Uruguay and Electric Public Transport ...

MONTEVIDEO, Mar 24 2014 (IPS) - Uruguay plans to gradually replace oil-based fuels with electric energy in its public transport system, and is currently assessing the costs and benefits of the shift.

Tests indicate that the running costs of electric buses can be six- to eight-fold lower than for diesel buses.

For the last two years, studies have been under way on the potential benefits of adding electric vehicles to the public transport fleet in Montevideo, where half the country’s 3.3 million people live.

In late 2013, performance and range trials were carried out on an E6 model car and a K9 model bus made by the Chinese company BYD. The results were presented on Mar. 13.

The economic analysis of the performance of the electric vehicles, carried out by the city government, was positive. But mechanisms must be designed to face the initial investment and redefine the scope of subsidies and taxes.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/03/uruguays-public-transport-goes-electric/

And my RV salesman says electric would be too heavy and expensive and I wouldn't get the mileage .... ????

Toooooo cute ......

""

No John, you are the joke ...

America the Beautiful

I will not get into casino/resorts owned by Native American tribes ...

and this thread is not about casino/resorts ...

Although, I like the picture in my mind about a roomful of Native Americans sitting around discussing how they will provide for there families and one says, let us sell the white man what they sold us, beads and trinkets for your land and treasures. We will give you what you seem to want, a chance for more beads and trinkets for your treasures ... brilliant, really ...brilliant .... and talk about Karma ... that is some Karma.

This thread is about a Native American innate knowledge about our environment ....

If you have a bone to pick about the ownership or the environmental impact of casinos/resorts by N.A. then I would suggest you take it up with the Federal Government ...

Thunderstruck ... like you never heard it ...

I trust Native Americans to know what is bad for my environment ...

""

BP Refinery Leaks Oil Into Lake Michigan

A BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana leaked an unknown amount of oil into Lake Michigan Monday afternoon, an incident that occurred less than two weeks after the U.S. lifted BP’s ban on seeking new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP says the spill, which has since been stopped and contained, was caused by a “disruption in the refining process” at its Whiting refinery in northwest Indiana. Dan Goldblatt, spokesman at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, told ThinkProgress that his office was notified at about 4:30 CDT Monday of an oil sheen, which EPA officials said on a press call Thursday totaled about 5,000 square yards, on Lake Michigan. Mike Beslow, On-Scene Coordinator for the EPA, said that when he visited the site around 9 p.m. Monday, the sheen was no longer visible. Neither Goldblatt nor EPA officials had information on how much oil had spilled, but CBS, citing unnamed sources, reports that between 10 and 12 barrels — around 500 gallons — spilled into the lake.

Lake Michigan acts as the drinking water source for 7 million people in the Chigago area alone, but EPA officials said on the call that the drinking water wouldn’t be affected by the spill. The EPA, BP and the Coast Guard are leading the cleanup effort, which involves placing booms on the water, scooping up oil, which has been turned hard and waxy by cold weather, with their hands, and cleaning up a nearby beach that was contaminated. BP told Reuters that they have had “no reports of any wildlife impacted,” and EPA officials confirmed this on the call.

The presence of a sheen on a body of water is typically viewed as a violation of the Clean Water Act, and EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman said during the call that officials would look into whether action should be taken against BP.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/25/3418808/oil-leaks-lake-michigan/#

BP confirms oil spill into Lake Michigan from Whiting refinery

Source: Chicago Tribune

Less than a year after BP started up a new unit to process Canadian tar sands at its Whiting refinery, the company reported today that a malfunction allowed a slug of crude oil into Lake Michigan a few miles away from the Chicago city limits.

It remains unclear how much oil spilled into the lake or how long the discharge continued. Workers at the refinery reported an oil sheen on the water about 4:30 p.m. Monday, and an official from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the leak was plugged by the time he arrived at 9 p.m.

Mike Beslow, the EPA’s emergency response coordinator, said there appeared to be no negative effects on Lake Michigan, the source of drinking water for 7 million people in Chicago and the suburbs. The 68th Street water intake crib is about eight miles northwest of the spill site, but there were no signs of oil drifting in that direction.

Initial reports suggest that strong winds pushed most of the oil toward a sandy cove on BP’s property between the refinery and an Arcelor Mittal steel mill. A flyover Tuesday afternoon revealed no visible oil beyond booms laid on the water to prevent the oil from spreading, Beslow said.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-bp-whiting-crude-oil-lake-michigan-spill-20140325,0,3069441.story

Right Wing Nightmare happening in Spain

Spain, under pressure from the Troika (International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank) has gone through three major labor market reforms, presented to the public as necessary in order to reduce the scandalous high level of unemployment: 25% in general and 52% among the young.

Spain (and Greece) are on the top of the unemployment league. Since the beginning of the crisis, both the socialist (PSOE) and conservative (PP) governments have pursued reforms aimed at what they called ‘deregulation of the labor market,’ assuming that the problem of high unemployment was created by too many labor market rigidities. It was said that labor unions have protected fixed workers too much at the cost of making it too risky for employers to hire new workers. As a consequence — it is being said — the employers are afraid of getting stuck with the new hires without being able to fire them again when their need for labor diminishes.

This assumption has become a dogma, and as all dogmas, has been sustained by faith rather than scientific evidence. With a clear apostolic mood, both the Zapatero government (socialist) and Rajoy government (conservative) have been making it easier and easier for employers to fire workers. And they have indeed fired thousands and thousands of workers. But the employers have not hired workers at the rate they have fired them. The results are clear to see for everyone who wants to see reality for what it is, rather than for what they claim it to be.

Unemployment, rather than declining, has kept increasing more rapidly, incidentally, than before the reforms. For example, from the last quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter in 2013, 1,049,300 jobs were destroyed, with an increase of unemployment of 622,700 people. The number of unemployed persons is now 6 million people, 47% of whom do not receive any unemployment insurance (due, in part, to the cuts in this type of insurance that accompanied the last labor market reform).

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/22637-the-disastrous-labor-and-social-reforms-in-spain