March 3, 2019

He's Creating A New Fuel Out Of Thin Air -- For 85 Cents Per Gallon

Advocates of America’s Green New Deal or other radical efforts to decarbonize the world economy in the face of a looming climate crisis may well have one of their greatest champions in a rumpled 65-year-old who lives in the Toronto suburbs.

Roger Gordon wears a navy wool coat that extends well past the bottom of his green knit sweater on a chilly day in February. He talks with a quintessentially Canadian politeness as he rails against what he sees as a massive conspiracy to suppress his life’s work — which could amount to a fuel revolution.

Ammonia has been used as both an alternative fuel source and a surplus energy storage mechanism since the 1800s, and while its production is far less damaging to the environment than traditional oil and gas, it’s not without its pollutants. In order to create NH3, the ammonia-based fuel, one would have to build a massive production facility that still burns large quantities of fossil fuels and releases significant amounts of carbon in the production process.

But in 2014, Gordon — who’s spent his career producing active pharmaceutical ingredients for sale around the world — secured a patent for his long-time side project: a refrigerator-sized machine that turns water and air into a reusable, renewable, ammonia-based NH3. The project began in the early 2000s, and took almost nine years before it produced a usable prototype. The patent application was submitted the following year, at a time when Gordon says he didn’t even have transportation fuel on his radar. Today, he drives a converted Ford F-350 with a button on the dashboard that allows him to switch between traditional gasoline and one of the small tanks of colorless, strong-smelling NH3 gas sitting in back of the pickup truck.

“I didn’t have the wherewithal to try it as a transportation fuel,” Gordon explains in an interview at a shopping mall in Toronto. But researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan were driving on ammonia — and Gordon says they jumped at the idea of creating NH3 “with no heritage of oil or coal or anything that’s carbon.”

Anyone can retrofit a traditional combustion engine into one that runs on NH3 for about $1,000, and at least 100 others around the world have made the investment, but Gordon says the infrastructure required to change the global transportation industry is too overwhelming to even consider. Instead, Gordon sees opportunities in places that are spending significant resources on getting access to fuel, such as remote communities and industrial operations in Africa or northern Canada. “The lowest hanging fruit would be a mine in the far north that’s now spending $105 million on diesel fuel a year, and they can now come to us for half the price,” he says.


Read more: https://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/hes-creating-a-new-fuel-out-of-thin-air-for-85-cents-per-gallon/92686

March 3, 2019

SNL: Toilet Death Ejector

Introducing a toilet seat for the elderly to spare them the embarrassment of being found dead on the toilet.

March 3, 2019

Japan's Subaru plans biggest-ever global recall over brake lights

TOKYO (Reuters) - Subaru Corp plans to recall around 2.3 million vehicles globally over a brake light problem, in what would be the automaker’s biggest-ever recall as it grapples with a series of quality-related issues following rapid expansion.

Japan’s sixth-largest automaker told Reuters on Friday that it was recalling nearly 2 million of its popular Impreza and Forester models in the United States, its biggest market, and other countries, along with around 300,000 units in Japan to fix a fault with the brake light switch which can lead to ignition problems.

Vehicles affected were produced from 2008 through 2017. If all of the identified vehicles are recalled, it would be the automaker’s biggest in terms of affected units, excluding the ongoing Takata airbag recall.

Since late 2017, Subaru has been reeling from a host of problems ranging from faulty components to inspection re-dos which, coupled with weakening sales in the United States, has forced the automaker to slash its full-year profit outlook to its weakest in six years.


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-subaru-recall/japans-subaru-announces-biggest-ever-global-recall-over-brake-lights-idUSKCN1QI3DC

March 3, 2019

SNL: Weekend Update

Michael Cohen's Congressional Testimony



Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like Michael Cohen testifying before Congress about allegations surrounding President Trump.




Smokery Farms



The owners of Smokery Farms (Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon) talk to Colin Jost about their farm that only serves stupid and bad animals to counter the viral, cute animal videos harming the meat industry.




R. Kelly's Financial Problems



Weekend Update anchors Michael Che and Colin Jost tackle the week's biggest news, like R. Kelly's financial issues as he faces charges of sexual abuse.

March 3, 2019

SNL: Legal Shark Tank

Celebrities in legal trouble make a pitch to see if any of the legal sharks, Michael Avenatti (Pete Davidson), Jeanine Pirro (Cecily Strong), Alan Dershowitz (John Mulaney) or Rudy Giuliani (Kate McKinnon) will take their case.

March 3, 2019

SNL: Michael Cohen Hearings Cold Open

The Congressional Oversight Committee (Kenan Thompson, Bill Hader, Kyle Mooney, Kate McKinnon, Beck Bennett) question President Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen (Ben Stiller) about his former boss.

March 3, 2019

U.S. is making an effort to end the longest oil spill in history This company is fighting against it

The U.S. is making an effort to end the longest oil spill in history. And this company is fighting against it in court.

Taylor Energy says hardly any oil is reaching the surface in the site where a hurricane destroyed its oil platform. To the contrary, the government says, the spill is probably at hundreds of barrels per day.


As the longest offshore oil spill in U.S. history creeps toward its 15th year, the federal government is preparing to launch a determined effort to contain the oil and cap the leaking wells.

But the energy company responsible for the spill has gone to court to stop the government’s efforts to fix a leak that is sending hundreds of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Taylor Energy of New Orleans recently filed four lawsuits against the Interior Department, U.S. Coast Guard and a private contractor to contest their assessment that the spill is catastrophic and to shut down plans to cap more than two dozen leaking wells.

The wells were torn open in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan triggered powerful currents that collapsed the walls of a deepwater canyon. The tumbling walls slammed into an oil production platform that Taylor Energy operated 12 miles off the Louisiana coast, burying most of its 25 wells.

According to one estimate, up to 700 barrels of oil per day are flowing into the Gulf, rivaling the catastrophic 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon spill. The estimate is based on an analysis by Oscar Garcia-Pineda, a specialist in remote sensing of oil spills, which the government accepted but Taylor Energy disputes.

The BP disaster leaked 4 million barrels over five months. If Garcia-Pineda’s estimate is correct, the Taylor spill amounts to 1.5 million barrels to 3.5 million barrels in more than 14 years.


Much more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/03/02/us-is-trying-end-longest-oil-spill-history-this-company-is-trying-stop-it/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7d3b75f16e80



Taylor Energy's downed platform was one of thousands in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

March 2, 2019

It's clearly time to rename the Environmental Protection Agency

Honesty in labeling requires that President Donald Trump declare an emergency to rename (without congressional action, because that’s what emergencies are for) the government entity that has, since its founding, been called the “Environmental Protection Agency.”

The agency’s traditional name suggests an odious bias in favor of environmental “protection.”

Trump nominated the current acting administrator of the EPA, former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, to be the permanent administrator. According to the Washington Post piece on Wheeler’s elevation to permanency, during his period as acting EPA administrator Wheeler “has advanced President Trump’s push to rollback Obama-era environmental regulations.”

During an exchange at a Senate hearing with Sen. Bernie Sanders, Wheeler did not express agreement with Trump’s expressed belief that global warming/climate change is a “hoax,” but he doesn’t believe it is much of a “crisis.” One appreciates his flexibility in seeking middle ground between the views of his boss and the almost unanimous view of the scientific community.

The Senate confirmed Wheeler Thursday on almost a perfect party-line vote. All 47 Democrats voted no, but only 52 of the 53 Republicans voted aye, with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who voted previously to confirm Wheeler as deputy administrator, voting against him for the permanent position.

But the real crisis/emergency is having an agency with a misleading name that suggests a great deal of bias in favor environmental protection. I’m open to suggestion for words that could correctly reflect the agency’s actual purpose.


Short article, no more at link: https://www.minnpost.com/eric-black-ink/2019/02/its-clearly-time-to-rename-the-environmental-protection-agency/

March 2, 2019

Seth Meyers: Guest Senator Bernie Sanders Says It's Awkward Running Against His Colleagues

Senator Bernie Sanders talks about his second run at the presidency and what it's like competing for office with his friends and colleagues.




Senator Bernie Sanders Agrees with Trump's Attempt to Denuclearize North Korea



Senator Bernie Sanders talks about Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un and Michael Cohen's testimony.




Senator Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Think His Ideas Will Drive Voters to Trump



Senator Bernie Sanders talks about why he thinks Americans will vote for left-wing politics, his efforts to create a more diverse coalition in his campaign and his brief cameo in a film.

March 2, 2019

Seth Meyers: Guest Senator Bernie Sanders Says It's Awkward Running Against His Colleagues

Senator Bernie Sanders talks about his second run at the presidency and what it's like competing for office with his friends and colleagues.




Senator Bernie Sanders Agrees with Trump's Attempt to Denuclearize North Korea



Senator Bernie Sanders talks about Trump’s summit with Kim Jong-un and Michael Cohen's testimony.




Senator Bernie Sanders Doesn’t Think His Ideas Will Drive Voters to Trump



Senator Bernie Sanders talks about why he thinks Americans will vote for left-wing politics, his efforts to create a more diverse coalition in his campaign and his brief cameo in a film.