of
thing that helps sell a guy on hybrids:


“I’m an internal combustion guy, a technician, but you’ve gotta embrace
change and you’ve gotta accept the fact that we’re going to move from
an oil society at some point and I want to be there when it happens, I
want to be ahead of the game rather than trying to catch up.”


Hart might not have much of a choice.


Instructor Kurtis LaHaie says even new internal combustion cars are
getting more complicated. Let alone hybrids:


“If you don’t keep up, you’re going to fall by the wayside. The old
backyard mechanics, they’re very hard to maintain these cars, they’re
very sophisticated. This is just the next level for them to get into.
There’s room for everybody but I think the guys who take the lead in
this, especially now, will take the lead in the future and will do very
well.”


(Sound of grandfather clock chiming)


Mechanic Mike Beukema is hoping that’s true. After a long career at a
dealership, he’s just opened his own shop specializing in hybrids.
Right now, it’s a little lonely for him.


“I’m the service writer, the person that answers the phone, the person
that fixes your car, and person that collects your money – so I am, I
guess, everything here right now.”


Beukema says with any luck, that won’t last too long. He sees his shop
getting big enough that he can quit fixing cars himself. His dream is
to hire guys fresh out of trade school and train them to be experts on
hybrids and other cars of the future.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Auto Show Shows More Green

This week, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit opens to the public. Every year, the event is a showcase for the newest trends for tomorrow’s cars and trucks, and this year, the big trend is fuel-efficient vehicles. Cleaner cars have been promised before, but Dustin Dwyer reports that this year’s green car concepts could be more than just an attempt to polish up a dirty image for the auto industry:

Transcript

This week, the North American International Auto Show in Detroit opens to the public.
Every year, the event is a showcase for the newest trends for tomorrow’s cars and trucks,
and this year, the big trend is fuel-efficient vehicles. Cleaner cars have been promised
before, but Dustin Dwyer reports that this year’s green car concepts could be more than
just an attempt to polish up a dirty image for the auto industry:


The press previews for this year’s Detroit auto show were made up of three straight days
of back-to-back new product launches. Dozens of new vehicles were unveiled. Hundreds
of glossy brochures were offered to reporters, and nothing generated as much interest as
the new Chevrolet Volt concept vehicle:


(Sound of buzzing)


A packed crowd gathered for the flashy and noisy unveiling. GM executives announced
that the concept car could run up to 40 miles without using a single drop of fuel. It runs
instead on electricity cranked out by its next-generation lithium-ion batteries. When the
liquid fuel system eventually does kick in, it recharges the battery for better fuel
economy, getting up to 150 miles per gallon.


And as GM CEO Rick Wagoner told the audience, the Chevy Volt represents a new way
of thinking for the world’s largest automaker. It comes from a realization that oil alone is
highly unlikely to supply enough energy for all of tomorrow’s vehicles:


“For the global auto industry, this means that we must as a business necessity, develop
alternative sources of propulsion based on alternative sources of energy in order to meet the
world’s growing demand for our products.”


GM wasn’t the only automaker to unveil a fuel conscious vehicle at this year’s auto show.
Ford’s Airstream concept, and Toyota’s FT-HS sports car concept both featured hybrid
style powertrain systems, backed by a lithium-ion battery.


It might not be all that surprising for automakers to release such vehicles after a year in
which gas prices surged beyond three dollars a gallon, but analyst Jim Hall of Auto
Pacific says gas prices aren’t the reason for automakers to get into low or no emission
vehicles.


“You do it for two reasons, one, the potential of getting out of the business of making a
mechanical engine that has to be machined and made of multiple pieces and assembled,
and the other part of it is, you never have to spend another penny on emissions controls,
and emissions research, and emissions development and emissions engineering, which, at
every major car company is billions of dollars.”


So, basically, greener technology will eventually be cheaper technology. That means that
for perhaps the first time in the history of the auto industry, the interests of
environmentalists and the interest of business-minded bean counters are finally in line.


The big question now is how to get to that greener future. The concepts at this year’s
Detroit auto show all point to lithium-ion batteries as the next frontier. These batteries
are more powerful, and potentially cheaper than the batteries in today’s hybrids, but
they’re also less stable, and don’t last as long.


GM executives say they think they can resolve those issues and have a lithium-ion
powered vehicle by the end of the decade, but Jim Hall says no way:


“I worked on an electric vehicle program when I was employed in the auto industry
directly, and I learned that there are three kinds of liars in the world. There are liars,
damn liars and battery engineers.”


Of course, not everyone agrees with Hall’s assessment. Some lithium-ion proponents
even argue that the technology could be ready to go right now. Ford, General Motors and
the Chrysler Group have asked the federal government for more funding to speed-
development of lithium-ion batteries.


They say the Japanese government is giving its car companies several hundred million
dollars for battery development, and they want a comparable effort from the US
government. But even if Detroit automakers don’t get the money, almost everyone agrees
that big changes are coming for the auto industry, and that decades-long battle between
the good of the environment and the good of carmakers could be coming to a close.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Green Auto Plants Going Main-Stream?

  • GM will build three new crossover SUVs at the Lansing plant. Production will start this fall. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)

A new assembly plant from one of Detroit’s Big Three car companies is getting attention for its “green” qualities. Big Three automakers may not rank at the top of most environmentalists’ list for companies of the year. But some say the new auto plant is a sign that environmentally-sensitive manufacturing has finally gone main-stream. It’s not just because building green plants is the right thing to do. Really, it comes down to a different kind of green. The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer has the story:

Transcript

A new assembly plant from one of Detroit’s Big Three car companies is getting attention
for its “green” qualities. Big Three automakers may not rank at the top of most
environmentalists’ list for companies of the year. But some say the new auto plant is a
sign that environmentally-sensitive manufacturing has finally gone main-stream. It’s not
just because building green plants is the right thing to do. Really, it comes down to a
different kind of green. The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer has the story:


The first thing you notice about the smell of General Motors’ newest plant is how much
you don’t notice it. The plant smells like nothing at all. Not paint, grease or even that
new car smell. GM says it specifically selected materials for its new Lansing Delta Township
Plant in Michigan to limit indoor air pollution. And there’s a lot more to not notice about the plant.
Like how much space it doesn’t use.


On a tour with reporters, GM Environmental Engineer Bridget Bernal points out that less
than half of the plant’s 1,100-acre lot has been developed. The rest is left green, including
75 acres for habitat preservation:


“And basically in that 75 acres, we have a couple of pretty large wetlands, along with
some smaller wetlands. We have a rather large wood lot. And we’ve got a significant area
that’s being developed as native prairie.”


GM says it only planted native species on the site. And it planned ditches and culverts to
help filter water as it drains into other areas. A quarter of the materials used to build the
facility was recycled. The plant uses 45 percent less total energy than a traditional plant.
And, on the day GM gave reporter tours, it rained. Even that gets used. The water is
collected in cisterns, and used for flushing. GM says the plant saves a total of more than 4
million gallons of water per year.


Put together, all these elements were enough to win GM a LEED Gold Certification from
the U.S. Green Building Council.


Kimberly Hoskin is director of the council’s new construction program. She says she’d
been traveling a lot for work when one of her colleagues asked if she’d be willing to take
a trip to an event Lansing, Michigan.


“And I said, ‘Well, who’s it for? And she said, well, General Motors.’ General Motors, a
factory, is getting a LEED Gold Certification? Yes, I’ll go. Of course I’ll go. This is really
exciting.”


GM is not the first auto company to use green elements in an auto plant design. Ford’s
Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan was built earlier this decade with a 10-acre “living”
roof that helped manage storm water runoff.


But Hoskin says, out of about 560 buildings in the nation that have been certified by the
Green Building Council, only five are manufacturing facilities, and GM says the Lansing
facility is the first auto assembly plant to get Gold, the agency’s top rating.


But for GM, the green elements of the Lansing Delta Assembly Plant aren’t just about the
environment. They’re about cold, hard cash. The lower energy use alone will save GM a
million dollars a year. That gives people like Hoskin comfort that the plant isn’t just a
public relations move by GM and it increases the chances that we’ll see more green plants
in the future.


Sean McAlinden is Chief Economist with the Center for Automotive Research:


“As we slowly replace our old big 3 plants, many of which are very elderly, they’re all
going to look like this. They’re all going to be green plants. In fact, some of them will
keep getting greener.”


That’s good news for places where there’s a lot of auto manufacturing, but many people
are not ready to absolve GM of all of its environmental sins.


David Friedman is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says a green plant is nice,
but the real problem is still the product:


“Over eight times the impact on the environment when it comes to global warming is
once that vehicle leaves that plant. That’s the biggest step that we need automakers to
take and to improve the fuel economy of all of their cars and trucks.”


GM, and other automakers, say they are working to make cars cleaner. High gas prices
may force even more changes as sales of big pickups and SUVs drop off. Ultimately, car
makers’ profits could depend on building cleaner cars, just as keeping manufacturing
costs down will depend on having cleaner plants.


That could change the way auto companies think about environmental improvements
because going green will be about more than just doing the right thing, or protecting the
brand image. It will be about protecting the bottom line. What’s sustainable for the
environment will also be sustainable for the business, and both will show a lot more
green.


For the GLRC, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Taking Action on Ozone

The stifling hot weather recently has triggered ozone action days in many parts of the country. That means smog levels are high and the air can be unhealthy to breathe. But the Environmental Protection Agency says it’s making progress on cleaning up the pollutants that lead to ground-level ozone. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

The stifling hot weather recently has triggered ozone action days in many
parts of the country. That means smog levels are high and the air can be
unhealthy to breathe. But the Environmental Protection Agency says it’s
making progress on cleaning up the pollutants that lead to ground-level
ozone. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:


Smog forms when pollutants mix with hot, stagnant air and sunshine. The
pollutants come mostly from cars and trucks, and power plants. Ground level
ozone can make asthma worse and can even cause permanent lung damage.


Chet Wayland is with the EPA. He says ozone concentrations are dropping as
regulations on smokestacks and tailpipes kick in.


“Ozone concentrations have decreased about 20 percent since 1980 and since 1990
they’ve actually decreased about 8 percent. I think that’s one of the things we’re seeing
even this summer, as hot as it is, we’re not seeing the levels we would’ve
seen several years ago.”


But ozone is still a major health problem. A recent EPA-funded study found
that ozone levels the agency considers acceptable can cause lung damage and
lead to premature death.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Feasting on Backyard Weeds

  • Peter Gail holds his favorite weed: the spinach-like lamb's quarters.

Your barbeque grill isn’t the only place to find food in your backyard. There are lots of plants out there to eat, but most of us call
them weeds. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Your barbeque grill isn’t the only place to find food in your backyard.
There are lots of plants out there to eat, but most of us call
them weeds. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:


Peter Gail of Cleveland loves food. He’s got a lot of meat on his bones.


“Gee, you can’t get me to stop. I start eating this stuff and I can’t stop. It’s terrible, it’s terrible, it’s addictive (laughs).”


But his favorite foods grow right in his backyard, and probably yours. Gail is what’s
known as an ethno-botanist. He’s on a mission to teach more people about how to eat the
plants growing all around their houses. His latest converts are a troop of boy scouts:


“My grandson was one of the boys in this Boy Scout troop. And when I got over to his
house three days after we got back from scout camp, he grabbed the bag, the plastic bag
of weeds that his mother weeded out of the yard that day and dragged it over to me on the
patio and said find the edible plants in here and show me them.”


Gail says the yard becomes more exciting to most kids when they can sit down and
munch. His own love of the backyard snack started when he was just a boy. His family
faced some tough times. They were saved by a common weed known as lamb’s quarters.


“My dad died and left the family with no money. A friend told my mother we could live
off lamb’s quarters. For six months we went out and every day my brother and I would
gather the young tops of lamb’s quarters and then bring them into the house and my
mother would make them into every kind of spinach dish imaginable, until she learned
how to make a living. And then after that she still, we still liked the plant so we still ate it a lot.”


These days you could pay a lot for lamb’s quarters in a gourmet food store. They’re sold
as Belgium spinach. Or, Gail says, you could just take a quick look around your yard.


Today we’re walking around a backyard in suburban Cleveland. We find lamb’s quarters
at the base of a tree. Some say you can recognize the leaves because they look like the
hindquarters of a lamb. Gail thinks they look more like the silhouette of a Christmas tree:


“You’ll notice it has, when you’re looking down on it, it looks like somebody spilled a
little bit of talcum powder on the very top. It has that little dusting of white that is right on the top and on the underside of the leaves you see the same dusting, but taste one leaf, taste a leaf of that.”


And it does taste like spinach, but the USDA reports it’s even more nutritious than
Popeye’s favorite treat.


“It doesn’t take any cooking. It can be eaten raw, or it can be cooked. It will interfere, if you eat too much raw, with the assimilation of both iron and calcium, so you usually want to cook it. It makes a great addition to omelets, great cooked green, great quiches. Any recipe you use spinach in, you can use lamb’s quarters.”


There’s a lot more than just lamb’s quarters in the yard to eat. This time of year, Peter Gail also recommends sautiing the buds or petals from orange and yellow daylilies. He’s also a big fan of dandelions. He suggests looking for the young, tender leaves because they’re less bitter. Gail says he believes dandelions were brought to America by Italian
immigrants. They’re used in lots of Italian recipes:


“80 percent of the things we call weeds were vegetables brought here by immigrants.
That’s one of the reasons most of the things we call weeds in our backyards aren’t
indigenous plants. They aren’t plants that were from America. They’re plants that are
from Europe and Asia and from South America.”


Gail says over time those traditional foods escaped from gardens into the wild. After
World War II, things changed. Most people started buying food at the grocery store and foraging became unpopular. He says only the poor searched the yard for food:


“One by one, as generations went by, the kids didn’t learn as much the second generation,
the third generation they knew nothing. And by the time we reach where we are now,
almost everybody can walk right by the most nutritious plant going, the most commonly eaten
plant back in the 30s and 40s, and not even have a clue what it is.”


Gail is trying to change that. He wants people to become reacquainted with these plants
so we don’t recklessly destroy them. He travels around the country giving workshops,
taking people on neighborhood forages, and teaching cooking classes. Gail believes we
might need these plants again someday.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Epa Report: Fuel Economy Remains Stalled

Today’s cars and trucks are the heaviest, fastest and most powerful vehicles on the road in a generation, but according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency, these vehicles have stalled when it comes to fuel economy. The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer has the story:

Transcript

Today’s cars and trucks are the heaviest, fastest and most powerful vehicles on the road in
a generation, but according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency,
these vehicles have stalled when it comes to fuel economy. The GLRC’s Dustin Dwyer
has the story:


The EPA report says carmakers made big progress on fuel economy from the mid-70s to
mid-80s. But since then, average fuel economy numbers have actually gotten worse.
That’s mostly because cars and trucks are getting bigger. By 2005, the EPA says SUVs
alone made up a quarter of all vehicle sales in the U.S.


Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club says auto companies are to blame:


“Americans are being fed this diet of these vehicles with TV ads, but then they end up
paying at the gas pump, and they end up paying with more global warming, pollution and
more oil addiction.”


Auto companies say they’ve only made bigger cars because that’s what consumers
wanted to buy, but for now, high gas prices seem to have put a halt on demand.


Truck sales for the entire auto industry were down nearly 20 percent this June compared
to a year ago.


For the GLRC, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Firewood Fuels Ash Borer Problem

  • A live adult emerald ash borer. (Photo by Jodie Ellis, Purdue University)

If you’re packing up the car for a camping trip, you can’t
leave without the marshmallows and duct tape and bug spray, but
in more and more places, you can’t take firewood with you. That’s because government officials are worried about a destructive beetle
that people are spreading by moving firewood. The GLRC’s
Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

If you’re packing up the car for a camping trip, you can’t leave without the
marshmallows and duct tape and bug spray, but in more and more places, you
can’t take firewood with you. That’s because government officials are
worried about a destructive beetle that people are spreading by moving
firewood. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:


(Sound of RV humming)


Butch Sloan can’t imagine camping without a fire:


“Sitting back and watching the wood burn and kinda dreaming about old times
or whatever, you know? That’s part of your camping. Yeah, you gotta have
your camp fire!”


Sloan’s been coming to this Michigan campground from his home in Ohio for 20
years now. For the past few years, it’s been illegal for anyone to move
hardwood firewood over the state line. There can be steep fines if you’re
caught.


That’s because of the emerald ash borer. It’s an invader from Asia that’s
killing millions of ash trees in the upper Midwest. Moving just one piece
of infested firewood can start a new outbreak. Beetles can emerge from the
wood and fly to healthy ash trees.


Butch Sloan says he brings wood from construction sites or buys firewood at
the campground instead:


“As far as trying to bring regular firewood across the state lines, the fines
are just too high. I don’t want to take a chance on it, you know? We bring
the two by fours and stuff like that, and that’s good fire, good cooking, you
know!”


But there are plenty of campers who ignore the laws and bring firewood with
them. That’s why states such as Michigan and Ohio are setting up
checkpoints along highways. They’re trying to catch people sneaking
firewood out of infested areas.


(Sound of traffic)


Here on a two lane country road in Northwest Ohio, every car and truck is
being stopped. State workers ask the drivers if they’ve got firewood.


“If we do find someone that has brought firewood with them, we ask them to
pull into a parking lot and at that point we begin to interview them to find
out where the firewood came from.”


Stephanie Jaqua is a crew leader with the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
She says a lot of the people they catch don’t understand the quarantine
laws. But she says others don’t think they’re part of the problem:


“We have had people in the past say there’s no ash in the back of my truck, you know,
there’s no way I’m transporting emerald ash borer, and then you get to the
bottom and there are four pieces of ash in the bottom.”


Jaqua says that’s why the laws are written the way they are. It’s illegal
to move any hardwood firewood out of quarantined areas, not just ash wood.
Jaqua says the best thing campers can do is buy firewood where they camp and
burn it all up at the site.


A lot of campers say the firewood rules are annoying, but the rules have
changed everything for some people.


Jim Albring owns Lumber Jacks Quality Firewood. His business is in
Michigan, just a mile and a half from Ohio. He says before the ash borer
arrived, most of his customers were in Ohio. Then, suddenly, he couldn’t
move firewood across the state line.


“It was profitable and we were increasing by 25-30% a year until the ash
borer hit. And now we’ve dropped uh, boy, I don’t even know. I don’t really
look at the figures too much any more because it’s disheartening.”


Albring says at first, he could only sell to people a few miles away in
Michigan, so his customer base totally dropped out. He says these days,
people from Ohio still drive up and try to buy firewood from him.


“If we know or we’re suspicious it’s going back to Ohio, we tell them how
heavy the fines are and then they usually back off right away and they don’t
try to get it.”


That’s the problem with trying to stop the destructive insect from spreading
across the country. Even government officials admit there’s no way to stop
every single person from moving firewood.


Patricia Lockwood directs ash borer policy for Michigan:


“I think it’s going to be extremely difficult and we’ve known that from day
one, to stop it. What we have always agreed on is we’re buying ourselves
time. What we’re looking for is time so that the science can catch up.”


And researchers are scrambling to find something that will stop the ash
borer, a natural predator or a perfect pesticide. But scientists say
states have to contain the infestations in the meantime.


That means there’s a lot of pressure on campers and hunters to change their
habits. Tossing some wood in the back of the truck on the way up north used
to be pretty harmless. Now it’s changing entire landscapes, as millions of
trees get wiped out by the beetle.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Study: Canadian Gas Emissions Rise

Canada is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol – an international agreement aimed at curbing heat trapping gas emissions. Now, a new study shows that these gas emissions have risen sharply in Canada over the past ten years. The release of the study comes just days after the prime minister criticized Washington for its climate change policies. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

Canada is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol – an international agreement
aimed at curbing heat trapping gas emissions. Now, a new study shows
that these gas emissions have risen sharply in Canada over the past ten
years. The release of the study comes just days after the Prime Minister
criticized Washington for its climate change policies. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


The study was prepared by the Environment, Health and Statistics
departments of the Canadian government. It shows as of a couple of
years ago emissions of greenhouse gases were 32 percent above the
targets laid out in the Kyoto Protocol.


Alberta and Ontario had the worst emissions of all the provinces.


The study found that the most of the greenhouse gas emissions came
from energy production and consumption. Vehicular traffic accounted
for about twenty percent, an increase reflected in the shift from
automobiles to vans, SUV’s and trucks. Those heavier vehicles emit
about 40 percent more greenhouse gasses on average.


Climate change has become a touchy issue between Ottawa and
Washington. Recently, Prime minister Paul Martin said the White House
had failed to yield to a global conscience in its refusal to sign the Kyoto
Protocol. Washington warned him to tone down his anti-US rhetoric,
describing it as cheap electioneering.


For the GLRC, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

Related Links

Steering Away From Seaway Expansion

For decades, international shippers have wanted bigger locks and channels in the St. Lawrence Seaway. Earlier this month, the Seaway’s chief in Canada said expansion is off the table, at least for a generation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein
reports:

Transcript

For decades, international shippers have wanted bigger locks and channels in the St. Lawrence Seaway. Earlier this month, the Seaway’s chief in Canada said expansion is off the table, at least for a generation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


Only a third of the world’s shipping fleet can fit in the Seaway. Industry has long said digging deeper drafts would bring much needed commerce to Great Lakes ports.


But Dick Corfe told shippers at a conference in Toronto there’d be no changes for fifteen to twenty years. Corfe is CEO of the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation, which runs Canada’s half of the waterway.


“We have to work with what we have. We have the physical constraints of the locks. The ships can’t be any bigger than the locks, and we have an obligation to try and maximize the use of the system around the current infrastructure.”


Corfe said the way to do that is to move goods between East Coast and Great Lakes ports by ship instead of truck or train.


Corfe’s remarks come after the Army Corps of Engineers backed off a study last year that recommended expansion. Environmentalists said dredging and blasting a bigger channel would devastate Great Lakes ecology.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Report: Fuel Efficiency Lags Behind

  • The EPA reports that despite a slight improvement in the last year, the average fuel economy rating for cars and trucks is still lower than the peak reached in 1987-88. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Energy)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has published its report on fuel economy trends for cars and trucks sold in the U.S. Environmentalists say it highlights the need for stricter fuel efficiency standards – an issue largely ignored in the Energy Bill recently passed by Congress. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has published its report on fuel
economy trends for cars and trucks sold in the U.S. Environmentalists say
it highlights the need for stricter fuel efficiency standards – an issue
largely ignored in the Energy Bill signed into law by the President. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports:


The authors of the report looked at fuel economy trends for cars and trucks
over the last thirty years. They found the average fuel economy for today’s
cars and trucks is twenty one miles per gallon. That’s still less than the peak
reached more than fifteen years ago.


The downward trend in fuel economy has been blamed on the popularity of
trucks and SUVs. These vehicles make up close to half of all vehicles sold
in the U.S.


Several foreign automakers have been criticized for their fleets losing
ground in fuel efficiency. Nissan, VW, and Hyndai all saw decreases in
their average fuel economy ratings largely because they’ve jumped in the
truck and SUV market.


The report’s authors highlighted the fact that fuel economy is directly
related to energy security. These vehicles account for close to forty percent
of all U.S. oil consumption, and much of that oil is imported.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links