May 05

Today’s News 5th May 2019

  • Brain Drain & The Polarization Of America

    Authored by Rachel Sheffield and Scott Winship via The American Conservative,

    The highly-educated are concentrating together, depriving struggling communities and dividing the country…

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    Are we more divided as a nation today than we were before? Our new researchwithin the Joint Economic Committee’s Social Capital Project suggests that we are. The findings indicate that Americans are more frequently dividing themselves geographically and along lines of education. Highly-educated Americans have increasingly moved to a handful of states over the last several decades, leaving other places behind.

    This “brain drain” has clear economic implications. Beyond economics though, it’s also likely draining social capital from many places, as communities lose talent and resources that would help support civic institutions. Brain drain and educational sorting exacerbate political and cultural divides as well: Americans segregate themselves into communities where they more frequently reside near those similar to themselves, decreasing the likelihood of rubbing shoulders with those who see the world differently.

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    The Rust Belt, the Plains, and some states in New England are experiencing high levels of brain drain.

    It’s not news that highly educated Americans are more likely to move. America’s highly educated have consistently been more prone to pack up their bags and seek opportunity outside their hometowns. But surprisingly, there have been few attempts to quantify the magnitude of the problem and assess whether it is getting worse. To rectify that, we created brain drain measures that compare the share of people leaving their birth states who are highly educated to either the highly educated share of people staying in their birth states or the share entering the states who are highly educated. We found that today, highly educated movers in the U.S. tend to leave certain states and regions of the country at higher rates than in the past and concentrate in a smaller group of states that are home to booming metropolitan areas. This leads to growing geographic divides between areas that are thriving and places that struggle. With fewer states retaining and attracting talent, more areas are left behind.

    A handful of states have become exclusive destinations for the highly educated. They not only hold onto more of their homegrown talent, but they also gain more highly educated adults than they lose. These talent-magnet states are along the West Coast, as well as the Boston-Washington corridor.

    Beyond the coasts, a few other states, like Texas, are retaining their homegrown talent while simultaneously winning a balance of talent from elsewhere.

    These “brain gain” states are like an elite club whose members trade among themselves. For example, California draws the greatest share of its highly educated entrants from other brain gain states: New York, Illinois, and Texas, which are ranked third, fourth, and eighth, respectively, on net brain gain. New York pulls in highly educated entrants primarily from New Jersey (ranked sixth on net brain gain) and California. Massachusetts (ranked second) is also among its top five sending states. The most common origins of Texas’s entrants include California, Illinois, and New York. New Jersey draws its highly educated from the likes of New York, Massachusetts, California, and Illinois. New York and New Jersey are among Massachusetts’ most common sending states. New York, New Jersey, California, and Virginia (ranked seventh) are among the top states sending highly educated natives to Maryland.

    On the opposite side of the coin are the many states that are not only bleeding highly educated adults but failing to attract others to replace them. Rust Belt states—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri—are particularly plagued by brain drain. Several Plains states—Iowa and the Dakotas—as well as states in New England—Vermont and New Hampshire—are also experiencing high levels of brain drain. Although this is hardly a new phenomenon for the Rust Belt, it’s become a worsening problem over the last 50 years for the other high brain-drain states mentioned.

    Brain drain’s effects on state economies are obvious. Places that lose more of their highly educated adults are likely going to be economically worse off than those that retain or attract highly educated adults. And if the highly educated are concentrating in fewer areas, then more parts of the country will be prone to economic stagnation. But beyond the economic implications, brain drain also has an impact on social capital. If areas are drained of their most highly educated, those left behind may struggle to support churches, athletic leagues, parent-teacher associations, scouting groups, and so forth. These institutions matter for the well-being of communities, as they bring people together in purposeful relationships, ultimately creating the social fabric of our nation.

    Another way that brain drain’s educational divides can deplete social capital is by creating deeper political and cultural divides between Americans. The highly educated more often hold liberal political views compared to those with less than a college education. America’s major metropolitan areas (many of the states that win the highly educated are home to thriving cities) tend to vote Democratic, while most other areas of the country vote Republican. Those living in urban areas are also more likely to hold liberal political views, whereas those living in rural areas are more commonly conservative.

    Thus, as a result of brain drain and self-sorting, Americans are now more likely to live in communities where they are isolated from people who hold different ideologies and values. Less association between people of different viewpoints can exacerbate political divides, as people become more steeped in their own beliefs. When those who are different are further away, it is easier to cast them as a faceless group of opponents upon whom all blame for America’s problems belongs, rather than as neighbors with whom to find common ground. Ultimately, social segregation weakens the idea that, as Americans, we share something important in common with one another.

    A growing federal government only adds to the problem of geographic divide. Naturally, neither heartland traditionalists nor coastal cosmopolitans want to be ruled by the other camp. However, with more power at the national level, national elections have higher stakes for everyone. Each camp feels threatened when its party loses control. With less association among those with different viewpoints, political discourse turns into fever-pitched discord.

    The strength of our relationships is crucial to the strength of our nation. Americans will have to work to make their communities places in which not only the most highly educated benefit, but others as well. We must find ways to reach across the divides that separate us.

  • Venezuelan Military Helicopter Crashes Outside Of Caracas, 7 Officers Killed

    Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó may have overestimated his support in attempting to stir a military uprising, but President Nicolas Maduro is down two lieutenant colonels and five lower-ranking officers after a Cougar military helicopter crashed into a mountain outside of Caracas on Saturday. 

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    According to ABC News, the crash happened early in the morning on an overcast day in the capital. 

    The armed forces said in a statement the chopper was heading to San Carlos in Cojedes state. That’s an hour away from a military academy where Maduro appeared early Saturday overseeing training exercises in a display of confidence in his armed forces following a week of intrigue that saw a small cadre of soldiers turn against him in an opposition-led uprising. –ABC News

    It was not made clear if the helicopter was part of the presidential delegation. 

    On Saturday, Guaidó acknowledged that errors were made in his attempt to execute on a clandestine plan to oust Maduro, which fell apart on Tuesday due to lack of support from the Venezuelan military, according to the Washington Post. 

    In an exclusive interview with The Washington Post, Guaidó suggested that he expected Maduro to step down amid a groundswell of defectors within the military. Instead, Guaidó’s call for the rank and file and senior brass to abandon Maduro did not produce mass defections. Maduro’s security forces then quelled street protests and left Guaidó’s U.S.-backed opposition on its heels.

    “Maybe because we still need more soldiers, and maybe we need more officials of the regime to be willing to support it, to back the constitution,” Guaidó said. “I think the variables are obvious at this point.” –Washington Post

    To that end, a protester was captured on film handing over a written appeal for the military’s support from Guaidó to several police officers, only to have them burn the document and let the ashes fall to the ground – with one saying that the armed forces “won’t be blackmailed or bought.” 

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    Guaidó – the head of the National Assembly who declared Maduro a ursurper in January, also said that he would welcome US support to fight alongside Venezuelan forces against Maduro. 

    The Trump administration’s hawks have pushed the Pentagon for possible military intervention, according to the Post, however the administration has not yet given a clear signal over what course the US will take.

    When asked what he would do if national security adviser John Bolton made an offer for the US to intervene, Guaidó said he would reply: “Dear friend, ambassador John Bolton, thank you for all the help you have given to the just cause here. Thank you for the option, we will evaluate it, and will probably consider it in parliament to solve this crisis. If it’s necessary, maybe we will approve it.” (perhaps with CIA Director Gina Haspel’s stamp of approval?)

    On Tuesday, Guaidó appeared outside a Caracas military base urged the military to overthrow his political rival.

    As the leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly waited, however, it became clear that his call had failed to rally armed forces to his side. Clashes between protesters and police then erupted, leaving five dead.

    Maduro’s government has also shown signs of weakness and has not moved to arrest Guaidó, who the United States and over 50 other nations recognize as Venezuela’s rightful leader.

    More than three million Venezuelans have left the country to escape a shrinking economy, hyperinflation and shortages of necessities such as medicine. –AP

    “I think today there are many Venezuelan soldiers that want to put an end to [leftist guerrillas], and help humanitarian aid get in, who would be happy to receive cooperation to end usurpation. And if that includes the cooperation of honorable countries like the United States, I think that would be an option,” added Guaidó.

  • NASA Issues A Warning: Meteorites Are "A Threat To The Earth!"

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    On Monday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine warned that meteors that could destroy an entire state in the United States and that they are a real threat to Earth. Bridenstine also claimed that not enough people are taking his warnings seriously enough.

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    Speaking at the Planetary Defense Conference in Washington, D.C., Bridenstine said:

    “This is not about Hollywood, this is not about movies, this is about ultimately protecting the only planet we know right now to host life!” And it’s not being taken seriously, according to a report by WRCBTV.

    Bridenstine used the meteorite that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 as an example of just how dangerous these space rocks could be to the Earth. The Chelyabinsk meteor had “30 times the energy of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima” and injured around 1,500 people. Just 16 hours after the crash, NASA detected an even larger object that approached the earth but did not actually land on it, he revealed.

    “I wish I could tell you that these events are exceptionally unique, but they are not,” Bridenstine said. “These events are not rare – they happen. It’s up to us to make sure that we are characterizing, detecting, tracking all of the near-Earth objects that could be a threat to the world.”

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    In 2018, the White House published an action plan that required NASA to detect, track, and characterize 90 percent of near-Earth objects measuring 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter. Bridenstine admitted on Monday that the space agency had a long way to go to meet that goal.

    “We’re only about a third of the way there,” he said. “We want more international partners that can join us in this effort. We want more systems on the face of the Earth that can detect and track these objects, and we want to be able to feed all of that data into one single operating system so that ultimately, we have the best, most accurate data that we can possibly get.

    Bridenstine warned that failure to track these near-Earth objects could result in an apocalyptic tragedy. “We know for a fact that the dinosaurs did not have a space program,” he added. “But we do, and we need to use it.”

  • China Develops Groundbreaking Heat-Resistant Material For Hypersonic Weapon

    At Mach 5 (3,836 mph), a hypersonic vehicle enters a dense atmospheric layer, the ambient gas undergoes not only density change, but also a significant temperature increase. This physical-chemical reaction is associated with the flight speed is converted into heat and chemical energy, which is a considerable heat barrier that had researchers around the world scrambling for new materials that could withstand temperatures far higher than the melting point of metal.

    It seems that researchers in central China, studying hypersonic heat transfer, a subdivision of aerodynamics that studies gas motion laws, have developed a non-carbon-based heat-resistance material for hypersonic flight, according to the Global Times.

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    The lead scientist, Fan Jinglian from Central South University in Central China’s Hunan Province, developed a composite of ceramics and refractory metals that can endure hypersonic flight at Mach 5-20 within the atmosphere for several hours, or temperatures of about 5,400 Fahrenheit.

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    Jinglian said the composite of ceramics and refractory metals makes the new material far more superior to Western technologies that use “traditional refractory metals and carbon-carbon materials.”

    She said the composite is like concrete cobble.

    “Think of the ceramics as the cobblestones, or the pellets, and the refractory metals are like the concrete. In high temperatures, the ceramics will act as pellets that pin the refractory metals, so they will not soften and deform.”

    As a result, the material has a melting point higher than metal, but also important characteristics such as low density and high malleability, according to the Hunan Television report.

    As of March, the composite has been used in aviation, space exploration, shipbuilding, and national defense products, Hunan Television said.

    Over the past two decades, China has made enormous progress in upgrading its military capabilities. China launched its hypersonic program in 2009, and by 2014, began testing an experimental hypersonic glide vehicle – that could be operational by 2020.

    We reported last month that Xiamen University, a public university in Xiamen, Fujian on China’s southeast coast, successfully tested a hypersonic missile in Northwestern China.

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    Unlike American hypersonic rockets such as Boeing’s X-51 Waverider, which rides on a hot layer of gas known as a “shock wave,” the Jiageng-1 No.1 rides on two layers of shock waves, one underneath the rocket and the other in the air intake of its ramjet engine.

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    The Jiageng-1 No.1 has several innovative advantages over Western hypersonic rockets: it can transition from supersonic to hypersonic speeds with ease, and the design produces more lift allowing it to travel further with more efficient fuel consumption.

    Zhu Chengxiang, an assistant professor at the university’s School of Aerospace Engineering and part of the hypersonic launch, said the Pentagon is deeply disturbed by China’s rapid development of hypersonic vehicles and had tried to severe Chinese scientists’ collaboration efforts with Western researchers.

    A Weibo post by Xiamen University shows the hypersonic rocket in flight. The rocket flies throughout the Stratosphere with a maximum altitude of about 90,000 feet. During the test, the rocket performed as planned after making some maneuvers to “reproduce real flight conditions and conduct aerodynamic tests,” then glided down and deployed a parachute to land safely on the ground.

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    US Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, director of the Missile Defense Agency, said last year that he supports Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin’s push to develop space-based sensors that would defend the nation from hypersonic attacks by America’s adversaries [China and Russia].

    “The hypersonic threat is real, it is not imagination,” Lt. Gen. Greaves explained last summer at the Capitol Hill Club.

    Griffin warned that the US could be falling behind in hypersonic arms race.

    “In the last year, China has tested more hypersonic weapons than we have in a decade. We’ve got to fix that.”

    The new, groundbreaking composite material and the latest hypersonic missile test in China – exposes just how far the US is behind the curve.

  • Orwellian Cloud Remains Over Russia-Gate

    Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

    George Orwell would have been in stitches Wednesday watching Attorney General William Barr and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee spar on Russia-gate.  The hearing had the hallmarks of the intentionally or naively blind leading the blind with political shamelessness.

    From time to time the discussion turned to the absence of a legal “predicate” to investigate President Donald Trump for colluding with Russia.  That is, of course, important; and we can expect to hear a lot more about that in coming months.

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    Barr questioned by Sen. Harris, May 1. (YouTube)

    More important: what remains unacknowledged is the absence of an evidence-based major premise that should have been in place to anchor the rhetoric and accusations about Russia-gate over the past three years.  With a lack of evidence sufficient to support a major premise, any syllogism falls of its own weight.

    The major premise that Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee and gave WikiLeaks highly embarrassing emails cannot bear close scrutiny. Yes, former CIA Director John Brennan has told Congress he does not “do evidence.” In the same odd vein, Brennan’s former FBI counterpart James Comey chose not to “do evidence” when he failed to seize and inspect the DNC computers that a contractor-of-ill-repute working for the DNC claimed were hacked by Russia.

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    Harris questioning Barr, May 1. (YouTube)

    Call us old fashioned, but we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) still “do evidence” — and, in the case at hand, forensic investigation.  For those who “can handle the truth,” the two former NSA technical directors in VIPS can readily explain how the DNC emails were not hacked — by Russia or anyone else — but rather were copied and leaked by someone with physical access to the DNC computers.

    We first reported hard forensic evidence to support that judgment in a July 2017 memorandum for the president. Substantial evidence that has accumulated since then strengthens our confidence in that and in related conclusions.  Our conclusions are not based on squishy “assessments,” but rather on empirical, forensic investigations — evidence based on fundamental principles of science and the scientific method.

    Bizarre, Medieval

    All “serious” members of the establishment, including Barr, his Senate interrogators, and the “mainstream media” feel required to accept as dogma the evidence-free conventional wisdom that Russia hacked into the DNC.  If you question it, you are, ipso facto, a heretic — and a “conspiracy theorist,” to boot.

    Again, shades of Orwell and his famous “two plus two equals five.”  Orwell’s protagonist in “1984,” Winston Smith, imagines that the State might proclaim that “two plus two equals five” is fact.  Smith wonders whether, if everybody believes it, does that make it true?

    Actually, the end goal is not to get you to parrot that two plus two equals five. The end goal is to make it so you’d never even consider that two plus two could equal anything other than five.

    During the entire Barr testimony Wednesday, no one departed from the safe, conventional wisdom about Russian hacking.  We in VIPS, at least, resist the notion that this makes it true.  We shall continue to insist that two and two is four, and point out the flaws in any squishy “Intelligence Community Assessment” that concludes, even “with high confidence,” that the required answer is “five.”

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    John Hurt as Winston Smith in “1984.” (YouTube)

    Doubtful Dogma

    Wednesday’s Senate hearing brought a painful flashback to a similarly widely-held, but evidence-free dogma – that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. attacked that country. It gets worse: Many of the same people who promoted the spurious claims about WMD are responsible for developing and proclaiming the dogma about Russian hacking into the DNC.  The Oscar for his performance in the role of misleader goes, once again, to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, whose “credits” go back to the WMD fiasco in which he played a central role.

    Before the war on Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put Clapper in charge of analysis of satellite imagery, the most definitive collection system for information on WMD.  In his memoir, Clapper admits, with stomach-churning nonchalance, that “intelligence officers, including me, were so eager to help [spread the Cheney/Bush claim that Iraq had a ‘rogue WMD program’] that we found what wasn’t really there.” [Emphasis added]

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    John Brennan, left, and James Clapper. (LBJ Library via Flickr)

    Last November as Clapper was hawking his memoir at the Carnegie Endowment I had a chance during the Q and A to pursue him on that and on Russia-gate.  I began:

    “You confess [in Clapper’s book] to having been shocked that no weapons of mass destruction were found.  And then, to your credit, you admit, as you say here [quoting from the book], ‘the blame is due to intelligence officers, including me, who were so eager to help [the administration make war on Iraq] that we found what wasn’t really there.’”

    “Now fast forward to two years ago.  Your superiors were hell bent on finding ways to blame Trump’s victory on the Russians.  Do you think that your efforts were guilty of the same sin here?  Do you think that you found a lot of things that weren’t really there?  Because that’s what our conclusion is, especially from the technical end.  There was no hacking of the DNC; it was leaked, and you know that because you talked to NSA.”

    Evidence

    Back to the Senate hearing on Wednesday: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), during a line of questioning about evidence of obstruction of justice, asked the attorney general if he personally reviewed the underlying evidence in the Mueller report.

     “No,” said Barr, “We accepted the statements in the report as factual record.  We did not go underneath it to see whether or not they were accurate.  We accepted it as accurate.”

    Harris: You accepted the report as evidence?  You did not question or look at the underlying evidence?

    Barr: We accepted the statements in the report and the characterization of the evidence as true.”

    Harris: “You have made it clear that you did not look at the evidence.”

    It was crystal clear on Wednesday that Barr had bigger fish to fry, as well as protective nets to deflect incoming shells.  He is likely to be preoccupied for weeks answering endless questions about his handling of the Mueller report. It is altogether possible, though, that in due course he plans to look into the origins of Russia-gate and the role of Clapper, Brennan and Comey in creating and promoting the evidence-free dogma that Russia hacked into the DNC — and, more broadly, that, absent Russia’s support, Trump would not be president.

    For the moment, however, we shall have to live with “The Russians Still Did It, Whether Trump Colluded or Not.”  There remains an outside chance, however, that the truth will emerge, perhaps even before November 2020, and that, this time, the Democrats will be shown to have shot themselves inboth feet.

    *  *  *

    For further background, please see:

    VIPS Fault Mueller Probe, Criticize Refusal to Interview Assange

    VIPS: Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings

    Please Make a Donation to Consortium News’ Spring Fundraising Drive Today!

  • SpaceX Finally Confirms Astronaut Capsule "Destroyed" From April 20 Explosion

    Breaking a nearly two week’s long silence about what it called an “anomaly” – a massive explosion by any other name – SpaceX has finally confirmed the “explosion and destruction” of an astronaut capsule during testing on April 20. It also seemed to confirm that leaked video of the explosion we had reported on was in fact accurate, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

    Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability, says that it is still the company’s mission to put astronauts in space by the end of the year this year, a timeline that looks increasingly pessimistic given the massive setback the company suffered on April 20. SpaceX is still pulling together data from the explosion that occurred at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station nearly two weeks ago.

    “The vehicle was destroyed,” Koenigsmann said. 

    The capsule had previously launched to the International Space Station in March and was going through its normal tests on April 20. The Draco engines were fired in two sets successfully, but the capsule’s SuperDraco thrusters, which are used for emergencies, appeared to be the cause of a malfunction.

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    A major explosion that sent up “clouds of orange smoke” ensued. SpaceX says that the wind was blowing in the right direction so “harmful chemicals” from the explosion blew away from the land – so much for saving the environment.

    Koenigsmann continued:

     “That is why we test. If this has to happen, I’d rather it happen on the ground in the development program. I believe what we learn from this test will make us basically a better company and Dragon 2 at the end a better vehicle, a safer vehicle.”

    As the investigation is now working through a second week, SpaceX said it’s still “too early to confirm any cause.” It does, however, have a couple of ideas as what could have happened thanks to the significant amount of data that has been collected from the vehicle and the ground sensors.

    Koenigsmann says he doesn’t believe that there’s an issue with the thrusters themselves, since they have gone through about 600 prior tests in the past with no issue. In fact, the explosion happened about half a second before the thrusters were set to ignite. SpaceX also says it is certain that none of the issues were with components that are also found on the company’s cargo version of Dragon, the vehicle that is set to launch today to the International Space Station, carrying more than 5,500 pounds of crew supplies, hardware and experiments.

    “Only a few parts are really the same,” Koenigsmann said.

    One of the first things the teams looked at was whether or not the explosion with the capsule meant anything with the cargo could be at risk. And the spacecraft that SpaceX will use to carry supplies to the International Space Station has already flown there in the past.

    Kenny Todd, ISS mission operations integration manager said: 

    “We were able to get our arms around the common areas that we had to look at, that they had to look at. At the end of the day, we didn’t see any change in our overall measurable risk.”

    Shown below, four pairs of SuperDraco engines power the Crew Dragon’s escape system. SpaceX has been developing SuperDraco thrusters for the better part of a decade to enable human flights on board Dragon, according to ARSTechnica. But this recent incident  will have NASA continuing to scrutinize these thrusters closely.

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    SpaceX also doesn’t believe that the anomaly was a result of anything that happened to the capsule during its first test mission in March. But alas, it seems as though everything is still on the table.

    “I’ve done a lot of anomaly investigations by now, and whatever I knew in the second week was never really was happened to be resolved in the end,” Koenismann said.

    This setback could mean additional delays to NASA’s commercial crew program, which plans to return astronauts to space for the first time since 2011.

    SpaceX was granted $2.6 billion from NASA to build Crew Dragon and was supposed to perform an in-flight abort test next with the vehicle that was destroyed. That would’ve been followed by a test, accompanied by crew, to the International Space Station as early as July. SpaceX has several other vehicles in various stages of production, but if the company has to go back and make changes to those spacecraft, it could still wind up costing the project more time.

  • Why Your Gasoline Won't Take You As Far As It Used To

    Authored by Robert Rapier via OilPrice.com,

    Over the weekend, I saw a passing reference on Twitter to the declining energy content of gasoline. Intuitively I know this to be correct for reasons I discuss below. But the poster linked to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) that I hadn’t previously seen.

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    The EIA doesn’t directly tabulate the energy content of gasoline. But they do provide two pieces of data that let us calculate it ourselves from two relevant tables in the April 2019 Monthly Energy Review.

    Table 3.5 provides Petroleum Products Supplied by Type in thousands of barrels per day, while Table 3.6 provides Heat Content of Petroleum Products Supplied by Type in trillion Btus per year.

    From the annual numbers, doing the appropriate conversions (which includes accounting for leap years) provides the energy content of gasoline, in BTUs per gallon, since 1949. What we find is that the EIA reported a constant energy content of gasoline from 1949 to 1992 of 125,071 Btu/gallon. I have always typically used 125,000 Btu/gal as the standard value for gasoline.

    The energy content of gasoline

    Starting in 1993, the EIA shows the energy content start to decline. The decline accelerates in 2006. What happened then? I have seen two explanations floated.

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    (Click to enlarge)

    I have heard some suggest that the shale oil boom in the U.S., which created an abundance of light oil, ultimately lowered the BTU value of gasoline. This is unlikely for a couple of reasons.

    First, to change the energy content of gasoline you must change the composition. As I explained in a previous article, adding butane is a recipe change that takes place seasonally. It impacts the vapor pressure of the gasoline, but it also impacts the energy content. Butane has an energy content of 103,000 BTU/gal, so the more butane, the lower the energy content of the gasoline blend. This means that winter gasoline, which contains more butane, has a lower energy content.

    But the other reason that shale oil can’t be the culprit is that U.S. oil production didn’t start to move higher until 2009. By then, the EIA was already reporting that U.S. gasoline’s energy content had fallen to 121,167 BTU/gal.

    The impact of ethanol blending on the energy content of gasoline

    Here’s the real culprit:

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    The 2005 energy bill gave us the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which mandated that an increasing amount of ethanol had to be blended into the fuel supply. As the mandate ramped up, so did ethanol production. In turn, the energy content of gasoline declined.

    As was the case with butane blending, adding ethanol is fundamentally changing the recipe of gasoline. The energy content of ethanol is 76,000 Btu/gal, so as ethanol blending ramped up, the energy content in a gallon of gasoline fell.

    But we also know ethanol is the reason because the EIA table actually includes the footnote: “Beginning in 1993, also includes fuel ethanol blended into motor gasoline.”

    To be clear, it’s not a huge decline in energy content. It’s about 4% across the national gasoline pool (~140 billion gallons per year), and it is masked somewhat by the rising fuel economy standards of automobiles.

    Falling energy content in gasoline has a couple of implications. One is that most vehicles will now require more gasoline to travel the same distance. In other words, fuel efficiency will have declined along with gasoline’s energy content.

    But the other is that today’s daily consumption of 9.3 million barrels per day of gasoline is equivalent in energy terms to the consumption of 8.9 million barrels per day 20 years ago. Or, another way to think of that is that if we were consuming the same number of gallons of gasoline as we were 20 years ago, our energy consumption would have declined.

    I will note one more item in conclusion. It is clear, given the consistency of the EIA data, that they are just calculating an energy content. If they were actually taking measurements, we would see more variability.

    Further, I looked at the monthly values over the past year, and the EIA numbers for the energy content of gasoline are the same in summer and winter. This isn’t correct, which means they are simply using calculated numbers that average the energy content out over the entire year.

  • Robots Taking Over "Miserable" Job Of Unloading Trucks As E-Commerce Margins Slide

    Loading and unloading 18-wheelers – a staple of working in the shipping business – is about to be the next “miserable” job that becomes automated. With Amazon now threatening the industry with their own freight logistics service, as we reported days ago, FedEx and UPS are trying to scramble to solve an automation puzzle that has plagued them for years: loading and unloading trucks.

    But now, robot-makers are getting close to helping these companies solve the problem, according to Bloomberg. Siemens AG and Honeywell International Inc. both have built machines that can now automated-ly pull packages from the back of a tractor trailer and place them on conveyor belts, where they can then be sorted.

    Ted Dengel, managing director of operations technology at FedEx’s ground-delivery unit said: “The biggest challenge in our world is: Every single package is different in size, shape, weight, color, material. It makes it a very tricky problem.”

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    Honeywell’s robot

    These two new devices were unveiled at a recent automation conference in Chicago and they give promise to shippers that they might be able to increase productivity and rely less on the need for what is one of the most grueling jobs in logistics, unloading trucks manually.

    The idea of automation is becoming more important as e-commerce continues to grow, fueling record demand but also pressuring profit margins at the same time. Given Amazon’s new entry into the market, it looks as though that pressure is only going to stay at a high-level.

    Meanwhile, the robots haven’t been perfected yet and they’ve taken years to develop. In addition, they require spaces within logistics hubs and warehouses that are generally already packed with equipment. Siemens’ robot requires that the tractor trailers are also modified, while Honeywell’s doesn’t, but isn’t as fast.

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    Honeywell robot

    Honeywell’s robot is essentially a giant conveyor belt on wheels that has suction cups to grab packages. The conveyor catches or scoops the packages from the trailer bed and moves them down the conveyor belt and out the back of the truck. The machine works as fast as a person can.

    Matt Wicks, vice president of product development at Honeywell’s Intelligrated unit said:

     “I can speak from first-hand experience from developing this machine: The job is miserable inside that trailer. Getting people out of the trailer and on the dock side managing several of these machines is a huge factor as it relates to employee satisfaction and retention.”

    Siemens took a different approach, where a rolling belt must be permanently installed on the truck’s floor with packages stacked on top of it. A large machine is attached to the belt and packages are pulled in and sent the to sorting hub at the loading dock. Unloading a regular tractor trailer takes about 10 minutes, compared to about the hour it would take for one person to do the job.

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    Siemens’ robot

    FedEx has been looking for these types of trailer-unloading solutions and also recently began testing two competing machines. FedEx plans to buy two of a model that is a slightly further along than the Siemens and Honeywell prototypes and start using them in the field over the next year. The name of the company FedEx has been working with has not been disclosed.

    UPS is also seeking to automate unloading. The company is in the middle of a three-year $20 billion upgrade to keep pace with online retail growth. The company’s union workforce has increased 14% because of rising package volume over the last five years.

    Making robots load trucks, instead of unloading them, is still a little bit further off due to its complicated nature. Chinese backed company Yet Dorabot is testing automated loading technology. Dorabot’s robots can load 400 packages into a trailer, filling 60% of its capacity right now, but the company expects to improve speed by about 50 packages per hour and fill 80% of the truck’s capacity before going to market with their product within a year and a half. 

  • Life-Threatening Risks Prompt FDA To Order "Black Box" Warning Labels For Ambien, Other Sleep Aids

    Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Sleep medications like Ambien have long been controversial and have been linked to bizarre behavior in users.

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    On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it is requiring manufacturers of Ambien and other sleep medications to add a Boxed Warning – the agency’s most prominent warning – to the prescribing information and the patient Medication Guides for these drugs.

    Often referred to as a “black box warning”, the label is the strictest alert placed on prescription drugs or drug products by the FDA when there is reasonable evidence of an association of a serious hazard with the drug. As the name indicates, it is a warning with a black box around it. Having the black box around the warning means that an adverse reaction to the drug may lead to death or serious injury.

    Prescription sleep medications carry terrifying risks.

    The agency is warning the public that rare but serious injuries and deaths have been linked to the use of certain common prescription insomnia drugs. Dangerous behaviors appear to be more common with eszopiclone (Lunesta), zaleplon (Sonata), and zolpidem (Ambien, Ambien CR, Edluar, Intermezzo, Zolpimist) than other prescription medicines used for sleep, according to the FDA’s Safety Announcement.

    Sleepwalking, sleep driving, and engaging in other activities while not fully awake (like using the stove) are among the risks associated with the medications, the agency explains:

    We identified 66 cases of complex sleep behaviors occurring with these medicines over the past 26 years that resulted in serious injuries, including death. This number includes only reports submitted to FDA or those found in the medical literature, so there may be additional cases about which we are unaware.

    These cases included accidental overdoses, falls, burns, near drowning, exposure to extreme cold temperatures leading to loss of limb, carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, hypothermia, motor vehicle collisions with the patient driving, and self-injuries such as gunshot wounds and apparent suicide attempts. Patients usually did not remember these events. The underlying mechanisms by which these insomnia medicines cause complex sleep behaviors are not completely understood. (source)

    In addition to the boxed warning, the agency is requiring the inclusion of a contraindication that states these medications should not be used by people who have experienced an episode of complex sleep behaviors after taking them. The link between these drugs and complex sleep behaviors is already included on labels, which have been updated continually to note additional safety issues as they were identified.

    “The boxed warning and contraindication are intended to make the warning more prominent and reflect the risk of serious injury and death,” the FDA clarifies.

    If you take sleeping pills, here’s what the FDA wants you to know.

    The agency offers the following guidelines and warnings for patients:

    As a requirement of their approval, insomnia medicines must be dispensed with a patient medication guide that explains the medicine’s uses and risks. Patients should review this information each time they receive a refill of their medicine as information may change. Health care professionals should not prescribe eszopiclone, zaleplon, or zolpidem to patients who have a history of complex sleep behavior after taking these insomnia medicines. Patients should be advised that rare, but serious injuries and death are possible. Patients should discontinue taking these medicines and contact their health care professional right away if they find themselves to have engaged in activities while not fully awake or if they do not remember activities done while taking the medicine.

    FDA is also reminding the public that all medicines taken for insomnia can impair driving and activities that require alertness the morning after use. Drowsiness is already listed as a common side effect in the drug labels of all insomnia medicines, along with warnings that patients may still feel drowsy the day after taking these products. Patients who take insomnia medicines can experience decreased mental alertness the morning after use even if they feel fully awake. (source)

    “Prescriptions for sleeping pills grew to more than 20 million in 2010 from 5.3 million in 1999, according to national estimates. About one in eight people with sleeping difficulty report using the drugs; among people of retirement age, more than a third report taking a sleeping aid,” reports The New York Times.

    Sleep medications carry additional risks.

    While the serious and potentially fatal risks outlined above are troubling, they aren’t the only problems associated with sleep medications.

    According to the Cleveland Clinic, other possible side effects include oversleeping, being too drowsy to drive or perform other tasks the following day, allergic reactions, and facial swelling.

    Long-term use of sleeping pills can lead to dependence and addiction. Overuse can cause serious health consequences, including memory problems, mental and behavioral disorders, learning problems, and worse insomnia (beyond the initial baseline) once use has stopped.

    Inadequate sleep is a serious public health problem.

    A study published in the journal Sleep found that inadequate sleep is a public health problem affecting more than one in three adults worldwide and that insufficient sleep could also have serious economic consequences.

    According to the article Six (More) Reasons to Get Better Quality Sleep, insufficient sleep is associated with:

    • lapses in attention and the inability to stay focused

    • reduced motivation

    • compromised problem solving

    • confusion, irritability and memory lapses

    • impaired communication

    • slowed or faulty information processing and judgment

    • diminished reaction times

    • indifference and loss of empathy

    • increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and depression

    How much sleep you need depends on several factors, including your age, lifestyle, and overall health. The general recommendation for people age 18 and over is 7-9 hours of sleep per night.

    Yet, polls and surveys show that 20-30% of us get less than 6 hours of sleep per night.

    Keep in mind that sleep quality is even more important than quantity, so even if you are sleeping for 7-9 hours per night, but you toss and turn for much of that time, you might be sleep-deprived.

    According to the National Sleep Foundation, there are questions you can ask yourself to help you determine if the quantity and quality of your sleep are sufficient:

    Are you productive, healthy and happy on seven hours of sleep? Or does it take you nine hours of quality ZZZs to get you into high gear? Do you have health issues such as being overweight? Are you at risk for any disease? Are you experiencing sleep problems? Do you depend on caffeine to get you through the day? Do you feel sleepy when driving?

    If you are among the sleep-deprived, there’s drug-free hope.

    If you are one of the millions of people who just aren’t getting enough Zzzs, there are things you can do to naturally improve the quality and quantity of your sleep. These tips from Ready Nutrition may help.

    • Establish consistent sleep and wake times – even on the weekends

    • Set a bedtime that is early enough for you to get at least 7 hours of sleep

    • Don’t go to bed unless you are sleepy

    • Create a comfortable and inviting sleep environment – your bedroom should be calming, cool (65 degrees is optimal but no warmer than 75 degrees), and dark

    • Create a relaxing bedtime routine – turn off electronic devices, take a bath or read a book (not IN bed), or listen to soothing music

    • Avoid using your computer or watching TV while in bed – turn off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime

    • Limit exposure to bright light in the evenings

    • Finish eating 2-3 hours before you go to bed

    • Reduce your fluid intake before bedtime

    • Exercise regularly (but not for a few hours before bed – it may keep you awake if done too close to bedtime)

    • Avoid caffeine too close to bedtime

    Here are some additional tips from our article The Vicious Cycle of Sleep Deprivation During Stressful Nights:

    • Drink some chamomile tea. It will help you relax.

    • Craft something with your hands. From my experience, that is an excellent way to free the mind and prepare the body for a peaceful sleep.

    • Simple breathing exercises perform wonders for our body and brain. You could also try yoga and meditation techniques, especially if you can do them in nature. I’m no expert, but when I need to relax before bed, I close my eyes and think of beautiful memories from my life or imagine a peaceful place where I feel safe and serene.

    CBD also may help you stop tossing and turning, as we explained in Can’t Sleep? Got Insomnia? These Studies Suggest CBD for Sleep Disorders:

    A growing body of research suggests CBD has powerful anti-anxiety properties and antidepressant-like effects and may reduce inflammation and pain, so if any of those things are interfering with your sleep, CBD may help.

    A 2017 research review reported that studies on cannabis and insomnia suggest that “CBD may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of insomnia”, and that it “may hold promise for REM sleep behavior disorder and excessive daytime sleepiness.”

    Other studies have found that CBD may increase overall sleep amounts. It has been shown to reduce insomnia in people who suffer from chronic pain. In smaller doses, CBD stimulates alertness and reduces daytime sleepiness, which is important for daytime performance and for the strength and consistency of the sleep-wake cycle.

    A study published in 2018 investigated the effects of CBD and other cannabis compounds on insomnia. Researchers collected data from more than 400 volunteers using a digital app, which allowed them to analyze the effects of CBD and other cannabinoids in people’s natural sleep environments. They found CBD significantly reduced insomnia symptoms. (source)

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